Luke 18:9-14

⁹He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: ¹⁰“Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. ¹¹The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. ¹²I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.’ ¹³But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ ¹⁴I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.”

“The Valley and The River”

Rev. Jeremy Watson

October 23, 2016

Two weeks ago I shared a little bit about my middle and high school years, and about not fitting in so well during those years. But that was not true of the place where I grew up before 7^th grade. When I was 5 years old, my family moved to a wonderful place called Boistfort Valley, and lived there until I finished 6^th grade. If you were to drive up I 5 about halfway to Seattle, and then go west at the town of Winlock through miles and miles of winding roads, some of them gravel roads, you’d come in the south end of the beautiful Boistfort Valley. It was a great place to grow up. We had a big farm that we rented, 250 acres of field and forest, with a stream meandering through all of it, with 2 bridges along our driveway, which was also a logging road up into the hills.

Our driveway was called Burri Rd., and it was named after Herr Burrie, who was a Swiss immigrant who had homesteaded that land in the late 1800s. Up in those hills we found the foundation of his original homestead, and there was still one wall of the outhouse that was somewhat intact. Closer down to our farm, Herr Burrie built a nicer house, later on, and it was haunted. Absolutely, without a doubt, it was a haunted house. Every window was broken out, somehow :), half the roof was caving in, the stairs were collapsed, and there was a painting of a naked lady that had fallen on the floor by the fireplace. We did not look at that painting for very long, because we never lasted more than 15 seconds in that house before running out, afraid of the ghosts. I loved growing up in that valley and playing Little League baseball and not knowing how small that pond of competition was. I blame that Little League experience as the reason why I still can’t quite accept why I’m not playing shortstop for the Mariners today. It was clear back then that I was headed in that direction.

As much as I loved growing up there, I remember clearly that there was always a sense of lament in the Boisfort Valley. My friends and siblings and I often spoke with a sense of regret about how it had lost its former glory. And there were 3 particular stories that came up often, on the playground or school bus.

 

The first was the story about Herman Klaber and the Klaber hop yards. This sign sits just off the parking lot of Boistfort Elementary School, and it explains that the valley was the “hops capital of the world” in the early 1900s. The hops that were grown in those fields beyond our playground were sought after all over the country, and even in Europe. Herman Klaber, the patriarch, went on a trip to Europe in 1912 and secured a number of lucrative contracts that would benefit the valley. In celebration, he bought a first-class ticket on a White Star Lines ship on its maiden voyage to New York. That ship was named the Titanic. And I found Herman Klaber’s name in the ship logs that were on display at a traveling Titanic exhibit one time. For some reason, without Herman Klaber’s leadership, the industry died and we always lamented that we were not the hops capital of the world anymore.

The second story I also verified later in life, as these always had a sense of legend about them. In the heyday of hops, the schoolhouses in Boistfort were the first to be organized into a School District. So when the Washington State Legislature decided to build the University of Washington, it was expected to be built where the first school district had been formed, in the Boistfort Valley. Instead, the legislature decided to give the grant to a town named Seattle, further up north. A few years later it was uncovered that illegal bribes had been paid by one of the developers of the town of Seattle, and it was too late to rectify that mistake. Every time the UW Huskies won a big football game, we would lament that it did not happen in the Boistfort Valley, where the University of Washington was supposed to be.

And one final sense of lament smacked us in the face every day as we got off of the school bus. As we got off the bus, we stepped onto the ramp leading into Boistfort High School. But we never went into the high school, because at the top of the ramp were panels of plywood, blocking every door and every window, because that high school had been shuttered in 1976, the year that my classmates and I had been born. We looked at that high school building, bright yellow, 3 stories tall, flanked by 2 massive oak trees, and we wondered what it would be like to have high schoolers all around, with all of the events that come with a high school. Instead, we would step off the ramp to the front of the bus and cross over to the Boistfort Elementary School, a K-8^th grade school.

Later in the day, we would get to walk back across the driveway to the gymnasium, which had been built behind the high school. We would run laps at the beginning of PE class, and we would always run off the court at one end, and go through the lobby hallway, with the unused ticket booths on one side and a trophy case filling the other entire wall, full of trophies that said, “Boistfort High School – Valley Champions.” We would see above the trophy case, pictures of every graduated class from Boistfort High. And it filled us with a sense of lament, knowing we would have to leave the valley to attend high school, as we took the lobby hallway back onto the gym floor and completed our laps.

        

A few months ago, I learned that there is a book called “My River” that was written by a man named Richard Stearns, and it is his memoir about growing up in the Boistfort Valley in the 40s, 50s, and 60s. It turns out that he is the uncle of two of my friends who I went to elementary school with, and their dad, Richard’s brother-in-law, played on my Dad’s slowpitch softball team for all of those years. This memoir is a fascinating story, and it scratched an itch for me, a desire to know what life had been like in my valley in its heyday. I devoured his vignettes of that boisterous time, a thriving community, and life at Boistfort High School, playing baseball for one of those county championship teams.

But his story also displayed the human condition, played out in the small scale of Boistfort Valley. That which gave the valley life, industry, and jobs was also what destroyed it. Let me explain. Richard Stearns loved to fish, from the time he could walk. He fished the streams near his house, and then the South Fork of the Chehalis River, which runs through the heart of the valley. As he grew older, he explored the tributaries of that river, up into the ravines and hills in every direction, all around Baw Faw peak. He was able to explore vast amounts of land, because a train track ran through his family’s farm, and he could stop and jump on the “speeder” trains which were always hauling the logging crews up and down those ravines to the logging camps and the rock quarries that provided the jobs and industry in the valley. His stepfather worked in one of the machine shops, and most working people in the valley worked for the Weyerhauser company, who owned all of that land.

Richard spent his teen years exploring every stream that he could. And as he did this, he watched the clear-cutting of old growth timber creep closer and closer to his favorite fishing spots. He watched the fishing habitats being destroyed by the eroding landscape, filling the streams with mud and clay, erasing the cover of foliage, and altering the levels of water. Large rains would flood the streams and the valley below, without the trees and roots to absorb and regulate the water. Snow would melt faster, which meant that in the summer months the river would slow to levels never seen before, causing great harm to the farmers of the valley.

As both a fisherman and a product of the logging industry, Richard watched the lifeblood of the valley destroy the fish habitats in the creeks and the River. He saw floods destroy farmland in the winter and leave the land parched in the Summer. And as he moved all around the country in his military career, Richard found other rivers to fish, always lamenting the loss of the cutthroat trout of his River in the Boistfort Valley.

Eventually, as I came to know, the industry burned itself out. I knew a lot of loggers in my childhood. Many neighbors and parents of my friends were in the logging industry. But it was a shadow of what it had once been. There were no logging camps or working railroad lines into the hills when I lived there. The old growth timber was disappearing, and environmental regulations were starting to protect what was left.

I remember my 4^th grade year, when it became clear that the Northern Spotted Owl was going to be protected under Endangered Species Act, and the logging industry was dealt a massive blow. I remember the t-shirts and hats that were worn throughout the valley, with a picture of a spotted owl in crosshairs. We were taught to hate the spotted owl which had taken away our jobs. “Save a logger, eat an owl,” was our rallying cry.  But Richard’s memoir spells out a different story.  And when it was published in 2009, the valley had just suffered its second 100-year-flood in a 4 year span, causing great damage.  The proceeds of the memoir went to the recovery effort.

The clear lesson of the Boistfort Valley is that which feeds and sustains us can also destroy us. It is a story that is told over and over in every area of our life. We can see this all around us, in every facet of life, especially within the many advances of society.

We build roads and bridges, houses and factories to sustain our life and production. We use cars and trucks and trains and boats, fed by fossil fuels, to move around and to live. And we watch the irreparable harm that comes to the environment and contributes to climate change.

Food production in America is able to feed us for a lower percentage of our time and income than ever before in world history. Yet, when we care to look, we recognize that this is done on the backs of migrant labor, massive feed lots and large scale production of corn, soy, and wheat. When we stop to look, we realize that we are filling our land with pesticides and our livestock with antibiotics, and our bodies full of affordable, but empty calories, and our kids with high-fructose corn syrup and diabetes. Though we make efforts to combat this, like the Community Supported Agriculture efforts played out on our church patio. We know that which feeds and sustains us also destroys us.

In the 9 AM class for the past 5 weeks, called “Jesus, Bombs, and Ice Cream” we’ve been looking at one more example of this. We’ve been studying violence and war, peace and security. That which protects us and provides our freedom, that which gives us the security to live this life, that also threatens us, first in losing our moral compass and second, with retribution from those who have received our violence, whether direct or as collateral damage.

In that class, we’ve wrestled with our national response to 9/11 and the cycles of violence that have been perpetuated. And we’ve looked into ourselves for the sources of that violence. We’ve seen that our national security practices are played out in smaller ways on our childhood playgrounds and neighborhood conflicts, in every place where the powerful take from the powerless, whether in the business world or the political arena. That which gives safety and security to me and my family often takes from someone else.

And so we are left with today’s Bible story, from Luke, Chapter 18. This is a story about 2 people. One, the Pharisee, follows all the rules and is righteous, but is also self-righteous. He has disdain for the other person. The other, a tax collector, does not follow the rules and is unrighteous, but lives in humility. He does not judge others and seeks the grace of God. The lesson seems simple. Don’t be like the first guy, be like the 2^nd guy.

But is that really what we want? Shouldn’t we respect those who follow the religious customs, those who give their tithe? Giving 10 percent of one’s income is hard!  And honorable!  Pharisees get a bad rap sometimes.  Shouldn’t our goal be to observe the religious rituals and habits that shape a moral life, like the first guy? And shouldn’t we be concerned that the second guy, the hero of the story, is a tax collector who betrays his own people for profit? Those are good questions.

I think the deeper message in this story is about one’s posture toward God. The first guy is focused on himself, and that ruins everything else. It causes his acts of worship to be misdirected. Even his moral acts lead him the wrong way. He works hard to do right and becomes self-righteous because of that, hateful of those who are different from him. The second guy does not work hard, at least in the moral sense. But he recognizes his complicity in the brokenness of our world. He recognizes our dependence on God. The second man realizes what we’ve been talking about today. That we are complicit and involved in the brokenness. That which sustains us also destroys us. It is part of who we are. It is the human condition.

Perhaps the lesson is that both of these guys offer us good and bad. The Pharisee and the tax collector are both good and bad, broken and capable of healing our world.  And so are we.  We should seek to do good, like the first guy. And we should seek to live with humility, like the second guy.

As we finish this series on Church and Society, this has a lot to say to us. We can, and should, critique and question and work against destructive forces in our society. We should believe in our potential for healing the brokenness of our world.  And we should do all of it with the humility, like the second man, recognizing how much we are always complicit in brokenness.

Yet the most important lesson from this passage is that we need help. We need to recognize our need for God to enter into the human condition, for that is the only solution.

 

The one thing that we are pointed to in this story, by both people, and echoed in the class, is that we must look toward God made flesh in Jesus Christ. It is in looking at Jesus that we are given the courage and the creativity to respond to our brokenness.  We are given the courage to respond to violence with non-violence, to respond to selfishness with sacrifice. As Brian Doyle said so well when he visited us, “violence is a failure of imagination.” Jesus shows us that a non-violent response is not the same as being a doormat. Sacrificing one’s self is the strongest and the most difficult and the most creative response, and it is the only response that can turn violence into peace. It is the only response that can turn injustice into justice.

Jesus shows us the way to recognize our ability to work for peace, to work for justice in all ways, to recognize that giving freely and making ourselves vulnerable is the only way to respond to the human condition. God-in-the-flesh shows us how to be in this society, to recognize our complicity, to live with humility, and to respond in a sacrificial, inspired way.

In this difficult, joyful work for peace and justice in every area that we have explored today, and beyond, I have found this Prayer by “Sweet Honey in the Rock” to be helpful. This prayer, that Hannah is going to lead and invite us to join in, is a path for us to live with humility and to seek God in the midst of it all.

Let us pray.

 

Click Here for a video of this prayer.  

Lord, must I do unto others

Before they do unto me?

Must I arm myself

To protect myself

From harm and injury?

Oh no that is not the lesson

That I learned on my mother’s knee

When she told me to

Do unto others only what I’d have them do unto me.

St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church

August 14 2016

“Peace Through Division”

Rev. Jeremy Watson

Luke 12:49-56

⁴⁹“I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! ⁵⁰I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! ⁵¹Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! ⁵²From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; ⁵³they will be divided: father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”

⁵⁴He also said to the crowds, “When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, ‘It is going to rain’; and so it happens. ⁵⁵And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, ‘There will be scorching heat’; and it happens. ⁵⁶You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?

“Peace Through Division”

       On the first page of a delightful book called Martin Marten, written by our beloved Portland author Brian Doyle, you will find this opening thought.

“Dave and his sister and mom and dad live in a cabin on Mount Hood in Oregon. Dave prefers to say that he lives on Wy’east, which is what the first people who lived on and around it called the mountain for thousands of years, rather than Hood, which is what some guy from another country called it one day, and that guy and his friends had guns, so their name for the mountain stuck, but it ought not to be the case, says Dave, that a guy with a gun gets to be the boss, especially of names, which are important.”

 

       Those compelling words lured me into this wonderful book, with this fascinating character of a 14 year old named Dave and his engagement with the world. His logic about Wy’east seems pretty airtight to me, enough that I’ve tried to change the name of the mountain, at least in my own consciousness, to honor and recognize the native Multnomah tribe who preceded us here. Names are not easy to change, especially after a lifetime of understanding Wy’east as Mt. Hood.

Last August, President Obama signed an executive order that renamed Alaska’s Mt. McKinley back to the native name of Denali. That move spurred discussion in our part of the world about whether we should do something similar with Wy’east.[i] It does seem to make sense . . . if we are willing to remove the name of one of our US Presidents from the tallest mountain in our country, shouldn’t we also remove the name of Lord Samuel Hood, a British Admiral who fought against our country? Isn’t this the least we can do to recognize the native peoples and their history in this land that we now call home? Others argue against it, saying that Alaskans, native or otherwise, always referred to Denali as Denali, while the same isn’t true of Wy’east here. The name Hood is now entrenched in our minds.

But, as you can see here, there are many examples of re-claiming the name that was given by the Multnomah tribe. And so the debate goes on, and people are divided. For some, it’s trivial. For others, it means a tremendous amount.

Disagreement and division between people is part of life. We can divide ourselves over pretty much anything, whether it is trivial or deeply important. We like to pick sides and then entrench ourselves on that side, against others. One of my favorite youth group games is entitled simply “Would You Rather?” In this game, the leader asks a question and invites everyone to move to one side of the room or the other, based on their answers. A question is raised, “Would you rather have the superpower of invisibility or the ability to fly?” “Would you rather be without elbows or without knees?” “Would you rather be rich with no friends or homeless with many friends?” “Would you rather have the hiccups forever or always feel like you have to sneeze?”

Simply offering this choice and asking the room to divide based on answers, and then to argue for their answer creates instant competition and energy. We thrive on division!

We love to compete over who is right! Remember this debate that went viral last year? Is this a blue and black dress? Is it yellow and white?

Sometimes this is fun, sometimes it is not. The divisiveness of our current political dialogue is at the same time fascinating, energizing (especially for the newsmedia), and completely frustrating. This division is not fun or entertaining. It is deep and painful, and we can only imagine what it is like in other countries that do not practice the peaceful transfer of power through democratic elections. And we hope that continues. We hope that there are NOT “second amendment people” out there looking to change our peaceful democracy. Divisions between people lead to all varieties of violence and cause the destruction of life. Divisions take away the abundance of life that our Creator God gave to us.

And so it is shocking to hear the words of Jesus in today’s Bible passage. “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided: father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”

Whaaattt!?!?! These are NOT the words that we expect to hear from the Prince of Peace. In this same Gospel of Luke, chapter 2, angels from heaven sing this about Jesus,

           ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven,

          and on earth peace among those whom he favors!’   

Angels from heaven! How can Jesus contradict angels? In the other Gospels, Jesus says, “Blessed are the peacemakers” in his list of the Beatitudes. In Luke, Chapter 10, Jesus sends out 70 disciples to spread a message of peace, saying, ^“Whatever house you enter, first say, “Peace to this house!” And famously in Chapter 22, as he was being arrested, one of his disciples swung a sword at one of the soldiers, cutting of his ear, at which point Jesus stopped the violence and healed the soldier’s ear. This is the Jesus we know, right? The Prince of Peace, the non-violent Messiah who healed the division between God and man and enables us to heal divisions between ourselves. So why did Jesus say that he brought division instead of peace?

Why did Jesus say that he brought division instead of peace? I think a better, deeper question that we should consider is “Does non-violence mean the absence of conflict?” Does non-violence mean the absence of division?

Let’s take a bird’s eye view of Luke’s Gospel to understand this better. In Luke Chapter 12, Jesus is headed toward Jerusalem, where a plot is already in place to take his life. His teachings are too dangerous to those who are in power, and he’s in the cross-hairs. Jesus is already in confrontation here, which is why he started today’s passage by saying, “. . . what stress I am under until it is completed!” (v. 50). If we want to get a better idea of Jesus’ situation, let’s take a quick stroll through the events that follow this statement, in Chapter 12, until the cross. Here are a few highlights:

• In Chapter 13, Jesus was teaching in a synagogue and a woman appeared who had been crippled for 18 years, unable to stand up straight, so Jesus healed her. Immediately the leader of the synagogue started screaming about work on the Sabbath, and Jesus went right back at him, headlong into a deep disagreement that he felt it was necessary to engage in.
• In Chapter 14, the same thing happens. This time it is a man with dropsy, and the lawyers and Pharisees who condemn him. He silenced them by teaching about the spirit of the law vs. the letter of the law.
• In Chapter 15, Jesus ate with tax collectors and sinners who were desperate for his grace and love, and again squared off against the haters, this time giving us the story of the Prodigal Son to make his point.
• In Chapter 16, he said, “You cannot serve God and wealth.’^* The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all this, and they ridiculed him.” (vs. 13-14).
• In Chapter 17, Jesus and his followers were between Samaria and Galilee when Jesus healed ten lepers, and only one came back to thank him. This led Jesus to make a pointed statement on foreign relations, saying, “Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” (vs. 18).
• In Chapter 18, Jesus explained that he knew where these conflicts were headed, as he prepared the disciples for his crucifixion, though they didn’t understand.
• In Chapter 19, he went to Jericho and ate with Zaccheus, the hated tax collector, which ticked off his critics even more. Just to make his point even more clear, he went into the temple and overturned the tables of the money-changers. Chapter 19 ends by saying this, “Every day he was teaching in the temple. The chief priests, the scribes, and the leaders of the people kept looking for a way to kill him; ⁴⁸but they did not find anything they could do, for all the people were spellbound by what they heard.” (verses 47-48).
• In Chapter 20, there is a fascinating series of 3 questions by the chief priests, the scribes, and the Sadducees, who are all trying to trap Jesus into saying something that they could use to condemn him. The crusade to kill him was fully under way, and Jesus, the Prince of Peace, never shied away from this boiling conflict. He ends chapter 20 by throwing this bit of shade, as the kids say. “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and love to be greeted with respect in the market-places, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets. They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.” (vs. 46-47). This is Jesus walking directly into the fray.
• In Chapter 21, Jesus prepared the disciples for the conflicts that they would face, for he makes it clear that to follow him is to participate in the same struggle of speaking truth to power.
• And finally, in Chapter 22, Jesus prayed in Gethsemane, sweating drops of blood in his anguish. Judas betrayed him, and he was arrested. This is the part I mentioned earlier, where one of the disciples drew his sword and engaged in violence, at which point Jesus made it clear. He is the Prince of Peace, and that peace is NOT achieved by the sword, but by a conflict in which he received the violence and said in Chapter 23, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” (vs. 34).

Jesus engaged in 10 straight chapters of diving into conflict, speaking truth to those who held the power. Jesus was, and is, non-violent, but he is pro-confrontation, as that is necessary for true peace.  Peace that avoids conflict is not a true peace.  So Jesus would not back down from those who use power for the purpose of harming others. He would not back down from criticizing those who used religion to wield control rather than grace and love. And that is why, way back in the beginning of Luke, the song of the angels about peace on earth was preceded by the song of Mary, where she sang this;

He has shown strength with his arm;

he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.

He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,

          and lifted up the lowly;

he has filled the hungry with good things,

          and sent the rich away empty.

He has helped his servant Israel,

          in remembrance of his mercy,

according to the promise he made to our ancestors,

to Abraham and to his descendants for ever.’ (verses 51-55).

       Have you ever seen the proud and powerful brought down, and the lowly lifted up without conflict? Jesus came to turn the world upside down. This cannot done without conflict. This cannot happen without division between people. The key to all of this is that Jesus is willing to endure the pain of our divisions for the sake of justice and peace. He is willing to take the blows, and absorb the damage, retaliating with truth, but also with grace. While those in power sought his destruction, he sought restoration for all. He accepted the consequences of this struggle, and offered an end to the cycle of violence through forgiveness.

And this is the difficult part. As followers of Jesus, we are called to do likewise. We should not fear division, but we should see it as a necessary path toward peace in a broken world. For while violence is never redemptive, conflict can be. And Jesus models for us how conflict and division can be a path toward peace. It does have a cost. But true peace and restoration is the result.

When Jesus and his followers are willing to engage in conflict for the sake of justice and peace, the world is blessed. This is our comfort from today’s passage. Some of the divisions and conflicts that we are witnessing and experiencing today are not as disastrous as they may seem. They might actually be signs of progress toward something better. Sometimes the deeper conflict means we are closer to resolution. There is a saying in the South, “a dying mule kicks the hardest.” “The darkest hour is just before dawn,” is another way of saying that. The divisions in our world are a necessary part of the path forward in a broken world. Whether it is over the best name for our biggest mountain or the best person to represent us in leadership, may we follow the example of Jesus in the journey toward justice and peace. May we boldly speak truth in the face of risk. May we continue to walk toward our Jerusalem, in the midst of stress and grief. And, most importantly, may we always act sacrificially. May we act with love for all, with understanding of others, and with forgiveness at the ready. In the name of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace. Amen!

[i] http://www.opb.org/artsandlife/article/denali-alaska-mount-mckinley-oregon-hood-wyeast/

Works Consulted:

Brehm, Alan “Blinders”

http://thewakingdreamer.blogspot.com/2013/08/blinders.html

Duffield, Jill “August 14 2016 – Looking into the Lectionary: 20^th Sunday in Ordinary Time” in The Presbyterian Outlook.

https://pres-outlook.org/category/ministry-resources/looking-into-the-lectionary/

Lose, David “A Stressful Sermon” http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?m=4377&post=2694

Lose, David “Commentary on Luke 12:49-56” http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=733

Tickle, Phyllis “Act as Do Those Who Understand” http://thq.wearesparkhouse.org/yearc/ordinary20gospel/

 

Psalm 97

¹The Lord is king! Let the earth rejoice; let the many coastlands be glad!

²Clouds and thick darkness are all around him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.

³Fire goes before him, and consumes his adversaries on every side.

⁴His lightnings light up the world; the earth sees and trembles.

⁵The mountains melt like wax before the Lord, before the Lord of all the earth.

⁶The heavens proclaim his righteousness; and all the peoples behold his glory.

⁷All worshipers of images are put to shame, those who make their boast in worthless idols; all gods bow down before him.

⁸Zion hears and is glad, and the towns of Judah rejoice, because of your judgments, O God.

⁹For you, O Lord, are most high over all the earth; you are exalted far above all gods.

¹⁰The Lord loves those who hate evil; he guards the lives of his faithful; he rescues them from the hand of the wicked.

¹¹Light dawns for the righteous, and joy for the upright in heart.

¹²Rejoice in the Lord, O you righteous, and give thanks to his holy name! 

John 17:20-26

²⁰”I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, ²¹that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. ²²The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, ²³I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

²⁴Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. ²⁵“Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me. ²⁶I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

“A Case Against UnFriending”

St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church (5/8/16)

Rev. Jeremy Watson

            In 2008, there was a book written by a journalist named Bill Bishop, with help from Robert Cushing, a sociologist at the University of Texas.

It was called The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart. This is a quick summary . . .       

“America may be more diverse than ever coast to coast, but the places where we live are becoming increasingly crowded with people who live, think, and vote like we do. This social transformation didn’t happen by accident. We’ve built a country where we can all choose the neighborhood and church and news show — most compatible with our lifestyle and beliefs. And we are living with the consequences of this way-of-life segregation. Our country has become so polarized, so ideologically inbred, that people don’t know and can’t understand those who live just a few miles away.”[i]

            While the most obvious demonstration of this seems to be the stark red and blue divide of our politics, the authors make a strong case for that as merely the tip of the iceberg, as a mere symptom of a much deeper and more pervasive problem. We live in great distance from one another. In all areas of life, we have found ways to segregate ourselves into like-minded communities, and to distance ourselves from those whom we disagree with, or live differently than, or think differently than.

It is now 2016, and it is safe to say that this clustering has only increased in the past 8 years. There is one area of life that was relatively new back when the aforementioned book was written. And yet “social media” might be the best demonstration of this Big Sort.

We now have the capability of connecting with people across all walks of life, through cyberspace. We can find childhood friends and watch their lives, see pictures of their kids, vacations, and the “staged perfection of their lives.” We can befriend a long-lost relative, get to know our coworkers better, or stay in touch with someone we met at a conference or mission trip. We can get the word out about our kid who is in a video contest to win a trip to Washington DC. Thank you to all who voted for Colby and his friends, they are incredibly excited! We could use social media to greatly expand the diversity of our lives in ways that earlier generations could not have imagined. We could.

However, recent studies have shown that most of us use social media to create even more segregation in our lives.[ii] In recent months, websites and phone aps have been created, to great fanfare, that can help us eliminate all mentions of certain political candidates on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and even help us to “unfriend” anyone who sides with that candidate. We can eliminate people from our social media circles with great efficiency. The comedian Jimmy Kimmel has even used his platform to create a holiday called “National Unfriend Day.”[iii] It is celebrated as a practice that creates a sense of freedom, and eliminates all that we may find annoying or offensive in any way. We can “unfriend” with the click of a button. Click! Be gone with you!

Today’s Gospel passage is part of the “Priestly Prayer” of Jesus. The whole of John 17 is Jesus’ Priestly Prayer and we read 1/3 of it each year in our 3-year lectionary cycle. The first section is Jesus praying for himself and his own mission in the world. The second section is Jesus praying for his disciples. And this section, Year C, is Jesus praying for us. Jesus is praying for the future followers of Jesus throughout history. He is praying for us, for you and for me, a priestly prayer, interceding between God and us.

As you can hardly miss, the primary prayer of Jesus for us is unity. That they all may be one, repeated 4 times in the span of 3 verses.

²¹that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. ²²The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, ²³I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

We are called to be united in the love of God. Those of us in these pews and all who are part of this church family. And by church family, Jesus means every church, all of the followers of Jesus in and throughout our communities. It is clear that unity is very important to Jesus, that he wants us to be connected to one another. In the midst of all of the diversity of the church, the dozens and dozens of denominations and church flavors within our neighborhood, Jesus prayed for us to be connected, to know one another and to be joined together. To be unified in proclaiming the good news of God’s love for ALL. To be bound together by recognizing that ALL are loved by God. And this isn’t a “pie in the sky” sentimentality from Jesus. He’s not a beauty contestant calling for world peace. Jesus understood diversity and the inherent struggles that come with it, by experience. Just among his 12 disciples, he had a zealot (a radical separatist who wanted to overthrow the government) a tax collector (who had joined with the government to help rule), and another guy who betrayed him to his death. They weren’t a homogenous group, and they argued all the time. Jesus understood diversity, and he prayed for unity in the midst of it.

If we look at the center of the word “religion” we can see this idea right there. The root of that word is “lig” from the Greek, and it means “bind, tie, hold.” It is the same root word we find in “ligament,” the material that holds all of our bodies together.[iv] Imagine a body without ligaments. A sack of bones and muscle, flopping around in our skin, completely useless. Religion is to be a demonstration of that which holds the body together, that allows it to function. And, of course, there is no better way to explain this than looking at baseball. All baseball players and fans know about ligaments and diversity. Let me explain.

Baseball is a microcosm of life and baseball has a lot to teach us about ligaments. Ulnar Collateral Ligaments, to be precise. UCL. Baseball fans know that acronym. And most people know it by another name. What type of surgery repairs a torn UCL? Tommy John surgery!  You’ve probably heard that name. The UCL is right here, in the elbow. This is the most vulnerable part of a baseball pitcher. It is the ligament where most of the torque is placed as you throw, and the so it gets torn most often. This ligament is worth $20 – $25 million / year if you are one of these guys. These are drawings of some of the best pitchers in baseball, and all of them have torn their UCLs. And all of them have recovered because of Tommy John surgery. In 1973, Tommy John was a star pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers and he tore his UCL. At that time, it was a career-ending injury. But he decided, along with his ground-breaking Doctor, Frank Jobe, to see if taking some ligament from his hip and sewing it in as a new UCL would work. After a long, arduous recovery over a couple of years, Tommy John came back and pitched as good as ever.

This graph shows the rise in Tommy John surgeries in Major League Baseball, starting with 1 in 1974, and up to 90 Tommy John surgeries a few years ago. There has been a dramatic rise in these surgeries, to the point where major league pitchers now have a 50% chance of having this surgery at some point in their career. Some never recover fully, some not at all, and all miss at least 1 full year of their careers. Scarier than that, though is that minor league, college, and high school pitchers are seeing the same statistical rise in torn UCLs. So what has caused this dramatic rise in the tearing of ligaments. This is the billion dollar question for Major League Baseball.

And this is what we are finally learning. Too much uniformity tears ligaments, while diversity creates healthy ligaments. The rise in ligament tears follows shortly after the rise in the year-round specialization of youth sports. As competition and money has increased, it has become the standard for 10 and 11 year old kids, or even younger, to specialize in 1 sport in order to increase their chances of making it all the way. It is highly competitive and highly specialized. And baseball scientists (for real! I told you this is a billion dollar problem) are realizing that over the course of many years, especially at a young age, this repetitive motion breaks down ligaments. Pitchers who grew up in smaller towns, without specialized sports, or colder climates, without year-round baseball, or pitchers who chose to play multiple sports at different times of year and take a break from baseball, these pitchers are proving to have the most durable Ulnar Collateral Ligaments. Baseball teaches us this, when it comes to ligaments, uniformity is unhealthy, while diversity creates more strength throughout the body.

Jesus taught the same lesson as baseball to us, the church. However, in the book I referred to earlier discussing the Big Sort, chapter 7 is all about the church. The authors, Bishop and Cushing, start that chapter by saying, “American churches today are more culturally and politically segregated than our neighborhoods.”[v] If we are hoping that the religio of the Christian church is an antidote to our clustering, in answer to Jesus’ prayer, we are sorely disappointed. We split ourselves into countless denominations and church flavors that generally don’t partner together. We even cluster ourselves within our denominations and even within our churches. As they write “the goal of the church in other times was to transfigure the social tenets of those who came through the door. Now people go to a church not for how it might change their beliefs, but for how their precepts will be reconfirmed.”[vi] When our beliefs are repeated and emphasized, without debate or critique, it leads to more extreme beliefs, on all sides. This clustering, without relational connections, leads to an increasing polarization within the church.

Now to be fair to us, the primary target of their critique is the evangelical megachurch. In fact, they claim that a primary reason behind the decline in membership of the mainline churches, like ours, is that evangelical megachurches mastered the art of marketing the church to homogenous subcultures. They realized the allure of offering a place full of people who are just like me, complete with daycare, fitness club, coffee shop, and bookstore, all helping to fit one’s entire life around a cluster of like-mindedness. And they grew like wildfire. They tapped into our primal desire for tribalism, while mainline churches like ours, well . . . we either just missed the boat in our stubbornness, or we stubbornly insisted that we are about something deeper than that. I hope that it’s more of the latter. Either way, we envied their growth and suffered our losses. And it leaves us with our own set of questions to answer.

In what ways do we fail to demonstrate the unity of Jesus?  To our credit, we at St. Andrew’s have responded by engaging in creative efforts to increase our connections outward throughout our neighborhoods.  Our partnerships through SW Hope and Neighborhood House have increased our connections to different denominations, faith traditions, and beyond. Our efforts for artists to use our venues has increased our community connections, and given voice to more voices. And our mission statement consistently pulls us in that direction, “connecting with Christ and each other to serve our neighbors.” We have a pro-ligament mission statement!

But I don’t want to let us off the hook too easy in this, for we are surely a community that could use more diversity. There are visitors who come here and don’t feel as if they fit in this community. We strive to be a “big-tent” church, but there are some corners of the tent gathering cobwebs. We make efforts to welcome all, and we succeed and we fail. Even this sermon, in which I refer to “evangelical mega churches” as “they” is a demonstration that there is a stark divide in the body of Christ, at least for me and any who resonate with my feelings. There are entire swaths of the church and community that we are completely disconnected from.

The Priestly Prayer of Jesus calls us to move beyond that and to find ways to be united with others. Jesus prays for us to be the ligaments that tie people to one another. That is a demonstration of God’s love, as one Bible commentator wrote, “If humankind, in ceaseless disharmony with itself, observes a people of manifest differences and great diversities living in joyous common cause and unwavering, grateful commitment to each other, and if these people say that the love of Christ has done it and lives in their oneness, then conclusions may be reached about Jesus, and perhaps about the Oneness of love that is God.”[vii]

We can be the demonstration of unity that Jesus prayed for.   Whether it is in our own neighborhood or greater Portland. Whether it is in our social media world            , or any avenue of connections, may we build and keep connections, especially when they are annoying or difficult. May our faith community be known as the place where the love of God binds people together, as Jesus prayed, “that (we) may all be one.” May it be so. Amen.

[i] http://www.thebigsort.com/home.php

[ii] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2015/12/16/you-might-think-trump-is-bad-but-unfriending-his-supporters-on-facebook-is-worse/

[iii] http://abc.go.com/shows/jimmy-kimmel-live/news/editors-picks/jimmy-kimmel-national-unfriend-day-11182015

[iv] thanks to Rev. Becca Gillespie Messman in “Ghosting the Church” http://pres-outlook.org/2016/04/ghosting-the-church/

[v] Bishop and Cushing, The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart, p. 159.

[vi] Bishop and Cushing, The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart, p. 180.

[vii] Dr. Paul Simpson Duke. http://blogs.baylor.edu/truettpulpit/2016/04/25/john-1720-26/

Works Consulted:

http://thewakingdreamer.blogspot.com/2013/05/that-world-may-believe.html

http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1637

http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?m=4377&post=2566

http://thq.wearesparkhouse.org/featured/easter7cgospel/

http://words.dancingwiththeword.com/2013/05/a-unity-not-of-our-making.html

http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=592

Pulpit Fiction podcast http://www.pulpitfiction.us/show-notes/166-easter-7c-may-8-2016

Psalm 118: 14-29

¹⁴The Lord is my strength and my might; he has become my salvation.

¹⁵There are glad songs of victory in the tents of the righteous: “The right hand of the Lord does valiantly;

¹⁶the right hand of the Lord is exalted; the right hand of the Lord does valiantly.”

¹⁷I shall not die, but I shall live, and recount the deeds of the Lord.

¹⁸The Lord has punished me severely, but he did not give me over to death.

¹⁹Open to me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter through them and give thanks to the Lord.

²⁰This is the gate of the Lord; the righteous shall enter through it.

²¹I thank you that you have answered me and have become my salvation.

²²The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.

²³This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes.

²⁴This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.

²⁵Save us, we beseech you, O Lord! O Lord, we beseech you, give us success!

²⁶Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. We bless you from the house of the Lord.

²⁷The Lord is God, and he has given us light. Bind the festal procession with branches, up to the horns of the altar.

²⁸You are my God, and I will give thanks to you; you are my God, I will extol you.

²⁹O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever. 

John 20:19-31

¹⁹When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” ²⁰After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. ²¹Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”²²When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. ²³If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” ²⁴But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came.²⁵So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

²⁶A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” ²⁷Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” ²⁸Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” ²⁹Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”³⁰Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. ³¹But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

 “A Parallel World”

St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church

April 3, 2016

Rev. Jeremy Watson  

            The story of Thomas. Because of this story, he’s come to be known as “Doubting Thomas.” His ever-present adjective is stuck to his name, just like “Tricky Dick” “Debbie Downer” or “Curious George.”  It us used to incriminate him as THE example of lacking faith. He had to see Jesus to believe, but the rest of us, how blessed are we to believe without the physical evidence! But that’s not quite fair to Thomas. Because, if we are honest, we incriminate ourselves when we blame Thomas. Especially those of us who are American.

 

Earlier this year, “The Atlantic” magazine published a fascinating article entitled, “Why the British Tell Better Children’s Stories.”[i] We will always have the Revolutionary War, but the British have superiority in the area of children’s stories.  If you agree with the author, Colleen Gillard. The subtitle reads, “Their history informs fantastical myths and legends, while American tales tend to focus on moral realism.” Gillard makes her case by listing American children’s stories such as; The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Charlotte’s Web, The Yearling, Little Women, The Call of The Wild, Little House in the Big Woods, Pollyanna, and The Little Engine That Could. Most America children’s stories like these, she claims, are based in realistic portraits of day-to-day life on the growing frontier. These stories are “larded with moral messages about a world where life was hard, obedience emphasized, and Christian morality valued.” Even the fantastical stories that we have, such as the Wizard of Oz, or the stories by Dr. Seuss, are laden with very clear, preachy moral messages that are spelled out for us, just in case we can’t understand the story for ourselves.

“I am the Lorax.  I speak for the trees, I speak for the trees for the trees have no tongues.”[ii]

“A person’s a person, no matter how small.”[iii]

And every parent’s favorite at meal times . . .“I like green eggs and ham! I do!! I like them, Sam-I-am!”[iv]

British children’s stories, by comparison, are fantastical myths that the author claims are more appealing to children, and to all of us. They are surely more profitable for Hollywood. Alice in Wonderland, Winnie-the-Pooh, Peter Pan, Mary Poppins, The Hobbit, The Chronicles of Narnia,, and most recently, Harry Potter. In these English children’s stories, we escape to fantastical other worlds. Down the rabbit hole or through the wardrobe, off to Neverland, Middle Earth, Hogwarts, or the hundred-acre-wood. These worlds are often connected to our own, and all of them are an escape from realism and an entry into parallel worlds where the laws and realities that govern us are suspended. There are still moral lessons to be gained, though in the art form of fantasy, they are not clearly spelled out, they are the product of our interpretation, as most art should be, in my humble opinion.

Interestingly, one of the possible reasons given for this difference between our stories is the strength of Britain’s pagan religions. We are praising pagan religions here on the 2^nd Sunday of Easter. These pagan religions contain the belief that there is a parallel world to ours. What we experience as magical or mysterious is understood as an intersection between worlds. Death is seen as a portal to a parallel world rather than an end. While Christianity swept away many of greater Europe’s pagan beliefs rather quickly, they stubbornly persisted in Great Britain. As Gillard writes, “Even well into the 19^th and 20^th centuries, many [Britons] believed they could be whisked away to a parallel universe.”

This makes a lot of sense when we consider the origin story of England. A young man named Arthur was able to pull a sword from a stone, Excalibur!, which gave him the power to rule the land, as he was mentored by a wizard named Merlin and surrounded by the unbeatable Knights of the Round Table. History and legend are intertwined in England. Even as historians claim that there is very little, if any, truth to these stories, or even a British leader named Arthur, this story is held onto.  The laws of reality are suspended. And so we have these beautiful, classic stories, infiltrated by this understanding of parallel worlds, where anything is possible. And this is what we should consider. What if these fantasy stories, enabled by pagan religion, are actually the better representation of Christianity?

As we continue through this 50 day celebration of Eastertide, let’s take a deeper look at the story of Thomas in today’s Bible passage. This is the story of Thomas encountering our Risen Lord, Jesus Christ. And as we heard last Sunday, Thomas was not just encountering our Risen Lord, he was encountering our risen world, our resurrection world. The resurrection of Jesus ushered in a resurrection world, a world where death no longer has the last word, where we all participate in new life. It is very much like Thomas had gone down the rabbit hole, or through the wardrobe, into a parallel world, when he saw his dead rabbi alive again. The laws of life as he knew it had been suspended.

“Doubting” Thomas is labeled as lacking faith by his ever-present adjective.  As if he was more flawed than the rest of the disciples.  But that’s not very accurate.  They all had their doubts.  Who wouldn’t?  Who doesn’t?  Peter and John were just as skeptical as they ran to the empty tomb, after Mary Magdalene had first told them.  Thomas just happened to see him last, because he was likely the most courageous of them all.  Remember back in John 11? Jesus had heard that his friend Lazarus had died and wanted to go to Judea to see Mary, Martha, and Lazarus.. The disciples were scared because the Judeans had tried to stone them not too long before and they had no desire to go back. It was Thomas who said, “Let us go with him so that we may also die.”  It does come across as sarcastic, but it was the comment that sent them on their way.

Thomas wasn’t the primary Doubter, he was simply the bravest, the boldest, and the most vocal. He was bold enough to ask the questions that we are all thinking. While the rest of the disciples were afraid to go back to Judea, and now they are hiding in a locked room, afraid of the Jewish authorities.  Thomas was out there, living without a locked door.. He may have had his doubts, but Thomas was bold and brave. Thomas is the one who represents us, the bold and brave and realistic American, frontier people. And it is because of Thomas’ questions that we are challenged to open up our minds, to be blessed by the welcoming this Resurrection world, as Thomas was, responding to Jesus, “My Lord and My God!”

This is not a call for us to abandon reality and escape to a fantasy land. It is a call to recognize the mystery of God becoming a person in our world. The mystery of God as Jesus enduring the worst that we have to offer, dying at the hands of power for simply speaking the truth, and then breaking the “laws” of reality with Resurrection. This resurrected world calls us to enlarge our imaginations, to suspend what we know and recognize God. We are called in faith to recognize that there is more to this life than we can see with our own eyes.

What if this stubborn insistence by pagan religions, this stubborn insistence that there is a parallel world speaks to our deep awareness of faith. What if the appeal of Narnia and Neverland speaks to our deep awareness of Resurrection life?

Click the image of this fantastic book to learn more.  

Father Greg Boyle is a Jesuit priest who grew up in Los Angeles, in the nice part of town. But the first Parish that he was placed in was the poorest ‘hood in Los Angeles County. Eight rival gangs competed for turf within the boundaries of his Parish. For a while, Father Boyle was able to serve as a peacemaker, calling forth the courage of Thomas to talk down conflicts, to be a buffer in the midst of gang shootouts. A number of times bullets whizzed passed him and his clerical collar. He became a respected voice in the community, treating all with compassion instead of blame or retribution. He was a parallel world of love and faith in the midst of violence and hate. But he got tired of the futility of his efforts, and he began asking, “What would help end this gang warfare?” And what he kept hearing was, “ if only we had some jobs . . .”

So Father Boyle started a bakery, called “Homeboy Bakery.” He decided that putting rival gang members, or homies, in hairnets next to each other, working for a decent wage, would go a long way toward healing divisions. He decided that employing ex-convicts would give hope to his community. It has been wildly successful. Today Homeboy Industries has 10 branches of operation, including the bakery, and it is the largest and most successful gang intervention and prison re-entry program in the world. Father Greg Boyle is a proclamation of Resurrection Life, a parallel world that goes against all evidence to the contrary.

This past week I was privileged to meet with a woman who is dying of cancer. She is a former member here who was given 2 months to live, 1 month ago. One of the things that she said to me was that she has learned to see even the painful things in life as a gift. Even with this diagnosis, she tries to see the gifts in it, because, as she said repeatedly, “that takes the sting out of it.” Once we see the gift in the pain, we can focus on that and be thankful for the gift that life is. She is at peace with her fate and getting the most out of the time that she has been gifted with. This positive outlook made more sense as she spoke about her life, and what has become her primary goal in life. Her favorite verse is Psalm 89:15.

“Blessed are those who have learned to acclaim you,

who walk^c in the light^d of your presence, Lord.” – NIV

“I’ve tried to walk in the presence of God, to be as fully aware of God’s grace in every moment as I can be,” she says. Whether it is rejoicing in the beautiful miracle of life in her English garden or recognizing the difference she was able to make in the lives of children as a Court Appointed Special Advocate, she is aware of the grace of God everywhere, even in the hard things. For “God’s power is made perfect in weakness.” Another of her favorite verses. Her picture of heaven is a library in a garden, and her deep faith has led her to embrace that hope. To face death with hope and peace. That is the expanded imagination of the Resurrection Life. That is the parallel world that our Risen Lord ushered in.

As we look forward to the strengthening of this faith with the Lord’s Supper in a few moments, I want to close with these thoughts from Middle Earth. They are spoken by Samwise Gamgee, the loyal Hobbit companion to Frodo, as he was losing hope.

“I know. It’s all wrong. By rights, we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo, the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines, it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you that meant something. Even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going because they were holding on to something.”

Frodo then asks “What are we holding on to Sam?”, and Sam answers: “That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.”[v]

There’s some good in the world, and it’s worth fighting for. That is no fantasy. The grace of God is all around us, may our imaginations be enlarged enough to see and experience it. Amen! 

 

Works Consulted:

Brown, Raymond E. The Gospel According to John XIII-XXI, 1970 Doubleday and Company

Wright, N.T. John For Everyone (Part 2), 2004 Westminster John Knox

Sloyan, Gerard John (Interpretation Series), 1988 John Knox Press

Lose, David. http://www.davidlose.net/2015/04/easter-2-b/

Pape, Lance http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2407

Hoezee, Scott

http://cep.calvinseminary.edu/sermon-starters/easter-2b-2/?type=the_lectionary_gospel

Lewis, Karoline http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=3580

Davis, D Mark “Left Behind and Loving It”

http://leftbehindandlovingit.blogspot.com/2015/04/releasing-and-retaining-brokenness.html

RevGalPalBlog – Rev. Kris

http://revgalblogpals.org/2015/04/07/revised-common-lectionary-if-its-the-week-after-easter-it-must-be-thomas-edition/

[i] http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/01/why-the-british-tell-better-childrens-stories/422859/

[ii] The Lorax by Dr. Seuss

[iii] Horton Hears a Who, by. Dr. Seuss

[iv] Green Eggs and Ham, by. Dr. Seuss

[v] Tolkien, J.R.R. The Two Towers

“The Wind of God”

Rev. Jeremy Watson

St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church              February 28, 2016

Genesis 1:1-5

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, ²the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.

³Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. ⁴And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.⁵God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

Acts 2:1-13

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. ²And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.³Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. ⁴All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

⁵Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. ⁶And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.⁷Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? ⁸And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? ⁹Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, ¹⁰Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, ¹¹Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” ¹²All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” ¹³But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.”

 

There was a minister who once decided to use a very clever visual demonstration to add emphasis to his sermon. He placed 4 worms in 4 separate jars. In the first jar the worm was swimming in alcohol. In the second jar the worm was engulfed in cigarette smoke. In the third jar, the worm was swimming in chocolate syrup. And in the fourth jar, the worm was in good, clean soil. At the conclusion of the sermon, the pastor reported that the first worm, in alcohol, was dead. The second worm, in cigarette smoke, was dead. The third worm, in chocolate syrup, was dead. But the 4^th worm, in good clean soil, was alive! So he asked the congregation what they had learned from this demonstration. Maxine was sitting in the back, and quickly raised her hand and said, “If you drink, smoke, and eat chocolate, you won’t have worms!” That pretty much ended the worship service.

Let’s hope that today’s sermon is a bit more effective than that. But keep the soil in mind, if you can.

In Job, chapter 38 through chapter 40, we have God’s longest speech in the Bible. It is an answer to Job, who had questioned God after a series of tragedies that had struck him and his family. In this answer, God refers back to the creation account that Scott just read to us. “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding.” (Job 38:4). In other words, can you create soil? Many of us have recently watched a sermon by the noted environmentalist author Bill McKibben, in our Lenten Study Series, in which he refers this long speech by God. He references this part in particular,

“Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb? – when I made the clouds its garment, and thick darkness its swaddling band, and prescribed bounds for it, and set bars and doors, and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stopped’?

Who put the boundaries on the ocean? God asks.

 

Earlier this week, there was a New York Times cover story with this image and this headline. “Seas Are Rising at Fastest Rate in Last 28 Centuries”[i] In that article, numerous scientific studies are referenced, and statistics are given, about the rise in sea levels. Oceans have risen 8 inches since the Industrial Revolution took hold in 1880. Beyond the obvious flooding problems, billions of tons of soil have been lost, the soil on which all of life depends, contrary to Maxine’s earlier statements. Losing earthworms is no laughing matter. By 2100, it is expected that sea levels will rise another 3 to 4 feet. This poses tremendous danger to all coastal cities (which includes most of the major cities of the world) and to civilization as a whole.

As Bill McKibben points out, this gives us an answer to God’s question. The question that silenced Job back then can now be answered. Who prescribed bounds for the sea, and said “Thus far shall you come and no farther.”? Um, actually God, we have taken over ocean boundary duties. We have called the proud waves to come closer and higher, now that you ask, God. We are powerful. We can move mountains, stripping them down and stealing the coal from their bowels. We can call forth the leviathans of old from beneath the ocean waters, through massive pipes that deliver them as crude oil. We can stop the mighty Columbia River with a structure so massive that it can be seen from outer space. Oh yeah, speaking of that, we can take those fossil fuels and can now launch ourselves beyond the “dome of the sky” that you created on the Second Day, and we can stand on the Moon that you created on the Fourth Day. We are powerful and we are feeling our oats.

 

Yet, if we are wise, we might want to continue OUR speech. For we have not discovered how to lower those ocean levels, or replenish that good, clean soil. Our power seems to send us in only one direction. We have not been able to separate and extract the greed and the gluttony and the thirst for power from within our creative, powerful selves. In fact, some of us have discovered that it is actually our greed and thirst for power that drives our creative energy. We continually push the boundaries of what we can do, further and further, and we end up doing so without stopping to consider the side effects. It is the poorest among us who first feel the effects of lead-laced water, corn-syrup based diets, smog, foul air, and pollution of all sorts. There are actually communities of people who live on mountains of garbage scavenging through our waste for survival. We are powerful, but we do not know how to handle that power. It always leads to corruption, God, and now we are all about to drown from our greed and choke the life out of this world that we have dominated. So, yes, God, we have an answer for you now, but it is far from a satisfying answer.

                                                                                  

The voice of God called forth creation, as Scott read to us those most familiar words of the Bible. “While a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, Let there be light.” (Genesis 1:2b-3a). The voice of God is described as wind throughout this creation account. It is a power that cannot be directly seen, but can be felt without question. It is beyond our ability to create or to contain. “The wind blows where it chooses” (John 3:8), as Jesus tells Nicodemus in John 3, referring to the Holy Spirit, the voice and movement of God. The Wind of God is powerful and beyond us, and is always described in terms of “understanding.” As God told Job and Jesus told Nicodemus, it is the understanding that we lack. For we have shown that the simple power of God is something that is not entirely foreign to us. We can play God, and we do. But we do not understand. We do not understand how it all works together. We easily forget what creation is intended to be.

So let’s look a little bit deeper at the wind of God in Genesis 1. Let’s look especially at the end of Chapter 1, which you can find on Page 1 of your pew Bible. At the end of all of this wind/voice/power of God creating, in verse 26, God makes humankind “in our own image.” In the image of the Triune God, which means in relationship. And within that relational core of who we are and who God is, power is given to us. For it is not a relationship without the sharing of power. It is not a relationship without a mutual give and take. And so we are given dominion over creation, called to be fruitful and to multiply, to fill and to subdue. Now these words, especially “dominion” and “subdue,” have been terribly misunderstood. A deeper look at the Hebrew language makes it clear that this is a shepherding type of rule. It is a call to make fruitful. Humankind is called to name and to tend, to bring order to this creation, but that is always paired with abundance. The garden is, above all, a place of abundance, and the order does nothing but increase the abundance of God’s gift. God’s gift to us, for what we see here in Genesis 1, through the Wind of God, is the giving of a gift. It is a demonstration of mutual faith and trust. This is how Walter Brueggeman describes this Wind of God.

 

“This speech of God is a sovereign call. It is not subject to debate. It is sure to have its own way. Clearly, the creation will be God’s creation. Yet, in these narratives, the sovereign call is unheeded. We are dealing here with a peculiar kind of sovereignty. This sovereign speech is not coercive but evocative. It invites but it does not compel. It hopes rather than requires. Thus, it may be resisted and unheeded. But the call of the creator is not thereby voided.”

– Walter Brueggeman Genesis (Interpretation Series) p. 18

            The voice of God, from the very beginning, intentionally shares power with us. The power of God is never coercive, for if it were, it would not be a relationship in the image of Trinitarian God. God entrusts us with the power that we have. God wants us to be co-creators, to be creative as God is creative. Our ingenuity and ambition brings joy to God, for that is why we were created. But, this is the turn here, our power needs to be wrapped within understanding. In this relationship, we are called to seek God, to seek understanding. That is what God tells Job, and tells us. I created this world. You can shift the raw materials, but where do you think they came from. Have you heard the one about the man who said he could create a better person than God did, and as he started to form the clay into a person, God said, “Get your own dirt!” We are called to seek understanding from God.

And that is the good news from today’s thoroughly depressing sermon! For we also read about the wind of God from Acts, Chapter 2. The day of Pentecost. You will hear this passage again shortly after Easter, which is kind of nice. We could all benefit from the repetition of Acts, Chapter 2. This is all you need to know for today. The wind of God continues for thousands of years, to move among us. It is here today, as it was in Jerusalem on that Pentecost, as it was at the beginning of all of this. God continues to speak to us. We have been entrusted with Creation, but we have not been left on our own. God continues to speak. And we succeed in listening at times. Bill McKibben, Wendell Berry, Pope Francis, and many of us are acting to restore creation. We do our best, at times, to learn and grow and let the wind of God lead us toward co-creating with God. We seek to follow God’s intent. During this time of Lent, we are reflecting on and confessing our failure to care for creation, in particular. We are confessing our hope to do better with eyes toward the resurrection.

     “The wind blows where it chooses.” It is beyond our understanding, and yet it leads us toward understanding the intent of God for us and for creation. God continues to speak. May we always be listening! Amen.

[i] http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/23/science/sea-level-rise-global-warming-climate-change.html?emc=edit_th_20160223&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=47308027

 

Works Consulted:

Brehm, Alan            http://thewakingdreamer.blogspot.com/2012/01/god-is-here-gen.html

Fretheim, Terence “Working Preacher”

http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1097

Holbert, John C. http://www.patheos.com/Progressive-Christian/Needed-Climate-Crisis-John-Holbert-06-06-2014

Myallis, Rob (Lectionary Greek) http://lectionarygreek.blogspot.com/2013/09/genesis-11-24a.html

Schifferdecker, Kathryn M.            http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2328

Tanner, Beth L.            http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=220

 

 

Nehemiah 8:1-10

all the people gathered together into the square before the Water Gate. They told the scribe Ezra to bring the book of the law of Moses, which the Lord had given to Israel. ²Accordingly, the priest Ezra brought the law before the assembly, both men and women and all who could hear with understanding. This was on the first day of the seventh month.³He read from it facing the square before the Water Gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women and those who could understand; and the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the law. 

⁴The scribe Ezra stood on a wooden platform that had been made for the purpose; and beside him stood Mattithiah, Shema, Anaiah, Uriah, Hilkiah, and Maaseiah on his right hand; and Pedaiah, Mishael, Malchijah, Hashum, Hash-baddanah, Zechariah, and Meshullam on his left hand. 

⁵And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was standing above all the people; and when he opened it, all the people stood up. ⁶Then Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people answered, “Amen, Amen,” lifting up their hands. Then they bowed their heads and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground. 

⁷Also Jeshua, Bani, Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodiah, Maaseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan, Pelaiah, the Levites, helped the people to understand the law, while the people remained in their places. 

⁸So they read from the book, from the law of God, with interpretation. They gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.

⁹And Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, “This day is holy to the Lord your God; do not mourn or weep.” For all the people wept when they heard the words of the law. ¹⁰Then he said to them, “Go your way, eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions of them to those for whom nothing is prepared, for this day is holy to our Lord; and do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”

Luke 4:14-21

¹⁴Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. ¹⁵He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone. ¹⁶When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read,¹⁷and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: ¹⁸“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, ¹⁹to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” ²⁰And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. ²¹Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

January 24, 2016

“The Rebel Alliance”

Rev. Jeremy Watson    St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church    Portland, Oregon

 

Both of our Bible passages for today involve a recovery of a forgotten treasure, a foundational, guiding truth for a people. Nehemiah led the Israelites to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, as they returned from exile, and it was with great rejoicing that they read the Law of God, with great anticipation for recovering the ways of their people. Likewise, Jesus pointed his people back to the Prophet Isaiah, toward a recovery of the truth of how they should live, also with a promise to recover those ways. In both cases, good news is proclaimed by hearkening back.

There is a movie that came out recently, just before Christmas, that has a similar message and promise. It is a recovery of a forgotten treasure and a guiding hope, if you’ll indulge me a little bit. For me, it was a valuable dose of hope, or at least nostalgia. As I prepare to face the reality of my 40^th birthday coming up, it was very helpful for me to return to my childhood with the excitement of a new Star Wars movie. I took Colby, our 11 year old, for his birthday, and it was not much of a sacrifice on my part. I loved the original 3 Star Wars movies as a kid, wore out the VHS tapes, and this one is the continuation of that original story. This movie allowed me and my entire generation, to forget that the prequel movies were ever made, and to go back to “Return of the Jedi,” and continue that story. If you haven’t seen the new movie yet, I won’t give away much. But you should have seen it by now, if you’re going to. I loved it. I’m not surprised that it’s broken every box office record. It captures the magic of the original Star Wars movies. It was everything that I hoped for, maybe even better than I expected. But there is one disappointment that I have.

The villain in the movie is not scary enough. In this movie, the main bad guy is named Kylo Ren. This is what he looks like, and he is scary-looking, and at the beginning of the movie, he is powerful, evil and intimidating. But he is no Darth Vader. It wasn’t very long into the movie that we realize that he doesn’t need that mask, but wants it to intimidate others. It’s really a display of his insecurity. He quickly comes across as weak and petulant. People challenge him, and he whines, he uses his light saber to slash away at computer screens and destroys a control room, and it looks like a child’s temper tantrum. And not too long after that, he gets overpowered and embarrassed by the heroine of the movie, before she even knows about her Jedi powers. And, again, he throws a tantrum at a computer screen as he storms away. As I thought about the movie in the days after seeing it, the one thing I kept thinking was, I wish Kylo Ren wasn’t such a weak villain. It’s kind of disappointing. He’s not a villain worth defeating. And surely enough, the mockery of Kylo Ren has become a thing.

This is what he looks like without the mask, always like he’s pouting about something. For those of you on Twitter, this is one of the funniest parody accounts there is. This is Emo Kylo Ren and he makes fun of the movie villain. The creator of this account mocks him as an emo teenager. And that doesn’t refer to Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon. Emo means he’s emotionally hardcore, dresses in black, gothic clothes, shops at Hot Topic, and ruminates endlessly about the darkness of his life. Here are a few of Emo Kylo Ren’s tweets.

Kylo Ren, the bad guy, is mockable, and that disappoints me. He’s made into a caricature of a petulant teenager. Darth Vader, on the other hand, was terrifying.

 

His own officers feared him. With that theme music and the breathing thing, no one mocked Darth Vader. If you did, he would choke you with his thoughts and an outstretched hand. For all 3 of the original movies, up until the very end, Darth Vader was scary. He had no weakness and it seemed like the Rebel Alliance had no chance against him. They were always in a crisis and victory seemed so unlikely, if not impossible. And that’s what made the story so great. And I think that’s why I wish that Kylo Ren was a better villain. It makes for a better story when there is a deeper crisis. Without the crisis, the resolution is less meaningful.

        

In today’s New Testament passage, Jesus walked into the synagogue of his local village, the place where he grew up, and he said something similar. Without the crisis, the resolution is less meaningful. Jesus didn’t use Star Wars to make his point, though I’m sure he would have if it had been available to him at that time. Jesus used the next best thing, the Prophet Isaiah. Isaiah 61:1-2, as Jesus read it.

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, ¹⁹to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” 

This is the good news of Jesus. This is what he came to proclaim and to do, and he says that he is good news specifically for . . . the poor, for the captive, for the blind, and for the oppressed.  Poor, captive, blind, oppressed. This is who Jesus directs his good news to. Am I poor, captive, blind, or oppressed? Will Jesus’ good news be more meaningful to me in the times when I do identify in one of those ways?

This is not an easy message to hear, for citizens of the United States, especially for those of us who are white, anglo-saxon, Protestant, or WASPs, as we are called. By simply living in the U.S., we know that we are not among the world’s poorest, at least materially. By being WASPs, we know that we are not among the world’s oppressed. By being in this sanctuary, we know that we are not captives. We are a free people living in a prosperous country. Are we blind? That’s one claim that we can make, if we want to speak metaphorically. That is one side effect of being a WASP is that we are often blind to much of the world, to the experience of many. Though I imagine that in this sense, Jesus and Isaiah aren’t speaking in metaphor. Jesus came to bring good news to those who are in need, to comfort the afflicted, and to afflict the comfortable, as the saying goes. And this leaves me wondering if I am the afflicted or the comfortable. This leaves me wondering if this is good news for me.

Luckily, we don’t have to look very far in the life and ministry of Jesus to start getting some answers to these questions. It was not long before Jesus lived out his message of good news, and there are 2 things that he and his followers did that we should pay attention to.

The first is that they very quickly engaged with all sorts of people, across all sorts of societal boundaries. Outcasts, prostitutes, tax-collectors, demon-possessed, poor fishermen, zealots, women, men, Jews, Gentiles, Samaritans . . . Jesus and his followers quickly became a big tent of common humanity. To be in the company of Jesus means being with those who are poor, captive, blind, and oppressed. If we are not poor, captive, blind, or oppressed, we are surely in solidarity with some who are. That is what it is to follow Jesus. The way of Jesus, which became the church of Jesus, has always been about our common humanity. We are called to have more solidarity with all of our neighbors. And when we come into relationship with people, it is hard to avoid the difficult work for justice in our society.

This church family has made significant efforts in recent years to engage in Neighborhood Ministries.   We have followed the call for to ensure that our mission commitments are not just about dollars being given to causes, but about our own hands and feet engaged in relationships between sisters and brothers. As we become family with those in Santa Clara, Cuba, we engage together in battles against poverty and oppression. As we become connected with those in our community through Neighborhood House or other organizations, we engage together in battles against poverty of all kinds. As we join together with our Muslim brothers and sisters, as we did last Saturday, we engage against the oppression in our country and community.

When we connect with communities of color, or at least listen to them and pay attention, we will quickly understand the problem of captivity in our country and community. As a nation, we house 25% of the world’s prisoners, despite having 5% of the world’s population. Only China comes close to us in holding people captive, and most of our prisoners come from communities of color, as you can see in this graph.[i]

The mass incarceration of people of color becomes hard to ignore when we listen and engage. Even if we lack racial diversity in this church and community, this still involves us. One only needs to revisit Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” to get some insight into our place in this. That letter was written to white clergypersons and their churches. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” King wrote as he eloquently described the disastrous impact of white Christians standing on the sidelines and called us to join with our black brothers and sisters as a display of the Gospel.[ii]

When we connect with others, as we are called to, we become engaged in the need for the good news of Jesus. We become part of the Rebel Alliance, working against the brokenness of our world. So that’s the first thing. To be the people of Jesus means to be joined with the poor, the captive, the blind, and the oppressed.         

A second thing that Jesus and his followers did, that we should pay attention to, is that they shared a common purse. We know that Jesus and the 12 did this, because Judas was the keeper of the purse. And we know from Acts, Chapter 2, that the early church, led by the 12 initially, held everything in common. They sold all they had and sacrificed their individual freedoms for the sake of the community. Whatever resources they had were for the common good. That’s one side of that arrangement. But the flip side is just as important. Whatever struggles they had were shared in common. The Jesus community had to be vulnerable with each other. Struggles, challenges, complications, worries, and brokenness could not be kept from one another.

An authentic community requires us to be open about our own brokenness. The temptation to put on our best face always can’t work here. The tendency to have it all pulled together all the time can’t last for long in a family. Any assumption that we’ve got it all together here is false. There are needs here within this church family. The financial needs in this comfortable neighborhood are often hidden. Mental health concerns carry a similar stigma. But we are called to go beyond those stigmas or any sense of misguided shame. A Jesus community is called to share everything in common, our best and our worst, to be open about our own poverty, captivity, blindness, and oppression.

When Jesus walked into that synagogue and proclaimed the good news for the poor, captive, blind, and oppressed, he was calling for an authentic community. He was calling us to join together in a common struggle against the brokenness in our world. To have solidarity with the poor, blind, captive, and oppressed. Our villain, our “Darth Vader” is the brokenness that is out there, the power that is used to oppress the weak. And it is a worthy villain, that’s for sure. But it is also the brokenness that is inside of us, the brokenness that we are afraid to share with one another. We are joined with the Rebel Alliance against the brokenness of the world and the brokenness of ourselves. We are called by Jesus to embrace each other, to embrace the poor, to embrace the prisoner, to embrace the blind, to embrace the oppressed, we are called to embrace all.

That is what Jesus said in his hometown. As we think about and respond to these words in this coming week, tune in next week as Pastor Chris shares with us how Jesus’ hometown responded to his message.

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen.

 

 

Works Consulted:

Craddock, Fred             Luke: A Commentary (Interpretation Series)

Lewis, Karoline A Commentary on Luke 4:14-21 http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1558

Harrisville, Roy A Commentary on Luke 4:14-21

http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=502

Lose, David J. Jesus’ Inaugural Address

http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=1771

McClenney-Sadler, Madeline            The African-American Commentary

http://www.theafricanamericanlectionary.org/PopupLectionaryReading.asp?LRID=12

Miles, Sara             http://www.journeywithjesus.net/Essays/20100118JJ.shtml

Lose, David J. Epiphany 3 C : A Peculiar Power

http://www.davidlose.net/2016/01/epiphany-3-c-a-peculiar-power/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+davidlose%2FIsqE+%28…In+the+Meantime%29

Evans, Rachel Held Christians, MLK Day, and Historical Amnesia http://rachelheldevans.com/blog/mlk-liberty-trump-historical-amnesia

 

[i] http://www.prisonpolicy.org/graphs/raceinc.html

[ii] http://www.thekingcenter.org/archive/document/letter-birmingham-city-jail-0#

 

Malachi 3:1-4

See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight—indeed, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. ²But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?

For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap; ³he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness.^* 4Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years.

Luke 3:1-6

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler^* of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler^* of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler^* of Abilene, ²during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. ³He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, ⁴as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah,
‘The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
“Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight.
⁵ Every valley shall be filled,
and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
and the crooked shall be made straight,
and the rough ways made smooth;
⁶ and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” ’

“The Harshness of Repentance”

click to listen

Rev. Jeremy Watson

St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church

12/6/15

This is the season, as many of us know, when we take stock and evaluate how our favorite college football team has done. This is the season when we make judgments about whether or not the head coach of our favorite team needs to be let go, if they have what it takes to lead a team of 60 very young adults to success on the football field, or not. Some of you are still celebrating a Civil War victory, and looking forward to a bowl game. Others are mourning a tough season, but a nice finish to the Civil War, that showed the heart and determination that it will take to move into a new and better era. Others don’t care. However, all of us can celebrate the energy around that college football rivalry, which motivated the generous gifts of 8,582 pounds of food from this church family to the Neighborhood House Food Bank. If you must know, the Duck fans came in first, followed by the Platypus fans in 2^nd, and the Beaver fans close behind in 3^rd place.

In addition to the food drive, I think all of us, football fans or not, can appreciate the complexities of being a college football coach. Whether you are a parent, a teacher, a business owner, an employee, or any role that involves the leadership of people . . . coaching a college football team can be a microcosm of society.   Leading a team of 60+ young men between the ages of 18-23 years old is a daunting task, a balance of drill sergeant, mentor, CEO, strategist, and spokesperson. I heard a debate last week on sports radio, as an argument ensued about the Beavers coach, Gary Andersen, in his first season at the helm. Clearly, his food-drive-motivation skills are lacking, as I think the Beavers won the previous couple of years here. One of the sports radio hosts argued that he saw a similar dynamic to this year’s Beavers in his playing career, when a head coach arrived who was much more of a disciplinarian than the previous coach. He argued that it is very difficult to move from a more lax environment into a more disciplined environment, especially for the veteran players. He argued that Coach Anderson is in the difficult role of allowing less freedom than his predecessor, Mike Riley, who had more of a reputation as a “players’ coach.” Andersen wants a tougher, more disciplined, less entitled group of players, where nothing is given and everything is earned, and the coach is not your buddy, and that will take time to develop. For upperclassmen, this is seen as a lack of trust, a restriction of the freedoms that they’ve grown used to. Arguments were presented in favor of both approaches to coaching, and, if you can believe it, they didn’t come to any agreement.

This same debate is played out in many arenas today, with more important outcomes than football games. There are some who argue that we need more discipline, that people need to become tougher, more responsible, less entitled, without a “victim mentality.” Others argue for more understanding, mercy, and grace, that if we would understand the deeper systemic brokenness, we would not blame the individuals, but recognize that they are simply a product of their environment. Whether the debate is about college athletes, college students, the youth of today, racial minorities, women, men, or about society in general, the debate rages on. My hunch is that many of our polarizing debates in society boil down to this argument. We need to toughen up and speak harsh truths, without fear of offending, or we need to withhold judgment, to show mercy and understanding. For some reason we can’t do both.

This past week , a university president issued a statement to his student body, and it is a great example of this grand debate.

Our culture has actually taught our kids to be this self-absorbed and narcissistic! Any time their feelings are hurt, they are the victims! Anyone who dares challenge them and, thus, makes them “feel bad” about themselves, is a “hater,” a “bigot,” an “oppressor,” and a “victimizer.”

Later, he concluded.

[this university] is not a “safe place”, but rather, a place to learn: to learn that life isn’t about you, but about others; that the bad feeling you have while listening to a sermon is called guilt; that the way to address it is to repent of everything that’s wrong with you rather than blame others for everything that’s wrong with them. This is a place where you will quickly learn that you need to grow up!

This is not a day care. This is a university![i]

These harsh words have been praised by many and condemned by many. This is message that we need to hear across society! Or . . . Another example of someone in power who wants to maintain the status quo in ignorance of the marginalized!

To use the vernacular of today’s Bible passage, there are some who argue for more of John the Baptist, and others who argue for more of Jesus. John the Baptist, who called from the wilderness, “you brood of vipers!” and spoke of wrath and repentance. He warned that axes will chop you down if you don’t listen. He spoke the harsh, unyielding words that were needed to pave the way of the Lord. Think of the imagery of paving a way. We are talking about road-building in the first century. Using nothing but human power and sharp tools, stones had to be broken down and then reduced to gravel in order to pave the way. Mountains had to be brought low and valleys raised up. Paving the way requires blunt, tough instruments. It is no-nonsense work. Jesus came later, full of forgiveness and hope, refusing to condemn and judge. The tools of Jesus seem to massage and smooth rather than break apart. As author and pastor Frederick Buechner has written,

“Where John preached grim justice and pictured God as a steely-eyed thresher of grain, Jesus preached forgiving love and pictured God as the host at a marvelous party or a father who can’t bring himself to throw his children out even when they spit in his eye. Where John said people had better save their skins before it was too late, Jesus said it was God who saved their skins, and even if you blew your whole bankroll on liquor and sex like the Prodigal Son, it still wasn’t too late. Where John ate locusts and honey in the wilderness with the church crowd, Jesus ate what he felt like in Jerusalem with as sleazy a bunch as you could expect to find.”[ii]

Buechner is admittedly tongue-in-cheek with that description, but you have to admit that it is tempting to characterize John and Jesus in that way, at first impression. John is harsh and unyielding and does not seem like an enjoyable guy to hang out with. Jesus is full of grace and acceptance, welcoming children, prostitutes and tax collectors alike. It seems like this very debate is with us in the midst of the Gospels. So let’s look a little deeper.

Let’s look more closely at the first 2 verses of Luke 3, to start. “In the 15^th year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, followed by Pontius Pilate, Herod, Philip, Lysanius, Annas and Caiaphas. Seven leaders are listed, with their lofty titles and domains. These are the people who were in control of that region, the hierarchy of the upper echelon of power . . . and the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. Who? Seven powerful rulers and high priests with titles and authority, and then . . . John, in the wilderness . . . as far outside of the halls of power as can possibly be. Luke is telling us something here with his irony. This is not what you expect! This shocking, powerful, authoritative voice comes from an unexpected place. His power is different than what we are used to. It comes from somewhere else, from someone else.

I’m indebted to Reverend Nancy Rockwell for a fantastic blog article[iii] on this passage in which she compares John the Baptist to Donald Trump. He is loud, brash, confident, and draws a crowd. But . . . when we read further in Luke 3, beyond what we already read, we see that the message is more like Bernie Sanders. Whoever has 2 coats should give one away, tax collectors should not use their position for gain, and soldiers should not use their power unnecessarily. The persona may seem like Trump, but the message seems like Sanders. And, to go further, the venue is like something we’ve never seen, a homeless man wearing animal skin speaking from the far margins of society. If Sanders is the anti-Trump, rejecting corporate sponsorships and golden hotels, John the Baptist is the anti-everyone, speaking from the wilderness, from the wild place. Where are our wild places today?

And there’s another thing to say about the ministry and message of John the Baptist. He was “proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” Baptism was not a common part of Jewish life. It is not mentioned in the Jewish Bible (our Old Testament), though it does flow from the story of Israel. Certain Jewish groups had begun to adopt this practice of baptism. We see this practice as obedience to Jesus and a re-enactment of Christ dying and rising. Going fully under the water and back up for those of us who were raised Baptist, or the more imaginative version that we practice here, as we saw last week with our own Luke. We look to Christ.

But for John the Baptist and his followers, they looked further back, to an ancient water. The crossing of the Red Sea by the Jewish people, as they fled slavery from Egypt, and again to the crossing of this same Jordan River, as they came into the promised land. The water of deliverance . . . the water of refugees arriving in a new place.[iv] Within this action of a baptism by repentance, the call is to journey back to when we were a people without a place being delivered by God to a new hope. Remember who you were and are, blessed by God, called to follow through the wilderness, the way of God. Then it makes more sense why John was calling out the people for their sense of entitlement.

Do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. ⁹ Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

Don’t think that your ethnicity will save you. You are called to more than that. These are harsh words, and they do not come from a place of traditional power. They come from the wilderness, they call us to justice and to generosity, and they call us to recognize that we are all refugees in need of a home. The repentance that John is calling us to is recognizing our own power and privilege and the ways in which we fail to share that with our brothers and sisters, to share with all of God’s children. This is the message of John the Baptist. These are the words that crush stones, lower mountains and raise valleys, to make the way smooth for all to experience God’s salvation.

We see on the screen one final thought about John the Baptist. This image is from the Isenheim Altarpiece by Grunewald. John is pointing toward Christ . . . a definitive summary of his ministry. The words behind him say, Illum oportet crescere, me autem minui. I’m sure you recognize this as the Latin translation of John 3:30 ‘He must become greater, I must become less.’

In all of his brash, confident judgment, John the Baptist defers to Jesus. This is not a battle between leadership styles, it is not a showdown between harsh judgment and welcoming acceptance.  This is the perfect combination of the two. Both John and Jesus have harsh, difficult words for us, calling us to repentance, to change our ways. And both John and Jesus ended up suffering and dying because of their harsh words in speaking truth to power. These are not egotistical blowhards casting down judgment for their own enjoyment. Both derive their authority from their authenticity, living out their commitments at great personal sacrifice.

Following in their footsteps is not easy. Repentance, or changing our ways to the way of Jesus, is not easy. To forsake personal power, privilege, and comfort for the sake of all is a difficult road. But this is the road that John and Jesus have forged for us to follow. This is what it means to know God. As Jewish scholar Emmanuel Levinas has written, “To know God is to know what has to be done.”[v] It is easier to condemn and demonize those who are different than us, to channel the harsh words of judgment to those people who are causing all of these problems.

John calls us to turn those words toward ourselves, to return to a baptism of repentance, recognizing the common humanity of all people. We choose to follow Jesus onto the margins of life. We choose the difficult path of loving one another, for this is the path to salvation for all. This is where we see the salvation of God in the here and now,

when we practice hospitality

when we show generosity,

when we risk love,

when we use the gifts of God for all the people of God.

That is why we will say those very words in a few minutes, as we share the gifts of the Lord’s Table with all, an expression of how we live our lives with all the gifts we have to share. This is the way live as God created us to live.

As we go on this journey through the season of Advent, let us stand and sing a new song about the beautiful story of Jesus on the Margins, for the sake of all. It is called “A Weary Couple”

[i] http://theaquilareport.com/fed-up-university-president-this-is-not-a-daycare/#.VmBNwkJMeXc.facebook

[ii] http://www.frederickbuechner.com/content/weekly-sermon-illustration-john-baptist

[iii] http://www.patheos.com/blogs/biteintheapple/the-economics-of-hope/

[iv] for further insight, see Jones, Judith here: http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2702

[v] http://www.patheos.com/blogs/biteintheapple/wildmanjohn/

“LIFE in the Midst . . . “

Rev. Jeremy Watson

November 8, 2015

St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church

⁸Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, ⁹“Go now to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and live there; for I have commanded a widow there to feed you.” ¹⁰So he set out and went to Zarephath. When he came to the gate of the town, a widow was there gathering sticks; he called to her and said, “Bring me a little water in a vessel, so that I may drink.” ¹¹As she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, “Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.” ¹²But she said, “As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jug; I am now gathering a couple of sticks, so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die.”¹³Elijah said to her, “Do not be afraid; go and do as you have said; but first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterwards make something for yourself and your son. ¹⁴For thus says the Lord the God of Israel: The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail until the day that the Lord sends rain on the earth.” ¹⁵She went and did as Elijah said, so that she as well as he and her household ate for many days. ¹⁶The jar of meal was not emptied, neither did the jug of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke by Elijah.

¹⁷After this the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became ill; his illness was so severe that there was no breath left in him. ¹⁸She then said to Elijah, “What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance, and to cause the death of my son!” ¹⁹But he said to her, “Give me your son.” He took him from her bosom, carried him up into the upper chamber where he was lodging, and laid him on his own bed. ²⁰He cried out to the Lord, “O Lord my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I am staying, by killing her son?” ²¹Then he stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried out to the Lord, “O Lord my God, let this child’s life come into him again.” ²²The Lord listened to the voice of Elijah; the life of the child came into him again, and he revived. ²³Elijah took the child, brought him down from the upper chamber into the house, and gave him to his mother; then Elijah said, “See, your son is alive.” ²⁴So the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.” – 1 Kings 17:8-24

³⁸As he taught, he said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, ³⁹and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! ⁴⁰They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”

⁴¹He sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. ⁴²A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny.⁴³Then he called his disciples and said to them, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. ⁴⁴For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.” – Mark 12:38-44 

 

In December of 1997, I was a senior in college, and ready to head home for Christmas Break. It was a Friday night, Finals week had just ended, and many of us on student life staff were on campus until the following morning. And some of us went to the Fieldhouse to play basketball that night. The Fieldhouse is the sports arena at Whitworth, a huge, expansive building that looks like a massive airplane hanger. The campus was mostly empty and the Fieldhouse was completely empty. So we took the rare advantage to play on big court, in front of the empty stands, where our college team played. Some other guys showed up shortly after us. They weren’t students at Whitworth, but some local college-age guys who somehow knew the court was open. And so we played, us against them, and they were great games.

We were all having a good time, until my friend, his name is also Jeremy, jumped for a rebound, came down and landed on someone’s foot and immediately went down to the ground, clutching his ankle and screaming in pain. We all surrounded him, unable to do anything, until he was able to sit up, and he was really hurting. He said he felt and heard his ankle crack, and that his ankle was broken, he just knew it. He was in a lot of pain, bordering on panic, and we were all in shock and didn’t know what we should do.

It was terrible timing. I doubt that there’s a good time to break your ankle, but Jeremy and I, and a few others, were all part of an upcoming Jan Term trip. For the month of January, we would all be traveling across the country taking a class called Prejudice Across America. We were going to take airplanes, trains, and buses all across the U.S. and study the history of racial prejudice, the Civil Rights movement, and the current state of race relations in America. We’d been taking the prep class for that trip all semester, and excited for the adventure. It would not be possible for Jeremy to join us if he was on crutches. We would be on our feet all month.

As we stood around Jeremy, who was sitting on the floor clutching his ankle, he looked up at me and said, “pray for me, Watson! Pray for healing.” I was surprised. Whitworth is a Christian school, most students are Christians, Jeremy and I were both involved in Spokane Young Life through the school. But we weren’t “holy rollers” or “faith healers” and it wasn’t what I expected him to say. After a few seconds, I said, “Okay, I’ll pray for you.” And he said, “No, pray for me right now. Pray for my ankle to be healed.” And as this went on, the other guys we were playing against, they were slowly inching backwards, uncomfortably. And I, hesitantly, kneeled down and put my hands on Jeremy’s hands around his ankle, and I stumbled through a prayer for his ankle to be healed so we could go on our trip. And I finished praying and stood up, and Jeremy had a confused look on his face.

He let go of his ankle and stretched out his leg and he didn’t seem to be in pain any more. And slowly he started to move his foot around in all directions, and we all backed away, in silence. The other guys moved even further away. Jeremy put his foot down and very gingerly put some weight on it and slowly he stood up and put more weight on it, and then he started to move around and push up on his toes, as we all kept moving backwards. Then he started to walk and then jump, very carefully, and then he jumped more and higher as he got comfortable. His ankle was fine, so we all started to yell at him. “What was that?” “You had us going, you jerk!” “We thought you were really hurt!” And the other guys were at the door by now, they’d grabbed their stuff and they were gone, without saying a word. And Jeremy looked at us, wide-eyed, and said, “No, I wasn’t playing. My ankle was broken! I swear! I’ve never been in that much pain. I am not messing with you guys!” None of us knew what to think, but decided it was time to head back our dorms, thankful that Jeremy’s ankle wasn’t broken.

When Christmas Break ended, we all met in LA, and started our trip, and I asked Jeremy if he had been messing with us, could he confess now that it had been a few weeks? No, he swore that his ankle had been broken. He stuck to that story. About 5 years after that, Jeremy and I both ended up at Princeton Seminary, he started a year before I did. One day as we rode together on the shuttle bus to the campus, I asked him about that day, still doubting what had happened. And he stuck to his story. His ankle was broken, and there was no other explanation. He had experienced a miraculous healing.

I shouldn’t have been so surprised by this, based on the Scripture passage that we just heard. God seems to be in the business of miracles. The widow in Zarephath was foraging for firewood for herself and for her son, in the midst of a terrible famine. They had enough supplies for one more meal. Some grain and some oil, and with a little heat, they would make some cake for one last meal, before they died. She encountered a prophet of the Lord, Elijah, who asked that she instead bake him a cake, for he was famished, and afterward, she could make more for herself and for her son. And she did. She trusted him enough to give her last meal to him, in faith. The bowl of grain and the pitcher of oil became bottomless sources of sustenance.   A miracle of the Lord, Yahweh, the God of Israel. And it didn’t stop there. Soon after, her son fell ill and “there was no breath left in him.” After Elijah cried out to God, her son was miraculously healed, saved from death. Another miracle of the Lord!

When we look at the broader context of this story, we understand that this should not have been a surprise. For God seems to be in a war of miracles with Baal, the god of the Sidonites to the north, which is a recurring theme throughout 1 and 2 Kings.

In looking at this story, it’s helpful to have a quick refresher course on the books of Kings. This is a continuation of Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, and 1 and 2 Samuel, and it is a compilation of many historical accounts of the people of Israel. It was bound together with editorial comments added in. 1 Kings starts with the reign of Solomon and it goes downhill from there. Many kings come and go and the nation of Israel splits into 2 nations. The 10 tribes to the North join together as Israel, while the 2 tribes to the South are called Judah, following the royal line of David. And this is the one thing that you need to know about this history, as it is told. When the people (specifically the King) are faithful to Yahweh, they prosper. When they are unfaithful to Yahweh, they suffer. This is called the Deuteronomic Principle. It flows from the book of, you guessed it, Deuteronomy, and continues through Kings, all compiled and edited to demonstrate that lesson from history. And this section in 1 Kings 17 is the strongest example of editorial license. The moral of the story is highlighted in order to be unmistakable. Yahweh is the one true God, and we ignore God’s commands at our peril.

During today’s story, Ahab has become the King of Israel. Ahab has married Jezebel, the princess of Sidon to the north. In her land, they worship Baal, and Ahab has joined her in the worship of Baal, even building an altar in Israel. This is what is said about Ahab.

“Ahab son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord

more than all who were before him.” – I Kings 16:30.

“Ahab did more to provoke the anger of the Lord, the God of Israel,

than had all the kings of Israel who were before him.” – I Kings 16:33

            These are not very good campaign slogans for Ahab. God is not a helpful reference for his resume. He was an evil king, the worst of them all. And so God sent Elijah, the prophet, to confront Ahab. We later find out that there were many prophets of the Lord who were killed by Jezebel and Ahab. They were dangerous, evil rulers. They used their power to gain wealth by oppressing the powerless. Elijah proclaimed that there would be a famine in the land, as punishment for the evil of Ahab and Jezebel, and there was. Baal, along with his prophets, was unable to bring rain to the land. And so we have this battle between gods. Whose God is real? Whose God is able to save?

And so Elijah is sent by God into Zarephath, which is in Sidon. He goes into enemy territory, into the center of Baal worship, where he meets this destitute widow, preparing to eat a last meal with her son before they perish in this drought. And this becomes the battlefield to determine whose God is real. Elijah proclaims and the widow responds, in faith. And God provides. God provides food, sustenance, and life, in the land of Baal. Yahweh saves where Baal can’t. Yahweh, the God of Israel, is the one true God. This is a triumphant story, a victorious story for God!

Except for this. This is the problem that I have with this “triumphant” story and others like it. On the day that I read it, a few weeks ago, in preparation for this sermon, I read on Facebook that one of my high school classmates lost her 2-month-old daughter to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. On Thursday, a good friend of mine, a dedicated youth leader and Elder from a former church, underwent a 3^rd brain surgery in a battle against a tumor that we thought was gone. A neighbor of ours is in hospice care, in profound pain, he is a longtime member of Julie’s childhood church and grandfather of Noah’s good buddy. Gwen Burroughs has been in and out of the hospital for the past few weeks, in a frustrating series of painful health complications. Our prayer request list is full of people who are battling cancer, or have finished that battle. Some of you have lost loved ones in recent months, weeks, and this past week. We could all use a miraculous healing today.

This story of the widow in Zarephath is a struggle because it does not match up with my experience. It does not match up with your experience. People suffer and people die. And God does not choose to step in and save them. Apart from a healed ankle in December of 1997, I have not personally seen the miracles of Scripture come to life, here and now. This is a difficult story to celebrate for that reason. The triumph can become demoralizing in light of our own experiences.

Thankfully, the story does not end there. The story continues, as we know, and goes directly through the cross of Jesus, as we proclaim on our wall and in every church throughout the world.

The story cannot be complete without the cross of Jesus.   For it is there that we understand the core of God’s story. There is resurrection that comes through suffering and death. Jesus went to the cross, and on the way there, he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane that this cup would be taken from him. But it could not, for only through death can resurrection come. Only through death can eternal life, or abundant life, come to all of us.

Our tendency is to look at the Deuteronomic Principle, obedience to God = blessings, and to reduce it. We want to reduce it to make God into a cosmic Genie in a bottle. We want to follow God so that God will follow our desires, fulfill our wishes, save us from all suffering and pain. But God refuses to be reduced to that understanding of life. And we see that in the cross. Our understanding of God deepens with Jesus Christ. God leads us to life. And often that life comes in the midst of death and suffering. That is what has been modeled to us by Jesus.

There are very few escapes from suffering in the Bible. The heart of the story is about God journeying with us through suffering, toward eternal/abundant life. Jesus provides the model for us, in his earthly resurrection and in the hope of the final restoration of all things.

That matches up with my experiences of life, for I see THAT hope foreshadowed in the way that life comes through suffering. I see it in the loving community that arises around those who gather in waiting rooms, in those who mobilize to care for the needs of others, in those who stop fruitless endeavors to focus on important things. I see that in those who live life to the fullest when they are given a limited time. I see it in the restored relationships that happen only in the midst of a crisis.

My college professor, and mentor, Jerry Sittser suffered an unimaginable loss in his life. Three years before I met him, he was driving his minivan with his family and was hit by a drunk driver. His wife and his youngest daughter and his mother were all killed in the accident. His 2 sons and his older daughter survived, along with him. Years later he wrote a book called “A Grace Disguised: How the Soul Grows Through Loss.” I have heard him say many times that as his capacity for sorrow has expanded, so has his capacity for joy. He has experienced resurrection in the unexpected grace that has come through his terrible tragedy. He understands the death and resurrection of Jesus in a deeper way.

When we look at the widow of Zarephath through the lens of the cross, we can understand it in a deeper way. It is not a promise for extraordinary miracles for all who follow God. It is not a ticket to bypass the suffering of our world. It is a promise of the ordinary miracles that occur every day, as life continues to be found in the most unlikely of places. As Terence Fretheim writes, “Indeed, the sources of life in this chapter are not normally associated with power. Here we have no imposition of strength from without, no exercise of power as it is normally conceived. Rather, effective power is exercised through . . . meager resources, feeble words, human obedience, and the witness of a poor woman. Through such lowly means, God’s work gets done, even in the most hostile of places.” Fretheim, Terence, p. 100 First and Second Kings: (Westminster Bible Companion).

This story is not intended to teach us that God is a genie in a bottle, at our beck and call. It is intended to teach us that God is active and at work in our most vulnerable of places, in the midst of our suffering, bringing life where we least expect it. And that is the real miracle.

“Downward Mobility”

October 18, 2015

Rev. Jeremy Watson

St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church

  In Seoul, South Korea, there is a man named Lee Jong-Rak.[i] He is the Pastor of Jusarang Community Church. Along with his wife, Chun-ja, Pastor Lee and a small, dedicated team of volunteers care for nearly 3 dozen children, most of whom have special needs. Many of these children have Down syndrome or cerebral palsy. Some have brain damage of some sort, or physical deformities, some are paraplegic and some are quadriplegic. Pastor Lee has dedicated his life to the care of these children, almost all of whom have been abandoned by their parents into the care of the church. They have been abandoned, usually in the dark of night, on the doorsteps of Pastor Lee’s church and home, which are the same place.  One of the primary reasons why these children have been abandoned is that the culture of South Korea considers imperfection as a disgrace, even as a curse. Babies who are born with “imperfections” are often rejected, whether it is the child itself or the circumstances of the pregnancy. A baby born out of wedlock, a teen pregnancy, or birth defects are all reasons to discard the child. Many are simply abandoned on a doorstep, in a back alley, or even in a dumpster, and left to cruel fate. It is an epidemic of unwanted babies.

            For this reason, in 2009, Pastor Lee built what is called a “baby box” in the wall of his home/church. The purpose of the baby box is to provide a safe, warm, and confidential alternative to the back alley. When a baby is placed in the baby box (often between 2 and 4 AM) an alarm bell rings in the house, and Pastor Lee comes down to care for the child. While they have adopted close to 3 dozen children to raise as their own, hundreds of others have been saved and then placed in protective services and entered into the foster care or adoption systems.

As described in a beautiful documentary called “The Dropbox,” this baby box has created quite a controversy in Seoul.  However, Pastor Lee simply wants the abandoned children to be loved, cared for, and happy. It makes him happy. He is called by God to love and to serve those who cannot care for themselves. Pastor Lee and Chun-ja live to serve others.

Our new Testament reading for today is Mark 10.32-45.

32 They were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them; they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid. He took the twelve aside again and began to tell them what was to happen to him, ³³saying, ‘See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death; then they will hand him over to the Gentiles; ³⁴they will mock him, and spit upon him, and flog him, and kill him; and after three days he will rise again.’

35 James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, ‘Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.’³⁶And he said to them, ‘What is it you want me to do for you?’ ³⁷And they said to him, ‘Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.’ ³⁸But Jesus said to them, ‘You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?’ ³⁹They replied, ‘We are able.’ Then Jesus said to them, ‘The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; ⁴⁰but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.’

41 When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. ⁴²So Jesus called them and said to them, ‘You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. ⁴³But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant,⁴⁴and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. ⁴⁵For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.’ 

This is the Word of the Lord.  Thanks be to God.

In this passage from Mark 10, we hear Jesus tell his disciples that he is going to die, that he is going to sacrifice his life for all.   And this is the 3^rd time in 3 chapters that he tells them this. And for the 3^rd time, they don’t get it.   The first time Peter tried to rebuke Jesus. The second time, they began arguing about who was the greatest among them. And now this time . . . this time, Jesus tells them about his impending death, so James and John take this opportunity to call shotgun. They call dibs on the right and left hand of Jesus in his “glory” with no understanding that his glory will occur on Golgotha, hung on a cross between 2 bandits, even though he just foretold this. THEY DO NOT GET IT!

In the middle of a lesson about serving others, to the point of sacrificing his life, James and John do the opposite. They did what we often do. They saw a chance for gain and glory, and they went for it. They saw a golden opportunity, to move up the next rung of success, of achievement, of glory. I am motivated in the same way. The chance to move into a bigger or better house, I will jump at that, to achieve a more prestigious position, a step to the next level of power and popularity, the chance to grow in influence. Sign me up! I don’t know what it is for you, but I know that we all have it. The desire to have a little bit more, to gain something else for myself, more security, stature, or power.  This desire becomes a driving force in our lives. It is the reason why I perk up and seek to impress a CEO, a famous author, or influential leader. I don’t perk up in the same way for the day laborer, the cleaning person, or minimum wage employee. My social interactions are influenced by what I can gain from someone. We want to live and achieve, to rise, create and be respected. We are driven by those desires, and they aren’t all bad, until they drive us and our lives.

Jesus wants us to know that there is more to life than that. He wants us to understand that we are created for more than our own achievements, that there is a greater joy and meaning that we are created for. As we seek to live with healthy bodies, healthy minds, and healthy faith, as we’ve been focusing on in this season, Jesus points us toward joy.  And what good is health without joy?  He teaches and demonstrates this repeatedly, because this lesson is so hard to understand, until we get it. It is so hard to understand, to serve others and lift others up rather than lifting ourselves. It goes against our nature.

So Jesus lives it out for us to demonstrate life as it is meant to be lived. Jesus seeks out those who were on the margins of society, including his disciples. He eats dinner with tax collectors and prostitutes, stops to connect with lepers and lame beggars when others pass by, and he continually finds himself in the company of those who are rejected by others. He taught things like “the last will be first, and the first will be last.” (Matthew 20:16). “From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from the one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded.” (Luke 12:48).

At the Last Supper, the Rabbi Jesus took off his outer robe and lowered himself, washing the feet of his students, his disciples.   Jesus practiced downward mobility. No matter how much power, fame, and influence he gained, it only increased his desire to seek and serve the least of these, to lower himself in order to lift others up.

Henri Nouwen said it, and lived it, better than most. “The way of Jesus is radically different. It is the way not of upward mobility but of downward mobility. It is going to the bottom, staying behind the sets and choosing the last place! Why is the way of Jesus worth choosing? Because it is the way Jesus took, and the way that brings everlasting life.”

Henri Nouwen, who left behind a prestigious career teaching at Notre Dame, Harvard, and Yale in order to live at a l’Arche community, living with and serving the severely disabled instead of teaching the most brilliant. He found joy in seeking to live as Jesus lived, serving as Jesus served, and by all accounts, it was a contagious, life-giving joy that emanated from him. That is what we are called to, in our own way, in our own circumstances.

As much as we resist this message from Jesus, I believe that we also crave it. We know the truth when we experience it. The joy of serving others is pure and contagious and it brings peace to our soul. Think of the last time that you helped someone who was in need, and remember how it made you feel to simply give, to make someone else’s day better. We see the evidence of this in the joy that we get from babies. Simply seeing an infant brings a smile to our face, and yet the chance to hold a baby and to care for someone so helpless, with nothing to offer us but a gummy smile, can lighten our step for hours afterward. It feels good to help others, to know that we have made their life better. We love the heartwarming stories of those who sacrifice in heroic ways, those stories get forwarded along through email and social media like wildfire, because we crave that life. We’ve all had our experiences of selfless love, the joy of using what we have been given and what we’ve achieved in order to help another person.

That is why Peter Parker is my favorite superhero, as he seeks to live out the words of his Uncle Ben. “With great power comes great responsibility.”

He hides his identity behind a Spiderman suit, and even in that suit he tries to stay in the shadows to avoid attention. He understands that all he has been given and all that he achieves needs to be used in service of others.

With great power comes great responsibility. The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve.

Pastor Lee Jung-rak, and his wife, Chun-ja, were led to the ministry of serving helpless children, to welcoming abandoned babies through a baby box, in a profound way. 26 years ago, they had a child, who they named Eun-man.

Eun-man was born with many disabilities. He has cerebral palsy, his arms and legs are severely disfigured, and a cyst on his head caused brain damage. He was expected to live a few months, at most. After a few moments of panic, Lee was overwhelmed with a sense of gratitude for this life that he was given. He was overwhelmed at the preciousness of life, and named his son Eun-man, which means “full of God’s grace.” After his birth, Lee and his wife sold their home and their market in order to pay the medical bills. They moved into the hospital ward to care for Eun-man, where they stayed for what ended up to be 14 years.

As they made their home at the hospital and cared for Eun-man, Lee found himself visiting the rooms of other disabled children and encouraged their parents. He soon came to be known as “the pastor” which led him to enter theology school and to later start Jusarang Community Church. When they were able to leave the hospital, some of the children came with them into their family, which has now grown into a beautiful ministry of caring for and loving those who no one else wants. Many have been impacted and inspired by Lee and Chun-ja, including the young man from USC who produced the documentary. They have changed countless lives, and Pastor Lee credits all that they have done to the life of Eun-man. “Eun-man is my teacher,” he says. “Through Eun-man I learned of life’s dignity.  I learned that life is more precious than the world itself.  Eun-man is the reason that I have this job, this calling to love and care for these children, to see them happy.”

Following the example of Jesus, living to serve others, using what we have been given to lift others around us. That is the way of salvation. That is the way of joy. May we all find that joy in serving others today. In the name of Jesus, Amen.

[i] http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jun/19/world/la-fg-south-korea-orphans-20110620

Leviticus 19:9-10

⁹When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest. ¹⁰You shall not strip your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the alien: I am the Lord your God.

Mark 2:23-3:6

23 One sabbath he was going through the cornfields; and as they made their way his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. ²⁴The Pharisees said to him, ‘Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the sabbath?’²⁵And he said to them, ‘Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need of food? ²⁶He entered the house of God, when Abiathar was high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and he gave some to his companions.’ ²⁷Then he said to them, ‘The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath; ²⁸so the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.’

3Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there who had a withered hand. ²They watched him to see whether he would cure him on the sabbath, so that they might accuse him. ³And he said to the man who had the withered hand, ‘Come forward.’ ⁴Then he said to them, ‘Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to kill?’ But they were silent. ⁵He looked around at them with anger; he was grieved at their hardness of heart and said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. ⁶The Pharisees went out and immediately conspired with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him. 

“The Priority of the Person”

St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church

Rev. Jeremy Watson (9/27/15)

(Click Title above to listen to sermon online)

“A study of Mexican Americans shows that frequent church attendees report higher levels of well-being and experience less disability, fewer days in bed, and fewer physical symptoms than less frequent attenders . . . .  Johns Hopkins University researchers learn that monthly religious attendance more than halved the risk of death due to heart disease, emphysema, cirrhosis of the liver, suicide, and some cancers.”[i]  

“Researchers from Baylor University found that people who pray to a loving and protective God are less likely to experience anxiety-related disorders — worry, fear, self-consciousness, social anxiety and obsessive compulsive behavior — compared to people who pray but don’t really expect to receive any comfort or protection from God.”[ii]

“Another recent study by Columbia University found that participating in regular meditation or other spiritual practice actually thickens parts of the brain’s cortex, and this could be the reason those activities tend to guard against depression — especially in those at risk for the disease.”[iii]

I bet you’re glad that you came to worship today! Let’s all take a few moments to stop, slow down, and thicken our brain’s cortex for a few minutes.

These are some of the claims that you will find if you search for research on the links between faith and health. Some of them are questionable, but many of these studies, and all that I just read, come from reputable universities and hospitals, from trusted doctors and professors. There is a large and active Center for Spirituality, Theology, and Health at Duke University that has taken the lead in studying these connections between faith and health.[iv] In their promo video, they share that people of faith live an average of 8 years longer than those without a religious faith, and that medical professionals are paying attention to this.

We have been exploring this in our current series on “Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds, Healthy Faith.” We are making the claim that there is something to this idea that spiritual health impacts our whole lives, that what we do here impacts our whole selves; body, mind, and spirit. I recognize that it is dangerous to make judgments of direct correlation, to misuse these studies. For example, to claim that if you are a person of faith, you will be free from all sickness, or that if you are not healthy, it is a spiritual flaw in your life. Those type of judgments are detrimental, to us and to our community.

But it is also dangerous to ignore the interconnectedness of our spiritual and emotional and physical selves. We are holistic beings. We are not segmented into sections of life. We are not a physical body with detached emotions and thoughts, and a spiritual soul that are independent of one another. If it is true that following the way of Jesus leads to peace, love, joy, and generosity, then how can it NOT impact our emotional health and our physical well-being? If we are battling pain and sickness, how can it not impact our spiritual health? When we garden, prepare food, go for a jog, or use our hands to create, are those not spiritual exercises? When we follow the way of Jesus or when we don’t, it impacts our whole self.

In our 9 AM “Digging Deeper” class, we’ve been exploring how our food choices have broad implications for our health and for our world. What we purchase, prepare, and put in our mouths shapes our physical health, but it is also a moral and a spiritual act. It impacts our relationship with our community, our relationship with the land that we live on, and with society as a whole. We make an impact on the employment of people, on the profit of corporations, on the environment.   We make an impact on all of the complex justice issues surrounding food when we decide what to purchase and where to purchase it, or when we decide to grow it on our own.

And in today’s Scripture passages, we have 2 examples that concern food and faith. In the first, we see the way of Jesus, first expressed as the way of Yahweh in the law of Moses. Vineyard owners are instructed to harvest their grapes in a way that cares for the poor and the alien. Food production is required to care about more than production, yield, and profits. Food production is connected to foreign policy and social welfare, at the foundational level.

And in the second, there is a connected story. Jesus was walking through a grainfield with his disciples. And we can see that the earlier law was being followed. There was apparently no problem with the taking of the grain that they had not planted. The farmer had allowed provisions for people such as Jesus and his disciples to take and eat. And so they did. They harvested with their hands, and they ate, for they were hungry. Some Pharisees just happened to be nearby, they watched what happened and they had a problem with it. They invoked the Fourth Commandment, claiming that Jesus and his disciples had broken it by working on the Sabbath. The harvesting of the grain fell under their interpretation of work.

And the second story is an extension of the first, this one about the work of healing on the Sabbath. And at the end of these two brief episodes, these disagreements about the Sabbath, this group of Pharisees has decided to work toward the destruction of Jesus. They started on the path toward the crucifixion of Jesus because of this conflict about harvesting grain.

So let’s get to the bottom of it, starting with the Sabbath. This is the 4^th commandment given to Moses for the Israelite people, as the foundation of the Law.

“Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God, you shall not do any work – you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath and consecrated it.” (Exodus 20:8-11).

This is the commandment that God spends the most time on and gives the fullest explanation of. It is grounded in the creation account, so we can see why the Pharisees took it so seriously. And so should we. This Summer Julie and I were lucky enough to be at a conference where we heard Walter Brueggeman speak about the Sabbath. Dr. Brueggeman, or my buddy Walter, as Julie now calls him, is the pre-eminent Old Testament scholar that we have. And he spoke a lot about Sabbath during the conference. It kept coming up as he talked about the “economy of Pharaoh” as opposed to the “economy of Yahweh.”

Our world operates by the economy of Pharaoah, especially here in America, where we are driven by fear and greed, pushing us to accumulate wealth and power and security. (Dr. Brueggeman says the words wealth, power, and security like my kids say “broccoli” or “asparagus” with profound disgust.) Contrary to wealth, power, and security, the economy of Yahweh is driven by love and peace and demonstrated through radical generosity and compassion, and it creates abundance for all. We work for the sake of all rather than self. And in our call to live by the economy of God, Dr. Brueggeman says that keeping Sabbath is the most revolutionary thing that we can do, because it hits at the core of what drives the economy of Pharaoah. Productivity is the highest value. Work, work, work, driven by fear and anxiety to rise above other people in constant competition. Do whatever it takes to accumulate more, more, and more stuff, and it always leads to violence. It was true in Egypt and it is true today. Taking Sabbath says the opposite. Stop, rest, enjoy the creation that God gave us, be thankful, value people more than objects. Keep work in perspective. Sabbath is one of God’s greatest gifts to us.

So why is Jesus breaking the Sabbath commandment?

That’s what the Pharisees asked him, for us. And Jesus gives a pretty good answer, a couple of pretty good answers actually. The first is a reference to King David, who once led his companions into the house of God to eat the bread of Presence, bread that had been offered as a sacrifice and was only to be eaten by the priests. David and his men were hungry, and they chose to break the law, and it was okay. David became King, is highly honored to this day as the best King Israel ever had, and there were no ramifications for that decision. Point 1 for Jesus.

The important thing to notice in this story is that it happened after David had been anointed as the next King, by Samuel, but he had not yet assumed the throne. Likewise, Jesus had been anointed, baptized by John the Baptist, and yet he had not yet assumed the throne. Jesus had not yet been crucified, resurrected, and ascended into heaven. In this comparison, Jesus equates himself with David, as the Lord’s anointed but not yet crowned, with the authority to lead and teach God’s people. This is important. Jesus was not saying, David broke the Law, so the Law is now powerless. Do whatever you want!

Jesus was not abolishing the Sabbath or the Law, by any stretch of the imagination. As he demonstrates with his second answer, Jesus was interpreting the Law as it was intended by God. “The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the Sabbath.” In their effort to enforce religion, these Pharisees had forgotten the intent of the Law. They were not concerned about the Sabbath as a blessing given by God, but were using the Sabbath as a curse to condemn others. They were following the letter of the Law, but were missing the Spirit of the Law. Jesus has the authority to proclaim the Spirit of the Law and to demonstrate for us what it means to follow that Spirit. We are called to follow Jesus’ lead, interpreting the Law with him as our example and guide.

The next thing that Jesus does is show us an example. He heals a man on the Sabbath, while they were watching and waiting for him to do it. Jesus’ intent was to heal the man. The literal meaning of the Greek word used “sozo” is “to make whole.” The last line of the story uses the antonym of the word “to destroy.” Mark wrote it that way on purpose.   The Pharisees set out to destroy Jesus at the point. Jesus made whole, while the Pharisees destroyed. In that, Jesus demonstrates for us what it means to follow the way of Yahweh. Jesus, in the same actions, was able to condemn the misuse of God’s law while also affirming the right use of God’s law. Sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for Sabbath. Jesus affirms the priority of people.

We have been blessed this week in our country to witness a leader who follows Jesus in demonstrating the priority of people. Pope Francis has been in that position for 2 years now and has accomplished an incredible amount in repairing the image of the Catholic Church. He has approval ratings that are unprecedented, among Catholics, Protestants, other faiths, and the non-religious. And yet Francis has actually done very little in regards to changing church policy or doctrine. What Pope Francis has done is he’s changed the priority of his position, and has worked to change the priority of the church. This is illustrated well by the quote from Francis on your order of worship.

“The proclamation of the saving love of God comes before moral and religious imperatives.” – Pope Francis[v]

Francis has taken his cue from the life of Jesus, like we’ve seen today, and recognized that the priority of religious faith is to love other people, above all. While he hasn’t changed policy on the ordination of women or the inclusion of the LGBTQ community, he has embraced people in profound ways. At every turn, he has taken opportunities to welcome and to show love to all people, and especially the outcast, the most vulnerable in society. This week he refused an invitation for lunch with John Boehner, Nancy Pelosi and other congressional leaders to instead break bread with a group of homeless people at St. Patrick’s Parish.[vi] This is a move that surprises no one at this point, as Francis has made similar decisions since the first day he took office and chose to live in a modest apartment in a Vatican guest house rather than the Apostolic Palace. He is called a Pope of the People, and his impact is expressed well by Washington Post writer Michael Gerson.

“But this does not adequately capture Francis’ deeper insight: the priority of the person. This personalism is among the most radical implications of Christian faith. In every way that matters to God, human beings are completely equal and completely loved. They can’t be reduced to ethical object lessons. Their dignity runs deeper than their failures. They matter more than any cause; they are the cause.”

– Michael Gerson[vii]

When asked to take a side on the issue of LGBTQ, his answer pushed back against reducing people into an issue, saying, “Tell me, when God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person? We must always consider the person.”[viii] Francis’ consistent emphasis on the priority of people has brought hope and healing to the Catholic Church, and to the church as a whole. He has gained the respect of many, including the noted Catholic Sunday School teacher (and host of the Tonight Show) Stephen Colbert. In his attempts to convince Francis to come on his show, he was asked what he would ask him, if given the chance.

“’I would ask him how love leads him to joy, or does love lead him to joy?’ Colbert says. And he would ask him about being ‘a fool for Christ’ — a role he sees Francis playing.”[ix]

Love, joy, and being a fool for Christ. This is the reputation that has led Pope Francis to make such a wonderful impact on the church and the world. When you think about it, it’s really so simple. Pope Francis has simply tried to live like Christ, to recognize that the Sabbath is made for humankind, and not the reverse. The Law is made for humankind, the church is made for humankind, it is all about God loving the person. Francis has simply taken the life and words of Jesus seriously. He has attempted to lead in the way that Jesus showed us in the grainfield, working against all forms of legalism and all of the ways that we value the institution more than the person. And he has especially pushed us to see the value and dignity of those who are on the margins. God loves people. God loves you. That is the message at the core of it all. God loves you. God loves me. God loves us.

Knowing that God loves you, really knowing that God loves you, is a tremendous blessing in body, in mind, and in your spirit. Amen.

[i] http://religionandhealth.com/books/god-faith-and-health/

[ii] http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2014/09/18/new-study-examines-the-effects-of-prayer-on-mental-health/

[iii] ibid

[iv] http://www.spiritualityandhealth.duke.edu/

[v] http://qideas.org/videos/the-pope-francis-moment/

[vi] http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2015/09/24/pope-francis-turns-down-congress-leaders-invitation-to-lunch-to-honor-dc/

[vii] http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20130926/discuss/709269981/

[viii] http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20130926/discuss/709269981/

[ix] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/stephen-colbert-pope-francis_55f0748ce4b093be51bd21e2