We Have Known Rivers; Rivers Have Known Us Too.

25 September 2011

Ezekiel 1:1-3 (by the Chebar the heavens were opened); Psalm 137:1-6 (by the rivers of Babylon)

Rev. 22: 1-5 (the river of the water of life); Matthew 3:13-17 (in the Jordan the heavens were opened) and

"The Negro Speaks of Rivers" by Langston Hughes

                When God began to create, the story goes, there was water, “the deep,” and the Spirit of God moved over the waters. Water is the basic element from which all else emerges. According to another story, the second thing God created was a garden, which was watered by a river, which flowed out from Eden in four directions and gave life to all the nations.

                Anthropologists have taught us, through our school books, that rivers created civilization: In the fertile crescent between the Tigris and the Euphrates people farmed. They no longer had to spend every waking moment hunting and gathering food, wandering ceaselessly. They could stay in one place, grow their food, domesticate their prey, build cities, make art, tell stories, sing songs. Rivers made us who we are today.

                We have known rivers. Our people have known rivers. By the Nile the Hebrew slaves built the storehouses of Pharaoh and called out to God in their agony. Moses turned that river to blood to demonstrate the power of God. The Jordan River stopped to let the children of those slaves cross through it, to enter into their promised land, and soon after that same river carried the blood of Jericho’s dead. By the rivers of Babylon our people sat down and wept when their tormentors demanded entertainment; and the rivers of Babylon heard their call for vengeance. Rivers have seen us at our worst. And still rivers brought us life, the water of life, fed us and washed us and watered our fields and our cattle.

                Rivers have also witnessed our communion with God. It was by the river Chebar in Babylon that Ezekiel saw the heavens opened; and in the Jordan River Jesus saw the heavens opened, and the hand of God was upon each in his own time and place.

                In our call to worship I mentioned two other rivers that witnessed our faith history. It was on the Humber River, near Hull, that the Pilgrim congregation waited for the opportunity to cross the North Sea to Holland; and it was in Leiden, on the Rheine they found refuge.

Consider the river which runs through our town. We are here in this place because of that river, because the men of the northern railroad decided here was a good place to build a crossing. We’ll need a town there. It will need churches. And because they were New Englanders, they said amongst themselves, let’s establish both kinds of churches—Congregational and Episcopalian. And here we are to this day, worshipping on the same lot given to our people one hundred and almost forty years ago, by the men who decided that here was a good place for the railroad to cross the river.

                If that river could talk, what would it say about how we have treated it, and each other, over the years? We owe that river our life, but we hardly notice it, as we cross over it in our cars day in day out. Like God, in a way. The mater and matrix-- mother and medium-- of life, God provides the gift of life and witnesses the best and worst of our aspirations and misdeeds, and we live and move in God hardly noticing how precious and precarious is life, until we do.

                The river gives us a clue once or twice in a lifetime or so, that we shouldn’t take its power for granted. When it floods its banks, or runs dry, then we notice, then we realize, that what we do to the river we do to ourselves.  Then we realize that our actions have ultimate consequences, for us and for generations after us. Then we realize that we owe the river our life.

                And the river is a metaphor for God, a flowing, living, life-giving metaphor for the one who gives us life, who carries us along in our little bulrush baskets, who receives our tears and absorbs our blood and cleanses our wounds and quenches our thirst and waters our fields and receives our dead and gives us life and repeats the cycle endlessly, from creation to new creation, eternally flowing, never spent. Blessed be the river, the water of life, and the source, now and evermore, Amen.

Bread in the Desert

18 September 2011

Exodus 16:2-15; Matthew 15:29-38

Last week I mentioned briefly how the gospel of Matthew is a value-added gospel. I mean that the author or authors of the gospel elaborated on the source material that they had received, as they set it down in writing for a particular community of Christians in a particular time and place. For the other gospel writers, one miraculous feeding was sufficient, but not for Matthew’s gospel. The story I just read is the second feeding miracle in the gospel: a reprise of the feeding of the 5,000, this one set not on a hillside beside the sea but in the desert wilderness.

All of the additions to this gospel had a purpose. It wasn’t just to pad the gospel, to make it longer than all the other gospels; there was a theological purpose to the additional material. Like Matthew’s stories about Jesus’ birth, the feeding miracle was retold “to fulfill the scripture”—to connect Jesus to the prophets of the Hebrew scripture. The change in venue is significant-- bread in the desert—when was the last time the children of Israel received bread in the desert? This retelling casts Jesus as a prophet like Moses, the greatest prophet of all.

                As Moses himself had promised: “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people….” (Deut. 18:15) Moses provided bread in the desert, Jesus provides bread in the desert, therefore, Jesus is a prophet like Moses. “Never since has there arisen a prophet like Moses,” (Deut. 34:10) until now.

                The manna story itself has an underlying purpose. The reason the story of the manna was told and retold and set in writing is because it said something true about God, something that was not simply true at the time, but something eternally true about the nature of God. In the desert wilderness, God provides.

                The wilderness is a scary place, if you are lost and alone with no provisions. The wilderness is even scarier when you are lost, and not alone, but you are there with people who are dependent on you. Some of you saw a new profile picture on my Facebook page, which Richard of me took when I was out in the Badlands with the youth group. In the picture I appear to be in a posture of meditation, and in fact I was, and some of my friends commented that I looked very peaceful. But I was not. Actually I was praying that I would not faint dead away out there, and spoil the trip for the children in my care. We were taken for a hike in the Badlands in the middle of the afternoon, in August, when no people in their right minds would go out there. But we went because it was on the program, and we trusted our guides, the staff at Re-member. When we arrived at this great cavernous bowl of dust, and I had already drank all my water, I thought, O my God they have brought us out here to kill us. Who are these people, really? What do we know about them? I am going to die here and my youth group is going to have to carry my body out. And that will just ruin their week.

                Though at the time I questioned the value of that trip into the wilderness, I really should be grateful for the insight into the states of mind of the Hebrew people in the wilderness. Who is this Moses? What do we know about him, really? Maybe he is a glassy-eyed megalomaniac, who brought us and our children out here in this wilderness to die. Pharaoh wasn’t so bad. Yes, we have the scars of the overseer’s whip on our backs, but we also had bread, and fruit, and water, and our children were safe. Pharaoh’s bread was better than no bread at all.

                Pharaoh’s bread was better, until there was bread from heaven. Moses sent the people out to gather up bread from heaven, every day, just enough for that day and no more. Every day except for the Sabbath, God’s day of rest, the people gathered bread from heaven.

                Eventually, forty years later so the story goes, the people entered the promised land, and they ate the bread of the land of Canaan that year, they ate the bread of the land that God had promised to their ancestors. All the manna ceased on that day, because manna is only for the wilderness.

                Many generations later, the descendants of the Hebrew slaves once again found themselves eating Pharaoh’s bread. Not Pharaoh’s, literally, actually it was Caesar’s bread. The wheat may have grown in their promised land, Caesar claimed it as his own. Caesar requisitioned it and redistributed it under his own brand name, so to speak, in the imperial bread dole. As long as conquered people remained loyal to Caesar, they could eat his bread. Rebel, and the bread dole ceases. Thus the empire was held under Caesar’s power, through bread, and the legions, bread and the sword.

                Jesus came like Moses to lead the people to freedom: to demonstrate that God still had the power and the will to provide bread in the desert, to make a way in the wilderness.

                This is true, and can be trusted. This is a story for our time. When people at the bread of their own land, when everyone had, so to speak, their own vineyards and their own fig trees, when we were self-sufficient, perhaps then we didn’t need this story so much. But now, we live in a land of foreclosures. We live in a land of broken homes and broken dreams. We are afraid that we might watch our children suffer. We are afraid that our children might see us suffer. We are shadows of our former selves, we are exiled from the land of plenty in which we used to live and we pine for the days of plenty. But the way forward is not backward. We step tentatively into an unknown future.

                And we bless bread, and break it, and share it with one another to remind ourselves and each other, that we don’t need pharaoh’s bread, or Caesar’s bread. We bless bread and we break it to tell each other something true about God: God provides bread in the desert, fountains in the wilderness. God provides. This is true, and can be trusted. Amen.

And Mercy, More Than Life

September 11, 2011
Matthew 18:21-35

How many times must I forgive a brother or sister? Peter asked Jesus. As many as seven times? That’s a lot. No, Jesus said, not seven times, and you can almost hear Peter begin to say “Whew.” Not seven times but seventy seven times, or seven times 70 times, or a bazillion times. Why? Because God’s forgiveness knows no limit. We forgive, because God has forgiven us.

Because, Jesus said, God is like this—and then he told a story. He told a story because people remember stories. We carry stories around inside ourselves. Sometimes we might forget a story until some clue calls it to mind, and we think to ourselves, gee, I haven’t thought of that story for years. But there it is. Like a lot of rabbis and prophets before him Jesus taught in stories. And here’s the story.

A king, or maybe we could say a banker, decided to call in his loans. One of his debtors owed him 10,000 talents, which in modern currency would be like you or I owing the bank a bazillion dollars. 10,000 talents is like 30 lifetimes of income-- an impossible amount. The debtor begged his creditor, have patience with me and I’ll pay you back every cent. This was a desperate lie. There was no way that he could pay the debt, unless he lived for about 2000 years.

In the prophetic tradition of parable-preaching, the king is and isn’t God—that’s the way it is with parables, it’s not a strict allegory. So the king is—and isn’t-- God, the servant is—and isn’t-- Israel, or we could say the church or the nation or all of us together. Everything we are, we owe to God. We could not possibly begin to repay God for the gift of life, for the earth our home, for the land and sky and sea and all the riches that we put to use as if they were our own. If God were to require payment, we would be in deep trouble. We could whine, plead, and try to make some desperate kind of deal, but really, we could never, ever pay for all that God has given us.

Fortunately, God doesn’t demand payment. Life is a gift. We are all benefactors of a generous God, a benevolent ruler, a merciful judge.

In the parable, after having been forgiven of this enormous, impossible, unpayable debt, after being saved from slavery along with his wife and children, the debtor, we’ll call him debtor #1, runs into a guy, we’ll call him debtor #2,  who owes him some money-- a lot of money, but not a ridiculous amount. 100 denari=100 days pay, so whatever 100 days pay is for you, we’ll say he owed that much. Debtor #2 begs for mercy, promises to pay the debt, which he could do. But the one who was shown mercy does not emulate his former creditor. Debtor #1 seems to forget immediately the mercy that he received, his brain is like a sieve, the memory of desperation and mercy and relief was there and then gone. Rather than forgive as he was forgiven, the unforgiving servant has debtor #2 thrown into prison.

I believe this is where Jesus ended the parable. But the author of the Gospel of Matthew seems to have been uneasy with open endings, and was always adding material, expanding and explaining parables. What’s the point of telling a parable if you’re going to explain it? But the author is a literary artist. Matthew’s conclusion to this passage puts a beautiful literary parentheses around the parable, frames the parable with these two phrases about forgiveness: Peter’s question “If a brother or sister sins against me” opens the parentheses and “if you do not forgive a brother or sister” closes it. Thus the parable is framed by our relationship to each other, as brothers and sisters, and by sin and forgiveness.

Every Sunday we pray “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” As if God’s forgiveness was conditioned upon our forgiving others. But according to the parable, it’s actually the other way around. God forgives us first. God has forgiven us our debt. We couldn’t begin to pay it anyway, but the least we can do in response to God’s mercy is to show mercy to others.

The quality of God’s mercy is not strained, as Portia testified in The Merchant of Venice. It pours down from heaven as the gentle rain. It is twice blessed, it blesses the one who gives as well as the one who receives. On earth as it is in heaven, earthly power is most like God’s “when mercy seasons justice.” When mercy seasons justice. I love that phrase.

As I remember 9/11/2001, the worst terrorist attack in the United States immediately inspired grace and mercy. I remember how strangers—even in New York, of all places (I like a lot of Midwesterners, had the idea that New York City is the last place on earth to look for kindness)-- helped each other find their way to safety. I remember that as some people ran from the cloud of dust as the towers fell, others ran toward it. I remember the generous expressions of sympathy from people all over the world.

But, I also remember how, in the days after 9/11, the cry for justice became a call to vengeance, and I remember how, as a nation, we disagreed over the measures of mercy and justice. We still disagree to this day, I know. Ten years later we still argue how things might have been different if only, if only…. Until we learn to forgive as we have been forgiven, to give as we have received from God, to show mercy as we have seen mercy, until then we live in a kind of hell of our own making. We torture ourselves.

On this tenth anniversary, I remember, and I hope that we can move into the future as better people, as people who have learned from the past and are ready to repent, as people who are ready to excel in showing mercy.

It is from the third verse of the hymn “America the Beautiful” that I take the title for this sermon, and it is my sincere hope that we may prove heroic in loving, and generous with mercy.

“O Beautiful, for heroes proved in liberating strife, who more than self their county loved, and mercy, more than life. America, America, may God thy gold refine, ‘til all success be nobleness and every gain, divine.” May it be so. Amen.

God’s Place

24 July 2011

Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

The kingdom of heaven as if someone should blow on a dandelion flower. A single seed floats on the breeze and takes root in the corner of the garden, and before you know it the whole lawn is covered in a Roundup resistant variety.

The kingdom of heaven is like Eurasian milfoil. By the time you notice it, the plant has taken over the lake. And the more you cut it, the more it grows.

The kingdom of heaven is like a zebra mussel….

When Jesus told these parables, the listeners knew that Jesus was comparing God’s kingdom to things which were noxious weeds, invasive species, and ritually unclean. We don’t really have a “ritually unclean” equivalent in modern society, but I think the hated zebra mussel comes the closest. Poor zebra mussel. It never meant to take over our lakes. It’s not as if some terrorist zebra mussel organization—the ZMLO-- planned an invasion…. A mussel’s got to do what a mussel’s got to do… whatever that is.

Same with milfoil and dandelions. It is in their nature to grow, to resist attack, to persist in growing and spreading abroad. Floating on the air, drifting through the water, as innocent as it is unstoppable.

Jesus was speaking to a people who were as weeds to the empire. Families, whole villages, were plucked up from their land forced to move elsewhere, or be crushed. Their ancestral lands were given to those who were deemed more appropriate: Roman settlers, soldiers and officers, the Vichy government or whatever its equivalent was—those who collaborated in their own country’s colonization.

So when they heard Jesus evoking the kingdom of God, not in the Holy temple or the ritually consecrated furnishings associated with it, but in the common, the base, the untouchable, the ritually unclean…. They knew he was talking about them.

The kingdom of God is not like the priests; the kingdom of God is not like the legions, the kingdom of God is like you. The presence of God is among you, the despised, the forgotten, the plucked up and the crushed. But like the yeast you rise. Like the weeds, you grow tall and strong. God is at work in you.

It was a scandalous joy! The way Jesus talked, it was a scandalous joy! Here is a rabbi talking about God among us. Scandalous! Joy!

Do you understand? Jesus asked. “Ye-es” the disciples said, but did they really? And do we? The church began as an underground movement. Small, poor, despised, afflicted, but growing, in spite of persecutions, it continued to grow. Because Christians saw the presence of God in the despised of the earth, and they reached out and cared for those who had no one else to care for them.

But as the church grew, and received the patronage of the empire that crucified Jesus, it began to emulate the empire, rather than God’s kingdom.

So we must tell each other these stories again and again, to remind ourselves of God’s place in the world. God is found in the last place we would look.

 As a church, we do a lot of good things. We go to the soup kitchen and feed people, we go out to the ends of the earth to bring health care and build shelter and serve. But never forget, that wherever we go, we do not “bring God;” God is already there. God has always been there. Among the weeds. Among the displaced. Among the uprooted, downtrodden and crushed, there is God. If we pay attention, we might see the kingdom of God in our midst.

Oh Yes, God Is In This Place

17 July 2011

Genesis 28:10-19a

Psalm 139:1-12, 23-24

When I was a child, I was under the impression that the characters mentioned in Bible stories were all good. Except for the ones who were obviously all bad, of course. Goliath was bad, David was good. Delilah was bad, Samson was good. There were heroes who were all good, and villains who were all bad. And the lesson was, be good. Obey your parents, stand up to bullies, be good as all God’s heroes are good.

So when I started to read the actual bible, not the children’s story bible, I was surprised to see what scoundrels my former heroes could be. Take the story of Isaac’s family. This family is worthy of its own reality show on MTV. Isaac seems to be in his own world, completely unaware or unconcerned with the relationship of people around him. Isaac and his oldest son Esau are tightly bound, share a love of blood sport and red meat. Manly  men. Isaac’s wife Rebecca and their younger son Jacob have a bond that seems to be built on their mutual jealousy of the relationship that Isaac and Esau have with each other. Rebecca devises a plan and Jacob carries it out, to rob Esau of his father’s blessing.

When our story begins, it is the end of the day that Jacob ran for his life. His mother invented an excuse for his departure, to give him time to get as far away from his justifiably angry brother as possible. After deceiving his father and disinheriting his brother and running away from his home, Jacob lies down for a fitful night of sleep.

And that is when he meets his God.

Which goes against everything I learned in Sunday school, which was that if you are very, very good, you will get to see God one day in heaven. And this is how to be good: Honor your father and mother, don’t lie cheat or steal.

Jacob made a fool out of his father, impersonated his brother, stole his father’s blessing and swindled his brother out of his inheritance. And then he saw God. It just doesn’t make sense. And more than that, it’s not fair.

The lesson is not “Be a jerk and see God.”

But perhaps the lesson is, “If you think you know God, watch out.”

Perhaps the lesson is, “No matter how far you run, God will find you.”

“You hem me in, behind and before…. If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea…” there you are, God.

“Once there was a little bunny who wanted to run away,” begins a story by Margaret Wise Brown. I read it many times to my children.

“So he said to his mother, ‘I am running away.’

 "'If you run away,’ said his mother, ‘I will run after you. For you are my little bunny.’”

And the story goes on. The little bunny shares his plans to become a boat and sail far far away, and the mother bunny responds, If you become a boat, I will become the wind and blow you where I want you to go. The little bunny says, Then I will become a crocus in a hidden garden; and the mother says she will become the gardener, and so on. Finally the little bunny says, in that case, I’ll just stay here and be your little bunny.

“Have a carrot,” says the mother.

I can’t help but think of Psalm 139 as “The Runaway Bunny Psalm.”

No matter how ornery, contrary, and mean we become, God is our mother and our father. God will seek us out.

No matter how far we run from our home, God will be there.

Maybe we don’t notice God’s presence so much when we are at home with God, when we are “being good.” When we are living in Christ, loving our neighbor, God’s presence so permeates our lives that God is as the air we breathe. Essentially present, mostly, unnoticed.

It is when we become lost to ourselves that we find God’s presence so surprising. When we find ourselves as strangers in a strange land, a land of grief, a land of need and uncertainty, that we find God’s presence so surprising.

Remember when Joey and Sue came back from Haiti, after the earthquake, and we were so surprised to see all the smiling faces, all the happiness and joy in the midst of such devastation? Surely God is in this place, and I did not know it.

Remember the last time you lost someone you loved, and you wandered in the land of grief and misery, and then, one day, you woke up and realized you were going to live? Surely God is in this place, and I did not know it.

Remember the last time you were truly lost on unmapped roads, roads your GPS didn’t recognize and Rand McNally never heard of, and then you found a landmark, and suddenly knew where you were? Surely God is in this place, and I did not know it.

No matter how far we run, no matter how lost we become, no matter how low or high we go… Surely God is in this place, whether we know it or not. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Who Will You Bring to the Welcome Table?

Texts:

Acts 8:26-39; Romans 12:3-21; Luke 14:1, 7-24

We would like you to preach on any scripture that some Christians point to as proof of God's view on homosexuality. We'd like to know the "actual" meaning of those verses so we can be armed against it with knowledge, for us and for our daughter. (L & M)

As we come to the close of our summer season, we are also coming the the close of the Uncommon Lectionary series. I address L & M's request in the August newsletter, and I have re-posted my old "Bible Bullets" paper to the website. If you go to uccbrainerd.org and click on the "Bible Bullets" box, you will be linked directly to the paper. In it, I address several of the scriptures that some people fire at GLBT and allied folk. But knowing the "actual" meaning, as M and L call it, in quotes, will not stop the assault of anti-gay rhetoric.

Somebody said-- maybe it was Brett Farve-- somebody said "The best defense is a good offense." Explaining why we don't hold those few verses in the bible as God's final word on sexuality is a defensive tactic. Articulating what we do believe about God's embrace of all the people, that would be the offensive tactic.

The story of the Ethiopian eunuch is, to me, one of those revelations of the wideness of God's mercy, the breadth of God's embrace. It is an affirmation that those who have been marginalized and ostracized and disenfranchised belong in the church. They are not just allowed in the church, as if through a side door, they belong in the church as members of the body of Christ, and as leaders too.

The man in the chariot was a student of the Hebrew bible, the law and the prophets, but he could not become a Jew. Not because he was an African-- but because he was a eunuch. He was without, and according to the Levitical code-- the same code that is quoted to condemn gays, by the way-- according to the Levitical code he was barred from the temple.

The man in the chariot, the Ethiopian eunuch, had been reading from the book of the prophet Isaiah, about the suffering servant, "in his humiliation justice was denied him," and in that verse he found someone he could relate to, having just come from Jerusalem, where he was doubly the outcast (a foreigner and a eunuch), doubly humiliated. About whom does the prophet speak? About himself, or somebody else? Philip told him about Jesus, and he almost did not dare believe it. Could this mean there was a place for him?

"Here is water, what is to prevent me from being baptized," he asked. "What is to prevent me--" no one else in scripture speaks in this way, as if he is preparing himself for rejection, once again. Waiting to hear the reason-- "You're black. You're a eunuch." But no. There was no rejection.

The man was baptized at once, and went on his way rejoicing. Post-canonical legend has it that the Ethiopian later became the founder of the Christian church in Ethiopia. If so, then who and when was the first sexual minority elected bishop? It wasn't Gene Robinson in 2003 after all!

This isn't the only story, the scriptures are full of affirmations of God's expansive embrace. The table of the Lord is a welcome table. In an age when so many people decline the invitation, why would the church deny a place at the table to anyone who responds to the call?

What if we made the parable of the great banquet our story? What if we decided, as a congregation, that this is our metaphor for ministry in the coming months? Every week, a banquet is prepared. A sermon stews for days, until it's just right. The musicians rehearse. The table is adorned with flowers. The hosts make lemonade and coffee to go with the desert, the greeters are ready to open the doors, Shirley is at the guestbook with pens and the extra nametags.

Here is the church, here is the steeple, open the doors, where are all the people? Sixty, Seventy, Eighty people, that's good, but there is still room. Ninety, one-hundred, one-hundred and ten... still room! Go out into the highways and compel them to come in, the host says in the parable, my table must be full. People can't eat, if they're not here.

Many people received the invitation and declined. Does the host say to the servants, go out and beg those people to reconsider, please? No. The host focuses on the people who haven't yet received an invitation. The host sends the servants out to find the people who do not know that a banquet is prepared and they are welcome.

I met a man last week who started a GLBT support group at the VA hospital. He asked the group how many of them had grown up in a church. Nearly all raised their hands. Then he asked how many were involved in a church at present. None but a few raised their hands. Most didn't know of a church where they would be welcome.

Who else missed the invitation? Maybe they are under the mistaken impression that they aren't invited, because they are poor, and they think the church is only for people with money to give, or they are single, and they think the church is only for traditional families, or they have no children, and they think the church is only recruiting people who can fill the Sunday School. Maybe they are tone deaf and think the church is only for people who can sing.

If you were one of those servants, called to fill up the welcome table, who would you find? Who would you bring?

Who will you bring to the welcome table?

The Heart's Desire

For Sunday, August 15, in the Uncommon Lectionary Series.

Texts: Philippians 4:10-23; Luke 16:13-15; Luke 20:45-21:4

"For the Uncommon Lectionary, will you read the story of Jesus going to the temple and seeing the poor widow put her tiny coin into the offering box, and pointing out to the arrogant rich guys that she has given more than they have. This was one of my favoirtes when mother read to me from Hurlbut's Stories from the Bible." --Doris A.

"Luke 16 Puzzling!" -- Anonymous

Jesus, in the passages we read today, offered a lesson in contrasts: those who contribute relatively little, and make a big show of it, compared to those who give their little all, without fanfare, without any expectation of receiving accolades in return. Those who publicize their generosity have at least mixed intentions-- if we assume they have at least some inclination to do good, that intention is mixed with the need to lift themselves up above others. Their heart is divided-- serving others and themselves. But the widow gives with a singular heart, devoted to God and to others in need. I imagine her smiling, rejoicing as she approached the treasury, pleased that she had something to share.

I have seen it again and again, those who know what it is to be in need are often first in generosity. I remember during the great Midwestern floods of 1993, Bangladesh sent sandbags to Iowa. Iowa farmers, who had likely given to poverty relief through their churches, received aid from those whom they had previously looked upon as the less fortunate! It was biblical.

The church in Philippi was, according to the letters of the apostle Paul, particularly generous. Even though the Philippians were poor, as compared to other communities, they outshone the wealthier churches in generosity, and Paul lifted them up as an example to the church in Corinth (you can read about it in the 8th chapter of 2nd Corinthians).

Jesus taught his followers that they could not serve God and wealth. The first Christians, according to the book of Acts, shared everything, and if anyone had lands or properties, they sold them, and gave the proceeds to the church, to distribute according to need. Yes, according to the New Testament, the voluntary redistribution of wealth is a Christian virtue. We call it generosity.

But not everyone is equally virtuous. We admire St. Francis of Assisi and Mother Teresa of Calcutta, but not everyone can be St. Francis or Mother Teresa.

Paul explained this in terms of spiritual gifts. We may earnestly desire the higher gifts, we may earnestly desire to be like St. Francis, Mother Teresa, or the widow at the temple, but that level of generosity and devotion may be beyond us, for a time. We can practice generosity to the best of our ability, and trust that we may grow in this as well as other spiritual gifts.

I like the way the apostle Paul put it in his final greeting to the church that he loved so dearly. "I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. "

Paul does not say what the secret is, just that he learned it. I believe the secret has something to do with the heart's desire.

Consider your heart's desire. If our hearts are set on wealth, on material comforts, we are sure to be miserable, always searching for more. But with our hearts set on union with God, we will know such joy! Because the story of scripture assures us that we are God's heart's desire. God yearns for us passionately. So let us set our hearts on God. Hear what the Spirit is saying to the church.

Be Not Afraid!

Texts: Psalm 111 (...the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom....) and Matthew 14:22-33 (Do not be afraid.)

Chuck Watson asked me to address his question in our Uncommon Lectionary series. His question is about fear, and others have asked me the same question. Why are we supposed to fear God? Both old and new testaments commend the "fear of the Lord." It seems to be at odds with the gospel of Jesus, who said, on many occasions, "Be not afraid."

To begin to address this question we must remember two things about language: One, the scriptures were not written in English (I hope this is not a great surprise to you). They were taken down in Hebrew and Greek and copied over and over, many times before the English language evolved. Two, English is a living language, and the meaning of words change over time. The Hebrew word which is translated "fear" might be better translated as reverence, respect, esteem, awe, worship. When the Hebrew Bible was first translated into English, about 500 years ago, the word "fear" meant all these things. The Brewsters, the first family among the Pilgrims, named one of their daughters "Fear." It was typical among the Puritans to name their children after virtues (they also had a son named "Love"), and Fear was considered a virtue, akin to reverence.

Reverence for the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Does that sound better? It follows from the first commandment, I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me. Know that God is God, and nothing else is-- that is the beginning of wisdom.

Fear, and I'm talking about fear as we use the word today, fear is a natural, normal reaction to danger. If we didn't have the fear response we might not have the sense to get out of harm's way. But persistent, unreasonable fear can itself become a poison. If we live in fear of someone or something, we give that person or thing power over us. In other words, we come to revere, or stand in awe of, the object of our fear. To fear something other than God is to come very close to idolatry.

Jesus came preaching "do not be afraid, little flock," do not worry about what you will eat or what you will wear, do not fear. To those who approached him in fear and trembling Jesus said, Do not be afraid.

To the church in every age and to us, Jesus says, as he said to his disciples in the story, "Do not be afraid."

The early church, the people to whom these gospel stories were first told, had much to be anxious and troubled about. Following the Way of the crucified and risen Jesus meant giving up ties to their families, their synagogues, even giving up their homes sometimes, to become part of something new and unknown. The early church was much like a boat on uncharted waters. In fact, in early Christian art, as seen in the catacombs and caves that were the early Christians' refuge, the boat was a symbol of the church. And it must have felt to them, at various times, like a boat on stormy seas.

Long-term unemployment, job insecurity, volatile financial markets which make a peak at our previously secure retirement funds feel like a trip to the casino... yes there is much to make us anxious and troubled. Glaciers evaporating, ice caps softening, oil plumes persisting in the gulf, we wonder what sort of a world we will be leaving to our grandchildren.

Here we are on this gospel ship, with our leaky roof, in the storm. And along comes Jesus, saying, Courage! Take heart! It is I! Do not be afraid!

He even calls Peter to come and walk with him on the water, in the storm. And Peter courageously steps out of the boat, and walks toward Jesus. In a moment, Peter looses focus, he lets the storm and the wind overwhelm him, and begins to sink. Even then, Jesus reaches out and lifts him up, and brings him back to the boat. And with Jesus in the boat, all is calm.

In what way is Jesus calling us to step out of our boat? In what way is Jesus calling us to leave the relative safety of a lifeboat in a storm, and step out into the storm itself?

When we take that step, how will we keep our eyes upon the one who keeps us above the waves?

How can we make room in the boat, to save others who are sinking?

Let us contemplate these questions, as we consider what the spirit is saying to the church.

(Preached Sunday, August 22, 2010)

Money, Money, Money:

It's a rich man's world. Or is it? Some thoughts on the theme for Sunday worship, in our uncommon lectionary season.

"For the Uncommon Lectionary, will you read the story of Jesus going to the temple and seeing the poor widow put her tiny coin into the offering box, and pointing out to the arrogant rich guys that she has given more than they have. This was one of my favoirtes when mother read to me from Hurlbut's Stories from the Bible." --Doris A.

"Luke 16 Puzzling!" -- Anonymous

Jesus blessed the state of poverty and the cursed the state of wealth. Jesus drew attention to the generosity of the poor and ridiculed the self-importance of the wealthy. And the wealthy ridiculed him right back.

Sisterly Love: Martha and Mary

Proverbs 31:10-31; Luke 10:38-42

The story of Martha and Mary was submitted by Marcia F., who, as most of you would guess, identifies with Martha. But she is not the only one. When the story comes up at prayer circle, for example, a number of women whom I admire get really ticked off at Jesus, for being so unkind to Martha. I am surprised at the women who get ticked off by this story. I strongly suspect them of being older sisters in their families of origin. I, being the younger sister, identify with Mary, so I really like this story. It makes me feel good and vindicated.

But not everyone loves this story, which is sad, because, sisters, we don't have many stories in the Bible about us. There aren't many biblical characters with whom we can identify like we can identify with Martha and Mary. Of all the people named in the Bible, the overwhelming majority are male. And, when a female character makes an appearance, she is rarely named-- usually she is identified as the wife of or the concubine of or the mother of or the sister of some guy. But here is Martha, and Mary, two women who are defined by their relationship not to some guy but to each other!

So, Sisters, why do we have a problem with this story? Perhaps we over identify, over personalize it. Maybe because we have so few biblical women with whom to identify, or maybe it is a gender-specific characteristic. Men don't seem to do this-- men don't get bent out of shape because Jesus was mean to Peter when he rebuked him.

In a video entitled "How to Irritate People," comic actor John Cleese related a story about his fellow Python Graham Chapman, who conspired with Cleese to demonstrate gender difference at a party they were attending. As if speaking to Cleese, Chapman said, very loudly, "The problem with women is they take everything personally." Immediately, three women turned on him and said, "Well I don't."

Perhaps we do. So Martha, I want to tell you, that this story, it's not about you. Don't take it personally. And Mary, it's not about you either (I say to myself). So stop feeling so smug and self-satisfied.

There is much to be commended in both women. Martha is the epitome of the wise and capable woman of the Proverb, with one exception-- she doesn't seem to be anyone's wife. But she is a caretaker, a capable woman, head of her household. Her sister Mary is behaving badly. Mary is sitting where she does not belong, at the rabbi's feet. That is the place for the honored student; if the disciples were an orchestra Mary would be sitting in the first chair, violin section, so to speak. Mary is taking a place that is not hers to take. In politest terms, Mary is being inappropriate, presumptuous. In less polite terms, Mary's behavior is scandalous. Some people might think she's acting like some sort of floozy.

Martha, as the head of her household is duty-bound to protect her sister and preserve the honor of the house. Martha expects Jesus to help her, but to everyone's surprise, Jesus does something completely different. Jesus turns the world upside down, again.

He rebuked Martha. The same way he rebuked his disciples for sending the children away, and found an opportunity for teaching a whole new way to look at the world. It is an amazing, liberating, new teaching.

Remember the story of Jesus and the children? They (Who were they? Might they be women, mothers perhaps?) were bringing children to Jesus that Jesus might bless them, but when the disciples saw it, they ordered them to stop. An important rabbi like Jesus doesn't have time to waste on little children. But when Jesus saw what was going on, he rebuked the disciples, and said to them, "Let the little children come to me!" They are first in the kingdom of God.

How about that. Women and children are part of God's new world, and so are the blind, and the lame, and the demon-possessed, the Samaritans, the alien and the sojourner in the land. The story of Martha and Mary is one gospel story among many that says to the church, that whatever we do, if we do not include the people on the fringe, then we are not complete.

We are the church. We are Mary and Martha, and Peter and Andrew, and we are the Gerasene demoniac, the leader of the synagogue, and the Syro-Phonecian woman. We are all of these. We need to be all of these together.

God knows the church needs Martha. But sometimes we are, like Martha, anxious and troubled about things that really are not all that important, when it comes right down to it. We are accustomed to providing certain programs and services as a congregation, but, unless we spend some time with Mary, at the feet of Jesus, we will not have the energy to do the many good things that we can do. We need to balance the "doing" of Martha with the "being" of Mary.

The annual leadership retreat is usually very "Martha." We do budgets and calendar and planning and reviewing. So this August, on the 14th, when we get together for our leadership retreat, we will spend some time being Mary, sitting at the feet of Jesus, listening.

Thanks be to God for Martha, and Mary, and for what the Spirit is saying to the church. Amen.

Is Paul really all that?

This question came to me through our "Uncommon Lectionary" exercise:

Why is Paul's theology given such prominence as compared to the gospels? Shouldn't the experience of those who were with Jesus in his lifetime take prominence over Paul, who only knew Christ after the resurrection?

Which inspires me to ask a couple of questions in response: Is Paul's theology given prominence? And, do the gospels pre-date Paul?

The second question is an easier answer so I will address that first. When Eugene Wehrli taught Introduction to New Testament at Eden Seminary in 1987, he began with 1 Thessalonians, because that is, according to people smarter than me (and maybe even smarter than Dr. Wehrli), the earliest book in the New Testament. Dr. Wehrli organized the syllabus chronologically, so we began with the Pauline letters, then the gospel according to Mark, then Matthew, Luke-Acts, then I think we went to the pastoral epistles, the gospel of John, and the Revelation.

As far as we can tell, Paul died before the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. That seems to be the event that inspired the compilation of the gospels, from the oral tradition, the collective memory of Christians and perhaps from some written collections of the sayings of Jesus. Apparently, the first Christians were expecting Jesus' imminent return at the end of the age in their lifetimes. As they got older, they realized they might need to write something down if they wanted to share the stories of Jesus with future generations.

Is Paul's theology given prominence in the New Testament? Paul is pretty prominent, and his prominence is well-deserved. He built a global church (well, an empire-wide church anyway) without a written gospel to leave behind, without a leadership pipeline, without an army of administrators to aid him, without any support and with occasional hindrance from headquarters in Jerusalem. Take a look at how much of the New Testament is attributed to Paul. It's significant.

In church history, Paul's popularity waxes and wains, I suppose. Martin Luther was wild about Paul, so was John Calvin. John Wesley, not so much. Paul wrote some things I wish he hadn't, or I wish no one had bothered to preserve. He didn't set out to write the bible, remember. He had a bible already, it was the same bible that Jews read and study today in synagogues all over the world. Had he known that people would be reading out bits of his letters in worship 2000 years later, would he have written things differently? I like to think so. Who knows?

For all his faults, he gave us some pretty good material. "If I speak in the tongues of mortals and angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging symbol." That's good. "Now we see as in a mirror, dimly, then we will see face to face." That's brilliant. That's much more poetic than "love your neighbor as yourself," and "judge not, lest you be judged." Same thing, really, just said a different way.

So, does that answer your question?

You give them something to eat (2)

Mark 6:30-46
As preached on 6 June 2010

"You give them something to eat," Jesus said, when the disciples suggested that he say the benediction and send the crowds on their way. They did not have much, but what they had, they shared, and miraculously, it was more than enough. That's the story.
Let me set-up the scene for you: According to Mark, the apostles had just returned from their journeys-- Jesus had sent them out, two-by-two, to do all the things Jesus had been doing: they preached, they cast out demons, they anointed the sick with oil and cured them. Jesus proposed a vacation, so they got in a boat and sailed away to a quiet place on the other side of the lake. But, when they arrived, a crowd was there to meet them. Jesus had compassion for them, and began to teach them.
When it got late, the disciples, who still had not had anything to eat since they returned from their mission trips, thought it was time for Jesus to send the crowds away. And Jesus said, "You give them something to eat."
They were tired, they were hungry, and all they had were five pitas and a couple of fish.
Eventually, the disciples would get their rest, but right there, right then, there were hungry people in need of food. So rather than resting and reflecting, the disciples found themselves serving and clearing.
Here’s how the story might go today, in a modern retelling: People come here, drawn to this place for all the various reasons people were drawn to Jesus. Some seeking enlightenment, others healing, some are just hungry, and some simply have nothing better to do. Jesus says to us: you give them something to eat.
But we have nothing, we might say, nothing but a 125 year-old sanctuary (with loose roof shingles), a few hundred members, and a modest annual budget of… whatever it is. And Jesus says, bring it here. I’ll bless it. Now distribute it among everyone. And by the grace of God, it is enough to feed every soul present, and then some.
So what if the disciples had only 5 whole wheat pitas and a couple of herring. It was enough. So what if we only have what we have. We begin ministry with what we have. If we waste time worrying about what we haven’t, no one is fed; share what we have, and pretty soon everyone begins to share, and we find that we have enough and then some! It's a miracle.
You know, one explanation of this miracle story, from the "demythologizing" movement of the early 20th century, is that in the first century, no one would have traveled anywhere without a little lunch in their napsack. When the people saw the apostles sharing what they had, they were moved by example to share what was in their own sacks. Unexpected generosity is no less a miracle than the Sunday school interpretation.
Nobody travels through this life on empty. Everybody has some provisions. By the grace of God, we discover that (even if we though we were bereft) we have enough and more to share. It's a miracle. What happens when someone begins to share, is that the recipients of that generousity realize they have something to give too. Every Sunday, it's "stone soup."
Another way to interpret the miracle stories of Jesus is to think of them as parables. If the feeding of the five-thousand is heard as a parable as well as a miracle story, then, in addition to being a demonstration of God's creative power at work through Jesus, it is also a parable of God's "kingdom," God's reign, the world as God would have it. In God's world, everyone has enough and more, more to share with the poor.
According to Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Parker's book, Saving Paradise, early images of Jesus at table with his 12 disciples include a serving platter with five loaves and two fish, and no chalice. Early Christians celebrated the breaking of the bread, the last supper, in the context of the feeding of the 5000. What we call Holy Communion was not the sacrificial meal that it became in the second millennium. For the first thousand years of the church, this meal was an enactment of a parable, a reenactment of the miracle of the feeding of the 5000. It was an overture to the feast of paradise, which we could share with the living and the dead, who were already feasting at the head table with Christ in the paradise of God.
This is the joyful feast of the people of God. We are invited to this table to share in the miracle of God's abundance. See how the single loaf is divided among us all and yet is never completely consumed. We share and eat and drink to the day when sharing by all will mean that no one goes hungry. Hear what the Spirit is saying to the Church.

Sibling Rivalry

Genesis 4:1-16

The story of Cain and Abel was left out of the Revised Common Lectionary. It is not one of the texts selected to be read in church, on any Sunday, during the course of the three-year cycle. And yet it is a story with which we are all familiar. The plot line has been copied and reinterpreted throughout the ages, in fiction, ballads, plays, film. And the story keeps repeating itself in real life, as well.

Somewhere way, way back long ago, when people were just beginning to be able to think of themselves as people, and just beginning to wonder at the meaning of life, the universe, and everything, they began to tell each other stories. Storytelling is a way of making sense of the world, a way of telling an intangible truth through metaphor. That is still the function of stories today, our methods of telling the stories have changed, but we continue to tell them for the same reasons we have always told each other stories. To say something true. To share our values.
We understand that when we watch television or film that we are being told a story. And if the story is told well it will be true. It seems to me that are not many stories, really-- the same plot lines are told over and over again. There is the story of how love conquers all. It is told by Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler in "50 First Dates," which is a popular movie about a woman who, due to an auto accident, has no long-term memory, so Adam Sandler has to make her fall in love with him every day. Eventually, the story goes, they find a way to make a life together. We know that even though the story (as it is told in this specific film) is just plain silly, it is true. The truth is that love conquers all.
Then there is the story of how money doesn't buy happiness. Charles Dickens was very fond of that story and he told it over and over again with rich, miserable misers and poor, happy orphans. It doesn't matter that there never was an Ebenezer Scrouge or a Tiny Tim, the story is still true.
Shakespeare was especially fond of Cain and Abel plot line and it forms the basis of his greatest tragedies and histories: Titus Andronicus, Hamlet, Richard III, the Scottish play. Even if there never was a Cain or an Abel, the story is still true, and tragic, and it is being repeated over and over again.
The creation stories tell us that we are all related. We are all made in the image of God, according to the first story. We are all children of Adam and Eve, according to the second story. I can imagine the first precocious homo sapien child, listening to one of these stories around the fire at night, asking, "If we are all related, how come people fight?" It's a question we continue to ask today, "Why can't we all just get along?"
This is the story that was told to address that question. The story goes that there were two brothers. One was jealous of the other. He was jealous that his brother was better loved than he. God warned him not to be jealous, God warned him about that green-eyed monster couching by the door, ready to spring, ready to pounce. But at that moment, the jealous brother was overcome by rage and he killed his brother. Immediately he regretted it, and he tried to hide what he had done. But, murder will out. You can't hide from God.
God knew what had happened. But, just like a mother, God went ahead and asked the rhetorical question anyway. "Cain, where is your brother?"
To which Cain replied (apparently not realizing what rhetorical meant) with his own rhetorical question, "Am I my brother's keeper?" Which God, knowing everying including what rhetorical means, did not answer.
Am I by brother's keeper? Am I supposed to keep track of my brother as if he were a sheep in my flock, or an animal in my zoo? How would you answer that question if you were God? To the people that God made out of clay, God gave the keeping of all the earth. And if people are a part of "all the earth," then yes, we are each others keepers. But then again, people are not animals, we are not supposed to treat each other like dumb beasts. So maybe we are not each others keepers. But we know from the 23rd Psalm that "The Lord is our keeper (our shepherd, which is somebody who keeps sheep). So maybe we could say, yes, and maybe no. But what God could have said for certain is, "You are your brother's brother, and you ought to know where he is." I think that's what I might say if I were to write God's line for this story.
We may, or may not be our brothers' keepers, but we are created to be our brothers' brothers and our sisters' sisters. When we raise our hands against brothers and sisters, we curse ourselves, and our children suffer the consequences of guilt for generations. Cain killed Abel. Abel died, Cain survived, and suffered for the rest of his days.

Tomorrow when we commemorate the fallen, we adorn Abel's grave with flowers. Memorial Day is Abel's day, the day we remember our brothers and our sisters who have died on our behalf, who have been killed on our behalf by... our brothers and our sisters. For what else is war, but the tragic repetition of the murder of Abel by Cain? This is most clear when we remember the Civil War dead, for whom this national holiday was created. "Love and tears for the blue, tears and love for the gray." It was brother against brother. And the same is true of every war, if we agree that we are all members of one human family, all children of God. North and South Korea, Israel and Palestine, Pakistan and India, wherever and whenever war breaks out, Cain is sent to kill Abel, over and over again.
War happens because we can not see when sin is couching at the door. We are the ones who look over the fence at our neighbor's grass and say, "Hey, why is that grass greener than mine? Shouldn't I have green grass, and a gardener to mow it?" Shouldn't I have all of this, and more? Truth is it's none of our business who has greener pastures, or better access to crude oil or shipping lanes, or whatever else precipitates war.

But there is a note of hope, even in this tragedy, because we learn the truth about God in this story. The truth is that God does not seek vengeance for the life of Abel. The truth is, God loves Cain just as much as God loves Abel. It is said that God put a mark on Cain, a mark to protect him, so that no one would kill him. The mark of Cain-- so much speculation has arisen over the years about who bears "the mark of Cain." If there is such a mark, then surely it is a mark that we all bear, because we are as much children of Cain as we are of Eve and Adam. Maybe it's this dimple just above our lips. Maybe when Cain said "I'm a dead man," God said "Hush your mouth," and put her finger right there-- hush!

God does not demand Cain's life for Abel's. Cain lives, in exile yes, but he lives, and his children live, and there remains the potential for peace between the children of Cain and the children of Abel. The psalm 133 rejoices in the hope of reunion. How good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity! According to the notes, this psalm was written the hope of uniting the tribes of Israel, a hope that was never realized. It is a reunion we continue to hope for, yearn for, and walk toward, step by step, as we continue on the journey of faith that makes us partners with God in the Creation of God's realm of peace. So let's walk on in eager longing, in hopeful expectation, hand in hand.

What's Your Story? (2)

This summer, at First Congregational UCC, we will take a break from the Revised Common Lectionary and create our own list of biblical narratives for worship, study and prayer. You are cordially invited to participate in the formation of our "uncommon lectionary."

During worship on May 23rd, the congregation spent some time meditating on these questions: What is your biblical story? What inspires you? What troubles you? What are the core stories of our scripture? This exercise prompted some thoughtful responses. A sample of the responses I've received so far suggests we are on a similar plane of thought, regarding what puzzles us:

I have been thinking about the story of Elijah's contest with the priests of Baal. What does this say to us about relationships with Muslims, Jews, Hindus, etc-- Do we have to "win"? How about our relationships with "the evangelicals" Are we right and they wrong, or visa versa? Or does that miss the point of the story?

Another wrote,

"No one comes to the father but by me." Fundamentalists often throw this up when someone suggests Gandhi might be in heaven (or nirvana?). There are a few other verses like this that people use to justify mission work that resembles more the crusades than the work of Jesus.

There are also some similarities in what inspires us: the sermon on the mount, the beatitudes, "the one that says, God is Love." As the youngest of three children, I particularly appreciated this submission:

(Significant in learning to deal with two older brothers) "A harsh word stirs up wrath, but soft words turn away anger."

What is your story? What biblical story most informs your life? What scripture got you through a crisis? What scripture did you select for your wedding? What comforts you in grief, what burbles up from the depths of memory when you are struck by beauty and grace?

To help us form this uncommon lectionary, comment on this post. Then check back, as the weeks progress, to see what comes of our efforts to make our own, homemade and locally grown lectionary.

What's Your Story?

This summer, at First Congregational UCC, we are going to take a break from the Revised Common Lectionary and create our own list of biblical narratives. Our own Uncommon Lectionary will become the focus of our worship, study and prayer.
So what's your story? What story would you like to hear read and unpacked and examined in a sermon? What story would you like to pray or sing? What story would you like to share with the congregation?
How about an examination of the creation stories (yes, there are more than one)? What about that guy who got swallowed by a whale? What about Ruth and Naomi, the two widows who throw their lot in together?
Take a few moments to think about it. If you were browsing through a used book shop, and the guy looking through the shelf next to you picked up a bible and said, "Do you know if there are any good stories in here?" What would you recommend?

Flock Together

For "Good Shepherd Sunday," April 25, 2010

What is a witness to do? is the question we are exploring together in this Easter Season. We are witnesses to the risen Lord: That is what we proclaim on Easter Sunday: "Christ the Lord Is Risen Today, Alleluia!" The life of Jesus changed everything for the first disciples. In the company of Jesus they experienced the presence and the power of the living God. And then he was killed. And then, they experienced his presence after death. They were witnesses of the presence and power of the Christ and as witnesses they were obliged to tell others how they have seen the Lord.
These miracle stories from the Acts of the Apostles proclaim that the power that was in Jesus is now in the church. It isn't Peter who raises Tabitha, but the power of Christ working through the church that raises Tabitha as Jesus raised Jairus's dauthter. "Talitha, get up," Jesus said. "Tabitha, get up," Peter said. And the miracles that Jesus accomplished echoed back to the stories of Elijah, the prophet. The raising of Dorcas/Tabitha is a testimony that the presence of God which has always been at work in the world continues through the church.
The Acts of the Apostles also testifies that being part of the church meant being subject to suffering. The church endured persecution from the start, and we know from multiple sources that the persecution of Christians and Jews intensified after the Roman-Jewish war. The gospel according to John and the Revelation both arose out of this period of intense persecution.
This is important. To read scripture without an inkling of the experience of the writer and the intended audience is like listening to half of a phone conversation, without knowing who is on the other end of the line. Context matters.
When we hear Jesus say, in the gospel of John (and only in the gospel of John, Jesus doesn't say anything like this in the other three gospels), "You do not believe, because you do not belong to the sheep," it is vital to know that John was not addressing a congregation full of prominent, privileged citizens of the Empire. John was addressing a people who were under siege, a people who were forced into hiding, a people who were as likely to wake up in jail as to wake up at all. John's gospel is about comforting believers, confirming their faith, and assuring them-- during a period of intense persecution of the church-- that though they suffer, their suffering is not evidence of God's abandonment, or of their failure to believe strongly enough or correctly. My sheep hear my voice (I know them) and (they) follow me. In other words, because you belong to the flock, you believe.
We need each other. When our faith founders, when we wonder if there is any point to this life at all, when we are moved to shout with the psalmist and with the crucified Jesus, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me," we need the church to believe for us, and to assure us again, that God is for us, God is with us, and God will be with us always.
What is a witness to do? Flock together, and follow the Christ. Even when the way leads through suffering, follow the Christ. Stick together, help one another. Come together regularly to drink from the streams of the water of life. Feed the lambs. Carry the old sheep. And follow.

Two Parades: Palm Sunday 2010

Two Parades: One down from the Mount of Olives, the other from the coast, bringing the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, and extra Roman legions into the city to “keep the peace” during the festival of Passover.
Passover, being a festival of liberation, was an occasion of special concern to the government of occupation. Religious pilgrims poured into the city, crowding the streets, filling the temple, overflowing into encampments around the city walls, for a feast that includes a re-telling of the burdens of slavery, a reminder that God hears the call of those who are oppressed, and a warning to any who would oppress God’s chosen people.
The festival of Passover made Rome nervous. It also made collaborators like Caiaphas and Herod nervous, because they were appointed by Rome and protected by Rome. So the troops marched in from the east, line after line, marching, marching, before and behind the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate, the local representative of Caesar Augustus, who was not only Emperor, but also, according to him and to the engraving on Roman coins, “son of God.” Pilate would have been carried on a litter, or a chariot, or mounted on a war horse, in this display of military might. This parade was meant to intimidate. It was a public display of power intended to quell any ideas of rebellion, that might be inspired by the festival of freedom that is Passover.
And down from the Mount of Olives, on the opposite side of the city, came a parody of Pilate. Not on a war horse or chariot, but on the colt of an ass. A grown man on a donkey’s colt… it must have been as ridiculous as a man on a tricycle. And this King, this Jesus, was not accompanied by men of war, but by a crowd of disciples, shouting praises for the "King who comes in the name of the Lord.” Beating swords against shields, the Roman soldier would have made a terrifying, thunderous din. In contrast, the disciples praised God for all they had seen in Jesus, and invoked the peace of heaven. Pilate came to enforce the so-called peace of Rome by military threat; Jesus came, announcing the peace of heaven, the peace of God, the fulfillment of all the hopes of the people.
There were two parades in Jerusalem, parades. One a show of force, a menacing warning. The other, a proclamation of peace. These parades were on a collision course. In the week that followed the power of Rome and the power of God met, and on the surface, it may appear that Rome was victorious. Their man, Pilate, walked away unharmed, God's man, Jesus, was crucified. But that, as you know, is not the end of the story. The Easter gospel proclaims that once Rome did it's worst, Christ rose again, and lives eternally.
But, Palm Sunday is an event that repeats itself, not only literally, chronically, but figuratively in our hearts and in our lives. Whenever we are faced with a choice between the peace of Rome and the peace of Christ we relive this day. Whether to accept our place in a culture of violence, or leave the violence behind us and take our place behind Jesus the Prince of Peace, and his donkey, that is the Palm Sunday of the soul. Let us contemplate, which parade we follow.

The Anointing: John 12:1-8

The story of the anointing is recorded in all four gospels. Looking at the parallel versions of the story we can see how the telling evolved over the years. Each version reveals more about the evolving interpretation of Jesus, as the church in every generation sought to answer the question which Jesus once posed to his disciples, "Who do you say that I am?"
I am partial to Mark's version (14:3-9), in part, I suppose because it was the text for the sermon which John Riggs preached on the occasion of my ordination, on the 10th of June, 1990.

While he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment of nard, and she broke open the jar and poured the ointment on his head.
[But some were there who said to one another in anger, ‘Why was the ointment wasted in this way? For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii, and the money given to the poor.’ And they scolded her. But Jesus said, ‘Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has performed a good service for me. For you always have the poor with you, and you can show kindness to them whenever you wish; but you will not always have me. She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for its burial.] 
Truly I tell you, wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.’

The terribly ironic postscript being that even Mark's gospel failed to identify this woman. Mark's gospel may have been compiled around the year 70, that means 40 years after the fact, a mere two generations later, the church has forgotten the name of the woman whose story, Jesus said, would be told "in remembrance of her." Who is she? "A woman" is all that Mark and Matthew wrote, "came with an alabaster jar, and poured it on his head." Luke changed the location of the story from the house of Simon the Leper to the house of an unnamed Pharisee, and the locus of the anointing to the feet instead of the head. Luke also elaborated on the identity of the woman, describing her as "a sinner," implying that she was a woman of loose morals as well as loose hair (as the story goes, she bathed Jesus' feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair). And finally John, written, at the earliest, twenty years after Mark, a full generation, or perhaps two generations later, retained Luke's change from the anointing of the head to the anointing of the feet. John also moved the location once again, and gave the woman a name, identifying her as Mary of Bethany, the sister of Lazarus and Martha.
All these changes depoliticized the story, made it more acceptable to proper Roman ears, as the church grew in number, and reached different classes of people. The audience for the gospel stories changed over the years, from the Jewish peasants of occupied Judea and Gallilee, to the urban Jews of the diaspora, to the gentiles and the households of imperial Rome. Consider another change in the gospels, how in the earlier gospels the blame for the crucifixion shifts from Rome-- it's rightful place, for only the Roman rulers had the authority to crucify a convict-- to "the Jews." The gospel of John places the blame on "the Jews." Jesus was a Jew! His disciples were Jews! This too, I belive, is an unfortunate redaction, an editorial process intended to widen the church's sphere of influence. Changes made for the best intentions, perhaps, but to unfortunate, indeed tragic, consequences.
In its earliest context, this is the story of Jesus being anointed as kings were anointed. The act itself alludes to the act of the prophet Samuel, who anointed David as king of Israel. When Samuel did this, Saul was still king of Israel. It was an act of treason on his part, an act of treason which God commanded him to do. Anointing is a demonstration that says: the Spirit of the Lord rests upon this one. This is the true king, a son of God-- which was a title for the king of Israel-- and a son of David.

And I believe Jesus recognized this anointing as his death sentence. Herod was certainly not going to allow someone else to call himself the king of the Jews, a title Herod coveted. Rome was certainly not going to allow someone to call himself the king of the Jews. Anointing Jesus as king was tantamount to anointing him for his burial: His fate was sealed. As Saul sought to kill David, so Herod and Pilate would seek to kill Jesus. That is why, I believe, Jesus responded as he did, saying, "she has prepared my body for burial." In accepting this kingship, he was accepting his violent death.
David responded to his kingship by leading men into battle, in a long and bloody civil war. Jesus responded in a profoundly different way. Accepting his anointing, knowing that it would end in violence, he refused to meet violence with violence. He chose to die alone, not to lead others to their death. He chose to die the way he lived, and he lived the way he taught. Loving his enemies, praying for those who persecuted him, blessing those who cursed him.
At the beginning of this Lenten season, we read of Jesus' temptation in the wilderness. We read from Luke's version of the story, which ends with this ominous promise: "the devil departed from him until an opportune time." Now, this was the opportune time, the time to decide how to receive and respond to his anointing. This was the last temptation, and the beginning of the victory.