God at the Center:
The Good News: God gave us the 10 commandments so that we could be free to discover and pursue the life that God created us to live, to be that beautiful image of God that we are created to be.
The Bad News: Idolatry is not simply a religious issue. The problem is not other religions or faiths, but the pattern of our lives, the worship of things through what rivets my attention, centers my activity, preoccupies my mind, and motivates my action. If we take stock of those things, even if we pray to God through Christ, but orient our lives to pleasure, the pursuit of material goods, or trust in violence, we are still worshipping idols and breaking this commandment.
The Celebration: Christ came that we might be free
Intro:
Thomas Long in a Christian Century essay on the 10 Commandments reminds us of the controversy a few years ago, raised by Judge Roy Moore, a chief judge in the Alabama Supreme Court, who waged a war to keep the 10 Commandments in his courthouse, even though it violated separation of church and state. Now, what Long noted, that I found interesting, was that as a part of this fight, Judge Moore carried around a monument of the 10 Commandments on a flat-bed truck, the monument weighing 5,280 pounds, or, as Long noted, approximately 500 lbs per commandments. He needed a five-ton crane to remove the monument from the truck!
The point that Long makes and that I wish to begin with this morning is the metaphor… as silly as this sounds… a 5,280 lb monument of the 10 Commandments, isn’t this how we, Christians, often are taught to think about the 10 Commandments, as a great weight that we are called to carry; ‘heavy yokes to be publicly placed on the necks of a rebellious society’… Long notes.
(Thomas G. Long teaches at Candler School of Theology. This article appeared in The Christian Century, (March 7, 2006. p. 17.) Copyright by The Christian Century Foundation)
But lets look at how the story of God’s giving of the Commandments begins:
Ex 20:2 "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
Did you hear it? Freedom.
The 10 Commandments aren’t meant to add weight, but take it away
Not meant to constrain, but release us.
Its all, of course, in how you define, Freedom,
and freedom in the Bible is different than freedom in popular society…
Merriam Webster dictionary defines freedom
1 : the quality or state of being free: as a : the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action b : liberation from slavery or restraint or from the power of another : independence c : the quality or state of being exempt or released usually from something onerous
But freedom in the bible is different.
The story of Exodus really shows what freedom in the bible is…
Because God wants Israel to be free from Egypt,
so that they can worship and follow God.
Freedom in the Bible isn’t simply a lack of external constraint or control
Freedom isn’t simply, in the negative the absence of oppression
freedom in the Bible is the presence of God at the center of our being
Freedom is for something as Barth once said
with some end, some purpose…
And that freedom, which is toward God, for God, isn’t unfettered, it has a guide, support, some purpose toward which the freedom is progressing.
Like this guitar string… if I take it out of the package, but it just hangs from my hand… its free, nothing constrains it… but it can’t do what it was meant to do… make a sound, and in concert with other strings, make music. But I place it on the guitar, where a peg and a tuner hold that string tight, and the string is free to do what it was intended to do.
Or as I read… a river with no banks is a flood,
A river with strong banks creates power.
God did not want Israel to be oppressed by Egypt, so God gave them freedom…
But unlike the popular view of freedom,
which often has no purpose aside from being unconstrained,
God’s freedom has a purpose,
the goal is to be free so as to commune with God and so to realize the potential image of God in which we are all created.
So, this is the story of the 10 Commandments, an ongoing story of freedom… the freedom that God provided for Israel, in leading them out of Egypt, continues in our experience through the 10 commandments… through them, we are freed…
II. Have no other gods, have no idols.
I stumbled across the story of Dunbar H. Ogden Jr. Mr. Ogden, or more properly, Rev. Ogden was the pastor of Central Presbyterian Church in Little Rock Arkansas in 1957. This was the year that nine African-American students walked to Central High in Little Rock to enroll in school. They were turned away not by the angry mob that surrounded them, but by the National Guard troops the Governor had placed in the front of the school. This happened on September 4th.
On the evening of September 3rd the President of the NAACP called Rev. Ogden on the phone and asked him, as the president of the local ministerial association, to escort the children to school the next morning.
On the one hand Rev. Ogden could see this as an opportunity to be Moses, to part the Sea that stands between African-american children and freedom, freedom brought about by an education….
Or, on the other hand, Rev. Ogden could see, did see the very distinct possibility that if he did act like Moses, he would tear apart his church and ruin his standing in the community and authority as a pastor. He called all the other clergy in the area and only found one other pastor who would agree to go with him.
(from a review of ‘My Father Said Yes: A White Pastor in Little Rock School Integration published in the Christian Century. The theological slant is my own and not that of the author or the reviewer)
Rev. Ogden had a decision to make and I would propose that one way to think about the dilemma that Rev Ogden faced is to ask… Who will his God be? Will Rev. Ogden make a decision based on the biases and expectation of white society in Arkansas? Will that be his god? Will he make a decision based on what he knows to be the expectations of at least half of his congregation? Will that be his idol? Will he make a decision based on the lack of support of his fellow clergy-members? What will be the central motivating factor in his action? That is a theological question… what motivates us, because what motivates us can become our god, our idol…
Luke Timothy Johnson says… ‘my god is that which rivets my attention, centers my activity, preoccupies my mind and motivates my action. That in virtue of which I act is god; that for which I will give up anything else is my god.’
(Sharing Possessions: Mandate and Symbol of Faith)
What is at issue in the first two commandments, to have no other god and make no idols is…
what will be at the center of our lives motivating us, framing our thoughts,
for which we are willing to make sacrifice, for which we will devote time and energy.
It isn’t for North American’s so much a matter of alternate religions…
But about how we will spend time, devote energy, manage money, make sacrifice. But it isn’t just modern North America that this applies too. Listen to the words of Moses from Dt 6, words that come just after God has given the 10 commandments in Deuteronomy’s version of the story…. in Dt 6:10-12, God warns Israel that it will not simply be the official gods of the nations surrounding them, that will tempt them, but their wealth and their possessions;
When the LORD your God brings you into the land he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you — a land with large, flourishing cities you did not build, 11 houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant — then when you eat and are satisfied, 12 be careful that you do not forget the LORD, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
Do you hear what the false gods and idols are? Material goods, wealth, things that we can possess, control…
A Simple Example I think illustrates this….
The average TV set is on for eight hours and 14 minutes a day in U.S. homes, according to Nielsen Media Research. Meanwhile, per person Americans watch an average of 4 hours and 35 minutes of television every day.
If this seems a tad excessive, consider that the Nielsen survey also found that the typical American home has more TV sets than people – an average of 2.73 TVs for 2.55 people.
people will spend 65 days in front of the TV, 41 days listening to radio and a little
over a week on the Internet in 2007. Adults will spend about a week reading a daily newspaper and teens and adults will spend another week listening to recorded music. Consumer spending for media is forecasted to be $936.75 per person.
I did some math, which isn’t my strong suit. If we attend church every Sunday in the year, without any cancellations for weather, and the service is 1.5 hrs… we spend 3.25 days in church a year… compared to 65 days in front of a television, and 7 days on the internet and 7 days listening to music.
If Johnson is correct, that my god is that which rivets my attention… well, tv, internet and ipods are gods…
The Bad news is the we cannot think ourselves free of the temptation and practice of idolatry simply because of God-talk. It isn’t simply prayer to God or Sunday worship attendance that assures us that we are keeping the first two commandments. In Mt 7:21-22, we read this warning from Christ…
"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord ,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
We become like what we worship
we are shaped by it…
This is a constant theme throughout the Bible…
Thursday night Bible Basics just finished talking about the story of Esther…
This is a strange and little known story from the First Testament, the Hebrew Scriptures…
King Ahaseuras, notice, is doing what God warned Israel against…
His time and energy and focus is on his wealth, his material goods…
His time and energy and focus goes into the pleasure of the party…
And look at how he has treated his first queen and the subsequent prospective queens… they are like objects to him… what he worships has shaped who he is and how he treats others…
Rev. Ogden went and met with the NAACP organizers and the children the next morning… still not having decided what to do. But in that moment, challenged by the courage of the children and their parents, we decided to walk them to school… He decided to keep God at the center…
The end of the story, well, I guess its up to your point of view whether it ended happily or not. Attendance at Rev. Ogdens church fell from 200 to 80, and the powerful members of the church withheld both their presence at worship and their tithe.
Which reminds me, as we close, that one of the traditional readings for the beginning of Lent is the story of Jesus temptation in the desert.
Mt 4:1-11
4:1 Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. 2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 The tempter came to him and said, "If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread."
4 Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"
5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. 6 "If you are the Son of God," he said, "throw yourself down. For it is written:
"'He will command his angels concerning you,
and they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.'"
7 Jesus answered him, "It is also written: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'"
8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9 "All this I will give you," he said, "if you will bow down and worship me."
10 Jesus said to him, "Away from me, Satan! For it is written: 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.'"
11 Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.
Jesus kept God at the center,
His life on earth lived by serving God alone through serving the
The poor, oppressed and despised in his society…
And his life ended in crucifixion…
Which is the temptation of idols and gods I suppose…
They demand little of us, do not challenge us…
And promise us an easy life, a happy life…
Rev. Ogden put God at the center, as did Jesus,
And suffered for it…
But their act of worship
Throughout their lives
Their sacrifice and service
Opened up new possibilities for others that idols cannot offer
Rev. Odgen’s actions were a part of a great shift in the history of our country
He played a part in a modern day exodus from slavery to freedom
Perhaps not for himself, but for thousand, millions of others who would
Come after, Given the chance at an education, the chance to dream
And imagine a brighter future for themselves and their children
And their children’s children…
In that way, Rev. Ogden practiced resurrection…
He walked with Jesus the path of temptation
And the way of the cross…
But it was a way that lead to life
New life, full life, for so many others…
The fact of the matter is that Lent is a frightening time…
It is never pleasant to take the good honest look at ourselves
That lent demands…
And as the story of Rev. Ogden illustrates
The demands of keeping God centered
will challenge us
But I am convinced that Lent also allows us to see
In ourselves, potential,
Allows us to imagine for ourselves
A purpose that idols cannot give
Recentering our lives on God in this season of Lent
Allows us to see the image of God that we were created to be
And to see new possibilities for ourselves and for others
that our idols just cannot provide…
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Sunday, February 14, 2010
You Want Me to do What?
You Want me to WHAT?
Ezekiel 2,3,4,5
The Good News: The Holy Spirit empowers us to be a light that shines before men… we have a story to tell, a song to sing, a message to proclaim, a mark to make in the world.
The Bad News: If we follow Christ, we will have a cross to bear. Sometimes we will be called to act ‘differently’ than those around us; forgiving, giving generously, making peace instead of war… and this will call us to take difficult stands, even unpopular stands so that people can see the Kingdom that Christ proclaims.
The Celebration: We are called to do more than survive, but to thrive…
The Question: Is faith an idea or an action? Or both?
The Catonsville Nine were nine Catholic activists who burned draft files to protest the Vietnam War. On May 17, 1968 they went to the draft board in Catonsville, Maryland, took 378 draft files, brought them to the parking lot in wire baskets, dumped them out, poured homemade napalm over them, and set them on fire.
Fr. Philip Berrigan and Tom Lewis had previously poured blood on draft records as part of "The Baltimore Four"- with David Eberhardt and James Mengel - and were out on bail when they burned the records at Catonsville.
Fr. Daniel Berrigan wrote, of the Catonsville incident: "Our apologies, good friends, for the fracture of good order, the burning of paper instead of children. . . ."
On September 9, 1980, Berrigan, his brother Daniel, and six others (the "Plowshares Eight") began the Plowshares Movement when they entered the General Electric Nuclear Missile Re-entry Division in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania where nose cones for the Mark 12A warheads were made. They hammered on two nose cones, poured blood on documents and offered prayers for peace. They were arrested and initially charged with over ten different felony and misdemeanor counts. On April 10, 1990, after nearly ten years of trials and appeals, the Plowshares Eight were re-sentenced and paroled for up to 23 and 1/2 months in consideration of time already served in prison. (citing wikipedia)
The Berrigan Brothers were known for extreme positions and extreme actions. For them, faith in God was not private, but public. Faith in God challenged and shaped the way they thought about the world around them… specifically the VietNam War and later, Nuclear Weapons. But the Berrigan brothers were offensive because they didn’t keep their radical opinions to themselves, or even keep them to a sermon or a book or a letter to the editor… they put their opinions, their faith shaped opinions on public display.
Eze 2:3-8
3 He said: "Son of man, I am sending you to the Israelites, to a rebellious nation that has rebelled against me; they and their fathers have been in revolt against me to this very day. 4 The people to whom I am sending you are obstinate and stubborn. Say to them, 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says.' 5 And whether they listen or fail to listen — for they are a rebellious house — they will know that a prophet has been among them. 6 And you, son of man, do not be afraid of them or their words. Do not be afraid, though briers and thorns are all around you and you live among scorpions. Do not be afraid of what they say or terrified by them, though they are a rebellious house. 7 You must speak my words to them, whether they listen or fail to listen, for they are rebellious. 8 But you, son of man, listen to what I say to you. Do not rebel like that rebellious house;
NIV
Eze 3:24-27
"Go, shut yourself inside your house. 25 And you, son of man, they will tie with ropes; you will be bound so that you cannot go out among the people. 26 I will make your tongue stick to the roof of your mouth so that you will be silent and unable to rebuke them, though they are a rebellious house. 27 But when I speak to you, I will open your mouth and you shall say to them, 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says.' Whoever will listen let him listen, and whoever will refuse let him refuse; for they are a rebellious house.
NIV
Eze 4:1-5:6
4:1 "Now, son of man, take a clay tablet, put it in front of you and draw the city of Jerusalem on it. 2 Then lay siege to it: Erect siege works against it, build a ramp up to it, set up camps against it and put battering rams around it. 3 Then take an iron pan, place it as an iron wall between you and the city and turn your face toward it. It will be under siege, and you shall besiege it. This will be a sign to the house of Israel.
4 "Then lie on your left side and put the sin of the house of Israel upon yourself. You are to bear their sin for the number of days you lie on your side. 5 I have assigned you the same number of days as the years of their sin. So for 390 days you will bear the sin of the house of Israel.
6 "After you have finished this, lie down again, this time on your right side, and bear the sin of the house of Judah. I have assigned you 40 days, a day for each year. 7 Turn your face toward the siege of Jerusalem and with bared arm prophesy against her. 8 I will tie you up with ropes so that you cannot turn from one side to the other until you have finished the days of your siege.
9 "Take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt; put them in a storage jar and use them to make bread for yourself. You are to eat it during the 390 days you lie on your side. 10 Weigh out twenty shekels of food to eat each day and eat it at set times. 11 Also measure out a sixth of a hin of water and drink it at set times. 12 Eat the food as you would a barley cake; bake it in the sight of the people, using human excrement for fuel." 13 The LORD said, "In this way the people of Israel will eat defiled food among the nations where I will drive them."
14 Then I said, "Not so, Sovereign LORD! I have never defiled myself. From my youth until now I have never eaten anything found dead or torn by wild animals. No unclean meat has ever entered my mouth."
15 "Very well," he said, "I will let you bake your bread over cow manure instead of human excrement."
16 He then said to me: "Son of man, I will cut off the supply of food in Jerusalem. The people will eat rationed food in anxiety and drink rationed water in despair, 17 for food and water will be scarce. They will be appalled at the sight of each other and will waste away because of their sin.
Ezekiel 5
5:1 "Now, son of man, take a sharp sword and use it as a barber's razor to shave your head and your beard. Then take a set of scales and divide up the hair. 2 When the days of your siege come to an end, burn a third of the hair with fire inside the city. Take a third and strike it with the sword all around the city. And scatter a third to the wind. For I will pursue them with drawn sword. 3 But take a few strands of hair and tuck them away in the folds of your garment. 4 Again, take a few of these and throw them into the fire and burn them up. A fire will spread from there to the whole house of Israel.
5 "This is what the Sovereign LORD says: This is Jerusalem, which I have set in the center of the nations, with countries all around her. 6 Yet in her wickedness she has rebelled against my laws and decrees more than the nations and countries around her. She has rejected my laws and has not followed my decrees.
Ezekiel is commanded by God to put his private faith in public view. And not in strongly worded letters to the editor, but through strange theatrical events staged publically.
What is he trying to communicate?
By lying on his side for 390 days, facing a little scale model of Jerusalem, he is acting out God’s patience in waiting for the people to listen and obey the covenant.
By then turning and laying away from the model… he is acting out the fact that God has turned his back on the people. The turning of the back of God will be experienced, is being experienced by the people through the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonian Empire, including the Temple, and the enslavement of many of its people, including Ezekiel, who have been carried off to Babylon. They have returned to Egypt as it were… God has let them go back to Pharaoh, since they rejected God’s sovereignty.
Oh, yes, he is bound, tied up too.
That probably means a few things… it means that he is bound to the word of God… it also means that the people will be bound in service to the Babylonian Empire… it also means that they are bound by their unwillingness to obey… now they will have to pay the price of not listening to the word of God, not keeping the covenant.
While we might think that the multi-grain bread sounds fine, it is meant to symbolize scavenging. The people will no longer benefit from the abundance of the earth, but will have to fight to scrape together enough to put together a loaf of bread. And the baking of the bread too is meant to show how desperate their lives are… only finding buffalo chips to bake on…
Shaving the head and beard was a sign of mourning. So Ezekiel is showing the people that they will mourn. And the hair becomes a symbol of the people… some burned… to symbolize both the destruction of their city by Babylon, and their suffering… some chopped with a sword, does that really need to be explained. Many were killed in the Babylonian Siege and the over-running of the city. Many died in the long trek to Babylon, a trail of tears, you might say. And the scattering of hair in the wind symbolizes that some were left to run and hide and scrape a living, some were separated from family, some taken into exile…they were scattered and no longer a whole people.
If the Politics in the Berrigan brothers actions offends… or you think that church isn’t the place for politics, leaders of faith not called to speak out politically… it is important to realize that what Ezekiel is doing here is political. He is saying that Judah, the people of God, the nation of God, deserve the punishment of servitude to Babylon. Their defeat and enslavement is something they must accept because it is something that God has allowed to happen. So Ezekiel is talking politics… our leaders, political and religious, failed and this is the consequence for us all…
But you also notice the difference between Ezekiel and Job last week. While Job give us a language to argue that our trauma and suffering is wrong, unfair, unjust… Ezekiel sees the suffering of Israel as deserved. If we suffer, it is because God has commanded it and allowed it and so we must deserve it… that is Ezekiel’s world-view. I’m not necessarily espousing that myself… I just want you to realize the big picture here is a debate about suffering and the role of God… a debate between Job and Ezekiel… a debate too big to work out this morning.
What troubles me this morning is that Ezekiel is different…
And it isn’t just that he has some different idea’s you see…
It isn’t that he has some unique thoughts…
Or beliefs that are different from others…
Ezekiel is different and he isn’t afraid to act different… put his difference on display…
Well, maybe he is afraid,
but his fear of reprisal doesn’t stop him from putting his difference on display.
How different am I?
That is what troubles me.
How would others know by looking at me, listening to me, watching me act and interact
That I am a disciple of Christ?
I’m intrigued by folks who have ways of being different…
Muslim women who wear burka’s
And I know that can be controversial, especially in Europe right now…
Or Hasidic Jewish boys who grow the peyot, the ringlets of the sideburns
And they wear the tzitzit…the vest with tassles… also called the tallit katan
Or the dress of the Amish.
I’m not saying I want to go in that direction… but I’m just saying… there is no mistaking who they are…
You know who they are and to a certain extent, what they believe, just by looking at them…
For instance Amish men grow beards, but Mustaches are forbidden, because they are associated with European military officers and militarism in general
And I am intrigued by the courage it takes to be different… to maintain styles of dress for instance, that just are stylish anymore… but mean something and communicate something…
The story of Ezekiel, and his bizarre behavior calls into question what faith means…
If we take Ezekiel seriously faith is not simply a collection of unique idea… an intellectual pursuit
We study the Bible not just to learn the words of Jesus,
uncover the mystery of the Trinity
imagine resurrected life
Nor is faith an emotional pursuit
Worship something that will make us feel better, stronger, more peaceful
Better able to face the working week ahead…
Faith should be those things, I hope it is.
But the faith of Ezekiel challenges us beyond intellect and emotion…
Challenges us in the realm of action…
God has something to say and Judah does not listen… will not listen…
Elijah is given something to say… that now one else dares say…
Will he say it? Will he take action?
I’ve told you before the story of John Woolman, an American and a Quaker who lived in New Jersey in the 18th century. He refused to pay taxed during the French and Indian War. He advocated for the humane treatment of working animals. He traveled advocating for slaves, being one of the first of the Quakers to see slavery as an offensive moral issue. When he stayed with slaveholders he paid the slaves for the their work cooking and cleaning for him. Most famously he only wore undyed clothing, because clothes that were dyed in that time, were made by slave labor, and he did not want to support that institution economically. Faith went beyond intellect and emotion to the realm of action…
As a matter of fact John Woolman is a good example for out day… for while we may be shocked and saddened by the thought of sweatshop labor, and agricultural slavery… we support it in our spending and shopping habits. The most important thing we can do morally and ethically to put our faith into public action is to create spending and shopping habits that do not harm the workers and harvesters around the world.
I shocked the folks at St. Charles Ave Baptist Church when I introduced them to the Cocoa Protocol. In that we eat, that I enjoy so very much, the brownies that I savor and he chocolate cookies that bring me comfort… comes from slave labor.
John Woolman wouldn’t eat it.
I can’t imagine what Ezekiel would do to make a public statement about it.
I do know that the faith of Ezekiel and Woolman challenges me to do more
Than pray and think about how unjust this is… and do something…
The season of Lent, which begins this Wednesday… on Ash Wednesday…
Is perhaps a good time to revisit the idea of fasting…
Not even going hungry…
But fasting from foods that are produced or harvested by slave labor.
Ezekiel is a difficult book to read…
It is dark and sometimes violent
And it’s focus is always on the anger of God
Which is not a topic I like to linger on
Not just because it doesn’t make for a particularly popular sermon
But because I just can’t make the association between
Trauma, suffering and tragedy and God’s active wrath
That Ezekiel can…
But this I can do…
I can recall the words of the prophet Isaiah
Isa 61:6
6 And you will be called priests of the LORD,
you will be named ministers of our God.
Isa 61:8
8 "For I, the LORD, love justice;
I hate robbery and iniquity.
In the strange actions and dark rhetoric of Ezekiel I hear this bad news…
God hates robbery and iniquity…
God cares deeply for the oppressed, the enslaved, this abused and mistreated
God is hurt by those who participate in that abuse and enslavement.
God is hurt by those who will not listen… actively energetically listen
And then perform the words and wisdom they have heard.
I can hear that warning…
Do You hear that warning?
But I also hear good news.
You will be called priests of the LORD
And in Ezekiel I can hear the words of Jeremiah
Jer 1:9-10
"Now, I have put my words in your mouth. 10 See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down , to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant."
Ezekiel is here to remind us of the challenge, the bad news of our calling
to destroy that which oppresses others
to repent if unwittingly we have participated in the abuse of others
But I can also hear the good news
build and plant lives that honor and respect others
build and plant practices in my life that bring glory to God
because they free others from abuse
And in Ezekiel I can hear the words of jesus
Mt 5:14-16"You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.
NIV
For this is what Ezekiel is called Israel to return to…
The light
This is what Ezekiel warns us against,
The slow and subtle limp from being people of light to people of darkness
That is the bad news
But the good new is that we are people of the light.
we have a story to tell, as the song says as story that God still whispers to us, a story of truth and mercy, a story of peace and light
We’ve a song to sing, That shall lift their hearts to the Lord, A song that shall conquer evil
And shatter the spear and sword,
,
We’ve a message to proclaim, That the Lord who reigns up above Has sent us His Son to save us,
And show us that God is love,
Do you Hear it the story?
Can You hear the song?
Will you, like Ezekiel, stand up and perform
The Story that you hear?
God Bless You All
Ezekiel 2,3,4,5
The Good News: The Holy Spirit empowers us to be a light that shines before men… we have a story to tell, a song to sing, a message to proclaim, a mark to make in the world.
The Bad News: If we follow Christ, we will have a cross to bear. Sometimes we will be called to act ‘differently’ than those around us; forgiving, giving generously, making peace instead of war… and this will call us to take difficult stands, even unpopular stands so that people can see the Kingdom that Christ proclaims.
The Celebration: We are called to do more than survive, but to thrive…
The Question: Is faith an idea or an action? Or both?
The Catonsville Nine were nine Catholic activists who burned draft files to protest the Vietnam War. On May 17, 1968 they went to the draft board in Catonsville, Maryland, took 378 draft files, brought them to the parking lot in wire baskets, dumped them out, poured homemade napalm over them, and set them on fire.
Fr. Philip Berrigan and Tom Lewis had previously poured blood on draft records as part of "The Baltimore Four"- with David Eberhardt and James Mengel - and were out on bail when they burned the records at Catonsville.
Fr. Daniel Berrigan wrote, of the Catonsville incident: "Our apologies, good friends, for the fracture of good order, the burning of paper instead of children. . . ."
On September 9, 1980, Berrigan, his brother Daniel, and six others (the "Plowshares Eight") began the Plowshares Movement when they entered the General Electric Nuclear Missile Re-entry Division in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania where nose cones for the Mark 12A warheads were made. They hammered on two nose cones, poured blood on documents and offered prayers for peace. They were arrested and initially charged with over ten different felony and misdemeanor counts. On April 10, 1990, after nearly ten years of trials and appeals, the Plowshares Eight were re-sentenced and paroled for up to 23 and 1/2 months in consideration of time already served in prison. (citing wikipedia)
The Berrigan Brothers were known for extreme positions and extreme actions. For them, faith in God was not private, but public. Faith in God challenged and shaped the way they thought about the world around them… specifically the VietNam War and later, Nuclear Weapons. But the Berrigan brothers were offensive because they didn’t keep their radical opinions to themselves, or even keep them to a sermon or a book or a letter to the editor… they put their opinions, their faith shaped opinions on public display.
Eze 2:3-8
3 He said: "Son of man, I am sending you to the Israelites, to a rebellious nation that has rebelled against me; they and their fathers have been in revolt against me to this very day. 4 The people to whom I am sending you are obstinate and stubborn. Say to them, 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says.' 5 And whether they listen or fail to listen — for they are a rebellious house — they will know that a prophet has been among them. 6 And you, son of man, do not be afraid of them or their words. Do not be afraid, though briers and thorns are all around you and you live among scorpions. Do not be afraid of what they say or terrified by them, though they are a rebellious house. 7 You must speak my words to them, whether they listen or fail to listen, for they are rebellious. 8 But you, son of man, listen to what I say to you. Do not rebel like that rebellious house;
NIV
Eze 3:24-27
"Go, shut yourself inside your house. 25 And you, son of man, they will tie with ropes; you will be bound so that you cannot go out among the people. 26 I will make your tongue stick to the roof of your mouth so that you will be silent and unable to rebuke them, though they are a rebellious house. 27 But when I speak to you, I will open your mouth and you shall say to them, 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says.' Whoever will listen let him listen, and whoever will refuse let him refuse; for they are a rebellious house.
NIV
Eze 4:1-5:6
4:1 "Now, son of man, take a clay tablet, put it in front of you and draw the city of Jerusalem on it. 2 Then lay siege to it: Erect siege works against it, build a ramp up to it, set up camps against it and put battering rams around it. 3 Then take an iron pan, place it as an iron wall between you and the city and turn your face toward it. It will be under siege, and you shall besiege it. This will be a sign to the house of Israel.
4 "Then lie on your left side and put the sin of the house of Israel upon yourself. You are to bear their sin for the number of days you lie on your side. 5 I have assigned you the same number of days as the years of their sin. So for 390 days you will bear the sin of the house of Israel.
6 "After you have finished this, lie down again, this time on your right side, and bear the sin of the house of Judah. I have assigned you 40 days, a day for each year. 7 Turn your face toward the siege of Jerusalem and with bared arm prophesy against her. 8 I will tie you up with ropes so that you cannot turn from one side to the other until you have finished the days of your siege.
9 "Take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt; put them in a storage jar and use them to make bread for yourself. You are to eat it during the 390 days you lie on your side. 10 Weigh out twenty shekels of food to eat each day and eat it at set times. 11 Also measure out a sixth of a hin of water and drink it at set times. 12 Eat the food as you would a barley cake; bake it in the sight of the people, using human excrement for fuel." 13 The LORD said, "In this way the people of Israel will eat defiled food among the nations where I will drive them."
14 Then I said, "Not so, Sovereign LORD! I have never defiled myself. From my youth until now I have never eaten anything found dead or torn by wild animals. No unclean meat has ever entered my mouth."
15 "Very well," he said, "I will let you bake your bread over cow manure instead of human excrement."
16 He then said to me: "Son of man, I will cut off the supply of food in Jerusalem. The people will eat rationed food in anxiety and drink rationed water in despair, 17 for food and water will be scarce. They will be appalled at the sight of each other and will waste away because of their sin.
Ezekiel 5
5:1 "Now, son of man, take a sharp sword and use it as a barber's razor to shave your head and your beard. Then take a set of scales and divide up the hair. 2 When the days of your siege come to an end, burn a third of the hair with fire inside the city. Take a third and strike it with the sword all around the city. And scatter a third to the wind. For I will pursue them with drawn sword. 3 But take a few strands of hair and tuck them away in the folds of your garment. 4 Again, take a few of these and throw them into the fire and burn them up. A fire will spread from there to the whole house of Israel.
5 "This is what the Sovereign LORD says: This is Jerusalem, which I have set in the center of the nations, with countries all around her. 6 Yet in her wickedness she has rebelled against my laws and decrees more than the nations and countries around her. She has rejected my laws and has not followed my decrees.
Ezekiel is commanded by God to put his private faith in public view. And not in strongly worded letters to the editor, but through strange theatrical events staged publically.
What is he trying to communicate?
By lying on his side for 390 days, facing a little scale model of Jerusalem, he is acting out God’s patience in waiting for the people to listen and obey the covenant.
By then turning and laying away from the model… he is acting out the fact that God has turned his back on the people. The turning of the back of God will be experienced, is being experienced by the people through the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonian Empire, including the Temple, and the enslavement of many of its people, including Ezekiel, who have been carried off to Babylon. They have returned to Egypt as it were… God has let them go back to Pharaoh, since they rejected God’s sovereignty.
Oh, yes, he is bound, tied up too.
That probably means a few things… it means that he is bound to the word of God… it also means that the people will be bound in service to the Babylonian Empire… it also means that they are bound by their unwillingness to obey… now they will have to pay the price of not listening to the word of God, not keeping the covenant.
While we might think that the multi-grain bread sounds fine, it is meant to symbolize scavenging. The people will no longer benefit from the abundance of the earth, but will have to fight to scrape together enough to put together a loaf of bread. And the baking of the bread too is meant to show how desperate their lives are… only finding buffalo chips to bake on…
Shaving the head and beard was a sign of mourning. So Ezekiel is showing the people that they will mourn. And the hair becomes a symbol of the people… some burned… to symbolize both the destruction of their city by Babylon, and their suffering… some chopped with a sword, does that really need to be explained. Many were killed in the Babylonian Siege and the over-running of the city. Many died in the long trek to Babylon, a trail of tears, you might say. And the scattering of hair in the wind symbolizes that some were left to run and hide and scrape a living, some were separated from family, some taken into exile…they were scattered and no longer a whole people.
If the Politics in the Berrigan brothers actions offends… or you think that church isn’t the place for politics, leaders of faith not called to speak out politically… it is important to realize that what Ezekiel is doing here is political. He is saying that Judah, the people of God, the nation of God, deserve the punishment of servitude to Babylon. Their defeat and enslavement is something they must accept because it is something that God has allowed to happen. So Ezekiel is talking politics… our leaders, political and religious, failed and this is the consequence for us all…
But you also notice the difference between Ezekiel and Job last week. While Job give us a language to argue that our trauma and suffering is wrong, unfair, unjust… Ezekiel sees the suffering of Israel as deserved. If we suffer, it is because God has commanded it and allowed it and so we must deserve it… that is Ezekiel’s world-view. I’m not necessarily espousing that myself… I just want you to realize the big picture here is a debate about suffering and the role of God… a debate between Job and Ezekiel… a debate too big to work out this morning.
What troubles me this morning is that Ezekiel is different…
And it isn’t just that he has some different idea’s you see…
It isn’t that he has some unique thoughts…
Or beliefs that are different from others…
Ezekiel is different and he isn’t afraid to act different… put his difference on display…
Well, maybe he is afraid,
but his fear of reprisal doesn’t stop him from putting his difference on display.
How different am I?
That is what troubles me.
How would others know by looking at me, listening to me, watching me act and interact
That I am a disciple of Christ?
I’m intrigued by folks who have ways of being different…
Muslim women who wear burka’s
And I know that can be controversial, especially in Europe right now…
Or Hasidic Jewish boys who grow the peyot, the ringlets of the sideburns
And they wear the tzitzit…the vest with tassles… also called the tallit katan
Or the dress of the Amish.
I’m not saying I want to go in that direction… but I’m just saying… there is no mistaking who they are…
You know who they are and to a certain extent, what they believe, just by looking at them…
For instance Amish men grow beards, but Mustaches are forbidden, because they are associated with European military officers and militarism in general
And I am intrigued by the courage it takes to be different… to maintain styles of dress for instance, that just are stylish anymore… but mean something and communicate something…
The story of Ezekiel, and his bizarre behavior calls into question what faith means…
If we take Ezekiel seriously faith is not simply a collection of unique idea… an intellectual pursuit
We study the Bible not just to learn the words of Jesus,
uncover the mystery of the Trinity
imagine resurrected life
Nor is faith an emotional pursuit
Worship something that will make us feel better, stronger, more peaceful
Better able to face the working week ahead…
Faith should be those things, I hope it is.
But the faith of Ezekiel challenges us beyond intellect and emotion…
Challenges us in the realm of action…
God has something to say and Judah does not listen… will not listen…
Elijah is given something to say… that now one else dares say…
Will he say it? Will he take action?
I’ve told you before the story of John Woolman, an American and a Quaker who lived in New Jersey in the 18th century. He refused to pay taxed during the French and Indian War. He advocated for the humane treatment of working animals. He traveled advocating for slaves, being one of the first of the Quakers to see slavery as an offensive moral issue. When he stayed with slaveholders he paid the slaves for the their work cooking and cleaning for him. Most famously he only wore undyed clothing, because clothes that were dyed in that time, were made by slave labor, and he did not want to support that institution economically. Faith went beyond intellect and emotion to the realm of action…
As a matter of fact John Woolman is a good example for out day… for while we may be shocked and saddened by the thought of sweatshop labor, and agricultural slavery… we support it in our spending and shopping habits. The most important thing we can do morally and ethically to put our faith into public action is to create spending and shopping habits that do not harm the workers and harvesters around the world.
I shocked the folks at St. Charles Ave Baptist Church when I introduced them to the Cocoa Protocol. In that we eat, that I enjoy so very much, the brownies that I savor and he chocolate cookies that bring me comfort… comes from slave labor.
John Woolman wouldn’t eat it.
I can’t imagine what Ezekiel would do to make a public statement about it.
I do know that the faith of Ezekiel and Woolman challenges me to do more
Than pray and think about how unjust this is… and do something…
The season of Lent, which begins this Wednesday… on Ash Wednesday…
Is perhaps a good time to revisit the idea of fasting…
Not even going hungry…
But fasting from foods that are produced or harvested by slave labor.
Ezekiel is a difficult book to read…
It is dark and sometimes violent
And it’s focus is always on the anger of God
Which is not a topic I like to linger on
Not just because it doesn’t make for a particularly popular sermon
But because I just can’t make the association between
Trauma, suffering and tragedy and God’s active wrath
That Ezekiel can…
But this I can do…
I can recall the words of the prophet Isaiah
Isa 61:6
6 And you will be called priests of the LORD,
you will be named ministers of our God.
Isa 61:8
8 "For I, the LORD, love justice;
I hate robbery and iniquity.
In the strange actions and dark rhetoric of Ezekiel I hear this bad news…
God hates robbery and iniquity…
God cares deeply for the oppressed, the enslaved, this abused and mistreated
God is hurt by those who participate in that abuse and enslavement.
God is hurt by those who will not listen… actively energetically listen
And then perform the words and wisdom they have heard.
I can hear that warning…
Do You hear that warning?
But I also hear good news.
You will be called priests of the LORD
And in Ezekiel I can hear the words of Jeremiah
Jer 1:9-10
"Now, I have put my words in your mouth. 10 See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down , to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant."
Ezekiel is here to remind us of the challenge, the bad news of our calling
to destroy that which oppresses others
to repent if unwittingly we have participated in the abuse of others
But I can also hear the good news
build and plant lives that honor and respect others
build and plant practices in my life that bring glory to God
because they free others from abuse
And in Ezekiel I can hear the words of jesus
Mt 5:14-16"You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.
NIV
For this is what Ezekiel is called Israel to return to…
The light
This is what Ezekiel warns us against,
The slow and subtle limp from being people of light to people of darkness
That is the bad news
But the good new is that we are people of the light.
we have a story to tell, as the song says as story that God still whispers to us, a story of truth and mercy, a story of peace and light
We’ve a song to sing, That shall lift their hearts to the Lord, A song that shall conquer evil
And shatter the spear and sword,
,
We’ve a message to proclaim, That the Lord who reigns up above Has sent us His Son to save us,
And show us that God is love,
Do you Hear it the story?
Can You hear the song?
Will you, like Ezekiel, stand up and perform
The Story that you hear?
God Bless You All
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Job; A story on suffering and a tenacious faith
Intro:
Some of the best music has come from pain… or at least expresses pain.
Well I taught the weepin willow how to cry, cry, cry,
And I showed the clouds how to cover the clear blue sky
But the tears I cried for that woman, are gonna flood you big river
And I’ma gonna sit right here until I die
Well since my baby left me, I found a new place to dwell
Its down at the end of lonely street, at
Heartbreak hotel
Scripture: Job 1:1-5
In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil. He had seven sons and three daughters, and he owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred donkeys, and had a large number of servants. He was the greatest man among all the peoples of the East.
His sons used to take turns holding feasts in their homes, and they would invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. When a period of feasting had run its course, Job would send and have them purified. Early in the morning he would sacrifice a burnt offering for each of them, thinking, ‘Perhaps my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.’ This was Job’s regular custom.
Job 1:13-22
One day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in the eldest brothers house, a messenger came to Job and said, ‘The oxen were plowing and the donkeys were feeding beside them, and the Sabeans fell on them and carried them off, and killed the servants with the edge of the sword; I alone have escaped to tell you.’ While he was still speaking, another came and said, ‘The fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants, and consumed them; I alone have escaped to tell you.’ While he was still speaking, another came and said, ‘the Chaldeans formed three columns, made a raid on the camels and carried them off, and killed the servants with the edge of the sword; I alone have escaped to tell you.’ While he was still speaking, another came and said, ‘Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother’s house, and suddenly a great wind came across the desert, struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young people, and they are dead; I alone have escaped to tell you.
Then Job arose, tore his robe, shaved his head, and fell on the ground and worshiped. He said, ‘Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there; the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord. In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.
What song do you suppose Job wanted to sing at that particular moment?
Popular culture even knows about the ‘Patience of Job’ and those of us raised in church know that Job suffered patiently the trauma’s of life and the injustice and unfairness that came his way.
But that isn’t the whole story.
Lets look, just a little bit ahead and see if Job’s song is still so patient….
Job 7:21
"Does not man have hard service on earth? Are not his days like those of a hired man? 2 Like a slave longing for the evening shadows, or a hired man waiting eagerly for his wages, 3 so I have been allotted months of futility, and nights of misery have been assigned to me. 4 When I lie down I think, 'How long before I get up?' The night drags on, and I toss till dawn. 5 My body is clothed with worms and scabs, my skin is broken and festering.
6 "My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and they come to an end without hope. 7 Remember, O God, that my life is but a breath; my eyes will never see happiness again. 8 The eye that now sees me will see me no longer; you will look for me, but I will be no more. 9 As a cloud vanishes and is gone, so he who goes down to the grave does not return. 10 He will never come to his house again; his place will know him no more.
11 "Therefore I will not keep silent; I will speak out in the anguish of my spirit, I will complain in the bitterness of my soul. 12 Am I the sea, or the monster of the deep, that you put me under guard? 13 When I think my bed will comfort me and my couch will ease my complaint, 14 even then you frighten me with dreams and terrify me with visions, 15 so that I prefer strangling and death, rather than this body of mine. 16 I despise my life; I would not live forever. Let me alone; my days have no meaning.
17 "What is man that you make so much of him, that you give him so much attention, 18 that you examine him every morning and test him every moment? 19 Will you never look away from me, or let me alone even for an instant? 20 If I have sinned, what have I done to you, O watcher of men? Why have you made me your target? Have I become a burden to you? 21 Why do you not pardon my offenses and forgive my sins? For I will soon lie down in the dust; you will search for me, but I will be no more."
Now I want us to pay close attention to a few details here.
The story of Job opens by describing his devotion. Job has structured his life around the worship of God. Nothing comes before that… he is a devout man, a pious man. His devotion even extends to offering sacrifices and prayers after his children have a party, just in case they got hammered and said or did things that would displease God. Job never misses a Sunday morning or a Bible study. He joins committees and comes to the meetings and delivers communion and visits church members and helps with coffee hour… do you hear it? His devotion to God takes the highest priority and he is tireless in his faithfulness. He has a tenacious faith and because of that, he prospers, he is blessed.
But what have we just read.
That tireless and tenacious devotion that we read about to open the story… how does Job describe it now?
Like a slave longing for the evening shadows, or a hired man waiting eagerly for his wages, so I have been allotted months of futility, and nights of misery have been assigned to me.
This devotion is no longer a joyful relationship of prayer… but slavery… forced labor… a violent intrusion upon his very humanity.
Look carefully at how Job describes his life…
Like laborers who look for their wages…
How many of us have wondered if there will ever be some reward for faithfulness…
Not a corvette or a mansion, but even a break from the stress of making ends meet?
Of course we have… we may hesitate to admit it…
You see there is a promise that Job knows about…
Dt 6:24
The LORD commanded us to obey all these decrees and to fear the LORD our God, so that we might always prosper and be kept alive,
Job has lived in the hope of this promise… that if we obey the decrees, we will prosper…
This is the story… that Job was told, that we are told
But eventually our lives of faith will reach the wall, like long-distance runners, I have heard, eventually reach… when they no longer feel like they can continue… their strength is gone… the goal just not worth the pain…
And this my friends is where Job is…
the promises of prosperity are broken and strength is gone…
have you ever been disappointed and run down?
than you understand Job
In verse six Job says ‘my days are swifter than a weavers shuttle
And come to their end without hope…
Now the hebrew root of that word hope is tiqwa… can you say that?
Now here is the thing… tiqwa is also the root of the word thread.
Job is saying that he has come to the end of his rope.
And how many of us have felt this way?
Do not Job’s words ring true for the thousands of unemployed… looking for their wages
Do not Job’s words sound painfully personal, When I lie down, I say, when shall I rise…
Have you ever had a sleepless night sisters and brothers.
But Job doesn’t stop there… Job continues…
Have you ever, in the midst of troubling and traumatic times had someone, well-intentioned no doubt, say to you; God will never give you more than you can handle?
Here is what Job has to say to that…
Am I the Sea or the Dragon?
What does that mean?
The writer of Job is referring to the creation story of Genesis… the chaotic deep… the sea that was God’s enemy in Genesis one, that God battled and defeated, pushed back… with a word…
The writer is also referring to other ancient creation stories in which the world was created in a battle with the Dragon…
And what Job is saying is… Why, God, are you battling with me like I am the Sea or the Dragon…
You are being too hard on me… you are over-reacting… this is too much for me to bear!
This is too much for me to bear!
I remember having a conversation with a young man I used to work with before I went to seminary. He was an adult with developmental delays and mental illness who lived independently and it was my job to offer him supports so that he could maintain his independence. One of my jobs, upon occasion, was to give him a ride to church, which he attended faithfully.
My mom doesn’t go to church anymore, he once told me.
Really, why?
She is mad at God.
Do you know why?
My dad died… he was young… she never forgave God for that.
Does the story of Job ever answer the question of why there is suffering?
No, not really.
So I suppose it is a bit a disappointment… we’d like to know why wouldn’t we.
What the story Job does is open up a way to stay connected to God even when the connection seems broken because of suffering; because of trauma or disappointment.
For we are called to be an imaginative folk, those of us who believe in God and follow Christ.
We cannot prove peace is more effective than violence,
But we are called to imagine a peaceful world that one day will be, and live like its true today
We cannot prove that generosity and simplicity is an effective economic possibility
But we are called to imagine a world where everyone has enough and to live simply and give generously and live like its true today.
We cannot prove resurrection
But we are called to imagine it and in that find hope and courage
The harsh reality is that experience will not always support us in our imaginative endeavor that is discipleship…
Experience will suggest otherwise; that violence will win the day, that taking care of me and getting what’s mine is the safest way through life and that life is short and cruel with no hope of improvement.
You see, what is fascinating about the story of Job is that the story itself only takes a little over three chapters to tell. Job has a good life because he is faithful to God. Tragedy befalls him and he remains faithful.
In the end, because of Job’s patience, God rewards him and restores him to joy…
If you’ve never heard this story before, that is how it ends, God restores Job’s prosperity….
But that story is interrupted by, I don’t know 39 or so chapters of Lament…
This is the ongoing connection you see… Lament.
How might faith be different if instead of going from trauma right into God is good,
We, like the writer of Job allowed for the time and space to lament.
Would that young man’s mother still be in church if it allowed more space for lament. If we feel like, Job, that we are being taken advantage of, asked too much, suffering unjustly, but cannot say it,
Are left only to talk about how good God is… we sometimes will have nothing to say… and no one to understand us.
Do you hear what I’m saying…
Job doesn’t answer the question, why suffering. But at least it offers us the suggestion of the way through… it offers us a path to imagining joy again… and that path is through struggling honestly with God.
Job doesn’t give up, loose faith, stop believing…
he argues and complains and fights and wrestles for 39 chapters…
He is disappointed and discouraged and hurt by God…
But he will not give up or give in…
If the only way to be faithful is to struggle
To lament… then Job will be faithful in that way
Waiting, Demanding, that faith bring joy and prosperity!
Lament isn’t complaining or whining,
Lament is an energized engagement
And that is what inspires me to celebrate Job…
His energized engagement despite disappointment and discouragement
Even though he feels tricked and mistreated, Job will not give up on his faith
Job was tenacious in faithfulness before and not even tragedy has dampened his tenacious faith.
And that is what we need today sisters and brothers
A tenacious faith… a faith with conviction…
Convictions, wrote James Wm. McClendon, are not just beliefs or opinions, … for our convictions show themselves not merely in our professions or belief or disbelief, but in all our attitudes and actions…
And if that were not challenging enough, McClendon goes on to say of the church…no mere collections of the curious will count.
These are serious times sisters and brothers…
And God has called us in these serious times…
To be tenaciously faithful, even when the storms of life are raging…
Casual curiosity just will not do…
Two people were just indicted in RI for their alleged participation in a conspiracy to bring women from the mid-west to engage in prostitution in our state… forced prostitution by the way… slavery is not just a historical fact or foreign concept…
And it will take tenacious disciples to meet this challenge.
• A recent USDA report on food insecurity shows that hunger in Rhode Island has grown from affecting 1 out of 10 households in 1998 to affecting 1 out of 8 households today.
• In Rhode Island, 43% of pantry recipients choose between paying for food and paying for utilities. Additionally, 32% choose between food and medicine or medical care.
• 1 out of every 3 people served is a child under the age of 18.
• 76% of all households served by the Food Bank’s network live below the Federal Poverty Level or less than $22,050 a year for a family of four.
• According to the most recent U.S. Census survey, 17.5% of Rhode Island's children, 1 out of every 6, are living in poverty.
• Just under 10,000 Rhode Island seniors, 9.3% of the state’s population, live in poverty
These are serious times and no mere collection of the curious will do…
What is needed is a tenacious faith like Job’s
Because those who are enslaved and those who hunger,
Like Job, feel abandoned by God
And they need not just a good word, or prayer…
They need a community of faith to care…
So I have come to church today to ask you Berean…
Is your faith tenacious?
Do we have the courage and the strength to
Face discouragement and disappointment
Do we have the strength of our convictions to
To see us through challenging times?
I know we can get tired.
I know we can get distracted by personal squabbles
And we can disappoint one another too
But I believe this morning the words of Isaiah
Isa 40:28-31
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.
He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.
Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;
but those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.
I feel strong this morning Berean!
Are you feeling strong this morning!
I came to Berean six years ago because you were a strong and tenacious church
And I say you are strong and tenacious today… don’t forget it!
I came to remind you of how strong you are!
We’ve made it through economic downturns and firecode challenges
We’ve held each other through loss,
Wept together in mourning
Prayed for children and aging parent’s
Celebrated births, carried each other through cancer
Walked each other through life’s trauma’s
And because of that tenacious faith, those in Job’s position
Of doubt and disappointment, knew God had not abandoned them
Because we did not abandon them…
We’ve overcome many challenges some personal and some corporate
And Like Job, we have found a tenacious faith
We’ve discovered a strength that the world needs to see and hear
A strength that can only come by walking through the fires together
A strength that can only come by passing through raging waters
A strength that only come by crossing barren deserts
A tenacious strength and hope and belief
That God is by our side because we are on his
And that we have each other
No matter what…
And if we cling to that tenacious faith sisters and brothers,
Even when we sing sad songs or even angry songs
Like Job, we will soon again sing songs of joy and victory…
Some of the best music has come from pain… or at least expresses pain.
Well I taught the weepin willow how to cry, cry, cry,
And I showed the clouds how to cover the clear blue sky
But the tears I cried for that woman, are gonna flood you big river
And I’ma gonna sit right here until I die
Well since my baby left me, I found a new place to dwell
Its down at the end of lonely street, at
Heartbreak hotel
Scripture: Job 1:1-5
In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil. He had seven sons and three daughters, and he owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred donkeys, and had a large number of servants. He was the greatest man among all the peoples of the East.
His sons used to take turns holding feasts in their homes, and they would invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. When a period of feasting had run its course, Job would send and have them purified. Early in the morning he would sacrifice a burnt offering for each of them, thinking, ‘Perhaps my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.’ This was Job’s regular custom.
Job 1:13-22
One day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in the eldest brothers house, a messenger came to Job and said, ‘The oxen were plowing and the donkeys were feeding beside them, and the Sabeans fell on them and carried them off, and killed the servants with the edge of the sword; I alone have escaped to tell you.’ While he was still speaking, another came and said, ‘The fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants, and consumed them; I alone have escaped to tell you.’ While he was still speaking, another came and said, ‘the Chaldeans formed three columns, made a raid on the camels and carried them off, and killed the servants with the edge of the sword; I alone have escaped to tell you.’ While he was still speaking, another came and said, ‘Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother’s house, and suddenly a great wind came across the desert, struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young people, and they are dead; I alone have escaped to tell you.
Then Job arose, tore his robe, shaved his head, and fell on the ground and worshiped. He said, ‘Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there; the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord. In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.
What song do you suppose Job wanted to sing at that particular moment?
Popular culture even knows about the ‘Patience of Job’ and those of us raised in church know that Job suffered patiently the trauma’s of life and the injustice and unfairness that came his way.
But that isn’t the whole story.
Lets look, just a little bit ahead and see if Job’s song is still so patient….
Job 7:21
"Does not man have hard service on earth? Are not his days like those of a hired man? 2 Like a slave longing for the evening shadows, or a hired man waiting eagerly for his wages, 3 so I have been allotted months of futility, and nights of misery have been assigned to me. 4 When I lie down I think, 'How long before I get up?' The night drags on, and I toss till dawn. 5 My body is clothed with worms and scabs, my skin is broken and festering.
6 "My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and they come to an end without hope. 7 Remember, O God, that my life is but a breath; my eyes will never see happiness again. 8 The eye that now sees me will see me no longer; you will look for me, but I will be no more. 9 As a cloud vanishes and is gone, so he who goes down to the grave does not return. 10 He will never come to his house again; his place will know him no more.
11 "Therefore I will not keep silent; I will speak out in the anguish of my spirit, I will complain in the bitterness of my soul. 12 Am I the sea, or the monster of the deep, that you put me under guard? 13 When I think my bed will comfort me and my couch will ease my complaint, 14 even then you frighten me with dreams and terrify me with visions, 15 so that I prefer strangling and death, rather than this body of mine. 16 I despise my life; I would not live forever. Let me alone; my days have no meaning.
17 "What is man that you make so much of him, that you give him so much attention, 18 that you examine him every morning and test him every moment? 19 Will you never look away from me, or let me alone even for an instant? 20 If I have sinned, what have I done to you, O watcher of men? Why have you made me your target? Have I become a burden to you? 21 Why do you not pardon my offenses and forgive my sins? For I will soon lie down in the dust; you will search for me, but I will be no more."
Now I want us to pay close attention to a few details here.
The story of Job opens by describing his devotion. Job has structured his life around the worship of God. Nothing comes before that… he is a devout man, a pious man. His devotion even extends to offering sacrifices and prayers after his children have a party, just in case they got hammered and said or did things that would displease God. Job never misses a Sunday morning or a Bible study. He joins committees and comes to the meetings and delivers communion and visits church members and helps with coffee hour… do you hear it? His devotion to God takes the highest priority and he is tireless in his faithfulness. He has a tenacious faith and because of that, he prospers, he is blessed.
But what have we just read.
That tireless and tenacious devotion that we read about to open the story… how does Job describe it now?
Like a slave longing for the evening shadows, or a hired man waiting eagerly for his wages, so I have been allotted months of futility, and nights of misery have been assigned to me.
This devotion is no longer a joyful relationship of prayer… but slavery… forced labor… a violent intrusion upon his very humanity.
Look carefully at how Job describes his life…
Like laborers who look for their wages…
How many of us have wondered if there will ever be some reward for faithfulness…
Not a corvette or a mansion, but even a break from the stress of making ends meet?
Of course we have… we may hesitate to admit it…
You see there is a promise that Job knows about…
Dt 6:24
The LORD commanded us to obey all these decrees and to fear the LORD our God, so that we might always prosper and be kept alive,
Job has lived in the hope of this promise… that if we obey the decrees, we will prosper…
This is the story… that Job was told, that we are told
But eventually our lives of faith will reach the wall, like long-distance runners, I have heard, eventually reach… when they no longer feel like they can continue… their strength is gone… the goal just not worth the pain…
And this my friends is where Job is…
the promises of prosperity are broken and strength is gone…
have you ever been disappointed and run down?
than you understand Job
In verse six Job says ‘my days are swifter than a weavers shuttle
And come to their end without hope…
Now the hebrew root of that word hope is tiqwa… can you say that?
Now here is the thing… tiqwa is also the root of the word thread.
Job is saying that he has come to the end of his rope.
And how many of us have felt this way?
Do not Job’s words ring true for the thousands of unemployed… looking for their wages
Do not Job’s words sound painfully personal, When I lie down, I say, when shall I rise…
Have you ever had a sleepless night sisters and brothers.
But Job doesn’t stop there… Job continues…
Have you ever, in the midst of troubling and traumatic times had someone, well-intentioned no doubt, say to you; God will never give you more than you can handle?
Here is what Job has to say to that…
Am I the Sea or the Dragon?
What does that mean?
The writer of Job is referring to the creation story of Genesis… the chaotic deep… the sea that was God’s enemy in Genesis one, that God battled and defeated, pushed back… with a word…
The writer is also referring to other ancient creation stories in which the world was created in a battle with the Dragon…
And what Job is saying is… Why, God, are you battling with me like I am the Sea or the Dragon…
You are being too hard on me… you are over-reacting… this is too much for me to bear!
This is too much for me to bear!
I remember having a conversation with a young man I used to work with before I went to seminary. He was an adult with developmental delays and mental illness who lived independently and it was my job to offer him supports so that he could maintain his independence. One of my jobs, upon occasion, was to give him a ride to church, which he attended faithfully.
My mom doesn’t go to church anymore, he once told me.
Really, why?
She is mad at God.
Do you know why?
My dad died… he was young… she never forgave God for that.
Does the story of Job ever answer the question of why there is suffering?
No, not really.
So I suppose it is a bit a disappointment… we’d like to know why wouldn’t we.
What the story Job does is open up a way to stay connected to God even when the connection seems broken because of suffering; because of trauma or disappointment.
For we are called to be an imaginative folk, those of us who believe in God and follow Christ.
We cannot prove peace is more effective than violence,
But we are called to imagine a peaceful world that one day will be, and live like its true today
We cannot prove that generosity and simplicity is an effective economic possibility
But we are called to imagine a world where everyone has enough and to live simply and give generously and live like its true today.
We cannot prove resurrection
But we are called to imagine it and in that find hope and courage
The harsh reality is that experience will not always support us in our imaginative endeavor that is discipleship…
Experience will suggest otherwise; that violence will win the day, that taking care of me and getting what’s mine is the safest way through life and that life is short and cruel with no hope of improvement.
You see, what is fascinating about the story of Job is that the story itself only takes a little over three chapters to tell. Job has a good life because he is faithful to God. Tragedy befalls him and he remains faithful.
In the end, because of Job’s patience, God rewards him and restores him to joy…
If you’ve never heard this story before, that is how it ends, God restores Job’s prosperity….
But that story is interrupted by, I don’t know 39 or so chapters of Lament…
This is the ongoing connection you see… Lament.
How might faith be different if instead of going from trauma right into God is good,
We, like the writer of Job allowed for the time and space to lament.
Would that young man’s mother still be in church if it allowed more space for lament. If we feel like, Job, that we are being taken advantage of, asked too much, suffering unjustly, but cannot say it,
Are left only to talk about how good God is… we sometimes will have nothing to say… and no one to understand us.
Do you hear what I’m saying…
Job doesn’t answer the question, why suffering. But at least it offers us the suggestion of the way through… it offers us a path to imagining joy again… and that path is through struggling honestly with God.
Job doesn’t give up, loose faith, stop believing…
he argues and complains and fights and wrestles for 39 chapters…
He is disappointed and discouraged and hurt by God…
But he will not give up or give in…
If the only way to be faithful is to struggle
To lament… then Job will be faithful in that way
Waiting, Demanding, that faith bring joy and prosperity!
Lament isn’t complaining or whining,
Lament is an energized engagement
And that is what inspires me to celebrate Job…
His energized engagement despite disappointment and discouragement
Even though he feels tricked and mistreated, Job will not give up on his faith
Job was tenacious in faithfulness before and not even tragedy has dampened his tenacious faith.
And that is what we need today sisters and brothers
A tenacious faith… a faith with conviction…
Convictions, wrote James Wm. McClendon, are not just beliefs or opinions, … for our convictions show themselves not merely in our professions or belief or disbelief, but in all our attitudes and actions…
And if that were not challenging enough, McClendon goes on to say of the church…no mere collections of the curious will count.
These are serious times sisters and brothers…
And God has called us in these serious times…
To be tenaciously faithful, even when the storms of life are raging…
Casual curiosity just will not do…
Two people were just indicted in RI for their alleged participation in a conspiracy to bring women from the mid-west to engage in prostitution in our state… forced prostitution by the way… slavery is not just a historical fact or foreign concept…
And it will take tenacious disciples to meet this challenge.
• A recent USDA report on food insecurity shows that hunger in Rhode Island has grown from affecting 1 out of 10 households in 1998 to affecting 1 out of 8 households today.
• In Rhode Island, 43% of pantry recipients choose between paying for food and paying for utilities. Additionally, 32% choose between food and medicine or medical care.
• 1 out of every 3 people served is a child under the age of 18.
• 76% of all households served by the Food Bank’s network live below the Federal Poverty Level or less than $22,050 a year for a family of four.
• According to the most recent U.S. Census survey, 17.5% of Rhode Island's children, 1 out of every 6, are living in poverty.
• Just under 10,000 Rhode Island seniors, 9.3% of the state’s population, live in poverty
These are serious times and no mere collection of the curious will do…
What is needed is a tenacious faith like Job’s
Because those who are enslaved and those who hunger,
Like Job, feel abandoned by God
And they need not just a good word, or prayer…
They need a community of faith to care…
So I have come to church today to ask you Berean…
Is your faith tenacious?
Do we have the courage and the strength to
Face discouragement and disappointment
Do we have the strength of our convictions to
To see us through challenging times?
I know we can get tired.
I know we can get distracted by personal squabbles
And we can disappoint one another too
But I believe this morning the words of Isaiah
Isa 40:28-31
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.
He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.
Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;
but those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.
I feel strong this morning Berean!
Are you feeling strong this morning!
I came to Berean six years ago because you were a strong and tenacious church
And I say you are strong and tenacious today… don’t forget it!
I came to remind you of how strong you are!
We’ve made it through economic downturns and firecode challenges
We’ve held each other through loss,
Wept together in mourning
Prayed for children and aging parent’s
Celebrated births, carried each other through cancer
Walked each other through life’s trauma’s
And because of that tenacious faith, those in Job’s position
Of doubt and disappointment, knew God had not abandoned them
Because we did not abandon them…
We’ve overcome many challenges some personal and some corporate
And Like Job, we have found a tenacious faith
We’ve discovered a strength that the world needs to see and hear
A strength that can only come by walking through the fires together
A strength that can only come by passing through raging waters
A strength that only come by crossing barren deserts
A tenacious strength and hope and belief
That God is by our side because we are on his
And that we have each other
No matter what…
And if we cling to that tenacious faith sisters and brothers,
Even when we sing sad songs or even angry songs
Like Job, we will soon again sing songs of joy and victory…
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Not for the Casual Bystander
This sermon was preached on January 31st at my friend Travis's church, St. Charles Avenue Baptist Church. You can find them on the web at scabc.org. I was more than a little intimidated not only by the very educated congregations which included a number of M.Div's and PhD's, not to mention the fact that the pulpit has held such eminent preachers as Barbara Brown Taylor and Gardner Taylor. Some of the quotes are actually cited, but all of them are attributed. Here goes
Lk 4:16-30
16 He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. And he stood up to read. 17 The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:
18 "The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."
20 Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, 21 and he began by saying to them, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."
22 All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. "Isn't this Joseph's son?" they asked.
23 Jesus said to them, "Surely you will quote this proverb to me: 'Physician, heal yourself! Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.'"
24 "I tell you the truth," he continued, "no prophet is accepted in his hometown. 25 I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah's time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. 26 Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. 27 And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed — only Naaman the Syrian."
28 All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. 29 They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him down the cliff. 30 But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.
NIV
Today’s gospel offers us a fascinating scene for in seven verses, a few dozen words, just a matter of seconds of monologue, Jesus goes from:
All spoke well of him
To
Throw him off a cliff
We could take time to conjecture as to why Jesus went from favorite native son to pariah. But I’m not sure the exercise would take us much farther than just that… conjecture…
Frankly what piqued my curiosity about this sudden shift is the fact that Luke introduces two plot points to us so early in the gospel. Jesus has come to offer both a message and a program of liberation to the poor, and Luke is the most concerned with poverty of any of the gospels. Luke has the most to say about those held in bondage by poverty and its political, physical and spiritual effect on humanity.
But the other point that Luke includes is the anger, the discomfort, the tension that Jesus would not only inspire, but provoke.
Consider this. In Matthew we get the sermon on the Mount… blessed are the poor in spirit, the meek, those who mourn, those who hunger and thirst after righteousness… etc, etc.
But Luke in his version, the sermon on the plain, gives us both blessings; Blessed are the poor, blessed are those who hunger, blessed are those who weep…
But then Jesus drops some Woes on us…
Woe to you who are rich
Woe to you who are well fed now
Woe to you who laugh now
Woe to you when all men speak well of you…
The message Jesus proclaims throughout Luke is both a blessing and a woe… or as Finley Peter Dunne once wrote about journalism…
Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.
Luke tells us early on, in the reaction of the crowd to Jesus sermon that the comfortable will be afflicted.
Sallie McFague, reflecting on this theme of liberation for the impoverished and oppressed has shocking words to say to North American Christians when she writes…
We must, if we are Christians, liberate others from our domination…expressing and embodying a way of life that will be liberating to others.
My preaching style is personal. I won’t stand here and challenge you without being challenged myself. And so, for a few moments this morning I’m going to rehearse a few brief examples of those times where the Gospel, the Word of God has challenged me… convicted me of my participation in the bondage of others and shocked me into seeking a more liberating way of life. I’m not the hero of these stories… but like you, I stand under the weight of Jesus words…
Or in the case of my first example, the Hewbrew Scriptures
In Genesis 2:15 we read
Ge 2:15
15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.
In Hebrew the words we read work and take care of are abad and shamar. So I did a little reading and discovered that those words could also be translated; serve and protect.
Do you hear it.
God created humanity , you and I, to serve and protect the rest of creation. Creation care is why we are here.
And this challenged me to consider my carbon footprint.
It challenged me to think about the amount of trash I create and the lazy non-effort to recycle… to recall the lilies of the field and the sparrow, both of which the word of God highlight as being watched and cared for by God… crowded out by my trash.
It challenged my wife and I to turn in our SUV and buy a Prius and learn to live with one vehicle.
I’m no environmental hero. We still have much to learn and much to change in order to accept the challenge to serve and protect creation. My point being, I am not living up to the image of God that God created me to be unless I accept the challenge and face the offensive idea that my lifestyle is oppressive to the earth.
Liberating the Poor
Jesus proclaimed good news for the poor.
In luke we are inundated with Jesus challenge to his disciples to be good news for the impoverished. Jesus tells the rich young man to sell all he owns and give to the poor.
Luke tells us the story of Zachaeus who is challenged by the mere presence of Jesus to liquidate half of his own wealth and give it to the poor.
Luke tells us the story of the wealthy man who ends up in Sheol, punished because of his ignorance in life of the beggar lazarus who lived outside his gate.
And I am challenged, when I hear these words… challenged as I think that I too could be this rich man, I am when compared to so many around the world, and I fear that I am ignorant of the poor…
in my unthinking devotion to the idol of the shopping mall and my worship of that god through consumer therapy…
Shocked by the question, how many of the worlds impoverished could be fed on what North American’s spend on Ice Cream… which is $20 billion dollars annually. Shocked at the thought of the working conditions, the long hours and the low pay, of those who make the cheap plastic crap or the teddy bears that I can buy for my children at WalMart… shocked at what I am teaching my children by participating in this whole system…
Am I too, headed to Hell because of my ignorance and my consumerism?
Henri Nouwen once wrote; Faith in God does not consist in asserting God’s existence, but rather in acting on [God’s] behalf.
Am I acting on God’s behalf, proclaiming Christ’s message to the poor? To suggest that we, the church in North America, are failing miserably in this endeavor might be offensive… but could it also be true?
Liberating the Enslaved?
The most recent challenge for me has come in the simple phrase… ‘release for the captives…’
Currently I am working on a Statement of Concern for the American Baptist Churches of RI about Human Trafficking. Perhaps you have heard this polite phrase. Like the phrase ‘collateral damage’ it belies a much more sinister practice… collateral damage is nice wrapping for murder… human trafficking sounds much better than slavery or rape
According to Siddharth Kara, approx 1.8 million women and children are trafficked annually around the world. Some for sweat shop labor, agricultural labor, begging, organ harvesting (there is another interesting phrase) and perhaps most shocking for prostitution… 600,000 women and children for the sex industry…
Surely, I thought, this will not apply to me. I admit my complicity in the abuse of creation and repent of my ignorance of the poor. I know theoretically, theoretically mind you, that massage parlors exist in Providence RI, but I have no direct personal knowledge.
Then I discovered the Cocoa Protocol. Have you heard of this? This is going to sting more than the Ice Cream, I’m afraid. Apparently a great deal of the chocolate that we eat, that I love, the brownies and chocolate chip cookies and cake… is harvest by slave labor. So even the comfort of a brownie is actually an offense to what Christ proclaimed, ‘release for the captives..’ I can’t even get a brownie without also getting a challenging message from Christ.
Convictions, wrote James Wm. McClendon, are not just beliefs or opinions, … for our convictions show themselves not merely in our professions or belief or disbelief, but in all our attitudes and actions…
And if that were not challenging enough, McClendon goes on to say of the church…no mere collections of the curious will count.
James William McClendon, Jr.
Doctrine p 29
John Howard Yoder wrote similarly contrasting two choices for the church… ‘run-of-the-mill’ devotion or a ‘heroic’ level of devotion.
J.H. Yoder; The Priestly Kingdom
The Kingdom as Social Ethic, p. 83
These are serious times my sister’s and brothers. This is not the time for casual or curious Christianity. There are wars and violence in our nation, around the world… and we must first hear and then proclaim the shocking and perhaps offensive word’s of Jesus… Turn the other cheek… this is the way Disciples meet violence, with forgiveness…
In my little home town of Burrillville in RI mothers diaper their babies in paper towels and heat their homes with a gas oven… and the challenge that Jesus uttered 2000 yrs ago still echoes… do not refuse one who asks… and the challenge of the early church that we read in Acts, they held all things in common and the wealthy willfully sacrificed their material goods to offer support to the impoverished, rings In our ears… We must hear and then proclaim a unique way of thinking about economics… which is generosity, radical generosity… and simplicity, radical simplicity.
These are serious time and mere curiosity not only offends Christ, but the poor, in whom, he said in Matt 24, we would find him… These are serious times and run of the mill spirituality just will not do. The time has come to be reminded that it does no good to come to church… for we are called to be the church… to be the hands and feet of Christ in the world. The time has come for the taking up of a cross and that will require from us a heroic effort.
Which reminds me of a song from my youth
Are ye able, said the Master, to be crucified with me, the hymn-writer, long ago asked
That question still lingers today… Are we able to accept the challenging words of Christ,
The blessings and the woes,
willing to be shocked by the gospel?
Are you able to relinquish
Purple dreams of power and fame,
To go down into the Garden,
Or to die a death of shame?
But I am glad this morning to be at St Charles Ave Baptist Church…
Because down through your history you have answer the question, Are ye Able to be crucified with me…with a strong and courageous… Lord we are able. Our spirits are thine.
When so many churches in this nation willfully espoused segregation, this church proclaimed welcome and hospitality to all God’s children, regardless of the color of their skin… You responded, Lord we are able…
When so many churches in the past and still today, denied that the spirit could call a woman to ministry, You have historically supported and affirmed women in pastoral leadership… you responded to the challenge and sang… Lord we are able…
You have not hidden from controversy or quailed to popular opinion making this sanctuary safe and welcoming for Gays and Lesbians and you have sung for all to hear…
Lord, we are able. Our spirits are Thine.
Remold them, make us, like Thee, divine.
Thy guiding radiance above us shall be
A beacon to God, to love and loyalty.
So my final word for you this morning is the final word of our gospel reading
He went on his way…
Stay on your way St. Charles ave.
Walk on through casual curiosity and run of the mill faith
Stay on your way pursuing a heroic level of discipleship…
Stay on the way even when Christ’s words shock, offend or convict you…
Stay on the way even when other’s attempt to hinder your path…
Continue to walk through injustice in jesus name with your heroic efforts
Continue to sing Lord we are able
Continue on your way… a beacon of love and loyalty in New Orleans
And May God Richly Bless You!!!
Lk 4:16-30
16 He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. And he stood up to read. 17 The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:
18 "The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."
20 Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, 21 and he began by saying to them, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."
22 All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. "Isn't this Joseph's son?" they asked.
23 Jesus said to them, "Surely you will quote this proverb to me: 'Physician, heal yourself! Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.'"
24 "I tell you the truth," he continued, "no prophet is accepted in his hometown. 25 I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah's time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. 26 Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. 27 And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed — only Naaman the Syrian."
28 All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. 29 They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him down the cliff. 30 But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.
NIV
Today’s gospel offers us a fascinating scene for in seven verses, a few dozen words, just a matter of seconds of monologue, Jesus goes from:
All spoke well of him
To
Throw him off a cliff
We could take time to conjecture as to why Jesus went from favorite native son to pariah. But I’m not sure the exercise would take us much farther than just that… conjecture…
Frankly what piqued my curiosity about this sudden shift is the fact that Luke introduces two plot points to us so early in the gospel. Jesus has come to offer both a message and a program of liberation to the poor, and Luke is the most concerned with poverty of any of the gospels. Luke has the most to say about those held in bondage by poverty and its political, physical and spiritual effect on humanity.
But the other point that Luke includes is the anger, the discomfort, the tension that Jesus would not only inspire, but provoke.
Consider this. In Matthew we get the sermon on the Mount… blessed are the poor in spirit, the meek, those who mourn, those who hunger and thirst after righteousness… etc, etc.
But Luke in his version, the sermon on the plain, gives us both blessings; Blessed are the poor, blessed are those who hunger, blessed are those who weep…
But then Jesus drops some Woes on us…
Woe to you who are rich
Woe to you who are well fed now
Woe to you who laugh now
Woe to you when all men speak well of you…
The message Jesus proclaims throughout Luke is both a blessing and a woe… or as Finley Peter Dunne once wrote about journalism…
Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.
Luke tells us early on, in the reaction of the crowd to Jesus sermon that the comfortable will be afflicted.
Sallie McFague, reflecting on this theme of liberation for the impoverished and oppressed has shocking words to say to North American Christians when she writes…
We must, if we are Christians, liberate others from our domination…expressing and embodying a way of life that will be liberating to others.
My preaching style is personal. I won’t stand here and challenge you without being challenged myself. And so, for a few moments this morning I’m going to rehearse a few brief examples of those times where the Gospel, the Word of God has challenged me… convicted me of my participation in the bondage of others and shocked me into seeking a more liberating way of life. I’m not the hero of these stories… but like you, I stand under the weight of Jesus words…
Or in the case of my first example, the Hewbrew Scriptures
In Genesis 2:15 we read
Ge 2:15
15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.
In Hebrew the words we read work and take care of are abad and shamar. So I did a little reading and discovered that those words could also be translated; serve and protect.
Do you hear it.
God created humanity , you and I, to serve and protect the rest of creation. Creation care is why we are here.
And this challenged me to consider my carbon footprint.
It challenged me to think about the amount of trash I create and the lazy non-effort to recycle… to recall the lilies of the field and the sparrow, both of which the word of God highlight as being watched and cared for by God… crowded out by my trash.
It challenged my wife and I to turn in our SUV and buy a Prius and learn to live with one vehicle.
I’m no environmental hero. We still have much to learn and much to change in order to accept the challenge to serve and protect creation. My point being, I am not living up to the image of God that God created me to be unless I accept the challenge and face the offensive idea that my lifestyle is oppressive to the earth.
Liberating the Poor
Jesus proclaimed good news for the poor.
In luke we are inundated with Jesus challenge to his disciples to be good news for the impoverished. Jesus tells the rich young man to sell all he owns and give to the poor.
Luke tells us the story of Zachaeus who is challenged by the mere presence of Jesus to liquidate half of his own wealth and give it to the poor.
Luke tells us the story of the wealthy man who ends up in Sheol, punished because of his ignorance in life of the beggar lazarus who lived outside his gate.
And I am challenged, when I hear these words… challenged as I think that I too could be this rich man, I am when compared to so many around the world, and I fear that I am ignorant of the poor…
in my unthinking devotion to the idol of the shopping mall and my worship of that god through consumer therapy…
Shocked by the question, how many of the worlds impoverished could be fed on what North American’s spend on Ice Cream… which is $20 billion dollars annually. Shocked at the thought of the working conditions, the long hours and the low pay, of those who make the cheap plastic crap or the teddy bears that I can buy for my children at WalMart… shocked at what I am teaching my children by participating in this whole system…
Am I too, headed to Hell because of my ignorance and my consumerism?
Henri Nouwen once wrote; Faith in God does not consist in asserting God’s existence, but rather in acting on [God’s] behalf.
Am I acting on God’s behalf, proclaiming Christ’s message to the poor? To suggest that we, the church in North America, are failing miserably in this endeavor might be offensive… but could it also be true?
Liberating the Enslaved?
The most recent challenge for me has come in the simple phrase… ‘release for the captives…’
Currently I am working on a Statement of Concern for the American Baptist Churches of RI about Human Trafficking. Perhaps you have heard this polite phrase. Like the phrase ‘collateral damage’ it belies a much more sinister practice… collateral damage is nice wrapping for murder… human trafficking sounds much better than slavery or rape
According to Siddharth Kara, approx 1.8 million women and children are trafficked annually around the world. Some for sweat shop labor, agricultural labor, begging, organ harvesting (there is another interesting phrase) and perhaps most shocking for prostitution… 600,000 women and children for the sex industry…
Surely, I thought, this will not apply to me. I admit my complicity in the abuse of creation and repent of my ignorance of the poor. I know theoretically, theoretically mind you, that massage parlors exist in Providence RI, but I have no direct personal knowledge.
Then I discovered the Cocoa Protocol. Have you heard of this? This is going to sting more than the Ice Cream, I’m afraid. Apparently a great deal of the chocolate that we eat, that I love, the brownies and chocolate chip cookies and cake… is harvest by slave labor. So even the comfort of a brownie is actually an offense to what Christ proclaimed, ‘release for the captives..’ I can’t even get a brownie without also getting a challenging message from Christ.
Convictions, wrote James Wm. McClendon, are not just beliefs or opinions, … for our convictions show themselves not merely in our professions or belief or disbelief, but in all our attitudes and actions…
And if that were not challenging enough, McClendon goes on to say of the church…no mere collections of the curious will count.
James William McClendon, Jr.
Doctrine p 29
John Howard Yoder wrote similarly contrasting two choices for the church… ‘run-of-the-mill’ devotion or a ‘heroic’ level of devotion.
J.H. Yoder; The Priestly Kingdom
The Kingdom as Social Ethic, p. 83
These are serious times my sister’s and brothers. This is not the time for casual or curious Christianity. There are wars and violence in our nation, around the world… and we must first hear and then proclaim the shocking and perhaps offensive word’s of Jesus… Turn the other cheek… this is the way Disciples meet violence, with forgiveness…
In my little home town of Burrillville in RI mothers diaper their babies in paper towels and heat their homes with a gas oven… and the challenge that Jesus uttered 2000 yrs ago still echoes… do not refuse one who asks… and the challenge of the early church that we read in Acts, they held all things in common and the wealthy willfully sacrificed their material goods to offer support to the impoverished, rings In our ears… We must hear and then proclaim a unique way of thinking about economics… which is generosity, radical generosity… and simplicity, radical simplicity.
These are serious time and mere curiosity not only offends Christ, but the poor, in whom, he said in Matt 24, we would find him… These are serious times and run of the mill spirituality just will not do. The time has come to be reminded that it does no good to come to church… for we are called to be the church… to be the hands and feet of Christ in the world. The time has come for the taking up of a cross and that will require from us a heroic effort.
Which reminds me of a song from my youth
Are ye able, said the Master, to be crucified with me, the hymn-writer, long ago asked
That question still lingers today… Are we able to accept the challenging words of Christ,
The blessings and the woes,
willing to be shocked by the gospel?
Are you able to relinquish
Purple dreams of power and fame,
To go down into the Garden,
Or to die a death of shame?
But I am glad this morning to be at St Charles Ave Baptist Church…
Because down through your history you have answer the question, Are ye Able to be crucified with me…with a strong and courageous… Lord we are able. Our spirits are thine.
When so many churches in this nation willfully espoused segregation, this church proclaimed welcome and hospitality to all God’s children, regardless of the color of their skin… You responded, Lord we are able…
When so many churches in the past and still today, denied that the spirit could call a woman to ministry, You have historically supported and affirmed women in pastoral leadership… you responded to the challenge and sang… Lord we are able…
You have not hidden from controversy or quailed to popular opinion making this sanctuary safe and welcoming for Gays and Lesbians and you have sung for all to hear…
Lord, we are able. Our spirits are Thine.
Remold them, make us, like Thee, divine.
Thy guiding radiance above us shall be
A beacon to God, to love and loyalty.
So my final word for you this morning is the final word of our gospel reading
He went on his way…
Stay on your way St. Charles ave.
Walk on through casual curiosity and run of the mill faith
Stay on your way pursuing a heroic level of discipleship…
Stay on the way even when Christ’s words shock, offend or convict you…
Stay on the way even when other’s attempt to hinder your path…
Continue to walk through injustice in jesus name with your heroic efforts
Continue to sing Lord we are able
Continue on your way… a beacon of love and loyalty in New Orleans
And May God Richly Bless You!!!
Friday, December 18, 2009
Christmas Eve Sermon: Persuaded to Dance
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.
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)