"Lifeline or Plumline" Lent 2A

Genesis 12:1-4a 

Saint John 3:1-17 

Mny of you are or will be reading soon the very fine book by Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World.  

Dr.  Taylor was called from her life as the parish priest in Clarksville, Georgia to become a professor at Piedmont College where she became the professor of World Religions. 

Dr.  Taylor is an Episcopalian and they, like Lutherans, affirm that while the presence of God can be found everywhere it is especially found at the altar in church when we are receiving Holy Communion.   The problem, she says, is “the moment we step out into the parking lot we lose that sense of intimacy.” So, her book she not only encourages us to look for God’s presence here in church but everywhere we go in everything we do.

She invites us to discover the sacred in the small things we do and see, the simple practices such as walking the dog and wondering how they are experiencing the world.  She encourages us to really make eye contact with the cashier at the grocery store and allow it to become a moment of true human connection.  Even getting lost, according to Dr. Taylor, can  lead to new discoveries.

In her first chapter she calls our attention to Saint Francis of Assisi who “loved singing hymns with his brothers and sisters that included not only Brother Bernard and Sister Claire but also brother sun and sister moon.  For him  . . .  a single bird was as much a messenger of God as a cloud full of angels.”1

Francis’ story could be all feel good all the time were it not for one thing. 

Taking the Bible quite literally, picking up whatever Jesus said or did and putting it on his to-do list for the day, Francis divested himself of his advantages, including his exquisite, fashionable clothing, which he gave away to the poor. His father, Pietro, a churchgoing, upstanding citizen, took exception, locked his son up for a time, and then sued him in the city square.2

It wasn’t a very nice thing for a churchgoing father to do to his bible-practicing son.  Lock him up and then sue him?  Most of us would say “no” but the church has a long history of excluding people who do not worship at the same altar we do.  We have had a long history of excluding people who should have been included.  

It is a primary sin of the church is to divide up people and put plumblines where there should be lifelines.  

One of the primary questions we use to divide people is the way they have come to God.  Was it suddenly or over time?  Did they realize the presence of God in nature or in church?  Barbara Brown Taylor tells us in her book that the answer to both choices is: (spoiler alert!)  “Yes.”

Scripture itself tells us that there is no one way, no right way, to discover God’s presence.

God may seem to come to us suddenly, out of nowhere, for no reason, as in the case of Abram.

Without much fanfare or fuss on God’s part or even a faith-life resume on Abraham’s he receives a call from God to go.  And, much to our surprise, he does.  Abraham accepts an invitation that wouldn’t take more words than three tweets on a Twitter account.  

We wouldn’t do that.  In the current climate we are not even taking a brief vacation without finding out whether the place we are going to is safe.  Even if it is, we still might be tempted to stock up on anti-bacterial soap and even, in perhaps the strangest behavior of all, toilet paper, before we go.

Abraham is not given a task to do other than listen and go.  He is not asked to do a job or told that he has to be a model of anything.  God simply says, “I’m God, and I want you to go, and I’ll show you where it is when you get there.3

The late Dr.  Lewis B.  Smedes of Fuller Seminary, speculated on how the news of this sudden move might have been received by the rest of the family.

Yes, I can imagine Sarah waking up about four in the morning, hearing the bustling noises of Abraham packing.  And Sarah says, “What are you doing, Abe?”  “Packing.”  “What for?”  “Well, we’re leaving.”  “Where are we going?”  “I don’t know.”  “Why are we going?  “Because He told me to.”  “Who’s he?”  “He didn’t tell me.”  And then I could imagine Sarah calling her father: “What am I going to do?” Her father says, “I knew you should have married this nut.”4

If you Respond quickly to a call from God can find yourself being labeled as impulsive.  Take your time to understand God’s claim on your life and you may be called too pragmatic.  If Abraham was spontaneous Nicodemus was deliberate. 

Careful of his place and position in the community he arranges a late night meeting with Jesus. 

This was no accidental meeting.  It had to have been prearranged because, in those days, individuals did not go out at night.  You’ve heard it said in our age, “Nothing good happens after 3:00 in the morning” when these two were living saying might have been, “Nothing good happens after dark.”

We have no idea what this clandestine meeting  looked like but it could have come straight out of a scene from a film noir.  We can picture what is going on.

You can see a man sneaking past his family and out the front door.  He makes his way down a very dark street with the lamp in his hand barely lighting his path.  He peeks around every corner and turns around often to be sure that no one is following him and that he won’t be discovered.  Finally he catches sight of another man who is waiting for him, watching for him.

Like in the picture above the two shadowy figures meet.  However, instead of clarity there is confusion.  Jesus’ reply to Nicodemus’ very complimentary and kind greeting leaves him baffled and has kept countless biblical scholars employed ever since.

“Believe me,” [says Jesus seeming out of the blue] “a man cannot even see the kingdom of God without being born again.”5

To this Nicodemus replied, “Huh!”

Jesus is being far more obtrusive with Nicodemus than God was with Abraham.  God at least gave a command and a promise, “Go!” And, “I will make of you a great nation.”

Jesus asks Nicodemus to do something he couldn’t do in a million years causing the scholar asks a perfectly reasonable question:  “Born again!” exclaimed Nicodemus. “What do you mean? How can an old man go back into his mother’s womb and be born again?”6

The obvious answer is we can’t but  Jesus is using a physiological example to make a theological point that many miss. 

Some of you who are fathers were there in the delivery room when your children were born.  Many of you who are older were perfectly happy to sit in the waiting room and chain smoke cigarettes with the other nervous fellows.  

The closest many guys like me will ever come to the experience is watching “Call the Midwife” and that is perfectly fine for there seems to be a lot of yelling, and screaming, and general messiness involved in the process that I would rather not be a part of, thank you very much.

“The heart of Jesus’ surprising notion of being born again is this: you can’t grit your teeth and get born the first time, and you can’t when you’re born again either.”7

On that cold, snowy, winter afternoon in December, longer ago than I care to admit, I didn’t decide to leave the comfort of my mother’s womb and see what was going on in the world outside.  I was entirely passive in the process.  It was my mother who did all the real work assisted by the doctors and nurses.  I just let it happen.

So it is with encountering God.  You can’t program how God will come to you, it’s all God’s doing so you might as well let it happen.  

It doesn’t matter if you spent all of your life in a parochial school, went to a Christian College, studied the scriptures, went to chapel five times a week when you were in a seminary, or never did any of those things at all.  We’re here because there was a moment in our lives when we felt something and what we felt was nothing less than the love of God.

It was like the wind.  It could have been a heavy gust that almost knocked us over or it might have been a gentle breeze that had been blowing over the pages of our lives for a long time.  Long before we could have named it and claimed it, it was claiming us.

Barbara Brown Taylor and her kind are right.  There is no one, certain way to meet God but there is something of which we can be sure.  Whether our altar be in a fresh field of flowers somewhere or in a church there is no pre-programmed way for God to touch our lives but when God comes  it will be all God, all grace, all love.  

I love the way Eugene Peterson paraphrases the words, “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”8

Here is how Peterson phrases it: “God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again.”9

God may come and we might answer quickly and follow like Abraham did.  Or, it may take awhile as it did for Nicodemus who went away after his late night encounter, for the most part, unchanged with only something to think about.  

There is no plumline that can measure the moment when God reaches out to touch our lives but  when it will be nothing less than a lifeline from the hand of God itself.  

Of that you can be sure.  Amen.

____________

1.  Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World: a Geography of Faith.  (New York: HarperOne, 2010.

2.  James Howell. “What Can We Say March 8? Lent 2A.” James Howell's Weekly Preaching Notions. Myers Park Presbyterian Church, January 1, 2019.

3.  Bill Moyers, Genesis: A Living Conversation.  (New York, NY: Doubleday, 1996.)  p.  158.

4. Moyers, op. cit., p.  162-163.

5. St.  John 3:3.  (PHILLIPS) [Phillips=J. B. Phillips, The New Testament in Modern English.  (London: HarperCollins, 2000.)

6.  St.  John 3:7.4. (TLB) [TLB:The Living Bible]

7. Howell, loc. cit.

8. St.  John 3:17.  (NRSV) [NRSV=The New Revised Standard Version]

9. St.  John 3:17.  (MESSAGE) [MESSAGE=Eugene H. Peterson, The Message: the New Testament in Contemporary Language.  (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress Pub. Group, 2003.)]

"What's So Original About Sin?" - Lent 1A

Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7
Saint Matthew 4:1-11

Almost every week a friend of mine, who is a psychologist, and I have lunch.  It is a mutually therapeutic time in which we talk about the perils of each other’s professions.  We also have a wide-ranging conversation about sports, politics, travel, and other events in each other’s lives. 
 

One day we were talking about the occasions when people would come into our offices and say: “Doctor, Pastor, I have something to tell you about myself that is going to shock you.”
 

Don’t try this because it won’t work!
 

We both agreed that, at this point in our careers, we were un-shockable.  I’ve done this for a very long time and to become a licenced psychologist he has had to work in some very dicey places with some pretty “interesting” people.
 

He said that when people open a session with the suggestion that something they are about to tell him is so shocking that he won’t believe it his internal reaction is to say to himself: “Bring it on!” 
 

It is well that he makes his living at counseling and I don’t because once when an upset parishioner came to me and proclaimed, “Pastor, I’m in the most sinful state I’ve ever been in” I asked her if she had ever been to Nevada.  Undeterred by her puzzled expression I continued, “I’ve been there and it’s a really sinful state.” For some reason it was at this point that she excused herself.
 

We agreed that, after years of doing our respective jobs, we were like the guy in the  Farmer’s Insurance Hall of Claims commercials who after every unspeakable catastrophe says: “Seen it.  Covered it.  At Farmer’s Insurances we know a thing or two because we have seen a thing or two.”
 

During the course of our careers the good doctor and I have seen and covered so much ground in the foibles and shortcomings of the human condition that very few “sinful states” are able to surprise.
 

Mark Twain famously said “I don’t know why Adam and Eve get so much credit. I could have done just as well.”  There is nothing so original about their sin that it should surprise us in the least.

Sin is the all too human condition in which all of us spend a lot of out time in and then trying to get out of.  There is nothing new about it.

Remember old Adam? God put the first hominids in a lush garden  . . .  rich and bountiful.  God said, “be fruitful and multiply” (The most gracious command God ever gave us). Oh, and one other thing, “Stay off that tree over there. You can eat fruit from the hundreds of other trees, but not that tree.”

Well, you know the story. The minute God’s back was turned, Adam saw the forbidden fruit looking tasty and even more appealing because of God’s prohibition.

“Did God really say,” asked the serpent, the first theologian, “you won’t die?” So Adam took and ate, and Eve did the same and let’s just say human innocence (if that’s what it was) lasted for maybe fifteen minutes.1

What was the sin?  Eating the apple?  No.  Their sin was believing that the rules didn’t apply to them. 
 

We can think of countless major examples of how this works but, since spring training has just begun I am going to use our National Pastime as an illustration.

The Houston Astros won the World Series in 2017 after scoring the most runs in baseball in the regular season. They also had the most total bases and the highest team batting average.

[This was because] according to a report by The Athletic  . . .  they often knew what pitches were coming because of a scheme using a camera and a trash can.2

The camera was mounted in center field and transmitted a feed to a television near the Astros’ dugout.  A player would watch the television and bang on a nearby trash can or blow a whistle to signal if an off-speed pitch or fastball was coming.
 

Anybody who watches baseball at home can predict with reasonable accuracy what kind of a pitch is coming when the shot of home plate is coming from the center field camera.  Not only the signs flashed but where the catcher sets up behind the plate will tell  the pitch and the desired location.

Try this when you are watching a game with a novice.  Watch carefully and then say to your partner, “Curve balls inside” or “a fast ball at the letters.”  I did this to poor Lowell and he was amazed!
 

Sign steeling is something that has gone on forever in major league baseball.  It won’t take long for a runner on second to pick up the signs and try to relay them to the batter  which is why the catcher often will walk out to the mound  to change signs.  This is a part of the game that takes more coordination than a camera and a trash can.
 

A good batter will watch a pitcher to see if his motion, or the way he holds his glove, is different for every pitch but this takes careful observation.  Watching a television and blowing a whistle takes no skill at all.
 

Former major leaguer Gregg Olsen, in his list of unwritten baseball rules pushes the idea of rules almost to the limit saying: “Stealing signs is OK, just don’t get caught. If your signs are easy enough to steal, it’s your fault. If you get caught sign stealing, someone gets hit.“3
 

That statement is a perfect example of how sin works.
 

Sin tells us that what we are doing is perfectly fine, so long as you don’t get caught.  Go ahead Adam and Eve, eat the apple so long as God doesn’t find out.

 Sin also tells us it’s somebody else’s fault anyway.  Just as if your signs are that easy to steal, it’s your fault everybody in the garden is busy blaming ever one else. Adam blames Eve, and Eve blames the serpent, and the serpent just smiles knowing that these two have been duped.
 

Just as sign stealing results in somebody getting hit by a pitch (Entering Thursday night’s game against the Washington Nationals, Houston Astros batters had been hit by more pitches this spring than any other team.)  the creation story’s sin results in the first couple getting the old “heave ho” from the garden.
 

At least Adam and Eve were after something worthwhile!  The diabolical one, the tempter, tells them that if they ate of the fruit they would be like God.  That is a very high prize because having all the powers of God is something worth possessing. All the Astros received for their efforts was, in the words of Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred, “a piece of metal.”
 

Winning the World Series would make them, for a year at least, the gods of the baseball world.  They were, but at was cost?  Cheating cost them their reputations and in some cases even their jobs. 
 

Sin is like that, sometimes it can cost a lot and sometimes it can cost you everything when it veers you off course and beckons you to follow its tempting ways.
 

Jesus knew what he was doing and he knew what was at stake when he was tempted in the wilderness.  What was at stake was nothing less than your salvation and mine.
 

Even when he is famished and the tempter comes Jesus knows it “is better to remain hungry than to take the bait.  He knows he is the Beloved; there is no need to call upon angels to prevent his crash into the temple courtyard.  He has no need of worldly kingdoms and their splendors, he knows who holds the future” and it is no less than God, the real God!

Ultimately what we have before us this day are two stories.  

One is our story.  It is a story of our falling and failing.  It is a story of our trying to “be our own god” and ignoring the written and unwritten rules of baseball and of life.  We may hate to admit it but we know that if left to our own devices our lives often descend into chaos and confusion.
 

We know that Mark Twain was right and that we could have done just as well if not better than Adam and Eve.  But we also know that our ways can lead us into a state more sinful than Nevada.  Our ways can lead us into a state of separation from God and from each other.  That, like it or not, is our story.
 

The second story is God’s.  It is a redemption story that looks at all we have done and all those times when we have given in and says, “Do you think what you’ve done surprises me?  Not in the least.  I’ve been there and done that.  Because of Jesus,” God says, “I know temptation too.  Never-the-less, I love you and you are mine.”
 

That kind of love triumphs over temptation every time and it is worth more than any piece of metal or anything else in the whole word.  And we never have to do anything for it because it is ours in Jesus Christ our Lord.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.
 

"With Flakes of Light" - Transfiguation A

Exodus 24:12-18
Saint Matthew 17:1-9

Zora Neale Hurston, wrote a book about the life of Moses beautifully weaving the biblical accounts with those of the rich storytelling tradition of her ancestors who were slaves.

Here is how she described Moses as he descended from the mountain after spending forty days communing with God.

Moses lifted the freshly chiseled tablets of stone in his hands and gazed down the mountain to where Israel waited in the valley.  He knew a great exaltation.  Now men could be free because they could govern themselves.  They had something of the essence of divinity expressed in order.  They have the chart and compass of behavior.  They need not stumble into blind ways and injure themselves.  This was bigger than Israel itself.  It comprehended the world.

With flakes of light still clinging to his face, Moses turned down the mountain with the tablets of testimony in his hands. 

“Joshua,” Moses said, “I have laws, Israel is going to know peace and justice.”1

I love that.  It is beautiful writing.  “With flakes of light still clinging to his face.”
 
That is a certain sign that someone has had something majestic happen to them.  You’ve seen it.  You’ve experienced it.  This isn’t just something that happens to characters in the bible because it has happened to all of us.  Not being as eloquent as Ms.  Hurston, we might have to settle on the words “She was beaming!” to describe what we meant. 
 
It is moments like this that sustain us.  It is those times when we have felt especially wonderful, fully alive, exceptionally happy, in the darker or even the more humdrum moments of life.
 
It is the reason we take pictures at momentous occasions.  We want to remember the joy, the excitement of those moments.

Think of what a big moment it must have been when Moses, his face flecked with  left over light from being in the presence of God descended down the mountain with the commandments. Unfortunately, Moses time to shine didn’t last very long because of what was going on back down in the valley with his people.

You remember the story.  

Moses had been gone so long that the people had given up on him and God and asked Aaron to cobble together another god for them to worship.  Either out of fear of the mob, lack of leadership skills, or an absence of faith, he fashioned a golden calf for them.
 Here is Zora Neale Hurston’s fictionalized account of what was going on with Moses and Joshua on the mountain while the people partied down below.

Moses looked down at the stones in his lap and passed his hand over the carved figures reverently and then looked back up the mountain as if he would retreat up there.  Then he brought his attention back to the tumult below.

“Does it sound like the voice of the people shouting for victory, Joshua? 

Well,’ he said haltingly, ‘does that sound to you like they are crying out for help?  What do you reckon could have happened to Israel, Joshua?

 “Oh, that’s singing and dancing that I hear.  Sounds like the dance songs to Apis, the Bull-god to me.  Listen to those drums!”
 
 Moses snatched his face away from Joshua and the last glimmer of light that had clung to his face from God, died to ashes.2

That has happened to us to when mountaintop moments of majesty are interrupted and tarnished by other events. 
 
That is why it makes so much sense for Peter to want to stay on top of the mountain with Jesus.  He and Jesus had just had a very nasty row.  Peter had confessed Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah, the Savior.  And for a moment he was a hero, a theologian of the first order, until Jesus started to talk about the cross. 

When Jesus began to talk about a cross, Peter crumbled.  He had been trying to tell them what it would mean to be the Messiah.  But all Peter had wanted was for Jesus to stop talking.  He had felt as if the Jesus he had known and loved was slipping through his fingers.3

He also must have felt that a majestic moment might slip away if he didn’t do something.

Poor Peter has taken a lot of grief over the centuries for his response to the appearance of Moses and Elijah there with Jesus and most of it is unjustified.
 
This is a moment worth preserving.  This is a moment that is worth keeping for if not eternity at least as long as possible.  How often does one get to witness a meeting of the minds of three great religious leaders?   It is as if the four presidents on Mount Rushmore started to speak.  At the risk of dating myself that would be a Kodak moment!
 
Lutheran Pastor Brian Stoffregen has always wondered, how did they know it was Moses and Elijah? 

Did they have pictures of them hanging in their synagogues? Did they have their names over their pockets on their presumably white robes -- or perhaps their names were printed on the back, across their shoulders like football players? However they knew who they were, they represent the law and the prophets; and there were traditions about both that they had never died.4

 This is not only a moment worth preserving but it would serve another purpose: It would keep Jesus safe.  All of those predictions about his suffering, and dying could never take place if he was safely ensconced in a house on the mountain.  Nothing could ever happen to him in a mountaintop retreat.
 
'At this moment it is almost as if the LORD God had to blow a whistle, pull back on the reigns and say, “Whoa!  Whoa!  Whoa!” 

While [Peter] was still speaking, (Still babbling on) 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!”5

At that the two disciples fell on their faces, frightened, terrified, scared to death.
 
It is at this point Jesus comes over and does something vastly different from everything else we have been talking about this morning.  “Jesus came over and touched them.  ‘Get up,’ he said, don’t be afraid.’”6
 
This may even be a more powerful, lasting image than all the fire and smoke of Moses’ mountaintop experience and even the bright light with the bright stars of Scripture with Jesus, Moses and Elijah.

Transfiguration Sunday is such a weird and wonderful day to celebrate. In so many ways, nothing really happened. Nothing changed. The world wasn’t turned upside down. The disciples weren’t suddenly flooded with a new understanding of God or of Jesus.  

It doesn’t change Jesus’ fundamental ministry. It doesn’t even change the timeline or the outcome of Jesus’ challenging message. He continues to heal. He continues to teach. He continues to frustrate the religious folks. He continues to expect more from his disciples than they ever are able to follow through on. Ministry just continues, which makes this sacred moment on the top of a mountain all the more interesting.7 

Because in that moment we catch a glimpse of God’s grandeur and God’s love.
The grandeur is amazing but the love sustains.

So too, it is for us.  There will be mountaintop moments when we feel that God is in total and complete control and we feel God’s presence in all of its glory.

 There will also be moments when we fall on our faces in fear wondering if life can go on and if we ever be able to see our way though.  When the last glimmer of light in our life seems to die.

 It is at both of these times we can feel God’s tough in Jesus and, when we do, we will discover that the flakes of the light of God’s love are still clinging to our face.

 Thanks be to God who makes this so.  Amen

__________

1. Zora Neale Hurston, Moses: Man of the Mountain.  (New York: Harper, 2009.)

2. ibid.

3. Kristin Adkins-Whitesides, “Wrapped in a Cloud.” A Sermon for Every Sunday. Accessed February 22, 2020. https://mailchi.mp/asermonforeverysunday/this-weeks-sermon-1744129?e=b84b5994b2.

4. Stoffregen, Brian. “Matthew 17.1-9 Transfiguration of Our Lord Last Sunday after the Epiphany - Year A.” Exegetical Notes at CrossMarks. Crossmaks Christian Resources. Accessed February 22, 2020. http://www.crossmarks.com/brian/matt17x1.htm.

5.  Saint Matthew 17:5.  (NRSV) [NRSV=The New Revised Standard Version]

6.  Saint Matthew 17:7.  (TLB) [TLB=The Living Bible]

7. Faulhaber, Patrick. “Life Goes On.” Modern Metanoia. Modern Metanoia.org, February 10, 2020. http://modernmetanoia.org/2020/02/10/last-sunday-after-epiphany-a-life-goes-on/.

"'Contempt' or Kindness" - Epiphany 6A

Deuteronomy 30:15-20
Saint Matthew 5:21-37 

The speaker pointed out that he believed “the biggest crisis facing our nation  . . .  is the crisis of contempt — the polarization that is tearing our society apart.”  Then he continued by giving an example from another occasion when he was addressing a partisan audience of fellow conservatives.

“My friends, you’ve heard a lot today that you’ve agreed with — and well you should. You’ve also heard a lot about the other side — political liberals — and how they are wrong. But I want to ask you to remember something: Political liberals are not stupid, and they’re not evil. They are simply Americans who disagree with you about public policy. And if you want to persuade them — which should be your goal — remember that no one has ever been insulted into agreement. You can only persuade with love.”

 After he had finished a member of the audience angrily approached.  “You’re wrong. Liberals are stupid and evil.”
  

At that moment, my thoughts went to … Seattle. That’s my hometown. While my own politics are conservative, Seattle is arguably the most politically liberal place in the United States. My father was a college professor; my mother was an artist. Professors and artists in Seattle … what do you think their politics were?

That lady after my speech wasn’t trying to hurt me. But when she said that liberals are stupid and evil, she was talking about my parents. I may have disagreed with my parents politically, but I can tell you they were neither stupid nor evil. They were good, Christian people, who raised me to follow Jesus. They also taught me to think for myself — which I did, at great inconvenience to them.

 The speaker concluded his remarks by suggesting that every member of his audience: “Ask God to give you the strength to do this hard thing — to go against human nature, to follow Jesus’ teaching and love your enemies. Ask God to remove political contempt from your heart. In your weakest moments, maybe even ask Him to help you fake it!”1

 On paper it looked like a great address that might have spoken to many in the nation if we had heard it.  We didn’t unless it was our habit to watch the entire coverage of The National Prayer Breakfast on C-Span. 
 
Everywhere else — on both the liberal and conservative cable news networks — there was nary a word spoken about Dr. Arthur Brooks’ remarks.
 
I think they got left out because they didn’t fit with our current national narrative of contempt for those who hold different political views from ours.  Whether we like it or not this narrative is recited to us over and over again on a daily basis and what it leads to is  enmity and strife rather than life and peace.

It is the same choice that Moses offered the people in his farewell address.  It is “a simple message: choose life and not death, but its simplicity was born through the complexities and adversities of forty years in the wilderness.  Here, simple does not mean easy.”2
 

Nor is it a slogan for some movement to be chanted in the streets or printed on a T-shirt.  ‘Choosing life” is a way of living that works toward bridging divides rather than deepening them.

What we know for certain is that anger and fear always leads to a  kind of death.

Political ideology feeds rancor. Drivers rage. Spouses demean. Bosses boss people. The nations rage too. Politicians show their fists. Hoping for good, we go after  . . .  the other political party, or we blame whomever for whatever. But there is a kind of accepted, expected anger in the world, in society, in all of us, and it’s the high god who’s commanding loyalty and devouring us all.3

Moses tells us to choose life and Jesus tells us how.
 
“Jesus is getting at the heart of [the laws] purpose: calling followers to obey God not out of duty but from a desire that stems from the very core of their being, their love.”4  It is almost as if Moses and Jesus are telling us that life, love and contempt cannot occupy the same space.
 
It’s like the Pauli exclusion principle in physics which says that more than one solid object cannot occupy the same space at the same time.  We cannot hold love and contempt for another person in our hearts and expect all to be well.  One path leads to life and the other leads to death.
 
In a very clever way Jesus is showing us how this spiritual death can enter into our lives, very sneakily, very cleverly.  He takes us beyond the commandments to show us their consequences. 
 
We know the commandments Jesus is talking about.  If you grew up a Lutheran and attended Confirmation classes, you memorized the commandments along with their meaning from Luther’s Small Catechism.  You “feared and loved” God enough to not break any of them  because you knew “it was certainly so” that if you did your life would be in a shambles. 
 
Jesus is showing us that “when God gives us commandments, God is not imposing rules for the sake of rules.  If we pay attention to what God means, we will see that everything God asks of us is for our best, for the good of others, and leads all to freedom.”5
 
The children of Israel were about to experience freedom as they entered the promised land but while they might possess it they would never enjoy it unless they made good choices. 
 
Jesus wanted his followers to find the same kind of freedom, too.  But that kind of freedom will never come if we hold each other in what Arthur Brooks called contempt.
 
It is so easy to point a finger.
 
We can think about segregation in the south and in the north.  It kept God’s children separated as some held others in contempt because of the color of their skin.  Both groups lost as each one’s freedom was limited their having to hold on to at least some level of contempt for the other.
 
Think of the term “bad hombres” and then think of all the “fine amigos” that you know.  Think of how your life would be limited if you held others in contempt because of their country of origin.
 
You can probably think of more of these comparisons than I can but my language is encumbered by my presence in the pulpit. 
 
Just think about all those times when a friend, or you heard yourself say something about another person or group that held them in contempt.  I can think back in moments in my life when I have done it and I cringe! 

This kind of behaviors, that kind of talk, not only tears us apart but rends the bonds of a civil society asunder.

Last week the amazingly bright and talented woman whom I am proud to call my pastor encouraged her congregation to do what I hope to encourage us to do today.  She said:

[I]t is time to be loudly kind, to be obnoxiously compassionate, to be irritatingly loving.  To say no to the corrosive power of contempt and to answer hatred with the strength of love. To stand up for each other. To refuse to return evil for evil and to say why that is. To have good courage and to proclaim that [courage] often  . . .  not only on Sundays when we are all together, but even more importantly in all of those other quiet, normal times and places in our lives during the week. So let us live fully and loudly and publicly as who we are, for God will use our witness. And our world will change. We will be changed.6

 Things can change if keep reminding ourselves and everybody we meet of the life and death choices that lie before us in our words and actions every day.  And, if we live out our lives in Christ’s love, we will be reminding ourselves and others that, instead of choosing contempt,  we have chosen life.
 
Thanks be to God who has given us the opportunity to make this so.  Amen.
 
__________

1. Arthur Brooks, “America’s Crisis of Contempt.” The Washington Post, February 7, 2020. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/02/07/arthur-brooks-national-prayer-breakfast-speech/?arc404=true.

2. Ken Evers-Hood, “Deuteronomy 30:15-20. Commentary 2: Connecting the Reading with the World.” Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship 1 (Louisville: Westminister|John Knox Press, 2019): 244–46.

3. James C. Howell, “What Can We Say February 16. Epiphany 6th.” James Howell's Weekly Preaching Notions. Myers Park Presbyterian Church, January 1, 1970. http://jameshowellsweeklypreachingnotions.blogspot.com/.

4. Maldonado. Perez Zaida “‘Connecting the Reading with the World.” Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship 1 (Louisville: Westminister|John Knox Press, 2019): 255–57.

5. Michael Renninger, “Mawage.” Sermon.  A Sermon for Every Sunday.  www.sermonforeverysunday.com.  February 11, 2020. 

6. Shannon J.  Kerschner, “Adding and Shining.” Sermon.  Sunday Worship.  The Fourth Presbyterian Church of Chicago.  February 9, 2020.

"Blinded by the Light" - Eipiphany 5A

Isaiah 58:1-5, 9b-12
Saint Matthew 5:13-20 

One of my favorite preachers is Dr.  James Howell, who holds forth from the pulpit of Myers Park United Methodist Church in Charlotte, North Carolina.  I listen to their worship as I am either driving back and forth to work or out-and-about on errands. 
 

Last week he began his sermon by telling his congregation that he was going to start by going down to the piano and playing “O Sacred Head Now Wounded.”  He decided not to do so because he was sure that, if he did, the only reaction his people would have when they walked out of church would be, “He plays the piano?”  He went on to say, “I don’t want you to leave church saying, ‘He plays the piano?’ I want you to go out of church saying, ‘Jesus is amazing.’”1
 

I know that Dr.  Howell is right from an experience I had with a wonderful New Testament professor named Dr.  David Rhodes.  Dr.  Rhodes was also an actor who committed the entire Gospel of Mark to memory.  He performed the piece, in costume, at churches around Chicago.  It was wonderful.  People loved it.
 

Like any convert Dr.  Rhodes believed that if he could do it everybody could or should.
 

When I took his class he had all of us memorize and present some portion Mark’s gospel so that when we got back to the parish we could recite the gospel for the day from memory instead of reading it from a book.  The curmudgeon that I am I didn’t think that would be such a good idea.  I was right.
 

The proof came when I was on vacation and attended Bethany Lutheran in Englewood, Colorado and their pastor, Wayne Weissenbuhler, recited the gospel from memory and preached an excellent sermon.  When I asked the people I was with what the sermon was about all they said was, “He memorized the gospel.”  I knew that but I pressed on asking again if they could tell me what his very fine sermon was about.  They replied, “Did you see that!  He had the gospel memorized.”
 

His sermon got overshadowed by his skills at memorization.
 

In today’s gospel Jesus calls his followers to be “the light of the world” but their light is to celebrate not  their abilities but how amazing Jesus is.
 

That is what went wrong with the worship of the children of Israel.  Their faith life pointed to themselves and not how amazing God was.

The community Isaiah addresses seem to be hoping that worship might be a sufficient condition for God’s blessing rather than being  . . .  a necessary or desired practice.  Instead, the prophet sears those with ears to listen, reminding us that God is interested in religious formalities only after demands for social justice are met.2

Here is what was happening.  While the people enjoyed worshiping God, they also were trying to leverage their worship into earning God’s favor.
 

They had a very functional idea about how worship worked.  We came, we offered sacrifices, and God was supposed to bless us.  This is a very utilitarian  notion of worship.  Saint Augustine put it this way: I worship something  not in itself but because I can use it for something I really want. 
 

This is also the message of the prosperity gospel preachers.  Want a blessing from God, go to church.  Want more money in the bank, tithe or at least send an offering to their ministry.
 

There is another kind of worship that, says Saint Augustine, is built on love. I love something  whether I get something else out of it or not.  Anybody we know wants to be loved like that and so does God – but sometimes we approach God in a very matter-of-fact manner. 
 

The focus of this kind of worship is on us.  It is what we are giving God just by our being here. 
 

The people fasted, they used up gallons upon gallons of expensive oil, they sacrificed stockyards full of animals but still the LORD was not moved one bit. 
 

As one scholar put it, they wondered: 

"Is there anything we can do to appease you, or will you always be holding that exodus thing over our heads?  Sacrifices?  Multiple sacrifices?  Ultimate sacrifices?  Because if your going to play the guilt card, nothing can suffice."3

The prophet declares that nothing would suffice because they were using their worship as an excuse not to take care of each other and especially the poor, the down trodden and the helpless in their midst.

 Here, in the wonderful paraphrase by Dr.  Eugene Peterson, is how the LORD responds:

"This is the kind of fast day I’m after: to break the chains of injustice, get rid of exploitation in the workplace, free the oppressed, cancel debts.  What I’m interested in seeing you do is:  sharing your food with the hungry, inviting the homeless poor into your homes, putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad, being available to your own families.  Do this and the lights will turn on, and your lives will turn around at once.”4

Once they took the focus off of themselves and turned their light toward others, the LORD said, things will begin to turn around.

Think of what that would mean for society if we stopped asking, “What can I get?” and started asking, “What can I do?” 
 

Think of what that would mean if we stopped wondering “Whose going to help me?” and started wondering “Who can I help?”
 

Think of what that would mean for our nation if we had leaders who stopped telling themselves that what they were doing was politically expedient by “standing with the team” and instead took seriously their responsibilities to themselves and to the republic and, in the words of the junior senator from Utah, kept their “promise before God to apply impartial justice required that I put my personal feelings and political biases aside.”5
 

Maybe the light wouldn’t just be shining on them but shining as a testimony of their faith for others.
 

Maybe then we could start working together again.
 

Jesus called us to be “lights for the world” and “salt of the earth.”

Each time [Jesus] uses the word “you” in this passage, he is actually using the plural form of that word, which we don’t have in English…unless, of course, you live in the South. He is saying, “Y’all are the salt of the earth. Y’all are the light of the world. Let y’all’s light so shine before others.”  In other words, it is not each person’s ability to shine that Jesus is focusing on, but their power as a collective.  

By the power of the Holy Spirit the disciples of Christ learned to work together to display the love of Christ, to share their bread with the hungry, to bring the homeless poor into their houses, to cover the naked, to offer their lives for the sake of others…and when they did so their light broke forth like the dawn.

In these tense times when it seems there is so much that wants to pull people apart, when there are clear, competing visions and desires for what our human communities and even our country wants to be, the light of Christ evident through the church is especially important.6

Every time we get blinded by our own light and swept up, in the words of Bruce Springsteen, in “some brimstone baritone . . . rolling stone, preacher from the east” others won’t be able to see Jesus.
 

But if we shine our lights on him and let him shine his light on us we remind ourselves that we aren’t just a bunch of ‘you’s,’ but one great big ‘y’all’ Christ’s light can begin to shine on us but in us and through us.
 

If what we do in this place causes us to stop shining our light on ourselves and allow Christ’s light to draw others in our light is shining!  If what we do helps them see in our witness something that can say that we exist as a community in the world to remind the world that God loves it, cares for it, has died for it so that all may truly live our light is shining! 
 

If we remind ourselves that we are not to blind others with our light but help them experience  Christ’s light people who still live in darkness may come to say, “Jesus is amazing.”
 

If all this happens then our worship will be worth it.  Don’t you think?
_______
 

1. James C.  Howell, Sermon,  Sunday Morning Worship.  Myers Park United Methodist Church. February 2, 2020.

2. Ken Evers-Hood, “Commentary 2: Connecting the Reading With the Word.” Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship.  Vol.  1; year A. (Louisville, KY: Westminister/John Knox Press,2019): 228–29.

3.  Patricia K. Tull,“Micah 6:1-8. Commentary 1: Connecting the Reading with Scripture.” Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship.  Vol. 1; Year A.   (Louisville, KY: Westminister/John Knox Press, 2019): 209–12.

4.  Isaiah 58:6-9.  (MSG) [MSG=The Message]

5.  “Full Transcript: Mitt Romney’s Speech Announcing Vote to Convict Trump.” The New York Times, February 5, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/05/us/politics/mitt-romney-impeachment-speech-transcript.html.

"Blessed Are the Upside-down" - Epiphany 4A

Micah 6:6-8
Saint Matthew 5:1-12

If you work in a community where the civic mantra is: “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing” and you are the quarterback of the hometown team that lost their last game by 17 points you might want to lay low for a while.   That is what I would advise Aaron Rodgers of the Green Bay Packers if he had asked me.
 

He did not.
 

Instead he went on his girlfriend’s podcast and took a private family squabble public.  Apparently, the rift was over (You guessed it!)  religion.  If you guessed correctly don’t let it go to your head.  There were really only two choices for a famous family squabble that boils over into the press – religion or politics – so you had a 50/50 chance of being right.
 

Here is what Rodgers said in rejecting the faith of his family.
 

“”Religion can be a crutch," Rodgers said. "It can be something that people have to have to make themselves feel better because it’s set up binary.  I don’t know how you can believe in a God who wants to condemn most of the planet to a fiery hell,” Rodgers went on. “What type of loving, sensitive, omnipresent, omnipotent being wants to condemn his beautiful creation to a fiery hell at the end of all this?”"1

I was a little puzzled reading that.    Who is he what he talking about?  What made him believe that the life of faith only offered the choice between black and white, right on wrong, and that there were no grey areas?  Where did he learn that faith was like football where there had to be a winning team and a losing team?  What caused him to think that God only liked winners and rejected losers? 

Why would he think less of God than he does Packers fans who no matter what the score of the NFC Championship game will still be there next year not only cheering them on but, if it snows, shoveling out the stadium for $12 an hour.
 

Rodgers may have things backwards for what he is articulating is not the way of God but the common wisdom of this age.

“Blessed are those who have lots of money in the bank, for they will be free from worry.”  “Blessed are those who keep looking over their shoulder watching their rear, for nobody will ever get the jump on them.” These are little everyday statements about the way things work in the real world.2

Those are the mantras of those who don’t need to use religion as a crutch because they are winners!  Jesus doesn’t seem to be talking to them.  He is talking to the rest of us who know in one way or another that we need something more in our lives and desire, deep down in our hearts, to be blessed.
 

Don’t think just about those disciples on the mountaintop or the crowds that gathered to hear these words for the first time think about how we are hearing them just now.

Then and now, those who stand out as heros of their own destiny take the bull by the horns and let nothing or no one stand in their way.  Who you are as a person really does not matter as long as you get the job done –   unless you are one of Jesus’ disciples. The "nature and character of true discipleship [is] radical and thoroughly contrary to the values that seem to galvanize our imaginations and, often, our lives.”3
 

Every sermon and commentary I have read this week has mentioned how the word “Blessed” can be translated.  The Greek word makarioi can mean blessed, peaceful, happy,  but it really means something much more deep than those emotions.  “Rather than happiness in a mundane sense it refers to the deep inner joy who have long awaited the salvation promised by God.”4

 Have you seen much of that around lately? 
 

One of the things I’ve noticed this past week is what a joyless town our nation’s capital is.  This joylessness is a bipartisan thing.  The face on the screen is always angry and the faces that surround them are usually scowling.  Somebody is always enraged about something. 
 

Gone are the days of the energy of Theodore Roosevelt or the optimism expressed in darker times than these of his cousin, Franklin.  The “happy warrior” attitude of Vice-President Hubert Humphrey is gone as is the idealism of President Reagan.  Joy can be a bipartisan thing too. 
 

When we allow our divisions to get in the way all sense of inner peace is gone.  That is what is happening to the Rodger’s family, our nation, and even Saint Paul’s church in Corinth.
 

First Church Corinth was a troubled place.  These folks could fight over everything! They fought over big stuff and little stuff.  They had big community dinners before the Eucharist where some ate so much there wasn’t anything left over for others and some even got tipsy.  They bragged about who baptized them.  Was it Pastor Cephas?  Or Pastor Paul?  They even fought over whether women’s head should or should not be covered in church!
 

It clearly wasn’t a positive place and my guess is that when they talked about their fellowship the conversation was not uplifting.  I’m sure very few people went away thinking to themselves, “I really want to get involved there.”  More likely they backed off wondering, “Why would anybody want to be a part of that?
 

Before I settled down here I did pulpit supply which is how our relationship got started.  It was great fun and very revelatory because there was always one person in the congregation who couldn’t think of one kind thing to say about the place.
 

I enjoyed preaching at one church which was near my house.  The pastor was doing a great job, the music was excellent,  and the people were really cool, except for one woman.
 

She waylaid me the minute I got in the building as was greeting people with my usual: “Hi!  I’m Dave!  I’ll be your pastor du jour today!”
 

She couldn’t wait to tell me that the best days of that church were far behind them.  Most of all, the woman didn’t like what “she” (meaning the pastor) had done to their chapel.
   

(By the way, clergy can always tell when they are dealing with an unhappy member of the laity because they forget our names and only refer to us in the third person.)
 

Then she added: “This church will never be like on the day when the King of Sweden visited.  The church was packed!  The streets were crowded!  There were lines around the block!”
 

While I was over this conversation that had turned into a diatribe I went away wondering when the King of Sweden made his grand appearance.  As with everything else I “Googled” it and it turns out that His Majesty Carl Gustaf XVI was in Chicago in1967 to celebrate the opening of the Swedish American Museum on Clark Street in the Andersonville neighborhood.  “1967!” I yelped, “That was over a half-a-century ago!”
 

The last good thing this woman could say about her church happened four-score-and-ten years ago!
 

This lead me to wonder how I tell stories about the church.  When I talk about the church do I only talk about the things that have gone wrong? 
 

When I am sharing memories with others — especially with others who are unchurched – do I speak about the good things we are doing or is the only story that they hear is the one of the time somebody said something to someone and they walked out never to return again? 
 

Are my words about the tough times or the good times? 
 

Do my words hurt the body of Christ or do they heal it? 
 

And, what is most important, Saint Paul would remind us as individuals do my words help or hurt the team.
 

This is something that Aaron Rodgers can relate too.  It is certainly something that every sports fan can relate to especially on Super Bowl Sunday.  To give Saint Paul’s metaphor a modern spin.  No quarterback would say to an offensive lineman, “I have no need of you.” He would be pulverized on the next down!
  

No member of the defense would say we have no need of a good offence.  It’s hard to win a football game when you have scored nothing!
 

No member of the offence would belittle the efforts of a defense.  And, as every Bears fan knows, no team should try to do without a good field goal specialist.
 

No, every good team like every church, has to realize that we need each other.  We are all a part of this body of believers that the Spirit of God has called together in this place.   We are all a part of that group of people who knows our weakness and come here out of a hunger and thirst for God’s presence.

We are like those people who first heard these words come from Jesus’ lips.  We all long to be blessed with the sense of deep joy, satisfaction, shalom that God can give.
 

It comes when we realized that as a church, as a nation, as families we need to stick together.  Enough tough times will come our way without our creating more.
  

We all have troubles and troubles to spare without exploiting the shortcomings of one another.  There have been dark moments in all of our lives but if we keep returning to them, rehearsing and rehashing them, then the darkness just might close in all around us.
 

Even so, even with all of poor choices we are known to make, Jesus calls to live as one of the blessed.  And a good way to start would be to see each other as part of God’s team whose motto is as old as the words of the profit.
 

For us, winning is not the only thing!  The only thing that matters is that we “do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God.”
__________
  

1. Kelsey Driscoll, “Aaron Rodgers's Comments on Religion 'Hurtful' to Estranged Family: 'Basically a Slap in the Face'.” AOL.com. AOL, January 23, 2020. https://www.aol.com/article/news/2020/01/23/aaron-rodgerss-comments-on-religion-hurtful-to-estranged-family-basically-a-slap-in-the-face/23907363/.

2. William Willimon, “On the Way to a New World.” Pulpit Resource 30, no. 1 (January, February, March 2002): 21–24.

3.  Christopher Holmes T., “St. Matthew 5:1-12. Commentary 1: Connecting the Reading with Scripture.” In Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship, 1:223–24. Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox, 2019.

4.  Donald A. Hagner, Matthew (2-volume Set---33a and 33b). Vol. 33a. (Grand Rapids, , Mi: Zondervan, 2017.) p. 95.