The Lord’s Prayer and Airport Security

25 07 2010

A Sermon preached at Southminster Presbyterian Church

Boise, Idaho

July 25, 2010

Luke 11:1-13
Jesus was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.”
He said to them, “When you pray, say:
Father, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
And do not bring us to the time of trial.”
And he said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread;
for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.’
And he answers from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.’
I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs.
“So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.
For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.
Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish?
Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion?
If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

We’re done with the Year of the Bible, although I hope that you aren’t done with reading the Bible. I hope that you feel more comfortable now than you maybe did a year ago, to see connections between your story and the story in the text.

But, for those of you who miss the corporate routine of all reading the Bible together, the Session voted to make this coming year, beginning now, the Year of Prayer.
Again, many of you were reading the Bible and praying long before anyone declared years that were dedicated to them. But we’re hoping that during this coming year, we can enter into some new conversations about prayer.
How do we pray when we are together?
How do we pray alone in our room?
For what should we pray when we gather at the bedside of people who are ill?
Who can pray?
Why do we pray?

And we don’t pray just to inform God about things. “Dear God, my mom is in the hospital.”
“WHAT?” says God. “When did that happen? Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

No, God knows what is going on before the words are even on our tongues. Yet we still are called to pray.

Yesterday at the Presbyterian Youth Triennium, one of the many great preachers we heard this week, Tony Campolo, told a story about his son as a child. He came to his parents and said, “I’m going to bed now. I’ll be saying my prayers. Does anyone want anything?”
Often, perhaps, our prayers are like that. Giving God a list of things as if it is Christmas and God is Santa Claus.
So, for what should we pray?

Jesus’ disciples seem to have had similar questions to ours. “Lord, teach us to pray.”

I never knew there was a wrong way to pray until my brother came home from school in 2nd grade and told our family, as we were saying the blessing for dinner, that we were all praying wrong.  He had recently started attending a Catholic school and the nun who was his teacher told the students that the our prayers go to heaven if our hands are pointed up straight to heaven.

Our family were hand curlers, with our fingers dangerously pointed d o w n. I’m sure his teacher was just trying to come up with a clever way to help her students attain proper prayer posture, but my brother took it very seriously. Because, like the disciples, we want concrete answers to very mystical and mysterious questions.
“Lord, teach us to pray.”

Jesus doesn’t talk about what we should do with our hands. He doesn’t get into specifics much at all, actually. This passage is short. And it seems cryptic, to me, at least.

Let’s look at the prayer itself.
“Father, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
And do not bring us to the time of trial.”

This is not, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, the prayer we say every Sunday. The one we pray each week is clearly related, but comes from the 6th chapter of Matthew.

Pared down from the language that seems so familiar to us, this prayer makes me uncomfortable. It is asking for just a few things.
For God’s kingdom to come.
For people to have what they need to eat so that each person can live.
For forgiveness of sins—both in heavenly and earthly relationships.
And for deliverance from the time of trial.

Yesterday, on my journey home from Triennium, I had an interesting experience going through security. For the first time in my life, I think, I packed light enough to only need a carry-on sized bag, which is a notable achievement for me. But that meant I had to put my bag through security. And the screener called a few people over to look at the image of my bag. And then they pulled it out and asked me, “do you have some sort of cup in this bag?”
“Yes, it is a communion chalice”, I said.
“We’ll need to x-ray that”.
So, my bag was unpacked and they pulled out this communion chalice, and put it back through security.
I have nothing to say against the security screener. He was just doing his job. And it turns out that there is a metal rod inside this chalice to hold it together. Who knew?
But the image of a communion chalice, a symbol of our Christian faith, being subjected to extra security made me think of this prayer in Luke’s gospel.

Because the Lord’s Prayer is dangerous.

If we really, truly pray for God’s kingdom to come, rather than praying for our wishes, then things will change.

If we really, truly pray for our daily bread, and not for a stockpile of food for some and none for others, things will change.

If we really, truly pray for the forgiveness of sins in our heavenly and in our human relationships, things will change.

I don’t think the Lord’s Prayer would make it through security. There is nothing safe about it.

The world does not want us to pray this prayer. Our world prefers the kingdoms of this world to be in charge, because it adds to the illusion of our own power. The powers of this world don’t tell us to seek to God’s Kingdom. Because that would require justice for all, not just for those who can afford it. In God’s Kingdom, people aren’t subject to prejudice because of the color of their skin, or because of their sexual orientation, or because of their gender, or because of the way they serve God. When God’s Kingdom comes, things are going to change.

The powers of this world also don’t want us to pray for our daily bread. Our economy is not built on each person having just enough. Our economy is built on the idea that you and I need to buy as much as we can, to fuel the engines of our economy. And in order for some of us to have too much, others of us must go without. Those are the laws of scarcity.

In 2008, in our very prosperous country before the economy tanked, 49.1 million Americans lived in food insecure households—32.4 million adults and 16.7 million children. That is almost 15% of our population. People who aren’t sure how they are going to feed their families this week. Today.
Give us this day our daily bread.

Across the world, the numbers are worse. Over 1 billion people across our planet are hungry right now. Every day, almost 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes. That’s one child every five seconds. Over 600 children will have died from hunger-related causes in the hour we spend here today worshipping God.
Give us this day our daily bread.

If we really, truly pray the Lord’s Prayer, things are going to need to change.

And then we’re supposed to pray for the forgiveness of our own sins and for the restoration of our relationships with others. We pray the Prayer of Confession each week in worship. It is one of my favorite elements of worship because it is so freeing. To be able to approach God and acknowledge that we have not been all we would be, frees us to try again.
During worship at Triennium, after 5,000 kids prayed the Prayer of Confession and received the Assurance of Pardon– I declare to you in the name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven—the auditorium burst into applause and shouts of joy. I don’t know if you’ve ever worshipped with 5,000 teenagers, but it gives me hope for our future. None of them have studied Theology and Worship, learning about the relationship between the elements of worship, etc, etc. But, on a visceral level, when they heard the good news of forgiveness proclaimed, they responded appropriately. They raised the roof. Why don’t we do that each and every week? The forgiveness of our sins is something to celebrate, people! (Triennium worship photo by David P. Young)

If we were really truly to pray for the forgiveness of our sins, seeking repentance and change, then things would change. And that change would have to spill over into our human relationships as well.
To pray that we forgive everyone indebted to us would change everything.
Do you suppose Jesus meant we were supposed to actually forgive debts, as it says in the prayer? He couldn’t have really meant what he said.  Did he mean real debts, do you think?

And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.

In Luke’s version of the Lord’s Prayer, God’s forgiveness of our sins is tied to the idea that we’ve already forgiven everyone indebted to us.
“And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.”

Luke’s version suggests to me that we have to keep very close the connection between our relationships with others and our relationship with God. We can’t just say, “God please forgive me for my sins. But I can’t stand so and so, and I don’t want to be in relationship with them NOW, and I don’t want to forget about what they did to me yesterday, but I know that we’ll get along fine someday in Heaven.”
That isn’t going to work, friends.

If we really are to pray the Lord’s Prayer, we have to believe, on a deep level, that if God can forgive us for the things we do, then we have to be able to do the same for the people in our lives.

When I first read this text, I thought I would focus most on what Jesus said to his disciples after he taught them the prayer. About the bread for the late night guests, and the scorpions to the children. But I think the Lord’s Prayer is enough for today. Maybe even too much for today.  So I promise that I will address that part of the text at some point in the future.

Friends, we are people who have chosen to walk this journey of life together as followers of Christ, like the disciples in our text this morning, and so we ask, Lord, teach us to pray.

But we can’t ask that question casually. Because it is dangerous and would not make it past the security screening of this world.

Because if we’re asking to enter into a conversation with God, we need to expect that God will speak to us. So we need to listen.

We need to expect that God will listen to us when we speak, so we need to mean what we say.

And we need to be open to change, to be the change that God needs us to be in this world so that God’s kingdom can break in to our brokenness, to our pain, to our injustice, and to our violence, bringing a kingdom of peace, of equity, of wholeness and health for all of God’s children. Lord, teach us to pray. Amen.


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Categories : Lord's Prayer, Luke 11

A Sabbath Sermon

11 07 2010

A guest sermon by Lucy Waechter Webb

July 11, 2010

Southminster Presbyterian Church

Gen 2:1-4
Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all heir multitude. And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested form all the work that he had done in creation. These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created.

Luke 10:25-37
Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”

But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper and said, ‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’ Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into that hands of robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

Who is my neighbor? That is often the question we hinge on from this familiar gospel story. We’ve each probably heard a half a dozen sermons about the Good Samaritan, many no doubt asking us important questions about how we treat those around us, and who we consider to be neighbors, or maybe even why we should show people kindness. But I’d like to take us in a different direction this morning.

Some of you may have heard about a study conducted in 1973 by a couple of psychologists who used the story of The Good Samaritan as their template. Their intention was to look at personality factors that affected whether or not people would stop to help another person in distress. Interestingly, they recruited seminary students (of the Presbyterian variety, from Princeton) as their participants, and instructed each of them to travel from one building to another where they would give a talk. They had a few variables, half the students were asked to talk about job prospects in that talk, the other half were asking to preach a sermon on the Good Samaritan. Then each of those two groups were broken into thirds, one third was told to hurry over to the next building, they were going to be late! The second was told they were on time, but not to dilly dally, the final group was told the program was running late and but they could go ahead and make their way over. Every student passed an actor playing a homeless man who was in health distress on their way to the second building to talk.

The researchers were hoping to find that these benevolent seminary students would differ in their responses mostly based on personality, but what they found was that the biggest factor in whether someone stopped to help was whether or not they were in a hurry. Those who stopped the most, were those who had been told the program was running late and had extra time to spare.

When was the last time you were in a hurry? Maybe Friday afternoon, rushing to get out of the office and beat weekend rush hour traffic? Perhaps it was yesterday as you made your way to a meeting or the kids practice. Or was it this morning as you left the house in a flurry to make it to church on time?

Being busy is a status symbol in our culture today. It is a compliment of sorts to hear, “Wow, you must really be busy” and reply with a non-chalant, “nah, not really.” Being too busy is the number one reason why people say they can’t vote; half of people who don’t attend church say it’s because they’re too busy. We have twitter because we’re too busy to read an entire letter or e-mail about how our friends are doing, we’ve got blackberries because we’re too busy to remember what comes in the next hour, we’ve got 8-minute ab workouts because we’re too busy to find time to be active outdoors doing something we actually enjoy that is good for our bodies.

Thomas Merton talks about this business as a kind of violence; he says:
“To allow oneself to be carried away by the multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence. The frenzy of our activism neutralizes our work for peace, [because] it destroys our own inner capacity for peace.”
And indeed, when we look at the story of The Good Samaritan and the priest and Levite who both passed by, or the study in which even budding do-gooder pastors walk by the homeless man, we begin to see how this busy life might in fact deliver violence in our world.

So how do we respond to this life? How to we resist the status of a full calendar, and find time to rest, to nurture ourselves, those around us, and our relationship with God?

I had the opportunity to think more deeply about this in seminary. I found myself at the end of two full years of studying and interning, and realized I didn’t have it in me to do another summer of work; Clinical Pastoral Education was next on the docket. So I went to one of my professors to talk it over with him, and said I just needed to take a break, I was overwhelmed and so emotionally dry that I couldn’t begin to imagine serving as a chaplain for the summer. He supported my decision to postpone CPE, but corrected my description of it, telling me that I was not merely “taking a break”, but instead practicing Sabbath.

I think this ancient faith practice, one that we only vaguely recognize as Christians today, is one way we can respond to our hurried culture. When you hear the word Sabbath, many of you might first think about Judaism, or even Seventh Day Adventists, and indeed they are two traditions that prioritize the Sabbath.

Jews have several texts that inform their practice of Sabbath, but there are two that seem particularly foundational, and Christians also hold these passages in high esteem. One of these texts was our first scripture reading from this morning in Genesis, in which God creates the seventh day, rested, and hallowed it. But this alone, might seem like not enough of a reason that we should deserve a weekly rest, creating the world must have been harder work than anything we could have ever possibly participated in. So look then to the Decalogue, the ten commandments. We generally attempt to follow these basic laws right? We’re all familiar with thou shall not steal, murder, or covet your neighbor. You shall honor your father and mother, and not make false idols.

But we often forget the fourth commandment; can you name what it is?

“Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work.”

You may be wondering what is the Sabbath, or how do we practice it? Certainly we go to church on Sundays, and you may have heard about other traditions like Judaism in which they refrain from labor and work, but also cooking, or use of light or transportation, and eat traditional meals with family. It may even conjure up memories of the old blue laws which prohibit the sale of liquor, gambling, bingo, labor, or recreational sports on Sundays depending on which state you are in.

But Sabbath is not about restrictions or rules, nor is it about idle rest. It is an active cessation of work, a rest in motion. Sabbath is not a time intended for us to make it as far as we get until we collapse into a desperate repose in which we can do nothing for our exhaustion.  Instead it is an intentional time to regularly tend to God, to community and self, to celebrate life. In fact it is less a particular practice and more an observance of a particular time.

Let’s turn to the Genesis passage again. Throughout the entire story, God has created each portion of creation, declaring each good at the end of the day. But what happens on the seventh day is unique. God creates another day, another portion of time, and then God rests and blesses that time. The Hebrew is qadosh, which means holy, or to make holy. It is the first appearance of that word in the Bible, and notice it is not used for creation, not on the Earth, the waters, the animals, nor even us. God makes time, a particular time, holy. And then God dwells in that time, and later invites us to do so too.

Abraham Heschel was a rabbi born in Germany, but came to the US just before WWII. He was adjusting to his new life here with fellow Jews who were trying to figure out what it meant to be American. His book, The Sabbath, was written largely in response to what he saw happening to the Jewish Sabbath. I quote his daughter’s introduction of the book, “The Sabbath appeared at a time when American Jews were assimilating radically and when many were embarrassed by public expressions of Jewishness…For them, the Sabbath interfered with jobs, socializing, shopping, and simply being American.”

Heschel talks about how we have lost the distinction of time. Time has become a commodity, a thing that can be traded and measured. He contrasts time to space, arguing that space is the real commodity we’re after, and we use time to gain more space (more property, more things, more power, more cubic feet). Hence the phrase, time is money.

But try as we might, we really cannot conquer or dominate time, it does seem to march on incessantly no matter how hard we try to contain it. And whether we like it or not, time is not as uniform as we may think. We do not consider being five minutes late to a dinner party the same as being five minutes late to work. Nor do we consider a 10 minute traffic delay the same as a ten minute delay spent catching up with friends. Or consider the nine long months of pregnancy compared to the first nine months of your child’s life. There is work time, vacation time, chore time. In our faith we have Ordinary Time, Lenten Time, Advent Time, and Christmas and Easter time. Sabbath is another particular time, one that happens weekly. And it is time that has been made holy by God first.

When I began to think about Sabbath more intentionally, I realized that part of the purpose of Sabbath was to participate in sanctification (or the making holy) of myself and of the world. And I thought that if I could just get the right practices down, and spend time dedicated to those practices, I would be on the right track. But then I realized it is the time itself that is holy, not the practice. And it isn’t until I submit to that time, not until I dwell in it, revel in it, celebrate that time, that I too experience the holy.

The Sabbath is a sanctuary from the world as we know it, from the time we battle during the week, from the labor and work we are required to do, from the reality of this world. It is a day for praise, a day for the celebration of life. It is a day where we stop thinking about space, and think about time in a new way. It is a day to stop thinking about what we need to do, or what needs to get done, and rest in a time meant for God, for community, and for self.

What is on your to do list for this afternoon? Mow the lawn? Do the budget? Read those documents from work you didn’t get to on Friday afternoon? What would happen if you didn’t get to that list?

I mentioned that Sabbath is more an observance of time than it is a practice, but that doesn’t mean that certain practices can’t help you transition into that time. Certainly coming to worship with your faith community is a good place to start. Simply being with others who are attempting to enter into that time collectively can help any one individual resist the temptations to succumb to another six or seven day work week. Worship can set the tone for the joyous celebration of the day of resurrection that we observe as Christians on the Lord’s Day. It can be a time where the community swells with life. But what happens after church? What will help you find that different mode of time, and let go of the anxieties and to do lists? What will help you create a sanctuary in time?

Maybe you turn your cell phone off for the day, or refrain from using the internet. Perhaps you do house chores on Saturday and spend the day enjoying your garden or lawn by playing games or sitting and reading in it. Maybe you extend your time with community by sharing a meal. Perhaps you journal, run, sit in silence, sing loud, or dance. Maybe each week you do something new, or you might develop a regular practice. Whatever it is, it should take you away from those spatial comforts Heschel talks about, and draw you nearer to the people you love, nearer to God, and nearer to self. It should not just be a distraction from you work, but a delight in life and rest. It should feel like a different time, so that when step out of it, you feel somehow lighter, you feel fed, more alive.

The poem on your bulletin this morning I think summarizes how Sabbath should feel quite well. Wendell Berry is a writer, and lives on his farm in Kentucky. Part of his Sunday Sabbath is to walk through his property, often in silence, and sometimes he writes (he writes poetry though, which is intentionally different from his day job). This poem is one of his Sabbath poems, and I’m just going to read you the end of it:

The mind that comes to rest is tended
In ways that it cannot intend:
Is borne, preserved, and comprehended
By what it cannot comprehend.

Your Sabbath, Lord, thus keeps us by
Your will, not ours. And it is fit
Our only choice should be to die
Into that rest, or out of it. (from A Timbered Choir by Wendell Berry)
May we walk away from this sanctuary, but remain in a sanctuary of time where our mind and our hearts are tended, where community is nurtured, and out of that rest is born life. Our own lives, the life of our community, and life that extends beyond us; life that reminds us to be the Samaritan who will stop, and maybe even take a step out of our daily time, even on a Tuesday.

Amen.

(Editor’s note: Lucy Waechter Webb is a Candidate for Ordained Ministry in the Presbyterian Church (USA) and is seeking a call. She blogs at Sowing Sabbath).


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Categories : Sabbath, luke 10:25-37

Simple as Possible

6 07 2010

A sermon preached by Marci Auld Glass

July 4, 2010

Southminster Presbyterian Church, Boise, Idaho

2 Kings 5:1-15a

Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man and in high favor with his master, because by him the LORD had given victory to Aram. The man, though a mighty warrior, suffered from leprosy.  Now the Arameans on one of their raids had taken a young girl captive from the land of Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife.  She said to her mistress, “If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.”  So Naaman went in and told his lord just what the girl from the land of Israel had said.  And the king of Aram said, “Go then, and I will send along a letter to the king of Israel.”

He went, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten sets of garments.  He brought the letter to the king of Israel, which read, “When this letter reaches you, know that I have sent to you my servant Naaman, that you may cure him of his leprosy.”  When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, “Am I God, to give death or life, that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his leprosy? Just look and see how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me.”

But when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, he sent a message to the king, “Why have you torn your clothes? Let him come to me, that he may learn that there is a prophet in Israel.” So Naaman came with his horses and chariots, and halted at the entrance of Elisha’s house. Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean.”

But Naaman became angry and went away, saying, “I thought that for me he would surely come out, and stand and call on the name of the LORD his God, and would wave his hand over the spot, and cure the leprosy! Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them, and be clean?” He turned and went away in a rage.

But his servants approached and said to him, “Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said to you was, ‘Wash, and be clean’?”
So he went down and immersed himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God; his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy, and he was clean.
Then he returned to the man of God, he and all his company; he came and stood before him and said, “Now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel”.

The kids at Vacation Bible School used this text a few weeks ago to show that kids can be heroes—like the slave girl who is brave enough to offer a word of hope to a foreign military commander.

It is a great text because is full of conflict and juxtaposition and surprise agents. People who have—kings and commanders—are contrasted with people who have nothing—foreign slave girls and servants. People who are in the faith—like the king of Israel—are contrasted with people who are outside of the faith—like Naaman, the Syrian and the Syrian king. And notice that the behavior we expect and presume from people within the tradition—like the king of Israel—is shown to be lacking when compared to the outsiders.

This text also disproves the notion of the “prosperity gospel”—that idea so popular in the American church today that says if you only have faith, you will be rich, successful, prosperous beyond measure. But the person in this text who has faith is not the one who is rich and famous and king of Israel. The person with faith in this text is an Israeli girl who has been captured into slavery, taken away from her home and family, and living in servitude in what is today Syria. This text should be a reminder to us that cultural, political, economic, or other advantages don’t equate to spiritual advantages. God is an equal opportunity grace bestower—no matter how much we wish God only liked the same people we do. No matter how much we wish it were easy to just look at people and decide if they are worthy or unworthy, in or out, good or bad. Stories like this remind us that God doesn’t operate in ways that make snap judgments possible.

Additionally, this story suggests that worldly advantages may get in the way of our faith.
When you can look around your life and rely on your own devices, gumption, and success—does that keep you from being able to rely on God? The King of Israel didn’t seem to consider that God might have something to do in this situation. He panicked because he looked around at his resources—armies, advisors, gold, and authority—and realized that there was nothing he could do to heal Naaman. But it never seems to cross his mind that he could rely on God.

To fully appreciate the King of Israel’s plight, let’s look at the context of this story. It is likely that the King during this time is Jehoram, son of King Ahab. Ahab, whom you might recall from a few weeks ago with his wife Jezebel and the vanquished prophets of Baal on Mt Carmel, was killed by the King of Aram in battle. This same King of Aram then writes a letter to Jehoram, asking him to do the impossible—cure someone of leprosy.

Now, I don’t know about you, but if someone who had killed my father asked me to cure someone of leprosy, I’d probably freak out a bit too. Do you know how to do that? I certainly don’t!

And he isn’t asked to cure just anyone. He’s asked to cure the David Petraus, the biggest military commander, of their biggest military opponent.

So there’s no pressure. None at all. Easy schmeazy.

But the King of Israel makes the mistake of presuming he knows the motives of the King of Aram. He reads into that letter ALL sorts of things that aren’t there.  Jehoram reads the letter and thinks, “he’s trying to trap me! He’s sent me an impossible request! His commander is going to die and he wants to blame me for it!”

But here’s what the letter actually said, “When this letter reaches you, know that I have sent to you my servant Naaman, that you may cure him of his leprosy.”

Just a simple letter and ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten sets of designer clothes.

Perhaps the King of Aram could have given Jehoram a little more information, but it is as if the King of Aram was also making assumptions—presuming that if there was a prophet in Israel who could heal people of leprosy, that the King of Israel would certainly know about him and would automatically send Naaman to him.

And what does it say about General Petraus, I mean Naaman, that he is still the commander of the Syrian army even though he has leprosy? All of the other lepers we meet in scripture, if I recall correctly, are outcasts. They are marginalized and excluded. Naaman was clearly in high favor with the King, and was militarily that important, to still have his job and to be sent to Israel with those kind of gifts.
But it appears that being a Big Deal gets in Naaman’s way too. Naaman is sent to Elisha to be healed and he pulls up in the driveway with all of his chariots, horses, and hangers on. But he doesn’t knock on the door. He just stands there—looking very impressive, I’m sure—waiting for Elisha to come out and thank him for the opportunity to heal such an auspicious man.

We don’t know what Elisha is doing in the house—rearranging his sock drawer? Watching the World Cup on TV? Reading the Wall Street Journal?—but he sends his messenger out to Naaman with some simple instructions. “Go wash in the Jordan River seven times and your flesh will be restored and you will be clean.”

The next time this happens, when your yard is full of Syrian chariots, here’s a tip—don’t send your servant out to greet the General. They get a little insulted.

And, apparently, Elisha should have also come up with a more impressive cure. Don’t just send them off to do something simple—come out and make a big show of it! And if you are going to send someone to wash in a river—make sure it is an impressive body of water—and one that would have been familiar and comfortable to the General.

Are we like Naaman? When we are seeking healing and cures, do we put conditions on our requests? Do we have pre-conceived notions of how healing is supposed to look that get in the way of receiving the healing when it comes?

But then again, like the slave girl, Naaman’s slaves, the people with no voice in society, speak wisdom to Naaman. “Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said to you was, ‘Wash, and be clean’?”

Thank God for people who speak truth to us, especially when it comes with some risk to them. Slaves weren’t usually invited to point out their masters’ mistakes, I’m guessing.  Yet, here, they did.

Who are the people in your life, trying to speak truths to you? Are you open to hearing truth from the people to whom society gives no voice?

Naaman, to his credit, recognizes the truth when it is spoken by his slaves and he goes to the river to be cleansed.

His flesh was restored. He was cleansed. He was healed. He was saved. And his healing led to faith. His response to being made clean was to acknowledge, before Elisha and all of the hangers on that “Now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel”.

His claim about God is a big claim. This Syrian General, commander of the armies, announces that the one true God isn’t from his hometown. He has to let his partisan allegiances go to make this claim about God.  He could have said nothing, taking his healing and going silently back home to Aram.

He could have said, “thanks for the healing. For a bunch of Israelis, your God is pretty good, but now I’m going back to Aram where the gods are awesome!”

But he doesn’t. He makes a public claim for a god who is not backing his particular candidate.

I really had no interest or desire to mention the 4th of July in my sermon. After all, it is not a religious holiday we are celebrating today. But as we celebrate our nation’s independence today, I do think Naaman is worth remembering. Because while he was certainly involved in the politics of his day, his faith was a much bigger issue—one that rose far above his politics.

And that is one thing that makes America so great—the political and civic involvement of her people. Each of us are called to be involved in this political experiment that has been underway in this country since the Declaration of Independence was signed on this day in 1776. And how that looks to each of us is different.

But, as Christians, like Naaman, we are called to something higher than the American political process. We are called to proclaim “Now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel”.

So, as we prepare to share communion this morning, I invite you to consider that here we gather as people of many nations, many ideologies, many understandings, and many differences. But we will gather as ONE because it is through Christ we are connected.  Listen to the words of the apostle Paul from his letter to the Galatians:

“As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”

Naaman lived before the time of Christ, but his declaration at the end of his healing reminds me of Paul’s words. Naaman, having been washed and cleansed in the same river that would one day baptize Jesus, could have said, “in God there is no longer Israeli or Aramean, there is no longer slave or king, there is no longer clean or unclean, for all of us are one in God”.

So, friends, it is right for us to be proud to be American and to wear our red, white, and blue. It is right for us to celebrate this day that for over 200 years, our nation has stood for freedom, giving voice to the voiceless, and being an advocate for liberty and justice around the world, often at the cost of American lives.

But I hope we’ll also remember Naaman, and our calling as Christians to serve a greater kingdom, coming together despite our differences to be united in a common purpose, that there may be healing for us all.

Amen.


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Categories : 2 Kings 5:1-15

Opposite Galilee

27 06 2010

A sermon preached at Southminster
June 27, 2010

Luke 8:26-39

Then they arrived at the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee.  As he stepped out on land, a man of the city who had demons met him. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he did not live in a house but in the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he fell down before him and shouted at the top of his voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me”—  for Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many times it had seized him; he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the wilds.)
Jesus then asked him, “What is your name?” He said, “Legion”; for many demons had entered him.
They begged him not to order them to go back into the abyss.
Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding; and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these. So he gave them permission.
Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.
When the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it in the city and in the country.
Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid.
Those who had seen it told them how the one who had been possessed by demons had been healed.
Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them; for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned.
The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him; but Jesus sent him away, saying,  “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.

Luke’s text picks up right after Jesus has calmed a storm and rebuked the wind on the Sea of Galilee. As Jesus and his disciples get out of the boat, freshly delivered from perishing on the water, Jesus encounters a man, perishing in his own ways.
Now, our friend Jesus is known for hanging out with unsavory characters, but this one might just take the cake.  He is outcast among outcasts.
First off, Jesus is on the wrong side of the Sea of Galilee.

The west side is the Israeli side. The east side is the gentile side. the foreign side. The opposite side.  This man lives in a place where they raise pigs, for goodness sake. And we know that no good Hebrew will have anything to do with pork or pork products. And this man is naked. awkward. And he lives in tombs, which makes him unclean, because you shouldn’t have anything to do with dead bodies, as you know. And, as if all of those things weren’t bad enough—and they are, bad enough—he is demon possessed. Not just by one demon. But by a legion, which was a Roman military unit of 4 to 5 thousand men. In a world of “us” and “them”, he is as “them” as you can be.

But even the people on the wrong side of the sea of Galilee don’t have anything to do with this man. They put him in chains and leave him at the tombs.

But this man, who was lowest of the low, sees Jesus, falls at his feet, and shouts out for all to hear: “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?!” He may have his troubles, but he has no trouble recognizing who Jesus is.

This story may seem hard for us to imagine, because we don’t approach the world in quite the same way as those first century believers would have. We don’t talk about demon possession nearly as much as we talk about germs, psychiatry, or malignant diseases. But don’t let that get in your way. We can’t answer a 21st century question about his disease. And we may or may not have “demons” in our vocabulary. But we do know people like this man.

People who are so far on the outside of society that they are alone, living among tombs.
Who is that in your life?
The homeless person you pass on your way into the store?
The bad guy who committed the crimes you hear about on the news?
Osama Bin Laden?

Whomever it may be for you, we all know people whose lives are so messed up that fixing their own problems is way beyond their capabilities.

And Jesus, for his part, doesn’t ask the man, “what did you do wrong so that the consequences landed you in this mess”. Maybe the man deserved every moment of his demon possession. I don’t know. But Jesus doesn’t seem to care WHY he’s in this situation. But Jesus does seem to care enough about this man, this foreign, pig eating, tomb dwelling, demon possessed man to heal him.
The word for “heal” in Greek is the same as the word for “save”. Remember that when you read about Jesus’ stories of healing. Healing and salvation come from the same place and are connected.

Healing, Salvation, are offered to this man on the wrong side of the Galilee just because that is how Jesus operates. The man is the least likely candidate to receive salvation. He doesn’t follow the rules. He makes everyone uncomfortable. He’s not an Elder in his church. He should stand as a reminder to us as disciples that we can’t limit the recipients of God’s grace.

This is the only story in Luke’s gospel where Jesus intentionally leaves Israel to travel to other lands. But in the narrative of Luke and Acts, we hear that the disciples are told to take the gospel to the ends of the world. This one excursion by Jesus is a dramatic illustration of what that looks like. This gentile mission that will take the Good News far from the banks of the Sea of Galilee—all the way to Boise, Idaho, even—begins dramatically here.

But not everyone in the story sees this encounter as Good News. We aren’t told what the disciples thought, but I can imagine that more than one of them, who had moments before been so thankful to be out of the boat and on dry land were wondering if, perhaps, perishing at sea was a better alternative to welcoming an unclean, naked, tomb dwelling demoniac to the club.

And the gerasene pig herders weren’t so thrilled either. Because their income had just run into the sea. There were some real economic consequences to this healing. Their loss of income would not have been seen as good news.

The pig herders run into town and tell everyone what has happened and the crowd comes running to the scene. But it isn’t what they expect. Instead of their friendly neighborhood demoniac, they find a man from whom the demons had gone, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind.

And they were afraid.

The legion of demons recognize the Son of God when they meet him, but the townspeople aren’t so sure.

They ask Jesus to leave.

And I confess that this story leaves me with that uncomfortable little voice in my head, asking me, “would you ask Jesus to leave if he healed a Boise demoniac?”

Of course the right answer is “no, of course not.”

But I wonder.

Because change is hard. Even good change. Maybe especially good change. Certainly the townspeople, before Jesus came across the Galilee, would have argued that they wanted their government to fix the demon problem out by the tombs. Take care of these people! It isn’t safe! What if one of them moves in to our neighborhood?! They must be healed!

But when faced with the fact of a healed man, clothed and in his right mind, they ask Jesus to leave because they are afraid.
Afraid of what?

Maybe they are afraid of what healing might be coming for them—“If Jesus can do that for that guy, then just think what he would ask me to do to change.”

Maybe they secretly liked having a demoniac living among the tombs—he made them seem so normal and successful. “I may have had a bad day, but at least I’m not that guy.”

You know that saying about “better the devil you know than the one you don’t?” Perhaps they have learned to live with this dysfunction and will fight to maintain it rather than live into unknown change. “Yes, he’s a naked demoniac, but he’s our naked demoniac.”

This is the one that worries me the most. This is where I can see myself, can see us, asking Jesus to just get back in his boat and go to the other side.

Because we’re pretty comfortable in our routines, no matter how good or bad those routines might be. The thought of change scares us. Last week, Alden came up to me after worship and said, “mom, someone was sitting in my seat today in worship.” We’ve not even been here two years, and my kids have assigned seats!

But when Jesus heals us, when Jesus saves us, we have to change. We can’t continue to be the naked demoniac living in the tombs. Certainly, being clothed and in our right minds, sitting next to Jesus is the preferred way to be. And yet, how often do we choose NOT to change? How often do we choose to stay in the comforts of the “we’ve always done it this way” past?

I hope we’ll look at this text and see that even though healing and salvation require change and disruption of the status quo, the end result is worth it.

There is no indication that the healed man sees the crowd and thinks, “hey, they’re right! I wish I were naked and living in the tombs again!” The Good News is certainly good news for him and is change he’s willing to believe in. He begs Jesus to come along with him, back to the other side of Galilee, and into new life and a new future.

I suppose a small part of him might have wanted to go with Jesus also to get away from the people who chained him up and made him live in a tomb.

In any case, Jesus sends him back to the Gerasenes—“return to your home and declare how much God has done for you.”

And the man does.

Salvation and healing for our friend the man formerly known as the demoniac is free but is not easy. There are things he must do as well. He must go live amongst people who don’t want to see signs of change—being a constant reminder of what they wish to forget. He must declare what God has done for him.  And remember, these people can see full well what God has done for him. Right before they ask Jesus to leave because they were afraid, they saw him clean, clothed, and in his right mind, sitting there talking to Jesus.

Often, the changes we deal with are more subtle. You can’t tell by looking at someone if they are in the midst of bankruptcy or if they just quit drinking. You can’t tell who is anxious or worried about many things. You often don’t know someone’s story until they declare it to you.

But that requires time—to build relationships and to listen. It requires safety and trust—can I declare to you what God is doing in my life and trust that the story will be safe with you?

It requires courage—can I tell you the truth about who I really am and declare to you what God is doing in my life and still have you call me friend?

Is this the kind of place we are creating, here at Southminster? A place where people can declare what God is doing in their lives? A place where the change that is necessary for salvation and healing can be faced?

I keep thinking about the disciples, who are largely silent in this story. If it weren’t for the first sentence “then THEY arrived at the country of the Gerasenes”—you wouldn’t know they were with Jesus at all.

But they had just been saved too. Like the naked demoniac at the tombs, they were perishing in a storm at sea immediately before today’s story begins. Jesus saved them too.

I wonder if they saw similarities between their deliverance and the saving of the man by the tombs.

I wonder if, before they met the man on the shore, they thought, “sure is great to be one of Jesus’ friends. Glad we knew someone who liked us enough to save us!”

I wonder how that reaction would have changed when they realized he also saved a complete stranger, who happened to be naked, demon possessed, and living with dead bodies.

I wonder if this encounter encouraged them to see similarities with people when others saw difference.

I wonder if later on, when Jesus tells them to take the gospel to the ends of the earth, they thought of this man by the tombs and thought—“if Jesus gave healing and salvation to that guy, then we can take the good news every where and to every one.”

Whether you see yourself as one of the disciples or as the man formerly known as naked, tomb dwelling demoniac, know that the salvation and healing offered by Jesus is for you, it is for us, it is for all.

Thanks be to God.
Amen.


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Categories : Luke 8:26-39, cost of salvation, healing and salvation

Earth, Wind, and Fire

20 06 2010

June 20, 2010

1 Kings 19

Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword.
Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “So may the gods do to me, and more also, if I do not make your life like the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.”
Then he was afraid; he got up and fled for his life, and came to Beer-sheba, which belongs to Judah; he left his servant there.
But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree. He asked that he might die: “It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.”
Then he lay down under the broom tree and fell asleep. Suddenly an angel touched him and said to him, “Get up and eat.”
He looked, and there at his head was a cake baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. He ate and drank, and lay down again.
The angel of the LORD came a second time, touched him, and said, “Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you.”
He got up, and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God.  At that place he came to a cave, and spent the night there.
Then the word of the LORD came to him, saying, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
He answered, “I have been very zealous for the LORD, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.”
He said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.” Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence.
When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
He answered, “I have been very zealous for the LORD, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.”
Then the LORD said to him, “Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus; when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael as king over Aram.
Also you shall anoint Jehu son of Nimshi as king over Israel; and you shall anoint Elisha son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah as prophet in your place.
Whoever escapes from the sword of Hazael, Jehu shall kill; and whoever escapes from the sword of Jehu, Elisha shall kill.
Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.”
So he set out from there, and found Elisha son of Shaphat, who was plowing. There were twelve yoke of oxen ahead of him, and he was with the twelfth. Elijah passed by him and threw his mantle over him.
He left the oxen, ran after Elijah, and said, “Let me kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow you.” Then Elijah said to him, “Go back again; for what have I done to you?”
He returned from following him, took the yoke of oxen, and slaughtered them; using the equipment from the oxen, he boiled their flesh, and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he set out and followed Elijah, and became his servant.

Our text this morning picks up after quite an exciting story. Elijah takes on the prophets of Baal and Asherah, all 850 of them, and challenges them to a scene made for reality TV. Israeli Idol would be a good name for it, in more ways than one.

Because Israel is following false Gods. Remember that after Solomon’s rule, the united kingdom of Israel collapses. The Northern Tribes rebelled against the Davidic line and they become Israel in the divided kingdom. The tribes of Judah and Benjamin, in the South, become the nation of Judah.

Ahab is king of the Northern kingdom of Israel. His wife, Jezebel, is a foreigner. Their marriage was a political alliance to bring peace on the Phoenician border. And she brings with her some false Gods. Who must be appealing, because there are lots of prophets and the people seemed to flock to these false gods.

So the prophet Elijah shows up and is a thorn in the side of Ahab and Jezebel. They don’t like him at all. He’s trying to call the people back to the Lord. They’re trying to keep their political alliance together by promoting the worship of all of the gods.

And they want to kill Elijah. They’ve already killed over a hundred prophets of the Lord.

So, to our reality show, Israeli Idol.

I’ll let you read chapter 18 in your free time, but here are some highlights—Elijah challenges the prophets of the false gods to a show down. His God against them. He even stacks the deck in their favor. And then he mocks them. And then he crushes them. And then he has them all killed.

And then he flees while Ahab goes back and tells Jezebel what happened to all of her prophets, which is where our text today picks up.

Elijah knows all about the power of God. He’s just seen it in full and public display. But did you notice that in this text, he doesn’t seem to believe it? “It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.”

I can’t decide if Elijah’s humanity here is horribly depressing or comforting.
I’d like to think that if only I could see God’s awesome acts of power, as Elijah did on Mt Carmel, that I’d have faith enough to spare. That’s all I really need, I think. Just one big miracle like the showdown with the false prophets and I’ll be good.

But just a few verses after his moment of triumph, when he wins Israeli Idol, Elijah is asking to die because he feels alone. He may not be afraid of false prophets, but he is certainly afraid of Jezebel.  And, even though he has just seen God put on a resounding display, it doesn’t occur to him that the God who delivered him then will deliver him now.

We are like that too, of course. We see miracles all around us, even in our own lives. But then something happens, Jezebel comes making her threats, and we go blank. A crisis of confidence, that erases what we know to be true and replaces it with panic.

I don’t know why this happened to Elijah. I don’t know why it happens to us. You’d think that the signs and wonders he had seen would have been enough to sustain him. You’d think they’d be enough to always sustain us.

But, they don’t. Perhaps this text is a reminder to us that signs and wonders, like the show Elijah puts on before the prophets of Baal in the earlier chapter, are not what sustain faith.

Perhaps this text is a reminder to us that the voices of this world, the threats of Jezebel, are more than mere words. They are often scary enough to cause us to forget what we know to be true. They are often loud enough to drown out the cries of our faith.

Perhaps this text is our reminder not to become isolated, or else we’ll end up like Elijah, alone and huddled in a cave, crying “I alone am left”. When I read this passage, I confess that I tend to think Elijah is being a little melodramatic. “I alone am left! Woe is me!” But maybe he really does feel that alone. That isolated. So cut off from other people and even from God that he feels that he alone is left.

One commentator on this passage said, “convinced of his unique status as the last remaining person of faith, Elijah’s primary temptation is to think that he has to go it alone, that it is all up to him. This illusion presents itself to us when our concepts of reality do not include the dynamic presence of God, which empowers us to trust in the resources of divine grace” (Trevor Eppehimer in Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol 3 , (WJK Press, KY 2010) page 150).

But no matter how alone Elijah feels, notice how God responds to Elijah’s crisis of confidence. After Elijah says, “It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors,” God’s angel replies with this: “Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you.”

God does not tell Elijah to get over himself and quit being a whiner. God instead reminds Elijah to take care of himself. “Eat, or else the journey will be too much for you.” Before we can handle our crises of confidence, we have to take care of ourselves. God will engage Elijah in a conversation, but not until he’s ready for it. “eat, or the journey will be too much for you”.

How does that look for you?

What does it look like, in your life, to eat so that you can be ready for the journey?  I invite you to consider that question this week.

Because we have to eat, to feed ourselves, to nurture our bodies and souls before we can journey through the wilderness to listen for God. And some of you, I know, are very good at feeding others—providing either physical or spiritual nurture for your family, friends, and congregation. But I wonder more about our ability to feed ourselves. To accept help when it is offered, perhaps. To allow ourselves permission to feed ourselves before we offer food to others.

After Elijah eats, twice, he journeys for 40 days and nights and comes to a cave at Mt. Horeb.
And then God asks Elijah a question. It will be asked twice, just as Elijah is told to eat twice.
“What are you doing here, Elijah?”

I love this question. It can mean so many things.
Why are you here as my prophet, Elijah?
Why are you here—40 days into the wilderness—and not somewhere else?
Why are you here feeling sorry for yourself?
Why are you alone and so far from others who could help you?
Why are you here—on this earth?

Elijah gives the same answer both times the question is asked. Here it is:
“I have been very zealous for the LORD, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.”

Do you think he answers God’s question?

I’m not so sure he does. He reminds God, as if it is God who needs the reminder, that he has been very zealous on God’s behalf. He reminds God that the Israelites have been very naughty. And then he reminds God that he alone is left and people want to kill him.

But God seems to see the answer that is in Elijah’s reply—I’m isolated and alone and can’t remember the things that are important.

So then the Earth, Wind and Fire appear. Elijah is told to stand on the mountain as God passes by. But God wasn’t in the noise, destruction, chaos, tumult or flames. God was in the sheer silence that followed.

Elijah, despite his crisis of confidence, is able to recognize God when God appears. And, it seems likely to me, that the silence was not the place Elijah would have first been seeking God. Because in the Biblical account, when God appears, God is in a burning bush, or a pillar of fire by night or dust by day. The word for God’s Spirit is the same word for wind. And perhaps we expect God to be flashy. To put on a show. To wow us with displays of grandeur. To be Earth, Wind, and Fire.

But here, for Elijah at his weakest moment, God is in the sheer silence.

Even in the midst of God’s sheer silence, however, Elijah can’t see his way out of the cave of isolation and fear. He gives God the same answer to God’s question of “why are you here?” But God offers Elijah grace, and gives him the answers he needs. Elijah is told to appoint Jehu king, and Jehu will clean up the political mess. And he is told to appoint Elisha as his successor. Elijah is not alone—on either the political or the spiritual front. Through sheer silence, God calls him back to his purpose, answers the question God was asking him, and sends him back to work—fed, nourished, and equipped for the journey.

Thinking about this text has called to mind for me a quote by Corrie Ten Boom (Bome), a Dutch Christian and Holocaust survivor, who said, “Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God”. I think that was what God was trying to get Elijah to see during the midst of his crisis of confidence.

As it was for Elijah, the future we can’t imagine can also be a scary place. We don’t know what the future holds. There are voices all around us telling us to be afraid of just about everything, but the Queen Jezebels of this world are just speculating. The sounds of chaos, tumult, and fear are nothing compared to the sound of God’s sheer silence. Because we are walking into that unknown future with a known God. The God who has provided for us in the past, who is reminding us to eat and be fed right now, and who is laying out the plans that will guide us through the future. May we learn to be comfortable listening for God—whether it is in the chaos and tumult or in the sheer silence. Friends, never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.  Amen.


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Categories : 1 Kings 19, Corrie Ten Boom, sheer silence

Mysterious Math

30 05 2010

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


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Categories : John 16, Proverbs 8, Trinity Sunday, Ubuntu

Pentecost

23 05 2010

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.


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Categories : Uncategorized

Slave and Free

16 05 2010

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.


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Categories : Acts 16:16-40

Teach Your Children Well

9 05 2010

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.


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Categories : National Day of Prayer, Revelation 21 and 22, separation of church and state, social justice

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Hospital…

2 05 2010

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.


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Categories : Apocalypse, Bad Birth Stories, Revelation 12, Uncategorized

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