I read a blog the other day that said we shouldn't make a big deal about Easter. When I read the first line or so I was very disturbed because if not for Easter what would be the point? We wouldn't have a resurrection to build our faith around. We would have lots of excellent teachings to live by but . . .
Then I read the rest of the blog. And I got the point. The blogger was talking about the whole visitor thing. It seems that some churches get a whole bunch of Christmas and Easter visitors.
Some of those visitors don't know what to expect in church and get lost during the program, which is apparently funny to some. It further seems that members and even (gasp) preachers at those churches can be somewhat unfriendly about the whole Christmas and Easter thing. They say things like "Nice to see you here for a change,' which is not a comment geared to bring the visitor back next Sunday or even next Easter.
In some congregations the service is totally unlike what a visitor is likely to find if they come on any other Sunday during the year. There are processions and plays and full orchestras. The folks who normally show up in jeans are in dresses and suits. The clergy are wearing their best vestments. Visitors may get lost in the shuffle or embarrassed by being made to stand up and introduce themselves.
And some congregations have LOTS of opportunities to attend services on Easter. They have a special sunrise service and their regular morning service or two and maybe a special afternoon or evening service. I know this because the religious page in our local newspaper expands from 1 page to 3!
We don't get a lot of visitors at Easter. We might have a few, but usually what we experience is that everyone who ever shows up during the year is pretty sure to show up on Easter. Some of our folks are once a month church folks and some are once every couple of months church folks. But on Easter everybody is here. We don't have any extra Easter Sunday services, just have our regular 10:30 a.m. service. Some years we have our choir concert on Palm Sunday and some years we have it on Easter. The same people who are always in the choir are in the choir. We always have an egg hunt after church and the kids find all the eggs so quickly that I have yet to watch the hunt happening.
But I have to confess that when visitors come we do make them sign our visitor book and then stand up or at least sit and wave at the congregation when they are introduced. We warn them that this is going to happen, and I always make sure to invite them publicly for our after worship fellowship time. But then, we do that every Sunday to whatever visitors show up. It's not to embarrass them, it's to make them feel welcome. It's to help the rest of the folks remember they are visitors so they can help if the new folks seem to be lost at any point during the service.
I especially love the Lord's Supper when we have visitors. Because when we have visitors I get to explain again why Disciples share this meal every Sunday and that everyone is welcome to partake. I get to give directions on how we do communion here so that no one has to feel left out.
So - is Easter a big deal at our church? Absolutely! Even though we do things pretty much the same way at Easter as every other week, there's a good theological reason for that. You see, once upon a time somebody told me that we celebrate Easter EVERY Sunday and so every Sunday is a big deal.
Happy Easter y'all.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Palms or Passion?
Matthew 21:1-11
1 When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, 2 saying to them, "Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. 3 If anyone says anything to you, just say this, "The Lord needs them.' And he will send them immediately. " 4 This took place to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet, saying, 5 "Tell the daughter of Zion, Look, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey." 6 The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; 7 they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them. 8 A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9 The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting, "Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!" 10 When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, "Who is this?" 11 The crowds were saying, "This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee."
There has been a big battle among preachers this week over whether we should focus on Palm Sunday or treat this Sunday as Palm/Passion Sunday. In seminary I was taught that we really should do Palm and Passion together because many of our churches won’t have Good Friday services. And that means that for many we will go directly from Palm Sunday to Easter without ever having Jesus suffer on the cross. I was taught “Without the crucifixion there can be no resurrection.” Those were the same arguments I saw on line for doing the whole Passion today. While those in opposition spoke of rushing the season and living in the grief of Holy Saturday all this last week instead of letting the events progress as they actually did. Sort of like putting the Christmas decorations out before the kids had gotten home from Trick or Treating.
Every year since I came to Delhaven we have celebrated Palm/Passion Sunday. Some years we have had our choir concert on Palm Sunday, so the music took us through the entire week including Easter celebrations. Some years I have preached and have taken us through the entire week up to Easter, forcing us all to struggle through the week with the image of Jesus, bloodied and broken, laying on the slab of rock inside Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb. One year I even did a dramatic presentation as one of the women who followed Jesus.
My decision – and I like to bring you all along with me on these theological and liturgical decisions – is to do Palm Sunday this year. We’re going to be together on Thursday evening for supper and a Maundy Thursday service that Kate will be leading. And we will be praying all day, from noon to midnight, on Good Friday. Even though we may not all be in the same room at the same time during these events, we will be observing Holy Week in our homes and hearts, in our prayers and actions. This year for Palm Sunday we will stay in the day, lauding Jesus the rabbi from Nazareth as king, the way the crowd at the gate of Jerusalem did. We will take this opportunity to sing alleluias during Lent and forget for just a brief moment all the troubles that surround us. We will look to our king and believe that everything will be great almost immediately! – just as the crowd at the gate of Jerusalem did.
Me, I LOVE palm Sunday. It’s all about hope for the future, maybe even more so than Christmas. Welcoming the king of kings into my life, my heart, my soul. Celebrating that he is entering the city. Like the crowd, having no idea what is going to come later in the week but after a lifetime of suffering and waiting – wow! Here he is! The last will be first and the humble will be made great.
I was reading Ann Lamott’s “Plan B” this week and she says she just can’t deal with Good Friday. She is a resurrection kind of person. Well, me too. I think we have enough of Good Friday and Holy Saturday in our lives. We have enough pain and crucifixion and grieving and suffering and waiting for the other shoe to drop. Palm Sunday helps us get ready for the resurrection in a way that no other celebration can do – Palm Sunday leads us in that direction, even though the crowd didn’t quite have the right idea of how Jesus was to be King.
In ancient times, the prosperity of the land was believed to be tied directly to the king. A good king, a righteous king, a king who loved his land and his people and cared first about their wellbeing, would rule a land that prospered. For example, the Pharaoh of Egypt in the days of Joseph was a good king because his people were well cared for despite the fact that there was a famine. He listened to Joseph’s interpretation of a prophetic dream. He prepared for the famine and made sure his people were fed throughout that long seven years. King Jehoaichin of Judah, on the other hand, was not a righteous king. He cared only for his own power, he disregarded the plight of the poor and ignored the prophets. The Babylonians carried him away along with the nobility and priests and all the wealth of the land. Now, we know that he wasn’t the first unrighteous king in the land. He was the last in a line of bad kings, kings who cared only for their own comfort and power, and who didn’t listen to the prophets who kept trying to bring them back to the ways of their God. In fact, from the time of Solomon onward, the Bible only tells us about one king who was righteous, who had the Temple re-dedicated, re-instituted the celebration of Passover and had the Law of Moses read aloud from the steps of the Temple. In his time things were looking up a bit. Alas, his descendents returned to the ways that displeased their God and so, eventually, they were overcome by might of Babylon. From that time until the time of Jesus there hadn’t been any really Good kings. In fact, the kings they had ruling them were mostly puppets of some empire or other. The people of the land were looking for a messiah, a king who would return them to the glory days of David and Solomon, when their nation had wealth and power and the respect of their neighbors, when all the poor and widows and orphans were cared for, when judges spoke with righteousness and didn’t always make decisions in favor of the most powerful. This is the king they welcomed into Jerusalem that day. This is the Messiah they proclaimed, laying their cloaks and palms in the street in front of him.
Frankly, we sometimes have trouble understanding Jesus as King. Oh, we speak of him as Lord. We give him king-like titles. We sort of shake our heads at the poor, ignorant folks of his time who couldn’t understand what Jesus meant when he said his kingdom is not of this world. And we are quite sure that he is the King of Heaven. King of the Afterlife. But that’s not quite it either. He is the king who leads us into a world that is radically different from the world he, and we, inherited. He is the king who models how we, his people, are to live, just as any good king does. He is the king who could have described himself with these words from Isaiah 50:
4 The Lord God has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word. Morning by morning he wakens— wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught.
5 The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious, I did not turn backward.
6 I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting.
7 The Lord God helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame;
What kind of king brags of having the tongue of a teacher? The kind who wants to lead his people into a new way of living. The kind who says to them, the way of the world is not the way of God. Let me show you how to live in God’s kingdom. The kind who says, it’s going to be hard, and there will be sacrifices made. But don’t worry, I’m going to show you how to live through even the worst of times. I’m going to show you how to love even the worst of people.
As I get to this point I realize how very difficult it is to celebrate Palm Sunday without the Passion. Because you see, we know what comes next. We know that the adoring crowds will melt away, that even his followers will run and hide when he is taken from their midst.
But we also know how he faced his trial. We know that when one of his followers pulled out a sword, Jesus made him put it away. We know that Jesus even healed the man he injured, a man who came to arrest him. We know that he spoke not a word in threat or anger even when he knew he was being wrongfully accused and tried in an illegal court. We know he gave his back to those who struck him and blamed no one for what he was enduring.
We know . . . he was human. Which means that anything he could do, we can do. I know that when stuff happens, when tragedy comes into our lives, when oppression is looming large and we are called upon to be like Jesus, our first reaction might be “Well, yeah. But I am not Jesus. I can’t do what he did.” And maybe that’s true. But we can model ourselves after what he did, because he is our king, now and forever. He lived to teach us how to live, he died showing us how to face even the worst oppression and adversity, standing proudly for what we believe is right. Confronting evil with good, confronting violence with peace. As with anything else worthwhile that we learn how to do, living this way takes practice and dedication. It is difficult, but it is doable.
Jesus is our king. He is not the Once and Future King. He is not a king who lived a long time ago and will come back someday to be king again. He is the King of the world. He is our king, day in and day out, in good times and evil. He is the king who came to teach us how to live in love and justice, to bring us close to God, to set us free from the tyranny of anger and oppression, to shower us with God’s grace. Let us celebrate our King, waving our palms like the crowd at the gates of Jerusalem, singing Hosanna and crying out Blessed be the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed be the God of Israel!
Blessed Be the God of Israel 135
1 When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, 2 saying to them, "Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. 3 If anyone says anything to you, just say this, "The Lord needs them.' And he will send them immediately. " 4 This took place to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet, saying, 5 "Tell the daughter of Zion, Look, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey." 6 The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; 7 they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them. 8 A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9 The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting, "Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!" 10 When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, "Who is this?" 11 The crowds were saying, "This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee."
There has been a big battle among preachers this week over whether we should focus on Palm Sunday or treat this Sunday as Palm/Passion Sunday. In seminary I was taught that we really should do Palm and Passion together because many of our churches won’t have Good Friday services. And that means that for many we will go directly from Palm Sunday to Easter without ever having Jesus suffer on the cross. I was taught “Without the crucifixion there can be no resurrection.” Those were the same arguments I saw on line for doing the whole Passion today. While those in opposition spoke of rushing the season and living in the grief of Holy Saturday all this last week instead of letting the events progress as they actually did. Sort of like putting the Christmas decorations out before the kids had gotten home from Trick or Treating.
Every year since I came to Delhaven we have celebrated Palm/Passion Sunday. Some years we have had our choir concert on Palm Sunday, so the music took us through the entire week including Easter celebrations. Some years I have preached and have taken us through the entire week up to Easter, forcing us all to struggle through the week with the image of Jesus, bloodied and broken, laying on the slab of rock inside Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb. One year I even did a dramatic presentation as one of the women who followed Jesus.
My decision – and I like to bring you all along with me on these theological and liturgical decisions – is to do Palm Sunday this year. We’re going to be together on Thursday evening for supper and a Maundy Thursday service that Kate will be leading. And we will be praying all day, from noon to midnight, on Good Friday. Even though we may not all be in the same room at the same time during these events, we will be observing Holy Week in our homes and hearts, in our prayers and actions. This year for Palm Sunday we will stay in the day, lauding Jesus the rabbi from Nazareth as king, the way the crowd at the gate of Jerusalem did. We will take this opportunity to sing alleluias during Lent and forget for just a brief moment all the troubles that surround us. We will look to our king and believe that everything will be great almost immediately! – just as the crowd at the gate of Jerusalem did.
Me, I LOVE palm Sunday. It’s all about hope for the future, maybe even more so than Christmas. Welcoming the king of kings into my life, my heart, my soul. Celebrating that he is entering the city. Like the crowd, having no idea what is going to come later in the week but after a lifetime of suffering and waiting – wow! Here he is! The last will be first and the humble will be made great.
I was reading Ann Lamott’s “Plan B” this week and she says she just can’t deal with Good Friday. She is a resurrection kind of person. Well, me too. I think we have enough of Good Friday and Holy Saturday in our lives. We have enough pain and crucifixion and grieving and suffering and waiting for the other shoe to drop. Palm Sunday helps us get ready for the resurrection in a way that no other celebration can do – Palm Sunday leads us in that direction, even though the crowd didn’t quite have the right idea of how Jesus was to be King.
In ancient times, the prosperity of the land was believed to be tied directly to the king. A good king, a righteous king, a king who loved his land and his people and cared first about their wellbeing, would rule a land that prospered. For example, the Pharaoh of Egypt in the days of Joseph was a good king because his people were well cared for despite the fact that there was a famine. He listened to Joseph’s interpretation of a prophetic dream. He prepared for the famine and made sure his people were fed throughout that long seven years. King Jehoaichin of Judah, on the other hand, was not a righteous king. He cared only for his own power, he disregarded the plight of the poor and ignored the prophets. The Babylonians carried him away along with the nobility and priests and all the wealth of the land. Now, we know that he wasn’t the first unrighteous king in the land. He was the last in a line of bad kings, kings who cared only for their own comfort and power, and who didn’t listen to the prophets who kept trying to bring them back to the ways of their God. In fact, from the time of Solomon onward, the Bible only tells us about one king who was righteous, who had the Temple re-dedicated, re-instituted the celebration of Passover and had the Law of Moses read aloud from the steps of the Temple. In his time things were looking up a bit. Alas, his descendents returned to the ways that displeased their God and so, eventually, they were overcome by might of Babylon. From that time until the time of Jesus there hadn’t been any really Good kings. In fact, the kings they had ruling them were mostly puppets of some empire or other. The people of the land were looking for a messiah, a king who would return them to the glory days of David and Solomon, when their nation had wealth and power and the respect of their neighbors, when all the poor and widows and orphans were cared for, when judges spoke with righteousness and didn’t always make decisions in favor of the most powerful. This is the king they welcomed into Jerusalem that day. This is the Messiah they proclaimed, laying their cloaks and palms in the street in front of him.
Frankly, we sometimes have trouble understanding Jesus as King. Oh, we speak of him as Lord. We give him king-like titles. We sort of shake our heads at the poor, ignorant folks of his time who couldn’t understand what Jesus meant when he said his kingdom is not of this world. And we are quite sure that he is the King of Heaven. King of the Afterlife. But that’s not quite it either. He is the king who leads us into a world that is radically different from the world he, and we, inherited. He is the king who models how we, his people, are to live, just as any good king does. He is the king who could have described himself with these words from Isaiah 50:
4 The Lord God has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word. Morning by morning he wakens— wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught.
5 The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious, I did not turn backward.
6 I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting.
7 The Lord God helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame;
What kind of king brags of having the tongue of a teacher? The kind who wants to lead his people into a new way of living. The kind who says to them, the way of the world is not the way of God. Let me show you how to live in God’s kingdom. The kind who says, it’s going to be hard, and there will be sacrifices made. But don’t worry, I’m going to show you how to live through even the worst of times. I’m going to show you how to love even the worst of people.
As I get to this point I realize how very difficult it is to celebrate Palm Sunday without the Passion. Because you see, we know what comes next. We know that the adoring crowds will melt away, that even his followers will run and hide when he is taken from their midst.
But we also know how he faced his trial. We know that when one of his followers pulled out a sword, Jesus made him put it away. We know that Jesus even healed the man he injured, a man who came to arrest him. We know that he spoke not a word in threat or anger even when he knew he was being wrongfully accused and tried in an illegal court. We know he gave his back to those who struck him and blamed no one for what he was enduring.
We know . . . he was human. Which means that anything he could do, we can do. I know that when stuff happens, when tragedy comes into our lives, when oppression is looming large and we are called upon to be like Jesus, our first reaction might be “Well, yeah. But I am not Jesus. I can’t do what he did.” And maybe that’s true. But we can model ourselves after what he did, because he is our king, now and forever. He lived to teach us how to live, he died showing us how to face even the worst oppression and adversity, standing proudly for what we believe is right. Confronting evil with good, confronting violence with peace. As with anything else worthwhile that we learn how to do, living this way takes practice and dedication. It is difficult, but it is doable.
Jesus is our king. He is not the Once and Future King. He is not a king who lived a long time ago and will come back someday to be king again. He is the King of the world. He is our king, day in and day out, in good times and evil. He is the king who came to teach us how to live in love and justice, to bring us close to God, to set us free from the tyranny of anger and oppression, to shower us with God’s grace. Let us celebrate our King, waving our palms like the crowd at the gates of Jerusalem, singing Hosanna and crying out Blessed be the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed be the God of Israel!
Blessed Be the God of Israel 135
Sunday, April 03, 2011
Seeing Clearly
Ephesians 5:8-14
8 For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light— 9 for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true. 10 Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord. 11 Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. 12 For it is shameful even to mention what such people do secretly; 13 but everything exposed by the light becomes visible, 14 for everything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, "Sleeper, awake! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you."
By this time of year many of the folks in the northern hemisphere are feeling as if winter will never end. It’s grey and gloomy outside and it seems as if spring will never arrive. Likewise by this time in Lent when so many of us are engaged in soul searching and self examination we may be feeling a little low and wondering why Easter is taking so long to arrive. So as I pondered the various passages offered by the lectionary for this fourth Sunday in Lent I was struck by the imagery of light and dark in this passage in Ephesians. “For once you were darkness but now in the Lord you are light.”
Darkness. The Dark Side. We all know Dark is used as a metaphor for all the less desirable character traits, things like hatred, anger, greed and violence. We use it to describe fictional villains and real ones; black hatted cowboys, vampires, Darth Vader and Charles Manson. Dark is cold. It is the home of spooky shadows, mold, evil plots, secrets and conspiracies. Many children are afraid of the dark and even though we tell them there’s nothing to be afraid of, most of us are quick to turn on a light when we enter a room. We don’t like the dark very much.
And then there is Light. Light is more than simply the opposite of the Dark. Light is everything that is warm and good and pure. When light shines the dark is chased away, evil is defeated. Vampires are destroyed, lies are exposed, ugliness is seen for what it truly is, children are comforted. Light is Luke Skywalker and Saint George the Dragon Slayer and Roy Rogers and Mother Theresa. Light is truth and justice and love, all the good things, all the blessings of life. We love the light.
People who live in the light see the world differently. It’s way beyond glass half empty or half full. It’s looking for the good in situations, not the potential for trouble. It’s trusting. It’s deciding the world is a good place and behaving as if you believe that to be true. People who live in the light are willing to shine their light into the darkness, to stand up against evil and speak out for the right. People who live in the light live in God’s kingdom.
Paul say to the church in Ephesus, “Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord.” We may not always be able to do that well, but we can usually figure out what is not pleasing to God.
You all know that I watch the news a lot. I watch for a couple of hours in the morning and then for another hour or two after dinner. When I can stay awake long enough I end the day checking out what the Comedy Channel does with whatever the rest of the media is reporting on. And yet somehow I entirely missed that Terry Jones, pastor of a small congregation in Florida, presided over a group of some 30 people who burned a copy of the Qur’an two weeks ago. You might remember that the last time Pastor Jones was in the news was just before September 11th, when he was threatening to burn a whole stack of Qur’ans. The president condemned this recent action and many Christian and interfaith groups in the US spoke out publicly against it.
I’m quite sure that treating any other person or group of people with complete disrespect and hate-filled speech is not pleasing to the Lord. Jesus said “Love your neighbor” not “mistreat your neighbor”. Even if you are sufficiently ill-informed as to believe that all of Islam is the enemy – which it isn’t - Jesus also said “love your enemy.”
I suppose I can be excused for not noticing the Qur’an burning at first. It didn’t get a lot of press in the US, what with the political budget stuff here and the earthquake and tsunami and nuclear plant problems in Japan and anti-government demonstrations in North Africa and the Middle East and a new war starting and all. We’ve had some really busy news cycles and I guess the media thought that since only 30 folks showed up and there were no demonstrators present maybe it could just sort of slide under the radar. Unfortunately, the rest of the world was paying attention. Particularly the parts of the world where they believe that America as a nation is anti-Islam. People in those parts of the world held demonstrations to let us know they were displeased. Things turned ugly in Afghanistan. Seven people were killed at a United Nations office building. According to the Associated press: several hundred demonstrators were peacefully protesting the purported [Qur’an] burning when the gathering suddenly turned violent. This violence in response to a hateful act is also not pleasing to the Lord.
I was blessed to meet Noor-Malika Chisti, a Vice President of the Southern California Committee for a Parliament of World Religions and a member of the World Council of Muslims for Interfaith Relations at the Interfaith Peace March in Pomona last September. On Saturday Noor-Malika had this to say in response to that violence: The Prophet Mohammad, peace upon him, gave us the example of how to respond to ignorant and hateful language: show them something better. The killings of United Nations workers in Afghanistan by those who were protesting the burning of the Qur’an by Terry Jones is NOT what was modeled for us, nor taught to us in the Qur'an.
According to Dr. Margaret Aymer of Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta, Paul is urging the church in Ephesus “to set boundaries and ethics for life together as a community of faith, boundaries that call community members to pursue goodness, justice (or righteousness) and truth. Part of that pursuit includes not only following truth, but truth-telling: exposing that which is false or secretive to community discernment.” (Dr. Margaret Aymer Commentary on 2nd Reading, http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx)
Silence in the face of evil is not pleasing to the Lord. Allowing any kind of darkness, any kind of hatred, any kind of evil to exist without speaking and acting against it is not pleasing to the Lord. In fact, when we stand silently by, when we say nothing in the face of evil, we ourselves are engaging in evil. We ourselves are living in the dark instead of living in the light. It is not enough to turn our back on the evil doer. It is necessary that we speak out against their actions. Especially when that evil doer is one of our own community – one of the body of Christ. Now we can say “Well, that guy who burned the Qur’an and that guy who shows up with his “God hates Fags” signs at military funerals, they’re not really Christian. If they were really Christian they’d act differently. They would get the whole concept of loving your neighbor.” But I say that if we simply turn our back, if we simply pretend that they are not one of us, if we don’t speak the truth in opposition to their behaviors we are allowing everyone else to believe we feel the same way they do.
However, if we are to be children of the light, the one thing we cannot do is to treat them hatefully, the way they treat others. Even the harbingers of hate must be treated with love. They are also children of God, our neighbors, whom we are commanded to love and to forgive. We can speak about how Christ calls us to act without speaking evil about others. We can pray for God to open their hearts, we can condemn their acts, but somehow we must love the persons. That would be living in the light – and that would be very hard.
Vienna Presbyterian Church in Virginia is moving from darkness to light. In 2005 their youth director was fired after being found guilty of sexually abusing a young girl in the church. Other girls came forward but the congregation didn’t want to know. They sort of blamed the victims and wanted to just let the whole thing go away quietly. So it festered quietly. In 2008 a new associate pastor was called who realized that light had to be shed on this evil in order for the church to heal. The church formed an abuse outreach ministry, the young women are receiving help and last year were finally able to tell their stories to the congregation. Last week Pastor Peter James stood before the congregation and preached the story of “the darkness that had been eating away at the church for nearly six years,” publicly apologizing to the young women sitting together in the back row of the church. Associate Pastor Jordan-Haas said “We really seek to change, institutionally and relationally, and that comes at a cost. There is still something hopeful here, and that brings me great relief. It is good when we bring darkness into the light.” (Josh White, “Vienna Presbyterian Church seeks forgiveness and redemption in wake of abuse scandal” The Washington Post April 2 )
It is good when we bring darkness into the light.
In our prayer this morning we asked God to “Open our eyes to Christ’s living presence.”
Christ is present when members of a church choose to “act differently: to tell the truth, to push for justice, to uphold goodness regardless of the norms of the society at large.” (Dr. Margaret Aymer Commentary on 2nd Reading, http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx)
Christ is present when we seek to shine the light of God into the darkness.
When Christ is present we can see clearly, we can stand and speak light into the dark.
Let us ask our Lord to open our eyes to Christ’s presence, that we may see.
8 For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light— 9 for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true. 10 Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord. 11 Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. 12 For it is shameful even to mention what such people do secretly; 13 but everything exposed by the light becomes visible, 14 for everything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, "Sleeper, awake! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you."
By this time of year many of the folks in the northern hemisphere are feeling as if winter will never end. It’s grey and gloomy outside and it seems as if spring will never arrive. Likewise by this time in Lent when so many of us are engaged in soul searching and self examination we may be feeling a little low and wondering why Easter is taking so long to arrive. So as I pondered the various passages offered by the lectionary for this fourth Sunday in Lent I was struck by the imagery of light and dark in this passage in Ephesians. “For once you were darkness but now in the Lord you are light.”
Darkness. The Dark Side. We all know Dark is used as a metaphor for all the less desirable character traits, things like hatred, anger, greed and violence. We use it to describe fictional villains and real ones; black hatted cowboys, vampires, Darth Vader and Charles Manson. Dark is cold. It is the home of spooky shadows, mold, evil plots, secrets and conspiracies. Many children are afraid of the dark and even though we tell them there’s nothing to be afraid of, most of us are quick to turn on a light when we enter a room. We don’t like the dark very much.
And then there is Light. Light is more than simply the opposite of the Dark. Light is everything that is warm and good and pure. When light shines the dark is chased away, evil is defeated. Vampires are destroyed, lies are exposed, ugliness is seen for what it truly is, children are comforted. Light is Luke Skywalker and Saint George the Dragon Slayer and Roy Rogers and Mother Theresa. Light is truth and justice and love, all the good things, all the blessings of life. We love the light.
People who live in the light see the world differently. It’s way beyond glass half empty or half full. It’s looking for the good in situations, not the potential for trouble. It’s trusting. It’s deciding the world is a good place and behaving as if you believe that to be true. People who live in the light are willing to shine their light into the darkness, to stand up against evil and speak out for the right. People who live in the light live in God’s kingdom.
Paul say to the church in Ephesus, “Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord.” We may not always be able to do that well, but we can usually figure out what is not pleasing to God.
You all know that I watch the news a lot. I watch for a couple of hours in the morning and then for another hour or two after dinner. When I can stay awake long enough I end the day checking out what the Comedy Channel does with whatever the rest of the media is reporting on. And yet somehow I entirely missed that Terry Jones, pastor of a small congregation in Florida, presided over a group of some 30 people who burned a copy of the Qur’an two weeks ago. You might remember that the last time Pastor Jones was in the news was just before September 11th, when he was threatening to burn a whole stack of Qur’ans. The president condemned this recent action and many Christian and interfaith groups in the US spoke out publicly against it.
I’m quite sure that treating any other person or group of people with complete disrespect and hate-filled speech is not pleasing to the Lord. Jesus said “Love your neighbor” not “mistreat your neighbor”. Even if you are sufficiently ill-informed as to believe that all of Islam is the enemy – which it isn’t - Jesus also said “love your enemy.”
I suppose I can be excused for not noticing the Qur’an burning at first. It didn’t get a lot of press in the US, what with the political budget stuff here and the earthquake and tsunami and nuclear plant problems in Japan and anti-government demonstrations in North Africa and the Middle East and a new war starting and all. We’ve had some really busy news cycles and I guess the media thought that since only 30 folks showed up and there were no demonstrators present maybe it could just sort of slide under the radar. Unfortunately, the rest of the world was paying attention. Particularly the parts of the world where they believe that America as a nation is anti-Islam. People in those parts of the world held demonstrations to let us know they were displeased. Things turned ugly in Afghanistan. Seven people were killed at a United Nations office building. According to the Associated press: several hundred demonstrators were peacefully protesting the purported [Qur’an] burning when the gathering suddenly turned violent. This violence in response to a hateful act is also not pleasing to the Lord.
I was blessed to meet Noor-Malika Chisti, a Vice President of the Southern California Committee for a Parliament of World Religions and a member of the World Council of Muslims for Interfaith Relations at the Interfaith Peace March in Pomona last September. On Saturday Noor-Malika had this to say in response to that violence: The Prophet Mohammad, peace upon him, gave us the example of how to respond to ignorant and hateful language: show them something better. The killings of United Nations workers in Afghanistan by those who were protesting the burning of the Qur’an by Terry Jones is NOT what was modeled for us, nor taught to us in the Qur'an.
According to Dr. Margaret Aymer of Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta, Paul is urging the church in Ephesus “to set boundaries and ethics for life together as a community of faith, boundaries that call community members to pursue goodness, justice (or righteousness) and truth. Part of that pursuit includes not only following truth, but truth-telling: exposing that which is false or secretive to community discernment.” (Dr. Margaret Aymer Commentary on 2nd Reading, http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx)
Silence in the face of evil is not pleasing to the Lord. Allowing any kind of darkness, any kind of hatred, any kind of evil to exist without speaking and acting against it is not pleasing to the Lord. In fact, when we stand silently by, when we say nothing in the face of evil, we ourselves are engaging in evil. We ourselves are living in the dark instead of living in the light. It is not enough to turn our back on the evil doer. It is necessary that we speak out against their actions. Especially when that evil doer is one of our own community – one of the body of Christ. Now we can say “Well, that guy who burned the Qur’an and that guy who shows up with his “God hates Fags” signs at military funerals, they’re not really Christian. If they were really Christian they’d act differently. They would get the whole concept of loving your neighbor.” But I say that if we simply turn our back, if we simply pretend that they are not one of us, if we don’t speak the truth in opposition to their behaviors we are allowing everyone else to believe we feel the same way they do.
However, if we are to be children of the light, the one thing we cannot do is to treat them hatefully, the way they treat others. Even the harbingers of hate must be treated with love. They are also children of God, our neighbors, whom we are commanded to love and to forgive. We can speak about how Christ calls us to act without speaking evil about others. We can pray for God to open their hearts, we can condemn their acts, but somehow we must love the persons. That would be living in the light – and that would be very hard.
Vienna Presbyterian Church in Virginia is moving from darkness to light. In 2005 their youth director was fired after being found guilty of sexually abusing a young girl in the church. Other girls came forward but the congregation didn’t want to know. They sort of blamed the victims and wanted to just let the whole thing go away quietly. So it festered quietly. In 2008 a new associate pastor was called who realized that light had to be shed on this evil in order for the church to heal. The church formed an abuse outreach ministry, the young women are receiving help and last year were finally able to tell their stories to the congregation. Last week Pastor Peter James stood before the congregation and preached the story of “the darkness that had been eating away at the church for nearly six years,” publicly apologizing to the young women sitting together in the back row of the church. Associate Pastor Jordan-Haas said “We really seek to change, institutionally and relationally, and that comes at a cost. There is still something hopeful here, and that brings me great relief. It is good when we bring darkness into the light.” (Josh White, “Vienna Presbyterian Church seeks forgiveness and redemption in wake of abuse scandal” The Washington Post April 2 )
It is good when we bring darkness into the light.
In our prayer this morning we asked God to “Open our eyes to Christ’s living presence.”
Christ is present when members of a church choose to “act differently: to tell the truth, to push for justice, to uphold goodness regardless of the norms of the society at large.” (Dr. Margaret Aymer Commentary on 2nd Reading, http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx)
Christ is present when we seek to shine the light of God into the darkness.
When Christ is present we can see clearly, we can stand and speak light into the dark.
Let us ask our Lord to open our eyes to Christ’s presence, that we may see.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
How Can This Be? John 3:1-17
John 3:1-17
Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. 2 He came to Jesus by night and said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God." 3 Jesus answered him, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above." 4 Nicodemus said to him, "How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?" 5 Jesus answered, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. 6 What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not be astonished that I said to you, "You must be born from above.' 8 The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." 9 Nicodemus said to him, "How can these things be?" 10 Jesus answered him, "Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things? 11 "Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. 12 If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. 14 And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. 16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. 17 "Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
This is Founders Day weekend. Friday and Saturday Chapman University hosted hundreds of Disciples and United Church of Christ folks and others who came to hear the words of Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong, Disciples historian Newell Williams, the great preacher Alvin Jackson and the very popular writer of spirituality Anne Lamotte. We enjoyed so much music, from an hour long concert by the Chapman Choir to wonderful performances in worship by the a cappella group Sound Check to a solo performance on marimba by Chapman student Soyon Cheon to Paul Svenson and the PSWR Regional Celebration Band. We got to catch up with folks we don’t see very often, congratulate friends on recent accomplishments, mingle with students and faculty from our Disciples related university and meet the new Dean of the Chapel. We celebrated the fact that the United Church of Christ is now also in an official covenant relationship with Chapman. This year we celebrated the 150 year anniversary of Disciples educational heritage culminating in what we now know as Chapman University. We came together to do what Disciples do – to learn and to teach and to sing and to share the love of our Lord with one another at the Table.
I am a Disciple, a member of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). I’m not a Disciple by virtue of having been brought up that way, like many of you, but because after having rejected church and the theology that I was taught in the church of my youth for 25 years I came to understand that I needed church. After 25 years of hating church and church people and reading the Bible in order to find ammunition to use against Christians, I discovered that I needed to become part of a community of people who believed in the god of love and compassion I had come to believe in. At the same time that I came to understand that, the pastor of a Disciples congregation came into my life. She prayed with me and comforted me and gave me assurance that I was welcome. She told me about the Disciples commitment to education, about the Disciples strong belief that each of us can and must read and study and come to understand scripture ourselves. I didn’t have to accept what the preacher said unquestioningly. I didn’t have to believe the Bible was handwritten by God. She told me that there is no creed I had to claim belief in before I could be accepted into a Disciples congregation. I didn’t have to believe exactly what everyone else here believed. She told me about Disciples congregations being congregational with no hierarchy to answer to, and weekly communion and believers baptism. She told me about the priesthood of all believers – that all Disciples are equally ministers of the Good News of Jesus Christ, that lay folks taught Bible studies and presided at the Table and took communion to shut-ins. I listened to all this and thought to myself, “Wow. Really? I can disagree with the preacher and the Bible study teacher? There’s no pope or cardinal or priest or nun to tell me what I have to think and believe? I like this place.” And so I started to show up. And the more I showed up the more I liked what I was learning. Before long I realized that God was speaking to me, that I was being called to the ministry. A year or so later I moved from South Florida to Southern California to attend Chapman University where I fell in love with learning. Perhaps the most important thing I learned at Chapman is that everything I know is subject to change. Sometimes I would hear something that flew in the face of everything I knew and believed, and I would say, “How can this be?”
That’s where Nicodemus found himself in that night. He was an educated man, a Pharisee, a leader of the Jews. He knew Torah backwards and forwards, he knew his theology, he knew the history of his people, he knew the stormy story of their relationship with God. He knew as much about how the world works as anyone could at that time. He’d been hearing what Jesus preached and it was not what he was used to. Jesus was known for preaching the opposite of what popular wisdom claimed. And yet, what he was saying sounded true. He came to Jesus for clarification. We’re told he came at night and most interpret that to mean he was trying to hide his interest. I’m not quite convinced of that. It’s possible of course. Nicodemus was a prominent leader and a respected teacher. He may not have wanted his colleagues to know he was leaning toward what this man from Galilee was preaching. He may have come at night in order to keep from being seen. But night time was also the time when the crowds were gone. Fewer people were around Jesus at that time. He might more reasonably hope to get to talk to Jesus one on one at night.
So he asked his questions. “"How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?" 5 Jesus answered, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. 6 What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not be astonished that I said to you, "You must be born from above.' 8 The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit."
This is where we get the belief that only people who are baptized are going to go to heaven. “no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.” When we read scripture carefully, putting aside as much as possible everything we have been brought up to believe about what it says, we can come to realize, like Nicodemus did, that what Jesus is saying is not what we are used to hearing. We have to understand that our understanding of heaven is not the same thing as the kingdom of God. Throughout his ministry, Jesus was teaching about bringing God’s kingdom into existence on earth, so that the world would become a place where all persons are treated equally under the law, where folks with no one to look out for them would be cared for, where wars of conquest and oppression simply didn’t happen, where governments and the wealthy would care more about the people of the land than about their own power and comfort. It sounds like heaven, and it sounds a bit unrealistic. But it is what Jesus preached. “If you all will just do the things that God really directs you to do, if you will just love one another as much as you are loved. this is what the world will be like. If you do these things, if you follow the teachings I am giving you, you will bring about and live in the kingdom of God. But first you must repent of the way you are living, you must let the winds of change in and become a new person. In essence, you must be born again.” Baptism in Jesus’ time was not a symbol of membership in that exclusive club known as Christianity. There was no Christianity yet. Baptism was the act by which a person publicly demonstrated her willingness to give up her sins and character defects and her old way of living in order to embrace the Spirit of God and become a new person in God’s sight.
When people have come up to me, you know, those folks who show up at the front door and ask “Have you been born again?”, frankly, I’ve never quite known how to answer them. Did I suddenly one day have a conversion experience that somehow can distinguish my lifelong Christianity into a new and different life in Christ? No. Have I been re-baptized to start over again? No. I’ve been taught that isn’t necessary, that I only have to be baptized once even though that happened when I was a baby. But – am I different today in what I believe about God and Christ and Church and how to live? Yes. Radically different. It didn’t happen all at once. It is a product of being willing to hear new things I don’t like with an open mind. It is a product of continuing to read and study and talk about scripture and history and other people’s ideas about what it might mean. It comes from learning more about myself, what my strengths and weaknesses are and a willingness to make changes in myself in order to be able to help bring about that kingdom Jesus kept preaching. And to do that openly, as the penitents in Jesus’ day did when they went to the Jordan river to receive the waters of repentance. The more I study and learn, the more my faith, my understanding of God and Jesus and theology and liturgy and dogma and all those other things keeps changing. That’s the biggest reason why I can’t use the same sermons I used last time these lectionary selections came around. I might not necessarily still believe exactly the same way I did when I preached them before.
In one of his three lectures on Friday, Bishop John Shelby Spong suggested that instead of asking people to be born again that they might be as children, we should be calling them into maturity. I believe that is what we see Jesus doing here with Nicodemus. He said, “"Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things? 11 "Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony.” Jesus is saying to Nicodemus, “Grow up! Move past what you think you know and learn these new things that we are teaching.” While I was a student at Chapman I took a class on the Book of Revelation. On the first day of class then Dean of the Chapel Dr. Ron Farmer told us that both Martin Luther and John Calvin had wanted to leave this book out of the newly translated Bible. He began to discuss it as metaphor rather than as literal truth and one young man became very upset. He was expecting to be in a class where he would be taught about the absolute truth and accuracy of the prophecies it contained. He didn’t want to know about the history or the culture in which it was written. He didn’t want to know about the controversies that swirled around even including it in the first place or about other apocalyptic books that were left out of the Bible. He was unwilling to hear anything other than what he already believed, so he got up and walked out and never came back. It seems to me that young man made a choice that day to remain as a child in his understanding rather than taking the daring step of learning new things that might just help him grow in his faith.
We know that Nicodemus was changed by what he heard Jesus say. He stood up at Jesus’ trial in the Sanhedrin to protest what they were doing. He helped to prepare Jesus for the tomb after his crucifixion. He heard something new, questioned it, struggled with it, and eventually embraced it. He allowed the Spirit of God to change his heart and his mind. Let us commit to doing the same, to allowing the Spirit of God lead us in new directions even as Nicodemus and all the other disciples of Christ were led to new and greater understandings of what God desires of us. Let us move deeper into maturity in our faith. Let us turn to our Lord and say, “have thine own way, Lord.”
Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. 2 He came to Jesus by night and said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God." 3 Jesus answered him, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above." 4 Nicodemus said to him, "How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?" 5 Jesus answered, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. 6 What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not be astonished that I said to you, "You must be born from above.' 8 The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." 9 Nicodemus said to him, "How can these things be?" 10 Jesus answered him, "Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things? 11 "Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. 12 If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. 14 And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. 16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. 17 "Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
This is Founders Day weekend. Friday and Saturday Chapman University hosted hundreds of Disciples and United Church of Christ folks and others who came to hear the words of Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong, Disciples historian Newell Williams, the great preacher Alvin Jackson and the very popular writer of spirituality Anne Lamotte. We enjoyed so much music, from an hour long concert by the Chapman Choir to wonderful performances in worship by the a cappella group Sound Check to a solo performance on marimba by Chapman student Soyon Cheon to Paul Svenson and the PSWR Regional Celebration Band. We got to catch up with folks we don’t see very often, congratulate friends on recent accomplishments, mingle with students and faculty from our Disciples related university and meet the new Dean of the Chapel. We celebrated the fact that the United Church of Christ is now also in an official covenant relationship with Chapman. This year we celebrated the 150 year anniversary of Disciples educational heritage culminating in what we now know as Chapman University. We came together to do what Disciples do – to learn and to teach and to sing and to share the love of our Lord with one another at the Table.
I am a Disciple, a member of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). I’m not a Disciple by virtue of having been brought up that way, like many of you, but because after having rejected church and the theology that I was taught in the church of my youth for 25 years I came to understand that I needed church. After 25 years of hating church and church people and reading the Bible in order to find ammunition to use against Christians, I discovered that I needed to become part of a community of people who believed in the god of love and compassion I had come to believe in. At the same time that I came to understand that, the pastor of a Disciples congregation came into my life. She prayed with me and comforted me and gave me assurance that I was welcome. She told me about the Disciples commitment to education, about the Disciples strong belief that each of us can and must read and study and come to understand scripture ourselves. I didn’t have to accept what the preacher said unquestioningly. I didn’t have to believe the Bible was handwritten by God. She told me that there is no creed I had to claim belief in before I could be accepted into a Disciples congregation. I didn’t have to believe exactly what everyone else here believed. She told me about Disciples congregations being congregational with no hierarchy to answer to, and weekly communion and believers baptism. She told me about the priesthood of all believers – that all Disciples are equally ministers of the Good News of Jesus Christ, that lay folks taught Bible studies and presided at the Table and took communion to shut-ins. I listened to all this and thought to myself, “Wow. Really? I can disagree with the preacher and the Bible study teacher? There’s no pope or cardinal or priest or nun to tell me what I have to think and believe? I like this place.” And so I started to show up. And the more I showed up the more I liked what I was learning. Before long I realized that God was speaking to me, that I was being called to the ministry. A year or so later I moved from South Florida to Southern California to attend Chapman University where I fell in love with learning. Perhaps the most important thing I learned at Chapman is that everything I know is subject to change. Sometimes I would hear something that flew in the face of everything I knew and believed, and I would say, “How can this be?”
That’s where Nicodemus found himself in that night. He was an educated man, a Pharisee, a leader of the Jews. He knew Torah backwards and forwards, he knew his theology, he knew the history of his people, he knew the stormy story of their relationship with God. He knew as much about how the world works as anyone could at that time. He’d been hearing what Jesus preached and it was not what he was used to. Jesus was known for preaching the opposite of what popular wisdom claimed. And yet, what he was saying sounded true. He came to Jesus for clarification. We’re told he came at night and most interpret that to mean he was trying to hide his interest. I’m not quite convinced of that. It’s possible of course. Nicodemus was a prominent leader and a respected teacher. He may not have wanted his colleagues to know he was leaning toward what this man from Galilee was preaching. He may have come at night in order to keep from being seen. But night time was also the time when the crowds were gone. Fewer people were around Jesus at that time. He might more reasonably hope to get to talk to Jesus one on one at night.
So he asked his questions. “"How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?" 5 Jesus answered, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. 6 What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not be astonished that I said to you, "You must be born from above.' 8 The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit."
This is where we get the belief that only people who are baptized are going to go to heaven. “no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.” When we read scripture carefully, putting aside as much as possible everything we have been brought up to believe about what it says, we can come to realize, like Nicodemus did, that what Jesus is saying is not what we are used to hearing. We have to understand that our understanding of heaven is not the same thing as the kingdom of God. Throughout his ministry, Jesus was teaching about bringing God’s kingdom into existence on earth, so that the world would become a place where all persons are treated equally under the law, where folks with no one to look out for them would be cared for, where wars of conquest and oppression simply didn’t happen, where governments and the wealthy would care more about the people of the land than about their own power and comfort. It sounds like heaven, and it sounds a bit unrealistic. But it is what Jesus preached. “If you all will just do the things that God really directs you to do, if you will just love one another as much as you are loved. this is what the world will be like. If you do these things, if you follow the teachings I am giving you, you will bring about and live in the kingdom of God. But first you must repent of the way you are living, you must let the winds of change in and become a new person. In essence, you must be born again.” Baptism in Jesus’ time was not a symbol of membership in that exclusive club known as Christianity. There was no Christianity yet. Baptism was the act by which a person publicly demonstrated her willingness to give up her sins and character defects and her old way of living in order to embrace the Spirit of God and become a new person in God’s sight.
When people have come up to me, you know, those folks who show up at the front door and ask “Have you been born again?”, frankly, I’ve never quite known how to answer them. Did I suddenly one day have a conversion experience that somehow can distinguish my lifelong Christianity into a new and different life in Christ? No. Have I been re-baptized to start over again? No. I’ve been taught that isn’t necessary, that I only have to be baptized once even though that happened when I was a baby. But – am I different today in what I believe about God and Christ and Church and how to live? Yes. Radically different. It didn’t happen all at once. It is a product of being willing to hear new things I don’t like with an open mind. It is a product of continuing to read and study and talk about scripture and history and other people’s ideas about what it might mean. It comes from learning more about myself, what my strengths and weaknesses are and a willingness to make changes in myself in order to be able to help bring about that kingdom Jesus kept preaching. And to do that openly, as the penitents in Jesus’ day did when they went to the Jordan river to receive the waters of repentance. The more I study and learn, the more my faith, my understanding of God and Jesus and theology and liturgy and dogma and all those other things keeps changing. That’s the biggest reason why I can’t use the same sermons I used last time these lectionary selections came around. I might not necessarily still believe exactly the same way I did when I preached them before.
In one of his three lectures on Friday, Bishop John Shelby Spong suggested that instead of asking people to be born again that they might be as children, we should be calling them into maturity. I believe that is what we see Jesus doing here with Nicodemus. He said, “"Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things? 11 "Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony.” Jesus is saying to Nicodemus, “Grow up! Move past what you think you know and learn these new things that we are teaching.” While I was a student at Chapman I took a class on the Book of Revelation. On the first day of class then Dean of the Chapel Dr. Ron Farmer told us that both Martin Luther and John Calvin had wanted to leave this book out of the newly translated Bible. He began to discuss it as metaphor rather than as literal truth and one young man became very upset. He was expecting to be in a class where he would be taught about the absolute truth and accuracy of the prophecies it contained. He didn’t want to know about the history or the culture in which it was written. He didn’t want to know about the controversies that swirled around even including it in the first place or about other apocalyptic books that were left out of the Bible. He was unwilling to hear anything other than what he already believed, so he got up and walked out and never came back. It seems to me that young man made a choice that day to remain as a child in his understanding rather than taking the daring step of learning new things that might just help him grow in his faith.
We know that Nicodemus was changed by what he heard Jesus say. He stood up at Jesus’ trial in the Sanhedrin to protest what they were doing. He helped to prepare Jesus for the tomb after his crucifixion. He heard something new, questioned it, struggled with it, and eventually embraced it. He allowed the Spirit of God to change his heart and his mind. Let us commit to doing the same, to allowing the Spirit of God lead us in new directions even as Nicodemus and all the other disciples of Christ were led to new and greater understandings of what God desires of us. Let us move deeper into maturity in our faith. Let us turn to our Lord and say, “have thine own way, Lord.”
Tuesday, March 08, 2011
Change is Good
Matthew 17:1-9
1 Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. 2 And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. 3 Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. 4 Then Peter said to Jesus, "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." 5 While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, "This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!" 6 When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. 7 But Jesus came and touched them, saying, "Get up and do not be afraid." 8 And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone. 9 As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, "Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead."
Can you imagine being on that mountaintop and seeing your teacher suddenly transfigured? “his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white.” And then to have two of the greatest leaders of your religion appear. “Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him.” Naturally, you would offer to get them whatever you could to make them comfortable. Um – hey, we can get you some tents so you can be sheltered from the night cold. And then you hear God’s voice – at least, you hear a voice speaking from behind a bright cloud. Who else could it be but God? Of course they were overcome by fear! It’s pretty easy to see that would be more than happy to comply when Jesus said “Don’t tell anyone.” They may not have even registered the “until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead” part until much later.
Transfigured and meeting with Moses and Elijah. Wow. Moses. Chosen by God to help the Hebrews escape from their slavery in Egypt. With God’s direction and help he performed wonders – his staff turned into a snake, the sea was parted, the rock split and produced sweet water. He returned the Hebrews to worship of the One God, Yahweh, after generations of worshipping idols and false gods. He brought them the Law and he led them back to the land God had promised to Abraham.
And Elijah. The last of the priests of Yahweh in a time of great persecution under King Ahaz and Queen Jezebel. Chosen by God to lead the Hebrews back to his worship. With God’s direction he performed wonders – lit the sacrificial fire when it was completely water soaked just by asking God to do so after the 400 priests of Baal had been unable to light their own. Brought the widow’s son back to life. Blessed her containers of flour and oil so they would never get empty. Was instrumental in the overthrow and death of the persecutors and the liberation of the people. Returned the Hebrews to the worship of the One God, Yahweh, after generations of their kings had turned away from God.
Moses and Elijah transformed the people of Israel. Both of these great leaders liberated their people from actual slavery and from the worship of false gods. Both brought their people back to the worship of the One God, Yahweh, after generations of following false gods. They were great prophets and miracle workers and Jesus is standing in their company. Wow. I can’t even imagine what that must have been like for the disciples who were present that night. And I’m sure they talked about it among themselves, wondering just what this really meant. It surely made them more certain than ever that Jesus was the promised messiah. I wonder though, if they thought about what false gods Jesus might have been leading the people away from.
We know, but then, we have the advantage of nearly 2,000 of scholars and theologians figuring it out for us. When right adherence to the law became more important than the God who gave the law it became a false God. When perfect performance of ritual became more important than the God those rituals were designed to worship, the ritual became a false god. Jesus liberated the people from slavery to and worship of book and ritual, away from the false belief that they were the only ones God loved. Jesus was leading the people away from the false god of law and ritual and back to worship of the One God, Yahweh.
As many of you know I spent a lot of time with other clergy folks this week. Monday was my quarterly clergy renewal day at Disneyland with two other clergywomen. Wednesday I had lunch with Disciples clergy from Pomona, Hemet, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ontario. Both groups were talking about folks who think being Christian is just about showing up on Sunday morning. We know that this is the mindset that efforts like New Beginnings and New Church and all the very popular “missional church” programs are trying to eliminate. We complained about people who think they’re supposed to be entertained at worship which causes the folks planning and leading the service to hope that a little “edu-tainment” will be taking place. And we followed that conversation with a conversation about how to make Sunday worship more attractive, how to make Powerpoint presentations more interesting and how to dress up the outside of the building so more people will want to come inside. Does anyone else see the irony in the order of these topics?
It is good when worship can be uplifting and moving and emotionally satisfying. When we leave saying “I really felt spirit filled today.” As long as we understand that what lifts you up might not do anything for me or for the person in the next pew. And it’s important to understand that there is no special attraction to trying a different style of worship just because it works someplace else. Sometimes it feels like we worship the act of worship, the rituals and traditions and music, rather than worshipping God.
What we’re supposed to be doing here is not having a great emotionally uplifting experience, although that is always a plus. What is supposed to be happening here is 1) GOD is worshipped with all our devotion and 2) we are transformed. Not just made to feel good for the moment, but made to be different, to behave differently. To go out from this place as new people, each one of us priest and missionary to the world.
At this time of year in places like New Orleans and Rio de Janeiro we have a really graphic example of what our transformation could look like. Right now it is Mardi Gras, it is time for Carnivale! Mardi Gras and Carnivale celebrations are time to engage in being self-indulgent. It is a time when to eat, drink and be merry is expected, even condoned by the church in those places. Floats and dancers with feathery, sparkly costumes fill the streets. There are feasts and parties. The bars are filled with local celebrants and tourists. But when the church bells toll midnight on Tuesday things change immediately! The beads and masks are put away – the streets are transformed from a place to party to a place of penance. At midnight the partiers leave and the penitents come out - in many cases they are the very same people. The dancers put away their costumes, the drinkers put away their glasses, and they parade the streets barefoot and praying. Some carry crosses. Some whip themselves until their backs and legs are bloody. Some simply walk and pray, asking God’s forgiveness for the sins they have committed throughout the past year. At dawn they will congregate at the churches, accepting their ashes. Committing themselves to atonement and change in year to come.
Lent is a time for soul searching and transformation. It is the time when candidates for baptism looked within themselves for character flaws, for sins they regularly committed without even realizing they were doing wrong.
And let us be clear about what baptism is about. It is not a miraculous bath that changes someone’s character. It is not that ritual without which one cannot get into heaven. It is an act of commitment on the part of the candidate to change, to follow Christ, to devote his life to being the person God created him to be.
Even if we personally were not baptized at Easter, Lent is still a time to revisit that time of preparation for our own baptism. It is a time to give up luxuries and add spiritual practices. It is a time to get to know the person we are and strive to become the person God wants us to be. It is a time to become new in Christ, even as we did at our baptisms. It is time to prepare ourselves again even as we did for our baptism, with soul searching and coming to understand just exactly what we are giving up to be Christian. Not just chocolate or fast food or Kindle books. But self-indulgence of all kinds, anger, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, gluttony. It is a time to ask God to help us replace those sins with virtues – replacing greed with generosity, gluttony with moderation, pride with humility, and so on.
Lent is a time to put aside a bit of time every day to spend in introspection, seeking those sins and character flaws and asking God to transform us, to replace them with something better, more Christlike. It is a time when we engage even more than usual in prayer and acts of giving. We may even find a new spiritual practice, some way to focus our minds and hearts on God and on our prayer life. For example, while on Sabbath Leave I discovered coloring books filled with mandalas similar to the one above titled Transfiguration. The act of coloring while focusing the meaning on the design brought calm and healing to my heart. Lent is a time to seek change, for change is good. As we each work to change ourselves, we also change the people we touch and the world around us, bringing them closer to God’s kingdom of love and justice.
God said, “This is my Son, my beloved. With him I am well pleased, listen to him!” So let us do what he says. Let us be changed by his words even as he is changed on this mountaintop. Let us ask him to transform us.
1 Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. 2 And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. 3 Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. 4 Then Peter said to Jesus, "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." 5 While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, "This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!" 6 When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. 7 But Jesus came and touched them, saying, "Get up and do not be afraid." 8 And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone. 9 As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, "Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead."
Can you imagine being on that mountaintop and seeing your teacher suddenly transfigured? “his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white.” And then to have two of the greatest leaders of your religion appear. “Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him.” Naturally, you would offer to get them whatever you could to make them comfortable. Um – hey, we can get you some tents so you can be sheltered from the night cold. And then you hear God’s voice – at least, you hear a voice speaking from behind a bright cloud. Who else could it be but God? Of course they were overcome by fear! It’s pretty easy to see that would be more than happy to comply when Jesus said “Don’t tell anyone.” They may not have even registered the “until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead” part until much later.
Transfigured and meeting with Moses and Elijah. Wow. Moses. Chosen by God to help the Hebrews escape from their slavery in Egypt. With God’s direction and help he performed wonders – his staff turned into a snake, the sea was parted, the rock split and produced sweet water. He returned the Hebrews to worship of the One God, Yahweh, after generations of worshipping idols and false gods. He brought them the Law and he led them back to the land God had promised to Abraham.
And Elijah. The last of the priests of Yahweh in a time of great persecution under King Ahaz and Queen Jezebel. Chosen by God to lead the Hebrews back to his worship. With God’s direction he performed wonders – lit the sacrificial fire when it was completely water soaked just by asking God to do so after the 400 priests of Baal had been unable to light their own. Brought the widow’s son back to life. Blessed her containers of flour and oil so they would never get empty. Was instrumental in the overthrow and death of the persecutors and the liberation of the people. Returned the Hebrews to the worship of the One God, Yahweh, after generations of their kings had turned away from God.
Moses and Elijah transformed the people of Israel. Both of these great leaders liberated their people from actual slavery and from the worship of false gods. Both brought their people back to the worship of the One God, Yahweh, after generations of following false gods. They were great prophets and miracle workers and Jesus is standing in their company. Wow. I can’t even imagine what that must have been like for the disciples who were present that night. And I’m sure they talked about it among themselves, wondering just what this really meant. It surely made them more certain than ever that Jesus was the promised messiah. I wonder though, if they thought about what false gods Jesus might have been leading the people away from.
We know, but then, we have the advantage of nearly 2,000 of scholars and theologians figuring it out for us. When right adherence to the law became more important than the God who gave the law it became a false God. When perfect performance of ritual became more important than the God those rituals were designed to worship, the ritual became a false god. Jesus liberated the people from slavery to and worship of book and ritual, away from the false belief that they were the only ones God loved. Jesus was leading the people away from the false god of law and ritual and back to worship of the One God, Yahweh.
As many of you know I spent a lot of time with other clergy folks this week. Monday was my quarterly clergy renewal day at Disneyland with two other clergywomen. Wednesday I had lunch with Disciples clergy from Pomona, Hemet, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ontario. Both groups were talking about folks who think being Christian is just about showing up on Sunday morning. We know that this is the mindset that efforts like New Beginnings and New Church and all the very popular “missional church” programs are trying to eliminate. We complained about people who think they’re supposed to be entertained at worship which causes the folks planning and leading the service to hope that a little “edu-tainment” will be taking place. And we followed that conversation with a conversation about how to make Sunday worship more attractive, how to make Powerpoint presentations more interesting and how to dress up the outside of the building so more people will want to come inside. Does anyone else see the irony in the order of these topics?
It is good when worship can be uplifting and moving and emotionally satisfying. When we leave saying “I really felt spirit filled today.” As long as we understand that what lifts you up might not do anything for me or for the person in the next pew. And it’s important to understand that there is no special attraction to trying a different style of worship just because it works someplace else. Sometimes it feels like we worship the act of worship, the rituals and traditions and music, rather than worshipping God.
What we’re supposed to be doing here is not having a great emotionally uplifting experience, although that is always a plus. What is supposed to be happening here is 1) GOD is worshipped with all our devotion and 2) we are transformed. Not just made to feel good for the moment, but made to be different, to behave differently. To go out from this place as new people, each one of us priest and missionary to the world.
At this time of year in places like New Orleans and Rio de Janeiro we have a really graphic example of what our transformation could look like. Right now it is Mardi Gras, it is time for Carnivale! Mardi Gras and Carnivale celebrations are time to engage in being self-indulgent. It is a time when to eat, drink and be merry is expected, even condoned by the church in those places. Floats and dancers with feathery, sparkly costumes fill the streets. There are feasts and parties. The bars are filled with local celebrants and tourists. But when the church bells toll midnight on Tuesday things change immediately! The beads and masks are put away – the streets are transformed from a place to party to a place of penance. At midnight the partiers leave and the penitents come out - in many cases they are the very same people. The dancers put away their costumes, the drinkers put away their glasses, and they parade the streets barefoot and praying. Some carry crosses. Some whip themselves until their backs and legs are bloody. Some simply walk and pray, asking God’s forgiveness for the sins they have committed throughout the past year. At dawn they will congregate at the churches, accepting their ashes. Committing themselves to atonement and change in year to come.
Lent is a time for soul searching and transformation. It is the time when candidates for baptism looked within themselves for character flaws, for sins they regularly committed without even realizing they were doing wrong.
And let us be clear about what baptism is about. It is not a miraculous bath that changes someone’s character. It is not that ritual without which one cannot get into heaven. It is an act of commitment on the part of the candidate to change, to follow Christ, to devote his life to being the person God created him to be.
Even if we personally were not baptized at Easter, Lent is still a time to revisit that time of preparation for our own baptism. It is a time to give up luxuries and add spiritual practices. It is a time to get to know the person we are and strive to become the person God wants us to be. It is a time to become new in Christ, even as we did at our baptisms. It is time to prepare ourselves again even as we did for our baptism, with soul searching and coming to understand just exactly what we are giving up to be Christian. Not just chocolate or fast food or Kindle books. But self-indulgence of all kinds, anger, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, gluttony. It is a time to ask God to help us replace those sins with virtues – replacing greed with generosity, gluttony with moderation, pride with humility, and so on.
Lent is a time to put aside a bit of time every day to spend in introspection, seeking those sins and character flaws and asking God to transform us, to replace them with something better, more Christlike. It is a time when we engage even more than usual in prayer and acts of giving. We may even find a new spiritual practice, some way to focus our minds and hearts on God and on our prayer life. For example, while on Sabbath Leave I discovered coloring books filled with mandalas similar to the one above titled Transfiguration. The act of coloring while focusing the meaning on the design brought calm and healing to my heart. Lent is a time to seek change, for change is good. As we each work to change ourselves, we also change the people we touch and the world around us, bringing them closer to God’s kingdom of love and justice.
God said, “This is my Son, my beloved. With him I am well pleased, listen to him!” So let us do what he says. Let us be changed by his words even as he is changed on this mountaintop. Let us ask him to transform us.
Monday, November 08, 2010
All the Saints
Luke 6:20-31 NRSV
20 Then he looked up at his disciples and said: "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. 21 "Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. "Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. 22 "Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. 23 Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets. 24 "But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. 25 "Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. "Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep. 26 "Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets. 27 "But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. 29 If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. 30 Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. 31 Do to others as you would have them do to you.
OK, Can we just read that bit again –
“Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you.
Bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you
If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also
From anyone who takes away your coat, do not withhold even your shirt
If anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again.”
Really? I mean, yes, I know this is what we are supposed to do as Christians, but honestly – Really?
I think maybe it’s just a little harder to hear this following the truly poisonous election season we just survived. Not that we should ever think of people of different political parties or religious views as “the enemy” . . . it’s not like we were engaged in an actual war, exactly, although some of the rhetoric made it sound that way. It was just an election. And both parties were equally evil in the way they campaigned. I was sorely tempted not to vote for any of them - that’d show them, right? But then I remembered that it wouldn’t be the politicians who would suffer if I didn’t vote. It would be the environment and teachers and students and folks without jobs and folks without health insurance . . . So I voted.
The enemy that Jesus was talking about was Rome – a real enemy who had taken over the land, collected extortionate taxes, abused and oppressed the people. The soldiers had no problem hitting someone randomly, because they were in the way or because it was Tuesday. They would often grab a passer by and force him to carry heavy burdens, the way they forced Simon to carry Jesus’ cross. They would take someone’s coat, not because they needed it, but just to deprive the owner of it. They were the ultimate bully. And Jesus was telling these folks, his countrymen and the people of Judah who were being oppressed to put up with it because ultimately the Romans weren’t the ones in charge of the world. God is. And God has a special love for the poor.
The biggest problem with this passage is that it is this where Pie in the Sky theology comes from. Preachers told slaves, “yours will be the kingdom of heaven.” Even after the slaves were free they were told they same thing. This is what the oppressor in Christian countries always says to the oppressed. Put up with all kinds of indignities now and you will be rewarded after you die. But those preachers must only have preached from Matthew’s version of these words because they never seemed to get around to reading the next bits of Luke to the slave holders. “But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. 25 "Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. "Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.” Because if the slave holders did hear those lines and they really were Christians, then surely they would have done some cringing and squirming in the pews.
Picture it – the preacher speaking those blessing lines to the blacks up in the balcony and then turning to the whites in the front rows to read the woes. I figure if any preacher did do that, chances are good that he wouldn’t still have been preaching there the next week.
Pie in the Sky preaching still goes on today. It’s hard to avoid that trap, really, with this passage. Because when I read these words I don’t think of myself as one of the rich, even though I know I’m not one of the poor. I don’t think of you as the rich, even though I know none of you are really poor. Ophelia is poor. She lives on what she gets from SSI and from recycling cans and bottles she finds on the streets and in trash cans. She rents rooms in strangers’ homes and is often victimized by the home owners or other renters. All she wants a place where she could sleep and keep what little stuff she has in safety.
I started watching home design shows on HGTV to avoid political ads and became fascinated by the house hunter programs. I watch as folks buy huge vacation homes in the Dominican Republic and Jamaica. I watch as newlywed young couples who “need” at least 3 bedrooms, 2 full baths, a finished basement and a big yard look for a house. I especially enjoyed watching one episode about a family who moved because Dad was called to be the minister of music at some big church. They found a lovely home with a bedroom for each of their four children, a master suite, an office, formal living and dining rooms, a family room, an eat in kitchen, and a finished basement where the dad could practice his music. And as I watch these programs I think about Ophelia and all the other families who show up here for food and a little counseling and wonder “What on earth do they need all that for?” and “How much are they paying that music minister anyway?”
I read an article in the NY Times titled “Our Banana Republic” by Nicholas D. Kristof. In it he pointed out that in countries like Nicaragua, Guyana and Venezuela the richest 1% of the people take home 20% of the national income. The very rich are so much richer than the rest of the people that it boggles the mind. Then he said that in the US the richest 1% of the people take home 24% of the national income each year. The CEOs of America’s largest corporations earn 531 times what the average worker in those corporations earns. In our recent elections we kept seeing ads about CEOs who laid off thousands of workers and outsourced jobs while taking home millions of dollars. This disturbs me. I knew there was a gap but I didn’t know it was that extreme. I like to think about those folks, that top 1%, as “the rich” and me as “the poor.”
But I know I’m one of the rich. I may not have much but I have way more than Ophelia. I don’t worry about where my next meal is coming from or whether my purse is safe while I’m taking a shower. I have a car and money for gas, she has a folding shopping cart and money for a bus pass. I’m not facing a cold winter without shelter like the folks in Pakistan or South Chicago. I can’t do much to make their lives better except work toward the kingdom, toward a world where mercy and compassion outweigh greed and hatred.
That’s what the saints who came before us did. People like Deitrich Bonhoeffer who was executed for working against the oppression of the Nazi Party. Martin Luther King, Jr. who was assassinated while working for equal rights. Archbishop Oscar Romero who was assassinated while fighting against the government of El Salvador on behalf of the poor. All of these worked in opposition to Christians who held power over powerless and marginalized people. All stood up against Christians who used the Bible to justify what they were doing, even in some cases this particular passage.
We don’t have to die like they did. We don’t have to give away 95% of our annual income, like Dennis Bakke and Bill Gates do. We do have to work toward the kingdom. And not the pie in the sky, we’ll be fine when we die by and by kind of kingdom. We are supposed to work toward the kingdom of God in the here and now. God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. We are supposed to help the helpless, give hope to the hopeless, feed the hungry, heal the sick, comfort the prisoner. Last week we talked about the ministries that all of us here pursue in our lives – ministries in which we serve God’s creation, and do those very things we are called by God to do.
Today we lift up the saints of our congregation, both the living and the dead – the men and women who integrated this church long before it was the popular thing to do, who brought in new music and new understandings of doing God’s work in the world. Men and women who served in the NAACP to gain civil rights for all persons, marched with Cesar Chavez, voted to make this congregation Open and Affirming and to affirm the right of all Christians to worship God together, here in this place. We remember those folks whose dream founded Delhaven Community Center and those who believed it would be good for our community to open Delhaven preschool. We remember those saints. We speak our gratitude for the work they have done and the example they have set for us. And we look to the future, knowing that we cannot rest on Delhaven’s reputation as a social justice church.
So what does the future hold for us? How do we live up to the rich history of Delhaven and her saints? What do we do about the homeless sleeping in our bushes? The hungry we have to turn away when we run out of food? The man who came into my office on Wednesday needing get medical care without money or insurance or a welfare card? What shall we do to gain the blessings promised to the poor and avoid the woes of the rich?
Jesus said, “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” May we look to the saints who came before us for inspiration and example, for ways to do to our neighbors as we would have others do to us in that situation, that we may be a community blest by their faith in Christ. (Hymn For all the Saints)
20 Then he looked up at his disciples and said: "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. 21 "Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. "Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. 22 "Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. 23 Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets. 24 "But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. 25 "Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. "Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep. 26 "Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets. 27 "But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. 29 If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. 30 Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. 31 Do to others as you would have them do to you.
OK, Can we just read that bit again –
“Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you.
Bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you
If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also
From anyone who takes away your coat, do not withhold even your shirt
If anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again.”
Really? I mean, yes, I know this is what we are supposed to do as Christians, but honestly – Really?
I think maybe it’s just a little harder to hear this following the truly poisonous election season we just survived. Not that we should ever think of people of different political parties or religious views as “the enemy” . . . it’s not like we were engaged in an actual war, exactly, although some of the rhetoric made it sound that way. It was just an election. And both parties were equally evil in the way they campaigned. I was sorely tempted not to vote for any of them - that’d show them, right? But then I remembered that it wouldn’t be the politicians who would suffer if I didn’t vote. It would be the environment and teachers and students and folks without jobs and folks without health insurance . . . So I voted.
The enemy that Jesus was talking about was Rome – a real enemy who had taken over the land, collected extortionate taxes, abused and oppressed the people. The soldiers had no problem hitting someone randomly, because they were in the way or because it was Tuesday. They would often grab a passer by and force him to carry heavy burdens, the way they forced Simon to carry Jesus’ cross. They would take someone’s coat, not because they needed it, but just to deprive the owner of it. They were the ultimate bully. And Jesus was telling these folks, his countrymen and the people of Judah who were being oppressed to put up with it because ultimately the Romans weren’t the ones in charge of the world. God is. And God has a special love for the poor.
The biggest problem with this passage is that it is this where Pie in the Sky theology comes from. Preachers told slaves, “yours will be the kingdom of heaven.” Even after the slaves were free they were told they same thing. This is what the oppressor in Christian countries always says to the oppressed. Put up with all kinds of indignities now and you will be rewarded after you die. But those preachers must only have preached from Matthew’s version of these words because they never seemed to get around to reading the next bits of Luke to the slave holders. “But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. 25 "Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. "Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.” Because if the slave holders did hear those lines and they really were Christians, then surely they would have done some cringing and squirming in the pews.
Picture it – the preacher speaking those blessing lines to the blacks up in the balcony and then turning to the whites in the front rows to read the woes. I figure if any preacher did do that, chances are good that he wouldn’t still have been preaching there the next week.
Pie in the Sky preaching still goes on today. It’s hard to avoid that trap, really, with this passage. Because when I read these words I don’t think of myself as one of the rich, even though I know I’m not one of the poor. I don’t think of you as the rich, even though I know none of you are really poor. Ophelia is poor. She lives on what she gets from SSI and from recycling cans and bottles she finds on the streets and in trash cans. She rents rooms in strangers’ homes and is often victimized by the home owners or other renters. All she wants a place where she could sleep and keep what little stuff she has in safety.
I started watching home design shows on HGTV to avoid political ads and became fascinated by the house hunter programs. I watch as folks buy huge vacation homes in the Dominican Republic and Jamaica. I watch as newlywed young couples who “need” at least 3 bedrooms, 2 full baths, a finished basement and a big yard look for a house. I especially enjoyed watching one episode about a family who moved because Dad was called to be the minister of music at some big church. They found a lovely home with a bedroom for each of their four children, a master suite, an office, formal living and dining rooms, a family room, an eat in kitchen, and a finished basement where the dad could practice his music. And as I watch these programs I think about Ophelia and all the other families who show up here for food and a little counseling and wonder “What on earth do they need all that for?” and “How much are they paying that music minister anyway?”
I read an article in the NY Times titled “Our Banana Republic” by Nicholas D. Kristof. In it he pointed out that in countries like Nicaragua, Guyana and Venezuela the richest 1% of the people take home 20% of the national income. The very rich are so much richer than the rest of the people that it boggles the mind. Then he said that in the US the richest 1% of the people take home 24% of the national income each year. The CEOs of America’s largest corporations earn 531 times what the average worker in those corporations earns. In our recent elections we kept seeing ads about CEOs who laid off thousands of workers and outsourced jobs while taking home millions of dollars. This disturbs me. I knew there was a gap but I didn’t know it was that extreme. I like to think about those folks, that top 1%, as “the rich” and me as “the poor.”
But I know I’m one of the rich. I may not have much but I have way more than Ophelia. I don’t worry about where my next meal is coming from or whether my purse is safe while I’m taking a shower. I have a car and money for gas, she has a folding shopping cart and money for a bus pass. I’m not facing a cold winter without shelter like the folks in Pakistan or South Chicago. I can’t do much to make their lives better except work toward the kingdom, toward a world where mercy and compassion outweigh greed and hatred.
That’s what the saints who came before us did. People like Deitrich Bonhoeffer who was executed for working against the oppression of the Nazi Party. Martin Luther King, Jr. who was assassinated while working for equal rights. Archbishop Oscar Romero who was assassinated while fighting against the government of El Salvador on behalf of the poor. All of these worked in opposition to Christians who held power over powerless and marginalized people. All stood up against Christians who used the Bible to justify what they were doing, even in some cases this particular passage.
We don’t have to die like they did. We don’t have to give away 95% of our annual income, like Dennis Bakke and Bill Gates do. We do have to work toward the kingdom. And not the pie in the sky, we’ll be fine when we die by and by kind of kingdom. We are supposed to work toward the kingdom of God in the here and now. God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. We are supposed to help the helpless, give hope to the hopeless, feed the hungry, heal the sick, comfort the prisoner. Last week we talked about the ministries that all of us here pursue in our lives – ministries in which we serve God’s creation, and do those very things we are called by God to do.
Today we lift up the saints of our congregation, both the living and the dead – the men and women who integrated this church long before it was the popular thing to do, who brought in new music and new understandings of doing God’s work in the world. Men and women who served in the NAACP to gain civil rights for all persons, marched with Cesar Chavez, voted to make this congregation Open and Affirming and to affirm the right of all Christians to worship God together, here in this place. We remember those folks whose dream founded Delhaven Community Center and those who believed it would be good for our community to open Delhaven preschool. We remember those saints. We speak our gratitude for the work they have done and the example they have set for us. And we look to the future, knowing that we cannot rest on Delhaven’s reputation as a social justice church.
So what does the future hold for us? How do we live up to the rich history of Delhaven and her saints? What do we do about the homeless sleeping in our bushes? The hungry we have to turn away when we run out of food? The man who came into my office on Wednesday needing get medical care without money or insurance or a welfare card? What shall we do to gain the blessings promised to the poor and avoid the woes of the rich?
Jesus said, “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” May we look to the saints who came before us for inspiration and example, for ways to do to our neighbors as we would have others do to us in that situation, that we may be a community blest by their faith in Christ. (Hymn For all the Saints)
Sunday, October 10, 2010
On the Edges
Luke 17:11-19 (New Revised Standard Version)
11 On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. 12 As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, 13 they called out, saying, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!" 14 When he saw them, he said to them, "Go and show yourselves to the priests." And as they went, they were made clean. 15 Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. 16 He prostrated himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. 17 Then Jesus asked, "Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? 18 Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" 19 Then he said to him, "Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well."
Since today’s Gospel story is about lepers and a Samaritan I decided to look up synonyms of those words. I wasn’t at all surprised to discover that the meanings of these words have changed a bit over the centuries since these stories were written down. According to Roget’s Thesaurus online lepers are considered to be pariah, untouchable, outcast, undesirable, persona non gratis, anathema . . in fact, just about every conceivable word for an undesirable person was listed, including bum and hobo.
The definition of leprosy is a quite bit different today than it was in Jesus’ day. What we call leprosy today is Hansen’s disease, a serious bacterial disease that causes permanent damage to skin, nerves, limbs, and eyes. Contrary to popular belief, leprosy does not cause limbs to fall off but limbs can become numb and/or diseased as a result of this chronic condition. In biblical times, however, leprosy was a general term for a number of skin diseases and conditions. Generally speaking leprosy would be any condition that would change the color of skin due to disease or infection like acne or psoriasis. These conditions aren’t necessarily contagious or permanent, but do serve to set the sufferer apart. According to Leviticus, “The person who has the leprous disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head be disheveled: and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean’ he shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease; he is unclean. He shall live alone; his dwelling shall be outside the camp.” (Leviticus 13:45-46) They weren’t particularly hated or feared. They were merely unclean, just as a woman who had just given birth was unclean until she presented herself at the temple with a sacrificial dove for ritual cleansing.
But it doesn’t take much to draw the attention of bullies. It just takes a small difference to find yourself singled out. I drew their attention when the school year began in 6th grade. I was the new kid and I had a broken arm. Luckily, my suffering at their hands was brief. It only lasted as long as I wore a cast and sling, just as a leper’s would end when – if - their skin cleared up.
It would, however, be a very bad thing if a leper tried to live within the camp, keeping his condition a secret. THAT could bring on some fairly extreme anger – that would be blatant disobedience of the law. It might even endanger his neighbors. Who knew whether he would try to give it to someone else? . . .
Imagine what it might have been like for a 15 year old boy who’s trying to keep his difference a secret. Maybe his skin discoloration is someplace easily hidden, on his lower back perhaps, or under his loincloth. Imagine his terror of being discovered, of being cast out from his family, his friends, his community of faith for who knows how long. He’d have had no one to turn to, no one to assure him that God loved him no matter what, no one to console him or turn away his fear. Now imagine what he might have to endure if others discovered his sin – not just his disease but also the fact that he tried to keep it secret.
Think about this boy, this terrified leper, and give him a name. Give him the name of one of those six young men who killed themselves in September. Give him the name of one of those young men who couldn’t live with the bullying, who couldn’t face any more of the rejection by their neighbors and their church. Give him the name of
Billy Lucas, 15, who hung himself on September 9
Cody Barker, 17, who killed himself on September 15.
Seth Walsh, 13, who hung himself on September 19
Tyler Clementi, 18, who jumped off the GW bridge on September 22.
Asher Brown, 13, who shot himself in the head on September 23.
Raymond Chase, 19, who hung himself September 29
Or give him the name of one of the thousands of bullied gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender children who haven’t yet been driven to such desperation. . .
This story of the ten lepers is also about a Samaritan. In Roget’s thesaurus online the only definition was for “Good Samaritan” and the synonyms were Johnny-on-the-spot, boy scout, do-gooder, good neighbor, helping hand, humanitarian, none of which are the way 1st century Judeans would have described Samaritans. They would have used the words we use for leper and added words like enemy, heretic, unbeliever and been seriously hateful about the whole thing.
You see, Samaritans were enemies of the very worst kind . . . family members and co-believers who had been through a split in the family that also split the church. If anything they were considered worse than Gentiles because during the reign of Solomon’s son Rehoboam they had left the rest of the family, divided the land, raised up their own kings and built their own temple. Samaritans in Judah – well, they might have been chased by children with stones or had some one set a dog on them. They could be refused service at a market or inn and most people wouldn’t even pay attention.
So here we have ten lepers, nine Jews and one Samaritan traveling together, not fully accepted by each other but brought together because of a common problem. We know what that’s like. We’ve been through that a couple of times in the last several years. 9/11. Hurricane Katrina. The Gulf Oil spill. They’re traveling along the edges, living on the edges of society and the geographic edge of their two countries.
And that’s where they meet Jesus. On the edge. It seems like that’s where he always was. Debating theology with respected scholars of the church and sharing a meal with the homeless on the street. Spending time with the respected and with the cast out. And not as one who just came by to visit, but as one who belongs. . . in both places. . . . on the edges.
And so he healed the lepers and sent them on their way. Nine headed straight to the Temple and the priests so they could be blessed and return to their regular lives. One came back to thank him – the Samaritan. The outcast. The foreigner.
Now, we know that the Samaritan couldn’t have gone to the Temple in Jerusalem, nor would he want to. But he could have gone home, been seen by his own priests and then rejoined his family amid much rejoicing. But instead he chose to come back, to fall at Jesus’ feet praising God and giving thanks. He came back to show his gratitude to the one who’d had mercy on him, the one who had given him back his life.
Imagine that 15 year old boy again, and how his life might be if he lived in a community where he was shown mercy. A community that rejected not him, but those who mistreated him. A community that refused to look away when it heard reports of bullying but rather treated bullying like the crime it is. A community that refused to be quiet when religious and political leaders castigated and reviled him just because he was different. Imagine what it might be like if he lived in a community that gave him his life back. Imagine what it might be like to be that community.
Bullying is everywhere. Geeks and smart kids and dumb kids and the fashionably challenged and Moslem kids and kids who look like they might be Moslem are bullied and Jewish kids and Christian kids. All these children and more are bullied and live in terror of the next school day. Kids lose their lunch money, watch their homework get trashed, and find themselves victims of beatings and the most horrific “practical jokes” every day. They feel like they have no where to turn. The schools don’t pay attention, their parents are often powerless, or worse, tell them to “man up”. And so some of them lose their lives. They commit suicide rather than continue to face the daily torment. If it’s that terrible for straight kids, imagine what it must be like for kids who are discovering themselves to be gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, who live in a country where hate crimes against homosexuals and transgendered persons are on the rise and whose perpetrators seem to be egged on by some religious and political leaders. Imagine being 13 or 15 or 17 or 19 and believing that it probably won’t ever get any better. . . .
We must not be silent. We must not allow our children to be murdered by hatred. Do not doubt that is what has happened in the cases of these six gay boys in September and in the case of every child who commits suicide because of bullying. These children have been murdered as surely as if the bullies had personally pushed them off the bridge or used the rope, the gun, or the pills on them. These children have been murdered by the hatred of the bullies, and they have been murdered by our silence. Whenever, where ever we have heard of bullying and not spoken out, we have become part of the problem.
As Christians, as followers of Jesus, we must be like him. We must reach out with mercy to those who live on the margins, on the edges of society. We must speak out against bullying and oppression of every kind and we must stand against those who preach hate. When Jesus said “Love your neighbor” he wasn’t talking about having a nice, warm passive feeling about them. He was talking about actively reaching out, loving, feeding, healing, saving our neighbor, our children, our enemy. The leper and the Samaritan. The bullied and the bully.
Jesus came as savior of the world. He came to save the world and all the people in it from sin, from hatred, from oppression, from the pain we inflict upon one another. He came armed and armored with Love, the most powerful weapon of all. Let us go from this place using that mighty weapon. And they will know we are Christian by our love.
11 On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. 12 As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, 13 they called out, saying, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!" 14 When he saw them, he said to them, "Go and show yourselves to the priests." And as they went, they were made clean. 15 Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. 16 He prostrated himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. 17 Then Jesus asked, "Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? 18 Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" 19 Then he said to him, "Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well."
Since today’s Gospel story is about lepers and a Samaritan I decided to look up synonyms of those words. I wasn’t at all surprised to discover that the meanings of these words have changed a bit over the centuries since these stories were written down. According to Roget’s Thesaurus online lepers are considered to be pariah, untouchable, outcast, undesirable, persona non gratis, anathema . . in fact, just about every conceivable word for an undesirable person was listed, including bum and hobo.
The definition of leprosy is a quite bit different today than it was in Jesus’ day. What we call leprosy today is Hansen’s disease, a serious bacterial disease that causes permanent damage to skin, nerves, limbs, and eyes. Contrary to popular belief, leprosy does not cause limbs to fall off but limbs can become numb and/or diseased as a result of this chronic condition. In biblical times, however, leprosy was a general term for a number of skin diseases and conditions. Generally speaking leprosy would be any condition that would change the color of skin due to disease or infection like acne or psoriasis. These conditions aren’t necessarily contagious or permanent, but do serve to set the sufferer apart. According to Leviticus, “The person who has the leprous disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head be disheveled: and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean’ he shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease; he is unclean. He shall live alone; his dwelling shall be outside the camp.” (Leviticus 13:45-46) They weren’t particularly hated or feared. They were merely unclean, just as a woman who had just given birth was unclean until she presented herself at the temple with a sacrificial dove for ritual cleansing.
But it doesn’t take much to draw the attention of bullies. It just takes a small difference to find yourself singled out. I drew their attention when the school year began in 6th grade. I was the new kid and I had a broken arm. Luckily, my suffering at their hands was brief. It only lasted as long as I wore a cast and sling, just as a leper’s would end when – if - their skin cleared up.
It would, however, be a very bad thing if a leper tried to live within the camp, keeping his condition a secret. THAT could bring on some fairly extreme anger – that would be blatant disobedience of the law. It might even endanger his neighbors. Who knew whether he would try to give it to someone else? . . .
Imagine what it might have been like for a 15 year old boy who’s trying to keep his difference a secret. Maybe his skin discoloration is someplace easily hidden, on his lower back perhaps, or under his loincloth. Imagine his terror of being discovered, of being cast out from his family, his friends, his community of faith for who knows how long. He’d have had no one to turn to, no one to assure him that God loved him no matter what, no one to console him or turn away his fear. Now imagine what he might have to endure if others discovered his sin – not just his disease but also the fact that he tried to keep it secret.
Think about this boy, this terrified leper, and give him a name. Give him the name of one of those six young men who killed themselves in September. Give him the name of one of those young men who couldn’t live with the bullying, who couldn’t face any more of the rejection by their neighbors and their church. Give him the name of
Billy Lucas, 15, who hung himself on September 9
Cody Barker, 17, who killed himself on September 15.
Seth Walsh, 13, who hung himself on September 19
Tyler Clementi, 18, who jumped off the GW bridge on September 22.
Asher Brown, 13, who shot himself in the head on September 23.
Raymond Chase, 19, who hung himself September 29
Or give him the name of one of the thousands of bullied gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender children who haven’t yet been driven to such desperation. . .
This story of the ten lepers is also about a Samaritan. In Roget’s thesaurus online the only definition was for “Good Samaritan” and the synonyms were Johnny-on-the-spot, boy scout, do-gooder, good neighbor, helping hand, humanitarian, none of which are the way 1st century Judeans would have described Samaritans. They would have used the words we use for leper and added words like enemy, heretic, unbeliever and been seriously hateful about the whole thing.
You see, Samaritans were enemies of the very worst kind . . . family members and co-believers who had been through a split in the family that also split the church. If anything they were considered worse than Gentiles because during the reign of Solomon’s son Rehoboam they had left the rest of the family, divided the land, raised up their own kings and built their own temple. Samaritans in Judah – well, they might have been chased by children with stones or had some one set a dog on them. They could be refused service at a market or inn and most people wouldn’t even pay attention.
So here we have ten lepers, nine Jews and one Samaritan traveling together, not fully accepted by each other but brought together because of a common problem. We know what that’s like. We’ve been through that a couple of times in the last several years. 9/11. Hurricane Katrina. The Gulf Oil spill. They’re traveling along the edges, living on the edges of society and the geographic edge of their two countries.
And that’s where they meet Jesus. On the edge. It seems like that’s where he always was. Debating theology with respected scholars of the church and sharing a meal with the homeless on the street. Spending time with the respected and with the cast out. And not as one who just came by to visit, but as one who belongs. . . in both places. . . . on the edges.
And so he healed the lepers and sent them on their way. Nine headed straight to the Temple and the priests so they could be blessed and return to their regular lives. One came back to thank him – the Samaritan. The outcast. The foreigner.
Now, we know that the Samaritan couldn’t have gone to the Temple in Jerusalem, nor would he want to. But he could have gone home, been seen by his own priests and then rejoined his family amid much rejoicing. But instead he chose to come back, to fall at Jesus’ feet praising God and giving thanks. He came back to show his gratitude to the one who’d had mercy on him, the one who had given him back his life.
Imagine that 15 year old boy again, and how his life might be if he lived in a community where he was shown mercy. A community that rejected not him, but those who mistreated him. A community that refused to look away when it heard reports of bullying but rather treated bullying like the crime it is. A community that refused to be quiet when religious and political leaders castigated and reviled him just because he was different. Imagine what it might be like if he lived in a community that gave him his life back. Imagine what it might be like to be that community.
Bullying is everywhere. Geeks and smart kids and dumb kids and the fashionably challenged and Moslem kids and kids who look like they might be Moslem are bullied and Jewish kids and Christian kids. All these children and more are bullied and live in terror of the next school day. Kids lose their lunch money, watch their homework get trashed, and find themselves victims of beatings and the most horrific “practical jokes” every day. They feel like they have no where to turn. The schools don’t pay attention, their parents are often powerless, or worse, tell them to “man up”. And so some of them lose their lives. They commit suicide rather than continue to face the daily torment. If it’s that terrible for straight kids, imagine what it must be like for kids who are discovering themselves to be gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, who live in a country where hate crimes against homosexuals and transgendered persons are on the rise and whose perpetrators seem to be egged on by some religious and political leaders. Imagine being 13 or 15 or 17 or 19 and believing that it probably won’t ever get any better. . . .
We must not be silent. We must not allow our children to be murdered by hatred. Do not doubt that is what has happened in the cases of these six gay boys in September and in the case of every child who commits suicide because of bullying. These children have been murdered as surely as if the bullies had personally pushed them off the bridge or used the rope, the gun, or the pills on them. These children have been murdered by the hatred of the bullies, and they have been murdered by our silence. Whenever, where ever we have heard of bullying and not spoken out, we have become part of the problem.
As Christians, as followers of Jesus, we must be like him. We must reach out with mercy to those who live on the margins, on the edges of society. We must speak out against bullying and oppression of every kind and we must stand against those who preach hate. When Jesus said “Love your neighbor” he wasn’t talking about having a nice, warm passive feeling about them. He was talking about actively reaching out, loving, feeding, healing, saving our neighbor, our children, our enemy. The leper and the Samaritan. The bullied and the bully.
Jesus came as savior of the world. He came to save the world and all the people in it from sin, from hatred, from oppression, from the pain we inflict upon one another. He came armed and armored with Love, the most powerful weapon of all. Let us go from this place using that mighty weapon. And they will know we are Christian by our love.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Love WHO?
Matthew 5:43-48
43 "You have heard that it was said, "You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 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. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
The Holy Qur’an Chapter 49 Verse 11 & 13
11. O YOU who have attained faith! No men shall deride [other] men: it may well be that those [whom they deride] are better that themselves; and no women [shall deride other] women: it may well be that those [whom they deride] are better than themselves. And neither shall you defame one another, nor insult one another by [opprobrious] epithets; evil is all imputation of iniquity after [one has to] faith; and they who [become guilty thereof and] do not repent - it is they, they who are evildoers!
13. O mankind! We created You from a single (pair) Of a male and a female, And made you into Nations and tribes, that You may know each other (Not that you may despise Each other.) Verily, The most honoured of you In the sight of Allah Is (he who is) the most Righteous of you. And Allah has full knowledge And is well-acquainted (with all things).
At the grocery market the other day I heard one employee say to another, “I’ll NEVER go to New Jersey. Those people are all crazy!” The other was defending the people of New Jersey because she has relatives there who aren’t crazy. Turns out the one had watched Jersey Shore and thought the folks on that “reality” show are typical. NOT!
But that’s how we look at all kinds of groups, right? We are quick to assume that the most visible and audible are typical of the whole group. All Muslims are terrorists. All Christians are against equal rites. We know this isn’t true. This weekend in particular we will focus on the words of the song the choir just sang,
In peace may all earth’s people draw together, and hearts united learn to live as one.
O hear my prayer, o God of all the nations. Myself I give thee, let thy will be done.
It has been an emotional week. On the early show Wednesday morning anchorman Harry Smith interviewed Pastor Terry Jones of Dove World Outreach Center. After listening to Pastor Jones speaking about Islam as the enemy who must be kept from succeeding at world domination he asked whether the plan to burn 100 Korans on 9/11 was in keeping with Jesus’ instructions to love your enemies. He had to ask twice, even naming the two gospels the commandment is found in, before Pastor Jones would admit that, no, this is not a loving action and it did not obey Jesus’ direction.
Just the threat of burning Korans led to international furor. There were anti-American demonstrations in Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran – pretty much all countries with significant Islamic populations. The State Department issued travel warnings. Everyone from the Pope to the President, the leaders of the National Evangelical Association and the National Council of Churches, even General Petraeus begged him to cancel the event. He said he would only change his mind if he got a sign from God. And apparently he did. There’s a bit of a mystery around what really changed his mind, whether it was the conversation with the State Department or with a local Imam. The important thing is that he did change his mind and no books were burned in Gainesville.
Over and over again the Gospel words that were quoted to him in an effort to change his mind were these words from Matthew. Even though it is not true that all of Islam is the enemy, that is what this pastor and so many other people believe, so these were the words chosen by Christians and Muslims alike that seemed most likely to change his mind.
Whether they did or not and despite the fact that he didn’t burn any books, a lot of good actually came out of his threat. All over the country interfaith groups made plans to come together to pray for peace and read from the Qur’an and the Bible. Many Christian preachers, like me, chose a verse or two from the Qur’an to share with our congregations, words that sound a lot like the words we are accustomed to hearing. Most of us, again like me, had to turn to a Muslim friend for help in finding appropriate verses because we simply aren’t familiar enough with their Holy Book to choose well. I turned to Sherrel Johnson, who works for the Center for American Islamic Relations in Los Angeles and serves with me on Chapman University’s Interfaith Center Advisory Council. She responded to my request with a lovely long letter that tells Christians things she wished we knew about Islam. For those who are interested, that letter is on the Awareness Table and will be one of the things we look at in our 2nd Tuesday supper discussion this week.
I think perhaps my favorite of those verses she suggested I might use is this one, knowing that throughout the Qur’an Jews and Christians are called the People of the Book. It seems to describe the differences in the way we follow our respective religious traditions perfectly.
The Holy Qur’an Chapter 5, Verse 48 “We have given the Book as an inheritance to those of Our servants whom We have chosen. Among them there are some who wrong their own souls, some (who) follow a middle course and some, by God’s leave, (who) excel in good deeds; which is the supreme virtue.”
The danger, of course, in choosing a verse or two to share from the Qur’an is exactly the same as the danger of doing the same thing with the Bible. We all know that the Bible has been used over and over to justify the worst kind of behavior by people who consider themselves to be good Christians. The Bible has been used to justify slavery, the subjugation of women, the denial of equal rights to gay and lesbian couples. The Qur’an has been used in just the same way. Likewise, the enemies of Islam are quick to choose the most inflammatory passages and say “This is what Islam is all about,” just as the enemies of Christianity use selected verses from the Bible.
It has been a war of words this week, a war in which both sides were using the Bible to make their points. In response to being told to love his enemy Pastor Jones likened his actions to Jesus turning over the tables in the temple courtyard – righteous anger against evil. The problem with that comparison is that Jesus’ anger was directed at those who were messing with HIS faith, with the right worship of God and leading followers away from the path of love and forgiveness – NOT against the followers of another religion altogether. In fact, those who are standing against Pastor Jones could much more easily see themselves following the tradition of Jesus in the Temple courtyard.
These words from Matthew are so much more pointed than the commandment to love the neighbor. It’s easy to pick and choose who are neighbors are, after all., no matter how many times the example of the Good Samaritan is quoted. But here Jesus says, “If you love those who love you, what reward do you have? If you only greet your brothers and sisters what more are you doing than others?” Harsh words! We pointed them at Pastor Jones like a gun. And I stood there with them, saying “Yeah, Pastor Jones. Read this!”
Then I read a quote by Soren Kierkegaard. “When you read God's Word, you must constantly be saying to yourself, ''It is talking to me, and about me.''
Ouch.
It’s easy for me to stand here and say that in my opinion Pastor Jones is as much a terrorist as Timothy McVeigh or Osama Bin Laden. What’s hard for me to do is love him. And yet that’s exactly what I am called to do. Love him as I love myself. Recognize that his sins are forgivable, just as mine and yours are. Recognize that he is a beloved child of God and whether or not I believe him to be misguided, I am required to give him the same respect that I wish to be given.
I have spent the better part of the week angry that a person who called himself Christian would behave in such a hateful manner. This isn’t new, of course. I get angry every time I see Christians using Jesus, the Prince of Peace, the Lord of Love, to justify being hateful. There are times when I think of these as the enemy and feel justified in my anger, just as Jesus was justified in the Temple courtyard. I have to tell you, it stung when Pastor Jones used that same passage to justify his actions. Because I realized that in my enmity for those who use my religion to oppress I was doing exactly the same thing he was. And of course that made me even more angry. But now I was angry less at him than at myself, because now I had to look at my behavior and my lack of love.
We allow our fear of things that are different to keep us from getting to know the stranger. We use skin color, nationality, religious differences and language barriers to keep us apart. We allow our fear of things that are different to fuel our hatred of the other. But Jesus calls us to come together, regardless of our differences. Jesus calls on us to love not just the neighbor, but also the enemy, the stranger. Jesus calls on us to sit as he did and eat with the persons we previously considered to be beneath us. To forgive all others, as God forgives us, because God forgives us. The true enemy is not the other, but that sinfulness dwelling within us causing us to fear and hate that which is different.
Let us Pray, using Paul’s words from 1 Timothy 1:12-17
12 I am grateful to Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because he judged me faithful and appointed me to his service, 13 even though I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, 14 and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. 15 The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the foremost. 16 But for that very reason I received mercy, so that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display the utmost patience, making me an example to those who would come to believe in him for eternal life. 17 To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.
When we go from this place today let us go remembering that all of us are God’s children. Let us go out remembering that we are all loved by our Creator, who calls upon us to love each other as brothers and sisters, regardless of religion, culture, nation, or race.
hymn Diverse in Culture Nation Race 485
43 "You have heard that it was said, "You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 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. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
The Holy Qur’an Chapter 49 Verse 11 & 13
11. O YOU who have attained faith! No men shall deride [other] men: it may well be that those [whom they deride] are better that themselves; and no women [shall deride other] women: it may well be that those [whom they deride] are better than themselves. And neither shall you defame one another, nor insult one another by [opprobrious] epithets; evil is all imputation of iniquity after [one has to] faith; and they who [become guilty thereof and] do not repent - it is they, they who are evildoers!
13. O mankind! We created You from a single (pair) Of a male and a female, And made you into Nations and tribes, that You may know each other (Not that you may despise Each other.) Verily, The most honoured of you In the sight of Allah Is (he who is) the most Righteous of you. And Allah has full knowledge And is well-acquainted (with all things).
At the grocery market the other day I heard one employee say to another, “I’ll NEVER go to New Jersey. Those people are all crazy!” The other was defending the people of New Jersey because she has relatives there who aren’t crazy. Turns out the one had watched Jersey Shore and thought the folks on that “reality” show are typical. NOT!
But that’s how we look at all kinds of groups, right? We are quick to assume that the most visible and audible are typical of the whole group. All Muslims are terrorists. All Christians are against equal rites. We know this isn’t true. This weekend in particular we will focus on the words of the song the choir just sang,
In peace may all earth’s people draw together, and hearts united learn to live as one.
O hear my prayer, o God of all the nations. Myself I give thee, let thy will be done.
It has been an emotional week. On the early show Wednesday morning anchorman Harry Smith interviewed Pastor Terry Jones of Dove World Outreach Center. After listening to Pastor Jones speaking about Islam as the enemy who must be kept from succeeding at world domination he asked whether the plan to burn 100 Korans on 9/11 was in keeping with Jesus’ instructions to love your enemies. He had to ask twice, even naming the two gospels the commandment is found in, before Pastor Jones would admit that, no, this is not a loving action and it did not obey Jesus’ direction.
Just the threat of burning Korans led to international furor. There were anti-American demonstrations in Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran – pretty much all countries with significant Islamic populations. The State Department issued travel warnings. Everyone from the Pope to the President, the leaders of the National Evangelical Association and the National Council of Churches, even General Petraeus begged him to cancel the event. He said he would only change his mind if he got a sign from God. And apparently he did. There’s a bit of a mystery around what really changed his mind, whether it was the conversation with the State Department or with a local Imam. The important thing is that he did change his mind and no books were burned in Gainesville.
Over and over again the Gospel words that were quoted to him in an effort to change his mind were these words from Matthew. Even though it is not true that all of Islam is the enemy, that is what this pastor and so many other people believe, so these were the words chosen by Christians and Muslims alike that seemed most likely to change his mind.
Whether they did or not and despite the fact that he didn’t burn any books, a lot of good actually came out of his threat. All over the country interfaith groups made plans to come together to pray for peace and read from the Qur’an and the Bible. Many Christian preachers, like me, chose a verse or two from the Qur’an to share with our congregations, words that sound a lot like the words we are accustomed to hearing. Most of us, again like me, had to turn to a Muslim friend for help in finding appropriate verses because we simply aren’t familiar enough with their Holy Book to choose well. I turned to Sherrel Johnson, who works for the Center for American Islamic Relations in Los Angeles and serves with me on Chapman University’s Interfaith Center Advisory Council. She responded to my request with a lovely long letter that tells Christians things she wished we knew about Islam. For those who are interested, that letter is on the Awareness Table and will be one of the things we look at in our 2nd Tuesday supper discussion this week.
I think perhaps my favorite of those verses she suggested I might use is this one, knowing that throughout the Qur’an Jews and Christians are called the People of the Book. It seems to describe the differences in the way we follow our respective religious traditions perfectly.
The Holy Qur’an Chapter 5, Verse 48 “We have given the Book as an inheritance to those of Our servants whom We have chosen. Among them there are some who wrong their own souls, some (who) follow a middle course and some, by God’s leave, (who) excel in good deeds; which is the supreme virtue.”
The danger, of course, in choosing a verse or two to share from the Qur’an is exactly the same as the danger of doing the same thing with the Bible. We all know that the Bible has been used over and over to justify the worst kind of behavior by people who consider themselves to be good Christians. The Bible has been used to justify slavery, the subjugation of women, the denial of equal rights to gay and lesbian couples. The Qur’an has been used in just the same way. Likewise, the enemies of Islam are quick to choose the most inflammatory passages and say “This is what Islam is all about,” just as the enemies of Christianity use selected verses from the Bible.
It has been a war of words this week, a war in which both sides were using the Bible to make their points. In response to being told to love his enemy Pastor Jones likened his actions to Jesus turning over the tables in the temple courtyard – righteous anger against evil. The problem with that comparison is that Jesus’ anger was directed at those who were messing with HIS faith, with the right worship of God and leading followers away from the path of love and forgiveness – NOT against the followers of another religion altogether. In fact, those who are standing against Pastor Jones could much more easily see themselves following the tradition of Jesus in the Temple courtyard.
These words from Matthew are so much more pointed than the commandment to love the neighbor. It’s easy to pick and choose who are neighbors are, after all., no matter how many times the example of the Good Samaritan is quoted. But here Jesus says, “If you love those who love you, what reward do you have? If you only greet your brothers and sisters what more are you doing than others?” Harsh words! We pointed them at Pastor Jones like a gun. And I stood there with them, saying “Yeah, Pastor Jones. Read this!”
Then I read a quote by Soren Kierkegaard. “When you read God's Word, you must constantly be saying to yourself, ''It is talking to me, and about me.''
Ouch.
It’s easy for me to stand here and say that in my opinion Pastor Jones is as much a terrorist as Timothy McVeigh or Osama Bin Laden. What’s hard for me to do is love him. And yet that’s exactly what I am called to do. Love him as I love myself. Recognize that his sins are forgivable, just as mine and yours are. Recognize that he is a beloved child of God and whether or not I believe him to be misguided, I am required to give him the same respect that I wish to be given.
I have spent the better part of the week angry that a person who called himself Christian would behave in such a hateful manner. This isn’t new, of course. I get angry every time I see Christians using Jesus, the Prince of Peace, the Lord of Love, to justify being hateful. There are times when I think of these as the enemy and feel justified in my anger, just as Jesus was justified in the Temple courtyard. I have to tell you, it stung when Pastor Jones used that same passage to justify his actions. Because I realized that in my enmity for those who use my religion to oppress I was doing exactly the same thing he was. And of course that made me even more angry. But now I was angry less at him than at myself, because now I had to look at my behavior and my lack of love.
We allow our fear of things that are different to keep us from getting to know the stranger. We use skin color, nationality, religious differences and language barriers to keep us apart. We allow our fear of things that are different to fuel our hatred of the other. But Jesus calls us to come together, regardless of our differences. Jesus calls on us to love not just the neighbor, but also the enemy, the stranger. Jesus calls on us to sit as he did and eat with the persons we previously considered to be beneath us. To forgive all others, as God forgives us, because God forgives us. The true enemy is not the other, but that sinfulness dwelling within us causing us to fear and hate that which is different.
Let us Pray, using Paul’s words from 1 Timothy 1:12-17
12 I am grateful to Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because he judged me faithful and appointed me to his service, 13 even though I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, 14 and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. 15 The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the foremost. 16 But for that very reason I received mercy, so that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display the utmost patience, making me an example to those who would come to believe in him for eternal life. 17 To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.
When we go from this place today let us go remembering that all of us are God’s children. Let us go out remembering that we are all loved by our Creator, who calls upon us to love each other as brothers and sisters, regardless of religion, culture, nation, or race.
hymn Diverse in Culture Nation Race 485
Saturday, September 11, 2010
What Christians should know about Islam
Below is a letter from a Moslem friend who works with the Center for American Islamic Relations in response to my request for suggested readings from the Qur'an. May it be helpful to any who read it. Maria
Dear Maria:
Thank you so much for your warm Ramadan greetings and for your very kind words of support. It deeply touches my soul to know of your trust and respect – I guess I would call that true friendship : - ) We have been blessed with much support from people of many different beliefs – including even atheists! Freedom of worship is what our nation was founded upon, and many are realizing that to tread on one faith’s beliefs is trampling America’s, 1st Amendment rights. We are so very grateful for people like you who are willing to stand for justice for ALL, not just some.
What I would really like our Christian sisters and brothers to know is that:
Islam is not a new religion, but the same truth that God revealed through all His prophets to every people. For a fifth of the world's population, Islam is both a religion and a complete way of life. Muslims follow a religion of peace, mercy, and forgiveness, and the majority have nothing to do with the extremely grave events which have come to be associated with their faith.
I would also want them to know that in order ones self “Muslim” (one who submits to God and the root word for peace), they must believe in the following: Muslims believe in One, Unique, Incomparable God; in the Angels created by Him; in the prophets through whom His revelations were brought to mankind; in the Day of Judgment and individual accountability for actions; in God's complete authority over human destiny and in life after death. Muslims believe in a chain of prophets starting with Adam and including Noah, Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Job, Moses, Aaron, David, Solomon, Elias, Jonah, John the Baptist, and Jesus, peace be upon them all. And that God's final message to mankind, a reconfirmation of the eternal message and a summing-up of all that has gone before was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad through Gabriel.
I would also want them to know that our roots, together with Judaism and Christianity, go back to the prophet and patriarch Abraham, and their three prophets are directly descended from his sons, with Muhammad coming from the elder son Ishmael, and Moses and Jesus from the younger son Isaac. Abraham established the settlement which today is the city of Makkah, and built the Ka’bah toward which all Muslims turn when they pray. Additionally, Many Christians are surprised to know that Muslims love and revere Jesus as one of the major Prophets, and believe that he will return as a sign of the “Day of Judgment”. Muslims also believe in his birth from the Virgin Mary – who has a whole chapter dedicated to her, as well as the Prophet Joseph and others. (Of course Muslims do not believe in the divinity of Jesus – which is our major difference).
For further information about Islam, a very reliable source (which Muslim and those of other faiths use as well) is www.islamicity.com As you may guess there is a lot of “junk” out there about Islam – so it is good to be sure you refer to reliable sources. One of the most frequent ways that Islamophobes vilify the Qur’an is to take the verses out of context.
Some points of information are: Below are some “meanings of the Holy Qur’an. We only call it the Holy Qur’an when it is written or recited in the original Arabic, as we believe it was reveal by God to the Prophet Muhammad, through the Angel Gabriel. The Qur’an has been explained in almost every language and by many different “translators” of the Arabic meaning. The one who translates from the original Arabic is only as good as his understanding of Arabic, the language to which he is translating and the understanding of the context and religion altogether. Not a simple or easy task. So . . . in order to always be sure that the Qur’an is never altered or change it is only considered such in its original revealed language, Arabic. There are several acknowledged and generally accepted translators of the Qur’an – and none of them is perfect – only the original is considered perfect is it is from God. Of course, non-Arabic speakers rely upon the accepted scholars for study – however, we do learn our formal daily five prayers in Arabic to keep them pure from alteration or corruption. Supplication to God is accepted of course any time and in any language as it is a very personal relationship.
When the Qur’an talks about believers, it is referring to those who believe in the One, Almighty Creator of the Heavens and the Earth. Allah is the Arabic word for God. Arabic speaking Christians and Jews use the word Allah. What I like about this word “Allah” is that it has no gender, nothing can be greater than, or comparable to it, nor higher than it. In the Qur’an, Christians and Jews are referred to as “the people of the Book”, referring to the original revealed scriptures (Torah, Gospel etc.)
OK – so following are some verses from the Qur’an that we used last year in our CAIR program booklet to help those of other faiths know something about what the Qur’an says.
The Holy Qur’an
Chapter 49, Verses 10-13
“10. All believers are but brethren. Hence, [whenever they are at odds,] make peace between your two brethren, and remain conscious of God, so that you might be graced with His mercy.
11. O YOU who have attained faith! No men shall deride [other] men: it may well be that those [whom they deride] are better that themselves; and no women [shall deride other] women: it may well be that those [whom they deride] are better than themselves. And neither shall you defame one another, nor insult one another by [opprobrious] epithets; evil is all imputation of iniquity after [one has to] faith; and they who [become guilty thereof and] do not repent - it is they, they who are evildoers!
12. O Believers! Avoid suspicion as much (as possible): for suspicion in some cases is a sin: and spy not on each other behind their backs. Would any of you like to eat the flesh of his dead brother? No, you would hate it. But fear Allah. Allah is Most Forgiving and Most Merciful.
13. O Mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that you may recognize each other (and not despise each other). Verily, the most honored among you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous of you. And God has full knowledge and is well acquainted (with all things).”
The Holy Qur'an, Chapter 5, Verse 48
“We have given the Book as an inheritance to those of Our servants whom We have chosen. Among them there are some who wrong their own souls, some (who) follow a middle course and some, by God’s leave, (who) excel in good deeds; which is the supreme virtue.”
The Holy Qur'an, Chapter 59, Verses 18-19
“God will never change the condition of a people until they change that which is within themselves.”
The Holy Qur’an, Chapter 14, Verses 24-25
"Do you not observe how Allah strikes a similitude between a good word and a good tree, whose roots are firmly grounded and whose branches reach skywards. It provides its benefit throughout all the periods Allah assigned for it. Allah provides such parables so that perchance you may reflect."
# # #
I know that is probably way more that what you wanted, however, I think you can understand that it is difficult to share ones belief in one or two lines. I sincerely hope that I have been helpful to you. Since I am not a scholar, I pray that if I have made any mistakes in conveying this information, that first Allah and then you will forgive me.
Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or if there is any other way I may be of service.
May God’s peace and blessings be upon you and your family.
With respect and in friendship,
Sherrel
Dear Maria:
Thank you so much for your warm Ramadan greetings and for your very kind words of support. It deeply touches my soul to know of your trust and respect – I guess I would call that true friendship : - ) We have been blessed with much support from people of many different beliefs – including even atheists! Freedom of worship is what our nation was founded upon, and many are realizing that to tread on one faith’s beliefs is trampling America’s, 1st Amendment rights. We are so very grateful for people like you who are willing to stand for justice for ALL, not just some.
What I would really like our Christian sisters and brothers to know is that:
Islam is not a new religion, but the same truth that God revealed through all His prophets to every people. For a fifth of the world's population, Islam is both a religion and a complete way of life. Muslims follow a religion of peace, mercy, and forgiveness, and the majority have nothing to do with the extremely grave events which have come to be associated with their faith.
I would also want them to know that in order ones self “Muslim” (one who submits to God and the root word for peace), they must believe in the following: Muslims believe in One, Unique, Incomparable God; in the Angels created by Him; in the prophets through whom His revelations were brought to mankind; in the Day of Judgment and individual accountability for actions; in God's complete authority over human destiny and in life after death. Muslims believe in a chain of prophets starting with Adam and including Noah, Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Job, Moses, Aaron, David, Solomon, Elias, Jonah, John the Baptist, and Jesus, peace be upon them all. And that God's final message to mankind, a reconfirmation of the eternal message and a summing-up of all that has gone before was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad through Gabriel.
I would also want them to know that our roots, together with Judaism and Christianity, go back to the prophet and patriarch Abraham, and their three prophets are directly descended from his sons, with Muhammad coming from the elder son Ishmael, and Moses and Jesus from the younger son Isaac. Abraham established the settlement which today is the city of Makkah, and built the Ka’bah toward which all Muslims turn when they pray. Additionally, Many Christians are surprised to know that Muslims love and revere Jesus as one of the major Prophets, and believe that he will return as a sign of the “Day of Judgment”. Muslims also believe in his birth from the Virgin Mary – who has a whole chapter dedicated to her, as well as the Prophet Joseph and others. (Of course Muslims do not believe in the divinity of Jesus – which is our major difference).
For further information about Islam, a very reliable source (which Muslim and those of other faiths use as well) is www.islamicity.com As you may guess there is a lot of “junk” out there about Islam – so it is good to be sure you refer to reliable sources. One of the most frequent ways that Islamophobes vilify the Qur’an is to take the verses out of context.
Some points of information are: Below are some “meanings of the Holy Qur’an. We only call it the Holy Qur’an when it is written or recited in the original Arabic, as we believe it was reveal by God to the Prophet Muhammad, through the Angel Gabriel. The Qur’an has been explained in almost every language and by many different “translators” of the Arabic meaning. The one who translates from the original Arabic is only as good as his understanding of Arabic, the language to which he is translating and the understanding of the context and religion altogether. Not a simple or easy task. So . . . in order to always be sure that the Qur’an is never altered or change it is only considered such in its original revealed language, Arabic. There are several acknowledged and generally accepted translators of the Qur’an – and none of them is perfect – only the original is considered perfect is it is from God. Of course, non-Arabic speakers rely upon the accepted scholars for study – however, we do learn our formal daily five prayers in Arabic to keep them pure from alteration or corruption. Supplication to God is accepted of course any time and in any language as it is a very personal relationship.
When the Qur’an talks about believers, it is referring to those who believe in the One, Almighty Creator of the Heavens and the Earth. Allah is the Arabic word for God. Arabic speaking Christians and Jews use the word Allah. What I like about this word “Allah” is that it has no gender, nothing can be greater than, or comparable to it, nor higher than it. In the Qur’an, Christians and Jews are referred to as “the people of the Book”, referring to the original revealed scriptures (Torah, Gospel etc.)
OK – so following are some verses from the Qur’an that we used last year in our CAIR program booklet to help those of other faiths know something about what the Qur’an says.
The Holy Qur’an
Chapter 49, Verses 10-13
“10. All believers are but brethren. Hence, [whenever they are at odds,] make peace between your two brethren, and remain conscious of God, so that you might be graced with His mercy.
11. O YOU who have attained faith! No men shall deride [other] men: it may well be that those [whom they deride] are better that themselves; and no women [shall deride other] women: it may well be that those [whom they deride] are better than themselves. And neither shall you defame one another, nor insult one another by [opprobrious] epithets; evil is all imputation of iniquity after [one has to] faith; and they who [become guilty thereof and] do not repent - it is they, they who are evildoers!
12. O Believers! Avoid suspicion as much (as possible): for suspicion in some cases is a sin: and spy not on each other behind their backs. Would any of you like to eat the flesh of his dead brother? No, you would hate it. But fear Allah. Allah is Most Forgiving and Most Merciful.
13. O Mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that you may recognize each other (and not despise each other). Verily, the most honored among you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous of you. And God has full knowledge and is well acquainted (with all things).”
The Holy Qur'an, Chapter 5, Verse 48
“We have given the Book as an inheritance to those of Our servants whom We have chosen. Among them there are some who wrong their own souls, some (who) follow a middle course and some, by God’s leave, (who) excel in good deeds; which is the supreme virtue.”
The Holy Qur'an, Chapter 59, Verses 18-19
“God will never change the condition of a people until they change that which is within themselves.”
The Holy Qur’an, Chapter 14, Verses 24-25
"Do you not observe how Allah strikes a similitude between a good word and a good tree, whose roots are firmly grounded and whose branches reach skywards. It provides its benefit throughout all the periods Allah assigned for it. Allah provides such parables so that perchance you may reflect."
# # #
I know that is probably way more that what you wanted, however, I think you can understand that it is difficult to share ones belief in one or two lines. I sincerely hope that I have been helpful to you. Since I am not a scholar, I pray that if I have made any mistakes in conveying this information, that first Allah and then you will forgive me.
Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or if there is any other way I may be of service.
May God’s peace and blessings be upon you and your family.
With respect and in friendship,
Sherrel
Monday, September 06, 2010
Back from Sabbatical
I have been on Sabbath Leave all summer following the instructions I received from my congregation to engage in rest, restoration and re-energizing. As I keep telling people, I spent most of June sleeping, July dealing with and recovering from a relatively minor surgery, and August preparing for Re-Entry. By the time I returned on September 1st I was SO ready to get back that I showed up in my office at 7 am! Not surprisingly, everything went just fine while I was gone. Three members had shared my workload; one preaching, one doing pastoral care and one taking care of whatever administrative duties the church secretary couldn't handle herself. I did learn that some things simply hadn't happened and now we get to decide whether those things are really necessary.
Walking into the Sanctuary on Sunday morning felt like coming home. Standing in the narthex and looking toward the Table I couldn't help but sigh one of those great big "ahhhhhh good" sighs. Standing in the pulpit to share the prayer concerns and celebrations of my flock, singing the response to the Scripture reading, wandering up the center aisle during the message - it all just felt so right. (My sermon felt a bit disjointed but I really expected that. I knew there was way more I wanted to say than there would be time for.) Standing at the Table, sharing the Feast of Love, holding hands with everyone in the closing circle . . . it all felt like I was exactly where I was supposed to be. And as if all that wasn't enough, after worship I was showered with hugs and kisses and presented with a huge chocolate cake.
Any doubts I may have had about where I belong or what I should be doing in that burned out daze before my Sabbath Leave began were gone. This feels too right not to be what God called me to do with my life.
Still, some things can be expected to change now that I've had some time to prayerfully consider what brought me to such an exhausted state. I will take two days off each week instead of one. Part of what made me crazy before sabbatical was that except for Sundays I have felt much more like an administrator than a pastor. Once I walked into the office that was it - I was stuck there all day no matter what I had hoped to do with my time. So nowyes""> I will dedicate one day every week to visitation and one to studying/writing. That means only two days a week will be spent in the office. Of course, it is a given that "man proposes, God disposes." My plans will run into obstacles; meetings and conferences will happen on visitation days and days off, and so on. But still, now that I know just how important these things are and will continue to be, it will be a priority to make sure they happen, so that I may better serve God.
It is such a blessing to be back!
Sunday, May 09, 2010
Lydia, a Mother of the Church
Acts 16:9-15
9 During the night Paul had a vision: there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, "Come over to Macedonia and help us." 10 When he had seen the vision, we immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia, being convinced that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them. 11 We set sail from Troas and took a straight course to Samothrace, the following day to Neapolis, 12 and from there to Philippi, which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia and a Roman colony. We remained in this city for some days. 13 On the sabbath day we went outside the gate by the river, where we supposed there was a place of prayer; and we sat down and spoke to the women who had gathered there. 14 A certain woman named Lydia, a worshiper of God, was listening to us; she was from the city of Thyatira and a dealer in purple cloth. The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul. 15 When she and her household were baptized, she urged us, saying, "If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come and stay at my home." And she prevailed upon us.
Paul is very possibly the most controversial character in the New Testament. We know of some of modern controversies over him – Paul’s words about slavery, the place of women, the household codes and homosexuality have been used to oppress members of minority groups for centuries. Works by Feminists, African Americans, Gay/Lesbian, and other theologians look closely at Paul, rejecting a great deal of what he says on such topics as being totally conditioned by the cultural constraints of the time and by his own education in Jewish law. Historians and theologians alike look at the body of letters attributed to Paul and see significant differences in both writing style and message, which indicates that Paul didn’t write everything with his name on it. The modern controversy over Paul’s writings and their position of importance in the church are not likely to end any time soon.
We may not be as familiar with how controversial he was during his lifetime
He was first a persecutor of followers of Jesus then a convert
No one wanted to trust him.
Ananais didn’t want to go to help him even after the Lord spoke to him personally and told him to go!
Saul/Paul spent time with the disciples in Damascus preaching and his conversion upset some of the Jews so much there was even a plot to kill him, but he escaped.
He went to Jerusalem, and none of the disciples wanted anything to do with him.
Except Barnabas.
The apostles and elders weren’t sure what to do with him.
He was certainly passionate, his conversion was unquestionably real.
But he was so controversial. . .
They decided to send him out of Jerusalem.
They sent him to Tarsus, his home town, where there was a sizable Jewish community.
He could preach the Good News there.
We know he was to become the apostle to the Gentiles.
But at first the idea of converting the Gentiles was problematic.
You’ll remember, I hope, the controversy over Peter baptizing Cornelius and his family without first circumcising the males.
Peter had to return to Jerusalem and convince the other apostles and leaders of the church, describing the vision God had sent, before they would accept that Gentiles could have the baptism of repentance without first becoming Jews.
But he did, and that cleared the way for Paul’s mission to the Gentiles.
Barnabas had gone to Antioch where a great many Gentiles had heard the good news and turned to the Lord. Desiring some help in that work he went to Tarsus for Paul and brought him back to Antioch.
There was still controversy over whether circumcision and obedience to the Law was required. Barnabas and Paul had to return to Jerusalem and defend their work, getting a ruling in writing from the church leaders on what would be required of Gentile converts. He and Barnabas set out again but argue and go their separate ways, Barnabas with John Mark and Paul with Silas, each carrying copies of the ruling they had received from the apostles and elders had reached in Jerusalem.
According to the story it was God’s will that Paul go into Europe carrying the Good News to the Gentiles. Setting out on the journey Paul tries twice to head into Asia, but the author of Acts tells us that both time he is forbidden to go there by the Holy Spirit. Instead he has a vision of a man in Macedonia (northern Greece) begging him to come there. And so the stage is set for Paul’s trip to Philippi, his meeting with Lydia and his first conversion in Europe.
In Philippi there is, apparently, no synagogue. Jews gather outside the gates for Sabbath worship. Paul goes out to the place where he imagines there be a place where Jews gather to pray and sits down to speak with the women who are gathered there. Immediately we notice something odd. Men and women worship separately as a matter of course yet Paul sits down, in the position of a teacher, with the women. The women. Not what you’d expect of an evangelist coming into town. Nevertheless, that’s what he did, and while sitting and teaching the women of Philippi his words touch the heart of a woman called Lydia.
The few lines about Lydia tell us so much about her. Her name and place of birth tell us she is Greek. She is a dealer in purple cloth, a merchant who deals in a particular luxury item and therefore she is well off financially, a person of status in the community. Because she is identified in this way it is also clear that she is the head of her household, financially independent. Indeed, we will learn that her household, family members and servants, are with her at the riverside. She is a follower of God, not a Jew but a seeker. A woman whose heart is already open to the possibilities of what God can accomplish. This is the woman sitting there, receptive, when Paul begins to teach. His words reach into her heart, she is converted and baptized, along with her household.
All these things are good, but it is what happens next that makes Lydia a mother of the Church. She says “If you have found me to be faithful in the Lord, come and stay at my home.” She opens her home to Paul and Silas. It is where they will stay throughout their visit. It will be the first of the many house churches to be founded by Paul. It will be the place where the church in Philippi is based and she will be one of its leaders.
Lydia, seeing that Paul and Silas were strangers in the city, immediately offered hospitality. She saw something that needed to be done and did it. She saw an opportunity to serve God’s people and immediately took that opportunity. She didn’t spend time wondering if it was the right thing to do, or waiting to see if someone else would step forward first to give Paul and Silas a place to stay. Her heart was open to possibilities. She experienced a resurrection of the spirit – from seeker to leader of the church in a very short time.
The great thing about the early church is that there wasn’t anyone around to say “Well, when they’ve been part of the congregation a little longer we’ll let them have some little responsibility.” In so many congregations today the long time members have a hard time letting the newer folks actually do anything. I am grateful that my experience in the church was more like Lydia’s. When I first started attending Treasure Coast Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in 1993 I hadn’t been to church in about 25 years. The pastor made opportunities available to me. She asked me to give the children’s sermon and teach Vacation Bible School. She didn’t let me sit in the pew just listening but quickly included me in the work of the church. And she wasn’t the only one to make me feel that I was part of the congregation. Someone sitting in front of me one of the first Sundays I attended suggested I might join the choir. Which is so much better than if they had suggested I sing more quietly. ☺ And of course you all know the rest of the story. Because my heart was open to the words and actions of the faithful at Treasure Coast Christian Church I experienced resurrection of the spirit. Because of their loving care I became able to hear God’s call to the ministry. It was just 10 short years after joining that congregation that I came here as your pastor.
Paul carried the Good News of Jesus Christ equally to men and women, Gentile and Jew. In his letters he identifies more women leaders by name. Lydia is just the first. Rhoda, Tabitha, Eunice, Syntyche, Priscilla, Pheobe . . . these women will be leaders of the congregations in their cities. These women, faithful and worthy, will open their hearts and their homes to the Gospel message and to the followers of Jesus Christ. These women, these mothers of the church would be preachers and teachers, evangelists, strong workers in the mission field, gaining converts to the faith through their faithfulness in word and deed.
Paul carried the Good News to everyone without prejudice. He frequently had to defend his actions to others who thought he should have stricter requirements about who he let in and who he let lead, but the fact of the matter is, he carried the Good News to anyone and everyone with ears to hear. And so many, Gentiles and Jews, slaves and free, men and women, gay and straight, of all races and cultures and languages, experienced a resurrection of the Spirit like Lydia did, like I did when I finally heard Christ’s message of God’s love for all people. The congregations established in Paul’s time were the perfect example of what church could and should be today - open to all who want to experience God’s love and carry that love outside into the world we live in, diverse in Culture, Nation and Race. Let us be that church.
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