Christmas Eve Homily
Persuaded to Dance
Luke 2:8-15
And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger."
Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,
"Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace good will to all."
When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about."
Intro:
It must have been busy being an angel the night that God came to earth. Babies do tend to get a lot of attention from finger counting fathers and cheek kissing mothers and frantic doting grandparents. But the world tends to spin at its own frenetic pace without hesitating unless there is a presidential motor-cade or flashing blue lights and police sirens wailing or expensive, well-designed advertising campaigns. Jesus didn’t really have that. He did have an angel choir which you would think would create more stir than sirens or motorcades or TV commercials, but they didn’t. I imagine, that hard as they tried and loudly and they sang, the angel choir just couldn’t make itself heard by most.
Scene 1: Herod
Herod sat late into the night at his desk. One small lamp was on so as not to aggravate his headache. The Angel’s appeared in a flash of light, thousands somehow perched upon a book-case, but Herod neither sees nor hears them. The phone rings and King Herod arranges paper-clips into straight lines in the top drawer as he speaks,
‘I told you to update me precisely at 10:30. You are three minutes late. Have you arrested protesters at the Temple? No, No, you haven’t? The crowd is larger? I knew this census idea was bad. Speeches. What speeches? OF course they don’t like to pay taxes, who does? Call the reserve officers in and use tear gas if you need to. Honestly, why do I pay you for this, I’m doing all the security planning for myself.
Herod turns to his bookcase, upon which the Angel’s are still singing Gloria, and begins to align perfectly the spine of every book with the edge of the shelf upon which it sits. He pinches the bridge of his nose between fore-finger and thumb, completely missing a rousing chorus. What? Someone has a bull-horn and is rallying the people to resist the draft? It will not be me who answers to Caesar should draft-dodging begin. It will be you Mr. Security Director. They are chanting, and singing? Send in the police already. Some have stones and sticks? Then call the Guard. They seem organized? Honestly. They are marching here. Open fire you fool. That why we draft themin the first place… to keep to do the dirty work
.
Herod cannot hear the angels no matter how loudly they sing. Frankly Herod misses many noises. He arranges people like the paperclips in his desk but then ignores the everyday cries of people sleeping on park benches and loosing their health care to budget cuts. So maybe we aren’t so sad that he refuses to hear the angels.
Who shrug and, flash, they are gone.
Scene 2: The People
The Angels re-appear on a busy sidewalk in down-town Bethlehem, but you or I wouldn’t see the flash because of the flashing lights, neon signs and head-lights. They begin to sing but car horns are blaring and they can’t seem to stay on the same beat because of all the car stereos that make the air thump. Even when the angels do get things rolling with a Peace on Earth goodwill to men’ it seems that someone’s cell phone rings, or some else stoops to look into their shopping bag and the sound of angel voices is lost like star-light in the city glare. They hover above the crowds and you’d think that someone would notice, but mostly people are looking at sale signs, or browsing in shop windows for dancing Elmo’s, television satellites, herme scarves or sneeking a peek at the latest Abercrombie and Fitch Catalog.
To be fair, not everyone misses the angel music because of their consumer-induced coma. Some are working a double-shift to pay the oil bill. Some fighting the insurance company to cover an emergency room visit for their infant. Some are on their way home to get grandma her medication on time. One man is just trying to get home after a 10-hour day of being trampled on by his supervisor. One woman on her way to pick up the kids from twelve hours at the sitter. She’ll go home and for the first Christmas it will just be her and the kids. The waitress is trying to pay for college, the bar-tender is worried about his son getting beat up at school, the mechanic is just tired and wants to get some sleep, the cop is tired of one domestic dispute call after another. You can’t blame the angels for getting discouraged. But you can’t blame the people for being distracted either. The point is though, the angels sing to the rich and power and are ignored. They sing to the happy and satisfied and just can’t be heard. They sing to everyday people, but they are drowned out in the noise of every day.
The angels shrug and, flash, they are gone.
And it would be for good too.
Scene 3: Shepherds.
But God won’t give up easily. Someone will listen to this good news of great joy and until you find them, he tells the choir, you will keep singing about my boy Emmanuel.
So they keep singing and you know the rest of the story. The shepherds see the flash of the angel choir and fall down like they had too much Mad Dog 20-20. They hear the song and at first are so frightened of the magnificence of the noise that they try to dig trenches behind rocks and climb the nearest trees and hug the fuzzy belly of the nearest ewe hoping to hide.
But then they hear the words.
"Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace good will, toward men”
Maybe we aren’t surprised, perhaps a bit, well, delighted that those who have had it easy for so long aren’t serenaded by God’s angelic choir. Maybe we all find a little guilty pleasure in the fact that God won’t sing to people who ignore or manipulate others. But the fact that it’s not just them who don’t hear the song, the fact that it’s normal everyday people like you and me who miss the concert… that is surprising… to me anyway.
And what is more surprising than that is the fact that shepherds aren’t really any different from Herod or the people. Some Shepherds are just miniature Herod’s self-centered, nasty, some hit their wives, some steal from their children’s bank acct, some drink too much, some work too little and still get paid. Some are regular people, head down, working hard, trying to make ends meat, salt of the earth kind of people.
Oddly enough that is the good news. No amount of study of the Christmas story will uncover for you and I some moral quality that the shepherds had that you and I don’t. Some were good people, some were the neighbors we call the cops on all the time. In the end the we are no less deaf to God’s love song that the Herod’s of the world, and the only difference between us and the shepherds is that they listened. And then, they joined dance. The point is that God kept the choir singing until someone heard the song which is…
Jesus is born
God’s living peace and active, concrete, real, honest to goodness good will
Has moved in right next door.
All we have to do is listen to the tune
And join the dance.
The shepherds stood up and danced and sang. They weaved around like the town drunk and capered like 14 year old gymnasts. They sang at the top of their lungs, and they sat down and listened and thought about God’s good will finally arriving for real and they cried some of them.
Then they got up, went home and stopped hitting their wives and started spending more time with the kids. They dumped the grey goose down the sink and they called the sister they had refused to talk to for years and invited her over for dinner that night. They still caused a ruckus in town every once in a while, but this time it was a ruckus for a homeless shelter or for an after-school program for the kids or because they wanted their tax money to buy something besides bombs and guns. Life didn’t get all rosey 100% of the time. They still had to struggle to pay the bills and they still had to take care of sick relatives and school yard bullies and their kids runny noses and their own exhaustion.
But now, we know that Peace, true inner peace, is possible.
We don’t have to work for it, it can’t be earned, We can’t drink it.
We can’t buy it either.
God just sent it down for free…
We know that good will because we stopped everything else
And started to really listen to God’s song
We stopped to see God’s son.
And God’s goodness is no longer something that seems far away…
It lives in the everyday and invades the mundane and pervades our working and talking and shopping and disagreeing and worrying and celebrating and weeping…
And we, the everyday shepherds are changed, deep, down inside,
Because we stopped, listened and were persuaded to dance
We too, can feel that love.
Jesus is Born.
Peace on Earth, Good will toward all…good will for you and me…
The shepherds, alone, heard the song, and joined the dance.
I hope that you too tonight, hear the song, see God’s glory, feel the love
And are persuaded to dance
Amen.
Friday, December 18, 2009
Christmas Eve Sermon: A Holy Family Christmas Dinner
Christmas Eve Homily 2005
Matt 1:1-17
A Holy Family Christmas Dinner
Although researching the geneology of the family is intensely interesting to some, I suspect that reading through Jesus geneology does not really peak your interest tonight. I would imagine that you have come to imagine the familiar stories; to see the frustrated knit in Joseph’s brow as he is turned away from the inn, the beautiful swell of Mary’s belly, reminding many of you of the joy of expecting your first, and the pain, in your back, in your legs, the constant need to pee… you know what it is like to be Mary. I suspect you have come to Envision an angel choir, to traipse through the underbrush with the sheep-smelling shepherds, to hope that as you leave tonight, you might catch a glimpse of a beautiful bright star to guide your way…
But there is a story in Matt chapter 1 although it is not a familiar one. A story that I imagined would best be told if we together imagined the first Holy Family Christmas dinner…
There is the clatter in the kitchen as Mary whips the potatoes and the creak of the oven door as she checks her turkey.
Joseph, she calls, did you finish setting the table.
I don’t know why we have to invite so many people.
Couldn’t we use Jesus as an excuse not to invite some of these freaks,
I honestly lose my appetite having to sit near them…
Joseph, shame on you, they are your family…
They are an embarrassment… he runs to the window in the dining room,
Glowing golden with the light of the Christmas tree…
I hope the neighbors don’t see everyone come in the front door…
Maybe I should put a sign out telling them to come in the back,
So they don’t ‘wake the baby.’
Mary begins to re-arrange the silver ware that Joseph has placed all wrong…
He paces in the living room, picking at his finger-nails,
then pours himself a drink…
Joseph, Mary calls, did you remove a place setting…
Joseph tips back his glass and drains the wine…
Couldn’t we just tell Grama Tamar that we don’t have enough food, or room
Or that she scares the baby
with her green eye makeup and long red finger-nails?
Joseph, you know what it is like to be told there is no room for you… she is your grandmother…
Yes, but she dressed like a…
Like a…
Well, you know, like a… floozy!
And honestly, the years have not been kind.
No woman should wear her skirts that high
And her neck-line that low…
But at her age… everything is
Pulled down by gravity now…
Your nephews quite enjoy grama Tamar’s look…
Well, there 12 so no wonder… and all they do is laugh at her anyway…
Joseph, she’s family…
Yes, but she and Grandpa Judah only see each other once a year…
And he is so embarrassed about how she tricked him into getting her pregnant that he drinks half the wine by the time dinner is served and tells lewd jokes the rest of the night…mostly about her…
I know honey, says Mary, but they are our family, Jesus family…
Without Judah and Tamar, we wouldn’t be here, Jesus wouldn’t be here…
Oh, and then Uncle David shows up…
Honestly, Goliath gets taller every year…
He was 50 feet tall…
This year Goliath will sprout wings and breath fire…
And he insists on bringing Bathsheba
And she always wants to have a toast to Uriah, her first husband that David had killed
Because he got her pregnant while she was still married…
Honestly its so embarrassing to think that this is my family…
Well, Uzziah’s boys will be here… they were kings of Israel…
Yeah, the kings that led us into the Babylonian Exile… they ruined the kingdom completely
great kings they were…
still always talking politics… just make peace with Rome…
They say, when in Rome… that is why God sent us into exile…
They have no back-bone, no pride in their country
We shouldn’t even invite them to sit at our table…
But they are Jesus family…
I know, but I don’t want him to turn out like them…
Traitors, cheats, murderers, ladies of the night…
Honestly Mary… are you blind?
We don’t want Jesus to grow up like them…
And he pours another larger glass of wine…
Dinner is served and Joseph can hardly eat.
David tells more goliath stories and Mary has to stop Joseph from throwing the carving knife.
Rahab’s 15 children all decide to eat under the dining room table…
All with different father’s mind you…
she was one of those women too…
Anyway, they only decide to sit at the table properly
When Tamar starts to show off the tattoos she has on various parts of her body…
Bathsheba spends the night weeping into her wine glass
Judah sings raunchy bar songs so loudly that he wakes
A sleeping baby Jesus…
Joseph runs to get him
He picks the infant up… Jesus smiles immediately
And grabs at daddy’s nose…
They walk into the living room again…
The crying, singing, hair-pulling all stops
Jesus offers a toothless smile to everyone and even seems to wave
Suddenly Joseph sees a very different family around his table.
Both Tamar and Rahab, now seem like strong survivors, courageous women
Who could not change the life they were given, but could adapt
And keep on living and hoping that God would come rescue them…
They hold baby Jesus, tickle his round red cheeks and as he smiles at them
Joseph seems to see the real Tamar and Rahab,
the way God sees them.
Bathsheba stops crying…
Jesus pulls at her hair and giggles as she makes faces…
And as Jesus giggles, Joseph can see a very sad woman
With guilt and regrets… who finds a moments joy…
from his boy…
David has to throw Jesus up in the air,
Which mary hates but will never say…
But jesus yanks on his beard and they both laugh
And Joseph sees a man with weakness
But also with courage and strength…
And Joseph suddenly realizes…
Jesus wouldn’t be without these people
Jesus was born for their flaws
And for their beauty…
Because he is,
All the wrong people have a place at the table with God
When Jesus smiles on them…
The image of God which Joseph couldn’t see because of his
Judgment, shines through…
And he can see them as they are before God…
David pulls out his harp
His fingers are bent with arthritis,
But he can still play a tune…
He begins to sing
God rest ye merry gentleman
Judah lets out a cheer and sloshes wine all over the table
Let nothing you dismay
Remember Christ our Savior was born on Christmas day
To save us all from Satan’s power we were gone astray
Bathsheba weeps, so do Tamar and Rahab
but with joy, they have held Jesus, and they is no longer astray
Oh tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy
Oh tidings of comfort and joy…
As Mary hold’s Jesus, and the whole table smiles back at him
Joseph can see the family resemblance
He can see a little of them in the face of his son
But because of his son
He can see a little bit of God
In their faces…
And Mary’s question still rings true tonight…
Without you, all of you, the bold and the broken, the flawed and the fair
could Jesus be reborn among us tonight?
I suspect not…
God rest you in these Tidings of comfort and joy…
Amen
Matt 1:1-17
A Holy Family Christmas Dinner
Although researching the geneology of the family is intensely interesting to some, I suspect that reading through Jesus geneology does not really peak your interest tonight. I would imagine that you have come to imagine the familiar stories; to see the frustrated knit in Joseph’s brow as he is turned away from the inn, the beautiful swell of Mary’s belly, reminding many of you of the joy of expecting your first, and the pain, in your back, in your legs, the constant need to pee… you know what it is like to be Mary. I suspect you have come to Envision an angel choir, to traipse through the underbrush with the sheep-smelling shepherds, to hope that as you leave tonight, you might catch a glimpse of a beautiful bright star to guide your way…
But there is a story in Matt chapter 1 although it is not a familiar one. A story that I imagined would best be told if we together imagined the first Holy Family Christmas dinner…
There is the clatter in the kitchen as Mary whips the potatoes and the creak of the oven door as she checks her turkey.
Joseph, she calls, did you finish setting the table.
I don’t know why we have to invite so many people.
Couldn’t we use Jesus as an excuse not to invite some of these freaks,
I honestly lose my appetite having to sit near them…
Joseph, shame on you, they are your family…
They are an embarrassment… he runs to the window in the dining room,
Glowing golden with the light of the Christmas tree…
I hope the neighbors don’t see everyone come in the front door…
Maybe I should put a sign out telling them to come in the back,
So they don’t ‘wake the baby.’
Mary begins to re-arrange the silver ware that Joseph has placed all wrong…
He paces in the living room, picking at his finger-nails,
then pours himself a drink…
Joseph, Mary calls, did you remove a place setting…
Joseph tips back his glass and drains the wine…
Couldn’t we just tell Grama Tamar that we don’t have enough food, or room
Or that she scares the baby
with her green eye makeup and long red finger-nails?
Joseph, you know what it is like to be told there is no room for you… she is your grandmother…
Yes, but she dressed like a…
Like a…
Well, you know, like a… floozy!
And honestly, the years have not been kind.
No woman should wear her skirts that high
And her neck-line that low…
But at her age… everything is
Pulled down by gravity now…
Your nephews quite enjoy grama Tamar’s look…
Well, there 12 so no wonder… and all they do is laugh at her anyway…
Joseph, she’s family…
Yes, but she and Grandpa Judah only see each other once a year…
And he is so embarrassed about how she tricked him into getting her pregnant that he drinks half the wine by the time dinner is served and tells lewd jokes the rest of the night…mostly about her…
I know honey, says Mary, but they are our family, Jesus family…
Without Judah and Tamar, we wouldn’t be here, Jesus wouldn’t be here…
Oh, and then Uncle David shows up…
Honestly, Goliath gets taller every year…
He was 50 feet tall…
This year Goliath will sprout wings and breath fire…
And he insists on bringing Bathsheba
And she always wants to have a toast to Uriah, her first husband that David had killed
Because he got her pregnant while she was still married…
Honestly its so embarrassing to think that this is my family…
Well, Uzziah’s boys will be here… they were kings of Israel…
Yeah, the kings that led us into the Babylonian Exile… they ruined the kingdom completely
great kings they were…
still always talking politics… just make peace with Rome…
They say, when in Rome… that is why God sent us into exile…
They have no back-bone, no pride in their country
We shouldn’t even invite them to sit at our table…
But they are Jesus family…
I know, but I don’t want him to turn out like them…
Traitors, cheats, murderers, ladies of the night…
Honestly Mary… are you blind?
We don’t want Jesus to grow up like them…
And he pours another larger glass of wine…
Dinner is served and Joseph can hardly eat.
David tells more goliath stories and Mary has to stop Joseph from throwing the carving knife.
Rahab’s 15 children all decide to eat under the dining room table…
All with different father’s mind you…
she was one of those women too…
Anyway, they only decide to sit at the table properly
When Tamar starts to show off the tattoos she has on various parts of her body…
Bathsheba spends the night weeping into her wine glass
Judah sings raunchy bar songs so loudly that he wakes
A sleeping baby Jesus…
Joseph runs to get him
He picks the infant up… Jesus smiles immediately
And grabs at daddy’s nose…
They walk into the living room again…
The crying, singing, hair-pulling all stops
Jesus offers a toothless smile to everyone and even seems to wave
Suddenly Joseph sees a very different family around his table.
Both Tamar and Rahab, now seem like strong survivors, courageous women
Who could not change the life they were given, but could adapt
And keep on living and hoping that God would come rescue them…
They hold baby Jesus, tickle his round red cheeks and as he smiles at them
Joseph seems to see the real Tamar and Rahab,
the way God sees them.
Bathsheba stops crying…
Jesus pulls at her hair and giggles as she makes faces…
And as Jesus giggles, Joseph can see a very sad woman
With guilt and regrets… who finds a moments joy…
from his boy…
David has to throw Jesus up in the air,
Which mary hates but will never say…
But jesus yanks on his beard and they both laugh
And Joseph sees a man with weakness
But also with courage and strength…
And Joseph suddenly realizes…
Jesus wouldn’t be without these people
Jesus was born for their flaws
And for their beauty…
Because he is,
All the wrong people have a place at the table with God
When Jesus smiles on them…
The image of God which Joseph couldn’t see because of his
Judgment, shines through…
And he can see them as they are before God…
David pulls out his harp
His fingers are bent with arthritis,
But he can still play a tune…
He begins to sing
God rest ye merry gentleman
Judah lets out a cheer and sloshes wine all over the table
Let nothing you dismay
Remember Christ our Savior was born on Christmas day
To save us all from Satan’s power we were gone astray
Bathsheba weeps, so do Tamar and Rahab
but with joy, they have held Jesus, and they is no longer astray
Oh tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy
Oh tidings of comfort and joy…
As Mary hold’s Jesus, and the whole table smiles back at him
Joseph can see the family resemblance
He can see a little of them in the face of his son
But because of his son
He can see a little bit of God
In their faces…
And Mary’s question still rings true tonight…
Without you, all of you, the bold and the broken, the flawed and the fair
could Jesus be reborn among us tonight?
I suspect not…
God rest you in these Tidings of comfort and joy…
Amen
Born of a Virgin
Sunday January 7, 2007
Luke 1:34
How will this be since I am a virgin? An unexpected and unexplained gift of life
I quit going to church in my sophomore year of college. It wasn't college that caused it
One of the big questions that troubled me was, the virgin birth? How are we supposed to make sense of the virgin birth?
Is it really that big a deal?
Only two of the four gospel writers bother to mention it; It is important to Matthew and Luke, but not to Mark and John. Paul, who writes the largest portion of our new testament never mentions it. The idea that Jesus was born of a virgin doesn't appear to be a great importance to the early church.
Should it be that important to us? Would it make that much difference to us if it could be proven that Mary wasn't a virgin? Would that change what we believe, how we read the bible, how we live?
The thing is; even as enlightened as we are in the 21st century, we know about fallopian tubes and ovaries whereas Mary most certainly did not, as enlightened as we are there are still unanswerable questions. Just watch the news. As much as we know about the brain, how it works, its chemicals and firing synapses. As much as we know about the human psyche. As informed as we are about the diversity of cultures and religions in our world... what to do in Iraq is still a mystery. Being there as a military presence does not seem to work. Will sending more troops do any good? Won't troop withdrawal leave Iraq in a state of utter chaos and and anarchy? As much as we know... there are still mysteries and unanswered questions.
We know so much about medicine; we know about viruses and bacterias, we understand the immune system, the importance of nutrition, we can treat so many illnesses with medication; yet we still cannot answer why our loved ones get cancer or alzheimers or why children develop autism. Even more importantly how do we deal with these illnesses, pick up the pieces and move on? It is a mystery... difficult to explain. We cannot seem to find an answer to the problem of getting medication to the people of the African continent to the treat their AIDS epidemic even though the medications are available here.
We know so much about culture and society. We know so much about economics. But homelessness is still rampant as is poverty. There are still mysteries and unanswered questions.
My point is this;
If we read the story of the virgin birth to be a statement about human sexuality
that it is something that God would avoid like the plague, we have missed the point of the story.
If we read this story as proof that Jesus was special, unique, perfect, above reproach,
I think we have missed the point.
If we read this story as a test case for the literal truth of the Bible, we have missed the point...
Luke and Matthew were not concerned with the issue of literal or
metaphorical truth in the bible.
I once asked a seminarian who was delivering his ordination paper so that he could become a pastor recognized by ABC to explain a statement he made. In writing about the Bible, he called it inerrant... without error, which always causes me to bristle... so I asked him to explain.
It was a black church... and so he started to preach.
When I read in Exodus that God appeared in a burning bush... I do not know that a tree actually burst into flame... but I know God was there... well, amen, preach it...
When I read in Exodus that God parted the Red Sea, I do not know if the river stopped flowing or if it defied gravity to stand up in the air... but I do know God was there... Amen... Go on...hallelujah...
This is what I mean by inerrant... God was there...
Luke and Matthew stand in a long line of Biblical writers who maintained tenaciously the illogical belief that God could do something new, something amazing, that God could create a future where no human mind could conceive of a tomorrow... that despite appearances, God was there... God is here.
And what is more, God is active...
Many cultures had stories of virgin's giving birth. It was a popular way to assign divinity to Rome's Caesar's to say that they were born of virgins.
It wasn't common in Jewish literature to speak of the Messiah being born of a virgin... it seems to be a new idea that Luke and Matthew record...
but even though it is unheard of it stands in a long line of foolish, tireless, dogged witness, that God erupts in our world to do the impossible...
Bringing manna from heaven
Making the Red Sea Part
bring water from a rock in the desert
making a shepherd boy David into a warrior and king
Over and over again the people of Israel maintained that their God could and would do the unexpected and the unexplainable... and that is the real point of the virgin birth... That God can do the impossible... that God will invade the impossible, encorigible and descouraging patterns of our lives to bring life, new, hopeful, impossible life
I asked before;
would it make much of a difference if we lost the idea of the virgin birth?
And as I sat down to consider this topic, I thought, no, it really wouldn't make a difference.
But as I considered all the times that Israel hoped and prayed and lived expecting their God to do the impossible... the idea of the virgin birth become quite vital...
Just as vital as Martin Luther King hoping for freedom for his people when it just seemed illogical, impossible...
Just as vital as telling our daughters that one day they could be president, or our sons that they will grow up to do great things... despite the obstacles... irregardless of the fact that we cannot prove these promises
Just as vital as telling an addict that they can be clean and sober
Just as vital as telling a new mother that her developmentally delayed baby can and will grow, can will learn, can and will achieve... maybe not like everyone, but this baby has a future.
To sideline the virgin birth to simply metaphor or a myth that is impossible to prove or believe leaves us without an imagination of the divine, a dream of what God just might do in this world, in our lives...stuck in the patterns of greed manipulation, despondency and violence that seem to run our world. It leaves us to live without the hope, the comfort or the conviction that God is here, that God is active... that we can be active in living and building the kingdom.
What happens when we get stuck in an imagination-less rut?
Consider a railroad. The standard US railroad gauge, the distance between rails, is 4 ft. 8.5 in., which is a strange and seemingly arbitrary measurement for standardization. Where did that number come from. English engineers who were involved in the construction of the American railroad brought that number. They learned that number from those who constructed the tramways used before railroads. They got it from the standard tools for building wagons which used the same wheel spacing. That number was arrived at from the wheel ruts on old long-distanced roads because the axles would break if they did not fit easily into the ruts. And the roads were built originally by the Romans to fit their war chariots. The distance between rails used by trains still in the United States came from Roman war chariots. For more than 2000 years no one has stopped to wonder if their might just be a better way, an easier way, process more economic of time and energy to create railroad tracks. They could not imagine a new way.
Of course we aren't really concerned with railroad tracks. Obviously that lack of imagination hasn't made much of negative impact on our lives. But it does illustrate the point, that we get stuck in ruts. Walter Brueggeman has said that the whole point of the Christmas story is lost when we get wrapped around the axle of How? How did a virgin have a baby? The point of the Christmas story, he suggests, is not to explain to us how it is that God acts in this world. Instead the Christmas story is meant to awaken our imagination. That the Christmas story is meant to induce us to dream. What would it look like if God were to do something miraculous.
And while the rest of the world waits for scientific proof, facts and figures to suggest viability, we as disciples simply need imagine.
One church I know of imagined what miraculous thing God might do for the homeless and hungry... and at first they started a soup kitchen, which is a good place to start imagining. But they realized that they hadn't imagined enough. Jesus didn't simply feed the hungry, he ate with the hungry. And so now they have a combination soup kitchen and potluck dinner, regularly, where members of the church not only feed, but sit and eat with, talk with, get to know, the homeless people they feed.
I've the story of a family that struggled to raise a severely disabled son. He was nonverbal and unable to walk on his own. He was incredibly medically involved and as much as they loved him, the stress was wearing on them and on their marriage. Until a deacon from church came to visit and sat with their son and talked to him and read to him not like a poor disabled boy, but like a person. For a moment they could imagine him that way. And it changed the way they though of him and the way they treated him.
Or the story of a woman with cancer. Head wrapped in a scarf, cheeks sunken, skin gray, body weak from so many treatments. Until her church pals showed up for a spa day and they did her fingernails and toe nails and they exfoliated her skin and brought her a beautiful new wig. And she imagined being healthy again. And she got healthy again.
Do not be afraid, the angel said to Joseph. If you read carefully, Joseph was going to leave Mary, when he heard of her pregnancy. He couldn't imagine anything good coming of a baby that wasn't his. Do not be afraid, the angel said do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins."
I cannot explain to you how it is that God does strange and unexpected and amazing things.
But for today, we don't need to know how, Like Joseph, we just need to imagine... today is a day to wonder, what next.
Luke 1:34
How will this be since I am a virgin? An unexpected and unexplained gift of life
I quit going to church in my sophomore year of college. It wasn't college that caused it
One of the big questions that troubled me was, the virgin birth? How are we supposed to make sense of the virgin birth?
Is it really that big a deal?
Only two of the four gospel writers bother to mention it; It is important to Matthew and Luke, but not to Mark and John. Paul, who writes the largest portion of our new testament never mentions it. The idea that Jesus was born of a virgin doesn't appear to be a great importance to the early church.
Should it be that important to us? Would it make that much difference to us if it could be proven that Mary wasn't a virgin? Would that change what we believe, how we read the bible, how we live?
The thing is; even as enlightened as we are in the 21st century, we know about fallopian tubes and ovaries whereas Mary most certainly did not, as enlightened as we are there are still unanswerable questions. Just watch the news. As much as we know about the brain, how it works, its chemicals and firing synapses. As much as we know about the human psyche. As informed as we are about the diversity of cultures and religions in our world... what to do in Iraq is still a mystery. Being there as a military presence does not seem to work. Will sending more troops do any good? Won't troop withdrawal leave Iraq in a state of utter chaos and and anarchy? As much as we know... there are still mysteries and unanswered questions.
We know so much about medicine; we know about viruses and bacterias, we understand the immune system, the importance of nutrition, we can treat so many illnesses with medication; yet we still cannot answer why our loved ones get cancer or alzheimers or why children develop autism. Even more importantly how do we deal with these illnesses, pick up the pieces and move on? It is a mystery... difficult to explain. We cannot seem to find an answer to the problem of getting medication to the people of the African continent to the treat their AIDS epidemic even though the medications are available here.
We know so much about culture and society. We know so much about economics. But homelessness is still rampant as is poverty. There are still mysteries and unanswered questions.
My point is this;
If we read the story of the virgin birth to be a statement about human sexuality
that it is something that God would avoid like the plague, we have missed the point of the story.
If we read this story as proof that Jesus was special, unique, perfect, above reproach,
I think we have missed the point.
If we read this story as a test case for the literal truth of the Bible, we have missed the point...
Luke and Matthew were not concerned with the issue of literal or
metaphorical truth in the bible.
I once asked a seminarian who was delivering his ordination paper so that he could become a pastor recognized by ABC to explain a statement he made. In writing about the Bible, he called it inerrant... without error, which always causes me to bristle... so I asked him to explain.
It was a black church... and so he started to preach.
When I read in Exodus that God appeared in a burning bush... I do not know that a tree actually burst into flame... but I know God was there... well, amen, preach it...
When I read in Exodus that God parted the Red Sea, I do not know if the river stopped flowing or if it defied gravity to stand up in the air... but I do know God was there... Amen... Go on...hallelujah...
This is what I mean by inerrant... God was there...
Luke and Matthew stand in a long line of Biblical writers who maintained tenaciously the illogical belief that God could do something new, something amazing, that God could create a future where no human mind could conceive of a tomorrow... that despite appearances, God was there... God is here.
And what is more, God is active...
Many cultures had stories of virgin's giving birth. It was a popular way to assign divinity to Rome's Caesar's to say that they were born of virgins.
It wasn't common in Jewish literature to speak of the Messiah being born of a virgin... it seems to be a new idea that Luke and Matthew record...
but even though it is unheard of it stands in a long line of foolish, tireless, dogged witness, that God erupts in our world to do the impossible...
Bringing manna from heaven
Making the Red Sea Part
bring water from a rock in the desert
making a shepherd boy David into a warrior and king
Over and over again the people of Israel maintained that their God could and would do the unexpected and the unexplainable... and that is the real point of the virgin birth... That God can do the impossible... that God will invade the impossible, encorigible and descouraging patterns of our lives to bring life, new, hopeful, impossible life
I asked before;
would it make much of a difference if we lost the idea of the virgin birth?
And as I sat down to consider this topic, I thought, no, it really wouldn't make a difference.
But as I considered all the times that Israel hoped and prayed and lived expecting their God to do the impossible... the idea of the virgin birth become quite vital...
Just as vital as Martin Luther King hoping for freedom for his people when it just seemed illogical, impossible...
Just as vital as telling our daughters that one day they could be president, or our sons that they will grow up to do great things... despite the obstacles... irregardless of the fact that we cannot prove these promises
Just as vital as telling an addict that they can be clean and sober
Just as vital as telling a new mother that her developmentally delayed baby can and will grow, can will learn, can and will achieve... maybe not like everyone, but this baby has a future.
To sideline the virgin birth to simply metaphor or a myth that is impossible to prove or believe leaves us without an imagination of the divine, a dream of what God just might do in this world, in our lives...stuck in the patterns of greed manipulation, despondency and violence that seem to run our world. It leaves us to live without the hope, the comfort or the conviction that God is here, that God is active... that we can be active in living and building the kingdom.
What happens when we get stuck in an imagination-less rut?
Consider a railroad. The standard US railroad gauge, the distance between rails, is 4 ft. 8.5 in., which is a strange and seemingly arbitrary measurement for standardization. Where did that number come from. English engineers who were involved in the construction of the American railroad brought that number. They learned that number from those who constructed the tramways used before railroads. They got it from the standard tools for building wagons which used the same wheel spacing. That number was arrived at from the wheel ruts on old long-distanced roads because the axles would break if they did not fit easily into the ruts. And the roads were built originally by the Romans to fit their war chariots. The distance between rails used by trains still in the United States came from Roman war chariots. For more than 2000 years no one has stopped to wonder if their might just be a better way, an easier way, process more economic of time and energy to create railroad tracks. They could not imagine a new way.
Of course we aren't really concerned with railroad tracks. Obviously that lack of imagination hasn't made much of negative impact on our lives. But it does illustrate the point, that we get stuck in ruts. Walter Brueggeman has said that the whole point of the Christmas story is lost when we get wrapped around the axle of How? How did a virgin have a baby? The point of the Christmas story, he suggests, is not to explain to us how it is that God acts in this world. Instead the Christmas story is meant to awaken our imagination. That the Christmas story is meant to induce us to dream. What would it look like if God were to do something miraculous.
And while the rest of the world waits for scientific proof, facts and figures to suggest viability, we as disciples simply need imagine.
One church I know of imagined what miraculous thing God might do for the homeless and hungry... and at first they started a soup kitchen, which is a good place to start imagining. But they realized that they hadn't imagined enough. Jesus didn't simply feed the hungry, he ate with the hungry. And so now they have a combination soup kitchen and potluck dinner, regularly, where members of the church not only feed, but sit and eat with, talk with, get to know, the homeless people they feed.
I've the story of a family that struggled to raise a severely disabled son. He was nonverbal and unable to walk on his own. He was incredibly medically involved and as much as they loved him, the stress was wearing on them and on their marriage. Until a deacon from church came to visit and sat with their son and talked to him and read to him not like a poor disabled boy, but like a person. For a moment they could imagine him that way. And it changed the way they though of him and the way they treated him.
Or the story of a woman with cancer. Head wrapped in a scarf, cheeks sunken, skin gray, body weak from so many treatments. Until her church pals showed up for a spa day and they did her fingernails and toe nails and they exfoliated her skin and brought her a beautiful new wig. And she imagined being healthy again. And she got healthy again.
Do not be afraid, the angel said to Joseph. If you read carefully, Joseph was going to leave Mary, when he heard of her pregnancy. He couldn't imagine anything good coming of a baby that wasn't his. Do not be afraid, the angel said do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins."
I cannot explain to you how it is that God does strange and unexpected and amazing things.
But for today, we don't need to know how, Like Joseph, we just need to imagine... today is a day to wonder, what next.
Greetings Favored One
When the angel first spoke to Mary, “Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee,' she jumped and fell out her chair, landing with a thud. Blinking and rubbing her eyes, she stared with disbelief at the figure hovering over her. It wasn't that she had never heard of angels or the stories of their sudden bright shining sun appearing. These were the stories with which her mother had put her to bed. The three angels walking out of the hot desert shimmer to find Abraham who thought he they were a mirage, a symptom of the heat. But they were real and they came to announce that he and Sarah, both close to 100 years of age, would have a son named Isaac. An angel appeared to Hagar, Abaraham's servant girl and mother to his first son Ishmael. She too wandered in the desert because Abraham and Sarah no longer wanted her or her son in their home. Overcome by exhaustion, seeking shelter from the noon-day sun, lips chapped from thirst and dehydration, she fell to the sand like a camel with a fractured leg, too weak to even care about the scalding heat of the ground. Then an angel appeared and guided her to water. She new that an angel appeared to Moses in a burning bush commanding him to leave his desert hiding place and return to Egypt, where he was wanted for murder, to face Pharoah and free his people. And when Elijah had had enough of life and wanted to die, God sent an angel to feed him, give him water, and to take Elijah to a meeting with God, face to face, but not through dying. God was coming to meet him and to send him on his way to a new life mission. When God sent angels, lives changed, Mary new. Abraham became a father, Moses became a freedom fighter, Hagar found a home, Elijah his life's purpose...
And Mary wondered what message the angel would bring.
Because her people had not heard from angels in years, centuries even.
At first they waited expectantly. Some would-be prophets wandered the near-by deserts waiting for an angel to fall from the clouds or materialize out of the sand. Priests would wait expectantly in the Temple for something; a voice, a clap of thunder, a sudden great light, a burst of flame. Women would pray earnestly form some sign that God was still here, there, anywhere close by, listening, paying attention, coming down to change their lives...
Lives marked by oppression and poverty. All of Israel waited for angels, but all they seemed to find were demons. Not necessarily supernatural phenomena demon's. Everyday demons like; Roman tax collectors who could and would take everything. Just the other day they had taken the last goat from Mary's neighbor. It was a source of milk and cheese, some food, some nutrition, but now that was gone. Everyday demons like malnutrition. The street that lead to the market would lined by beggars. Some were scarred and disfigured, bearing the marks of crossing the Roman centurions. Others were diseased, covered in dusty rags, covered in sores. Some were children, frail, skeleton thin children whose family couldn't afford to feed them. Israel was infested with these demons, and waited for the day when an angel would appear to drive out the demons and change Israel's life forever.
But the angels hadn't appeared for a long, long time.
And slowly people gone on with their angel-less life.
Some started working for the Romans. The money was good. They could feed their families. Their neighbors wouldn't speak to them, in-laws wouldn't come to holiday dinners. But they were surviving as best they could.
Some joined the rebellion. If God wouldn't send angels with flaming swords, they would have to pick up their own. So instead of waiting for angels, their time was spent in secret meeting, smuggling weapons, hoarding food, spying on their roman oppressors.
Some, like the pharisees, stopped waiting for angels, and devoted themselves to purity. They shunned Romans, beggars, the sick, the sinful, hoping that religious piety would entice God to come to rescue them. They poured their attention into the word of God. But they stopped looking for angels
And some, like Mary, just got on with life as best they could.
She found a kind and gentle man to marry, Joseph. And her thoughts were consumed by their wedding. She and her mother sat by lamp-light piecing together her wedding gown. Hours were spent, while cooking and cleaning, dreaming of their life together; the children they would have, the home they would buy. Joseph was lucky enough to have a job. So she planned how she would make the perfect home for her beloved.
No one looked for angels anymore, not even mary.
Isn't that the way with us. Life is full of hope and promise when we are young. We believe the stories of Santa Claus and the Easter bunny; that there is good out there, hope. Like Mary we have plans for life and we believe in our own plans and the courage to carry them out.
Then life comes along; terrible and wonderful. But life as we plan it doesn't always work out. Life bring a few surprises some good; a baby, a promotion, a raise. Some not so good; we get laid off, divorced, we get ill or a loved one gets sick. Life comes at us, sometimes great, sometimes sad, and when sad, like all of Mary we discover that there isn't always an Easter Bunny around the corner, with welcome and unexpected gifts. And sometimes life Mary (at least, as I imagine Mary) we stop believing in angels and are left to our own devices, our own plans and skills, our own strength and hope. For some that is enough. Others find it comes up short and we have little left to lean on. The story of Mary, the story of Israel, isn't so far from our own, believing in a savior, knocked around by life, feeling left on our own.
Which is why at first Mary didn't understand his words; you have found favor with God. God's favor was like angels, something from stories, a fantasy, ancient history.
But the angel continues. Probably calmly and slowly, but this couldn't be real, Mary thought and so she felt caught in a whirlwind of promises that just couldn't be true;
Luke 1:31
You will be with child and give birth to a son
Luke 1:31-32
give him the name Jesus.
Luke 1:32
The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David
Luke 1:33
and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end."
A baby?
named Jesus?
He will be king? Not Herod, Not Caesar?
He will be like David? We will be free and safe and secure?
People will work for themselves, and eat,
no more sickness, no more tax-collectors, no more begging, no more death?
Forever?
All that she had dreamed of and given up dreaming of... could it somehow happen?
Dare we believe that God could make something good out life's struggles
Dare we believe that God could bring light to our darkness?
How can this be? She asks
Because as good as it sounds, much will change.
All that she has pinned her hopes on will change?
Will Joseph keep her if she pregnant?
What will her parents think
what will the neighbors say or do?
Will she give up her simple hopes for something better from God?
Will she believe that God could do the impossible, the unexpected, that which she has given-up-on?
Will she replace the life she had planned for the life God is offering;
with its promise and its pressure
with its joys and its sorrows?
Angels appear before us almost every day.
A hungry child
A cold family
A crying widow
a frightened daughter
An ailing parent
A little girl without a coat
an elderly man who can't get out on his own
Angels appear before us almost every day
a new job opportunity or a layoff
an engagement or a divorce
a clean bill of health or a frightening diagnosis.
Angels all, everyday angels...
that offer us the choice to keep our head down and go on with life as we have known it
or to look up and say with Mary, I am the Lord's servant
In good times and in bad, God is there with hope and strength
with a purpose for our living and a mission for our existance.
Each moment expected or unexpected
a celebration or a catastrophe is a chance to give birth to Christ
a chance to heed the angels
to be an angel
to believe that nothing is impossible with God
Its a hard thing to live with, this hope in angels, this belief that God is near
Its difficult to hold onto the belief that God is all things
that Jesus could be born in us, at any time, in any place.
The question is, will we say yes as did Mary?
Will we choose to be considered a bit foolish by some of our friends, no better than poker players or lottery ticket scratchers hoping in something rarely seen. A daredevil, a testpilot (Barbara Brown Taylor) calls us. We believe in something that can't be proven in a laboratory. Angels can't be recreated, recorded, studied or saved on Tevo. Will we take that chance?
Meister Eckhart once asked
What good is it to me for the Creator to give birth to a Son if I do not also give birth to him in my time and in my culture.
If you dare to say yes then the angels words are not only for Mary, but also for you
Greetings favored ones, the Lord is with You, The son of the Most High is in You
Do not be afraid, for nothing is impossible with God.
And Mary wondered what message the angel would bring.
Because her people had not heard from angels in years, centuries even.
At first they waited expectantly. Some would-be prophets wandered the near-by deserts waiting for an angel to fall from the clouds or materialize out of the sand. Priests would wait expectantly in the Temple for something; a voice, a clap of thunder, a sudden great light, a burst of flame. Women would pray earnestly form some sign that God was still here, there, anywhere close by, listening, paying attention, coming down to change their lives...
Lives marked by oppression and poverty. All of Israel waited for angels, but all they seemed to find were demons. Not necessarily supernatural phenomena demon's. Everyday demons like; Roman tax collectors who could and would take everything. Just the other day they had taken the last goat from Mary's neighbor. It was a source of milk and cheese, some food, some nutrition, but now that was gone. Everyday demons like malnutrition. The street that lead to the market would lined by beggars. Some were scarred and disfigured, bearing the marks of crossing the Roman centurions. Others were diseased, covered in dusty rags, covered in sores. Some were children, frail, skeleton thin children whose family couldn't afford to feed them. Israel was infested with these demons, and waited for the day when an angel would appear to drive out the demons and change Israel's life forever.
But the angels hadn't appeared for a long, long time.
And slowly people gone on with their angel-less life.
Some started working for the Romans. The money was good. They could feed their families. Their neighbors wouldn't speak to them, in-laws wouldn't come to holiday dinners. But they were surviving as best they could.
Some joined the rebellion. If God wouldn't send angels with flaming swords, they would have to pick up their own. So instead of waiting for angels, their time was spent in secret meeting, smuggling weapons, hoarding food, spying on their roman oppressors.
Some, like the pharisees, stopped waiting for angels, and devoted themselves to purity. They shunned Romans, beggars, the sick, the sinful, hoping that religious piety would entice God to come to rescue them. They poured their attention into the word of God. But they stopped looking for angels
And some, like Mary, just got on with life as best they could.
She found a kind and gentle man to marry, Joseph. And her thoughts were consumed by their wedding. She and her mother sat by lamp-light piecing together her wedding gown. Hours were spent, while cooking and cleaning, dreaming of their life together; the children they would have, the home they would buy. Joseph was lucky enough to have a job. So she planned how she would make the perfect home for her beloved.
No one looked for angels anymore, not even mary.
Isn't that the way with us. Life is full of hope and promise when we are young. We believe the stories of Santa Claus and the Easter bunny; that there is good out there, hope. Like Mary we have plans for life and we believe in our own plans and the courage to carry them out.
Then life comes along; terrible and wonderful. But life as we plan it doesn't always work out. Life bring a few surprises some good; a baby, a promotion, a raise. Some not so good; we get laid off, divorced, we get ill or a loved one gets sick. Life comes at us, sometimes great, sometimes sad, and when sad, like all of Mary we discover that there isn't always an Easter Bunny around the corner, with welcome and unexpected gifts. And sometimes life Mary (at least, as I imagine Mary) we stop believing in angels and are left to our own devices, our own plans and skills, our own strength and hope. For some that is enough. Others find it comes up short and we have little left to lean on. The story of Mary, the story of Israel, isn't so far from our own, believing in a savior, knocked around by life, feeling left on our own.
Which is why at first Mary didn't understand his words; you have found favor with God. God's favor was like angels, something from stories, a fantasy, ancient history.
But the angel continues. Probably calmly and slowly, but this couldn't be real, Mary thought and so she felt caught in a whirlwind of promises that just couldn't be true;
Luke 1:31
You will be with child and give birth to a son
Luke 1:31-32
give him the name Jesus.
Luke 1:32
The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David
Luke 1:33
and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end."
A baby?
named Jesus?
He will be king? Not Herod, Not Caesar?
He will be like David? We will be free and safe and secure?
People will work for themselves, and eat,
no more sickness, no more tax-collectors, no more begging, no more death?
Forever?
All that she had dreamed of and given up dreaming of... could it somehow happen?
Dare we believe that God could make something good out life's struggles
Dare we believe that God could bring light to our darkness?
How can this be? She asks
Because as good as it sounds, much will change.
All that she has pinned her hopes on will change?
Will Joseph keep her if she pregnant?
What will her parents think
what will the neighbors say or do?
Will she give up her simple hopes for something better from God?
Will she believe that God could do the impossible, the unexpected, that which she has given-up-on?
Will she replace the life she had planned for the life God is offering;
with its promise and its pressure
with its joys and its sorrows?
Angels appear before us almost every day.
A hungry child
A cold family
A crying widow
a frightened daughter
An ailing parent
A little girl without a coat
an elderly man who can't get out on his own
Angels appear before us almost every day
a new job opportunity or a layoff
an engagement or a divorce
a clean bill of health or a frightening diagnosis.
Angels all, everyday angels...
that offer us the choice to keep our head down and go on with life as we have known it
or to look up and say with Mary, I am the Lord's servant
In good times and in bad, God is there with hope and strength
with a purpose for our living and a mission for our existance.
Each moment expected or unexpected
a celebration or a catastrophe is a chance to give birth to Christ
a chance to heed the angels
to be an angel
to believe that nothing is impossible with God
Its a hard thing to live with, this hope in angels, this belief that God is near
Its difficult to hold onto the belief that God is all things
that Jesus could be born in us, at any time, in any place.
The question is, will we say yes as did Mary?
Will we choose to be considered a bit foolish by some of our friends, no better than poker players or lottery ticket scratchers hoping in something rarely seen. A daredevil, a testpilot (Barbara Brown Taylor) calls us. We believe in something that can't be proven in a laboratory. Angels can't be recreated, recorded, studied or saved on Tevo. Will we take that chance?
Meister Eckhart once asked
What good is it to me for the Creator to give birth to a Son if I do not also give birth to him in my time and in my culture.
If you dare to say yes then the angels words are not only for Mary, but also for you
Greetings favored ones, the Lord is with You, The son of the Most High is in You
Do not be afraid, for nothing is impossible with God.
Mary's Imagination
Son #1 was with me in the car just the other day on the way to get Son #2 from Daycare. It was quite dark, which #1 noted as he munched on his gold-fish. Then he asked if we could turn the light on in the car. I explained that it was a bit more difficult for daddy to drive safely with the light on in the car when its so dark out, and then asked why we made the request. 'Well, I get scared of the dark, sometimes.' 'What is it about the dark that frightens you?' I asked. My room looks different and I think that I see monsters. It got me to thinking about the power of our imaginations.
A young boy arrived for his first experience of summer camp down at Canonicus. He was small for his age and slight. You could tell from his slightly awkward gait that coordination was not his strong-point. He had a bit of a speech impediment which made it difficult especially for other kids to understand him and so they tended to ignore him. I got to know him a little that first summer. His story unfortunately is not all that unique. Diagnosed as ADHD his soon become labeled, and his identity becomes that of someone who is dis-abled...unable to play the games other kids play, unable to talk to the other kids, unable to get his hands and eyes to coordinate, his mind to focus on the game at hand... he could not imagine being able.
Paulo Freire once said; 'oppression works most efficiently when the oppressed have internalized the world as seen through the eyes of the oppressor.'
Just the other day flipping through the TV channels I heard a priest explaining what was so miraculous, so unique about Mary. Do you know what it was, according to the priest?
Her sacred virginity
So much is going on around Mary and all we can see is virginity?
What about her humility, 'I am the Lord's servant' she said,
Maybe he faithfulness to God, 'May it be to me as you have said.' she replied to the angel.
No, there is more to the story of Mary than virginity
More even than humility
Perhaps even more than faithfulness...
I think it was Mary's imagination
Because life for Mary and all of the Jews in Palestine is like living in a darkened room and they cannot imagine a light
Mary and her family, all the families under Roman occupation, have been labeled 'dis-abled, unable,' by Rome, by Herod, by the Ruling Elites... and they cannot imagine being able
Furthermore they cannot imagine that God is able.
Why could Mary, her family, her people, not imagine that they could be en-nabled
Imagine with me a day in Mary's life...
They wake up early attempting to scratch a meager meal out of the soil
only to get a mouthful of dust. Sifting through the sand to find enough seed
to plant for next year only to have it blown away in a whirlwind of Roman horses
and sword carrying soldiers collecting taxes
Mary awakens to wailing and crying from the home next to hers
peeking slowly out the door she sees a man in a fine, clean purple robe walking past
At her neighbors house, a mother clutches her eight-year-old daughter to her breast
the girl is weeping, her sisters and brothers are weeping
The man in purple pulls out his a few coins,
gives them to his associate who hand the coins to the man.
The man weeps as the associate takes the girl by the hand
She is now a slave to the man in purple
This was the only way for the man to feed the rest of his children.
The man in purple stops at another house.
His associate calls to the man of the house
publically demanding that he pay off a debt long overdue
crowds gather at the a long list of loans is read aloud
as is the length of time he was given to repay
and a record of visits made to him for payment
He stands, ashamed in the the center of town
Inside the house the family scrambles to find loose coins
Mother and grandmother turn over their beds to
find the last remaining treasures of the house
gifts from grandparents on their wedding day
to pay the man in purple
the man weeps as his wife brings what little of worth she can find
to lay at the man in purples feet
He takes it
And then announces that the home is his,
the livestock, the land
he is foreclosing on his debt
and they will have to seek shelter elsewhere
as his workers will soon live in the house.
On her way to the market Mary sees many faces that she recognizes
children who she once played with in the fields
now begging in the streets
grandmothers, grandfathers who had watched her play
given her water,
kept her from harm
laying in the street
skin and bones wrapped in rags...
And Mary wonders
Is this all I have to look forward too?
Is this the life that I have to imagine?
Choosing one child to sell so as to feed the others
visits from the Roman tax collectors
king herods tax collectors
temple tax collectors
leaving little to eat, plant, sell?
Is this all I have to look forward too?
Disease, malnutrition
a lonely death?
Is this all I have to imagine
Is this all we, the people of God have to look forward too?
Our lives do not look like this exactly
but we can identify with this feeling of hopelessness
With the inability to imagine anything other than monsters in the dark
Perhaps it is the order to clear one's desk at the end of the day
the incessant calls of the bill collectors
dreams of a past of abuse at the hands of a husband or father
an addiction that tugs at our soul
the words of a teacher or coach who told us we would amount to nothing
the passing of a dear loved one
the doctor utters the word cancer
The list could on and on...
But I think all of us at one time or another
feel like lance, scared of the dark
Like the boy at camp, dis-abled
like Mary, wondering if all there is to imagine is
defeat and discouragement
Her story is our story...
But defeat, discouragement, fear is not the end of the story
For an angel appears
Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God
And as the angel speaks to Mary,
her imagination is reborn
She imagines her village,
where the children, all the children play
healthy, well, fed, and happy,
while their grandparents sit smiling and watching them dance and sing
She imagines her village
where the men still work the land
but their barns are full
their ovens over-flow with bread
their wine is sold at market
The soldiers ride away empty-handed
The man in purple is dressed in rags
and the men of the village toss coins to him
out of charity...
She imagines mothers watching their daughters married
she images a son, her son...
when before she could only imagine a short life and
and a painful death
Abraham stands under the dark night sky
wondering why he could never have a son
wondering if his family could ever be whole and happy
And God shows him the stars
and asks him to imagine
Joseph lies in a well
abandoned to die of thirst and hunger in the desert by his brothers
When God gives him a dream
of his brothers bowing to him
and ask him to imagine
Israel is enslaved
day after day they labor under the cruel whip of the Egyptians
crying out to God, as Pharoah slaughters their sons
Until God sends them a man named Moses
and asks them to imagine
Later the walls of Jerusalem are breached
Babylonian hordes rush in to pillage and destroy
tearing down the Temple, the house of God on earth
Those Israelites who are not killed
are carried off
husband taken from wives
children from parents
to live in bondage
and God sends them a prophet Isaiah with a dream...
For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor , Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his government and peace
there will be no end.
He will reign on David's throne
and over his kingdom,
establishing and upholding it
with justice and righteousness
from that time on and forever.
The zeal of the LORD Almighty
will accomplish this.
God asks them to imagine what the zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish.
Many come to church or avoid it because of one simple misunderstanding
they think that the Bible is just a book of ancient and impossible rules
that we are gathering of people entranced by ancient codes of conduct
But the Bible is more than rules
it is a record of the very dreams of God
meant to inspire our imagination
And yet if it is only our imagination that is resuscitated by the breath of God
all will be for nothing
Like Mary, we must bring what God imagines for us..
to life
we are called to imagine and give birth to a light
unquenchable by darkness
a strength of soul impervious to the disease of despair
the love of God that is stronger than death
We are called to give birth to the words of
Joel
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your old men will dream dreams ,
your young men will see visions.
on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days.
I will show wonders in the heavens
and on the earth,
And everyone who calls
on the name of the LORD will be saved;
Perhaps it is but my imaginations
maybe just a dream
but won't you make that dream real?
A young boy arrived for his first experience of summer camp down at Canonicus. He was small for his age and slight. You could tell from his slightly awkward gait that coordination was not his strong-point. He had a bit of a speech impediment which made it difficult especially for other kids to understand him and so they tended to ignore him. I got to know him a little that first summer. His story unfortunately is not all that unique. Diagnosed as ADHD his soon become labeled, and his identity becomes that of someone who is dis-abled...unable to play the games other kids play, unable to talk to the other kids, unable to get his hands and eyes to coordinate, his mind to focus on the game at hand... he could not imagine being able.
Paulo Freire once said; 'oppression works most efficiently when the oppressed have internalized the world as seen through the eyes of the oppressor.'
Just the other day flipping through the TV channels I heard a priest explaining what was so miraculous, so unique about Mary. Do you know what it was, according to the priest?
Her sacred virginity
So much is going on around Mary and all we can see is virginity?
What about her humility, 'I am the Lord's servant' she said,
Maybe he faithfulness to God, 'May it be to me as you have said.' she replied to the angel.
No, there is more to the story of Mary than virginity
More even than humility
Perhaps even more than faithfulness...
I think it was Mary's imagination
Because life for Mary and all of the Jews in Palestine is like living in a darkened room and they cannot imagine a light
Mary and her family, all the families under Roman occupation, have been labeled 'dis-abled, unable,' by Rome, by Herod, by the Ruling Elites... and they cannot imagine being able
Furthermore they cannot imagine that God is able.
Why could Mary, her family, her people, not imagine that they could be en-nabled
Imagine with me a day in Mary's life...
They wake up early attempting to scratch a meager meal out of the soil
only to get a mouthful of dust. Sifting through the sand to find enough seed
to plant for next year only to have it blown away in a whirlwind of Roman horses
and sword carrying soldiers collecting taxes
Mary awakens to wailing and crying from the home next to hers
peeking slowly out the door she sees a man in a fine, clean purple robe walking past
At her neighbors house, a mother clutches her eight-year-old daughter to her breast
the girl is weeping, her sisters and brothers are weeping
The man in purple pulls out his a few coins,
gives them to his associate who hand the coins to the man.
The man weeps as the associate takes the girl by the hand
She is now a slave to the man in purple
This was the only way for the man to feed the rest of his children.
The man in purple stops at another house.
His associate calls to the man of the house
publically demanding that he pay off a debt long overdue
crowds gather at the a long list of loans is read aloud
as is the length of time he was given to repay
and a record of visits made to him for payment
He stands, ashamed in the the center of town
Inside the house the family scrambles to find loose coins
Mother and grandmother turn over their beds to
find the last remaining treasures of the house
gifts from grandparents on their wedding day
to pay the man in purple
the man weeps as his wife brings what little of worth she can find
to lay at the man in purples feet
He takes it
And then announces that the home is his,
the livestock, the land
he is foreclosing on his debt
and they will have to seek shelter elsewhere
as his workers will soon live in the house.
On her way to the market Mary sees many faces that she recognizes
children who she once played with in the fields
now begging in the streets
grandmothers, grandfathers who had watched her play
given her water,
kept her from harm
laying in the street
skin and bones wrapped in rags...
And Mary wonders
Is this all I have to look forward too?
Is this the life that I have to imagine?
Choosing one child to sell so as to feed the others
visits from the Roman tax collectors
king herods tax collectors
temple tax collectors
leaving little to eat, plant, sell?
Is this all I have to look forward too?
Disease, malnutrition
a lonely death?
Is this all I have to imagine
Is this all we, the people of God have to look forward too?
Our lives do not look like this exactly
but we can identify with this feeling of hopelessness
With the inability to imagine anything other than monsters in the dark
Perhaps it is the order to clear one's desk at the end of the day
the incessant calls of the bill collectors
dreams of a past of abuse at the hands of a husband or father
an addiction that tugs at our soul
the words of a teacher or coach who told us we would amount to nothing
the passing of a dear loved one
the doctor utters the word cancer
The list could on and on...
But I think all of us at one time or another
feel like lance, scared of the dark
Like the boy at camp, dis-abled
like Mary, wondering if all there is to imagine is
defeat and discouragement
Her story is our story...
But defeat, discouragement, fear is not the end of the story
For an angel appears
Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God
And as the angel speaks to Mary,
her imagination is reborn
She imagines her village,
where the children, all the children play
healthy, well, fed, and happy,
while their grandparents sit smiling and watching them dance and sing
She imagines her village
where the men still work the land
but their barns are full
their ovens over-flow with bread
their wine is sold at market
The soldiers ride away empty-handed
The man in purple is dressed in rags
and the men of the village toss coins to him
out of charity...
She imagines mothers watching their daughters married
she images a son, her son...
when before she could only imagine a short life and
and a painful death
Abraham stands under the dark night sky
wondering why he could never have a son
wondering if his family could ever be whole and happy
And God shows him the stars
and asks him to imagine
Joseph lies in a well
abandoned to die of thirst and hunger in the desert by his brothers
When God gives him a dream
of his brothers bowing to him
and ask him to imagine
Israel is enslaved
day after day they labor under the cruel whip of the Egyptians
crying out to God, as Pharoah slaughters their sons
Until God sends them a man named Moses
and asks them to imagine
Later the walls of Jerusalem are breached
Babylonian hordes rush in to pillage and destroy
tearing down the Temple, the house of God on earth
Those Israelites who are not killed
are carried off
husband taken from wives
children from parents
to live in bondage
and God sends them a prophet Isaiah with a dream...
For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor , Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his government and peace
there will be no end.
He will reign on David's throne
and over his kingdom,
establishing and upholding it
with justice and righteousness
from that time on and forever.
The zeal of the LORD Almighty
will accomplish this.
God asks them to imagine what the zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish.
Many come to church or avoid it because of one simple misunderstanding
they think that the Bible is just a book of ancient and impossible rules
that we are gathering of people entranced by ancient codes of conduct
But the Bible is more than rules
it is a record of the very dreams of God
meant to inspire our imagination
And yet if it is only our imagination that is resuscitated by the breath of God
all will be for nothing
Like Mary, we must bring what God imagines for us..
to life
we are called to imagine and give birth to a light
unquenchable by darkness
a strength of soul impervious to the disease of despair
the love of God that is stronger than death
We are called to give birth to the words of
Joel
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your old men will dream dreams ,
your young men will see visions.
on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days.
I will show wonders in the heavens
and on the earth,
And everyone who calls
on the name of the LORD will be saved;
Perhaps it is but my imaginations
maybe just a dream
but won't you make that dream real?
Thank God for Darkness
Isa 60:1-6
Matt 2: 1-12 (visit of the magi)
Sermon: Thank God for Darkness
They followed a star, but ended up in a stable.
That, my friends, is the risk of faith in Christ…
That is the risk of becoming a disciple of Christ…
Follow a star; discover a stable, a little hole in the wall cave.
As we stand at the cusp of a new year,
A New Year in Christ,
A New Year to discover
God’s vision for his people here at Mt. Pleasant
As we stand expectantly at the New Year
And hope for a better year,
Hope that if we approach Christ with the diligence
And the perseverance that the Magi, the Wise Men had
That our year will be better,
That our faith will come easier,
That we will earn a little grace
That our problems will go away
That our hopes will fall out of the sky into our laps
That the shadows and fears of our lives
Will dissipate,
We had best remember that they
Followed a star and ended up in a stable
Following Christ in the New Year
As a church,
And as individuals,
Might take us places we have never been
Might teach us things
Might challenge us
Might put us in uncomfortable situations
Challenge us to believe things we never thought possible
Or things that aren’t’ popular…
That is what happened to these
Wise men, as they followed a star…
We tend to look at these wise men
Astrologer’s from Iraq,
Learned men,
Wealthy men,
And we may romanticize,
Begin to think that for them,
Faith was an easy thing.
We may wish that life for us were as easy
As it was for the Wise Men.
All they had to do was look at the star
The future, the path, the will of God
Was as plain and apparent and brilliant
It was a neon sign twinkling in the dark night sky…
If only faith could be that way, we might think,
If only, this year, I could know the path, as did the wise men
If only God would make it crystal clear,
How I am supposed to live,
If God would make it obvious
About my job, or lack of work
About my family,
How I am to parent,
How I am supposed to be single parent,
Where I would find love,
How I might talk to my teenagers,
Overcome stress,
Overcome addiction
Save my marriage,
Live with disappointment
Live alone for the first time in years
If only God would make it obvious
Like God did for the wise men…
But here is the kicker,
If we read this story carefully,
The Wise men aren’t that wise…
I read the comments of one of my favorite scholars and preachers,
And he suggested that the wise men knew Isa 60
that we read this morning.
The wise men,
Based on their reading of the stars
And perhaps their reading of the Prophet Isaiah
Thought they had God’s will for their future all figured out
They thought it was as plain as the star in the sky…
Isaiah 60 is a poem of hope to a discouraged nation of Israel
They have had a bad year, as we; in some ways have had a bad year,
They had been overtaken by a military power stronger than their own
Separated from family and friends,
Rulers and influential people taken into exile
The government was in ruins
Their economy was in ruins
Their temple was destroyed
Their entire way of life gone
They felt, like we do sometimes
As if there is no future,
They didn’t know how to go on
Without family, or faith, or jobs
They didn’t know how to raise their children
Or care for their elderly
And they didn’t know whom to turn to help or hope,
Surely if God existed,
this terrible thing wouldn’t have happened…
Then this Isaiah shows up
And says, it may seem dark now,
But a light is coming,
A light is coming that will bring back our families
And will teach us how to be a loving family again
A light is coming that will bring back our towns and communities
A light is coming that will bring back a just government
And a thriving economy
And jobs for everyone
And we will no longer be cursed we will be blessed
We will no longer feel alone and abandoned and without hope…
For our light will come
Well, the wise men read this
And they felt sure that this light had finally come
That the ruler who would do all of these things had been born
And where else would a ruler be born, but in the
Capital, Jerusalem?
So they go to the castle, that is where
Princes are born
And they talk to the king Herod
Who they assume will be a proud father
But he has no idea what they are talking about
So he goes to his wise men and they say,
Well, these wise men have miss-interpreted the scripture…
They thought the Messiah, the light of the world, would be born in Jerusalem
But Micah, the prophet Micah, says Bethlehem…
Imagine the shock of the Wise Men,
They had been wrong!
They thought, they assumed that they knew the will of God
They knew what the future would hold
And they thought the future was in the splendor
Of great halls,
In riches and prominence and opulence
In society, economy and military might…
But that was not the plan of God,
God did not plan to support, condone, or disseminate
This kind of righteousness or justice or hope
God sent Jesus to subvert all of that.
Imagine the shock, the surprise,
Perhaps the disappointment
Of the Wise Men
That God was not doing things the way they thought
That God was not acting the way they expected,
That God was not giving what they had hoped for…
That is our lesson, not only for today,
But for the New Year,
As we hope and dream, and pray and expect
For our lives
And for the life of this church…
We must be prepared to follow the star,
To a stable…
We must be prepared for God to do some new and strange things
We must be prepared to be challenged by God
We must expect that God will put us in some strange and uncomfortable places
Not a palace of ease, but a stable of work
Not a dream of the past, but hope for the future…
That is the mistake so many made,
And so many still make today,
Looking to the past,
If only God would bring us a king like David of old
If only God would make us a nation
Like we were in the past
And because they looked to the past,
They missed Jesus,
We too, many churches look to the past
If only it was like yesterday,
Like the wise men, and the disciples and the religious rulers
If we look to the past, our eyes are not on Christ…
Our light comes by moving ahead, not going back
What impresses me most about the Wise Men, in closing
Is that despite their disappointments, they kept moving
Despite the fact that God did not give them what they expected,
They were persistent,
They did not give up,
They did not turn aside
They did not give in
When God placed these
Very well-off,
Well dressed, cultured educated wise men
In a smelly, somewhat dirty cave with livestock
And simple shepherds instead of kings and rulers and influential people
They didn’t stop believing in the light…
That is our challenge for this coming year,
For every one of us, you and I…
For God will challenge us this year,
God will take us to places we have never been
God will ask us to do things we never thought of doing
God will not always give us what we want
Or present us with the ministry or mission
Or education opportunities that we want
God will present us with what he needs done…
And that might make us uncomfortable,
The disciples were uncomfortable when Jesus talked to children
It might disappoint us
The disciples were disappointed that Jesus would not
Lead them into battle
It might challenge our beliefs
When Jesus ate with prostitutes and sinners
He challenged people’s beliefs
It might even be unpopular
When he spoke with women
And touched lepers
And saved a woman from being stoned
He certainly wasn’t popular…
The further challenge is, will we journey on
As did the Wise Men,
Or will we turn back
To what is more comfortable
And what we know and expect
It requires diligence on our part
Faith will not just fall out of the sky
We must seek it,
Chase it
Journey toward this faith in Christ…
Toward God’s will for us
Will we be diligent in the coming year?
Finally, let us pray for darkness…
The wise men could see all too well,
They thought that they knew what too expect
They thought they could see the plans of God
And they ended up in the wrong place
Let us pray for darkness
So that we would not lean on our own understanding
But grasp tightly to God’s hand
Leaning entirely on his will and way
It is only in the darkness
That we will see our star…
Let us pray for diligence and darkness…
Amen…
Matt 2: 1-12 (visit of the magi)
Sermon: Thank God for Darkness
They followed a star, but ended up in a stable.
That, my friends, is the risk of faith in Christ…
That is the risk of becoming a disciple of Christ…
Follow a star; discover a stable, a little hole in the wall cave.
As we stand at the cusp of a new year,
A New Year in Christ,
A New Year to discover
God’s vision for his people here at Mt. Pleasant
As we stand expectantly at the New Year
And hope for a better year,
Hope that if we approach Christ with the diligence
And the perseverance that the Magi, the Wise Men had
That our year will be better,
That our faith will come easier,
That we will earn a little grace
That our problems will go away
That our hopes will fall out of the sky into our laps
That the shadows and fears of our lives
Will dissipate,
We had best remember that they
Followed a star and ended up in a stable
Following Christ in the New Year
As a church,
And as individuals,
Might take us places we have never been
Might teach us things
Might challenge us
Might put us in uncomfortable situations
Challenge us to believe things we never thought possible
Or things that aren’t’ popular…
That is what happened to these
Wise men, as they followed a star…
We tend to look at these wise men
Astrologer’s from Iraq,
Learned men,
Wealthy men,
And we may romanticize,
Begin to think that for them,
Faith was an easy thing.
We may wish that life for us were as easy
As it was for the Wise Men.
All they had to do was look at the star
The future, the path, the will of God
Was as plain and apparent and brilliant
It was a neon sign twinkling in the dark night sky…
If only faith could be that way, we might think,
If only, this year, I could know the path, as did the wise men
If only God would make it crystal clear,
How I am supposed to live,
If God would make it obvious
About my job, or lack of work
About my family,
How I am to parent,
How I am supposed to be single parent,
Where I would find love,
How I might talk to my teenagers,
Overcome stress,
Overcome addiction
Save my marriage,
Live with disappointment
Live alone for the first time in years
If only God would make it obvious
Like God did for the wise men…
But here is the kicker,
If we read this story carefully,
The Wise men aren’t that wise…
I read the comments of one of my favorite scholars and preachers,
And he suggested that the wise men knew Isa 60
that we read this morning.
The wise men,
Based on their reading of the stars
And perhaps their reading of the Prophet Isaiah
Thought they had God’s will for their future all figured out
They thought it was as plain as the star in the sky…
Isaiah 60 is a poem of hope to a discouraged nation of Israel
They have had a bad year, as we; in some ways have had a bad year,
They had been overtaken by a military power stronger than their own
Separated from family and friends,
Rulers and influential people taken into exile
The government was in ruins
Their economy was in ruins
Their temple was destroyed
Their entire way of life gone
They felt, like we do sometimes
As if there is no future,
They didn’t know how to go on
Without family, or faith, or jobs
They didn’t know how to raise their children
Or care for their elderly
And they didn’t know whom to turn to help or hope,
Surely if God existed,
this terrible thing wouldn’t have happened…
Then this Isaiah shows up
And says, it may seem dark now,
But a light is coming,
A light is coming that will bring back our families
And will teach us how to be a loving family again
A light is coming that will bring back our towns and communities
A light is coming that will bring back a just government
And a thriving economy
And jobs for everyone
And we will no longer be cursed we will be blessed
We will no longer feel alone and abandoned and without hope…
For our light will come
Well, the wise men read this
And they felt sure that this light had finally come
That the ruler who would do all of these things had been born
And where else would a ruler be born, but in the
Capital, Jerusalem?
So they go to the castle, that is where
Princes are born
And they talk to the king Herod
Who they assume will be a proud father
But he has no idea what they are talking about
So he goes to his wise men and they say,
Well, these wise men have miss-interpreted the scripture…
They thought the Messiah, the light of the world, would be born in Jerusalem
But Micah, the prophet Micah, says Bethlehem…
Imagine the shock of the Wise Men,
They had been wrong!
They thought, they assumed that they knew the will of God
They knew what the future would hold
And they thought the future was in the splendor
Of great halls,
In riches and prominence and opulence
In society, economy and military might…
But that was not the plan of God,
God did not plan to support, condone, or disseminate
This kind of righteousness or justice or hope
God sent Jesus to subvert all of that.
Imagine the shock, the surprise,
Perhaps the disappointment
Of the Wise Men
That God was not doing things the way they thought
That God was not acting the way they expected,
That God was not giving what they had hoped for…
That is our lesson, not only for today,
But for the New Year,
As we hope and dream, and pray and expect
For our lives
And for the life of this church…
We must be prepared to follow the star,
To a stable…
We must be prepared for God to do some new and strange things
We must be prepared to be challenged by God
We must expect that God will put us in some strange and uncomfortable places
Not a palace of ease, but a stable of work
Not a dream of the past, but hope for the future…
That is the mistake so many made,
And so many still make today,
Looking to the past,
If only God would bring us a king like David of old
If only God would make us a nation
Like we were in the past
And because they looked to the past,
They missed Jesus,
We too, many churches look to the past
If only it was like yesterday,
Like the wise men, and the disciples and the religious rulers
If we look to the past, our eyes are not on Christ…
Our light comes by moving ahead, not going back
What impresses me most about the Wise Men, in closing
Is that despite their disappointments, they kept moving
Despite the fact that God did not give them what they expected,
They were persistent,
They did not give up,
They did not turn aside
They did not give in
When God placed these
Very well-off,
Well dressed, cultured educated wise men
In a smelly, somewhat dirty cave with livestock
And simple shepherds instead of kings and rulers and influential people
They didn’t stop believing in the light…
That is our challenge for this coming year,
For every one of us, you and I…
For God will challenge us this year,
God will take us to places we have never been
God will ask us to do things we never thought of doing
God will not always give us what we want
Or present us with the ministry or mission
Or education opportunities that we want
God will present us with what he needs done…
And that might make us uncomfortable,
The disciples were uncomfortable when Jesus talked to children
It might disappoint us
The disciples were disappointed that Jesus would not
Lead them into battle
It might challenge our beliefs
When Jesus ate with prostitutes and sinners
He challenged people’s beliefs
It might even be unpopular
When he spoke with women
And touched lepers
And saved a woman from being stoned
He certainly wasn’t popular…
The further challenge is, will we journey on
As did the Wise Men,
Or will we turn back
To what is more comfortable
And what we know and expect
It requires diligence on our part
Faith will not just fall out of the sky
We must seek it,
Chase it
Journey toward this faith in Christ…
Toward God’s will for us
Will we be diligent in the coming year?
Finally, let us pray for darkness…
The wise men could see all too well,
They thought that they knew what too expect
They thought they could see the plans of God
And they ended up in the wrong place
Let us pray for darkness
So that we would not lean on our own understanding
But grasp tightly to God’s hand
Leaning entirely on his will and way
It is only in the darkness
That we will see our star…
Let us pray for diligence and darkness…
Amen…
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Motivated by Joy
Motivated by Joy
Zeph 3: 14-20
(after reading the scripture)
That’s nice isn’t it?
Just a couple of random little details on verse 17: 17The Lord, your God, is in your midst, a warrior who gives victory; he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will renew you in his love; he will exult over you with loud singing 18as on a day of festival. I will remove disaster from you, so that you will not bear reproach for it.
In Hebrew, the word that is translated ‘exult’ literally means shine… so God is shining, beaming as God sings over Israel… and perhaps even more vivid an image, ‘rejoice’ comes from a Hebrew word that means spin or twirl… so God is glad that God is spinning with delight. Honestly that hasn’t got anything to do with the sermon… but I just enjoyed imaging God singing and shining and spinning with delight over ‘His’ children Israel… and by extension, all of us here…
What struck me about this reading is the lectionary decision-makers, those who chose this particular reading, skipped over the first two chapters of Zephaniah and I don’t think we get the full force of God’s delight unless we look at the first two chapters.
Perhaps this is why:
Zephaniah 1:
2I will utterly sweep away everything from the face of the earth, says the Lord. 3I will sweep away humans and animals; I will sweep away the birds of the air and the fish of the sea. I will make the wicked stumble. I will cut off humanity from the face of the earth, says the Lord.
And then
14The great day of the Lord is near, near and hastening fast; the sound of the day of the Lord is bitter, the warrior cries aloud there. 15That day will be a day of wrath, a day of distress and anguish, a day of ruin and devastation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness, 16a day of trumpet blast and battle cry against the fortified cities and against the lofty battlements. 17I will bring such distress upon people that they shall walk like the blind; because they have sinned against the Lord, their blood shall be poured out like dust, and their flesh like dung.
You can see why this is skipped over this right? How do we make sense of this? Chapters 1 &2 all about God’s wrath… and this abrupt shift at the end of chapter 3 where God spins with Joy.
I started thinking about Joy. How could Zephaniah be so confident both in God’s wrath and in God’s joy? What does joy mean? Is it pleasure, is it happiness?
Pleasure to me suggests an instant gratification. Instant gratification makes me think of chocolate. Nothing makes me feel good, like chocolate. You ask my wife. No matter how long, tiring, or stressful my day has been, all that goes away with a Hershey Bar, a big jar of Peanut Butter and a tall glass of milk. Now I’m not trying to preach against pleasure, although a life lived in pursuit of pleasure alone becomes a pretty empty and meaningless life. One is never satisfied or at peace, because some new experience, some new pleasure has to be found the instant after the last pleasure is experience.
Happiness is different. Happiness is an emotion that last longer. But even happiness doesn’t last forever, and often happiness is connected, like pleasure to immediate circumstance and the things, or the people that surround us.
I do think that our society is overly focused on both pleasure and happiness. The advertising message that we are bombarded with on television and radio promise us pleasure and happiness with every new thing that we buy; a TV, cell-phone, video games, car, etc. etc. Again, I’m not preaching against happiness… I’m just saying that the way our culture defines happiness isn’t that different from pleasure… and when we focus simply or solely on these pleasure and/or happiness, I think we find ourselves wandering away from the path that leads to God.
Zephaniah’s warnings, as far as I can tell, come because he feels that Israel, having returned from exile to their homeland, are seeking pleasure and happiness, instead of pursuing joy. Zephaniah is upset because he see’s Israel dressing like ‘foreigners’ worshiping their gods, treating the poor with disdain. In other words, they are seeking the quick and easy comfort of other gods, other cultural practices, and of material gain and wealth. And what Zephaniah wants them to focus on is joy.
Joy operates on a different level because joy, biblically, according to Zephaniah, is a gift of God. God is faithful, compassionate, and aware of ‘His’ people. God’s people experience joy when they are faithful, compassion and aware of others and God… which may not be easy, and which may not offer instant pleasure. Sometimes remaining faithful requires sacrifice and creates a sting. Joy isn’t measured, according to Zephaniah, in the immediate moment. Joy accumulated over time, it is a goal, not an instant pleasure or an emotion. It is the peace that comes when one has focused faithfully on one’s faithful relationship to God. When one can look back over time and know that no matter what the distraction, regardless of the temptations or the hardships, one has remained faithful to God and God’s people. Joy is an imaginative event, in which, we choose our actions and behaviors, not based on immediate circumstances, but upon a vision of who God has created us to be. That may not be easy or simple here and now, and it may call for sacrifice immediately… but we sacrifice now for a gain in the future, which is to know, to joyfully acknowledge that we were faithful, and nothing could persuade us, or control us, or sway us from faithfulness to God’s way.
I’m not sure I’m making this clear enough so let me share personally, if you don’t mind.
This past week there was a bit of a dust-up in my family…. Not immediate and not my wife’s side… I’m not going to embarrass anyone sitting here. This was my side. Some extended family members on my side, said some unkind things about relatives whom I care about and I’ve been very upset. It may sound silly since I rarely get home and see extended family. But I have been really upset about this. And my first response is to cut those folks off; no phone calls, no emails, no visits. If you want to act that way, I’m not going to deal with you. You are cut off, dead to me.
That is me. But I’ve been thinking about Zephaniah too, for this sermon. And I couldn’t square my natural reaction to this with what Zephaniah is saying. Joy comes from being faithful to God. Being faithful to God requires me to be patient and kind and loving and forgiving… and doesn’t give me excuses not to be. You see what I mean? Faithfulness isn’t always easy… sometimes it really stings.
And I started thinking about the future. One day, Berean will be remembering me, like you do Rev. Hall now. Do I want you to say; Pastor Darin was really nice as long as you didn’t cross him. But once you got on his bad side, you stayed there forever. No, I don’t want that. I don’t my boys to remember their father, one day, as holding grudges and cutting people off when they were human? No, I want them to remember me, as I said, as kind and forgiving. Being patient and forgiving right now, will not bring me pleasure. What would bring me pleasure would be calling that certain someone on the phone and telling them just what I think of them. Being loving and kind, won’t necessarily make me happy right now. Cutting them off and never speaking to them again, would make me happy. But these things won’t bring me joy. What will bring me joy is knowing, one day, that no one and nothing could dissuade me from my faithfulness to God, which taught me how to be merciful and loving. Does that make sense.
And I’ve been surprised at how even now, I find joy in the midst of this personal struggle and the anger and pain of it. I feel joy that I have resources to draw on that keep me from spreading anger and hurt, and that help me to create peace, even when Im not feeling peaceful.
If we just read Zephaniah 3, without chapters 1 and 2, Joy seems so easy. And Joy is not easy in Zephaniah. It requires something of us. It costs us something. But it also promises us something. It promises us a clear path through difficult, stressful times. It doesn’t promise us immediate pleasure, but it does promise us a sure guidance and a steady course when the world around is us confusing and our own feelings are muddled. Joy becomes a North Star to guide us in our darkness. That is why Zephaniah begins with wrath. To give us the surprising gift of joy in every circumstance… so that joy is something we can carry within ourselves, no matter what happens around us. To give us a gift of God’s presence that lasts, so that we can stop pursuing empty pleasure endlessly and find security in the Joy that only God’s faithfulness can bring.
Zeph 3: 14-20
(after reading the scripture)
That’s nice isn’t it?
Just a couple of random little details on verse 17: 17The Lord, your God, is in your midst, a warrior who gives victory; he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will renew you in his love; he will exult over you with loud singing 18as on a day of festival. I will remove disaster from you, so that you will not bear reproach for it.
In Hebrew, the word that is translated ‘exult’ literally means shine… so God is shining, beaming as God sings over Israel… and perhaps even more vivid an image, ‘rejoice’ comes from a Hebrew word that means spin or twirl… so God is glad that God is spinning with delight. Honestly that hasn’t got anything to do with the sermon… but I just enjoyed imaging God singing and shining and spinning with delight over ‘His’ children Israel… and by extension, all of us here…
What struck me about this reading is the lectionary decision-makers, those who chose this particular reading, skipped over the first two chapters of Zephaniah and I don’t think we get the full force of God’s delight unless we look at the first two chapters.
Perhaps this is why:
Zephaniah 1:
2I will utterly sweep away everything from the face of the earth, says the Lord. 3I will sweep away humans and animals; I will sweep away the birds of the air and the fish of the sea. I will make the wicked stumble. I will cut off humanity from the face of the earth, says the Lord.
And then
14The great day of the Lord is near, near and hastening fast; the sound of the day of the Lord is bitter, the warrior cries aloud there. 15That day will be a day of wrath, a day of distress and anguish, a day of ruin and devastation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness, 16a day of trumpet blast and battle cry against the fortified cities and against the lofty battlements. 17I will bring such distress upon people that they shall walk like the blind; because they have sinned against the Lord, their blood shall be poured out like dust, and their flesh like dung.
You can see why this is skipped over this right? How do we make sense of this? Chapters 1 &2 all about God’s wrath… and this abrupt shift at the end of chapter 3 where God spins with Joy.
I started thinking about Joy. How could Zephaniah be so confident both in God’s wrath and in God’s joy? What does joy mean? Is it pleasure, is it happiness?
Pleasure to me suggests an instant gratification. Instant gratification makes me think of chocolate. Nothing makes me feel good, like chocolate. You ask my wife. No matter how long, tiring, or stressful my day has been, all that goes away with a Hershey Bar, a big jar of Peanut Butter and a tall glass of milk. Now I’m not trying to preach against pleasure, although a life lived in pursuit of pleasure alone becomes a pretty empty and meaningless life. One is never satisfied or at peace, because some new experience, some new pleasure has to be found the instant after the last pleasure is experience.
Happiness is different. Happiness is an emotion that last longer. But even happiness doesn’t last forever, and often happiness is connected, like pleasure to immediate circumstance and the things, or the people that surround us.
I do think that our society is overly focused on both pleasure and happiness. The advertising message that we are bombarded with on television and radio promise us pleasure and happiness with every new thing that we buy; a TV, cell-phone, video games, car, etc. etc. Again, I’m not preaching against happiness… I’m just saying that the way our culture defines happiness isn’t that different from pleasure… and when we focus simply or solely on these pleasure and/or happiness, I think we find ourselves wandering away from the path that leads to God.
Zephaniah’s warnings, as far as I can tell, come because he feels that Israel, having returned from exile to their homeland, are seeking pleasure and happiness, instead of pursuing joy. Zephaniah is upset because he see’s Israel dressing like ‘foreigners’ worshiping their gods, treating the poor with disdain. In other words, they are seeking the quick and easy comfort of other gods, other cultural practices, and of material gain and wealth. And what Zephaniah wants them to focus on is joy.
Joy operates on a different level because joy, biblically, according to Zephaniah, is a gift of God. God is faithful, compassionate, and aware of ‘His’ people. God’s people experience joy when they are faithful, compassion and aware of others and God… which may not be easy, and which may not offer instant pleasure. Sometimes remaining faithful requires sacrifice and creates a sting. Joy isn’t measured, according to Zephaniah, in the immediate moment. Joy accumulated over time, it is a goal, not an instant pleasure or an emotion. It is the peace that comes when one has focused faithfully on one’s faithful relationship to God. When one can look back over time and know that no matter what the distraction, regardless of the temptations or the hardships, one has remained faithful to God and God’s people. Joy is an imaginative event, in which, we choose our actions and behaviors, not based on immediate circumstances, but upon a vision of who God has created us to be. That may not be easy or simple here and now, and it may call for sacrifice immediately… but we sacrifice now for a gain in the future, which is to know, to joyfully acknowledge that we were faithful, and nothing could persuade us, or control us, or sway us from faithfulness to God’s way.
I’m not sure I’m making this clear enough so let me share personally, if you don’t mind.
This past week there was a bit of a dust-up in my family…. Not immediate and not my wife’s side… I’m not going to embarrass anyone sitting here. This was my side. Some extended family members on my side, said some unkind things about relatives whom I care about and I’ve been very upset. It may sound silly since I rarely get home and see extended family. But I have been really upset about this. And my first response is to cut those folks off; no phone calls, no emails, no visits. If you want to act that way, I’m not going to deal with you. You are cut off, dead to me.
That is me. But I’ve been thinking about Zephaniah too, for this sermon. And I couldn’t square my natural reaction to this with what Zephaniah is saying. Joy comes from being faithful to God. Being faithful to God requires me to be patient and kind and loving and forgiving… and doesn’t give me excuses not to be. You see what I mean? Faithfulness isn’t always easy… sometimes it really stings.
And I started thinking about the future. One day, Berean will be remembering me, like you do Rev. Hall now. Do I want you to say; Pastor Darin was really nice as long as you didn’t cross him. But once you got on his bad side, you stayed there forever. No, I don’t want that. I don’t my boys to remember their father, one day, as holding grudges and cutting people off when they were human? No, I want them to remember me, as I said, as kind and forgiving. Being patient and forgiving right now, will not bring me pleasure. What would bring me pleasure would be calling that certain someone on the phone and telling them just what I think of them. Being loving and kind, won’t necessarily make me happy right now. Cutting them off and never speaking to them again, would make me happy. But these things won’t bring me joy. What will bring me joy is knowing, one day, that no one and nothing could dissuade me from my faithfulness to God, which taught me how to be merciful and loving. Does that make sense.
And I’ve been surprised at how even now, I find joy in the midst of this personal struggle and the anger and pain of it. I feel joy that I have resources to draw on that keep me from spreading anger and hurt, and that help me to create peace, even when Im not feeling peaceful.
If we just read Zephaniah 3, without chapters 1 and 2, Joy seems so easy. And Joy is not easy in Zephaniah. It requires something of us. It costs us something. But it also promises us something. It promises us a clear path through difficult, stressful times. It doesn’t promise us immediate pleasure, but it does promise us a sure guidance and a steady course when the world around is us confusing and our own feelings are muddled. Joy becomes a North Star to guide us in our darkness. That is why Zephaniah begins with wrath. To give us the surprising gift of joy in every circumstance… so that joy is something we can carry within ourselves, no matter what happens around us. To give us a gift of God’s presence that lasts, so that we can stop pursuing empty pleasure endlessly and find security in the Joy that only God’s faithfulness can bring.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Learning to Forgive
What does forgiveness mean? And What Doesn’t it mean.
A couple of weeks ago, as I was walking my son to school he asked me what I was going to preach about on Sunday. I told him I had a couple in the ole hopper… one on music and singing and the other on forgiveness… I was thinking about and researching both. Didn’t you just preach on forgiveness? He asked. Yeah, your right son, I probably did preach on it not that long ago.Why do you spend so much time preaching on Forgiveness he asked? Well… good question… how do I answer it?
Because, I said to him, forgiveness is one of the hardest of the Christian practices to learn… its really hard to forgive when we have been hurt. BUT… forgiveness is not only what we do, forgiveness is who we are… If we follow Christ, we are forgiving people, even when it is hard and even when it is risky.
Forgiveness is tough to talk about because it is so risky. To commit ourselves to forgiving is to, in essence, commit ourselves to the risk of being hurt. I don’t mean to be a downer… but I think that is where the bible pushes us. Forgiveness as a self-help practice that will make us feel better is a bit of a mis-representation of forgiveness as jesus taught it and lived it. I have been guilty of this misrepresentation myself. Its just that its awfully hard to talk about forgiveness is one shot because there are so many facets to forgiveness. I think forgiveness can give us peace and make us feel better, sometimes. Other times it is just soul-wrenching gutsy work that hurts.
I think that preachers offer too much wiggle room about forgiveness, me included and I want to address that over the next couple of weeks… but first, I do want to offer you some wiggle room.
There are some situations, extreme, but real and prevalent, I’m afraid where forgiveness has to be very specifically defined. Forgiveness is the promise that anyone can return to the love of God, no matter what their past holds. And this is troubling because we, who have been hurt, feel violated by the idea that someone who has hurt us, may, in fact, be loved by God too. Specifically I am thinking about someone who has been emotionally, physically or sexually abused. If I forgive the abuser, am I not opening myself up to the risk of being hurt again? While basically the idea of forgiveness, as we will see, is that nothing can separate us from the love of God… sometimes we do need to have boundaries so that we will not be hurt again. Forgiveness of someone who has hurt us physically or sexually does not require us, in my opinion, to make ourselves available for more abuse. Forgiveness in this case would not be a return to relationship. While I think Jesus did want our forgiveness to be riskier than we would like… I don’t think Jesus, who spent his lifetime freeing people from abuse, to stay in these specific kinds of abuse for the sake of ‘forgiveness.’ In these cases I think that forgiveness would be more ‘Zen’ and that sounds funny, because we are Christians not Buddhists. I mean, forgiveness would mean that we do not wish harm on the person who has abused us. Now… I do not mean that we do not wish justice, or consequences. I am not saying that the police should not be notified or the legal system availed. We can forgive and still call the police… we should, in these cases call the police, get authorities and the legal system involved. But instead of wishing the abuser pain or suffering, (even thought they deserve it) forgiving them would mean wishing that some day, some how, they too would come to know that God loves them… does that make sense? It doesn’t mean keeping quiet or not getting the authorities involved or not pressing charges. It does mean that in our own hearts, we begin a process, and it is a gradual process I am sure, where we do not harbor angry or vengeful thoughts. Notice too, that I said process. Anger and vengful thoughts would be a normal part of the healing process, to be guided by therapists and pastor and perhaps one or two loving friends. So I’m not saying its wrong to feel angry or vengeful. I’m saying that we accept them as natural, without guilt or shame, and then, under proper guidance, move toward a place of peace, over time, patiently with ourselves… does that make sense?
Now, to get back to the risk of forgiveness…. Lets read a story… Luke 15;11-32
So, I gotta tell ya; my first reaction is that I want to shake the father. I mean, I get it. Its his boy, his little boy. But still I wanna shake this guy because he’s opening himself up to so much more hurt. I can see this turning into oh, I don’t know… can I borrow some money, and then some more money. I can see this turning into, can I borrow the car, and then the car getting, oh, I don’t know, run into a ditch. I can see the son rifling through the old man’s wallet for cash, or stealing his credit cards for the cash advance. I can see parties at hotels with all sorts of new friends and drugs and booze.
And then the son returning with an, I’m sorry dad, I really am. I’ll do better this time. Can you see it too? I can imagine it, because I’ve seen it. And you’ve witnessed it too, no doubt.
Which reminds me of two things; a movie and real life experience.
At my first church in providence I did a lot of work trying to convince the members that we should be doing something to help the many homeless people who hung around our neighborhood and sought shelter on at our front door. So, I’ve been working at this and working at this and finally they invite someone from the street in after church for something to eat. Well, she promptly starts shoving the ladies purses in a trash bag when she thinks no one was looking. Do you hear what I am saying… you open yourself up and this is the thanks you get right?
In the movie ‘the Wrestler’ Micky Rourke plays washed up professional wrestler Randy the Ram. We meet him on the down-hill slide. His body is breaking down from all the injuries and drug and alcohol abuse, and no matter how many steroids and pain-killers he takes, he can’t perform at the level he once did. He can’t get a job because the only thing on his resume is ‘Professional Wrestler’. And he is alone. The plot to the story is his efforts at a comeback, in the wrestling ring and with his daughter, who is now a young adult, living on her own. He was never much of a father, he left when she was young. He never did pay much attention, missed birthdays and dances and proms and graduations. The list promises made and broken would stretch from west coast to east coast and back. But he tries, one last time to create a relationship with her. She throws him out at first, but he persists and in a particularly poignant scene tearfully asks for another chance.
How many of us have been on the receiving end of that… just one more chance?
And I found myself both rooting for Randy the Ram to get his second chance, and wanting to warn his daughter, don’t do it, it’ll only hurt in the end.
So they make a date for that weekend, a dinner date.
Does randy make the date or not?
Your right, he doesn’t .
That is what I see happening with the prodigal son. And that is why I want to shake the father and tell him to wake up, cuz I’ve been on the receiving… giving second chances only to be disappointed. And every time you open yourself up, every time to put yourself out there and hand your heart to someone, and they screw it all up… well, its like there is a little bit less of your heart, you know?
But the story of the Prodigal Son isn’t really a family drama is it?
Who is the prodigal son? Well, he is a symbol of the least and the lost of Israel. The lepers and tax-collectors, prostitutes and brigands, the diseased and impoverished and all those considered expendable, unimportant, a liability, a danger. As Jesus tells this story… this is who jesus has in mind as he describes the prodigal son.
Who is the father? The father is God.
When we think of God, Jesus wants us to have this image. A distinguished gentlemen, who seeing his bedraggled son skulking back home, hikes up his robes and runs with abandon and no concern for how it will look, to embrace his this ragged, dirty, skinny kid and then take him home and feed him up.
It’s really nothing new.
‘The Lord, the Lord,
a God merciful and gracious,
slow to anger,
and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,
7keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation,*
forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,
yet by no means clearing the guilty,
but visiting the iniquity of the parents
upon the children
and the children’s children,
to the third and the fourth generation.’ Ex 34:6-7
Even though God removes Adam and Eve from the Garden, what does he send them with?
Even though Cain kills Abel and he too much be sent away… what does God send him with?
The mercy of God is a constant theme in the Hebrew Scriptures
After Israel makes itself a golden calf to worship… this is God’s reaction…
9The Lord said to Moses, ‘I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are. 10Now let me alone, so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; and of you I will make a great nation.’
11 But Moses implored the Lord his God, and said, ‘O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? 12Why should the Egyptians say, “It was with evil intent that he brought them out to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth”? Turn from your fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people. 13Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them by your own self, saying to them, “I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it for ever.” ’ 14And the Lord changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.
And what makes Jonah so upset with God? The fact that he forgives the Ninevites…
Perhaps the most beautiful of all verses in the Bible describes God’s tender heart for Israel when they have failed
Hosea 11:1-4
When Israel was a child, I loved him,
and out of Egypt I called my son.
2The more I* called them,
the more they went from me;*
they kept sacrificing to the Baals,
and offering incense to idols.
3Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk,
I took them up in my* arms;
but they did not know that I healed them.
4I led them with cords of human kindness,
with bands of love.
I was to them like those
who lift infants to their cheeks.*
I bent down to them and fed them.
Which brings me to what I think is at the heart of learning to forgive, and is most often forgotten. Forgiveness ultimately is about God, not you are me. We forgive, not because it always feels good, or because it is a safe and effective method, but because God forgives, is abounding in mercy… and if by following Christ we hope to be drawn closer to God, we will also be drawn closer to forgiveness… because that just is who God is… that just is what God does.
The bad news about forgiveness is that it doesn’t guarantee success. It will not always keep us safe, sometimes it will hurt. The bad news about forgiveness is what Jesus is teaching us about forgiveness in the story of the prodigal son, which is that it isn’t about us or them, the hurting or the hurtful… its about God… To forgive we have to train our hearts and minds to not be guided and directed by our past experiences and the natural way we protect ourselves from pain by keeping others at arms length. To forgive we have to also train ourselves to choose our actions and reactions not based on how others act, but solely on how God acts. And the bad news as Jonah experienced it… as the great song-writer penned it, is that ‘there’s a wideness in God’s mercy…’
But perhaps that is also the good news.
Because as often as I have been on the receiving end of the disappointment of forgiving and being disappointed… I have also been given a second chance when I didn’t deserve it… and I’ve experienced the freedom that this brings… when someone looks at me not as I am or how I have been, but how I just might be… gives me the strength the drive, the courage to change, to grow, to improve.
The bad news of the prodigal son is the God doesn’t always give us what we deserve, but instead, what we need, which is the gift of grace that sees us as what we still just might be. The good news of forgiveness is that we can be freed to see ourselves as God sees us, full of potential, a blossom waiting flower.
There are two sides to forgiveness: giving and receiving. Although at first sight giving seems to be harder, it often appears that we are not able to offer forgiveness to others because we have not been able to fully receive it. Only as people who have accepted forgiveness can we find the inner freedom to give it.
Henri Nouwen, Bread for the Journey
A couple of weeks ago, as I was walking my son to school he asked me what I was going to preach about on Sunday. I told him I had a couple in the ole hopper… one on music and singing and the other on forgiveness… I was thinking about and researching both. Didn’t you just preach on forgiveness? He asked. Yeah, your right son, I probably did preach on it not that long ago.Why do you spend so much time preaching on Forgiveness he asked? Well… good question… how do I answer it?
Because, I said to him, forgiveness is one of the hardest of the Christian practices to learn… its really hard to forgive when we have been hurt. BUT… forgiveness is not only what we do, forgiveness is who we are… If we follow Christ, we are forgiving people, even when it is hard and even when it is risky.
Forgiveness is tough to talk about because it is so risky. To commit ourselves to forgiving is to, in essence, commit ourselves to the risk of being hurt. I don’t mean to be a downer… but I think that is where the bible pushes us. Forgiveness as a self-help practice that will make us feel better is a bit of a mis-representation of forgiveness as jesus taught it and lived it. I have been guilty of this misrepresentation myself. Its just that its awfully hard to talk about forgiveness is one shot because there are so many facets to forgiveness. I think forgiveness can give us peace and make us feel better, sometimes. Other times it is just soul-wrenching gutsy work that hurts.
I think that preachers offer too much wiggle room about forgiveness, me included and I want to address that over the next couple of weeks… but first, I do want to offer you some wiggle room.
There are some situations, extreme, but real and prevalent, I’m afraid where forgiveness has to be very specifically defined. Forgiveness is the promise that anyone can return to the love of God, no matter what their past holds. And this is troubling because we, who have been hurt, feel violated by the idea that someone who has hurt us, may, in fact, be loved by God too. Specifically I am thinking about someone who has been emotionally, physically or sexually abused. If I forgive the abuser, am I not opening myself up to the risk of being hurt again? While basically the idea of forgiveness, as we will see, is that nothing can separate us from the love of God… sometimes we do need to have boundaries so that we will not be hurt again. Forgiveness of someone who has hurt us physically or sexually does not require us, in my opinion, to make ourselves available for more abuse. Forgiveness in this case would not be a return to relationship. While I think Jesus did want our forgiveness to be riskier than we would like… I don’t think Jesus, who spent his lifetime freeing people from abuse, to stay in these specific kinds of abuse for the sake of ‘forgiveness.’ In these cases I think that forgiveness would be more ‘Zen’ and that sounds funny, because we are Christians not Buddhists. I mean, forgiveness would mean that we do not wish harm on the person who has abused us. Now… I do not mean that we do not wish justice, or consequences. I am not saying that the police should not be notified or the legal system availed. We can forgive and still call the police… we should, in these cases call the police, get authorities and the legal system involved. But instead of wishing the abuser pain or suffering, (even thought they deserve it) forgiving them would mean wishing that some day, some how, they too would come to know that God loves them… does that make sense? It doesn’t mean keeping quiet or not getting the authorities involved or not pressing charges. It does mean that in our own hearts, we begin a process, and it is a gradual process I am sure, where we do not harbor angry or vengeful thoughts. Notice too, that I said process. Anger and vengful thoughts would be a normal part of the healing process, to be guided by therapists and pastor and perhaps one or two loving friends. So I’m not saying its wrong to feel angry or vengeful. I’m saying that we accept them as natural, without guilt or shame, and then, under proper guidance, move toward a place of peace, over time, patiently with ourselves… does that make sense?
Now, to get back to the risk of forgiveness…. Lets read a story… Luke 15;11-32
So, I gotta tell ya; my first reaction is that I want to shake the father. I mean, I get it. Its his boy, his little boy. But still I wanna shake this guy because he’s opening himself up to so much more hurt. I can see this turning into oh, I don’t know… can I borrow some money, and then some more money. I can see this turning into, can I borrow the car, and then the car getting, oh, I don’t know, run into a ditch. I can see the son rifling through the old man’s wallet for cash, or stealing his credit cards for the cash advance. I can see parties at hotels with all sorts of new friends and drugs and booze.
And then the son returning with an, I’m sorry dad, I really am. I’ll do better this time. Can you see it too? I can imagine it, because I’ve seen it. And you’ve witnessed it too, no doubt.
Which reminds me of two things; a movie and real life experience.
At my first church in providence I did a lot of work trying to convince the members that we should be doing something to help the many homeless people who hung around our neighborhood and sought shelter on at our front door. So, I’ve been working at this and working at this and finally they invite someone from the street in after church for something to eat. Well, she promptly starts shoving the ladies purses in a trash bag when she thinks no one was looking. Do you hear what I am saying… you open yourself up and this is the thanks you get right?
In the movie ‘the Wrestler’ Micky Rourke plays washed up professional wrestler Randy the Ram. We meet him on the down-hill slide. His body is breaking down from all the injuries and drug and alcohol abuse, and no matter how many steroids and pain-killers he takes, he can’t perform at the level he once did. He can’t get a job because the only thing on his resume is ‘Professional Wrestler’. And he is alone. The plot to the story is his efforts at a comeback, in the wrestling ring and with his daughter, who is now a young adult, living on her own. He was never much of a father, he left when she was young. He never did pay much attention, missed birthdays and dances and proms and graduations. The list promises made and broken would stretch from west coast to east coast and back. But he tries, one last time to create a relationship with her. She throws him out at first, but he persists and in a particularly poignant scene tearfully asks for another chance.
How many of us have been on the receiving end of that… just one more chance?
And I found myself both rooting for Randy the Ram to get his second chance, and wanting to warn his daughter, don’t do it, it’ll only hurt in the end.
So they make a date for that weekend, a dinner date.
Does randy make the date or not?
Your right, he doesn’t .
That is what I see happening with the prodigal son. And that is why I want to shake the father and tell him to wake up, cuz I’ve been on the receiving… giving second chances only to be disappointed. And every time you open yourself up, every time to put yourself out there and hand your heart to someone, and they screw it all up… well, its like there is a little bit less of your heart, you know?
But the story of the Prodigal Son isn’t really a family drama is it?
Who is the prodigal son? Well, he is a symbol of the least and the lost of Israel. The lepers and tax-collectors, prostitutes and brigands, the diseased and impoverished and all those considered expendable, unimportant, a liability, a danger. As Jesus tells this story… this is who jesus has in mind as he describes the prodigal son.
Who is the father? The father is God.
When we think of God, Jesus wants us to have this image. A distinguished gentlemen, who seeing his bedraggled son skulking back home, hikes up his robes and runs with abandon and no concern for how it will look, to embrace his this ragged, dirty, skinny kid and then take him home and feed him up.
It’s really nothing new.
‘The Lord, the Lord,
a God merciful and gracious,
slow to anger,
and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,
7keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation,*
forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,
yet by no means clearing the guilty,
but visiting the iniquity of the parents
upon the children
and the children’s children,
to the third and the fourth generation.’ Ex 34:6-7
Even though God removes Adam and Eve from the Garden, what does he send them with?
Even though Cain kills Abel and he too much be sent away… what does God send him with?
The mercy of God is a constant theme in the Hebrew Scriptures
After Israel makes itself a golden calf to worship… this is God’s reaction…
9The Lord said to Moses, ‘I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are. 10Now let me alone, so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; and of you I will make a great nation.’
11 But Moses implored the Lord his God, and said, ‘O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? 12Why should the Egyptians say, “It was with evil intent that he brought them out to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth”? Turn from your fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people. 13Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them by your own self, saying to them, “I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it for ever.” ’ 14And the Lord changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.
And what makes Jonah so upset with God? The fact that he forgives the Ninevites…
Perhaps the most beautiful of all verses in the Bible describes God’s tender heart for Israel when they have failed
Hosea 11:1-4
When Israel was a child, I loved him,
and out of Egypt I called my son.
2The more I* called them,
the more they went from me;*
they kept sacrificing to the Baals,
and offering incense to idols.
3Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk,
I took them up in my* arms;
but they did not know that I healed them.
4I led them with cords of human kindness,
with bands of love.
I was to them like those
who lift infants to their cheeks.*
I bent down to them and fed them.
Which brings me to what I think is at the heart of learning to forgive, and is most often forgotten. Forgiveness ultimately is about God, not you are me. We forgive, not because it always feels good, or because it is a safe and effective method, but because God forgives, is abounding in mercy… and if by following Christ we hope to be drawn closer to God, we will also be drawn closer to forgiveness… because that just is who God is… that just is what God does.
The bad news about forgiveness is that it doesn’t guarantee success. It will not always keep us safe, sometimes it will hurt. The bad news about forgiveness is what Jesus is teaching us about forgiveness in the story of the prodigal son, which is that it isn’t about us or them, the hurting or the hurtful… its about God… To forgive we have to train our hearts and minds to not be guided and directed by our past experiences and the natural way we protect ourselves from pain by keeping others at arms length. To forgive we have to also train ourselves to choose our actions and reactions not based on how others act, but solely on how God acts. And the bad news as Jonah experienced it… as the great song-writer penned it, is that ‘there’s a wideness in God’s mercy…’
But perhaps that is also the good news.
Because as often as I have been on the receiving end of the disappointment of forgiving and being disappointed… I have also been given a second chance when I didn’t deserve it… and I’ve experienced the freedom that this brings… when someone looks at me not as I am or how I have been, but how I just might be… gives me the strength the drive, the courage to change, to grow, to improve.
The bad news of the prodigal son is the God doesn’t always give us what we deserve, but instead, what we need, which is the gift of grace that sees us as what we still just might be. The good news of forgiveness is that we can be freed to see ourselves as God sees us, full of potential, a blossom waiting flower.
There are two sides to forgiveness: giving and receiving. Although at first sight giving seems to be harder, it often appears that we are not able to offer forgiveness to others because we have not been able to fully receive it. Only as people who have accepted forgiveness can we find the inner freedom to give it.
Henri Nouwen, Bread for the Journey
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Christian Practices: conversation in conflict
Mt 18:12-17
12 "What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? 13 And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. 14 In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost.
These are the stories we like don’t we. The ‘Blessed-are-the-poor-in-spirit’ stories. Many of us connect with them somehow. Blessed are the people who get laid off at 50, blessed are the single mom’s struggling to pay the rent, blessed are those crushed in credit card debt, blessed are those been to re-hab… over and over again, blessed are the high school drop outs, blessed are those called loser, failure, unfit… There is something comforting about knowing you are in the presence of people who will find a new name for you, a new way of describing you, that doesn’t call to mind past failures and present struggles, but future victories. Find that one place on earth where you are valued and valuable. And there is something inspiring about being THAT community… that group of people who in the name of Jesus, find the worth in those whom the world calls unworthy, who remember the forgotten and love those whom other’s ignore and judge.
This is what I enjoyed the most about the beginning our Visioning Process, which still continues. We started the process with people stories and we heard so many stories about ‘I felt unloved, but here I was loved. I didn’t feel like I had anything to offer, but here I feel important and valuable. I was looking for a family, and I found a family here. ‘
Gathered around Jesus, as he preached this sermon, we know it as the sermon on the Mount, were hundreds of outcasts, the expendables, these were the little ones he referred to… who suddenly heard that the kingdom of heaven was for them, that the God who created the Universe chose them to reveal his love and his power. Suddenly they were no longer the left-over or the left-out… suddenly, Jesus proclaimed… they were vital to God’s purpose and plan, an integral part of Jesus ministry in the world.
But just as we were feeling SOOOOO GOOOOOOD
Comes an IF, Walter Brueggeman coined this phrase ‘the Earth-Shattering If’
He was talking about an IF in Deuteronomy but I think it applies here.
15 "If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over.
This is an earth-shattering if because it pulls us out visions and dreams and parables of lost sheep and the comfort of theory, back into the everyday reality of living a shared life together in community.
Recently Isaac started taking drum lessons. You see we have this game we play at home, the boys and I. We put on a CD or a Live DVD of one of our favorite bands and jump around and play rock band…air guitars, air bass, air drums. Isaac loves air drums. He flails his arms and kicks his feet and has a great time. THEN he started taking drum lessons… learning the basics of reading music and breaking down the rhythm of a song. He had to stop flailing and kicking and start practicing the basics, One and Two and Three and Four, One e and a, Two e and a, Three e and a, Four e and a….
I give him credit, he did it, and he even practiced… but the practice was much different than dreaming about being a rock star and playing air band with dad and brother.
It is to this place, the difference between dreaming and doing, Theory and practice, that Jesus’ word, IF, takes us to. And it takes us to the very heart of our peace-making mission in the world. As radical as it is to welcome and accept others who have a past of writing bad checks or cheating on their wife or loosing job after job… it is even more radical to forgive them when their human failures affect us directly. If your brother sins AGAINST YOU …
Our witness of peacemaking, the very core of our witness to the watching world of the love of God starts when we sin against one another… when we hurt one another, disappoint one another, fail one another. The gathering of lost sheep, rejected sheep, begins in this moment, it begins in that fearful moment of direct conversation.
Its hard for me to even decide where to start because there is just so much to talk about in just this one sentence.
Jesus doesn’t command the person who is wrong, who has sinned to apologize… His command is toward the one wronged, the one hurt, the one sinned against is given the command to go and repair what they didn’t even break.
What do you think? Why would jesus want the process of conversation in the midst of conflict to start this way?
The second aspect of this sentence that I think challenges us is the phrase ‘just between the two of you.’
We don’t do that well do we? We call someone else who is not involved and talk it all over on the phone. We have conversations at coffee hour or in the parking lot with those not involved. Why? Why do we do this?
Because its natural that is why. When we feel hurt or wronged we do not want to be alone in that feeling so we go to someone else so that we don’t have to be alone. As a matter of fact, when you think about the first part of today’s reading, being alone, being the lost sheep is baaaad. Seriously, we see ourselves as those who comfort the hurt and the lonely and the rejected and so our first instinct is to what? To listen, to sympathize, to support.
Now jesus isn’t trying to short circuit that process of supporting one another when we are hurting. BUT. What can also happen when we are hurt is that we can try to gather support… when we are hurt we can want to hurt back and bring others along so that the hurt we give back is greater than what we received. We may not like the terms gossip… or revenge… but these phenomena do happen. We experience them at work, perhaps within our extended families, in the various group we belong to in the community, the school improvement team or business association or what have you.
Why does Jesus push us to go, at least at first, to the individual who has wronged us? To preserve their dignity. So that we do not become a community where there is gossip and whispering and rumor mongering.
And this leads to the third piece of this sentence that is SOOOO different from the world. What is the end result of this Christian conversation process? ‘You have won your brother or sister over. What is the end result? Not punishment but repair. Reconciliation.
What has Christ told us about the lost sheep? That God’s will is that they not be left alone, but sought after and brought back… God’s will is that they are won. The person who has hurt us is the lost sheep who needs to be found and rescued.
Do I really need to say what is so different about the conversation that Christ is teaching us? The end result is healing and a continuation of the relationship.
So let’s just make sure we are all tracking this... Jesus is telling us that the great mission of seeking the lost sheep begins here, at home, in the church, among our brothers and sisters. That the process is a conversation that the hurt or the wronged person begins, initiates. That this conversation is one on one. And does not involve others at the start. And that the end result is not vengeance… it is not making sure that they get their’s… it is winning the person who has hurt us back… So that the body of Christ, the community of faith maintains its full integrity, so that the relationship can move forward.
Now what if we are not heard, or there is no reconciliation what happens?
16 But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that 'every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.'
This is important, but it does not change the values that Jesus has infused our conversational process with. We are still working for the dignity of the one who has been wronged, while preserving the dignity of the person in the wrong, by limiting the number to whom we speak. And the end result is still reconciliation. The one or two others bring an objective opinion to this impasse. The one or two other’s ensure that each party, sinner and sinned against get to speak their piece appropriately and are heard and understood by the other. The one or two others may judge that the accused sinner, has not sinned. This may be a difference of opinion with no one clear solution or answer, so The one or two others seek to find peace that both parties can move forward together, with.
Now if peace cannot be created at this point we hear…
17 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church ; and if he refuses to listen even to the church , treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.
Jesus is probably imagining a smaller church than even we have. I think we could honor this third part of the process by going to the deaconate and not airing an interpersonal problem before eighty or ninety folks. But the point here is that there are three steps in which a dispute, through open and honest dialogue is reshaped into peace and reconciliation.
The greater point is that there is a specific process for dealing with controversy or conflict in the church… conversation, dialogue and there is a particular shape, a Christian way of having a conversation that Jesus is teaching us, so that we will teach it to the world.
12 "What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? 13 And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. 14 In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost.
These are the stories we like don’t we. The ‘Blessed-are-the-poor-in-spirit’ stories. Many of us connect with them somehow. Blessed are the people who get laid off at 50, blessed are the single mom’s struggling to pay the rent, blessed are those crushed in credit card debt, blessed are those been to re-hab… over and over again, blessed are the high school drop outs, blessed are those called loser, failure, unfit… There is something comforting about knowing you are in the presence of people who will find a new name for you, a new way of describing you, that doesn’t call to mind past failures and present struggles, but future victories. Find that one place on earth where you are valued and valuable. And there is something inspiring about being THAT community… that group of people who in the name of Jesus, find the worth in those whom the world calls unworthy, who remember the forgotten and love those whom other’s ignore and judge.
This is what I enjoyed the most about the beginning our Visioning Process, which still continues. We started the process with people stories and we heard so many stories about ‘I felt unloved, but here I was loved. I didn’t feel like I had anything to offer, but here I feel important and valuable. I was looking for a family, and I found a family here. ‘
Gathered around Jesus, as he preached this sermon, we know it as the sermon on the Mount, were hundreds of outcasts, the expendables, these were the little ones he referred to… who suddenly heard that the kingdom of heaven was for them, that the God who created the Universe chose them to reveal his love and his power. Suddenly they were no longer the left-over or the left-out… suddenly, Jesus proclaimed… they were vital to God’s purpose and plan, an integral part of Jesus ministry in the world.
But just as we were feeling SOOOOO GOOOOOOD
Comes an IF, Walter Brueggeman coined this phrase ‘the Earth-Shattering If’
He was talking about an IF in Deuteronomy but I think it applies here.
15 "If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over.
This is an earth-shattering if because it pulls us out visions and dreams and parables of lost sheep and the comfort of theory, back into the everyday reality of living a shared life together in community.
Recently Isaac started taking drum lessons. You see we have this game we play at home, the boys and I. We put on a CD or a Live DVD of one of our favorite bands and jump around and play rock band…air guitars, air bass, air drums. Isaac loves air drums. He flails his arms and kicks his feet and has a great time. THEN he started taking drum lessons… learning the basics of reading music and breaking down the rhythm of a song. He had to stop flailing and kicking and start practicing the basics, One and Two and Three and Four, One e and a, Two e and a, Three e and a, Four e and a….
I give him credit, he did it, and he even practiced… but the practice was much different than dreaming about being a rock star and playing air band with dad and brother.
It is to this place, the difference between dreaming and doing, Theory and practice, that Jesus’ word, IF, takes us to. And it takes us to the very heart of our peace-making mission in the world. As radical as it is to welcome and accept others who have a past of writing bad checks or cheating on their wife or loosing job after job… it is even more radical to forgive them when their human failures affect us directly. If your brother sins AGAINST YOU …
Our witness of peacemaking, the very core of our witness to the watching world of the love of God starts when we sin against one another… when we hurt one another, disappoint one another, fail one another. The gathering of lost sheep, rejected sheep, begins in this moment, it begins in that fearful moment of direct conversation.
Its hard for me to even decide where to start because there is just so much to talk about in just this one sentence.
Jesus doesn’t command the person who is wrong, who has sinned to apologize… His command is toward the one wronged, the one hurt, the one sinned against is given the command to go and repair what they didn’t even break.
What do you think? Why would jesus want the process of conversation in the midst of conflict to start this way?
The second aspect of this sentence that I think challenges us is the phrase ‘just between the two of you.’
We don’t do that well do we? We call someone else who is not involved and talk it all over on the phone. We have conversations at coffee hour or in the parking lot with those not involved. Why? Why do we do this?
Because its natural that is why. When we feel hurt or wronged we do not want to be alone in that feeling so we go to someone else so that we don’t have to be alone. As a matter of fact, when you think about the first part of today’s reading, being alone, being the lost sheep is baaaad. Seriously, we see ourselves as those who comfort the hurt and the lonely and the rejected and so our first instinct is to what? To listen, to sympathize, to support.
Now jesus isn’t trying to short circuit that process of supporting one another when we are hurting. BUT. What can also happen when we are hurt is that we can try to gather support… when we are hurt we can want to hurt back and bring others along so that the hurt we give back is greater than what we received. We may not like the terms gossip… or revenge… but these phenomena do happen. We experience them at work, perhaps within our extended families, in the various group we belong to in the community, the school improvement team or business association or what have you.
Why does Jesus push us to go, at least at first, to the individual who has wronged us? To preserve their dignity. So that we do not become a community where there is gossip and whispering and rumor mongering.
And this leads to the third piece of this sentence that is SOOOO different from the world. What is the end result of this Christian conversation process? ‘You have won your brother or sister over. What is the end result? Not punishment but repair. Reconciliation.
What has Christ told us about the lost sheep? That God’s will is that they not be left alone, but sought after and brought back… God’s will is that they are won. The person who has hurt us is the lost sheep who needs to be found and rescued.
Do I really need to say what is so different about the conversation that Christ is teaching us? The end result is healing and a continuation of the relationship.
So let’s just make sure we are all tracking this... Jesus is telling us that the great mission of seeking the lost sheep begins here, at home, in the church, among our brothers and sisters. That the process is a conversation that the hurt or the wronged person begins, initiates. That this conversation is one on one. And does not involve others at the start. And that the end result is not vengeance… it is not making sure that they get their’s… it is winning the person who has hurt us back… So that the body of Christ, the community of faith maintains its full integrity, so that the relationship can move forward.
Now what if we are not heard, or there is no reconciliation what happens?
16 But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that 'every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.'
This is important, but it does not change the values that Jesus has infused our conversational process with. We are still working for the dignity of the one who has been wronged, while preserving the dignity of the person in the wrong, by limiting the number to whom we speak. And the end result is still reconciliation. The one or two others bring an objective opinion to this impasse. The one or two other’s ensure that each party, sinner and sinned against get to speak their piece appropriately and are heard and understood by the other. The one or two others may judge that the accused sinner, has not sinned. This may be a difference of opinion with no one clear solution or answer, so The one or two others seek to find peace that both parties can move forward together, with.
Now if peace cannot be created at this point we hear…
17 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church ; and if he refuses to listen even to the church , treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.
Jesus is probably imagining a smaller church than even we have. I think we could honor this third part of the process by going to the deaconate and not airing an interpersonal problem before eighty or ninety folks. But the point here is that there are three steps in which a dispute, through open and honest dialogue is reshaped into peace and reconciliation.
The greater point is that there is a specific process for dealing with controversy or conflict in the church… conversation, dialogue and there is a particular shape, a Christian way of having a conversation that Jesus is teaching us, so that we will teach it to the world.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
The Practice of Confession
Couple of things before reading the sermon. I didn't type the end... I just went with that last thought and connected confession with peacemaking. I got the idea for this sermon from a Rob Bell sermon on confession, but if you listen to his sermon, mine is VERY different. Still his did inspire this. Finally, I mention my friend Jonathan Malone, who helped with some history and theology. Thanks Malone.
Intro:
There has been a lot of apologizing in the news this past week. Taylor Swift, who is apparently a country music singer, won an award for a music video. A Rap star named Kanye West interrupted her acceptance speech to give the audience a lecture about how Taylor Swift didn’t deserve the award as much as Beyonce did. Afterword… he had to issue an apology. Serena Williams a tennis pro challenged John McEnroe when a line judge made a bad call… she verbally accosted the line judge in with a barrage of obscenities and threats, which eventually cost her the match. She had to apologize twice. (I’ll come back to that). A football player () had to apologize for having custom cleats made that challenged his team’s owner to pay him for money… he already make 9 million dollars and he feels he is getting cheated. And he had to apologize.
The interesting thing about these apologies is that most of them weren’t apologies. Kanye Apologized to Taylor Swift, but in his apology basically defended what he did by saying he was ‘keeping it real’… which is to say that he was just being honest… and so he apologized if anyone was hurt by it. That is how the football player apologized too. I’m sorry if anyone was offended. Now notice those apologies. I’m sorry if anyone was offended is not actually admitting that you have done something wrong. It isn’t taking responsibility for your actions. Its basically saying that the one’s offended are at fault.
The interesting thing about Serena Williams is that her first apology didn’t sound sincere so she issued another apology which sounded more sincere. I read one sports-writers opinion of this and basically he said that it didn’t really matter if Serena was sorry or not… she just needed to sound apologetic. It didn’t really matter is she meant her apology.
At issue here is honesty and integrity. We live in an age where both seem not only lacking, but it apparently doesn’t seem to matter to people that it is. One president tells the nation there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq… which were never found… the claim never substantiated. And to be fair the previous president wanted to quibble about the meaning of the word is… remember that famous phrase.. it depends on what your definition of is, is.
Which got me to thinking about practice of the early church… a practice that we as Baptist’s don’t think of as a part of our heritage… but I want to suggest that we need to revisit it… just because the culture around us… the culture in which we raise children and grandchildren sets such a low standard for honesty and integrity. That practice is confession.
Turn with me to 1 John 1
Jn 1:8-10; 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.
The Greek word translated confess is homologeo or exomologeo homou means at the same time… logos… word or say… to say or speak …homologeo… so speak at the same time. One translator suggests To be in harmony.
Just to add another perspective Hebrew word for confess is Yahdah… meaning to throw or cast away…
But to get the full effect of what the writer of 1 John is trying to say we have to read the verses that come before what we just read.
1 Jn 1:1-8
1:1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched — this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. 2 The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. 3 We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. 4 We Write this to make our joy complete.
5 This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. 6 If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. 8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
Now, you tell me… what does the first phrase of I John 1… That which was from the beginning… remind you of? It should remind you of the beginning of the gospel of John… which is… In the beginning was the word… and that in turn reminds you of? Genesis 1… In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
In just a few words… just one word in greek really arche… beginning… the writer of first John has taken the story of our human failings and frailty… our sin and connected it to a cosmic story… the story of God creating all things.
This is amazing stuff. Sin is such a difficult word because it carries such baggage doesn’t it. Often it is religious baggage… listening to preachers who attack and berate and judge from the pulpit… No wonder we avoid talking about it… thinking about it… facing it. It can be so painful to remember how isolated we felt, perhaps as kids , when the priest or preacher started condemning and warning and frightening us with sin and hell and punishment and God’s anger.
Notice what is happening in 1 John 1 though that is really quite amazingly different. There is honesty first…6 If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. Ok, so the writer is warning us to be honest with ourselves. And that alone can be a challenge right? The time to honestly stop and take a good look at ourselves is difficult to come by… and if we are carrying baggage then to honestly look can hurt…7 But…the writer pens for us… if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.
Fellowship in Greek is koinonia and it means at its very root sharing….
But the writer of 1 John isn’t talking about sin and confession through scare tactics, judgment, self-righteousness or threats… He is telling us to remember creation. Remember In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth… Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
1 John isn’t inviting us to a horror show of guilt and shame… but to be a part, a participant in this creative act. Whatever failures, mistakes, poor decisions, unhealthy habits… all summed in sin…whatever that sin is that is the formless, empty, deep, darkness that we are avoiding… we can confess… we can honestly admit… because honestly admitting sin leads to a new creation… in us.
Confession, according to 1 John 1 is meant to be a creative, life-affirming and confident act that frees us from the emptiness and darkness of sin and frees us to live into a full life freed from guilt and regret.
Now, lets look at another scripture where confession is mentioned.
Jas 5:15-16
15 And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. 16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.
Where the writer of 1 John talks to us about the benefits of confessing to God our sins… so that we can be freed from darkness and emptiness, toward a new creation… James is a bit more challenging.
Confess your sins to each other, he says
Now, I was raised to believe that confession was all well and good, but that confession to priest or pastor was not necessary or appropriate for Baptists. That was a catholic thing…
I asked my friend Jonathan about confession and he told me something that was shocking. Some Baptist churches in the 1700’s, including the Swansea church, practiced confession. Now individual’s did not come to the preacher to confess. They held a Wednesday night meeting and confessions would be made before the group that had gathered… they would listen, discern, and pray.
Now, before you completely shut the whole idea out of your head…just follow me for a minute.
Remember that in 1 John we had the word fellowship… koinonia in greek… which means sharing. In James why does the writer, James say we should confess to one another? Healing.
Sin is isolation. In Genesis 1 before the Fall, Adam and Eve and Yahweh walk together in the garden. Adam and Eve eat the fruit and then they hide… they are isolated from God. Sin is a separation from God and from one another. And sin is isolating. When we are struggling with sin… we can feel like we are the only one, like no one will understand, that people will think poorly of us, not like or love us anymore… and so we avoid it. What James is urging us to realize is that the best way to deal with the isolation of sin… is to be a community that uses confession so that we can support one another. The church hearing the confession isn’t meant to judge, to banish, to gossip, to punish… but to listen and pray and offer support. I think that what James has in mind is a bit like a twelve step program and meeting… a place where we can confess that we are addicted to whatever… and the people listening do not judge or condone… but understand and offer support.
James idea of church is not that this is meant to be a social club for those who already have it all figured out… but that it would be a family in which the burden of our failings and mistakes wouldn’t have to be carried alone any longer. This isn’t meant to be a social club for those who have it all figured out and straightened out… but a place to come with our brokenness to find support… to find mentors who have had similar struggles… to be isolated no longer.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his book Life Together suggests that confession should be a regular part of the church’s life. He doesn’t suggest that we start admitting things to the whole church… but that we create partnerships… one on one relationships… where we can seek guidance and support with our struggles.
Jesus himself in Mt 18:15 "If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over.
Notice that although confession isn’t mentioned specifically… what is described is confession. And the end result is not vengeance, anger, punishment… but reconciliation. And it just needs to be between two people who have experienced an event that caused isolation and break in their relationship.
I do think that as Baptists we can reclaim the practice of confession, not to a group, perhaps not even as Bonhoeffer suggested a regular practice with a partner… but just in those instances where we have wronged another… to start confession there. The tough part… but important part.. is that the wronged person… being confessed too… becomes the prayer partner… the supportive mentor…
1 John 1: fellowship comes from koinonia –sharer
James 5; the point of confession for James is healing… sin need no longer be isolating… through confession we are no longer alone or ashamed of our failings because we have the unconditional love and support of our sister and brothers in Christ. Confession leads to intimacy, community, confidence…
Confession is a part of the foundation of peacemaking
Intro:
There has been a lot of apologizing in the news this past week. Taylor Swift, who is apparently a country music singer, won an award for a music video. A Rap star named Kanye West interrupted her acceptance speech to give the audience a lecture about how Taylor Swift didn’t deserve the award as much as Beyonce did. Afterword… he had to issue an apology. Serena Williams a tennis pro challenged John McEnroe when a line judge made a bad call… she verbally accosted the line judge in with a barrage of obscenities and threats, which eventually cost her the match. She had to apologize twice. (I’ll come back to that). A football player () had to apologize for having custom cleats made that challenged his team’s owner to pay him for money… he already make 9 million dollars and he feels he is getting cheated. And he had to apologize.
The interesting thing about these apologies is that most of them weren’t apologies. Kanye Apologized to Taylor Swift, but in his apology basically defended what he did by saying he was ‘keeping it real’… which is to say that he was just being honest… and so he apologized if anyone was hurt by it. That is how the football player apologized too. I’m sorry if anyone was offended. Now notice those apologies. I’m sorry if anyone was offended is not actually admitting that you have done something wrong. It isn’t taking responsibility for your actions. Its basically saying that the one’s offended are at fault.
The interesting thing about Serena Williams is that her first apology didn’t sound sincere so she issued another apology which sounded more sincere. I read one sports-writers opinion of this and basically he said that it didn’t really matter if Serena was sorry or not… she just needed to sound apologetic. It didn’t really matter is she meant her apology.
At issue here is honesty and integrity. We live in an age where both seem not only lacking, but it apparently doesn’t seem to matter to people that it is. One president tells the nation there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq… which were never found… the claim never substantiated. And to be fair the previous president wanted to quibble about the meaning of the word is… remember that famous phrase.. it depends on what your definition of is, is.
Which got me to thinking about practice of the early church… a practice that we as Baptist’s don’t think of as a part of our heritage… but I want to suggest that we need to revisit it… just because the culture around us… the culture in which we raise children and grandchildren sets such a low standard for honesty and integrity. That practice is confession.
Turn with me to 1 John 1
Jn 1:8-10; 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.
The Greek word translated confess is homologeo or exomologeo homou means at the same time… logos… word or say… to say or speak …homologeo… so speak at the same time. One translator suggests To be in harmony.
Just to add another perspective Hebrew word for confess is Yahdah… meaning to throw or cast away…
But to get the full effect of what the writer of 1 John is trying to say we have to read the verses that come before what we just read.
1 Jn 1:1-8
1:1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched — this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. 2 The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. 3 We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. 4 We Write this to make our joy complete.
5 This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. 6 If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. 8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
Now, you tell me… what does the first phrase of I John 1… That which was from the beginning… remind you of? It should remind you of the beginning of the gospel of John… which is… In the beginning was the word… and that in turn reminds you of? Genesis 1… In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
In just a few words… just one word in greek really arche… beginning… the writer of first John has taken the story of our human failings and frailty… our sin and connected it to a cosmic story… the story of God creating all things.
This is amazing stuff. Sin is such a difficult word because it carries such baggage doesn’t it. Often it is religious baggage… listening to preachers who attack and berate and judge from the pulpit… No wonder we avoid talking about it… thinking about it… facing it. It can be so painful to remember how isolated we felt, perhaps as kids , when the priest or preacher started condemning and warning and frightening us with sin and hell and punishment and God’s anger.
Notice what is happening in 1 John 1 though that is really quite amazingly different. There is honesty first…6 If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. Ok, so the writer is warning us to be honest with ourselves. And that alone can be a challenge right? The time to honestly stop and take a good look at ourselves is difficult to come by… and if we are carrying baggage then to honestly look can hurt…7 But…the writer pens for us… if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.
Fellowship in Greek is koinonia and it means at its very root sharing….
But the writer of 1 John isn’t talking about sin and confession through scare tactics, judgment, self-righteousness or threats… He is telling us to remember creation. Remember In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth… Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
1 John isn’t inviting us to a horror show of guilt and shame… but to be a part, a participant in this creative act. Whatever failures, mistakes, poor decisions, unhealthy habits… all summed in sin…whatever that sin is that is the formless, empty, deep, darkness that we are avoiding… we can confess… we can honestly admit… because honestly admitting sin leads to a new creation… in us.
Confession, according to 1 John 1 is meant to be a creative, life-affirming and confident act that frees us from the emptiness and darkness of sin and frees us to live into a full life freed from guilt and regret.
Now, lets look at another scripture where confession is mentioned.
Jas 5:15-16
15 And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. 16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.
Where the writer of 1 John talks to us about the benefits of confessing to God our sins… so that we can be freed from darkness and emptiness, toward a new creation… James is a bit more challenging.
Confess your sins to each other, he says
Now, I was raised to believe that confession was all well and good, but that confession to priest or pastor was not necessary or appropriate for Baptists. That was a catholic thing…
I asked my friend Jonathan about confession and he told me something that was shocking. Some Baptist churches in the 1700’s, including the Swansea church, practiced confession. Now individual’s did not come to the preacher to confess. They held a Wednesday night meeting and confessions would be made before the group that had gathered… they would listen, discern, and pray.
Now, before you completely shut the whole idea out of your head…just follow me for a minute.
Remember that in 1 John we had the word fellowship… koinonia in greek… which means sharing. In James why does the writer, James say we should confess to one another? Healing.
Sin is isolation. In Genesis 1 before the Fall, Adam and Eve and Yahweh walk together in the garden. Adam and Eve eat the fruit and then they hide… they are isolated from God. Sin is a separation from God and from one another. And sin is isolating. When we are struggling with sin… we can feel like we are the only one, like no one will understand, that people will think poorly of us, not like or love us anymore… and so we avoid it. What James is urging us to realize is that the best way to deal with the isolation of sin… is to be a community that uses confession so that we can support one another. The church hearing the confession isn’t meant to judge, to banish, to gossip, to punish… but to listen and pray and offer support. I think that what James has in mind is a bit like a twelve step program and meeting… a place where we can confess that we are addicted to whatever… and the people listening do not judge or condone… but understand and offer support.
James idea of church is not that this is meant to be a social club for those who already have it all figured out… but that it would be a family in which the burden of our failings and mistakes wouldn’t have to be carried alone any longer. This isn’t meant to be a social club for those who have it all figured out and straightened out… but a place to come with our brokenness to find support… to find mentors who have had similar struggles… to be isolated no longer.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his book Life Together suggests that confession should be a regular part of the church’s life. He doesn’t suggest that we start admitting things to the whole church… but that we create partnerships… one on one relationships… where we can seek guidance and support with our struggles.
Jesus himself in Mt 18:15 "If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over.
Notice that although confession isn’t mentioned specifically… what is described is confession. And the end result is not vengeance, anger, punishment… but reconciliation. And it just needs to be between two people who have experienced an event that caused isolation and break in their relationship.
I do think that as Baptists we can reclaim the practice of confession, not to a group, perhaps not even as Bonhoeffer suggested a regular practice with a partner… but just in those instances where we have wronged another… to start confession there. The tough part… but important part.. is that the wronged person… being confessed too… becomes the prayer partner… the supportive mentor…
1 John 1: fellowship comes from koinonia –sharer
James 5; the point of confession for James is healing… sin need no longer be isolating… through confession we are no longer alone or ashamed of our failings because we have the unconditional love and support of our sister and brothers in Christ. Confession leads to intimacy, community, confidence…
Confession is a part of the foundation of peacemaking
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)