Gray Monday

February 5, 2012

2012-01-29T19:49:00.001-05:00

Mark 2:1-12
Lord's Supper

Message series: Good News according to Mark
Sunday’s message: Through the roof

He was prevented from getting to all the towns in Galilee – see last week’s story – so Jesus went back to Capernaum, which seems to have become home. Hearing that he was there, of course, the crowd gathered. A crowd so big in the house that there was no room for more, even around the door. And Jesus was speaking the word to them.

Meanwhile four friends of a paralyzed man tried to bring him to Jesus, carrying him on a mat. But they couldn’t get in through the crowd, especially since they were carrying someone like that. So they got creative. Going up on the flat mud roof, they “unroofed the roof” (what the Greek words literally mean) and lowered the mat with the man into the room.

We don’t know what others present thought, but Jesus was impressed. Seeing the faith of his friends, Jesus said to him…

But wait. We’re expecting Jesus to say, “Be healed of your paralysis.” That’s what the man lying on the mat hoped for and expected. That’s what his friends on the roof hoped and expected. That’s probably what the assembled crowd expected. But that’s not what Jesus said. Instead…

“Child, your sins are forgiven!”

The religious authorities (“legal experts”, students of the law of Moses) had a problem with that. “Why does he speak this way? He's insulting God. Only the one God can forgive sins.” But we might have a problem with it, too. The man is paralyzed; why does Jesus address his sins instead, and in front of all these people? Can’t Jesus see what the read need is? (Sometimes as we follow Jesus and deal with people we also miss what the real need is.)

So, for the benefit of all of us, Jesus asks

“Why do you fill your minds with these questions? Which is easier – to say to a paralyzed person, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take up your bed, and walk’?”

Well, when you put it that way, “Your sins are forgiven” is shorter; but…

“But so you will know that the Human One has authority on the earth to forgive sins” – he said to the man who was paralyzed, “Get up, take your mat, and go home.”

And he does it! “We've never seen anything like this!”

But Jesus has widened the rift that already exists between him and the religious establishment of his day. In last week’s story he abrogated to himself the role of Priest. Now he’s playing God, forgiving sins! In Mark’s story it almost seems like he does it on purpose, over and over again. What is that? Those Bible scholars in the crowd were not happy; and their unhappiness will continue to spread throughout Mark’s story.

And we are to follow this Jesus. What role are we to play in the kingdom of God that he inaugurates, and of which he says “Now is the time! Here comes God's kingdom!”? (Mark 1:15) Are we to ignore organized religion altogether, as some do? Or is there some other path?

We’ll talk about that (and other things) on Sunday. I’ll see you there.

January 29, 2012

2012-01-22T18:46:00.000-05:00

Mark 1:40-45

Florida United Methodist Children's Home 5th Sunday special offering

Message series: Good News according to Mark
Sunday’s message: Don't say anything

Skin disease is something I have close personal experience with. Many of you noticed Sunday that my face was red, as if I had been sunburned. Actually I’d had a PDT – a “blue light special” at the dermatologist’s. I have frequent precancerous spots on my face, and the PDT takes care of most of them. It also shrinks the squamous cell on my right temple that I’m having removed in February. I see a dermatologist every six months for a full body scan.

“Skin disease” as CEB translates it was “leprosy” in older translations. That’s not the same thing as Hansen’s disease, what today’s medicine calls leprosy. The CEB footnote says of the word, “The precise meaning is uncertain; traditionally leprosy —a term used for several different skin diseases.”

If you want a full description of what the Bible is talking about – and I mean a full description – read Leviticus 13. I can imagine Dr. Richardson, my dermatologist, reading this chapter and identifying various types of skin conditions he knows by modern names.

After that full description of a condition or conditions that make one unclean and unable to participate in the community, Leviticus 14 gives a thorough description of what one must do to become clean again once the priest certifies that the skin disease is gone. There are sacrifices to be made:

The priest will then perform the purification offering and make reconciliation for the person needing purification from their uncleanness. After that, the entirely burned offering will be slaughtered. The priest will offer up the entirely burned offering and the grain offering on the altar. In this way, the priest will make reconciliation for the person, and they will be clean again. (Leviticus 14:19-20 CEB)

All of this background walks up to Jesus in Sunday’s story. A man with a skin disease approaches. “If you want to, you can make me clean.” How does he know this? Mark tells us that Jesus is incensed. Because of the condition of the man and the demands made on him because of a simple skin problem? Because the man has implied that Jesus might not want to help? In any case, Jesus is willing: “I do want to; be clean.” And, instantly, the man is clean.

Sort of. According to Leviticus 14 the man still has a lot of hoops to jump in order to be declared clean. The priest must examine him and certify that the disease is gone. There may be a quarantine to endure. There are sacrifices to be made.

Jesus orders the man to go get all this done, but says, “This will be a testimony to them.” A testimony to what? That Jesus has authority to heal? That indeed “Now is the time! Here comes God's kingdom!”? (Mark 1:15 CEB) The man is to tell no one what has happened. (Why?)

But the man doesn’t do as he is told. “Instead, he went out and started talking freely and spreading the news so that Jesus wasn't able to enter a town openly.” Did the man not even go to the priest to be certified, so that he could go back to his village and his family?

In the gospel stories Jesus is disruptive in many ways. But in this story Jesus himself is disrupted. In last week’s story he set out “to the nearby villages, so that [he could] preach there too.” That, he said, was why he came. But now according to Mark Jesus cannot even enter a town openly, but must remain outside in deserted places and wait for people to come to him.

There are some things in Mark’s story of Jesus that folks (including scholars) have found puzzling. Why does Jesus forbid demons to call him by name? Why does he forbid this man and others to tell about the good things he has done for them? We’ll talk about that on Sunday. I’ll see you there.

January 22, 2012

2012-01-15T16:15:00.001-05:00

Ecumenical Sunday
Mark 1:29-39

Message series: Good News according to Mark
Sunday’s message: Evening and morning

Notice that Mark’s story moves from very local – Simon and Andrew’s house – to “throughout Galilee”. Therein, I think, lies its message.

A fever in Jesus’ day was no small matter, as we might think of it today. Simon’s mother-in-law could have been on her deathbed, with no medical help available. Jesus in this story is not simply the equivalent of two Tylenol. Jesus raises this woman to life again, her fever gone. Probably in gratitude, but also in her place as the woman of the house, she serves Jesus and James and John and Simon and Andrew. And all is well in the house of Simon and Andrew, for Jesus is there.

But word must have gotten out. At evening the whole town gathered at the door, bringing to Jesus those who were sick or demon-possessed. It’s one of my favorite scenes in scripture. The sun is hanging on the horizon, waiting patiently as Jesus moves purposefully from person to person, healing and throwing out demons. On Sunday we’ll sing a favorite hymn of mine from the 1964 Hymnal:

At even, ere the sun was set,
The sick, O Lord, around thee lay;
O in what divers pains they met!
O with what joy they went away!
Henry Twells, 1823-1900; Mark 1:32

Now all is well for all of Capernaum, for Jesus is there. He now has quite a local reputation, and could build quite a ministry there in God’s name.

But early the next morning Jesus is up and out and alone at prayer well before sunrise. Eventually Simon and his friends track him down. “Everyone’s looking for you!” Well they might. Do more here, Jesus. There are always sick people, and the demons seem to pop up all the time. Come spend some more time with us.

Apparently that’s not the word Jesus received in prayer. Instead it was, “Let's head in the other direction, to the nearby villages, so that I can preach there too. That's why I've come.” And so he did, with his disciples following. “He traveled throughout Galilee preaching in their synagogues and throwing out demons.”

One of my besetting limitations is that I live in too small a world. I often lose sight of the big picture and focus on the trees, failing to see the forest. Local congregations, especially those of smaller membership, sometimes have the same problem. United Methodists are connectional by definition, connected to other United Methodists and to other United Methodist congregations. And yet much of the time we think and we plan locally. We become parochial, a word that almost literally means “stuck in our own parish”. If something is happening at the home of another faith community, even if it’s worthwhile, we may not go.

But if we follow Jesus, we hear: “Let's head in the other direction, to the nearby villages, so that I can preach there too. That's why I've come.” It’s not enough just to be home with Jesus, whether it be in the house of Simon and Andrew or in the town of Capernaum. Jesus has a whole world to love. And our job as his disciples is to follow him there.

Sunday in Ecumenical Sunday, a part of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. It is a day when we remember that the Christian faith, and even our own United Methodist Church, is a worldwide enterprise, and not an extension of our American pride. John Wesley is often quoted as saying, “The world is my parish.” We need not all go out on the mission field to be aware that we are a part of a church that serves Jesus throughout the world, and to be grateful that it is so.

I’ll see you Sunday morning.

January 15, 2012

2012-01-08T17:44:00.001-05:00

Human Relations Day

Message series: Good News according to Mark

Sunday’s message: A new teaching with authority!

I’m going to do something Sunday I don’t normally do. There was a USA Today article in the January 8 Democrat that I just need to say something about. So I’m going to use the story from Mark that is in the schedule, but I’m going to use it to talk about the newspaper article. Normally I’d let the bible story itself guide what I have to say.

Everyone needs to read the article, which can be found here.

Here are some excerpt to whet your interest:

"The real dirty little secret of religiosity in America is that there are so many people for whom spiritual interest, thinking about ultimate questions, is minimal," says Mark Silk, professor of religion and public life at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn.

For the So What set, Christmas just glides by, a day of good cheer and nothing more. That leaves clergy and religion experts dismayed. They fear for souls' salvation and for the common threads of faith snapping in society. Others see no such dire consequences to a more openly secular America as people not only fess up to being faithless but also admit they're skipping out on spiritual, the cool default word of the decade, as well.

Only now are they turning up in the statistical stream. Researchers have begun asking the kind of nuanced questions that reveal just how big the So What set might be:

44% told the 2011 Baylor University Religion Survey they spend no time seeking "eternal wisdom," and 19% said, "It's useless to search for meaning."

46% told a 2011 survey by Nashville based evangelical research agency LifeWay Research they never wonder whether they will go to heaven.

28% told LifeWay, "It's not a major priority in my life to find my deeper purpose." And 18% scoffed at the idea that God has a purpose or plan for everyone.

6.3% of Americans turned up on Pew Forum's 2007 Religious Landscape Survey as totally secular - unconnected to God or a higher power or any religious identity and willing to say religion is not important in their lives.

Hemant Mehta, who blogs as The Friendly Atheist, calls them the "apatheists."

Mariann Edgar Budde, Episcopal bishop of Washington, D.C., calls them honest…

"We live in a society today where it is acceptable now to say that they have no spiritual curiosity. At almost any other time in history, that would have been unacceptable," Budde says.

She finds this "very sad, because the whole purpose of faith is to be a source of guidance, strength and perspective in difficult times. To be human is to have a sense of purpose, an awareness that our life is an utterly unique expression of creation and we want to live it with meaning, grace and beauty."

Nah, [Ben] Helton says.

Helton, a high school band teacher in Chicago, goes to the Roman Catholic Church of his youth only to hear his mother sing in the choir.

His mind led him away. The more Helton read evolutionary psychology and neuropsychology, he says, the more it seemed to him that "we might as well be cars. That, to me, makes more sense than believing what you can't see."

In Mark’s story the bystanders say, “What's this? A new teaching with authority!” The So What crowd present a challenge to us because they accept almost no external authority. Nothing in this story would be of interest to them. Not the synagogue or other religious gathering. Not the evil spirit or demons. Not Jesus or God. Not the distinction between clean and unclean. And certainly not the authority of the “legal experts”, who would have been the Bible scholars of the day. None of it.

Can you see why I think I need to say something?

None of this is really brand-new to anyone who is active in churches and in the surrounding community. But the extent of it is a bit surprising, and the article claims that the So What cohort has increased to significant size.

And they’re our neighbors, so as Christians we have a responsibility to them which we are to exercise as good neighbors without being judgmental. They won’t even want to talk to us about church or religion or even Jesus; they’re just not interested.

Read the article prayerfully. And come Sunday for a word from me about how we should respond.

January 8, 2012

2012-01-01T16:41:00.000-05:00

Baptism of the Lord

Genesis 1:1-5
Mark 1:4-11

Message series: After Christmas
Sunday’s message: Water and Spirit

On this occasion each year we remember Jesus’ baptism, and our own.

There is a difference between John the Baptist’s baptism and our Christian baptism. John’s baptism was an outward sign that the people “were changing their hearts and lives and wanted God to forgive their sins.” They were accepting the wonderful offer of a new start that John was offering in God’s name.

That’s good stuff, and the offer is still available. But Christian baptism is more. John himself says of the One who is coming after him, “I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” Christian baptism not only gives us a new start; it connects us with the transforming power of the Holy Spirit. And, it connects us with the people of Jesus as Jesus himself steps into the water and sees the Spirit descend on him.

Paul expands on our connection with Jesus in baptism when he writes,

Or don't you know that all who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we were buried together with him through baptism into his death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too can walk in newness of life. If we were united together in a death like his, we will also be united together in a resurrection like his. (Romans 6:3-5 CEB)

Baptism isn’t just about getting wet. Nor is it just about our desire to be Jesus’ transformed people. It is about becoming God’s people in the sense of becoming a part of the work of God from the beginning:

When God began to create the heavens and the earth – the earth was without shape or form, it was dark over the deep sea, and God's wind swept over the waters – God said, "Let there be light." And so light appeared. (Genesis 1:1-3 CEB)

So then, if anyone is in Christ, that person is part of the new creation. The old things have gone away, and look, new things have arrived! (2 Corinthians 5:17 CEB)

If everything works out we’ll have several baptisms on Sunday. Also we’ll have people becoming Professing Members of our congregation by transfer. By the grace of God the people of Jesus who meet as Gray Memorial United Methodist Church will grow a bit. I’ll see you there.

January 1, 2012

2011-12-25T18:25:00.000-05:00

New Year's Day

Ecclesiastes 3:1-15
Mark 1:14-15

Message series: After Christmas
Sunday’s message: New beginnings? or not?

We begin a new year, and we begin in earnest our tour through the Good News according to Mark. But also this week we'll take a look at a traditional New Years passage from Ecclesiastes.

Is there really a time for everything?

In one sense, there is a fitting time for everything. There is in the Bible a sense of kairos, a sense of the right time or God's time for things. "But when the fulfillment of the time came, God sent his Son". (Galatians 4:4 CEB) This is different from kronos. which is simply time as kept by a clock.

But is there a time for everything in the sense that God has set a timetable for each and every event, each and every action of ours, each and every outcome? Most of us would answer No, but there is a current in the popular form of American Christianity that claims that God controls everything and knows everything in advance. The writer of Ecclesiastes lived in that thought world. For this writer, good and bad all comes from a God whose thoughts and motives can never be known by us humans. The best we can do is enjoy the good and tolerate the bad.

That's in the Bible, but I don't agree. And I think most folks don't agree when it comes down to it. We like to think about ourselves as autonomous agents responsible for our own destinies.

Into that ongoing discussion comes the word from Mark. Jesus makes his first public appearance with the declaration: "Now is the time! Here comes God's kingdom! Change your hearts and lives, and trust this good news!" (Mark 1:15 CEB) As if something new is about to take place. And as if we could ourselves actually change how things come out by changing our hearts and lives, trusting the God has something good in mind.

We'll walk the space between Ecclesiastes and Jesus on Sunday morning. I'll see you there. And Happy New Year.

Twas the week before Christmas

2011-12-19T20:35:00.000-05:00

Three services this week:

Blue Christmas/Longest Night
Wednesday evening, December 21, 7:00

Isaiah 7:1-16
Psalm 137:1-4
Isaiah 9:2-7

Message series: Christmas
Message: Dark indeed

Blue Christmas/Longest Night is a special service for people like me. I get a mild case of Seasonal Affect Distroder (SAD) because of the dearth of daylight. And, many years ago, my dad died in mid-December. This service is for people who have experienced a loss this year (or earlier), for people who are having trouble being merry at the moment.

This is a rather quiet, subdued service. We won’t even sing hymns (though we’ll listen to some slow, beautiful recorded music). We’ll pray. We’ll hear scripture. I’ll say a word. We’ll light candles.

- - -

Christmas Eve
Saturday evening, December 24, 7:00

Isaiah 9:2-7
Luke 2:1-20

Florida United Methodist Children's Home special offering
Message series: Christmas
Message: Light in the darkness

One of my favorite services; maybe yours too. We’ll light the final candle of the wreath as we read about God’s light breaking into the darkness. We’ll hear the familiar story from the Good News according to Luke. I’ll say a word. We’ll sing carols. We’ll light candles.

- - -

Christmas Day
Sunday morning, December 25, 11:00

Isaiah 52:7-10
John 1:1-14

Florida United Methodist Children's Home special offering
Message series: Christmas
Sunday’s message: The Word became flesh

Yes, Virginia, we will be here on Christmas Sunday morning. Come dressed casually if you like.

Children of all ages are encouraged to bring a favorite present for me to bless.

Everyone is encouraged to bring a present for Jesus, something that would make Jesus happy on his birthday. You can do that in one of two ways:

Write down a promise or vow to Jesus that you inend to keep, some change you intend to make. Put that in a sealed envelope with your name on the outside. You’ll get it back unopened. Or…

Bring an in-kind gift for ECHO, an item for the Homeless Coalition, or something of the kind. If it’s too big to drag down the aisle and put in the manger, bring a gift card and arrange for appropriate delivery of the gift itself. Here are some ideas:

ECHO:
http://www.echotally.org/how-can-i-help/

Big Bend Homeless Coalition:
http://www.bigbendhc.org/needs.htm

Refuge House:
http://www.refugehouse.com/support.html

Florida United Methodist Children's Home:
http://www.gftpln.org/Home.do?orgId=5983

Habitat for Humanity:
http://www.habitally.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=29&Itemid=100047

Heifer Project:
https://secure1.heifer.org/fund-a-project.html/?msource=kw3027&gclid=CNna8cS6j60CFSVjTAode1mXmQ

December 18, 2011

2011-12-13T16:56:00.003-05:00

4th Sunday of Advent
2 Samuel 7:1-11;16
Luke 1:26-38

Message series: Advent
Sunday’s message: A house for David

I’m back in the pulpit on Sunday after a weekend off to move my mom from Fort Lauderdale.

This week’s readings focus on David, who was remembered as the greatest of the kings of God’s people.

In the first reading David is “settled in his palace” and at rest. He notices that, while he himself now lives in a palace made of sweet-smelling cedar, God’s “chest” – a symbol of God’s very presence – is still housed in a tent.

Not just any tent, mind you. That “tent” would be the Tabernacle, the wonderful portable worship place that God’s people used for all of their journey through the wilderness and beyond. It may be a bit tattered and smell not so nice in David’s day, but that tent is no small thing.

David wants to do for God what God has apparently done for him: create some nice digs. David tells the prophet Nathan of his plan. Nathan says “the LORD is with you”. The LORD has always been with David; it’s a hallmark of the David stories in the Old Testament. What could go wrong with this?

But Nathan doesn’t sleep well on this plan of David’s. It turns out that the old tent will do very nicely for now, thank you very much. The LORD speaks:

I haven't lived in a temple from the day I brought Israel out of Egypt until now. Instead, I have been traveling around in a tent and in a dwelling. Throughout my traveling around with the Israelites, did I ever ask any of Israel's tribal leaders I appointed to shepherd my people: Why haven't you built me a cedar temple?

Instead of David building a house for the LORD, the LORD proposes building a “house” for David – a dynasty: “Your dynasty and your kingdom will be secured forever before me. Your throne will be established forever.”

It’s interesting that all of that is in our Bibles, because in fact it didn’t happen that way. David’s dynasty in Jerusalem came to a violent end with the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians in 586 BCE.

Probably we have all that in our Bibles because after the disaster of 586 the promise to David began to be understood in a different way. God would intervene for God’s people with a very special son of David, an Anointed One – a Messiah.

Which brings us to our familiar story from Luke. Notice something in this story you may not have noticed before: the angel Gabriel speaks with Mary about how her son will “be great and he will be called the Son of the Most High.” Gabriel tells her how “the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father” and how “he will rule over Jacob's house forever, and there will be no end to his kingdom." Lots there to connect the story to David. Except that Mary is not from the line of David. Joseph is. Luke tells us so.

What’s going on? It is clear that even though Luke sees Jesus’ birth as the result of a special creation in the waters of Mary’s womb – a creation not unlike the first one – Joseph, Mary’s fiancé, will be important to the story. Jesus will be son of David because Joseph will adopt him as his son. Matthew’s story is more explicit about Joseph’s role, but it’s not absent from Luke’s story.

Beyond all expectation God will build David a “house”, a dynasty. Beyond all expectation God will create Jesus in Mary’s womb. What might God do next, in our own lives? "Nothing is impossible for God."

Our sanctuary is filled with angels at this time of the year. (See if you can spot all eight of them on Sunday morning.) The angels are all around us. What is it that they have to say to us as Christmas approaches? What new thing will they announce that God is about to do now?

December 4, 2011

2011-11-28T12:11:00.001-05:00

2nd Sunday of Advent

Message series: Advent
Sunday’s message: The beginning

Last Sunday I said that the Bible and our Christian faith do not give us the kind of absolute assurance that Harold Camping and others seems to be seeking. Instead, the Bible and our faith give us Hope.

This Sunday’s readings are all about Hope.

The words from the book of the prophet Isaiah were the opening attempt by a prophet of the Exile to convince God’s people that God still cared for them, and had a plan to get them home again. It’s difficult for us to understand how important “home” was for them, even if there’s a “home place” somewhere in our own experience. For them the land once promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was their physical connection to God. Without the land, away in exile, they had lost that connection. It was like losing God.

The prophet is telling them that they have not lost God. More to the point, God has not lost or forgotten them. There is Hope.

Comfort, comfort my people! says your God.
Speak compassionately to Jerusalem,
and proclaim to her that her compulsory service has ended,
that her penalty has been paid,
that she has received from the LORD ’s hand double for all her sins!

Exile was hard, and maybe it was necessary; but it’s over! God is preparing a way home.

Clear the LORD’s way in the desert!
Make a level highway in the wilderness for our God!
Every valley will be raised up, and every mountain and hill will be flattened.
Uneven ground will become level, and rough terrain a valley plain.
The LORD’s glory will appear, and all humanity will see it together;
the LORD’s mouth has commanded it…
Like a shepherd, God will tend the flock;
he will gather lambs in his arms and lift them onto his lap.
He will gently guide the nursing ewes.

But: His hearers had been in exile for half a century. Will they now return home? Where is “home”? The hearers will be mostly the children and grandchildren of those who left Jerusalem in 587 BCE. Babylon is their home; some have known no other. Dare they believe this prophet, risk the lives they have built for themselves, and set out, like Abraham, for a place they’ve never seen before? Eventually some of them, a remnant, actually did. We read about their experience in Ezra.

Hope also comes at the beginning of the Jesus story as told in Mark (and in Matthew and Luke and John). John the Baptist appears in the wilderness with a wonderful offer from God. “John was in the wilderness calling for people to be baptized to show that they were changing their hearts and lives and wanted God to forgive their sins.” If they would resolve to change their ways and undergo a ritual washing clean, God would give them a fresh start. That’s a very attractive offer. And it’s still available.

John the Baptist “wore clothes made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist; he ate locusts and wild honey.” It is a picture of Elijah the prophet, the one who was to come before the Messiah. Is Messiah just around the corner? Mark tells us that “everyone in Judea and all the people of Jerusalem went out” to see. They were looking for Hope. And John the Baptist gave it to them:

One stronger than I am is coming after me. I’m not even worthy to bend over and loosen the strap of his sandals. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.

We’re looking forward to Christmas. Let us also look forward in Hope to the full coming of God’s kingdom, as well as to what God is about to do in our own day and time.

November 27, 2011

2011-11-21T10:33:00.001-05:00

1st Sunday of Advent
Isaiah 64:1-9
Mark 13:24-37

United Methodist Student Day special offering

Message series: Advent
Advent season initiates the Christian Calendar Year. It begins the 4th Sunday before Christmas day. This year November 27th will be the first Sunday of Advent. The word Advent means "coming" or "arrival. The focus of the entire season is the celebration of the birth of Jesus the Christ in his First Advent and the anticipation of the return of Christ the King in his Second Advent.
Sunday’s message: Keep awake!

If only God would come down and straighten things out! What’s keeping him?

The yearning for God to come and fix things is as old as the Old Testament prophets. After the catastrophe of the fall of Jerusalem, the slaughter of its defenders, the burning and desecration of the Temple, and the taking of its people into foreign exile, prophets like Jeremiah and Ezekiel and the latter Isaiah began to envision a glorious future in a God-recreated world where all would be safe and whole and well. We find this kind of vision also in the New Testament in Revelation, which draws heavily on the prophets for its imagery.

Sunday is the first Sunday of a new church calendar year, a year of the Good News according to Mark. Instead of Mark’s own introduction – we’ll read that next week – this week we’ll hear a Jesus saying from near the end of Mark. It begins with a citation from Joel that speaks about Yom YHWH, the day of the LORD. It speaks of the travail that will begin the new reign of God.

Jesus urges us to read the signs of what’s coming , as we do with a fig tree and other plants. But Jesus also warns us that “nobody knows when that day or hour will come”. Harold Camping and others miss this important point in their quest for biblical certainty.

There is not that kind of certainty. There is only hope and anticipation, characteristics of this Advent season. Jesus urges us to stay alert. That doesn’t mean to be so focused on the End that we fail to notice or participate in what God is doing right now. It means to live in the present a life focused on the kingdom which Jesus announced, and kingdom that will come in its fullness in God’s own time.

By Sunday Thanksgiving will be over. Already as I’m writing this on Monday the Christmas stampede is on, and Thanksgiving almost forgotten. Advent isn’t about the Christmas stampede. Advent is about something wonderful coming in God’s provenance; it is not about calendar and activity stress leading to physical and emotional collapse on December 26.

As you get ready for Christmas – and all of us will do that – be sure to keep a sense of God’s future in your heart. And join us on Sundays – I’ll see you there.

November 20, 2011

2011-11-15T16:37:00.000-05:00

Deuteronomy 8:7-18
2 Corinthians 9:6-15
Luke 17:11-19
Sunday's readings will be from the new Common English Bible.

Thanksgiving Sunday
Sunday's message: Multiplying many expressions of thanksgiving

Our procession of special Sundays brings us this week to Thanksgiving Sunday, the last day of the church year; and to the first Sunday of our stewardship drive.

Have we indeed been blessed? In the current economic climate we may think that our blessings are in question. Yet in material terms American Christians are the most blessed Christians the world has ever seen.

Deuteronomy, then, has a warning for us: in enjoying our blessings, we are not to forget God or God's ways. We are not to begin to assume ourselves to be self-dependent. Perhaps the economic downturn cured us of a little of that.

"Remember the LORD your God!" in what particular ways are we do that? I'm glad you asked! I'll have some ideas to share on Sunday.

Paul writing to the Corinthians is promoting one of his favorite projects: a collection for the poor in Jerusalem, still the center of the Christian enterprise in his day. He notes that, as far as blessings go, the one who sows just a few seeds gathers a small crop. He wants the good folks at Corinth to give cheerfully and from the heart, not with hesitation or because of pressure. But still, few seed, small crop. Then Paul says something amazing:

Your ministry of this service to God’s people isn't only fully meeting their needs but it is also multiplying in many expressions of thanksgiving to God. They will give honor to God for your obedience to your confession of Christ’s gospel. They will do this because this service provides evidence of your obedience, and because of your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone. They will also pray for you, and they will care deeply for you because of the outstanding grace that God has given to you.

In the kingdom, service and gifts and blessing multiply exponentially. But that's not an excuse for small giving (knowing that even small gifts multiply); it's an exhortation to give generously, so that unbelievable things may happen. I'll read some interesting figures about this on Sunday morning.

The story from the good news according to Luke is a story about healing and thanksgiving. Ten lepers beg Jesus for healing mercy. He grants it; and as they go to the priest for the required inspection, each becomes clean. Only one of them, a Samaritan foreigner, turns around and comes back to thank Jesus. "Where are the other nine? No one returned to praise God except this foreigner?" How have we been blessed, cleansed, healed, restored, forgiven, sanctified, redeemed, saved? Have we taken steps and gone out of our way to thank Jesus and to praise God by our actions?

Recently I've finished reading a most interesting book. It's called Passing the Plate. The name is ironic. The gist of the book is that, while American Christians have been blessed far beyond anything Christians in other times and places have know, we've largely passed the plate along instead of putting something in it. A sociological study, the book seeks to explain why this is so. It contains interesting insights, some of which I'll share with you Sunday morning. I'll see you there.

November 13, 2011

2011-11-07T12:27:00.000-05:00

Ezekiel 47:1-12
Acts 10:24-48
Acts 17:16-34
Sunday's readings will be from the new Common English Bible.
Outreach Sunday

Sunday's message: Beyond our safe circle

Our procession of special Sundays brings us this week to Outreach Sunday, an occasion for thinking about how we relate to the community around us.

We're going to do that by looking at three Bible passages, one from the book of the prophet Ezekiel and two others from the book of Acts. I'm not going to elaborate much on any of them. Instead I'm going to use each as a springboard for thinking about our relationship with our surrounding community. I think of that surrounding community, our "parish" so to speak, as roughly the southern half of the 32303 ZIP Code.

In the Ezekiel passage the prophet is describing a vision he's being shown of the future. At the time of his vision God's people are in exile and the Temple is in ruins. Having seen a detailed vision of a restored Temple, Ezekiel now sees water running out from underneath it, renewing as it goes. Living water, water that gives life. It's one of my favorite images of Church — and Gray Memorial even sits on the top of a hill!
The story from Acts 10 is the classic story of early outreach to the Gentiles by what had begun as a Jewish sect. We'll read only part of the story Sunday, but you might want to read yourself from the beginning of Acts 10. Peter has just learned in a vision not to call anything God had created unlean. Then he has received an invitation to visit the home of Cornelius, a Gentile God-fearer whom and angel has prepared for Peter's visit. We'll pick up reading at the point where Peter arrives at Cornelius' house. What follows surprises Peter; some have called it the Pentecost of the Gentiles. It also upset the church authorities in Jerusalem, who were tying to keep proper boundaries (Acts 11). Is there any place, are there any persons unworthy of the love of God, or of our love and compassion? Are there in fact any proper boundaries?
The final story, from Act 17, is a story about Paul and an episode in Athens. Paul was "deeply distressed to find that the city was flooded with idols." What is the right thing for Paul to do in these circumstances? What he does, I think, is instructive for us as we make our witness in a world of doubters.

Where do these stories call Gray Memorial to go, what do they bid us to do? I'm glad you asked! We'll talk about it on Sunday. I'll see you there.

November 6, 2011

2011-10-30T20:35:00.000-04:00

Revelation 7:9-17
1 John 3:1-3
Matthew 5:1-12
Sunday's readings will be from the new Common English Bible.
All Saints Sunday
Lord's Supper (Communion)

Sunday's message: Who are these?

Our procession of special Sundays brings us this week to All Saints Sunday, an occasion to remember those who have gone before us.

All of us, I think, would want to populate the scene from Revelation with people we've known and loved and who are no longer with us. I'd like to imagine my dad in that innumerable crowd with the while robes and palm branches. And I think many of us might hope to be in that number when our own days come to an end.

But wait. Who are these, and where do they come from?

These people have come out of great hardship. They have washed their robes and made them white in the Lamb's blood.

For the context of Revelation, written to Christian about to face strong persecution, the great crowd are the martyrs. "Martyr" is a Greek word for one who gives testimony; but it takes on a special meaning in Christian usage. These are those who have died for the faith, who have refused to deny Christ and their faith even when threatened with death.

One would expect, then, to read that their robes have been washed in their own blood. But that's not what John saw. Their robes were washed in the blood of the Lamb — in Jesus' own blood. By their death they have participated in Jesus' own death.

So maybe we'd like to think twice about joining that crowd, at least through their own entry-way.

But turn then to the Beatitudes, which are the Good News reading for Sunday.

Happy are people who are hopeless, because the kingdom of heaven is theirs.
Happy are people who grieve, because they will be made glad...
Happy are people whose lives are harassed because they are righteous, because the kingdom of heaven is theirs...
Happy are you when people insult you and harass you and speak all kinds of bad and false things about you, all because of me. Be full of joy and be glad, because you have a great reward in heaven. In the same way, people harassed the prophets who came before you.

The Christian faith is realistic in its assessment about how difficult life can be, especially when we choose to be Jesus followers. After all, we're following someone who ended up being executed for the very things we're supposed to be doing. And yet those martyrs wear white robes, and hold the palm branches of victory. And the hopeless, the grieving, the harassed and maligned, are called to be full of joy and glad, because the reward is great. And that's right now — "Happy are people..." — not just in some future location. Despite the troubles and just plain hard work of Christian discipleship, there is joy in it.

And we're surrounded by a cloud of witnesses, those who preceded us in the faith, as it were cheering us on from the sidelines. They're not just "old and dead". As we remember their stories, we find our own path.

On Sunday we'll spend time remembering our saints. We'll remember specifically George Bailey, who died recently and was buried in a graveside service in Camilla, where few were able to go. We'll us his remembrance to remember others among those who have gone on before us. Don't miss it.

2011-10-23T17:46:00.000-04:00

Florida United Methodist Children's Home Sunday

Sunday's message: What blessing?

The Florida United Methodist Children's Home is one of the best ministries that we do as Methodists in Florida. Its mission is simply "To empower children and families to experience God’s love and care as revealed in the ministry of Jesus Christ". Click on the link to read more about how they do that.

Our speaker for this Sunday will be John Rivas, CFRE, who currently serves as Vice President of Development for the Florida United Methodist Children's Home (FUMCH). John leads a development team of eighteen professional staff and is responsible for providing innovative and strategic leadership in the planning, implementation, and administration of FUMCH's comprehensive development, alumni affairs, and public relations programs and initiatives.

A certified fund-raising executive with over twenty-two years of development experience, John most recently served as director of legacy planning for The United Methodist General Board of Discipleship and director of development for The United Methodist Church Foundation in Nashville, TN. He has held senior leadership fund development positions in New Mexico, Texas, Washington, DC and Los Angeles, CA.

October 23, 2011

2011-10-18T12:09:00.000-04:00

Nehemiah 5:1-13
Matthew 14:13-21
Sunday's readings will be from the new Common English Bible.
Bread for the World Sunday

Sunday's message: Multiplying bread

Our procession of special Sundays brings us this week of Bread for the World Sunday, an occasion to talk about hunger and its causes and some solutions. There's certainly sufficient warrant in the scriptures to talk about those things.

Consider the passage from Nehemiah. There's a context to this story related to the return of God's people from exile. But you really don't need to know the exact context to get into this story. It sounds like some of the things that are happening around us today. Folks are making difficult choices about allotting their meagre resources, about having enough food. They are, to use the current parlance, "food insecure". In our own country

Eighty-five percent of American households were food secure throughout the entire year in 2009, meaning that they had access at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life for all household members. The remaining households (14.7 percent) were food insecure at least some time during the year, including 5.7 percent with very low food security. In households with very low food security, the food intake of one or more household members was reduced and their eating patterns were disrupted at times during the year because the household lacked money and other resources for food. Prevalence rates of food insecurity and very low food security were essentially unchanged from 14.6 percent and 5.7 percent, respectively, in 2008, and remained at the highest recorded levels since 1995, when the first national food security survey was conducted. The typical food-secure household spent 33 percent more on food than the typical food-insecure household of the same size and household composition. Fifty-seven percent of all food-insecure households participated in one or more of the three largest Federal food and nutrition assistance programs during the month prior to the 2009 survey.
Household Food Security in the United States, 2009, United States Department of Agriculture

According to the story in Nehemiah these people were food insecure, ready to sell themselves and their children into slavery, as a result of others doing well for themselves. There's nothing in scripture that says it's bad to make money or to live comfortably. But there are repeated warnings about the dangers of wealth, especially when the wealth is at the expense of others.

Through Nehemiah and others God had set God's people free from slavery among the nations resulting from the exile. Not to mention the great story of God bringing slaves out of Egypt under Moses, creating for God a people who had been no people at all. And now God's people are selling themselves and their children back into slavery, just in order to have food.

Something isn't right about all that, and Nehemiah joins us readers in being "very angry" about it. Nehemiah confronts the officials and officers, bringing charges against them. He calls a large assembly to hold them accountable for what is happening to God's people. If you remember Tallahassee Equality Action Ministry (TEAM) you will recognize this as a Nehemiah Assembly.

I'm not sure that we can say that the officials and officers whom Nehemiah confronted were evil people, that they had set out with the intention of doing harm, that they even knew about the result of their actions. They were simply out to take care of themselves and to make a buck. But in the kingdom of God taking care of ourselves and making a buck, not evil in themselves, are nonetheless tempered by and active concern for community, especially for the poor.

Which brings us to the Jesus story in Matthew 14. Jesus has just received word of the brutal slaying of John the Baptist. He seeks time alone; who can blame him? He goes off in a boat to a deserted place. But the crowds sniff him out, and follow on foot, so that he arrived to find them waiting for him. At this point the story challenges me. Jesus lives the compassion of the kingdom of God all the time, even when he is need of alone time. I'm not that good. On Sunday I'll tell you a story about that.

His retreat interrupted, Jesus shows compassion for the crowd and heals the sick. It takes a while. Finally, when evening is coming, the disciples (also showing compassion) suggest that they send the crowd away lest they find themselves in this deserted place at night with no food.

But Jesus says, "There's no need to send them away. You give them something to eat." Come again?

The disciples have with them only five loaves and two fish — their own provision against hunger. At Jesus' word they bring him these, their own hedge against food insecurity. And he blesses and breaks them. And then he does something remarkable. Jesus gives the blessed and broken resources back to the disciples. It is the disciples, and not Jesus, who feed the five thousand. Out of their own meagre resources, which Jesus has blessed back to them. Their five loaves and two fish are more than enough.

I'm convinced that this well-know story is not about the "miracle" per se, but about the disciples and how one follows Jesus. I'll say more about that on Sunday. I'll see you there.

October 16, 2011

2011-10-09T16:52:00.000-04:00

Laity Sunday

A procession of special days

This Sunday is Laity Sunday. The laity of the church will lead the service and bring the message. I'll be sitting in the congregation enjoying it.

John Hutchison, one of our Lay Servants, will bring Sunday's message.

October 9, 2011

2011-10-02T18:47:00.000-04:00

Children's Sabbath
Mark 10:13-16

A procession of special days
Sunday's message: How do we bless our children?

The year now ends with a procession of special Sundays, beginning with Children's Sabbath and continuing through Thanksgiving Sunday in late November.

Children's Sabbath is an interfaith celebration. Materials are available for church, synagogue, and mosque for this weekend. Children's Sabbath was developed some years ago by the Children's Defense Fund.

Our focus on Sunday will begin with the gospel story in which Jesus puts aside good adult conversation in order to receive and bless children. His disciples didn't like that; but Jesus was "indignant" with them, saying (perhaps with some edge in his voice) "Let the children come to me, do not stop them." Mark says that Jesus took these small children up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.

We are Jesus' latter-day disciples. How do we follow his lead in blessing children? In what ways do we fail to do so, making Jesus indignant again? Why is it important? I'll be bringing some local facts and figures to that topic on Sunday. But my intent will not be to chide so much as to call us to appropriate action, action that makes an actual difference for the children in our lives and in our community.

What is it that makes children unique? In Jesus' day, and for most time until recently, children were not highly valued. The gained value only when they became productive adults. How do we see that differently now? And in what ways can we meet their unique needs?

In a day when small children were counted as next to nothing, Jesus accorded them kingdom of God importance. So we'll spend a Sunday talking about that. I'll see you there.

October 2, 2011

2011-09-25T17:16:00.000-04:00

Sermon series: A love letter from jail
Sunday's message: To be able to do all things

This week's passage is a self-contained passage, to the point that some have though it's a separate letter attached later to our Philippians.

It's an odd kind of a thank-you note. Paul acknowledges gifts sent to him via Epaphroditus. He almost says, finally you got around to it! Then he says they really had no earlier opportunity. Then he says he didn't really need the gift anyway. Then he calls them kind for sending it. How would you feel if you received such a thank-you note?

Next comes a real compliment. When he left Macedonia, only the church at Philippi was supporting him and his ministry. And they have seen to his needs more than once. Then once again Paul almost pulls the compliment back by saying that he really didn't ask for the help. But they did help him, and the gift did accomplish something that really does matter to him: the "profit" of the spread of the gospel, a profit which accumulates to the "account" of the Philippians. Finally he says that he has been paid in full — a commercial phrase, odd in the context of a thank-you note — and that he now has more than enough and is fully satisfied. (Gee, that's nice!) But then: "the gifts you sent [are] a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God." Finally, that sounds like a real compliment. And it is followed by a blessing: "And my God will fully satisfy every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus."

The well-known phrases from this passage are parenthetical to the thanks which Paul is stumbling through:

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. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

We will spend some time Sunday on those verses. Often our obiter dicta, what we write and say "between the lines", are as important as the point we're trying to make. So here with what Paul says on his stumbling way through his thank-you note. "I can do all things..." Really? Are you not in jail? Possibly on death row?

More about all that on Sunday morning. I'll see you there.

September 25, 2011

2011-09-20T11:03:00.000-04:00

Philippians 2:19 - 4:9

Sermon series: A love letter from jail
Sunday's message: Press toward the goal

Philippians is a love letter from jail. Paul writes and speaks of his “imprisonment and… the defense and confirmation of the gospel.” Yet it is not by any means and embittered letter. It is steeped in a conspicuous love of a pastor for his congregation.
Philippians contains a “kenosis” hymn that has become a confession of faith about the Christ who come down, suffered and died, and was raised again. It also contains verses and phrases familiar to churchgoing people. Philippians is a treasure trove of Christian devotional material. And Paul wrote it from jail.
Come join us, and let Paul’s love letter flow into your soul.

Last Sunday and this Sunday we'll be taking large chunks of Paul's letter for reading and preaching.

One of my resources for this preaching series is Fred Craddock's 1985 commentary in the Interpretation series. Craddock's analysis of the contents shows two consecutive sections of the letter where an "autobiographical disclosure" — words about Paul and his circumstances — are followed by "exhortations for the meantime". For each of the next two Sundays we'll take those two larger sections in turn. I promise I won't try to cover every verse!

Craddock also notes that those two larger sections themselves sit between words of thanksgiving. As if thanksgiving were the context for everything that Paul writes from death row.

Autobiographical disclosure

If we had forgotten, this is the point where we remember that we're reading a letter, a written communication between particular persons (Paul and Timothy) and a particular congregation in a particular time and situation. Paul speaks of travel plans for his associates and, he hopes, for himself.

Timothy will be Paul's successor. He is an apostle-in-waiting, so to speak. Paul hopes soon to send Timothy to Philippi; but he must wait, because Timothy must be present when Paul's sentence is finally pronounced and executed.

Epaphroditus was sent by the church at Philippi to take items to Paul in prison. Remember that, until very recent times, persons in prison were expected to have their food and clothing and other necessities provided by family and friends, not by the Department of Corrections. That was still true in John Wesley's time. Having brought him those things, Epaphroditus was to stay and minister to Paul's needs. Imagine our congregation doing the same for one of our members in jail or prison.

But Epaphroditus became ill, and almost died himself. For everyone's benefit, Paul now sends him back to Philippi with thanks and a glowing summary of his work. Probably Epaphroditus carried the letter we are reading back to Philippi with him.

So what? Exhortations for the meantime

Turning to exhortations for the congregation, Paul uses the word "rejoice" as a sort of bookend (3:1, 4:4). Which is interesting, and perhaps necessary, considering the abrupt turn the letter takes at 3:2.

Paul proceeds to speak of two groups of what he considers enemies. The first may be called Judaizers, those who contended that Christians still had to keep Torah ("the Law") in order to be fully Christian; that one's relationship with God depended upon Torah as well as upon recognition of Jesus as Lord and Messiah. Paul vigorously disagreed with this; and the Reformation in the 16th century arose to affirm that disagreement. One's relationship to God through Christ was a matter of God's grace alone, appropriated by faith (trust), not on fulfilling religious obligations or on anything else we ourselves accomplish.

These Judaziers may have been converts from paganism who had joined the synagogue — as many good and thoughtful pagans did in those times — and had eventually come to regard Jesus as the Messiah. They were trying, perhaps, to get others to follow their own path.

Instead of putting down Judaism, Paul ups the ante on religious well-doing, giving his resume as a native and religiously zealous Jew. Then he says two remarkable things:

Despite how good (not, how bad!) his past has been, he has been willing to put it all behind him, counting gain as loss, "because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord." He hasn't traded bad for good. He has traded excellent for better.
Important note: Paul never calls Torah bad. Paul, in his own mind a faithful Jew, considers Torah a gift from God — as should we. Paul's point is that we don't earn our place in God's heart by what we do.
Paul claims he hasn't arrived yet: "Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal." Paul sits in prison, on the verge of possible execution, and claims that his walk with Christ is not yet completed. He is pressing forward still for the prize, even then, even there.

And then he invites the Philippians to imitate this mindset. What would it have been like to hear this letter read in church in Philippi?

A second group now gets Paul's disapproval. "...their god is the belly; and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things." That could be our own contemporary society! But Paul is talking, not about the pagan Roman culture around the church at Philippi, but about people who are actually a part of that congregation. Perhaps these believed that, since Christ has freed us from the strictures of Torah, we are free to live in our bodies as we choose. After all, we will one day be free of these bodies and our free spirits will dwell with Christ. Paul has two problems with this:

As he writes to another of his congregations, with not a little heat: "For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another." (Galatians 5:13) Our Christian freedom is not libertarian license.
Paul does not believe that at death we are freed from the shackles of a physical body and released as free spirits. That's not Christian belief, that's pagan Greek philosophy. Paul believes in Resurrection — in a body. "He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself."

Two of Paul's friends, leaders in the Philippian congregation, are now called out to relove the differences between themselves. Paul praises their work instead of denouncing their behavior, and asks, as he has asked the whole congregation, "to be of the same mind in the Lord." (Note well: These two Christian leaders are women. Don't let anyone tell you women should not lead in churches and then cite Paul as their source.)

And then we reach the other rejoice bookend. Conflict is not the final reality. Joy in the Lord is the final reality.

The final paragraph, beginning at 4:8, is interesting. The things Paul wants them (and us) to think about are not the usual Christian ideas. They are ideas from the best of pagan philosophy. As if God is at work, not just among us, but universally. Then, Paul says, press on with "the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen". And the God of peace will be with you.

Press forward toward the goal. And I'll see you Sunday morning.

September 18, 2011

2011-09-13T11:33:00.001-04:00

Philippians 1:12 - 2:18

Sermon series: A love letter from jail
Sunday's message: Live your life worthy

For the next two Sundays we'll be taking large chunks of Paul's letter for reading and preaching. This Sunday's for instance, is a bit more than a chapter in length.

(Craddock also notes that those two larger sections themselves sit between words of thanksgiving. As if thanksgiving were the context for everything that Paul writes from death row.

Autobiographical disclosure

It's clear from what Paul writes that his life is in the balance, that he is waiting for his sentence to be pronounced. It could be death. How is it that God allows someone as dedicated as Paul to be facing execution for God's work?

Except that Paul himself doesn't ask that question. Paul's focus instead is on the ongoing work of God in his own life and in the life of the congregation to whom he writes. The story isn't over yet. And it won't be over even if Paul is executed. God continues to work.

And, as the hymn says, God works in a mysterious way. Apparently rivals of Paul have taken advantage of his imprisonment to run ahead of his in the work, so to speak, advancing while he is sidelined. Paul's own assessment is that they proclaim Christ "out of selfish ambition, not sincerely but intending to increase my suffering in my imprisonment." But, you know what? Paul rejoices even in this, because Christ is in fact being proclaimed.

Paul "knows" that deliverance will be his. He can't mean deliverance from prison or execution; the rest of the letter excludes that understanding. The next sentence is the key. He will be delivered as Christ was delivered, making the good confession without shame and taking the consequences with hope.

We get to overhear Paul talking to himself. Christ will be exalted whether Paul lives or dies. If eh lives, he will be able to continue in Christ's ministry. If he dies, his suffering and imprisonment will end and he will be in Christ's hands. Finally he concludes that remaining alive and continuing to minister would be best, and he writes of hoping to see the Philippian Christians again. But the choice finally is not his.

So what? Exhortations for the meantime

Suddenly Paul is talking, not about himself, but about the church at Phillipi and how things are going there. He urges them (and us who read his letter) to live our lives "in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ." He wants an assurance of this from them so that his own suffering and imprisonment is not in vain.

It won't be easy for them. The "opponents" are not specified, but Philippi was a proud colony of the Roman empire with a mixed population with many gods. Acts reports the Paul himself had been ill-treated there. Paul himself confirms this when writing to Thessalonika. Against all of this Paul urges the congregation to count the difficulties living the faith in a hostile world as a privilege, suffering along with Christ himself — a though not unlike what we heard earlier from 1 Peter.

There may be some problems with internal dissension in the congregation. We'll read later about two women who were on the outs. Meanwhile 2:3-4 seem to imply that there may be selfish ambition and conceit in their interpersonal relations. Paul urges them to be of the same mind. He doesn't mean that they should all agree about everything — our diversity is a gift from God. He means that we should all have the mind of Christ. And then he shows what he means by citing one of the best hymns in the Bible. We'll use that hymn in Sunday' service.

Having cited the hymn, Paul closes with more exhortation. It's clear that he worries, in his absence, because he cannot be present to help them through their difficulties. "It is by your holding fast to the word of life that I can boast on the day of Christ that I did not run in vain or labor in vain." Words to give any preacher pause.

It matters how we walk our walk. And the larger context of the faith matters even in the smallest things.

I'll look for you Sunday morning.

September 11, 2011

2011-09-06T12:07:00.001-04:00

Philippians 1:1-11

Sermon series: A love letter from jail
Sunday's message: A harvest of righteousness

Philippians is a love letter from jail. Paul writes and speaks of his “imprisonment and… the defense and confirmation of the gospel.” Yet it is not by any means and embittered letter. It is steeped in a conspicuous love of a pastor for his congregation.
Philippians contains a “kenosis” hymn that has become a confession of faith about the Christ who come down, suffered and died, and was raised again. It also contains verses and phrases familiar to churchgoing people. Philippians is a treasure trove of Christian devotional material. And Paul wrote it from jail.
We won’t get to read the whole letter in the three Sundays we’ll have for the series. We’ll get only to 4:9. But that much will be worth the time. Come join us, and let Paul’s love letter flow into your soul.

Did you ever receive a love letter from someone in jail?

Prisoners have been known to be manipulators, writing or calling vulnerable people and asking for money or even promising marriage. One should be very cautious about responding to mail or collect calls from someone in jail that one doesn't already know.

But the Philippians and Paul do know each other. This letter tells us that they have worked together for the Gospel, and that there are strong bonds of affection between them. Which is interesting given the history between them that is recorded elsewhere.

If you were in jail for the Gospel and were writing to your church, what would you say?

Paul says

Grace to you and Peace...
I think my God every time I remember you...
The one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion.

Paul appears not to be down on himself or on the circumstances. Instead he is optimistic about the work of God coming to completion, despite the fact that he himself is detained and perhaps in danger of execution. There is longing here, but no despair. There is hope.

Very few of us today would claim that our circumstances are excellent. Just when the burgeoning middle class from the 1950s was ready to kick back and enjoy there was an economic downturn. Things started going badly ten years ago Sunday, when terrorists flew commercial airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Economically things have been more bad than good since then.

I believe that our response to our circumstances is more important than the circumstances themselves. In a real sense we have little control over our external circumstances. We could not prevent the tragedies of September 11. We could not prevent the greed of the marketplace that caused our economy to collapse. We are relatively powerless against the realities of unemployment and hunger and lack of affordable health care.

But we do have control over how we respond to these things. Cynicism and despair are always tempting. But Paul by his words and by his example urges us instead to respond with hope, and even to rejoice in all our circumstances. Paul does not advise us to ignore reality or to call bad things good. Paul urges us to nurture hope despite these things. And, as the letter progresses, he will give us reasons for such hope.

There are folks out there who are looking for Armageddon; or for the universe to end, not with a bang, but with a whimper. But Paul is looking forward to a harvest of righteousness. Righteousness! As if that could matter in our battered world.

Can it?

I'll see you Sunday morning.

For another letter from a Christian leader in jail click here.

September 4, 2011

2011-08-29T11:39:00.001-04:00

Sermon series: Doin' church with Jesus
Sunday's message: Awaiting the Bridegroom

Preaching series: Doin' Church with Jesus (with St. Matthew as our guide)
Of the four gospels Matthew is the most direct about referring to “church” and giving directions for how church should work. We'll begin by hearing about being called, and work our way through some of Jesus’ teaching about discipleship and church and the kingdom of Heaven. Sunday is the last Sunday in the series. Come join us!

The Bridegroom is late.

The author of every New Testament book indicates a belief that Jesus will return soon, perhaps before his own death. Jesus himself is depicted as believing that his own return will not be long delayed. The background for all of the New Testament writing is not the formation of a new religion or the setting down of an enhanced set of rules for holy living. It is the expectation that Jesus will return. Soon.

It's been 2,000 years. The Bridegroom is late.

In Jesus' parable ten bridesmaids took their (oil) lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. But the bridegroom was delayed, and they all became drowsy and slept. To this point in the story one can tell no difference among the bridesmaids. It is only when the bridegroom finally arrives at midnight that it becomes clear that five of them have been foolish, bringing no spare oil for the unexpected long wait. And while they are trying to find more oil, the door is shut and the opportunity is lost.

We've heard Jesus speak of wise and foolish before, at the end of the Sermon on the Mount:

Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great was its fall!

What is it to be wise, and what is it to be foolish? Certainly hearing Jesus' teaching and putting it into practice is wise. But what is the lesson of the parable of the bridesmaids?

Statistically the average age of a typical United Methodist congregation is significantly higher than that of its surrounding community. Which means that a lot of us who hang around United Methodist churches have been doing it for decades. We get old. We can get old and tired, and find ourselves just going through the motions, or remembering more exciting days while we sit on our blessed assurance. We came once with excitement to meet the Bridegroom. But we've become drowsy; has our lamp gone out? Have we lost the fire?

Everyone has been waiting. All ten of the bridesmaids grew drowsy and went to sleep. That wasn't the problem. The problem was that the five foolish ones had made not provision for the long haul. When the time came, they had no oil left, no way to light the fire again.

How do we stay ready for the long haul, waiting for the Bridegroom? A hint, from a wonderful sermon I heard on this text while on vacation one year: Discipleship is what we do while we're waiting for Jesus to come back.

More on Sunday morning. I'll see you there.

August 28, 2011

2011-08-21T18:58:00.004-04:00

Matthew 18:21-35

Sermon series: Doin' church with Jesus
Sunday's message: Getting along 201

WEATHER ALERT! Hurricane Irene may affect activities this coming weekend. Keep checking the National Hurricane Center site for updates.

Preaching series: Doin' Church with Jesus (with St. Matthew as our guide)
Of the four gospels Matthew is the most direct about referring to “church” and giving directions for how church should work. We'll begin by hearing about being called, and work our way through some of Jesus’ teaching about discipleship and church and the kingdom of Heaven. The series ends in September for us waiting for the Bridegroom. Each Sunday will bring a particular challenge to make a particular commitment. Come join us!

Last Sunday's scripture and message on what to do about interpersonal conflict within the congregation was some pretty heavy stuff. Sometimes the exercise of the congregation's duty to bind and to loose is not a lot of fun. It's just necessary.

It's also necessary to notice that the difficult teaching on church discipline is surrounded by the parable of the lost sheep on one side and by this week's teaching on forgiveness on the other. The idea of church discipline is never to destroy someone or to consign them to hell. Matthew's section on discipline is found in a framework on the grace of God.

Peter asks a question that follows from the teaching on discipline, a teaching that began also with "if a member of the church sins against [you]". How often should one forgive? As many as seven times? Let's be clear first that we can't forgive at all unless there is repentance. Not that we're to be stern; it just won't work. To try to forgive someone who is unrepentant is like trying to pour water into a jar that isn't there.

So the question, I think, implies that there has been the repentance, and that the offender has asked for forgiveness. How many times does one forgive the same bumbling offender? Seven times? No, seventy-seven times! I hope you're not imagining that Jesus wants Peter to set up a scoreboard that can count up to 77. What Jesus teaches is unlimited forgiveness whenever it is asked of us. In fact Jesus wants Peter, and us, to become those in whom forgiveness instead of revenge has become a way of life.

And then there's this parable, a parable that's as powerful as the parable that the prophet Nathan told David. We find ourselves with the fellow slaves being greatly distressed. We'd like to kill the slave who had been forgiven ten thousand talents — an impossible amount, despite his promise to repay — but is unwilling to forgive what amounts to one hundred days' pay.

Parables are sneaky. Suddenly we realize that Jesus is telling us that we have been forgiven everything, and that by comparison the things we are asked to forgive are very small potatoes indeed. To know God's grace and forgiveness is to be gracious and forgiving in turn.

There's more to say, of course, but the principle is disarmingly simple. I'll see you Sunday morning.

August 21, 2011

2011-08-14T18:25:00.002-04:00

Matthew 18:15-20

Sermon series: Doin' church with Jesus
Sunday's message: Getting along 101

Preaching series: Doin' Church with Jesus (with St. Matthew as our guide)
Of the four gospels Matthew is the most direct about referring to “church” and giving directions for how church should work. We'll begin by hearing about being called, and work our way through some of Jesus’ teaching about discipleship and church and the kingdom of Heaven. The series ends in September for us waiting for the Bridegroom. Each Sunday will bring a particular challenge to make a particular commitment. Come join us!

It wouldn't surprise anyone who's been part of a Christian congregation to learn that interpersonal conflicts occasionally arise in congregations.

I urge Euodia and I urge Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. Yes, and I ask you also, my loyal companion, help these women, for they have struggled beside me in the work of the gospel, together with Clement and the rest of my co-workers, whose names are in the book of life. [Philippians 4:2-3]

Again we're tempted to ask: if Church is of God, how can it be so imperfect sometimes? In Matthew Jesus doesn't answer that question. There's just an assumption that it's true. But there's also a remedy suggested.

We're individualists, and we tend to assume that sin is a personal matter between me and God, and no one else's business. Of course if we've wronged someone we bear some responsibility. But the early church seems to have seen it differently.

My friends, if anyone is detected in a transgression, you who have received the Spirit should restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness. Take care that you yourselves are not tempted. [Galatians 6:1]

Jesus teaches us that the whole congregation may rightly become involved in the dispute between two "brothers and sisters", fellow members of the congregation. Not to be "nebbie" or intrusive, but because interpersonal relationships within the congregation affect the health of the entire congregation.

We want to sweep such disputes under the rug, to pretend that they're not there. Or we want a quick solution, forgiveness without repentance. It doesn't work, as many congregations today are painfully aware.

Jesus would have the offended party take the initiative. That's difficult to do if you've been wounded by someone. Silent angry festering is a more likely response. But what if the offending party doesn't even realize the offense? Or does realize it, but is now afraid to approach?

You shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin; you shall reprove your neighbor, or you will incur guilt yourself. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD. [Leviticus 19:17-18]

And what if that doesn't work? You call for help. You involve two or three other members of the faith community in mediation, protecting both yourself and the offender.

When any of you has a grievance against another, do you dare to take it to court before the unrighteous, instead of taking it before the saints? Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? Do you not know that we are to judge angels—to say nothing of ordinary matters? If you have ordinary cases, then, do you appoint as judges those who have no standing in the church? I say this to your shame. Can it be that there is no one among you wise enough to decide between one believer and another, but a believer goes to court against a believer—and before unbelievers at that? In fact, to have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be defrauded? But you yourselves wrong and defraud—and believers at that. [1 Corinthians 6:1-8]

Finally, if nothing works, the offender is removed from the community by the community, which is granted the authority to bind and loose on God's behalf. The expelled member becomes "as a Gentile and tax collector." Sounds bad — but what is Jesus' own attitude toward Gentiles and tax collectors? Notice what teaching of Jesus' comes right before this teaching.

Verse 19 looks like a new subject. But try reading it this way: "If the two of you can come to an agreement regarding a disputed matter, that agreement will be blessed my Father in heaven." (Hare) Likewise verse 20 may appear to be a general teaching unrelated to what has come before. Unless it is the risen Jesus who gathers with his people precisely as they try to work things out among themselves.

There's a lot more. I'll look for you Sunday morning.

August 14, 2011

2011-08-08T12:34:00.003-04:00

Matthew 16:21-28

Sermon series: Doin' church with Jesus
Sunday's message: Cross training

Preaching series: Doin’ Church with Jesus (with St. Matthew as our guide)
Of the four gospels Matthew is the most direct about referring to “church” and giving directions for how church should work. We’ll begin by hearing about being called, and work our way through some of Jesus’ teaching about discipleship and church and the kingdom of Heaven. The series ends in September for us waiting for the Bridegroom. Each Sunday will bring a particular challenge to make a particular commitment. Come join us!

Last Sunday we heard Jesus speak of establishing his church on Simon petros, a stone who would become a rock. This week we'll see how small a stone Peter still is, how he is at this point in the story a skandalon, a stumbling-stone.

In Matthew, as well as in Mark and Luke, Jesus uses the occasion of Peter's confession to begin to speak about going to Jerusalem and what will happen there. This is a significant turn in the story. From this point forward in the story the road will lead to the cross, and Jesus' time will be spent mostly in teaching his disciples about discipleship.

Simon the Stone doesn't want to hear it. "God forbid it. Lord! This must never happen to you." Peter speaks for us. We really would rather that the cross not be a part of the Jesus story. We'd rather continue with the healings and wonderful teachings and that kingdom of heaven Jesus keeps talking about.

But to deny the cross — Jesus', or our own — is to become a stumbling-stone for Jesus himself and is to gut the story of its power to transform. Jesus is clear that cross-taking is necessary, both for himself and for us. To think otherwise it to set our minds, not on divine things, but on merely human things.

If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?

So what is it that Jesus wants from us, his erstwhile followers? He wants us to "deny ourselves" — something quite contrary to the "pursuit of happiness" we take to be an "inalienable right". Let's be clear that Jesus is not asking us to be pathological. "Self-denial for the sake of self-denial is an expression of the self's need to control, not submission to God's thinking"¹ Nor are we to be everyone's doormat. We're asked to stand for what God stands for, for the justice and mercy and righteousness that Jesus tells us define the kingdom of heaven — and to take the consequences, as Jesus did. To deny oneself in this way is to affirm oneself as a child "of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous."

That kind of cross-shaped living will take repentance, a change in the direction of the life. It will take courage to stand up gracefully to what others do and think. And it will take the support of each other. That' what Church is for.

So being one of Jesus' followers means more than simply believing and confessing that he is the Messiah/Christ. It means engaging in cross training — practicing Christian disciplines alone and with others. At Gray Memorial a new opportunity is available to do just that.

More about all this on Sunday. I'll see you in church.

¹Hare, Douglas R.A., Matthew, page 195

August 7, 2011

2011-07-31T17:57:00.006-04:00

Sermon series: Doin' church with Jesus
Sunday's message: Built on the rock

Built on the Rock the Church doth stand,
Even when steeples are falling;
Crumbled have spires in every land,
Bells still are chiming and calling,
Calling the young and old to rest,
But above all the soul distrest,
Longing for rest everlasting.

Hymn #467, The Lutheran Hymnal Text: Eph. 2: 19-22
Author: Nicolai F.S. Grundtvig, 1837 Translated by: Carl Doving, 1909, alt.

I wish we had that great hymn in our United Methodist Hymnal.

According to Matthew, the Church is built on a Rock, a particular rock, as its historical foundation. Roman Catholics traditionally have taken this passage as the establishment of Peter as the first Pope ("father") in a series of vicars of Christ on earth. The Reformers, seeing the papacy in their day for the corrupt institution it had become, claimed that it was Peter's faith on which the Church is based. Modern scholars, Protestant and Catholic alike, conclude that it was Peter himself on whom Jesus established his community that would become Church. Peter's historical primacy is clear throughout the New Testament. They also conclude that Peter was unique in this; he had no successors. Leadership passed to others after Peter's death, but his role as the Rock remains unique.

Without Peter, we wouldn't be Church; we wouldn't be here. That's something of a shock to us who grew up with the Reformation emphasis of the priesthood of all believers. Mostly it's a shock because it remind us that one of the features of the Christian faith is its historical particularity. Jesus was born in this time and place during that Emperor's reign; this particular apostle will be the rock on which the early church will stand during its formation. It's called the “scandal of particularity”. Particularity is inevitable for an incarnational faith that claims that Jesus is “God with us” walking around among us.

What’s interesting is verse 18. NRSV translates, “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.” Perhaps a better translation is “You are a stone, and on this rock I will build my church.” It’s clear from what follows this passage — it’s next week’s reading — that Peter is by no means ready yet to assume the responsibilities of being foundation for the Church. Peter’s stone must become a rock for that. And, of course, it did.

The gates of Hades — the power of death itself — cannot prevail against that for which Peter is the first Rock and foundation. Peter himself died; everyone does. Yet the Church continues — we’re still here.

Jesus will give to Peter the keys of the kingdom of heaven. The coat of arms of the Pope includes crossed keys. In popular imagination this verse makes Peter the keeper at the Pearly Gates, with the power to welcome or exclude. Maybe that’s not what it means. First off recall that “kingdom of heaven” is not a celestial destination, it’s the reign of God already present among us. Perhaps is will be Peter’s job graciously to use the keys to open the kingdom to many. Read the story in Acts 10. One scholar suggests that Peter was in his lifetime the Chief Rabbi of Christianity, binding and loosing in the sense of setting the ground for what will be permitted in the practice of the early Church.

If Peter was historically the foundation of the early Church, what does that have to do with us now? On Sunday we’ll talk about that scandal of particularity, and a bit about how it affects who we are and what we do. And maybe a bit about how leadership doesn’t have to be perfect to be effective. I’ll see you there.

July 31, 2011

2011-07-24T18:38:00.001-04:00

Matthew 13:31-33,44-52

Sermon series: Doin' church with Jesus
Sunday's message: Scribes trained for righteousness

Again this week we find Jesus teaching in parables. "The kingdom of heaven is like..."

The first of this week's parables are about the kingdom itself, about the work of God in the world and its ultimate outcome. The mustard seed was thought to be the smallest thing one could see. Plant it, and it grows to eight or ten feet. But become a tree? The image (perhaps from Daniel 4:20-21) is of something barely noticeable becoming something unexpected and extraordinary. The woman mixes the yeast in three measures of flour, enough to make bread for a small army; yet the yeast itself remains unseen.

The next three parables are about responses to the kingdom. One stumbles across a treasure in someone else's field. What to do? Hide the treasure again, hock everything you've got, and buy the field, thus acquiring something more valuable than everything you ever owned. As a merchant, one seeks fine pearls, and finally finds the equivalent of one of those Antiques Roadshow surprises, something worth far more than the owner knows. What to do? Again, hock everything you've got and buy it for its surpassing value.

The parable of the net reminds us of Matthew's concern for his own congregation, how the "net" of the Church brings in both good fish and "rotten" fish. Why not just good fish? This parable reminds us of the parable of the weeds in the wheat.

"Have you understood all this?" We hear an echo of Jesus' word to his disciples, "To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven." Jesus' disciples are those who, with treasures old and new, are trained for the work of the kingdom that even now works like yeast behind what is visible.

I'll see you next Sunday morning.

July 24, 2011

2011-07-19T11:44:00.000-04:00

Matthew 13:24-30

Sermon series: Doin' church with Jesus
Sunday's message: What about the weeds?

Last Sunday morning I was still in the hospital. This week I have to choose between preaching what I intended to preach last Sunday, or going forward with the next passage from the preaching series as I originally cast it. I've chosen to do the latter. Sometime later we may go back and talk about unburdening.

In the gospels we often find Jesus speaking of God's kingdom by using parables; and that is what we find this week. Remember that "the kingdom of heaven" in Matthew is the same thing as "the kingdom of God" in other gospels, and not some celestial location.

"Someone" sows good seed in his field. In finishing the creation God called it "very good". But "an enemy" came at night and sowed weeds. When the wheat came in, the weeds came in, too. "Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?"

That, of course, is an eternal question. If God created everything good, where did evil and suffering come from? But let's not obsess about the source of evil for now. I think Jesus' parable is about something else.

The slaves want to go pull up the weeds. There shouldn't be weeds in God's world! Somebody needs to do something! But no, "for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let them both grow together until the harvest."

We live in a world of delights and sorrows. We would prefer only the delights. But Jesus urges patience, saying that the kingdom of heaven is like we find it, not like what we'd like it to be.

I don't mean to say that there's not work for us to do in the fight against evil and injustice. The point is that, while we have work to do, we are not God. The weed problem is finally God's business.

Let's not obsess on the details of what happens at harvest time. To do so is to still be pulling the weeds in our heart of hearts. The point of the parable, I think, is that all will work out in God's provenance, if we'll just have the patience to let it happen.

There's a lot more to say about it. I'll see you on Sunday.

July 17, 2011

2011-07-11T12:18:00.001-04:00

Matthew 11:16-19,25-30

Sermon series: Doin' church with Jesus
Sunday's message: Unburdening

This Sunday we move far into Matthew's gospel, into chapter 11. We hear Jesus assessing his own generation, comparing them to quarreling children. His generation wants neither the fire-and-brimstone of John the Baptist, nor his own message of joy in the kingdom of heaven that is imminent. They prefer to sit on the sidelines. All of this is somewhat true for our own generation.

But the ways of the kingdom are revealed to "children", those who simply trust in Jesus as Emmanuel ("God with us"), the presence of the kingdom that is breaking in. "No one knows what the Father is up to except the Son, in whom God's [ultimate] will is being actualized... No one fully understands Jesus' [ultimate] role except the Father who sent him." (Hare, Matthew, p. 128) Only those to whom Jesus reveals it, and who accept it as revelation rather than observation, and who practice it.

Verse 28 may be a favorite for many who carry burdens of one kind or another. It may seem odd that the Jesus who called the first four apostles away from their livelihood and from the family business now seems to offer rest and the easing of burdens.

In context Jesus word is an invitation to doin' church — doing religion — without the excessive detail imposed by the Pharisees. (The next story in Matthew is the one about the disciples gathering grain to eat on the Sabbath.) It is from Type A religious practice that Jesus offers rest.

Instead of a stack of rules to keep, Jesus offers a yoke. An easy, "kind" yoke is one that is carefully shaped and fitted so as not to chafe. Jesus offers his own yoke, as if inviting us to partner with his as a working team and to pull together with him while learning from him. Jesus claims, "My yoke is easy, and my burden is light." Lighter than, better than, doin' church our own way.

I'll see you on Sunday.

Hare, Douglas R. A., Matthew (Louisville, John Knox Press, 1993)

July 10, 2011

2011-07-05T16:13:00.001-04:00

Matthew 4:12-23

Sermon series: Doin' church with Jesus
Sunday's message: It starts with a call

As narrated by Matthew Jesus' public ministry begins with a prudent move, a move to Capernaum that in Matthew's mind also fulfills prophecy.

But if Jesus begins by being prudent he certainly isn't hiding. He begins with a public proclamation:

Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.

Just to remind ourselves: the word "repent" has the basic meaning of "change direction". Matthew, I think, wants us to think that Jesus' own presence is the evidence that the kingdom of heaven has come near. And the next thing that happens is a demonstration of what repentance looks like.

Some of my colleagues and I have ongoing debate over what happens with Simon and Andrew, James and John. There's nothing in Matthew (or in Mark or in Luke, who also tell this story) that these four fisher-folk had ever met Jesus before. The plain reading would seem to me to be that Jesus, as a stranger, walked by and called them to follow him; and that they did, leaving behind the family business. My colleagues scoff that no one would do this, that they must have heard him before and that, having heard him, jumped at the invitation to join him. That would make sense; but the Bible just doesn't tell the story that way.

Let's try something a bit more congruent with "the kingdom of heaven has come near". Let's try something like: The voice which called the universe into being in Genesis 1 now calls what will become the church into being in the persons of these four fishermen.

Here's an interesting question: Are we Church because we volunteered and joined up? Or are we Church because we were called to it?

And if we are indeed called to be Church, we are also called to "repent", to change direction, to leave even valuable things like family behind, and to follow Jesus who-knows-where. My sense is that we as a congregation have hardly begun to do what Jesus calls us out to do. We acknowledge Jesus and say nice things about him, but hold tightly to our old fishing gear.

Jesus offers new fishing gear, a new kind of fishing gear. As something of a hint about what that new fishing gear is like, the next thing we hear is this:

Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.

What is our fishing gear like? Is it time to trade it in?

The New Testament (Greek) word for "church" is ekklesia, a word that means "[those who are] called out". I submit it's time to clean out our ears and hear Jesus' call afresh.

I'll see you Sunday morning.

June 19 & 26, July 3

2011-06-12T17:17:00.000-04:00

I will be away on vacation June 17 - 30.

Preaching Sunday, June 19 is Rev. Nathan Adams, associate pastor at Saint Paul's United Methodist.

Preaching Sunday, June 26 is Rev. Tony Fotsch, associate pastor at Trinity United Methodist.

Don't miss this opportunity to hear some of our fine young preachers.

I will be returning to the pulpit on Sunday, July 3 for a Special Sunday I'm calling A Nation Under God. I'll be working from Romans 13:1-10; Galatians 5:1,13-15; and Matthew 22:15-22. That ought to keep us — or at least, keep me — busy. My message title for July 3 will be, "How to be a nation under God."

June 3 is also a free picnic for our 32303 neighbors. Be sure to invite some! I'll see you there.

June 12, 2011 -- Pentecost

2011-06-06T12:13:00.001-04:00

Sunday's message: Manifesting the Spirit

The story in Acts 2 has resulted in the Day of Pentecost being known as "the birthday of the Church". People who had no status or influence became emboldened to testify to the mighty acts of God, and to do it in the native languages of their hearers.

But Acts 2 isn't the only New Testament passage that speaks of the Spirit active in believers. The readings the Lectionary gives us for Pentecost this year include one each from 1 Corinthians and John's gospel.

Some thoughts to begin the week as we look forward to Sunday:

The gift of the spirit empowers the whole congregation for witness in the world. Some, including Peter, would be gifted with the gift of proclamation. But the whole congregation is gifted to witness to all the world.
The Spirit's gifts are diverse within the one Body, and are meant to empower service. We are differentially gifted "for the common good" for the utterance of wisdom, for the utterance of knowledge, for faith, for healing others, for working miracles, for prophecy (proclamation), for discernment, for speaking and interpreting tongues. Diversity in the one body is a gift of God, not a problem to be solved.
The Body, though differentially gifted, is one through Baptism, despite demographic differences. We study local demographics such as age and social location as a part of our call to witness; but our own differences of gender and age and culture are all gathered up and baptized into the one Body.
Out of the believer's heart flows living water, understood as the Spirit. Jesus spoke at "the festival", a yearly occasion in Jerusalem when a golden flagon holding water from the pool of Siloam was carried to the Temple accompanied by the sound of the shofar (often translated as "trumpet"). Siloam held water that had come from the spring of Gihon through a rock-hewn tunnel under the city, a tunnel dug as a part of Jerusalem's ancient defenses. The Spirit is not ours to hold as a prize; it's meant to be sustaining for others in our world.

Pentecost gives us much to celebrate; but also much to do. I'll say more about all that on Sunday. I'll see you there.

June 5, 2011

2011-05-29T16:26:00.001-04:00

Special Sunday
John Riley, special guest speaker

John Riley reaches thousands each year. His teachings have spanned the globe, encompassing 22 countries and totaling more than 10,500 times over the course of nearly 4 decades.

Born in the small town of Abbeville, Alabama, he was taught early on about the importance of hard honest work and building lasting relationships. He went on to play football for Auburn University and was drafted by Oakland.

When his football career came to a sudden end in 1970 John explored the business world. After six years he answered the calling deep down inside and began speaking full-time. He has been teaching companies how to incorporate those honest values that he learned so long ago into building lasting working relationship with each other as well as the companies they work with.

John has received countless awards and recognition, but nothing is as rewarding to him as when he is sharing the simple but important principles of living with a group of people. He has spoken for multiple companies in all parts of the world. He does team building and coaching for some of the most recognized brands. John is sure to stir and motivate anyone who is looking to excel and reach to new heights within themselves and the world around them.

Don't miss it.

May 29, 2011

2011-05-22T19:44:00.001-04:00

1 Peter 4:7 - 5:14

Series: Exiles chosen by God
Sunday's message: The end is near

It may seem ironic to announce a message entitled "The end is near" when we've all just been through an announcement about the Rapture coming — an event that seems not to have occurred.

We must remember that for the early Christian writers the end was indeed near. They expected it imminently. The gospels even quote Jesus as saying that it was near (though not to be reckoned to an exact date on the calendar). Paul expected it by the end of his lifetime. Two thousand years later we may forget all that when we read their words.

But 1 Peter isn't urging his readers to batten down and expect to be swept up into heaven. He is urging them to soldier on, to keep on living the new birth and doing the Lord's work despite the scrapes and bumps that come along with it. And to support the Christian community which in turn supports them along the way.

In this week's passage 1 Peter says more about suffering. And I'll say more about it. Again, 1 Peter isn't speaking about suffering in general; he's speaking about the suffering we encounter when we live in Kingdom ways. But you may hear something Sunday that makes sense in the wider context of suffering.

A part of this part of the letter is instruction for the "elders" who lead the community. That would be for me more than for you; but it might be instructive for you to hear it. What is my job exactly?

Finally, the end comes. Not the end of the world (yet) but the end of the letter. This week's passage finishes the text of the letter with a personal word from the letter writer.

I'll see you Sunday morning.

May 22, 2011

2011-05-16T13:07:00.003-04:00

1 Peter 3:13 - 4:6

Heritage Sunday
Series: Exiles chosen by God
Sunday's message: Even if you suffer

Now 1 Peter takes up in more detail the issue of unjust suffering. Recall that the writer is addressing Christians — a distrusted minority — who are being maligned by their neighbors because of their faith. Imagine those recipients as being in the same situation in which Muslims find themselves in the United States post-9/11. How does one respond to the slander? And how does one come to terms with the unjust suffering it brings?

First of all 1 Peter reminds us that we must actually live blameless. John Wesley cited Matthew 5:11 with a particular word emphasized: "“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account." For John Wesley, as for 1 Peter, right living is a prerequisite to everything else. We are to look to our own behavior, no matter what anyone else does or does to us.

1 Peter would have his readers be ready with an answer for the slanders against them. They are to think through, and be ready to explain when asked, the "hope that is in them" and the lifestyle that follows from it. They are not simply to reply, "Well, you do it your way and we do it our way." They have — we have — a hope that need not hide.

But they — and we — are to make this answer "with gentleness and reverence". Here is the rub, and Christians in this country have not always followed this teaching. We are not to slander others in return. "A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger." (Proverbs 15:1) We get frustrated and angry when we are put down, slandered, misunderstood. But we are forbidden to take out our frustration on those who slander us because of our faith.

But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. (Matthew 5:44-45)

1 Peter reminds us that our very baptism is an appeal to God for a good conscience, effective through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

So what about unjust suffering? One of the things young children learn to say with passion is, "It's not fair!" That passion for justice is in us adults as well, at least where our own skin is concerned. I remind us that the suffering of which 1 Peter writes is suffering specifically related to the living out of the Christian faith. To be sure there are other unjust sufferings — a lot of them, suffered by Christians and non-Christians alike — and God cares passionately about those. But those are not what 1 Peter is writing about in this letter.

1 Peter reminds us that Christ himself suffered, and claims that our unjust suffering for the faith can be taken as a participation in Christ's own suffering. That doesn't justify the abuse we receive, any more than it justified the abuse Jesus received. It gives us a framework for dealing with it.

The letter continues to remind us that we are not doormats. We are God's own people, and as such have a hope and freedom that cannot be taken away from us. Our suffering for the faith is undeserved — that's the whole point.

Is this advice sufficient for us? Recall that the original readers of 1 Peter had few other options. They were a distrusted minority with no real power. The faith itself forbade any angry or violent response. They had no social or political power. Our situation is different. We, too, are a distrusted minority, but we have much more social and political leverage than they had. And in this country we have laws to protect us. Should we put up with slander and abuse? Or is a different response more appropriate?

As we approach this coming Sunday think about what 1 Peter might say to us in our slightly different situation. What are appropriate ways for us to use our influence and our leverage and our laws to make our defense for the hope that is in us?

I'll see you on Sunday.

May 15, 2011

2011-05-08T17:45:00.003-04:00

1 Peter 2:11 - 3:12

Series: Exiles chosen by God
Sunday's message: Aliens and exiles

Now comes the fun. Here's where you get to see the preacher dance around some really difficult and disliked passages of scripture.

So far 1 Peter has been upbeat. Writing to Christians in western Asia who are experiencing scorn from their neighbors because of their faith, the author has lifted them up, calling them "a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people." But now 1 Peter gets into subject that the original readers will have seen very differently from the way we see them.

"Accept the authority of every human institution." Here's where my Boomer generation would be likely to get off the bus. So, for that matter, might the founders of the United States, who questioned the authority of the Crown in certain matters. So also might John of Patmos, the writer of Revelation, for whom the Roman empire clearly was nothing but evil, a hated Babylon reborn.

"Slaves, accept the authority of your masters with all deference, not only those who are kind and gentle but also those who are harsh." What? Wasn't it in the name of God that William Wilberforce (with the support of John Wesley) sought the abolition of human slavery? How could something in the Bible support slavery?

"Wives, in the same way, accept the authority of your husbands, so that, even if some of them do not obey the word, they may be won over without a word by their wives’ conduct, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives." In the same way as what? In the same way slaves obey their masters? Are you kidding me? Here's where Wendy gets to throw the Bible at me.

"Husbands, in the same way, show consideration for your wives in your life together, paying honor to the woman as the weaker sex..." Yeah, guys, try saying that to your sweetie!

We don't get to pick and choose what parts of the Bible we like, and which we'd rather ignore. If the Bible is scripture, then all of it is. What we doget to do — what, in fact we must do — is discern what a letter written nineteen hundred years ago means for us in our own situation. I'm convinced that 1 Peter has something to say to us, even this part of 1 Peter. As you'll see on Sunday, I don't think we're called to import the directives verbatim into our own time and place, as if we were still living in the late first century.

I wonder whether thoughtful twenty-first-century readers ever get past all of the above and get to the heart of the matter, which follows it.

Finally, all of you, have unity of spirit, sympathy, love for one another, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil or abuse for abuse; but, on the contrary, repay with a blessing. It is for this that you were called—that you might inherit a blessing. For
“Those who desire life
and desire to see good days,
let them keep their tongues from evil
and their lips from speaking deceit;
let them turn away from evil and do good;
let them seek peace and pursue it.
For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous,
and his ears are open to their prayer.
But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”

I am looking forward to Sunday. I hope you are too.

May 8, 2011

2011-05-02T11:13:00.002-04:00

1 Peter 1:13 - 2:10

Series: Exiles chosen by God
Sunday's message: God's own people

"Therefore..." After that powerful prayer of thanksgiving that opened the letter, we just knew that "therefore" was coming. Religion in general, or hope in general, isn't enough. We must live out our hope.

The first imperative we encounter is the equivalent of, "Roll up the sleeves of your mind." Especially in difficult circumstances our religion cannot be simply a warm fuzzy feeling. We're told here to think through the implications of God's grace in our particular situation.

1 Peter asks us, as born-again people, not to try to look back into the warmth and safety of the womb. In the background we can almost see Moses standing in front of God's people newly released from slavery in Egypt and saved through the waters of the sea into freedom. Almost immediately they began to experience how difficult freedom is, and how difficult free life can be; and they begin to yearn for the fleshpots of Egypt. 1 Peter takes the words from Israel's wilderness experience: "You shall be holy, for I am holy." 1 Peter urges us to leave behind our "futile ways" and to live the new life we have been given.

"Now that you have purified your souls by your obedience to the truth..." Wow, we wonder, were the good folks in western Asia in the late first century really that holy? Or, hearing these words as addressed to us, we may swallow hard and think how much catching up we may have to do. But 1 Peter doesn't add a parenthetical, "You have purified your soul, haven't you?" 1 Peter does not aim to shame us for our shortcomings. 1 Peter aims to encourage us into the new life God has created for us. There's not a purification pre-test here for admission to the blessings. Instead there is encouragement to live the life.

And what is it that we are to do, purified by obedience? "Love one another deeply from the heart." The specific instructions are: "Rid yourselves, therefore, of all malice, and all guile, insincerity, envy, and all slander." Not to make ourselves better or more pure, but in order to love as God loves. Purity isn't a stone cold tower. It is a warm web of redemptive relationship.

That word about relationships leads to a word about identity. We are living stones, ready to be built into a spiritual house along with the Living Stone that is Jesus Christ. Then the image changes. Now that the spiritual house is in place we are a holy priesthood within it, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. "You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light." Who? Us? Yes!:

Once you were not a people,
but now you are God’s people;
once you had not received mercy,
but now you have received mercy.

We give our identity far too little thought. We see ourselves as simple pew-sitters, as names on the roll-book of the congregation. God's people are far, far more than that.

Can you tell that, once again, I'm excited about preaching this? I'll see you Sunday morning.

May 1, 2011

2011-04-25T16:56:00.001-04:00

Series: Exiles chosen by God
Sunday's message: A new birth into a living hope

On Easter Sunday we heard these words:

So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory. (Colossians 3:1-4)

1 Peter is all about that, about having died to an old life and having been raised with Christ (1 Peter calls it the equivalent of having been "born again"); and having hope for the future revealing of Christ where our own new life will be fully revealed. Colossians tells us to be active in the time between, to "seek the things that are above". 1 Peter is all over that. 1 Peter is precisely about how to live in the time between, in the midst of a world of folks who just don't get it and just don't get us.

We'll get to all that in the weeks to come. But 1 Peter doesn't start with imperatives ("do this"). 1 Peter begins with indicative, with a broad thanksgiving for all that God has done. It is God that has given us new birth into a living hope. It is God who has brought us into and inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for us. It is God who protects us now through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed "in the last time".

"In this you rejoice." That's not an imperative, either; it's an indicative, a description of the natural response to the great things God has done. We're not commanded to rejoice (as if such a command could ever be obeyed). We are not required to put on a smile and generate our own enthusiasm. It is God who is the primary actor in 1 Peter, and in our own lives.

"Even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials." More about this later in the letter — much more. For now suffice it to say that the sufferings of which 1 Peter speaks are not the everyday travails experienced by everyone. They are specifically trials encountered because we, by virtue of our new birth, are suddenly aliens in our own surroundings. We are no longer secular people. And as a result we are misunderstood in the place where we live, and are sometimes subject to ridicule or scorn. I should add that this will be, not about our beliefs — who else but us cares about that? — but rather about how we live our lives, how we are noticeably different in what we do (and in what we not longer do). The community at large doesn't get that, and doesn't like it.

"Although you have not seen [Jesus Christ], you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls." Does that describe us? The letter writer — writing a circular letter from Rome to churches in western Asia (modern Turkey) — encourages them (and us), not to bootstrap themselves up to joy, but simply to allow themselves to experience it through the power of the Holy Spirit that is in them through the new birth.

Can you tell that I'm excited to be preaching about this? I'll see you Sunday morning.

Holy Thursday and Easter Day, 2011

2011-04-18T17:05:00.000-04:00

Holy Thursday, April 21 2011, 7:00 p.m.
Easter Day, Sunday, April 24 11:00 a.m.

Holy Thursday, April 21, 2011 7:00 p.m.

Series: Cross to Resurrection
Thursday's message: A day for freedom

As I write this on Monday afternoon our Jewish sisters and brothers are making their last preparations for Passover, which for them begins at sunset this evening. Passover is always after a full moon.

Christians typically celebrate the Last Supper on Holy Thursday (also called Maundy Thursday) because We always celebrate Easter on a Sunday, the first day of the week, the day when Jesus rose from the dead. Passover can happen on any day of the week. Matthew's story indicates that the Last Supper was a Passover celebration; Jesus and his disciples, of course, were Jews.

Passover is like American Fourth of July. It's independence day. It's the day when God's people remember and celebrate their release from slavery in Egypt. The story in Exodus is set as a part of a narrative, but one sees traces of later religious instruction within the narrative. One can imagine an elder of the people giving instruction for Passover and interweaving the story of deliverance from Egypt.

Speaking of instruction for worship: The verses for Thursday evening from 1 Corinthians are the oldest testimony we have to the practice of the Lord's Supper in the early Church. The gospels appear first in our New Testament, but all of Paul's letters are earlier than any of the gospels. This brief account of Paul's is the oldest account we have.

Holy Thursday is a somber evening. We are but one day away from the cross. We will be using Word and Table IV for our celebration, the old form that many remember from the previous Hymnal. It is heavily penitential. Yet we will remember that we're talking about freedom. "For freedom Christ has set us free!" (Galatians 5:1) We do not come to this somber Thursday to bind ourselves with more chains of guilt. We come to hear Jesus say, "This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins."

I'll see you Thursday evening.

Easter Day, April 24, 2011 11:00 a.m.

Series: Cross to Resurrection
Sunday's message: So if you have been raised...

We interrupt our usual Sunday reverie to hear Peter preaching to a house full of Gentiles, to people who are not intrinsically God's people. We'll hear only his address on Sunday, and not the story that goes around it. Normally that's not good. But in this case we're hearing a synopsis of the gospel story, probably in the form in which it was used by the early church. Acts contains other similar speeches. We're hearing what the early Church believed and proclaimed, not just what Peter said on a particular occasion. Central to this witness is: "They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; but God raised him on the third day."

Like the crucifixion stories, the Gospel stories of the Resurrection differ from each other. In Matthew we find Mary Magdalene and Mary, the two women we left watching at the tomb last Sunday. In Matthew there is yet another earthquake (there was one at the crucifixion as well). There are tomb guards in Matthew's story, but they are rendered ineffective by the angel who had rolled away the stone from the tomb and sat on it. The angel sends them to the (men) disciples, with instructions to meet in Galilee where the story had first begun. Going, they meet Jesus himself and joyfully take hold of his feet. He tells them not to be afraid — to let go? — but to go on.

All of that is about Jesus being raised. Colossians for this week begins with, "So if you have been raised with Christ..." In Christian faith Resurrection isn't just something that happened to Jesus once, nor is it just something that will happen to everyone eventually. It is a state of being. If we are Easter people, Colossians claims, then we will set our minds in particular ways, and not in other ways. These four verses are among the most powerful in the New Testament, and will be the focus of Sunday's message.

I'll see you Sunday morning.

April 17, 2011 Passion/Palm Sunday

2011-04-11T10:54:00.004-04:00

Proclamation of the triumphal entry

Matthew 21:1-11

Four scenes from Matthew's passion story

Passion/Palm Sunday is a special Sunday with a special form of worship. As you can see, there is a lot of scripture. The most important thing that will happen Sunday is what you will hear from the Bible, not what you hear from me.

We'll begin the service with the so-called Palm Sunday story, and with a traditional Palm Sunday hymn complete with palm branches. But then we'll move — as the story itself moves — into a recounting of the Passion.

This year, instead of trying to cover the entire Saint Matthew Passion, I've chosen four scenes.

In the first scene Jesus prophesies his death a final time; and the religious leaders gather to conspire to get rid of him. At the end of the scene Judas, one of the twelve, goes to these same leaders and offers to betray Jesus to them. In the middle of all this is a scene in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper. A woman anoints Jesus with very costly ointment. The disciples are angry — such a waste! — but Jesus explains that she has anointed him for his burial.
For the second scene we are at Gethsemane, where Jesus goes to pray and urges his disciples to pray. Jesus pours out his soul in prayer, but his disciples fall asleep. In the second part of the Gethsemane scene Judas arrives with an armed crowd from the religious leaders. One of the disciples tries to defend Jesus with a sword, only to be admonished by Jesus to put it away. At the end of the scene Jesus' disciples run away.
Our third scene is unique to Matthew's gospel. Judas comes again to the religious leaders and brings back to them the money he received for betraying Jesus. But they don't want the money back, and they don't care about Judas' remorse. Judas goes off and hangs himself, and the leaders figure out what to do with the "blood money".
The last scene for Sunday follows Jesus' crucifixion and death. Joseph of Arimathea comes to Pilate for the body of Jesus, wraps it in a clean linen cloth, and lays it in his own tomb, closing the tomb with a large stone. This short scene closes with the notice that Mary Magdalene and another Mary were there, sitting opposite the tomb. Waiting. For what?

This is a powerful service, perhaps the most moving service of the entire year. Be there, and bring friends with you. I'll see you there.

April 10, 2011

2011-04-03T15:57:00.001-04:00

Series: Lent: A path in the wilderness
Sunday's message: Can these bones live?

As we come yet closer to Jerusalem on this fifth Sunday in Lent we come to two powerful stories and yet one more powerful affirmation from Paul's letter to the church in Rome.

The story from Ezekiel may be my favorite in all of scripture. Which is interesting, because I find the book of the prophet Ezekiel to be very difficult reading. Not difficult to understand; alas, no, it's all too easy to understand. Difficult to stand before. Ezekiel is pretty harsh stuff.

But this story, like much from the latter chapters of the book, is a story of hope. In a vision the prophet stands in the middle of a valley full of bones -- a very uncomfortable and unclean place for someone with Ezekiel's priestly background in the laws of clean and unclean. The bones are very dry. The question comes: "Son of dust, can these bones live?"

Have you stood there? Have you stood in the valley of dashed hopes and broken dreams and heard your inner voice say, Is there any hope left for all this? Some of us feel that way about the current political situation. Others felt that way on the election of the current President.

"O Lord GOD, you know." It is the only possible answer. If these bones are to live, it will be by something or Someone beyond our own powers and abilities.

The other story, an extended one, comprises most of the eleventh chapter of the gospel according to John. (There are few short stories in John's gospel.) It is the story of Jesus and his disciples and of Jesus' friend Lazarus, and Lazarus' sisters Martha and Mary. The sisters send a message to Jesus that their brother Lazarus is ill. Jesus receives the message, but waits two days. Long enough for Lazarus to die.

"Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." Have you stood there? Each of the sisters in turn makes this accusation. But, like this past week's story really wasn't about the blind man but about who Jesus is, so this story really isn't about Lazarus and his sisters; it is about Jesus and who he is.

At the end of the story Jesus, greatly disturbed, stands at the grave of his friend Lazarus with the two sisters. He knows, what the others do not know, that his own death will be next. But this cannot be the end of the story. And, of course, it isn't. "Lazarus, come out!"

But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.

If Christ is in us, we are alive, no matter what; and we receive the gift of "eternal life", life with the quality of eternity to it. Our bones can indeed live again, not (just) in heaven later, but here and now. And we make this affirmation even at the side of the grave of a loved one, or in the valley of the shredded remains of our hopes and dreams. Not because we are inherently immortal — we're not — but because God is God.

Am I excited about preaching on Sunday? You betcha! I'll see you there.

April 3, 2011

2011-03-27T16:29:00.003-04:00

Series: Lent: A path in the wilderness
Sunday's message: What do you see?
Preaching: Dr. Melanie Barton

When you look at people do you focus on what is wrong with them and blame them for it? Why do we do what we do? Is it tradition or something else? We behave in ways based on what others have modeled for us. Are you aware of how you are influencing others by the kind of role model you are? Read John 9:1-41 and come Sunday prepared to hear thoughts about these questions.

Dr. Melanie Barton, a holistic psychotherapist since 1985, has a Master's in Social Work and Doctorate in Pastoral Counseling. Dr. Barton is licensed as an independent social worker, and is a member of National Association of Social Workers. She is an ordained Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) minister. She teaches meditation and visualization. She is an advocate for people lost in the maze of the social services system and a mentor to people in recovery.

Dr. Melanie worships with us at Gray Memorial when she's not at the church served by her son, a United Methodist minister in Georgia.

March 27, 2011

2011-03-20T10:27:00.000-04:00

Series: Lent: A path in the wilderness
Sunday's message: To be reconciled

This week we find God's people, newly released from slavery in Egypt, struggling with that freedom in ways they may not have expected. They find that no one now provides for them, and that they can find themselves in want. In this particular case, there is no water. You can't live without water.

They go to Moses and blame him for their predicament. They ask their liberator why he has made them free, only to dies of thirst. They even question the intentions of God.

As often in these stories God provides for them through the agency of Moses. But the bitterness remains. The name of the place will be Massah and Meribah — "test" and "quarrel" — because there God's people quarreled and teste God. "Is God among us, or not?" The place names will appear again in Deuteronomy and the Psalms as symbols of estrangement from God.

The story this week from John's gospel is a classic story of estrangement. The woman at the well is estranged from her community. The Samaritans are estranged from the Jews. At least in public, men and women are estranged from each other. But Jesus offers living water and reconciliation with God through worship in spirit and truth.

In Romans Paul speaks of the peace we have with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Again this week we find high affirmations in Romans. While we were still weak Christ died for the ungodly. While we still were sinners Christ died for us. We have been reconciled to God through God's own initiative in Jesus Christ.

Lent is a time to consider our estrangement, with God and with each other. But instead of simply bewailing our estrangement of beating ourselves up about it, we are encouraged to do something, to accept the reconciling grace of God and to make it effective in our lives.

More about it all on Sunday. I'll see you there.

March 20, 2011

2011-03-14T11:22:00.000-04:00

Series: Lent: A path in the wilderness
Sunday's message: To be lifted up

We will encounter wonderful narratives — stories — from the Old Testament and from John's gospel all through these first five weeks of Lent. I don't know about you, but I'm a sucker for a good story.

This week's first reading is only a snippet of a story, but it reminds us of a great deal more. In last Sunday's story from Genesis we had succumbed to the temptation to over-reach in the Garden of Eden, with the result that we became ashamed. In this week's reading from Genesis a new trajectory begins, a salvation trajectory that will culminate in Jesus Christ. How will God respond to our failure and shame? By calling out a seventy-five-year-old man. How's that for a story?

In our second reading Paul comments on Abram/Abraham, not just on this week's story snippet, but on the whole Abraham journey as told in Genesis. Paul argues that Abraham, the father of us all, was justified — made right with God — not by what he did, but by his trust in God. Why else would a 75-year-old man leave his home to travel to a place he's never seen before, never to return, just because God called him to? The English language doesn't have a verb form of the word "faith". Trust in God is faith as a verb.

For this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham... in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.

By the way, that last sentence is quite an affirmation. God is the one who gives life to the dead, calling into existence things that did not exist before. Probably Paul is thinking specifically of Abraham and Sarah, an infertile couple, and the promise of God that their offspring would be as numerous as the stars in the sky. How that all worked out is yet another wonderful narrative found in Genesis.

This week's third reading contains what is likely the best-known sentence in the Bible, the one people know even by its citation: John 3:16. But even this is embedded in a story. Nicodemus, a Pharisee and leader of the Jews, comes to Jesus by night and affirms — at least in this hidden and private context — that Jesus is " a teacher who has come from God." But Jesus wants him to see more. Jesus speaks of being born "from above". In the typical pattern of misunderstanding that John uses in his gospel stories Nicodemus thinks Jesus is speaking of begin born physically a second time.

A caution, here and in some of the things we will read from Romans is this season: Neither the Bible nor our Christian faith views physical existence or the physical creation as a bad thing. Creation is, well, God's own creation, and God called it Good from the very beginning. When Jesus — and, later, Paul — speaks of "flesh" he is speaking of earthly-mindedness, of a worldview that takes into account only the physical, and not of our embodied-ness itself.

Jesus refers to a moment from the wilderness story where Moses, at God's direction, mounted a bronze snake on a pole for the healing of the people. At the end of the gospel story Jesus will be the snake on a pole, lifted up for the healing of the world! That's John 3:14-15. You know what comes next.

In the wilderness story the people had to look at, to see the bronze serpent in order to live. In John people must "see" Jesus lifted up in order to have eternal life. In John's gospel, seeing is believing.

A great set of readings with good news galore. I'll see you Sunday morning.

March 9 and March 13, 2011

2011-03-07T17:22:00.001-05:00

Ash Wednesday, March 9, 2011, 7:00 p.m.
1st Sunday in Lent, March 13, 2011 11:00 a.m.

Ash Wednesday, March 9, 2011, 7:00 p.m.

Series: Lent: A path in the wilderness
Wednesday's message: Blow the trumpet

Ash Wednesday begins the season of Lent, forty days leading up to but not including Easter, and not counting the Sundays. The model is Jesus' forty days in the wilderness in preparation for his ministry.

The first thing we hear as we gather to begin our Lenten journey is the prophet Joel crying out to his people. He reminds me of a line made popular by the late advice columnist Ann Landers: Wake up and small the coffee! When Ann Landers wrote it she was reply to some poor soul who was not seeing the implcations of the circumstances around him or her. Pay attendtion to what's going on, and what it means

In Joel's case the people were not attending to the things of God, and God was on the way to set things right. The form of God's appearing will be an army too numerous to count, bringing darness and gloom.

Joel advises that they drop everything and pay attention. Even the newlyweds are to leave their honeymoon. They are to return to God with fasting, weeping, and mourning. To tear one's clothing in Joel's time was a sign of mourning or great distress. But Joel wants them to tear their very hearts instead of their clothing.

Joel calls a solemn assembly with the hope that God may relent from that day of darkness and gloom. We, too, will assemble on Wednesday, and it will be a solemn assembly. But we have a hope that Joel and his people did not have, or did not express. Despite Lent's dark associations we will never leave our hope behind in this season.

Joel is trying to get his people's attention to their true circumstances. Paul in Romans is urging the importance of the present moment. Now is the acceptable time; now is the day of salvation, the day to be reconciled with God.

Lest we go the wrong direction with all that — lest we try to do something merely religious — Jesus reminds us that religious actions done just for show never get above the floor. If we want people's approval for our righteousness and our religiosity, we'll get it — and nothing else. Jesus takes up common religious practices of his day — almsgiving, prayer, and fasting — to make his point that these things are meant to maintain our right relationship with God. If we're storing up points for earthly recognition, our reward will be earth-bound. But if our treasure — our fondest desire — is in heaven (deposited with the kingdom of God present now and coming in its fullness) then our hearts will land in that kingdom.

So we are called to wake up to our own reality, to take the moment to be reconciled, and to orient our hearts and practices toward the things of God's kingdom. On Wednesday evening I will ask: Forty days from now what do you want to be different about yourself, and what do we want to be different about our congregation?

I'll see you Wednesday evening.

1st Sunday in Lent, March 13, 2011 11:00 a.m.

Series: Lent: A path in the wilderness
Sunday's message: Forty days

Ah, yes, Eve and Adam and the serpent and the fruit tree. It's a gem of a story, and it tells our story. Alas we've been conditioned (by Paul and others) to read it in a certain was, as if God were setting up a court case against us all because of something that happened far back in ancient history. It's our story, not because we've somehow inherited Eve and Adam's disobedience, but because we too discover that when we cross the line things don't end up as bright and wonderful as we expected. Consider: Eve and Adam took the fruit so that their eyes would be opened, so they would be like God, knowing good and evil. But the first result was that they deiscovered that they were naked. That's not what they were looking for.

Paul (ignoring Eve entirely) makes a typology of the story, a typology that is still preached in churches. Because of the one man Adam sin entered the world. But what's important about Paul's writing here is not Adam. What is important for Paul is that through the one man Jesus Christ God has brought the free gift of justification and life for all. Sometimes we get stuck on Adam. Paul does not; he only mentions Adam in order to declare the wonderful thing God has done through Jesus Crhist. Paul never says how it all works, just that it does.

And so we find Jesus in Matthew's story, fresh from his baptism and with God's own affirmation ringing in his ears, led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Isn't that a bit odd? Why would God's Spirit lead Jesus to the devil? However that may be the encounter becomes a sharpening of Jesus' mission and identity. The devil doesn't deny that Jesus is the Son of God. The devil presents alternative visions of what that might look like — being a provider of everyday necessities, being a dazzling performer, being the expected Messiah and overthrowing Roman occupation. In each case, citing an old creed from Deuteronomy, Jesus replies, "That's not my identity, that's not what I came to do."

What is our identity as his followers? What things are we called to do, individually and as a congregation, and what attractive things take us in the wrong direction instead?

I'll see you Sunday morning.

March 6, 2011

2011-02-28T12:56:00.001-05:00

Special Sunday: Transfiguration
Sunday's message: A lamp in a dark place

We've finished the Sermon on the Mount, and have heard Jesus' call to enter by the narrow gate to find the road that leads to life. The Wednesday following this coming Sunday is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. Transfiguration is a bridge between those seasons.

But it's more than a bridge. Up a high mountain with Jesus, we see him in all of his glory ahead of time. He converses with Moses and Elijah, figures from scripture who each had their own moments on a mountain.

As if that weren't enough, we're suddenly overtaken by a bright cloud, and a voice booms from heaven: "This is my Son, the Beloved: with him I am well pleased; listen to him!" We've heard that voice before. Now, with the addition of the phrase "Listen to him" we find all of Jesus' teaching, including the Sermon on the Mount, to be affirmed.

If this is who Jesus really is, who wouldn't want to listen to him, to follow him? How could you lose?

Peter, like us, is impressed. “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” But apparently that's not what is wished. Instead of building shrines or monuments to this wonderful God-sighting we are overshadowed by the bright cloud and told to listen to Jesus, to follow him. We can't live in our bright memories.

Following Jesus will now take a turn toward Jerusalem. There will be more teaching, but few of what we think of a miracles. The journey, of course, will end with Jesus' own death, and with his call in our ears to take up our own cross.

Peter may have been wrong in wanting to stay on the mountain and nurture the moment. But he was certainly right to appreciate it. On our way from the strong call to discipleship that is the Sermon on the Mount, to the forty-day journey to Jerusalem and the cross, this moment stands as a beacon, a lamp in a dark place, showing us the glory of the One who calls us.

Paul wrote this:

So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.
(2 Corinthians 4:16-18)

For just a moment this week, we get to see what cannot be seen.

I'll see you Sunday morning.

February 27, 2011

2011-02-21T11:02:00.000-05:00

Matthew 7:7-14

Preaching series: Being Disciples:
The Sermon on the Mount
Sunday's message: A narrow gate

This is the last week of a seven-week preaching series on the Sermon on the Mount. Study notes for the preaching series are available on our church Web site here.

This week's portion of the Sermon on the Mount contains three teachings.

First there is the well-known admonition to ask, to seek ("search" in NRSV), to knock. Certainly we are encouraged to bring all our needs and all our wants and all our troubles to God in prayer. You can't pray anything "wrong". If you feel it, you should pray it. The writers of the Psalms sometimes said some pretty striking things to God and, as far as I know, they weren't zapped by lightning for it. We can say anything to God in prayer because we can trust the God who answers the prayers to do the right thing.

But this week's teaching isn't about prayer generally. It's about prayer related to a particular teaching that we've already encountered:

But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. (6:33)

We are to ask for, search for, knock on God's door for the kingdom of God and, for ourselves, the righteousness that it entails. We are not to allow ourselves to be driven by the passions that keep us from trusting God and keep us from loving our neighbor. Jesus tells us that if we ask, search, and knock on the door for kingdom righteousness, we will find what we seek.

The second teaching may be the single most famous teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, if not in the whole Bible. We call it the Golden Rule. It's not unique to Jesus or to Christianity; forms of the teaching, sometimes stated in the negative ("Do not do to others..."), appear in many ancient cultures. Its appearance in the Sermon on the Mount is an assertion that the Golden Rule is also central to kingdom righteousness.

Notice a few things about the Golden Rule:

Like the rest of the Sermon it is proactive. We are to treat others in the way we ourselves would like to be treated, before the other party does the right thing — or even if they never do the right thing. Kingdom living is our responsibility, and is not dependent on the attitudes or actions of others.
This is not an exercise in changing the world or our neighbor. We do not live in kingdom ways hoping that our neighbor or the world will respond in kind. If we do we will be disappointed in the short term, and are likely to give up the exercise. We may by the long practice of our collective righteousness influence the world. But we are called to live as kingdom people aside from any "result".
It sounds easy, but the Golden Rule is extraordinarily difficult to do in the details of our daily lives. We have learned to look out first for Number One; only then might we have the energy and attention to treat others well. The Golden Rule calls us to the exercise of a humility to which we are unaccustomed.

Finally there is the teaching about the narrow gate. If you've been hearing the Sermon on the Mount over these weeks you're likely to say a hearty Amen! Jesus' teaching on kingdom righteousness represents a narrow way indeed, and alas few find it. But it leads to life, not just later an elsewhere, but here and now.

More about all of this on Sunday. I'll see you there.

February 20, 2011

2011-02-13T18:26:00.000-05:00

Matthew 7:1-6

Preaching series: Being Disciples:
The Sermon on the Mount
Sunday's message: Specks and logs

This is a seven-week preaching series on the Sermon on the Mount, chapters five through seven of the gospel according to Matthew.

The Sermon on the Mount is not self-help advice to make us happier or help us reach our full individual potential. It is a description of how one lives as a disciple of Jesus Christ and as a subject of the kingdom of God. It is not advice to the masses for making a happier world. It is teaching on righteousness for Jesus' disciples, who live as aliens and strangers in the world.

And yet, according to Matthews's story, the masses do hear it. As if hearing teaching about Christian righteousness itself becomes an invitation to become one of Jesus's disciples. Sunday morning is the time and place where those who are already disciples as well as those who are just meting Jesus come to hear together, as they did on the mountain in Matthews story.

Study notes for the preaching series are available on our church Web site here.

To get started this week let's take the last verse first. Read this, and then stop and see where your thoughts take you. Don't cheat! Let your mind run with this verse before going on with what's below it.

Do not give what is holy to dogs; and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under foot and turn and maul you.

Now, who came to mind as your equivalent of "dogs" and "swine"?

Hold that thought, and go back to Jesus' teaching in verses 1-5:

Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.

Did you have an "oops moment"? Maybe your experience was like that of King David when Nathan came to David after he has seen to Uriah's death in battle in order to take Uriah's wife as his own. Read that story here and notice the oops moment David has.

As a part of our kingdom living in a time before the full arrival of the kingdom Jesus calls us to learn not to be judgmental. This is difficult for many of us. Indeed, that Barna survey that I keep citing says that young folks outside the church thing "judgmental" is our middle name. Are they wrong?

Jesus helps us out with a little holy exaggeration and a little holy humor. He speaks of attempting to take a speck out of our neighbor's eye while ourselves having a plank hanging out of our own eye. This image helps us to see ourselves as others see us, not as we prefer to see ourselves. We need to get our own house in order before we begin to reorder the affairs of others, something that is all too obvious to those who see us in action.

But someone might object: If we are never to judge others, how will we create a well-ordered and righteous society in which people sometimes do the wrong thing? Will we just let every wrong, every injustice continue? Jesus clearly doesn't mean that. Later in Matthew (in a section we'll get to in another sermon series later in the year) Jesus will even tell us how to handle such a situation.

The distinction is between judgmentalism and discernment. The former is an exercise of the passion called Pride, elevating ourselves and putting others down. The passions, you'll recall, are the things the desert fathers told us inhibit us from loving as God loves. Discernment is a necessary exercise of our God-love for others using one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

The trick, of course, is that we often deceive ourselves about our intentions. We may say we are being loving and discerning while it is obvious to others that we are enjoying the pride being judgmental. It's always a thin line and a close call.

More about all this on Sunday morning. I'll see you there.

February 13. 2011

2011-02-07T16:58:00.002-05:00

Matthew 5:27-37

Preaching series: Being Disciples:
The Sermon on the Mount
Sunday's message: Promises, promises

I've moved these verses out of order to this Sunday in order to preach about them on the day before Valentine's Day. Usually I'm not much for the "Hallmark holidays" — the Christian faith has holy days of its own — but the occasion gives me the chance to speak on a difficult subject in the context of our common culture.

Jimmy Carter famously confessed to having lusted in his heart. One wonders whether Jesus means that feeling arousal on seeing an attractive person was itself a sin. Perhaps a better translation of verse 28 would be that suggested by commentator Douglas Hare: looking at a woman "for the purpose of lusting after her." Not just finding someone attractive, but nurturing lustful thoughts as a result. This would make Jesus' teaching like his teaching about anger, where it is not the feeling of anger but its expression that is to be guarded.

Jesus uses teaching hyperbole to make his point: If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better to be inconvenienced than to wander from God's intention.

Jesus speaks next of divorce. A fuller teaching of Jesus on divorce is found at Matthew 19:3-11. Deuteronomy 24 specifies that if a man is displeased with his wife he is to give her a certificate of divorce before sending her away. This made it possible for her to remarry without committing adultery. But Jesus wants to go deeper, citing the original intent of God's creation

So God created humankind in his image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them...
Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.
Genesis 1:27; 2:24

For Jesus, couples are married by God, they become one flesh by God's design. Therefore divorce tears asunder what God has put together, and what the couple themselves have made one by becoming one flesh. Only in Matthew is there an exception made for "unchastity" — sexual unfaithfulness. Jesus says that if a man divorces his wife on any other grounds, he causes her to commit adultery by marrying again. Likewise anyone marrying the divorced woman commits adultery. Later in the story the disciples will say, "If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry." But according to Jesus that isn't God's intent either.

Have you noticed something about these first two teaching? They are addressed specifically to men. In a patriarchal society adultery was a crime against another man's property. And only a man could initiate a divorce. All of these teachings involve married partners, not single people. But recall that Jesus is not making new law. Jesus is fulfilling Torah as it stands. In the life of the kingdom of God — the live we are called to begin to live in the present — couples joined as one flesh are meant to remain together.

What would that take? It's commonly stated that 50% of all marriages end in divorce. Christians don't do much better than others. What would have to change to lower the divorce rate?

I want to suggest that Jesus' third teaching this week can address this question. Thought it follows his teachings on adultery and divorce, Jesus isn't speaking about vows specifically in relationship to marriage. But his counsel concerning vows is something we should consider in relationship to our marriage vows: Have integrity and do what you cay you will do. No piling up of oaths will make your promises any better. In fact, insisting on "swearing on a stack of Bibles" is likely only to make our hearers doubt our sincerity.

Just a s reminder, here are the marriage vows from our United Methodist service:

I, [Name], take you, [Name], to be my husband/wife,
To have and to hold
From this day forward,
For better, for worse,
For richer, for poorer,
In sickness and in health,
To love and to cherish,
Until we are parted by death.
This is my solemn vow.

Jesus' advice about marriage? Do that!

Of course marriage and divorce are complex, as all human relationships are. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus does not make black-and-white rules with no gray area. Jesus gives us a picture of life in the full flowering of the kingdom, a life we are called to live in the present. It falls to us to make the contemporary applications. What about our peculiarly American "pursuit of happiness"? What about relationships between single persons? What about women divorcing men and remarrying? What about relationships that harbor abuse? What about other than heterosexual relationships?

So, there's lots more to say on Sunday. I'll see you there.

February 6, 2011

2011-01-30T19:27:00.001-05:00

Preaching series: Being Disciples:
The Sermon on the Mount
Sunday's message: Treasures and masters and stress, oh my

This may be one of the most preached-on passages of scripture. We've all heard sermons about treasure in heaven instead of treasure on earth; about being able to serve only one master; about not worrying and getting our priorities straight; and about seeking the kingdom and letting everything else fall where it may. I could do that again — it really is rich preaching material — but I'm choosing this week to talk about this passage by using wisdom from the desert fathers of the early church and preaching on the passions.

Passions? The desert fathers used the word "passion" in a way different from the way in which we use it. For, us, passion is great energy directed toward a particular end — dancing, perhaps, or musical performance, or sports, or some other endeavor. In that sense it's delightful to watch someone do something they're passionate about.

But the desert fathers were talking about something different from that. For them, the passions were the things that prevented us from loving others (or ourselves) in the way God loves them: absolutely and without qualification.

I'm going to be using a list of passions found in the writings of one Ponticus. He lists seven:

Gluttony
Avarice
Impurity
Depression/sadness
Anger
Acedia ("sloth", but not in the sense of laziness)
Vainglory
Pride

Some of these can best be described as being driven by something — food, or instance, or sex, or popularity. They all imply being controlled by something. Ponticus and the others would have us exercise control over ourselves, and not be driven or controlled by our passions. I'll say more about each of them on Sunday, and you'll discover that some of them (like "depression") may not mean quite what you think. For now I'll just say that the insight they represent is as helpful to us now as it was many centuries ago when Ponticus wrote them down.

I'm convinced that the early church's teaching on the passions is an apt commentary on this week's portion of the Sermon on the Mount, in which Jesus speaks of the wrong kinds of treasures and the wrong kind of masters and the anxiety and worry they produce.

Jesus tells us not to worry. I could just repeat that to you, but it might not be very helpful. (Have you ever stopped worrying just because someone told you to?) I think the wisdom of the early church — of those who went through the same troubles we do in trying to live a Christian life — gives us counsel that's specific enough to be helpful. I've found it to be so for my own walk.

I'll see you Sunday morning.

Much of this week's material comes from Roberta C. Bondi's To Love as God Loves. Below are links to where you can find this book and others apropos of this series on the Sermon on the Mount.

Bondi. Roberta C., To Love as God Loves
Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, The Cost of Discipleship.
Part of this book is a commentary on the Sermon on the Mount.
Wesley, John, A Plain Account of Christian Perfection.
Wink, Alter, The Powers That Be

January 30, 2011

2011-01-23T17:58:00.002-05:00

Matthew 5:21-26,38-48

Preaching series: Being Disciples:
The Sermon on the Mount
Sunday's message: Be perfect!

Now Jesus gets down to specifics. "You have heard it said... But I say to you..." You'll note that for purposes of this preaching series I've moved Matthew 5:27-37 down to February 13 — the day before Valentine's Day. The verses I am preaching on this coming Sunday do actually fit well together despite the omission.

Jesus has claimed that he comes, not to abolish, but to fulfill Torah. Murder is a breach of one of the Ten Commandments. Jesus "fulfills" this teaching by expanding it greatly. Living as if in an already realized kingdom of God, we are not even to harbor anger toward each other. ("Brother or sister" means "fellow church member". Recall that we are a city on a hill, impossible to hide. How we treat each other in the church shows folks outside the church what we believe and whose we are.) We are not to insult, we are not to call "fool". In Jesus' teaching style the consequences mount with each sentence.

Then comes something interesting.

So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.

Do you realize that this has become a part of our standard morning worship service? It's called "passing the peace". Sometime before the offering is taken we are to go and be reconciled with anyone present from whom we are estranged. At the very least we are to offer each other the greeting, "The peace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you" and the response, "And also with you." It's not about greeting all of our friends. It's about this teaching about anger and reconciliation from the Sermon on the Mount.

Gandhi (and Dr. martin Luther King, Jr. after him) famously said, "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." Apparently the original Old Testament teaching was meant as something of a check on unlimited retribution (see Genesis 4:23-24). On Sunday I'll demonstrate what "turning the other cheek" might look like. It's something of a surprise. Any volunteers to strike the preacher on the cheek?

"But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you..." This would be difficult enough; it is more natural for us to return violence for violence (especially if "they" started it). But the reason Jesus gives is enough to blow us away:

...so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.

When it comes right down to it, any hatred we harbor for others not only betrays God's own love for us; it is also blasphemy, for we are presuming to bring judgement and retribution as if we ourselves were God.

Then there's the punch line:

Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

We might prefer Luke's version — "Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful." Yet we Methodists should recall that our forbear John Wesley spoke a great deal about "Christian perfection". He didn't mean perfection at athletic or scholastic or vocational skills. He meant "perfect in love." In fact that kind of understanding is what makes the whole reading for this week possible, or even intelligible.

There's much more to say on all of this. I'll say some of it on Sunday morning. I'll see you there.

January 23, 2011

2011-01-19T11:15:00.001-05:00

Matthew 5:13-20

Preaching series: Being Disciples:
The Sermon on the Mount
Sunday's message: Salt and light

Last Sunday we heard Jesus give "as-if" blessings, saying "Blessed are you" as if the blessings were already completed in the kingdom that had already come in its fullness. We experience those blessings fully in the present as we live our lives as if the kingdom were already full present among us. Both John the Baptism and Jesus have told us already in Matthew's story: "The kingdom of heaven has come near."

But now the tense changes. When he says to us, "You are the salt of the earth... You are the light of the world" Jesus is not using "as-if" language. Jesus is merely being descriptive. As Jesus' disciples, for better or for worse, we are the salt of the earth, we are the light of the world. People will watch us and will say, "So that's what God's kingdom is like, so that's what Jesus' church is about."

That's not going so well. In an oft-cited 2007 study The Barna Group uncovered disturbing perceptions:

While Christianity has typically generated an uneven reputation, the research shows that many of the most common critiques are becoming more concentrated. The study explored twenty specific images related to Christianity, including ten favorable and ten unfavorable perceptions. Among young non-Christians, nine out of the top 12 perceptions were negative. Common negative perceptions include that present-day Christianity is judgmental (87%), hypocritical (85%), old-fashioned (78%), and too involved in politics (75%) - representing large proportions of young outsiders who attach these negative labels to Christians. The most common favorable perceptions were that Christianity teaches the same basic ideas as other religions (82%), has good values and principles (76%), is friendly (71%), and is a faith they respect (55%).

Yet our mandate remains: "Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven." We've got some work to do.

Jesus claims that his teaching does not abolish or supplant Torah as we find it in the Old Testament; rather, his teaching "fulfills" it. As we work our way through the Sermon on the Mount we will observe that Jesus' teaching expands substantially on Torah. It helps to recall that Jesus is painting word pictures of life in the fully realized kingdom and not imposing new and more difficult law. We are called to live toward these images, to live our lives in anticipation of the kingdom in its fullness.

It's not easy. "For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." That's a pretty high bar. The scribes and Pharisees were no slouches, and sought righteousness (at least as they understood it) with everything they had.

More about all this on Sunday. I'll see you there, salt and light of the world.

January 16, 2011

2011-01-09T14:42:00.002-05:00

Matthew 5:1-12

Preaching series:
Being Disciples: The Sermon on the Mount
Sunday's message: Blessed are you

This is a seven-week preaching series on the Sermon on the Mount. chapters five through seven of the gospel according to Matthew.

The Sermon on the Mount is not self-help advice to make us happier or help us reach our full individual potential. It is a description of how one lives as a disciple of Jesus Christ and as a subject of the kingdom of God. It is not advice to the masses for making a happier world. It is teaching on righteousness for Jesus' disciples, who live as aliens and strangers in the world.

And yet, according to Matthews's story, the masses do hear it. As if hearing teaching about Christian righteousness itself becomes an invitation to become one of Jesus's disciples. Sunday morning is the time and place where those who are already disciples as well as those who are just meting Jesus come to hear together, as they did on the mountain in Matthews story.

Study notes for the preaching series will be available on our church Web site here.

Two things to notice right away about the Beatitudes:

It's "blessed are you", present tense. This is religious teaching so we would expect something like, "If you do X or Y or Z then you will be blessed", future tense. But Jesus is saying that those named already are blessed.
They're all wrong. The meek don't inherit the earth, the merciful often don't receive mercy, the peacemakers often are blasphemed rather than called children of God. And to call the reviled and persecuted "blessed" is to change the meaning of the language. Like the Isaiah passage for Christmas Eve the beatitudes describe life in the fully realized kingdom as if it were already a present reality.

So the beatitudes are not standard religious teaching. They don't tell us how to become blessed. They speak, not of present happiness, but of present participation in that which is coming, but is not yet fully realized.

Again we must be careful to keep all this in its context. We are not promised (future) blessings just because someone close to us dies and we find ourselves in mourning. We are blessed, now and for the future, when we find ourselves mourning because of the kingdom of heaven and the ways of the present world. This becomes clear in the beatitude about persecution. It is not all who are persecuted who are blessed now and in the future, and it is not us when our clique falls apart and friends say ugly things to us. Is it those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake who find the kingdom of heaven to be theirs.

It all works a bit like another teaching in Matthew, the so-called Judgement of the Nations. In that parable both the sheep and the goats are surprised: "Lord, when did we see you...?" So also in the beatitudes, we in the middle of living out the demands of the kingdom are surprised to find ourselves blessed.

So... do we find ourselves blessed? More about it on Sunday. I'll see you there.

January 9, 2011

2011-01-02T17:56:00.004-05:00

Baptism of Our Lord

Sunday's message: Here is my Servant

On this Sunday we remember Jesus' baptism by John the Baptist at the Jordan Riven. We remember also our own Baptism and what it means. As a part of Sunday's service we will renew our baptismal covenant together.

Of the gospel writers only Matthew is sensitive to the awkwardness of Jesus being baptized by John, whom all the gospels depict as Jesus' forerunner who is not worth even to untie Jesus' sandals. In Matthew's telling John himself voices this concern: "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?"

Jesus' answer is something of an enigma, but it contains the word that seems to be the keyword for Matthew's telling of the Jesus story: "Let is be so for now; for it is proper to fulfill all righteousness." That's enough to convince John.

Coming up out of the water Jesus sees the heavens opened to him, and the Spirit of God descending and alighting on him. A voice from heaven says

This is my Son,
the Beloved
with whom I am well pleased.

The words remind us of the Servant Songs from the book of the prophet Isaiah. Our first reading for Sunday is one of those Servant Songs. If Jesus is the Servant of Isaiah, the one in whom the LORD delights, then he will

not make a big splash; nonetheless, he will
bring forth justice to the nations, and establish justice in the earth;
teach a world waiting for instruction;
be a light to the nations;
open the eyes that are blind;
bring out prisoners from the darkness of the dungeon.

It is these things that will define Jesus' ministry as Matthew understands it. Especially important is this line from Isaiah: "I am the LORD, I have called you in righteousness. These things, at least for Matthew constitute righteousness.

Jesus' baptism is different from ours. His is unique. And the baptism of John the Baptist is different from the Christian baptism we received, which calls us to ministry in the name of Jesus as his disciples. What is it like to be a disciple of the One who is heaven-commissioned to be the Servant of Isaiah 42? What would our discipleship entail, what would it look like?

We'll talk about that on Sunday as we renew our Baptismal Covenant together. I'll see you there.

January 2, 2011

2010-12-26T16:30:00.001-05:00

Epiphany Sunday

Sunday's message: Where is the king?

Epiphany is wise men day, the celebration of the arrival of the magi. It follows the twelfth day of Christmas and begins a new season of the church year. When it doesn't fall on a Sunday — the actual date is January 6 — we celebrate it on the first Sunday of the year.

To warm up for Sunday's service let's begin with a quiz about the story that Matthew tells about the wise men. You can cheat and look at Matthew's story if you like. Ready?

According to Matthew how many wise men were there?
Where did they leave their camels when they went in to visit King Herod?
Who in the story knew how to read scripture in order to tell where Messiah would be born?
When did the wise men arrive at the stable to see Jesus?
What did Joseph say to the wise men?

Some of those are trick questions.

Matthew only says that there were wise men. He doesn't say how many. There were three kinds of gifts.
Matthew doesn't mention camels. Camels come to the tradition from the Isaiah 60 reading for this week. Also from Isaiah, and from Psalm 72, is the idea that the wise men might be "kings".
The "chief priests and scribes of the people" know how to read and interpret scripture. But they work for Herod, who as it turns out wants to destroy this newborn usurper to his throne. Neither they nor Herod will find him. But the wise men, with their help and led by a star, will find him.
There's no stable in Matthew's story — that's Luke's story. According to Matthew the wise men find Jesus and his mother in a house (verse 11).
This part of Matthew's story mentions the child and his mother Mary but it doesn't mention Joseph being present when the wise men arrived. Which is interesting, because Joseph plays a prominent role in the rest of Matthew's nativity story.

Herod, the King of the Jews, is very upset at the news the wise me bring him. Nobody told him that such a person had been born! Heads will roll! As the rest of the story and other histories of the time show Herod is paranoid about keeping his throne, and is willing even to murder his own sons to keep it.

Notice something interesting about the way the Christmas story works, both here in Matthew and also in Luke: the action keeps escaping the expected boundaries. In Luke the angels announce Jesus' royal birth to — shepherds. In Matthew the birth is announced to the royal palace, but the announcement causes great consternation instead of joy; and the child is found finally, not in Jerusalem, but in Nowheresville — Bethlehem. Do we think we can contain this story in a lovely creche or in a cute-baby story?

Meanwhile it's foreigners — pagan astrologers — who find and worship the young Jesus. Maybe there's a lesson in there somewhere.

More about all that on Sunday. I'll see you there.

Christmas Week 2010

2010-12-20T11:42:00.003-05:00

Christmas week

There are three services this week. Child care is available for each.

Blue Christmas Service
Tuesday evening, December 21, 6:30 p.m.

Christmas is difficult for those who have experienced recent losses, or losses occurring near Christmas in any year. Others experience Seasonal Affective Disorder with the coming of shorter days and less daylight. For many, it’s difficult to be merry, even though we think we should be.

For all of these Gray Memorial United Methodist Church offers a Blue Christmas Service at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, December 21 – the shortest day and longest night of the year. Dr. Melanie Barton will lead the service of readings, prayers, and a message of hope. The service is free and open to the community.

Christmas Eve Service
Friday evening, December 24, 7:00 p.m.

Message: Light in our darkness

We read it every year on Christmas Eve:

The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who lived in a land of deep darkness—
on them light has shined.

And every year it seems unnecessary to define the darkness. Aside from the darkness of the winter solstice there is the ongoing economic downturn, the slow recovery from which is most difficult for many. As of the time I write this North and South Korea are rattling sabers at each other. Fighting and dying continue in Afghanistan. Members of Congress are acting with more partisan hostility than most can ever remember.

The Bible doesn't tell us the month or day of Jesus' birth. When the Church decided in the 300s to start celebrating a Christ Mass they chose a date near the pagan Roman celebration of the (re)birth of the sun. The impulse to celebrate Jesus' birth in the darkest time of the year affirms that Jesus' birth brings light into our darkness.

On Christmas Eve we'll hear the familiar Christmas story from Luke. We'll sing carols and light candles. And we'll affirm, with John the Evangelist, that "the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it." I'll see you there.

First Sunday of Christmas
Sunday morning, December 26, 11:00 a.m.

If the birth of Jesus is meant to be light in the darkness, the darkness certainly returns with a vengeance in Sunday's gospel reading.

The way the calendar works this year we're reading Matthew's story backwards. On Sunday, January 2 -- Epiphany Sunday -- we'll be reading the familiar story of the magi ("wise men") arriving at Jerusalem and asking for the newborn king of the Jews. But this Sunday we'll ready that story's aftermath. Tricked by the magi, who return home by another way without reporting to him, an enraged, paranoid Herod orders the death of all children two years or younger -- Jesus' age -- in and around Bethlehem. We're reminded a bit of King Ahaz' circumstance from this past Sunday's story. But mostly we're just stunned and appalled. Matthew pulls down just the right verse from the book of the prophet Jeremiah:

A voice is heard in Ramah,
lamentation and bitter weeping.
Rachel is weeping for her children;
she refuses to be comforted for her children,
because they are no more. (31:15)

Jeremiah is speaking of the devastation following the destruction of Jerusalem, and pointing to the horrible fate of children in those circumstances. The pain of the loss of children is without remedy; there can be more children, but the children who have been lost cannot be replaced. The emptiness is there forever.

For Matthew Joseph is the primary human character in the birth story. Once again, as before Jesus' birth, an angel appears to Joseph in a dream, warning him to take the child an his mother to safety in Egypt. And once again Joseph obeys, acting in the child's behalf.

Hebrews suggests that Jesus is "God with us" in the sense that he suffers as we do. Even as a young boy his life is threatened by those who are jealous of their power and privilege. And at the end of the story it is by his own awful death that he destroys the one who holds the power of death.

Life goes on after Christmas. I'll see you on Sunday.

December 19, 2010

2010-12-13T11:20:00.001-05:00

Fourth Sunday of Advent

Sunday's message: Here's your sign

Advent is a season of four weeks including four Sundays. Advent derives from the Latin adventus, which means "coming." The season proclaims the comings of the Christ—whose birth we prepare to celebrate once again, who comes continually in Word and Spirit, and whose return in final victory we anticipate. Each year Advent calls the community of faith to prepare for these comings; historically, the season was marked by fasts for preparation.

Each Sunday of Advent has its distinctive theme: Christ's coming in final victory (First Sunday), John the Baptist (Second and Third Sundays), and the events immediately preceding the birth of Jesus Christ (Fourth Sunday).

Our Worship space visuals for the season include purple-blue hangings, an Advent wreath , garlands and wreaths, angels, and a Chrismon tree.

We hope to make Advent a time to step away from the stress and anxiety of the season and to hear anew the word of God. We hope you'll come join us.

Comedian Bill Engvall gained popularity with a series of routines around the theme "here's your sign". In the routine he would tell of someone asking a question for which the answer already was completely obvious. Engvall's smart-aleck response would be something totally off the wall, followed by: Here's your sign! The implication was that stupid people ought to wear a sign so we'd know how to deal with them. Engvall makes it all very funny in his routine.

On Sunday we'll hear about people receiving a sign. They weren't stupid, but they needed some convincing.

King Ahaz was out inspecting the water supply. He was expecting a siege against Jerusalem, and he was afraid. Scripture says that "the heart of Ahaz and the heart of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind." YHWH ("the LORD") send Isaiah out to encourage him: "It [the siege] shall not stand, and it shall not come to pass."

Ahaz is hesitant. After all, he is the one finally responsible for the safety of the city and its inhabitants, not to mention the lives of the royal family who would have been slaughtered had Rezin and Pekah succeeded in deposing him. Dare he trust the prophet and let down his guard?

Isaiah offers Ahaz the opportunity to ask for a sign from YHWH, any sign Ahaz wished. Ahaz refuses the offer. So Isaiah says the YHWH himself will give a sign.

In the context the sign may seem strange to us. A young woman, probably of the royal family, is pregnant and will bear a son, and call him Immanuel ("God is with us"). And the child will grow to the age of accountability, knowing how to discern between evil and good. But how is a birth, a perfectly natural event, a sign of encouragement? Recall that it Rezin and Pekah succeed in deposing Ahaz they will certainly slaughter the whole family, leaving no pretender to Ahaz' throne. Any child born of the household, even if still an infant, will be one of the first to be slain. So if this child is going to grow to maturity it means that the attempt to overthrow Ahaz will fail. Here's your sign.

Joseph was engaged to Mary. Before they had come together physically it was discovered that Mary was pregnant. Joseph is a righteous man, so he know what he must do; he must put Mary away for the sake of the family honor. According to Torah he could have her stoned to death. Instead, being unwilling to expose her (and himself) to public disgrace, he decides to dismiss her quietly.

But Joseph receives a sign, an angel in his dream. Despite the circumstances Joseph is to take Mary as his wife. Joseph is to name the child, effectively becoming the child's father. The angel points back to the Isaiah story: Joseph, here's your sign.

Writing to a church at Rome that he had not yet visited Paul offers them a sign: The one to whom the prophets have pointed, the one descended from David, the one raised from the dead, that is your sign. Through him Paul claims to receive grace and apostleship for his mission to the Gentiles for the sake of God's name, and for the sake of those receiving the letter, those called to be saints.

We're like Ahaz. We're like Joseph. Sometimes circumstances make it difficult to accept the sign that God might give us. Dare I trust God now, in these circumstances? Where is our sign?

More about all that on Sunday morning. I'll see you there.

December 12, 2010

2010-12-06T11:45:00.002-05:00

Third Sunday of Advent

Our Worship space visuals for the season include purple-blue hangings, an Advent wreath , garlands and wreaths, angels, and a Chrismon tree.

We hope to make Advent a time to step away from the stress and anxiety of the season and to hear anew the word of God. We hope you'll come join us.

Rev. Vance Rains, Senior Pastor of the FSU Wesley Foundation and Executive Director of Higher Education and Campus Ministry for our Florida Conference, will be preaching this Sunday. You don't want to miss it.

I'll see you there.

December 5, 2010

2010-11-29T12:39:00.002-05:00

Second Sunday of Advent

Sunday's message: Prepare the way!

Our Worship space visuals for the season include purple-blue hangings, an Advent wreath , garlands and wreaths, angels, and a Chrismon tree.

We hope to make Advent a time to step away from the stress and anxiety of the season and to hear anew the word of God. We hope you'll come join us.

David is remembered as Jerusalem's greatest king, and as God's favorite. In the face of the disaster of the fall of Jerusalem and the monarchy of the house of David the prophets, including Isaiah here, begin to speak of a time when David's throne will be restored and a wonderful king will sit on it to resume David's line. "Messiah" is the word often applied to this future ruler, though Isaiah does not use that word here. Instead Isaiah calls this future king a shoot, a branch growing from the stump of Jesse. (Jesse was David's father.) The image of the stump reminds us that with the fall of Jerusalem the tree of the royal line of David has been cut down.

There is more to this Branch from the stump of Jesse than just a restoration of the things of David. His will be a reign, not of war for defense and conquest, but of peace with justice.

He shall not judge by what his eyes see,
or decide by what his ears hear;
but with righteousness he shall judge the poor,
and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,
and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist,
and faithfulness the belt around his loins.

As in many other places in the Old Testament the word translated "righteousness" could also be translated "justice". Righteousness means being rightly related. Justice means a web of relationship that works fairly for everyone. Under this Branch for David there will be right relationships with God and with others, and all will receive fair and honest treatment.

Paul has something similar in mind. he prays that "the God of steadfastness and encouragement grant you to live in harmony with one another." He urges them to "welcome one another... just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God." Paul's focus is on a subject dear to him, the grace of the God of Israel broadened to include the Gentiles -- those who had never been Jews. Because we are Christians we take that broad grace as a given, but the debate was a very lively one in Paul's time. There were serious problems between those believers who had been Jews -- still were, in their own minds -- and those believers who had never been Jews. For Paul, Jesus Christ is the one who brings peace between believing Jews and believers who have never been Jews. It's a particular working out of the broad vision Isaiah gives us.

All well and good. But then we come face to face with John the Baptist.

You brood of vipers!
Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?
Bear fruit worthy of repentance.
Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’;
for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.
Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees;
every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

Where did all the sweet harmony go? Who invited John to this party?

John reminds us that the Peaceable Kingdom doesn't come while we watch from a lawn chair on the sidelines. We ourselves are a part of the world that is being transformed, and we ourselves require transformation.

Fleeing from the wrath to come and bearing appropriate fruit are thoughts not unfamiliar to Methodists and other heirs of John Wesley. Our General Rules include this:

There is only one condition previously required of those who desire admission into these societies: “a desire to flee from the wrath to come, and to be saved from their sins.” But wherever this is really fixed in the soul it will be shown by its fruits. It is therefore expected of all who continue therein that they should continue to evidence their desire of salvation...

What follows is a specific list of fruits expected to be exhibited in one's life. In the Methodist form of the faith one participates in one's own salvation and in God's salvation of the whole creation.

There is a look forward even with John the Baptist. His whole ministry is framed by the anticipation of what will come after him.

I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

How shall we prepare for what is coming? I'll have more to say about that on Sunday morning. I'll see you there.

November 28, 2010

2010-11-22T10:08:00.004-05:00

First Sunday of Advent

Isaiah 2:1-5
Romans 13:11-14
Matthew 24:36-44

Sunday's message: Wake from sleep!

Our Worship space visuals for the season include purple-blue hangings, an Advent wreath , garlands and wreaths, angels, and a Chrismon tree.

We hope to make Advent a time to step away from the stress and anxiety of the season and to hear anew the word of God. We hope you'll come join us.

I don't know about you, but I sleep very well this time of the year. It's cool, there are fewer hours of sunlight, and sometimes it feels like I could just hibernate through the whole season, waking again in the spring.

But Paul has a different word: Wake up! "You know what time it is... salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near."

Really? Are we, near the end of the year 2010, closer to God's great salvation of all things than we were back when we were baptized, or when we made a public profession of faith? Are we any closer to the grand vision of Isaiah and the other prophets than we were last year? Five years ago?

Bishop Richard Wills, when he was pastor at Christ Church, United Methodist in Fort Lauderdale, wrote a book entitled Waking to God's Dream. Is that it? Are we to be waking out of our humdrum existence into the dream that God has for us and for all things? Or is it the grand vision of Isaiah and the others that is the dream, from which we startle awake each day to the same old terrible world?

Matthew and others speak of a sudden event, but at a time known only to God. They speak of a coming (again) of the Son of Man that sweeps away the old and brings in the new in a quick but decisive way. Like the far-off vision of the prophets, this New Testament expectation did not materialize as soon as anticipated. We're still waiting.

Matthew tells us to stand ready. How does one do that for years on end? I'm glad you asked. I'll have something to say about that on Sunday. I'll see you there.

November 21, 2010 -- Christ the King

2010-11-16T17:45:00.000-05:00

Sunday's message: King indeed

This Sunday is Christ the King Sunday, the last Sunday of the liturgical year. November 28 is the first Sunday of Advent and a new year.

"The Feast of Christ the King/Reign of Christ, was instituted by Pope Pius XI at close of Jubilee Year 1925, on last Sunday of October. It was moved to the Sunday before Advent in 1970, to counter atheism and secularism at a time of depression and unemployment, to assert Christ's Sovereignty over all persons, nations and the universe, and to affirm the Messianic Kingship of Christ who redeemed humanity by his death on the Cross." In 2010 there is still atheism and secularism, and there is again depression and unemployment. And while we may not be so bold or arrogant in 2010 as to assert that Christ rules over all, including atheists and secularists whether they like it or not, it is well for us to remember that we believe it. And to ponder what it means for us and for our relationship with our world.

Jeremiah 23 clearly speaks of the exile and beyond. It is the shepherds - the kings, and perhaps the other leaders - who have caused the flock Israel to be scattered by their inattention to the voice of God. Perhaps the problem with the shepherds of ancient Israel and Judah was that they were kings in the conventional sense. That would mean using violence as a common means. It would also mean being self-serving to a large degree. It's all in the nature of ancient royalty.

But now God himself proposes now to re-gather the flock from all the places to which he himself has driven them. God will raise up new shepherds who will do the job right. Moreover God will raise up a righteous Branch "for David". Judah will be saved, and Israel will live in safety. Even his name shall be "YHWH is our righteousness".

On Christ the King Sunday we would remember that this promise has traditionally been applied to Jesus. Jesus is the righteous Branch for David. Through Jesus Judah and Israel - and also the Gentiles - will be saved (though "saved" will come to mean something different from what the prophets meant).

As we turn to Luke we're a bit surprised to encounter the story of the cross at this time of the year. But for Luke, as for much of the early Church, Jesus really is King of the Jews. Jesus is so different from other kings that Pilate's question - you are a king? - seems apt. Even in the present story "King of the Jews" is mean in derision, not in homage. This is a king? Of what kind?

One of the oddest bits of scripture occurs when, dying in agony on Roman crosses, a criminal asks Jesus to be remembered when Jesus comes into his kingdom. What? Jesus replies with a promise of Paradise. Are they both delusional because of the pain?

"A strange King indeed with a cross for a throne, a crown of thorns for a kingly crown of gold & a reed for a scepter." Jesus began his earthly reign on the throne of a manger and ended it on a throne of the Cross.

But in fact orthodox Christianity has maintained that Jesus reigns precisely from the cross. The new form of the crucifix used by liturgical churches has the crowned, triumphant Christ, arms outstretched, on a cross. This is in place of the old style crucifix where Jesus hung there in agony (and where we were invited to join him in self-abasement). How does Christ's ruling from the cross play itself out in our lives and in our world?

One thing certain: Jesus does not rule, as the Romans did, by putting people on crosses, by the threat and show of violence. We find Jesus suffering the violence - for us, if you like - and in the midst forgiving his tormenters and reaching out to another of the tortured. One is reminded of Bonhoeffer in prison just before his execution, ministering to the other prisoners and to his jailers.

I'll see you Sunday morning.

November 14, 2010

2010-11-07T19:08:00.000-05:00

Isaiah 65:17-25

Sunday's message: New heavens, new earth

This is the word we want to hear. After all of those words from the prophets that perhaps we did not want to hear, this is the word we want to hear. No more infant mortality or unnecessary early death. No more work that brings no benefit. No more laboring in vain. No more bearing children for calamity. And there shall be peace, even in the animal kingdom -- a return to the first status of the creation. None shall hurt or destroy. In art it has been portrayed as the Peaceable Kingdom (see also Isaiah 11:6).

This is a word that we want to hear. And yet we don't. For with this word of peace and prosperity and nonviolence comes the word of new heavens and a new earth. And, like anything new, that frightens us. If everything is going be new, will we lose what we've already got? How do we know we'll like this new earth, this new heaven? Would it perhaps be safer to hunker down with what we've got rather than to risk it all on something we haven't even seen yet?

In fact we want it both ways. We want to keep what we've got. We'd like to have the peace and prosperity benefit as an add-on without risk and -- more to the point -- without having to change ourselves.

But that's not what is promised here. What is promised here is a universal transformation. And that transformation must include us ourselves. We'd like to imagine that it is others that need transformation -- and we'd happily provide God with the specifics. But, no, we ourselves are on the list for transformation.

But maybe we're safe. This particular form of God's vision for all things comes from a prophet who lived through the return to Jerusalem and its aftermath. The aftermath wasn't pretty. Everything wasn't suddenly great just because they had returned home. They now had to look to a more distant future for God's final intent. We're still waiting. Maybe it won't happen until after we're gone. Maybe we're safe.

Do we want to be safe? Or do we want all of the good things God wants for us, and for all creation? Again, we can't have it both ways.

I'll talk about it on Sunday. I'll see you there.

November 7, 2010 - Homecoming - All Saints

2010-10-31T18:33:00.001-04:00

Sunday's message: For all the saints

Sunday is our 45th Homecoming. Gray Memorial was founded on November 7, 1965.

We're also celebrating All Saints on Sunday. November 1 every year is All Saints, but we usually celebrate it on a Sunday. The reading from Daniel is the one of the readings appointed for All Saints this year.

We'll be talking mostly about our local saints, the ones who got Gray Memorial started, the ones who have guided us along the way. We'll talk a little about what a "saint" is, but we won't spend a lot of time on that.

Who is it that brought us to this place? And by what grace of God did they, and we, live and move and have our being?

We want to remember by name those who have gone before us. We can't read all 900+ names that have been members since 1965, but we can surely honor those whom we remember, either from the history of Gray Memorial or from our own personal histories.

There's a dinner after morning worship. Please plan to stay and eat with us. The saints gather most easily around the dinner table, as they did that night when Jesus took a cup and loaf and blessed them.

Invite friends to come, especially those who once attended Gray Memorial.

And remember to set your clock. Daylight Saving Time ends next Sunday morning. Enjoy the extra hour's sleep and come refreshed for worship. I'll see you there.

October 24, 2010

2010-10-17T19:19:00.001-04:00

Elaine and I will be away on vacation October 20 - 27.

This coming weekend Rev. David Day will be with us to preach. Rev. Day retired in 2000 after 36 years of service in the Florida Annual Conference. He served churches in Lake Wales, Alturas, Wahneta, Tampa, Apalachicola, Eastpoint, St. George Island, Ocoee, Frostproof, and Belle Glade. After retirement, he and his wife Jean lived in the mountains of North Carolina for almost seven years before moving back to Tallahassee to be closer to their two daughters and their families in Apalachicola and Brooksville. They live at Westminster Oaks where David leads a weekly Bible Study and a weekly devotional service. He also preaches at the weekly chapel service occasionally. His wife manages the local thrift store. Both are active at Tallahassee Heights United Methodist Church and sing in the choir. From mid-May to the end of July, David served as Interim Pastor at John Wesley United Methodist Church.

I trust you will be there Sunday to make him welcome.

October 17, 2010 Laity Sunday

2010-10-10T16:29:00.002-04:00

We are now in the "long green season", the season after Pentecost that lasts, with some interruptions, until we reach Advent again in late November. It's the long green season because the liturgical color is green. For most Sundays in this season the green banners and paraments will be up. Your church is going green!

For most of this season we'll be spending time with the Old Testament prophets. Fear not -- it won't be boring, or confrontational in the way you might expect.

This year's Laity Sunday message will be brought by our own John Rogers. John leads on of our adult Sunday school classes. John is also Senior Vice President & General Counsel of the Florida Retail Federation. He serves as the Federation's chief lawyer. He also represents the Federation before the Florida Legislature and state regulatory agencies and is responsible for managing the Florida Retail Foundation and the Florida Retail Masters leadership development program (see here).

Norma Adams, our Lay Leader, will lead the service as she usually does. I'll see you there. I'll be in a pew somewhere.

October 10, 2010

2010-10-03T18:42:00.001-04:00

Jeremiah 29:1,4-11

Sunday's message: Seek the welfare of the city

When I was fourteen years old my family packed up and moved to Florida. They announced the move to me when they come to pick me up from summer camp. They didn't ask for my opinion about it.

Don't ever move a fourteen-year-old. Especially not a really shy one who depends on external structures and has trouble making new friends. The move was devastating to me. If it hadn't been for band I wouldn't have survived it. It took me decades to make peace with it. It still rattles around a bit in my soul.

But now I've lived in Florida for fifty years, far longer than the fourteen I lived in western Pennsylvania. I've been in Florida longer than a lot of the natives, such as my daughter and our grandchildren. I am a member of the Florida Conference of the United Methodist Church and under oath to take appointments within that Conference. Elaine and I have aging parents and other relatives here. Despite everything, Florida is now home.

What was it like for the exiles to whom Jeremiah wrote? They had been taken by a foreign army as captives into a foreign land. As we saw last Sunday Psalm 137 captures their anguish well. More than anything else, they longed to return home. Not just because Jerusalem and Judah had been their physical connection with the promise of God, but also just because it was home. I know a little about how they felt.

Between the first deportation in 597BCE and the second, major one in 589BCE there had been a widespread expectation that God would intervene, that history would be reversed and the exiles home in just a few years. But now, after the second deportation, that hope had faded. They were in Babylon, and they were going to stay there.

Jeremiah could have said something like, "I told you so!" Instead Jeremiah writes them a letter which is part advice and part comfort. His advice is to settle in. Build houses and live in them. Plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry, and beget children, and give your children in marriage. Yes, in Babylon. Seek the welfare of the city to which you have been sent in exile. Pray to God for the welfare of that city, for its welfare is your own welfare.

That advice is also comfort in its own way. Once the chaos of grieving for what had been lost has subsided, hope can step in. Those who receive Jeremiah's letter are those who have survived. Now they are to prosper -- despite Psalm 137, in a foreign land -- and are to be a part of Babylon's own prosperity.

Perhaps that was difficult to swallow at first. Babylon is our enemy! Our true home is elsewhere! We are children of the Living God, not the children of Babylonian god Marduk! Surely our God will take us home before long!

Jeremiah squelches that hope, and substitutes a hope and comfort with a longer outlook. Babylon must have its time -- you are not the only nation. And then, words that have echoed down to the present day:

For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.

Seventy years. In that day seventy years would have been two lifetimes. The "you" that will return (beginning in 520BCE) will be their grandchildren. That's certainly hope for the long term!

United Methodist pastors know about moving. For many years the pastors' spouses' organization had shirts declaring, "Bloom where you are planted!" Many of us, not just clergy, know the experience of exile, whether from the place where we grew up or from the college from which we graduated or from some other place or circumstance that once was home, but is no more. We can choose to be grumpy about our circumstances. Or we can seek the welfare of the place where we find ourselves, knowing that its welfare is also our welfare. And that the One who has plans for our welfare also hold the keys to the place that is our true Home.

I'll see you on Sunday.

Sunday, October 3, 2010

2010-09-26T19:13:00.002-04:00

Lamentations 1:1-6
World Communion Sunday -- Lord's Supper (Communion)

Sunday's message: How lonely sits the city

And so it has happened, as the prophets have said it would. "A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more." (Jeremiah 31:15) The Babylonians have conquered Judah, and have completed the siege of Jerusalem by reducing the city to rubble and burning and desecrating the Temple, the very house of God. Everyone still alive who is worth anything has been forcibly exiled to Babylon.

In the United States we have experienced 9/11. Terrorists hijacked four commercial aircraft, flying two of them into the towers of the World Trade Center, and another into the Pentagon. The fourth fell short of its target and crashed into a field in Pennsylvania. Three thousand people died.

That was small potatoes in contrast to what Judah and Jerusalem suffered. Tragic and shocking as it was, our 9/11 experience would have had to include the entire destruction of the city of Washington, DC, the burning and desecration of the U.S. Capitol, the annihilation of our armed forces, and the capture and deportation of our entire business and professional class to another country in order to compare. How would we feel if we had survived that?

It's easy to understand Lamentations. It's a bit more difficult to comprehend it. The historical and geopolitical realities are one thing. The experienced sense of loss is quite another. Jeremiah's image is apt: Rachel, wife of Jacob/Israel, mother of a people, whose children have been destroyed and are no more. Nothing is as tragic to a mother as losing a child. Children are irreplaceable. Even if one bears more children the ones who are lost are lost forever. The loss never goes away.

Someone has said that Lamentations is a "brutal book, a book that assaults us." The pain and loss are fresh and raw. They have no beginning, middle, or end. They are a raging chaos without boundaries. Perhaps you've been there.

And in Lamentations God is silent. Why? Where is God in deepest experience of grief and pain?

We're used to quick fixes and instant cures. But serious bereavement doesn't pass quickly. The raging chaos kind of grieving that one does when losing a child, the kind that is expressed in Lamentations, simply must run its course. No quick words of comfort are appropriate. Not even if God were to speak them. God is silent in Lamentations because it is not yet time to speak a word of hope or comfort. The pain is still too fresh. It is time instead to listen in silence.

We all felt the chaos and rage and deep loss in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 event. But the hope that cannot be spoken yet in the first shock of loss is that the chaos and the rage and the pain do not continue in such intensity forever. Hope speaks when the intensity subsides. I confess that I wonder: Have we nurtured our grief and our rage, kept them alive through wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and through an unfocused hatred of anything Muslim, and it the process delayed the opportunity for God to speak a word of hope?

I'll see you Sunday morning.

September 26, 2010

2010-09-19T16:47:00.000-04:00

Jeremiah 32:1-3a,6-15

Sunday's message: Buy a field

And so it has come upon them. The army of the king of Babylon is besieging Jerusalem. The consequences of the infidelity and foolishness of Jerusalem and Judah are about to come crashing down on their heads. This time there will be no divine miracle of salvation as there had been when Assyria had besieged Jerusalem years before. The end has truly come.

The prophet Jeremiah himself is under arrest, in the court of the palace guard. King Zedekiah has had quite enough of Jeremiah's words, and has gotten him out of his way.

Put yourself in Jeremiah's place. What would he be thinking? What he has foreseen is coming to pass. Yet it means destruction for the people that he loves, the people for whom YHWH ("the LORD") himself grieves. And Jeremiah is hardly safe himself. When finally they breach the walls of the city where is the first place the Babylonians will come with their swords? Surely it will be the palace -- the place where Jeremiah is confined. God has promised that Jeremiah's life will be spared. But right now things just aren't looking very good.

It is at this time and in this situation that the word of YHWH comes to Jeremiah once again. No word this time of impending doom. It is too late for that. No word of a safe pass for the prophet himself. Instead YHWH tells Jeremiah that his cousin Hanamel will come and will ask him to exercise the right of redemption for a field back home in Anathoth. What? Now? We're all going to be destroyed or go off into exile. Why buy a field that none of us will ever see again?

But it happens as YHWH has said. Hanamel comes and asks Jeremiah to buy the field. So God is up to something here, and Jeremiah completes the transaction. They do it up right and proper. The bulk of this week's passage reads like an entry in the books of the clerk of court.

Then, anticipating the destruction that is imminent, Jeremiah sees to the protection of the legal documents. As if they will matter when Babylon is finished with Jerusalem and Judah.

But it will matter. "For thus says YHWH of hosts, the God of Israel: Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land." At the very bottom of the pit of despair and hopelessness, a simple legal transaction proclaims hope in a future that YHWH will bring.

What constitutes an act of hope? In the midst of economic and other despair, what testimony to hope can we as a congregation, and we as individual disciples, be making to those around us?

I'll see you on Sunday.

September 19, 2010

2010-09-13T11:42:00.002-04:00

Jeremiah 8:18 - 9:1

Sunday's message: No balm in Gilead?

An interesting question: Who is it that is grieving in this passage? Traditionally it is taken to be Jeremiah, the "weeping prophet". But if you read the passages which are before and after it, and take that "Why have they provoked me" line as not parenthetical, you might come to the conclusion that it is God who is weeping for "my poor people". In any case, Jeremiah feels the pain of God more than any of the other prophets do.

We don't think often of God grieving. We assume that God is impassive, immovable. But that's Greek philosophy that has crept into Christian thinking. It's not really biblical. The Bible stories tell us of a God who is passionate, a God who can change his mind, a God who cares and grieves and weeps.

There are two sets of rhetorical questions here. In each case there are two questions in some form of "Is there not..." followed by a description of disaster. In the first case the people themselves speak.

Is the Lord not in Zion?
Is her King not in her?
The harvest is past, the summer is ended,
and we are not saved.

Surely, they say, God is with us, the king is on the throne, and all should be right with the world? And yet we are not saved! They have assumed on God. But they also have provoked God, and therefore find themselves in a difficult place.

The second set is in the voice of the one mourning, be that Jeremiah or God:

Is there no balm in Gilead?
Is there no physician there?
Why then has the health of my poor people
not been restored?

We affirm by singing an old spiritual that there is indeed a balm in Gilead. Why, then, has the health of God's poor people not been restored?

Why indeed. Have Jerusalem and Judah passed beyond some point of no return? Does God weep because there is nothing else that can be done to avoid total disaster? Is it indeed possible to walk beyond the possibility of redemption? Is it possible for us to become so hardened in our ways that there is no hope for us?

We'd like to say No! God never gives up on us! Redemption is always possible! But this week's passage comes perilously close to saying that the door can be irretrievably shut.

John Wesley taught his Methodist followers some things about the grace of God that one could bring to this conversation. The Calvinists in Wesley's day claimed that once one was saved, once was saved beyond the possibility of falling away. Wesley insisted, based on his experience with people, that one could indeed fall away. Nothing can rip us from God's hand. But we can, of our own free will, walk away.

Jerusalem and Judah had walked away. Not just occasionally or in small things, but consistently, according to Jeremiah and the other prophets. And that has consequences.

Another thing to remember: The prophets insist that God has ultimate redemption in mind. Jerusalem and Judah will have to go through the fire of destruction and exile. Think of that as an intervention like the interventions parents sometimes arrange as a last resort to redeem addicted family members. The ultimate goal is to redeem and restore.

We might want to ask ourselves where we ourselves stand. Since Jeremiah and the others speak almost exclusively to nations and peoples, and not to individuals, we might want to ask ourselves where we stand as a congregation. Or, if you prefer, where we stand as a city, state, or nation. Do we, by our action or by our inaction, grieve God to tears? Have we somehow walked beyond the point where only a radical intervention will do? And what ultimate future does God hold for us?

I'll see you Sunday morning.

September 12, 2010

2010-09-06T19:41:00.001-04:00

Jeremiah 4:11-12,22-28

Sunday's message: Desolation

"My poor people..." (verse 11). Jeremiah stands seeing what will surely come, and is clear that he is unable to prevent it or convince leadership to change its ways. Recall that the prophets do not preach fire and brimstone while standing above the fray. They are intensely aware that they are a part of the people whose destiny they describe. Jeremiah perhaps more so than any of the others.

It will be, he says, like a sirocco, a devastating sandstorm wind from the desert. it will not winnow or cleanse. It will strip bare. Perhaps Jeremiah's words are the most severe in any of the prophets.

I looked on the earth, and lo, it was waste and void;
and to the heavens, and they had no light.
I looked on the mountains, and lo, they were quaking,
and all the hills moved to and fro.
I looked, and lo, there was no one at all,
and all the birds of the air had fled.
I looked, and lo, the fruitful land was a desert,
and all its cities were laid in ruins
before YHWH, before his fierce anger.

What would cause a prophet to see such a vision? Of course it comes ultimately from YHWH ("the LORD") but it's clear from the books of the prophets that the prophet himself as vessel shapes the vision. What kind of vessel has Jeremiah become to see such desolation?

Some of us are idealists. As such we are prone to constant frustration. The world just won't cooperate and become what we just know it should be. That frustration and anger can turn in on itself and become depression. Jeremiah curses the very day on which he was born. That sounds like depression.

Depression is frustration and anger turned in on itself. Jeremiah and the other prophets have seen clearly what is coming for their poor people, but have not been able to convince the national leadership and now stand powerless to stop what is coming. That would make an idealist quite frustrated and not a little angry. And depression can breed images like Jeremiah sees.

Verse 27 says that the whole land shall be a desolation, but that YHWH will not make a full end. Verse 28, on the other hand, says that YHWH has not relented and will not turn back. Is there hope in a vision of desolation? In the long run, there is, even -- especially -- in Jeremiah. But it is a hope for what will follow the desolation. With you, I'm waiting for a chance to explore that bright future. But perhaps, as in the New Testament, there is no Easter without a cross.

I'll see you Sunday morning.

September 5, 2010

2010-08-29T19:00:00.001-04:00

Sunday's message: Clay on the potter's wheel

This image of YHWH ("the LORD") as potter is a familiar one. Witness:

Have thine own way, Lord! Have thine own way!
Thou art the potter, I am the clay.
Mold me and make me after thy will,
while I am waiting, yielded and still.

But that rendition misses Jeremiah's point in a significant but common way. Jeremiah clearly speaks of nations and kingdoms, not of individuals, as clay in the hands of YHWH. That's not to say we can't individualize it, but since the Enlightenment we've so individualized all of the Bible, making it all about me personally, that we've largely forgotten it has a context. When we rip scripture from its context we risk misunderstanding it entirely.

Another way of misunderstanding the passage is to apply it to our own United States. So far, so good -- YHWH is indeed speaking of nations. But the habit of many is to proceed to make a short list of the "evil ways" from which our nation should repent and turn. That short list often reflects the personal prejudices of the one making the list, and includes things like the toleration of homosexuality or socialism. As if they expect God to punish our nation according to their own wants. Note that in Jeremiah it is YHWH who is the potter. Our own lists of biases do not apply.

One might read this week's passage and conclude that YHWH is arbitrary and capricious, bringing delight or disaster only at his own whim. Or that the attitude of YHWH toward Israel (or God's larger people) is always to shape evil against them. Neither reading is supported by scripture. Later in Jeremiah we read

For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart, I will let you find me, says the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.

The point is: We have to read all of the story, and not just stop with one passage and assume we know everything we need to know. Perhaps a bit of humility is called for as well, lest we assume from a few words that we know the whole mind of God.

Likewise context matters, for any passage of scripture. Even if we end up using it another way -- like taking this week's passage and making it about us individually -- we need to understand the original meaning, lest we make the Bible say something that contradicts what it intended to say.

I spoke on Sunday, August 29 about becoming saturated in the scriptures. That's not just to score Brownie points with God. It's to become deeply touched by the ways of God as recorded in the Bible. Saturation in scripture won't give us easy answers. It will, instead, make us wary of such answers. But it will challenge us and convict us through the power of the Holy Spirit. It's time to begin.

If we were to take Jeremiah's image of the potter and the clay and apply it to our congregation, what might God be trying to form us for? As you prepare for next Sunday read these other passages that use the image of the potter and the clay:

I'll see you Sunday morning.

August 29, 2010

2010-08-23T11:20:00.001-04:00

Jeremiah 2:4-13
Fifth Sunday, offering for the Florida United Methodist Children's Home

Sunday's message: Useless things

I don't travel or stay in hotels very often. But when I do I often find frustrations with the hotel room facilities. Often one of those frustrations is with the sink. I still shave with a blade, and that requires a sink full of water. A lot of hotel-rom sinks won't hold water for very long. I fill up the sink with cold water, lather up -- and find the sink already mostly empty.

The prophet Jeremiah this week speaks, not of sinks, but of cisterns. Most of us have never lived with a cistern, but know that it's a place for storing water for use later. We can imagine how useless a cracked cistern would be -- as useless as a hotel-room sink that won't hold water.

For my people have committed two evils:
they have forsaken me,
the fountain of living water,
and dug out cisterns for themselves,
cracked cisterns
that can hold no water.

God, Jeremiah claims, is a fountain of living water, a source for all of Israel's needs. Yet Israel looks everywhere else for what they need. Jeremiah claims that it is so, not just in his own generation, but from the time of the ancestors, from the time they entered the land promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Instead of asking, "Where is YHWH ("the LORD") who brought us up from the land of Egypt" they went after worthless things, and so became worthless themselves. It came to be that neither the priests nor "those who handled the law" nor the rulers nor even many prophets depended on YHWH, but instead "went after things that do not profit."

Once we were vacationing in New England and heard a preacher give a sermon on a dream he's had. I had a bit of trouble following the sermon, but I remember asking myself, How is this related to the Bible or to the God we know from the Bible? In another place Jeremiah speaks for YHWH saying:

I have heard what the prophets have said who prophesy lies in my name, saying, "I have dreamed, I have dreamed!" How long? Will the hearts of the prophets ever turn back-those who prophesy lies, and who prophesy the deceit of their own heart? They plan to make my people forget my name by their dreams that they tell one another, just as their ancestors forgot my name for Baal. Let the prophet who has a dream tell the dream, but let the one who has my word speak my word faithfully. What has straw in common with wheat? says the LORD. Is not my word like fire, says the LORD, and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces? (23:25-29)

We live in a world defined by the Enlightenment and the modern age. We rely on a great many things that are the results of science or psychology or economics, but seldom directly on God. I would want to claim that many of the things available to us through science and psychology and economics are gifts from God. Nonetheless we tend to depends on the things, instead of on the God who gives them.

It's true even in our churches. How is it that folks who have attended church much of their adult lives confess themselves illiterate of the Bible, let alone of matters of theology and spiritual practices? What cracked cistern have we depended upon? How did folks spend a lifetime in our churches missing the fountain of living water?

This won't be a "name the blame" message. We could speculate endlessly, and fruitlessly, on what has happened to our churches. The blame game is just another cracked cistern, another sink that won't hold water. The way is always forward. How can we learn from our past, and do better?

I'll see you Sunday morning.

August 22, 2010

2010-08-15T17:22:00.000-04:00

Jeremiah 1:4-10

Sunday's message: Pluck up and plant

"Jeremiah already? What happened to the rest of Isaiah?"

Sorry about that. Isaiah gets read often throughout the church year. You'll hear more from Isaiah again when Advent rolls around. And we hear from 2 Isaiah and 3 Isaiah -- chapters 40-55 and 56-66 respectively of the book of the prophet Isaiah -- on many occasions throughout the year, including verses from Isaiah 40 at many funerals. We don't spend that kind of time with Jeremiah, so we're going there now.

One could call this week's reading from Jeremiah the prophet's call narrative. It has several interesting features.

The word that "before I formed you in the womb I knew you." We may take this literally, and use it as evidence for the position that life begins at conception. But I think it means more than that. Jeremiah's experience will be that the call of YHWH ("the LORD") upon his life and being will be so all-encompassing as to overwhelm everything else, including occasionally the prophet! It will become so intense that Jeremiah will at one point curse the day on which he was born.
Jeremiah's appointment is "prophet to the nations" (verse 5), "over nations and over kingdoms." (verse 10) His vocation as a prophet will take him over decades and involve the geo-politics of the entire region.
"Only a boy" may be a misleading translation. But whatever the verse means Jeremiah's work as a prophet clearly extended over many decades, despite his occasional wish that his life and work would end.
Jeremiah will be opposed at every turn, but he is not to fear his opponents because "I am with you to deliver you." He will be like a bronze wall against his foes. He will wish also for comfort and relief from God... but he won't get it.
Perhaps most important of all, Jeremiah's commission is "to pluck up and pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant." The last pair may seem to contradict the first two. But Jeremiah's commission will run all the way from warnings before the fall of Jerusalem to promises of restoration after God's people have been taken away into exile. He will indeed both pluck up and plant.

This Sunday in worship we will experience something that may be new to many. I will read the passage from Jeremiah several times, from different translations. In between, instead of preaching, I will give you time for reflection, and I will give you specific ways to reflect. I may even ask you to converse about a particular point with someone sitting near you. Those of us who attended the recent Annual Conference event experienced and enjoyed this form of lectio divina ("divine reading") at the morning Bible study. Look here for a news report about it.

So... I'll see you Sunday morning.

August 15, 2010

2010-08-09T11:52:00.000-04:00

Isaiah 5:1-7

Sunday's message: A song for the vineyard

Elaine and I aren't much good at gardening. We've tried, and Elaine has some success with garden herbs, but mostly we seem to have a case of black thumb. Or, we just don't find the time it takes to tend a garden as it needs to be tended.

This week's image from the prophet Isaiah is of one who plants a vineyard on a very fertile hill, and who does all of the hard work it takes to build and to maintain it. He prepares the ground and clears away the stones. He plants choice vines. He builds a watch-tower in order to keep out marauding animals. He hews out a wine vat in expectation of the crop.

And the result? No choice grapes, but rather wild, bitter, uncultivated grapes. For all his trouble his crop is something that he could have picked in the wild without going to all the trouble.

Then, suddenly, Isaiah's song of the vineyard makes an abrupt change. Even the meter of the Hebrew poetry changes. No longer is it "my beloved". Instead, it is an angry, bitterly disappointed vinegrower:

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

If the grapes are going to be wild, let the vineyard itself return to wilderness! In anger the vinegrower destroys the thing which he had labored to create, which has now disappointed him so.

Whoever heard Isaiah tell this tale may have been nodding in understanding. Folks in agrarian societies experience setbacks like this one, and know about disappointment. But what follows may have changed their nodding knowing into shock.

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

Isaiah's song of the vineyard works a bit like Jesus' parables do. The story gets you involved, then sets a hook. In fact Jesus told a parable which, though it has a somewhat different point, clearly has Isaiah's song of the vineyard as its background.

OK, so once more God expresses disappointment with God's people, and hints that trouble may come as a result. That, indeed, is the historical context. But I'm thinking that Isaiah's song might apply to other things beyond Isaiah's own world. What about our congregation, an assembly of God's people? Sometime in the 1960s Gray Memorial was a pleasant planting. All congregations begin with a sense of excitement. But the 1960s turn out to have been the turning point for much of Protestant Christianity in this country. The exact turning point seems to have been 1964, though no one knew it at the time. We find ourselves in 2010 struggling to get by. When did the grapes begin to go wild? Were they always so, or did something happen along the way? However that may be we may surely relate to the experience of having our hedge removed and our wall trampled down. We could well see ourselves as overgrown and dried up, almost as if there never had been a new vineyard here with all of the attendant excitement.

Isaiah's song does not speak of a rebuilding of the vineyard. Does the pleasant planting that was Gray Memorial have a future? Or just a past? As a vineyard, could we get a do-over?

My answer is Yes. But just as there was much work to do to establish our vineyard in the 60s -- the equivalent of clearing the stones and planting choice vines and building a watchtower and hewing a vat -- there will be some hard work necessary to start again.

This Friday and Saturday your Leadership Council and others will participate in a planning retreat. We will talk about our immediate future, which does not really look so bad; and about our long-term future, which will need some real work. Isaiah 5:1-7 will be a part of our worship together. And when we come back for worship on Sunday morning we hope to have an encouraging word to bring. Pray for us. And, of course, come Sunday morning to hear about it.

August 8, 2010

2010-08-01T17:57:00.001-04:00

Isaiah 1:1, 10-20

Sunday's message: Make yourselves clean

We move now beyond Israel with its capital in Samaria in the north. Amos and Hosea proved to be right. The Assyrians came, took the survivors to different places in the Assyria empire, and brought folks from all over that empire to come and settle in what had been Israel. The Israel that Amos and Hosea had known disappeared from history. What was left became by Jesus' day the land of Samaria -- a place not much appreciated by those in Jerusalem.

All that leaves only Judah in the south, with its capital at Jerusalem as the remainder of the people of God. Things were a bit different in the south. There was not a flurry of royal assassinations as there had been in the north. Instead, a succession of the house of David still sat on the throne in Jerusalem. And apparently there was not the kind of insensitivity to the poor and downtrodden that Amos had so vividly described in Israel.

Once again, as with Amos, a prophet appears on the scene when the nation is at its most secure and most prosperous -- and denounces it. Isaiah addresses the nation's rulers as "rulers of Sodom" and "people of Gomorrah". And then he proceeds to denounce the nation's worship of YHWH ("the LORD"). "Who asked this from your hand?" Well... YHWH did, in Leviticus and elsewhere.

As we read we discover that the problem isn't what they did -- it was what they didn't do. Their worship did not match their life. "Your hands are full of blood... wash yourselves... cease to do evil, learn to do good."

This early in Isaiah there is not yet the too-late sense of doom that we found in Amos. Isaiah given an invitation from YHWH to make things right again.

...learn to do good;
seek justice,
rescue the oppressed,
defend the orphan,
plead for the widow.
Come now, let us argue it out,
says the Lord:
though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be like snow;
though they are red like crimson,
they shall become like wool.

John Wesley called his followers to do things quite similar to what Isaiah was calling Judah and Jerusalem to do. On Sunday we'll talk some specifics based on our own Methodist heritage. I'll see you there.

August 1, 2010

2010-07-26T11:12:00.001-04:00

Sunday's message: How can I give you up?

Nobody can break our hearts more surely than our children.

Last week the prophet Hosea used the image of infidelity in marriage to describe Israel as unfaithful and YHWH ("the LORD") as a jilted but ever-patient lover. This week the image changes to YHWH as a brokenhearted parent.

The task of parents is to raise children from infancy to competent adulthood. But of course it's not just an assembly-line operation. Our very hearts are tied up in the task. And when our kids mess up it hurts us deeply.

When Israel was a child, I loved him,
and out of Egypt I called my son...
it was I who taught Ephraim to walk,
I took them up in my arms...
I was to them like those
who lift infants to their cheeks.
I bent down to them and fed them.

According to Hosea YHWH experiences what human parents experience: ingratitude. "The more I called them, the more they went from me... they did not know that I healed them... My people are bent on turning away from me." Ingratitude in our children infuriates us. At the very least, it tempts us to say things like, "Just wait until you have children!"

The result of the waywardness of Ephraim (another word for Israel) is that they will return to Egypt, reversing the great act of salvation of the Old Testament. They will go there for help, but help will not be forthcoming. They will become subjects of the king of Assyria.

But the children's waywardness and its results do not end the love of the parent. It makes the parent's heart loving heart ache. We would do anything, anything, to benefit our wayward children. We would put up bail money. We would ask the pastor about a referral to the Florida United Methodist Children's Home. We would Baker Act them, if it came to that. We would arrange an intervention if we had to.

How can I give you up, Ephraim?
How can I hand you over, O Israel?
How can I make you like Admah?
How can I treat you like Zeboiim?
My heart recoils within me;
my compassion grows warm and tender.

YHWH hopes for a good result, as would any parent:

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

Jesus encourages us to pray beginning with, "Our Father..." How do we experience God as parent? And what kind of children are we? More about all this on Sunday. I'll see you there.

July 25, 2010

2010-07-18T16:44:00.001-04:00

Hosea 1:1-10

Sunday's message: Not my people

We move on to Hosea, who is roughly contemporary with Amos. Like Amos, Hosea prophesies in the northern kingdom of Israel. You may remember the story in which the prophet Elijah goes to Horeb, the mountain of God, and is sent away with a commission to anoint, among others, Jehu as king to replace Ahab and his family:

Then the Lord said to him, “Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus; when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael as king over Aram. Also you shall anoint Jehu son of Nimshi as king over Israel; and you shall anoint Elisha son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah as prophet in your place. Whoever escapes from the sword of Hazael, Jehu shall kill; and whoever escapes from the sword of Jehu, Elisha shall kill. Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.”

Now it is the action of Jehu himself that has raised the ire of God: "And the Lord said to him, 'in a little while I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel.'" You can read about what Jehu did at Jezreel here (if you have the stomach for it).

The intriguing thing about Hosea is that his career as a prophet is tied up in his own family relationships, beginning with his marriage to Gomer, a wanton woman. He is to marry her because the land commits fornication by forsaking YHWH ("the LORD"). Hosea and Gomer beget and bear children, each with a symbolic name:

A son Jezreel ("God sows"), so named because YHWH will punish the house of Jehu for the slaughter at Jezreel, breaking th bow of Israel there;
A daughter Lo-ruhamah ("not pitied"), because YHWH will no longer have pity on the house of Israel or forgive them;
A son Lo-ammi ("not my people"), for YHWH declares that Israel is not longer his people, nor is he their God

We would think it most odd to name children in this way. But symbolic names and symbolic actions are the prophets' stock in trade.

What is perhaps stranger still to us is the intrusion of YHWH into Hosea's family life. Family may be the one thing that we churchgoers are willing to put before God. Just see what happens when family come visiting and stay over through Sunday morning! But there is more to it than that for Hosea. Remember that prophets are "seers" who see through what everyone else sees and perceive the nature and work of God behind it.

What does Hosea see through his own rather odd family? He begins to see YHWH, not just as an offended deity up on a mountain somewhere, but as a jilted lover! Israel as a people were the beloved of YHWH; yet they have gone off after other gods and other ways of living. What is a jilted lover to do? Divorce would be the normal answer.

Yet there are two words of hope in this passage. In declaring that he will have not pity on the house of Israel YHWH also declares that he will have pity on the house of Judah, the southern kingdom. As we move on through the prophets we'll see how that goes. But then there is verse 10, which is about Israel, not Judah:

Yet the number of the people of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which can be neither measured nor numbered; and in the place where it was said to them, “You are not my people,” it shall be said to them, “Children of the living God.”

It appears that there will be discipline and, yes, even divorce between YHWH and his beloved Israel. But there is also a word of hope for a future beyond the discipline and beyond the divorce. We'll keep hearing that as we walk through the words of the prophets.

Think of Hosea as the precursor of Peyton Place, the novel and movie detailing twisted relationships in a small town. Imagine God suffering as his beloved goes off after others. If you were God, what would you do?

I'll see you Sunday morning.

July 18, 2010

2010-07-12T11:37:00.003-04:00

Amos 8:1-12

Sunday's message: Summer fruit

Our second and last Sunday with Amos confirms what we heard in the first. YHWH ("the LORD") is passionate about justice and is livid about injustice in the marketplace and the trampling of the needy and the poor. And YHWH will not just watch and let it happen.

The opening image is a pun in Hebrew, almost impossible to render in English.

"Amos, what do you see?"
"A basket of summer fruit [qayits]."
"The end [qets]has come upon my people Israel."

A prophet is a "seer". These verses give us a bit of insight into how the "seeing" works. Prophets see through the obvious and mundane into the larger issues of the day and into the passion of God concerning those issues.

In Amos there isn't much wiggle room. "The end has come upon my people Israel." The die already is cast. Repentance is no longer possible. What remains is to describe what will come.

One wonders how the word of YHWH through Amos could possibly be related to the loving God we've come to know through Jesus Christ. We may be tempted to take the view of Marcion, who died in the year 160. Here's what the Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church says about Marcion:

Marcion's central thesis was that the Christian Gospel was wholly a Gospel of Love to the exclusion of Law. He consequently rejected the Old Testament, holding that the Creator God depicted therein had nothing in common with the God of Love revealed by Jesus. This contrast of law and grace, he held, was fully understood only by St. Paul, the Apostles and Evangelists being largely blinded to the truth by remnants of Jewish influence. Hence for Marcion the only Canonical Scriptures were ten of the Epistles of St. Paul... and an edited form of St. Luke's Gospel.

I would imagine that there are a lot of people sitting in churches who believe something similar.

But what does Love look like? What do we do when our children or grandchildren start sliding dangerously off the path? Do we not reign them in and set boundaries? Would we not, as a last resort, not break all contact if we were convinced that it would be for their good and our own? Yet would we not still love them?

One of the great legacies of the Methodist movement is its emphasis, not only on the universal love of God, but on the universal human need for accountability and discipline. Love without boundaries and without discipline soon turns to mush like summer fruit left in the sun. Marcion, by the way, was excommunicated as a heretic. The God we know through Jesus Christ is the same God we know through Amos and the rest of the Old Testament.

We've all heard -- or heard about -- fire and brimstone preaching. Some like it; most don't. This kind of preaching can be manipulative, and become the basis of a very controlling religious structure. It also takes the passion God has for justice and rightly-ordered community and narrows it to the individual's relationship with God through Jesus. Both are simply wrong. And neither is what Amos and the other prophets are about.

More about it all on Sunday. Just a word in the meantime: While it is necessary to take seriously the word of YHWH through Amos, is not the end of the story. As we shall see when we continue into the other prophets.

July 11, 2010

2010-07-05T11:29:00.001-04:00

Amos 7:7-17

Probably Amos is the earliest of the prophets from whom we have a book. The books of the prophets are arranged in our Old Testament, not by chronology, but by length. Amos is one of the twelve "minor" prophets -- minor in size only -- as is traditionally included in one scroll with the other eleven and placed after the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah (with Lamentations), Ezekiel, and Daniel.

Since we're on a whirlwind tour through the prophets this summer and fall we'll only spend two Sundays with Amos. But we certainly don't want to miss what he has to say.

The image of the plumb line is a striking one and, thus, a famous one. It seems that "plumb line" was first proposed as a translation of the Hebrew anak by medieval commentators, but it was a guess. The word means "tin".¹ For other images seen by Amos it is a pun on the name of the thing that results in the message the prophet receives. But that won't work here with "plumb line" -- there's no pun, only repetition. Tanakh, a translation published by the Jewish Publication Society, suggests "pickaxe" as a possibility: "He was standing on a wall destined for the pickaxe… with a pickaxe in his hand… "I am going to apply a pickaxe to my people Israel, I will pardon them no more."² But there's no pun there, either.

Images are important to the messages of the prophets. But be all that as it may, the intent of YHWH ("the LORD") seems all too clear.

I will never again pass them by;
the high places of Isaac shall be made desolate,
and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste,
and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.

Now Jeroboam was a most successful king. There was peace and prosperity during his nearly forty-year reign. What more could one ask? Alas there was no justice, no integrity, in this land of plenty.

Thus says the LORD:
For three transgressions of Israel,
and for four, I will not revoke the punishment;
because they sell the righteous for silver,
and the needy for a pair of sandals-
they who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth,
and push the afflicted out of the way...
Amos 2:6-7

According to Amos, those matters of injustice matter to YHWH as much as the peace and prosperity.

Probably the folks who heard Amos thought they would be OK because they kept religious practices prescribed in Torah. But Amos claims that religious practice without the practice of justice is nauseous:

I hate, I despise your festivals,
and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them;
and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals
I will not look upon.
Take away from me the noise of your songs;
I will not listen to the melody of your harps.
But let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
Amos 5:19-24

Chilling, isn't it? And lest Israel think that YHWH will come and set everything straight for them on the Day of the Lord, Amos says this:

Alas for you who desire the day of the Lord!
Why do you want the day of the Lord?
It is darkness, not light;
as if someone fled from a lion,
and was met by a bear;
or went into the house and rested a hand against the wall,
and was bitten by a snake.
Is not the day of the Lord darkness, not light,
and gloom with no brightness in it?
Amos 5:18-20

Amos sees a disconnect between religion and everyday practice. We call that "hypocrisy". Therefore Amos proclaims a disconnect between what they expect from YHWH and what YHWH actually has in mind. It' isn't pretty.

Amaziah, who is a priest at Bethel and works for King Jeroboam, comes and confronts Amos. Amaziah says what we're all thinking: Go home! Go somewhere else and see your visions and speak you prophecies! We don't want any! Amaziah speaks for us, doesn't he? When we are in relative comfort and security we don't want to hear that God has a concern about others in our community and world. Leave us alone!

But we know better. For one thing, we know a parable that Jesus told.

“A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’ Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” [The lawyer] said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”
Luke 10:30-37

The priest and the Levite are Amaziah, not wanting to see or be bothered by the obvious. So, who are we? We'll talk about it Sunday morning. I'll see you there.

Donald E. Gowan in The New Interpreter's Bible (Nashville, Abingdon, 1996) Volume VII, page 406
Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures (Philadelphia, The Jewish Publication Society, 1985) page 1027

July 4, 2010

2010-06-27T17:32:00.003-04:00

We move from Elijah to Elisha for one more story from Kings. Then we'll be on to prophets who have their own book in the Bible.

Naaman was somebody. He was a successful army commander (against Israel, among others!). But he had leprosy. He was a great man, but he wasn't whole, at least in his own mind.

It's interesting that a slave girl taken from Israel by the Arameans on one of their raids is the one who points Naaman to the source of help. Perhaps we shouldn't ask, Why would she want to help a national enemy? Maybe we should ask, Doesn't God work in interesting ways?

Naaman's king sends him off to Israel, not on another military mission, but with letters of recommendation and gifts, well, fit for a king. The king of Israel is most suspicious. Is this not a trap? Am I God, to give death or life? But the prophet Elisha hears of it, and sends word to send Naaman around to him. One notices that the powers-that-be in both Damascus and Samaria, for all their military readiness, seem clueless in this story.

Naaman was somebody. So when he comes to the house of the prophet Elisha and receives only a message by way of a servant, he is most upset.

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

So there! Fortunately Naaman has servants who are wise. Would that we all had friends like them who are willing to tell us when we're being jerks. “Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said to you was, ‘Wash, and be clean’?” If he's told you to embark on an epic quest, or to stand on your head, you would have done it. Why not do this simple thing?

And, of course, when he does the simple thing, Naaman is cleansed of his leprosy. The punch line is Naaman's declaration in verse 15: “Now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel...” That may sound overly nationalistic is some ears. But as we'll see the prophets are always about reminding God's people that there is a God, with whom they have a covenant relationship to maintain. Often in the larger story we'll find that God's own people forget their own God and that covenant in their quest for other things. It will be a tragic mistake.

In order to appreciate this story fully we need to imagine, not that Naaman is coming to this country for help, but rather that he is going out from this country to, say, Zimbabwe for help. In its own way the story speaks against the notion of national exceptionalism that is held in some quarters on this Independence Day. God works across national borders. God is god of all the nations. If we display arrogance like Naaman's, well, let's hope we have good friends like his servants to pull us back from the brink.

I'll see you Sunday morning. We'll pray for our nation and for God's kingdom.

June 27, 2010

2010-06-20T17:34:00.000-04:00

2 Kings 2:1-15

One more Elijah story: Elisha has joined Elijah on his journeys. The LORD had told Elijah to anoint Elisha as his successor.

At the very beginning of the story we are told what will happen: the LORD will take Elijah up to heaven by a whirlwind. The company of the prophets in each place know it. Elisha professes to know it. Elijah isn't saying, but I think the story wants us to think that he knows it, too.

Elijah seems to be testing Elisha as to his staying power. He tells Elisha to stay put while he, Elijah, goes somewhere else. But Elisha doesn't want to miss anything and refuses to leave Elijah's side. They go to Gilgal, then to Bethel, then to the Jordan.

At the Jordan Elijah rolls up his mantle and strikes the water, causing it to part. By doing so Elijah shows himself to the in the line of Moses and Joshua. But who will be next?

Finally Elijah asks the persistent Elisha, "Tell me what I may do for you, before I am taken from you." Elisha asks for a double portion of Elijah's spirit. The eldest son in the family inherited a double portion of the father's estate. Elisha is asking to be Elijah's eldest son" -- his successor. This is not an easy thing; Elisha must be present as Elijah is taken.

But he is present. A chariot of fire and horses of fire come between Elijah and Elisha, and Elijah ascends by a whirlwind into heaven.

Elisha grieves for his loss. But then he picks up the mantle, which had fallen from Elijah, and goes back to the Jordan. "Where is the LORD, the God of Elijah?" The LORD is with Elisha. Striking the waters with the mantle, Elisha himself now parts the waters. Seeing this, the company of the prophets declare: "The spirit of Elijah rests on Elisha." And they come and pay Elisha due reverence.

Literally the mantle has been passed; that's where we get the expression. On Sunday I'll talk about how we use this story as a part of our service at which we acknowledge pastors who are retiring. Also we'll talk about passing the mantle in our own context. I'll see you there.

June 20, 2010

2010-06-13T15:45:00.000-04:00

1 Kings 19:1-18

We continue with Elijah.

What you need to know first is that Elijah is fresh from a great victory in the power of God. When Ahab complains to Jezebel that Elijah "has killed all the prophets" he's referring to the story of Elijah's dramatic victory on Mount Carmel.

But if Elijah with God's help can single-handedly vanquish 450 of the prophets of Ba'al, why is he afraid of a threat from Jezebel? Perhaps the key is in the phrase "I, even I only, am left." It's in the story of Elijah's triumph, and also in this week's story of his running away.

Despite his (and God's) victory it appears that faithfulness has disappeared in Israel. Despite the victory Jezebel can still make credible threats. It's all just a bit too much. Maybe we've felt the same way at times.

So Elijah runs toward the wilderness, goes a day's journey in, asks for death, and curls up to sleep -- expecting perhaps never to waken again. But as at the Wadi Cherith God provides for Elijah. Instead of dying forgotten in the middle of nowhere Elijah finds himself traveling to Horeb, the mount of God.

Horeb is another name for Sinai, the place where Moses sojourned for 40 days and 40 nights receiving the covenant between God and God's people. Perhaps Elijah is running home, hoping for a do-over. Lord, this is all going so badly. Can we start all over again?

But Elijah faces a question from God he does not expect: "What are you doing here?" Elijah has an answer -- actually he says it twice, because God asks the question twice -- "I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away."

God appears unimpressed. The first time God arranges for a demonstration. There is a great wind, with the destructive power of an Atlantic hurricane -- but God is not in it. Then there is an earthquake -- but God is not in it. Finally, there is a fire. Still no God. How exactly do we expect God to respond to our disappointments?

Finally, there is silence. When Elijah hears it -- how does one hear silence? -- he covers his face and steps outside, for now God is present. Once more he hears: What are you doing here, Elijah? Elijah rehearses his litany of despair. Instead of a pat on the head, Elijah receives a commission to effect a regime change. The commission involves anointing his own successor.

Oh, by the way: There are seven thousand who have not bent the knee to Ba'al or kissed him in worship. In his despair Elijah had his calculations all wrong.

This is one of my favorite Bible stories. We'll talk more about it, and about what it might mean, on Sunday. I'll see you there.

June 13,2010

2010-06-06T17:04:00.001-04:00

1 Kings 21:1-21a

We continue with Elijah.

It seems like a good enough offer. Ahab the king offers Naboth a better vineyard, or money, for the vineyard Naboth owns next to Ahab's palace in Jezreel. Why will Naboth not take it?

It is difficult for us who move so often to understand what the ancestral land means to Naboth and people in his time. The ancestral land was portioned out as a part of the fulfillment of the promise of the land to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. To give it away or to sell it, or to lose it in any way, is to lose one of the key promises that God made to God's people. Not just any land, this land that is my ancestral portion. The ancestral land is so important that Leviticus begins the description of the Jubilee year this way:

You shall count off seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so that the period of seven weeks of years gives forty-nine years. Then you shall have the trumpet sounded loud; on the tenth day of the seventh month—on the day of atonement—you shall have the trumpet sounded throughout all your land. And you shall hallow the fiftieth year and you shall proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you: you shall return, every one of you, to your property and every one of you to your family.

If there's a homestead in your family you understand how Naboth feels.

The story has an underlying issue. One of the things that happened over time was that kings and other powerful people had begun to gobble up the ancestral land of the common people through a variety of means. After all, they were powerful; they could do what they wanted, right? Ahab's offer to Naboth, while it seems honest enough on the surface, represents the steady incursion of the powerful.

Ahab doesn't like it when Naboth says "No". Ahab doesn't like it when anyone says "No". He goes home and pouts.

Jezebel, however, is a strong personality, not accustomed to being frustrated in what she wants. “Do you now govern Israel? Get up, eat some food, and be cheerful; I will give you the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite.” And she does. By having Naboth falsely accused and judicially murdered. The powerful can do what they want, right? Ahab goes off cheerfully to take possession of Naboth's vineyard.

But God sees, and God cares. Enter the prophet Elijah, speaking the word of the LORD which is truth: "Thus says the Lord: Have you killed, and also taken possession?... Thus says the Lord: In the place where dogs licked up the blood of Naboth, dogs will also lick up your blood...Because you have sold yourself to do what is evil in the sight of the Lord, I will bring disaster on you..."

Probably you can provide your own modern applications of this story, especially in the light of the collapse of our economy and the carelessness that caused the oil disaster in the Gulf. It remains true in our country that the powerful can get away with much, that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Does God still see? Does God still care?

I'll see you on Sunday.

June 6, 2010

2010-05-31T15:43:00.001-04:00

We begin with Elijah.

Say the name "Ahab" and you may think first of the character from Moby-Dick. The biblical Ahab was a king, a fairly successful one, in the northern kingdom of Israel, ruling from the new capital of Samaria. Despite his twenty-two years on the throne the biblical text judges that he "did evil in the sight of the LORD more than all who were before him." Taking a foreign wife, Jezebel from Sidon, Ahab also brought her gods, as was the royal custom. 1 Kings claims that Ahab introduced the worship of the Canaanite deity Baal into Israel, and even built a temple for the worship of Baal.

Into this picture steps one Elijah from Tishbe in Gilead. We will see that the prophets are unanimous in their insistence that only the LORD is to be worshipped by God's people. "Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone." In response to the royal evil Elijah pronounces a drought. It sounds odd to us to "pronounce a drought", to speak such a thing into existence, but that's how prophets work.

It's interesting that, having spoken into the face of royal power and privilege, Elijah must go into hiding. The LORD even suggest a place. But soon that source of comfort dries up. There is, after all, a drought. Elijah himself has spoken it into being.

The LORD sends Elijah on out of country, to Zarephath in Sidon. A widow there is to take care of him. But Elijah finds this widow in desperate need, about to prepare the last of the food for herself and her son before they starve to death. Apparently the drought has spread even here. Using the same voice with which he pronounced the drought Elijah pronounces sufficient meal and oil to sustain the household, including himself. And when the widow's son become ill and his life-breath leaves him, Elijah intervenes with the LORD to restore his life.

I wonder if the irony is intentional. Jezebel, coming from Sidon, brings evil and, ultimately, the power of death to Israel. Elijah, coming from Israel to Sidon, brings the power of life against the power of death. There's some great stuff in these stories.

Luke's gospel, which is the gospel for this year, makes two apparent references to this Elijah story. Luke reports that, in his diatribe in the synagogue at Nazareth Jesus mentions this story:

And he said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown. But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon."

Likewise there is a story which only Luke tells of Jesus raising from death the son of a widow at Nain.

In response to what Elijah has done for her and for her son the widow of Zarephath says, "Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth." That, I think, is what this story is about.

More about all this on Sunday morning. I'll see you there.

Gray Monday

February 5, 2012

January 29, 2012

January 22, 2012

January 15, 2012

January 8, 2012

January 1, 2012

Twas the week before Christmas

December 18, 2011

December 4, 2011

November 27, 2011

November 20, 2011

November 13, 2011

November 6, 2011

Florida United Methodist Children's Home Sunday

October 23, 2011

October 16, 2011

October 9, 2011

October 2, 2011

September 25, 2011

Autobiographical disclosure

So what? Exhortations for the meantime

September 18, 2011

Autobiographical disclosure

So what? Exhortations for the meantime

September 11, 2011

September 4, 2011

August 28, 2011

August 21, 2011

August 14, 2011

August 7, 2011

July 31, 2011

July 24, 2011

July 17, 2011

July 10, 2011

June 19 & 26, July 3

June 12, 2011 -- Pentecost

June 5, 2011

May 29, 2011

May 22, 2011

May 15, 2011

May 8, 2011

May 1, 2011

Holy Thursday and Easter Day, 2011

Holy Thursday, April 21 2011, 7:00 p.m. Easter Day, Sunday, April 24 11:00 a.m.

Holy Thursday, April 21, 2011 7:00 p.m.

Easter Day, April 24, 2011 11:00 a.m.

April 17, 2011 Passion/Palm Sunday

April 10, 2011

April 3, 2011

March 27, 2011

March 20, 2011

March 9 and March 13, 2011

Ash Wednesday, March 9, 2011, 7:00 p.m. 1st Sunday in Lent, March 13, 2011 11:00 a.m.

Ash Wednesday, March 9, 2011, 7:00 p.m.

1st Sunday in Lent, March 13, 2011 11:00 a.m.

March 6, 2011

February 27, 2011

February 20, 2011

February 13. 2011

February 6, 2011

January 30, 2011

January 23, 2011

January 16, 2011

January 9, 2011

Baptism of Our Lord

January 2, 2011

Epiphany Sunday

Christmas Week 2010

Christmas week

Blue Christmas Service Tuesday evening, December 21, 6:30 p.m.

Christmas Eve Service Friday evening, December 24, 7:00 p.m.

First Sunday of Christmas Sunday morning, December 26, 11:00 a.m.

December 19, 2010

Fourth Sunday of Advent

December 12, 2010

Third Sunday of Advent

December 5, 2010

Second Sunday of Advent

November 28, 2010

Holy Thursday, April 21 2011, 7:00 p.m.
Easter Day, Sunday, April 24 11:00 a.m.

Ash Wednesday, March 9, 2011, 7:00 p.m.
1st Sunday in Lent, March 13, 2011 11:00 a.m.

Blue Christmas Service
Tuesday evening, December 21, 6:30 p.m.

Christmas Eve Service
Friday evening, December 24, 7:00 p.m.

First Sunday of Christmas
Sunday morning, December 26, 11:00 a.m.