Sermon – Probably shouldn’t be titled, “Jesus, here’s your Sign” — repost without all yhe gobledguck

 

Do you want to be made well?

LaVerne, Eleanor, Jane, Roy, Jim, David,

 

By show of hands, how many of us have some kind of problem, health, aging, economic, spiritual, emotional? How many of us here want to be made well of whatever problem (health, financial, job, spiritual, emotional, relationship) whatever problem, Do we want to be made well?  Well do you?

 

Of course!  Who wouldn’t want to be made well?  Who wouldn’t want their disease, their addiction, their pain, their suffering, their debt or bills, or abuse who would want that to miraculously disappear.

 

Jesus question to the man who had been suffering for 38 long years, who had gone to that pool time and time again looking, hoping to be healed, hoping to be made well, whose friends and family must have long ago given up on him, who the good religious folk wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole, who was all alone in this world– and here comes Jesus’ asking, Do you want to be made well?  No, Jesus I just come here for the pool side sights, “Here’s your sign”—as comedian Bill Engvall might joke.

 

 

If all we read were just these few verses, it could appear that this is the silliest question.  And, that all that’s happening here is just another miraculous healing.  But the story doesn’t end with Jesus telling the man to, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” 9 At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.

Now that day was a sabbath.  And that’s where our periscope (the portion of scripture a committee assigns us to read for today)

But it continues, from a translation of the Bible called the Message: The Jews stopped the healed man and said, “It’s the Sabbath. You can’t carry your bedroll around. It’s against the rules.”

¹¹ But he told them, “The man who made me well told me to. He said, ‘Take your bedroll and start walking.’”

^12-13 They asked, “Who gave you the order to take it up and start walking?” But the healed man didn’t know, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd.

¹⁴ A little later Jesus found him in the Temple and said, “You look wonderful! You’re well! Don’t return to a sinning life or something worse might happen.”

^15-16 The man went back and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. That is why the Jews were out to get Jesus—because he did this kind of thing on the Sabbath.

¹⁷ But Jesus defended himself. “My Father is working straight through, even on the Sabbath. So am I.”

¹⁸ That really set them off. The Jews were now not only out to expose him; they were out to kill him. Not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was calling God his own Father, putting himself on a level with God.

 

So reading the whole story, gives us a better picture of what’s going on.  And, if I dare so myself, makes that question sound a lot more reasonable and less ridiculous.  What’s behind the question is a whole lot more, like if you wanna get healed it’s gonna cost.

 

On one hand we know that.  We know there’s a cost.  If we want to be healing, well that means giving up smoking (and anyone who’s ever tried that once or 12 times knows what that’s like)  Any addiction, there’s a cost.  If we want to better blood pressure, blood sugars, lower cholesterol, there’s a cost; it’s called exercise and eating healthy (giving up a whole bunch of processed junk food).

 

But that’s not the only thing going on here.  You see, for this man to be made well a whole other price has to be paid.  Because his problem is (contrary to ancient and regrettably modern opinion) his problem is not his alone.  His problem is cultural, societal, and religious.  And fixing this comes at a cost, not just to the man but to Jesus.

 

You see their whole view of the world, of heaven, of God, was based upon following the laws and the rules.  This guy was sick because he must have sinned.  It would be a sin to help him into the pool, or to care for him.  So this guy’s problems were his own to deal with.

 

That is until Jesus goes to the man and talks to him, asks him what he wants and then tells him to break the law, to pick up his stuff, and go.

 

Because that man and each one of us is worthy to be listened to, to be cared for, to be respected.  Jesus says to those religious leaders and to us today, that God will do whatever it takes, God will break the rules, over-rule the laws.  God will bring healing to each and every one of us; God will bring healing even to our systems, our governments, our economics, God wants it all to be made well.   And what we see in Jesus, what we are called to in Christ is to be is a people who know that the healing of Jesus, the gift of the kingdom of God is well worth the cost, and that Yes, we want to be made well, we want all to be made well.  Amen.

Sermon for Easter 5

 

You are what you eat. Well, this was probably more true to the people of Peter and Paul’s day than it is for us. I don’t know about you, but when I read about a sheet full of food animals floating down from heaven, I’m thanking God for delivery.

That wasn’t the case for the first followers of Jesus. You see they were Jewish, Jesus was a Jew, Peter was a Jew, Paul was a Jew. And one of the things about Jews is that they didn’t eat certain things. Now it wasn’t just a custom, like most of us tend not eat horse in this country. No, what Jews did and didn’t eat was decided by God. It ‘s part of the commandments, the laws of their faith, that Jews do not eat anything from pigs, no pork and no bacon. And that’s just one of a great very many animals that the people of God we forbidden by God to eat.

But it’s more than just a restricted diet. It defined who they were, with whom they ate, and with whom they didn’t. So, it wasn’t like they just skipped that particular part of the first century Middle East buffet table. The point was to actually make the Jewish people, God’s chosen people different, the laws were meant to make them distinct and stick out from their neighbors. They were to be ritually, clean, holy. While everybody else wasn’t. This was God’s commands. What they ate and what they didn’t defined their faith, defined who they were, kept them, the chosen people of God, separate and holy. So you were holy or not depending on how you followed God’s laws, and a big part of that was what you didn’t eat.You literally were what you ate.

And the Jews were not be like everyone else. Everyone else was doing it, was not a value, carried no importance for God’s Chosen People.

Everybody’s doing it, didn’t work with my parents either. But we tried it. When we wanted to do something, like were blue jeans to school or go to the dance on Friday night, we’d remind our parents that well, “everybody else is doing it”. My parents had their own phrase, they had their own comeback, do you know what it is? “We’ll, we’re not like everyone else”.

As I was growing up, that message was crystal clear. It was shared with us in the Winzer household in so many different ways, even if my parents didn’t use those exact words. The message was clear: we’re German, we’re bette than that, we’re better than them, Germans are superior. Driving into the cities of Allentown or Philadelphia, going through the neighborhoods, my parents didn’t keep their judgmental, prejudiced, and bigoted comments to themselves. They freely degraded the African Americans and the Latino family’s we saw. Of course, my parents didn’t actually call them African Americans, Latino’s or even Puerto Rican’s. It wasn’t till I went to college that I learned that Puerto Rico is not a foreign country, but a territory of the United States.

In so many ways, big and little, conscious and unconscious, I was told that I and my family, that people like me were better, we’re superior, more intelligent and that meant there was something wrong with people who were poor, or who looked different, who spoke differently, ate differently than me.

One day, years later when my parents were visiting my husband Brad and I early in our marriage living in Chicago we went shopping at a local grocery. This was something we did with a bit of fear and trembling because my father in particular didn’t keep his thoughts to himself but spoke his mind out loud. So we’re walking down the aisles, and he’s making comments about all the “ethnic” food until he sees his favorites, tripe, souce , head cheese, whatever right there next to the pigs feet and the chitlins. It was as if a sheet from heaven came down, and on it were not just these foreign things but his favorites as well. Here he was and he was as ethnic as those of whom he was just laughing at. He wasn’t the norm, he wasn’t special. He was the same as everybody else.

When it comes down to it, that’s one if the things we read in these verses. God wants all God’s children at the heavenly picnic blanket, around the table. The Holy Spirit was going even out to the Gentiles, among the unclean. And what’s really radical is that all these other people didn’t need to change, didn’t need to become like the Jewish Christians, didn’t need to eat, didn’t need to change who they were, they didn’t need to hinder the Spirit.

We too can ask ourselves as individuals as a church, who are we to hinder God’s Holy Spirit. Because God’s Holy Spirit is moving, in this place, and among us, God is calling for us all to make room around all our tables, whether it’s at this table of Holy Communion (our worship table), whether it’s downstairs at the Lao New Year Party, our fellowship tables, around our bible study, our council, and committee tables we are to be asking, checking ourselves, are we hindering God? Because this church isn’t here because of you, it isn’t here because of me or some church program. The Holy Spirit is here. The Holy Spirit is in our neighborhood, in our lives. The Holy Spirit is calling us to be the church right here. So, if as a church we ask only one question,it needs to be, who are we to be hindering God?

Now, I’d like to be able to tell you that my dad’s heart softened, that his eyes were opened. But in this life, I didn’t see that. However our faith tells us, and I believe that God can do great things. I believe that even my father’s prejudice and bigotry could not ultimately hinder the Holy Spirit. My belief, my hope is that in the new life pictured for us by John, from the reading from the book of Revelation that my father is gathered together and is standing before the throne of God, around the table of the feast of the Lamb that has no end, and he is rejoicing that next to him are all God’s children. That my father Donald Paul is with those he loved well, in this life, and most I importantly with those he did not, all joined together in the forgiveness, the love, the grace of God in Christ. Amen.

Re-Members – Sermon for Easter 2

He couldn’t remember.  He couldn’t remember it.  It’s not that he had forgotten, not that the memory had slipped away like so many do these days.  You know, some of us better than other just how tricky or slippery our memories can be. But it just, it wasn’t there; it hadn’t been and couldn’t be, because he Thomas, just about all the other disciples wasn’t there.  He hadn’t actually seen the nails tear into Jesus’ flesh, he hadn’t seen the cords of rope wear and burn through Jesus’ skin.  He hadn’t seen him that first time when the risen Jesus showed up to the disciples.

 

We’ve always heard, we’ve always read and been told that Thomas was the doubter, the one who needed to see to believe, but it doesn’t have to be that way, what if he needed to see, not to believe, but to remember.  Perhaps he wanted to fill the holes in the story with his touch, perhaps he just needed something solid to save him from his guilt at abandoning Jesus.

 

There is no shame in wanting more than just listening to others talk about Jesus.  There is nothing bad about wanting to experience, to remember, to have a memory of your own.  For it is true that our memories shape us.  In so many ways.

 

Steve Jobs, you know of Apple, computers, iPods, I phone’s, and I pads.  He is quoted as saying, “Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.”

 

Steve jobs could say this because in 2003 he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and he died about 8 years later in October of 2011.

 

Remembering, like this isn’t just the ability recall facts, details, names and numbers.  this isn’t a mere intellectual exercise, but to have an experience, a tangible, touchable, memorable thing, a remembering that impacts how we live, changes how we see the world, the people around us.

 

That is, as studies have shown what the younger generations are looking for.  They see no reason to join a church unless they are able to really engage love in real connections and relationships.  They don’t want to talk about Jesus or have someone like me talk at them about him.  They are a lot like Thomas.  Not

             Not that they want proof.  No they aren’t looking for someone to discover Noah’s ark, or Indiana Jones to recover the ark of the covenant.  But also not to just be told, to sit and listen to someone talk about Jesus, to even sing about Jesus, no matter how fancy or hip, isn’t going to cut it.  They are not looking to see Jesus on screen or stage, but to touch him and to be touched by his body even today.

 

To be able to remember the touch of love that is so real it rips a hole in our heart.    Isn’t that what we say here every week.  Do this in remembrance of me. This kind of remembering isn’t just the mark it on the calendar, acknowledge it happened along time ago in a far away place.  No this remembering is different.

 

This is the kind of remembering that allows you to see the wounds, the scars of others.  This is the remembering that allows us to look even at our own selves at those places that are rough and ugly, at the pains.   The remembering that we do here together is a healing that goes beyond any medicine or therapies.  This is where we remember into today what peace looks like, the peace that overcomes fear.  That is the peace that will hold the hand of a stranger, hold the hand of someone who doesn’t look, think, speak, act, even smell like you do.  But to simply be touched and to touch in love.

 

In this remembering we actually heal the dismembering that happens so much in life.  We don’t have to pretend we’re perfect here, that we have it all together here. Like those disciples in our gospel this morning we’ve all got those things we like to lock up and hide, for fear they may get out.  But the risen Jesus comes to us every week and says, just as he did for Thomas that day and says, “Touch, feel, my body given for you.  Now go out and give yours away too, take what I have given you forgiveness, mercy, welcome, and peace and share that with everyone.  That is what is most important, that is a memory worth touching, that is a memory worth keeping, that is re-membering.

PDA – Sermon from Lent 5 C

 

Uncontrollable. Her actions seem uncontrollable. Her desire unstoppable. Driven by unseen forces, incensed by the scent of axe body spray, or old spice, or the latest super manly cologne the women in the adds are compelled to some PDA, some public display of affection. Some of us might find these male hygiene commercials amusing, others offensive–that we women can be so easily driven by passion, driven to act out, driven to unseemly, reckless, inappropriate acts of affection.

While we can’t be certain how everybody in the room that day in Bethany, as Mary kneels in front of Jesus, opens up that expensive jar of ointment, perfume, and pours it on his feet, and pulls her hair out from behind her vail, taking it out if it’s constraints of combs and ties, and drapes her face over his legs and feet. We can’t be certain how everybody responded. We know only of two. The gospel writer John only gives us Judas’ words, and we are told right away that he Judas was embezzling, stealing. We also know that Judas is on a path of betrayal. We can’t be certain, but I’m wonder if the others were uncomfortable. Perhaps Lazarus, whom Jesus had brought back from the dead was jealous of his sister Mary’s boldness. Martha who is once again hard at work may not exactly rejoice in her sister’s audacious and unhelpful actions. We can only imagine what the others felt, how they reacted or didn’t with Mary’s PDA –public. display of affection, or if you will–public display of adoration or audacity.

What we do know is how Jesus responded. Jesus doesn’t do what he should. He doesn’t correct her, tell her to leave him alone, to stop touching him, pull herself together. Instead Jesus welcomes this audacious act. He welcomes the immoderate act of love, affection, gratitude.

What makes this scene so much more powerful is that this isn’t a victory lap, a holiday party. There is real danger, very real threats of violence. The leaders, we are told are out to get Jesus, by any means necessary, and in the days before drones, and assault weapons, this is going to get personal, and going to get ugly quick. Judas will betray Jesus. His followers will scatter, will deny him, will hide, and Jesus will be found guilty of sedition of treason. Then Jesus will be executed as an insurgent. With all that coming on, Mary is compelled to let loose, to give thanks, to show her love with this public display of affection.

It reminds me of a scene from a movie that many of us probably saw last year. Maybe even read the book in The Hunger Games The main character, Katniss befriends Rue, a competitor in the deadly games. When Rue dies, Katniss decorates this young girl’s body wildflowers. She spends her much needed time and energy on this outpouring, extravagant, and fleeting act of love in an arena of death.

Some look at us here, look at us know and wonder why? Why are we spending our time, our energy, why do we gather with people who don’t look, act, speak, think like we do. Why doe we do what we do? This Public Display of affirmation–of worship, of joining, of being the church. Some call it doing church. Church isn’t just the people, but what the people do together. We have and do church. So this church, what I,’m talking about isn’t a noun; it’s a verb. Now, doing church isn’t just showing up; it isn’t just going through the motions. and when someone says they having church it means they are really getting their praise on, getting into it, worshipping, praying, filled with praise and power. Kind of like Mary who, as we say let it all literally hang out.

Some may say, well it’s Lent, this isn’t a time to praise, we can’t let loose our alleluia’s (oops there I did it) just yet. We have to wait till Easter. It’s not time. Others may just object well simply because they don’t feel very praisy. You know life is hard, we’re can get pretty tired, we’re sick, we’re grieving. Honestly sometimes praise just doesn’t come naturally. We feel like we don’t have a reason to give thanks, to be all out and public about our faith, about Jesus.

Well that’s exactly when we need to be turning to God, literally or figuratively getting down on our knees, praying, praising, hugging, holding hands, forgiving, singing. We need the worship of God’s children to lift us up. We can look at Mary and say wow! We can listen to her, and say amen.

You see God is good all the time. Jesus doesn’t wait till we’ve fixed ourselves, ironed out our troubles. Jesus is here, the Spirit isn’t controlled by the liturgical calendar. God didn’t wait till the slaves in Egypt had their act together, he took them out through the rushing waters. God didn’t let the exiles living in a foreign land suffer there for all eternity, God brought them back, God brought them home. God has done amazing things for our spiritual ancestors. God enabled our parents (maybe not biological, but spiritual) in this congregation to build a place for us to worship, to teach, to share the faith. God didn’t stop in 1917 or 1950, God is doing, yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
God will continue to visit us,and fill us with good, when we are feeling old and tired, God’s offering us something new. When are alone, and feel like the world is against us, look around we may not be the rich, the powerful, but we are something more, we are blessed with God’s Spirit of mercy, conviction, driven by the desire to love, to be, to do church, together. Rich or poor–they are always welcome, we are always welcome right here with us. That’s what Jesus meant. Our Jesus would never dismiss the poor. No, that’s why we’re here, where we’re at to be with one another. to be with
Christ. We give baskets full of food, we open our wallets to share our gold, we give sometimes a far more precious commodity our time and our energy. Most importantly we publicly and openly give our hearts to God hearts and our hearts to one another. We don’t share the peace of Christ with hands outstretched, with hugs, and even kisses as a break in worship but as what worship is all about. The world maybe trying to push us down, but Jesus is pulling us up. That’s why we come every week to be uplifted, to see a vision of Jesus alive today and every day, we come to hold and be held, to pray and to be prayed for, we come to worship, commit openly public displays of affection and adoration.

Lost and Don’t Even Know It

Have you ever been lost and you didn’t even know it?  I know it’s hard to imagine with all our technology, with all our advances, we think it’s hard to actually get lost.  Wanna go some where type the address into mapquest or use your gps on your phone, installed right in the car and off we go.

 

But it’s not as easy as all that. We have all heard horror stories about GPS systems, this story is only a few years old.  A British couple were driving in their rental car on a back road in Germany.  it was in the evening when The GPS voice told them to turn right.  SO they did, not realizing that they weren’t really on a road, until it was too late and they had driven into a building, not just any building, it was the village church. 

 

Problem is we can get lost and not even know it.  We can get too focused, or distracted.  we rely and stick with the words we hear, sticking with the guides we trust, the missing the way we really need to go.

 

In the parable, the story that Jesus tells, the young son was listening to his desires, his wants, he wanted to do and live as he pleased, find his own way in life.  I wonder how boldly he strolled up to his dad, to tell him to give his share, now this isn’t a hey, I want my allowance, I want some short term loan.  No, this son of his wants  what he’d  get when his dad is dead.  And remember there’s no ATM.  What’s going on here is so much more painful and shameful than we modern non-middle easterners fathom.

 

The son takes the father’s  money and with it his honor.  He practically tells his family to get lost, and heads out of town.  This young man isn’t quite the entrepeneur so many houng people are these days. He doesn’t invest it in a new business, start a new life.  No, he spends it, squanders it, blows it all.  There’s no doubt. We all can agree, this guy has lost it–lost any sense of responsibility.  We would agree this guy is a lost cause.

 

When he’s blown through all the money, he discovers where he’s landed, sees himself as the lowest of the low, living with pigs, (remember Jews aren’t into pork, pigs are despised and dirty, they are totally unclean). This guy is below rock bottom.  Now there’s at least two ways to read his words.  The  first is that he’s simply so desperate,  and he know’s he’s got nowhere else to turn. He thinks why not give it a go with his old father, maybe the old man will if he not let him back in the family, at least the old guy will treat him as well as he treats his workers.

 

Another way to hear these words of this young son, is to think it took him this long, this far gone to finally get just how bad he’s hurt all those around him.  To a truly feel remorse, to feel sorry not just for himself, but for what he put his family through. Perhaps now, he doesn’t need a GPS to find his way home.  Maybe you’ve made that journey once or twice yourself, or more yourself.  A real walk of shame–you know when you’ve messed up real bad, when you’ve hurt someone close to you, when you’ve betrayed those around you, and even perhaps yourself.  Maybe you know that feeling when shame sits in the pit of your stomach.

 

And as he approached his home his father saw him coming.  I bet that’s when it got really real.  Was it too late to turn and run away again?  But the only one running this time was his father.  Again, we westerners especially with our need to get out there and get running for our health, do not immediately grasp what’s going on.  Patriarchs, the heads of the family and society do not run.  It is undignified, but that is what this guys father does.  He runs, he doesn’t hide his love, his joy, his emotion.  It’s out there for all the world to see. 

 

Not only does he pull up his robes, he starts yelling, whooping, and a hollering.  Let’s through a party, strike up the band, don’t slink around in shadows afraid of what others may think or say.  Invite everyone, get the best food, the best drink.  No hold’s barred celebration for this lost soul.

 

And here’s where we meet the older brother, not wrapping his arms around his brother, not crying tears of relief and welcome, but stomping-off in righteous if not anger, at least indignation.  I know I’ve walked in this guys shoe more often than not.  After all, I tend to be the quiet, nice, do-gooder.  Not a terribly effective trouble maker.  My rebellion is often hidden and understated.  People like this older brother, people like me, well we’re lost and we don’t even know it.  We’ve got our nose to the grindstone, focused on the oughts and shoulds, trying to be fair and expecting to be treated fairly in return.  We are the dutiful ones, the ones who day in and day out work behind the scenes with little or no recognition, just doing our job. Never wandering too far.  So we think we’re not lost, but our hearts are nowhere to be found.  the older brother who stayed at home, did what he was told to do asks, “where’s my party, where’s my reward?”

 

Some might say it’s in heaven, but if this is Jesus talking, and Jesus doesn’t just tell nice stories with no point.  He’s often talking about the way God wants it to be.  Well, the party’s still for the profligate.  The thing is, the Father doesn’t ignore either of his children, the Father goes after the older son, to bring this one back too.  God wants all of the lost ones found–the ones who wander far far away, and the ones who get lost while staying close to home.  Jesus is telling there is plenty of food, plenty of room, plenty of love for all God’s children.  No one is too far gone, no one is too lost to be found. The table is set for you today, whether you knew it or not, whether you expected it or not, in this place all the lost are found.  Amen.

 

It’s About Time

It’s about time we stop blaming. It’s about time we stop blaming others and blaming God for what happens in this world. I love a good theological discussion anytime, I also value the time giving pastoral care. However, Jesus is doing neither of these in this passage from the Bible. For Jesus, it’s about time.
The question posed by some who come to Jesus is an age old question. It can be put this way, “What did those people do to deserve their suffering”? This time it was men killed while going about their religious duties. Jesus brings up another incident when a tower fell killing people just going about their life. Another time it is two towers in New York brought down by terrorists. Or other more natural disasters a tsunami in the South Pacific, in Japan, drought in East Africa. Again the unnatural–shootings– children in a classroom in Connecticut, worshippers in Oak Creek, or as Chief Flynn said “slow-motion mass murder” in our neighborhoods.Did I miss any? I sure did, awful things are happening all the time. A child with a debilitating and deadly disease, a father in an accident, families torn apart by betrayal and abuse. Intense and unwavering loneliness, addiction, and mental illness. I don’t really need to go on, do I? We all know of the suffering all around us all the time.
It would be nice to be able to assign blame, and sometimes we can. We can name a perpetrator. We also can name the forces and influences that allow someone to get a gun, that keep the world from taking the undeniable scientifically climate change and our human influence on climate seriously. There’s plenty of blame to go around. We don’t need to be pointing the finger at God. And that’s about all Jesus says on this matter.

I know it may make us feel powerless, but you cannot look at events in the world, in your life and point to them as punishments from God. Suffering is natural consequences of evil, of negligence, of bad decisions or pure chance. We don’t and can’t point fingers and blame God–it’s about time.
That is what Jesus is talking about in these verses. Time to repent and timing is everything. And today’s timing is perfect. The movie Lincoln was popular and nominated for awards. This year, is the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, February was Black History month, and March is Women’s history month, and I have been slowly making my way through, reading Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 1852 anti-slavery novel which helped fuel the abolitionist, anti-slavery movement before the civil War.
Timing is everything. As I said a few moments ago, I haven’t finished that book yet,but just about half way through the story we are introduced to Augustine St.Clare, who buys Tom–the title character Uncle Tom. St. Clare,as he is referred to, is a reluctant slave holder. He sees the evil of the system and how it corrupts both the slave (people of African descent) and the slave holders (including the white society extending beyond those who own slaves). Eventually, St. Clare after making a promise to his dying daughter, decides it’s about time to actually do something. St. Clare begins the process of emancipating (of freeing Tom). St. Clare also decides to ensure that when he dies all of his other slaves are freed and not sold. With this intention in his heart, he leaves his home, only to be mortally wounded as he tries to break up a fight in a bar.
Timing is everything and in this case as is true so many times in fiction and in real life, opportunities are missed, tragedies interrupt plans. With his untimely death, all the slaves of the St. Clare household are promptly sold, including Tom whose paperwork had never been completed.
It’s about time, Jesus tells us. And, there’s no better time than the present. Right now. Don’t put off till tomorrow, don’t wait, take every chance every opportunity to bear fruit. Now the fruit that we’re talking about isn’t really figs; it’s repentance.
The thing about repentance is that it is not just feeling sorry for our sin, for the bad that we’ve done or said. St. Clare felt bad, he despised his participation in the system of subjugating and oppressing others. He hated how slavery tore apart families. He disagreed with how others especially religious preachers justified slavery. Oh, he felt bad, but that’s about all he did. He felt, he didn’t do, he didn’t act. And now for a more contemporary allusion as wise old Yoda says to young Luke “only do or not do, there is no try”.
Jesus in this passage calls us to do, to bear the fruit of God’s kingdom. So, you’ve been thinking about forgiving someone, there’s no better day than today, you’ve been praying about giving up the hate you feel toward a brother or sister, now’s not just as good a time as any. Now’s the best time. You been praying to stop smoking, drinking, gambling, stealing, fighting, blaming, complaining, it’s about time! Thinking about putting a little more in the offering plate, calling that person, neighbor, friend up to see how they are doing, or to inviting them to come to worship with you on Sunday morning or Wednesday night, or to come to Community night and sit and listen to someone you’ve never met before, now’s the time. Repentance is about God loving us, loving you so much you don’t have allow fear or failure slow you or stop you. Procrastination is not a spiritual gift. Do it now; it’s about time. Amen.

Let’s get dirty — sermon for Ash Wednesday, 2013

Since when did dirt become the same, become synonymous with bad–dirty thoughts, words, deeds? When a cop is bad, they’re dirty. When we don’t want to get involved–we don’t want to get our hands dirty. The word smut which we use to talk about the worst things like porn, is just the name for a small flake of dirt like the ash from an engine or coal.
I ask again how did dirt get to be so bad? It wasn’t always so. Just ask a child. The dirt is the earth’s play doh, it is monsters and armies, it is mud pies and smiles.
Ask a gardener like I’ve been trying to become. Dirt is good, it is the womb full of nutrients, the place that holds the water where the seed can grow to become cucumbers, and tomatoes, melons, and the food we need. Dirt is the place of creation as God in the 2nd story of creation in Genesis chapter 2. We are told God forms us out of dirt. So how did dirt get to be so bad?
Somewhere along the way, dirt becomes the enemy we want to keep at bay. We want it to stay in it’s proper place–to stay put in the garden, in the pot, in the yard, along the sidewalk. It is not socially acceptable on our clothes, in the carpet, in our air, underneath our fingernails,and on our skin.
That’s the problem with today–tonight we take the dirt, the ashes of old dried palm leaves, take this dirt and wear it on our skin, not even on our knees as if we’d been hard at work, but on our heads as if we’d tripped head-on, face first into the mire and the murk.
Which we surely have done. The dirt we wear, the ashes on our foreheads show to all the world that we have indeed fallen. And that is why it make us uncomfortable. It is the admitting that we are falling out of our pristine palaces of purity. No matter how much we pretend we haven’t fallen, we have. Fallen into gossip, run head long into hate, fallen into the welcoming arms of greed and fear.
We have fallen into the mire of life. We can’t keep our hands from getting dirty in the workings of this world. Our sin clings to us, get’s in and underneath our fingernails, in each and every crack and wrinkle, it gets into our eyes, it smells and is every just like the dirt and ash. Sin, like death, like dirt and dust is unavoidable and inevitable. Tonight we get to admit it, let our guard down, stop pretending we’re perfect, this dirt cleanses us from the great sin of self-righteousness. And we receive, simply receive the release of God’s love, freeing us to live today and tomorrow, not in fear of dirt, not in fear of sin,not in fear of the stuff of
life, but embracing it, getting our hands dirty in this God’s world, falling deeper and deeper into love with it, with one another, and with the God who claims us. The God who isn’t afraid of a bit of dirt, isn’t ashamed of us, but reaches out to touch, to hold, to mark us with the mark of a life well worn with love, the cross of life. Come, come remember, admit, be at peace that you are dust and to dust you shall return. Amen.
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Sermon for Feb. 3rd, 4th Sun. after Epiphany

 iLet’s see if it happens, or I should say let’s hear if it does. Today during the Super Bowl that many of us will probably tune into, lets see if the law will be followed. Now there’s plenty of laws and rules to football, more than I get, but that’s not what I’m listening for. The law that I’m talking about is the CALM law. If you missed that one, it is a law passed and signed by President Obama in 2010. CALM stands for Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation. What that means is that advertisers are not supposed to blast the volume in their tv commercials, a practice that developed because we watchers of tv, do actually from time to time get up and do things most often during the commercials. So, companies would crank up the volume in order to be heard in the kitchen, in the bathroom, wherever we might wander.

To be heard, to really be listened to.
This is something we all want, unfortunately it’s not something that we all get. Listening to one another is too often in short supply. Unfortunately this is not a modern malady. This problem was,going on in the church in Corinth. They were arguing about what it meant to be a Christian, what it should look like to listen to Jesus, what difference it should make in their lives day to day. They were divided about what they should do with spouses and family members who didn’t believe in Jesus? Should they eat meat, when most meat available in the market was leftover meat from the sacrifices to the many other gods. Can believers sue on another? Should the rich be able to eat anything and everything they want when they came together just because the poorer folks couldn’t just get there right away from their jobs? Who was the most important in the church? This was a divided and troubled congregation.
Which means there were probably loud voices on all sides, and as often happens no one was listening. I mean really listening, listening to one another, not just to their points, their arguments, but listen to who they are, and importantly listen to those whose voices are silenced. Now don’t get me wrong, Paul wasn’t afraid to give his opinion on issues, he definitely had a point of view on all sorts of issues. However, St. Paul knew that wasn’t at the heart of the problem. Really, their problem wasn’t right doctrine, right thinking, right faith. They were missing the point. Jesus didn’t come to replace one set of laws with another set of rules. No, their problem was their hearts.
their hearts weren’t really in it. It’s not that they weren’t committed, but they weren’t committed to one another, their hearts weren’t turned to one another. an answer to all their problems, well it’s simple. Something we all could probably say, something we could sum up in one word, can we say it together now?
LOVE
That’s right.
Paul gives u beautiful words, words so often heard at weddings, but words that have their place right here, words that are to be listened to by the church, the family of God. 13If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

For Paul this love was discovered in the God who was so present, so attentive and unavoidable–the God who listens. We don’t have to convince God we are right; we don’t have to impress with big words and the logic of our argument. It is the God who simply loves us, no matter what we say, no matter how we say it, God hears us, really hears us, is patient, whose kindness goes beyond our wildest expectations. For Paul, if that is how God cares for us, treats us, why should we demand so much more. How can we demand perfection? Are those Corinthian Christians, are we more God than God?
For the Apostle Paul, the question we need to be asking not just of others, but really ourselves, is what we are thinking, saying, doing is it loving? Are we paying attention, are we listening, are we genuinely present for and with one another? It’s a simple thing to ask, but if we are honest, not a simple thing to do. That’s why we live the Gospel, we proclaim (we share God’s forgiveness of us and others).
This week, I’m going to give you homework. That’s right. My call is to preach and teach. This week as you are going about your days at work, at home, at the store, with family, listen to yourself, listen for love in your words, listen for love in what and how you are saying, listen for God speaking in your life– listen for God speaking to you and through you. This love has been what has enabled a It is that love that enables an introvert, shy, self-conscious woman who as a kid was so afraid to speak, who still after 20 years of doing this, gets butterflies and sweaty palms to stand up here. Because of God’s love, I am not standing up here in front of you, over than you, somehow better, more spiritually advanced than you. That’s not it at all. I’m with you, as Pastor I am with you, we are all in this together, and what we are in, is God’s Love. So this week, trust me, it won’t feel like it all the time. But the more and more that you pay attention to yourself and others, the more you pay attention to love,you will grow in living it, feeling it, and giving it away. Amen.

Sermon, Jan. 20th, 2012

*** remember this is an oral event

Mmm mmm good. That cup, that cup of wine pleasantly surprised that chief steward. We are told this party planner didn’t expect it—didn’t expect that wine to taste so good. Because, he knew that the best was always served first, and then after a couple of hours, and maybe even days of partying, they’d roll out the cheaper, inferior wine, when everybody was probably a couple of three sheets to the wind. But this it was the finest wine.
The steward was so surprised because he had fallen prey to a very common human problem–lowered expectations. Something I think we all know a thing or two about. Through the actions of ourselves and others, you know when we don’t treat each other well, when we are not treated well, when someone doesn’t follow through—the many disappointments we face each and every day leave us kind of empty and hollow. I think especially of people who struggle with addictions, addictions to whatever—drugs, alcohol, gambling, cigarettes—people who want to quit, who try and try and fail and fail.
Or think about the people our society continually dismisses and discounts, the elderly, the poor, the un-employed, and under-employed, children who struggle living in broken homes, broken families, stressed and violent neighborhoods. No one expects much from them; so no one really listens; no one seems to take the time, the problems are too much, too big. We may feel even feel that way ourselves. Feel ignored and empty.
It is very human to allow those feelings, those experiences to determine our reality—the way we think and act. Paul Bloom, a cognitive psychologist at Yale University studies how our minds determine what we like, how we determine what we value. Basically it boils down to this, we as people judge a book by its cover. Although we know we shouldn’t, but we do judge things, objects and people by the story that comes and surround it.
One of the ways he’s determined this is actually through wine. Studies show that if people believe they are drinking expensive wine (because of the bottle or the presentation) they enjoy it more—it tastes better. They’ve even tested people by putting them in functional MRI scanners and giving them wine through a tube, and giving them information about the wine, and he says, “if you believe you’re drinking expensive stuff, parts of the brain associated with pleasure and reward light up like a Christmas tree.”
So, what does an experiment with wine in the 21st century have to do with Jesus turning water into wine in the first? I think everything. For you see, Jesus came to change, to change the world, to change us. It is perfectly natural for us to continue to believe the story that we are empty, that life is worthless, that our lives are meaningless. But, Jesus enters our world, our days, our lives to tell us a completely different story. Just as he came to an ordinary human event, a wedding, he comes to us today. Just as he took empty jugs and filled them with the finest wine, he fills us as well. He turns our pain, our emptiness, into joy, into exuberance, into meaning.
Jesus is giving us another story, we don’t have to wait until the bitter end, God values each and every one of us—right here, right now. Of course, this is easier said than done. There’s always been a lot of resistance to this kind of thinking and living. Afterall, Jesus died on the cross because he was showing, telling, and living the story of the kingdom of God, not the story of the religious leaders, not the story of the kingdom of Rome—but of God.
We remember another martyr who gave his life to belief that our life is determined not by the story the world, our culture, our color, or other circumstances lay on us, but by the story that God claims for us. We remember that of the of so many words spoken by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, he declared these words I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” (Washington, 1963).
Today, God is still raising us up, God is filling each and every one of us, giving us the wine of strength, of compassion, of delight, filling us up so that we can change, we can live the new life God is calling us to right now. We do not give in to the lowered expectations of this world. No we will surprise it, surprise the people around you, shock them with words of love, shock them with acts of generosity, surprise them with your courage to say and do the right thing. This week, you be a miracle, a sign, of the kingdom and let them taste the richness of God in you. Amen.

Christmas Sermon

I know that Christmas has come and gone, but in the hectic goings on I forgot to post. Here it is now

Bahh Humbug
Yup there are Scrooges (I said Scrooges right, not Stooges?) there are Scrooges out there, and I will admit–I am one. It’s not that I don’t like Christmas, that wouldn’t make sense me being a pastor and all. It’s not all the gift-giving and receiving that bothers me; I can get past some of consumerism because there’s more to it; I know there can be genuine expressions of generosity. And It’s not the parties and festivities, after all we need to eat and eating together is good for a sense of community. God is after all always calling us together around tables to eat with one another.
No, I’m a Scrooge about something else—and that is LIGHTS—strings of lights draped on houses, in trees, all over bushes, put on frames to

depict soldiers, teddy bears, santas, and reindeers, and sleighs, and presents, and angels, and just about anything else we can imagine. Ugh. Lights burning bright sometimes incessantly day and night.
Now I know the origins of this attitude of mine. It comes from my father who made sure that we turned off the lights in the house, lights burning electricity and burning through money. It also comes from my faith, for I believe that God has given us only so much coal and air and resources in this world. On top of that, just a few weeks ago I even overheard a woman on the phone gossiping and complaining, going on and on about a neighbor whose lights weren’t quite up to her satisfaction. Where is the Christmas spirit, where is the Christian love there?
Now I must admit that there are lights on the Brown family Christmas tree, and I know that these lights at their best are not a competition and are an attempt to express our joy—our Christmas Spirit.
Storyteller Lynette Ford shares a story about Christmas lights:
One Christmas, when I was still too young to do much more than get in the way in the kitchen, I sat on Great-Grandpop’s thin lap and looked at the pictures in the funny papers. The house was full of the sounds and smells of the season: Mom and the womenfolk fussing over the dishes and dessert; the menfolk arguing as they reminisced, each with his own version of the same story; cousins sneaking pieces of leftover turkey, its scent mingling with sweet potato and cinnamon, breads and pies, mints and after-dinner coffee, and my Great-Grandpop explaining the newspaper’s cartoons to me.
I interrupted him and asked the question that had been on my mind ever since we’d walked the many steps to his front door, “Great-pop, how come you don’t have lights on your house like the other people do? The neighbors have lights in their windows and on their porches. And some of ‘em even put white lights on the roof! But you and Great-Grandma just have the reg’lar ol’ lamps on, and nobody can see your Christmas tree. Why don’t you put lights outside, or put your tree close to the window?”
Great-Grandpop smiled; he didn’t answer right away. It seemed like he was waiting for just the right words to come to him. Then he put his lips close to my ear, as if he was sharing a secret. Great-Grandpop said, “Little girl, you can’t see Christmas on the outside of things, no matter how many lights you put up. Christmas isn’t in the lights; it isn’t in all the decorations. Christmas makes its own light, inside. You have to come inside, and get yourself warmed up inside. When you feel that warmth inside you, that’s when you really see Christmas.”
We gather this night not just to look at pretty trees. We are called together to be touched by the light of Christ. That’s the light that the prophet Isaiah calls us to, that is the great light that shines in the darkness, that is—the light of God that shines in this world at the coming of the Christ child, born into this dark, dark world. The Light of God that we will hear about in our scripture passage from John, that light that comes whose brightness illumines every deep dark corner of this world, of our hearts, of our souls. That light shines best not with LED, but with LLL – lives lit by love. Tonight as we sing that beautiful Christmas carol Silent Night, holding the light of candles, when we lift our lights high, let us remember that, take it with us, allow it to kindle the peace and trust of God’s love deep within us, let us truly reflect the light of God our Savior in our lives, and ignite the true light of Christ’s coming in our world—the true Christmas lights. Amen