Fourth Sunday of Advent

Luke 2:8-14

We have been following the angels this Advent, and now that we’ve come to the last of our four Sundays, we’ve found angels in abundance.  We asked the Wednesday Kids to draw as many angels, of all sizes and shapes, as they could fit into our sanctuary windows, and they did an excellent job of surrounding us.  In the process we asked ourselves, “If a lot of geese is a gaggle, what is a lot of angels?”  Google didn’t disappoint when it told us what we have is a heavenly host!

The angels have been bringing us messages this month about how God is moving in our lives and where we might expect to see holiness.  Often angels show up when humans are in trouble.  Abraham had run out of good grazing land for his flocks. Joseph feared he had been betrayed by his fiancé.  Mary was pregnant, a life-threatening condition in many ways.  Today we’re hanging out with shepherds.  Men who lived with smelly, stupid sheep. Men whose livelihood depended on keeping these sheep together, protected, fed and watered  They got no respect for it. These shepherds and their sheep lived on the edge of the village and on the edge of the Empire.  They were subsistence farmers.  The world around them was full of soldiers and tax collectors and peasants trying not to starve to death or to be arrested into slavery.  They were not going to make anyone’s list of up-and-coming entrepreneurs.  They kept their heads down, did their job, and stayed away from trouble.

These are not the kind of men expecting to see a sky full of angels, cavorting as only angels do.  Many years ago I came across a favorite Christmas poem written about how excited the angels were when Jesus was born.  God was entering into Life in a new and amazing way.  A baby born while his parents were traveling, cradled in the barn on the hay, was going to change the world.  The angels were beside themselves with joy, whirling and tumbling across the sky, singing at the top of their lungs, when they noticed how their celebration had terrified certain “shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night.”  So shrugging their shoulders, they paused in midair, having no choice but to come near and assure them:  fear not.  It was almost an afterthought.  Since they had been noticed, they had to let the shepherds in on the story.  They had to share the good news causing angels to cavort.  The Savior has come.  The baby is born.  These were not the men you would invite to your first-born’s coming out party, but invited they were.  They shrugged their shoulders and said, “We might as well go see.”  And what they found changed their lives.  A baby.  Young parents. A dream of Empire overturned.  The conviction that God has come near.  God is changing the world and you get to be a part of  it.

Here's a miracle story for today.  God is changing the world and we get to be a part of it.  We are the wrong people to hear this good news, but here we are.  No more likely to be world-changers than a bunch of smelly shepherds wondering whether or not to believe their eyes.  We’re still dealing with Empire promoting violence, grabbing wealth, making life hard for the least important.  We’re still wondering if there’s any reason to hope.  We’re still putting bandaids on the wounds of the world when tourniquets are needed.  Paying back rent.  Calling to complain to legislators who ignore us.  Standing on a street corner for an hour or two.  It all makes me feel a lot like a shepherd who accidentally came to the wrong party.

Here's what the angels said, and keep on saying, “Fear not.”  Of course there is every reason to be afraid.  Of course we are powerless in the face of massive systems sweeping across the globe.  Of course we have no way of telling how any part of life is going to turn out and if any of what we do will matter.

But then, just when we’re not paying attention except to try to get the sheep of our lives more or less gathered up for a few minutes of rest, we think we see an angel, out of the corner of our eye.  We hold a newborn.  We pay a $20 bill that gives a stranger hope.  We hear the angelic voices of children singing their hearts out. And the world shifts on its axis.  Maybe there is something more.  Maybe this “God is love” stuff is real.  Maybe there are tiny miracles waiting for us to trip over them.  A new treatment for illness.  A different way of seeing immigrants as friends.  A politician with a bright idea. 

This is what I want to believe is true:

• God is with us.
  Love is the fabric of the universe.
  We can come together, help and respect each other..
  There is light in the darkness.
  There are plenty of reasons to be afraid, but we can still live without fear.

This is the beginning of the church year, when we start again, one more time, and we are reminded – the world can be made new.  There is reason for hope.  The light will come among us and shine through us.

If you ask me why I know this, I will tell you:  an angel told me.  Sometimes, that angel is you.

Third Sunday of Advent

Luke 1:26-56

Today’s scripture is the tale of two women, women it turns out who had famous sons.

Mary of Nazareth is young, unmarried, and pregnant.  That means she is in trouble, about to lose her future marriage (although we learned last week that fiancé Joseph pulled through and that turned out better than it might have).  The news of a baby coming can’t have been welcome to her.

Elizabeth is old, married a long time without children.  She too is pregnant.  Perhaps she was overjoyed at the possibility, having waited a long time. 

We read that Mary travels to seek Elizabeth’s company.  An older, wiser cousin who can help her process this unsettling news?  A safe place to stay as her pregnancy begins to show, a shelter until she figures out what to do next?

Although the circumstances of these two pregnancies differ, both of these women were vulnerable, in danger.  Pregnancy has never been a truly safe condition.  So much can go wrong.  We sometimes forget how many women have died in childbirth over the years.  Or how many have been condemned for being pregnant inconveniently.  If we’re going to understand how these women saw God moving in their lives, we have to acknowledge their vulnerability.

The story tells us that Elizabeth celebrated Mary’s pregnancy.  Surely it helped Mary to have that support.  A baby is something to celebrate, even if the circumstances are uncertain.  And the story tells us that Mary also celebrated.  I wonder how long it took her to work around to that.  How she managed to get her head around that reality.  She decides this child is going to change the world.  Maybe every mother thinks that – she’s carrying a doctor, a famous actress, a priest.  Every child has the potential for greatness. 

We give great credit to the two men these women birthed – John the Baptizer and Jesus of Nazareth.  Both spoke to troubled times…violence, poverty, illness, Empire. Both gave voice to God’s Word, coming to people waiting for some good news.  Both pointed to reform and change – the coming of God’s reign among us.  These are miraculous births!

Before John and Jesus changed the world as we know it, they were raised by Mary and Elizabeth.  We put a lot of emphasis on the role God plays in raising up these prophets, and we should.  But what of the role their mothers played?  Who fed them, protected them, healed their skinned knees?  Who taught them to see God in the world around them? Who taught them to speak out for justice and change? Surely their mothers played a part in creating their vision and their commitment.

The story says that from the beginning Mary and Elizabeth shared a vision of what these babies might mean.  I like to picture them, young and old, both worried about what comes next.  Both determined to bring healthy babies into the world and both dreaming of the difference these babies will make.  Listen again to the way Mary described what God will do through this change that’s coming:

God’s strength will shape the world and scatter the proud who seem to be in charge.   

God has brought down the powerful and lifted up the powerless.

God has fed the hungry and sent the rich away.

God has rescued the people from Empire, and created the world of God’s promise.

She doesn’t say, “Oh, I hope this will be someday.”  She says, “It’s done!”  Then she has this baby, raises him, and sets him loose on the world to make the promise come true.

Theologians talk about God’s working in the world as a mystery of time…things that have been accomplished that haven’t yet happened.  It’s already and not yet.  Mary’s song is an already/not yet prophecy.  God’s way has come to be the way of the world and someday it will be so. 

Today’s angel message to Mary is that things that are coming are already accomplished.  It’s a message of hope and possibility.  What we can believe, we will one day see.  What we can imagine as coming from the heart of God, we can create as God’s way on earth.

This Christmas many of us are struggling with unimaginable things happening around us.  If I had told you last year that the United States would end food aid to the world and to our own people, would you have believed me?  Would you have believed that Gaza would be flattened, Ukraine in limbo, health insurance cut off, drug lords pardoned and fisherfolk bombed in their boats, hardworking people deported without process, education programs cut short…  Every day I hear people – all of us – say, “How can this be?”  We feel powerless.

The angel tells Mary that what needs to change is already changing.  That even a young peasant girl in trouble can be an agent of miracles.  That the next baby born, or the one graduating from high school this year, may be the leader who makes a difference.  And in the meantime, while we’re waiting for history to turn and the world to shift, God is with us.  No matter the trouble around us, God is here.  We are not alone.  Those who seem to be in charge will not have the last word.  Tell everyone who longs for good news:  God who has come is also coming.  The poor will be lifted up, the proud scattered, the hungry fed.  The world CAN change and will change. 

The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.

Second Sunday of Advent

Matthew 1:18-25

This Advent we are reading the story of Jesus’ birth through the eyes of people who encountered angels and through those encounters became players in God’s good vision for life.  Before Matthew tells the story of Joseph, in a predicament, he gives us a genealogy of Joseph.  This isn’t a genealogy like Ancestry.com, which traces generations backwards and finds amazing surprises.  Matthew knows where he’s going before he starts.  He doesn’t much care about physical ancestors so much as he wants us to know that the spiritual ancestors of a carpenter named Joseph, a first century peasant, are the great people of Jewish history.  Joseph inherits faith and trust in God from a long line of people who followed God’s way, beginning with Abraham, tracing through the greatest king David and several prophets, right up to Matthew’s time.  There aren’t the genealogical surprises like those found on Tracing Your Roots, but there are some big spiritual surprises.  In a line of famous men, Matthew has placed three women:  Rahab, the prostitute who helped Israelite spies escape from Jericho before it was conquered; Ruth, the widow who persuaded her husband’s cousin Boaz to take her as a second wife after she moved to the land of Judah with Naomi her mother-in-law; the unnamed wife of Uzziah, whom King David abducted, raped, and took into his harem, having made sure that her husband was killed in war.  She becomes the mother of famed King Solomon.  These aren’t just any women, but three women whose interaction with men involved their sexuality, the men’s power of life or death over them, and the continuity of God’s people into a future. 

In that setting we read about Joseph, inheritor of this history, who learns that Mary, his fiancée, in pregnant, not by him.  The angel comes in a dream to tell him, “Don’t be afraid of Mary’s condition.  God is going to use it to work miracles for the people.”  The prophecy is quoted, “Behold, ,a virgin shall conceive and bear a son.”  This is the prophecy people quoted in their hope for a Messiah to free them from Rome. There are a couple of things we should know about this prophecy.  First, it’s a mistranslation of the original Hebrew, which says, “a young woman shall conceive.”  It foretells a birth, but not necessarily a miraculous one.  Simply the birth of someone who will rescue the people.  Second, in the first century to say that someone was born of a Virgin was to claim that person as the Emperor, entitled to power.  In that age, every emperor crowned was given a new birth story, telling how he was the son of his mother and a god and therefore himself divine.  To claim virgin birth for Jesus is to set his future kingdom alongside Rome, equal in significance and glory.

Over time this claim led Christians to assert that Jesus was “born of the Virgin Mary.”  It’s a physical miracle. And it may be.  But it also may be a way to say something spiritual about the significance of Jesus at a point in time when people would have been unaware of the physical miracle they were projecting.  Some scholars today suggest it’s more likely that Mary was raped, perhaps by a Roman soldier.  It’s curious that the three women Matthew places in Jesus’ lineage were also physically at the mercy of men around them.  Certainly rape or physical abuse would have been a common experience of women in the first century when they were considered property, without rights, living under military occupation.  Even today rape is a much more common reality that we like to admit and women can easily find themselves with unexpected pregnancies.  However we understand this story, miracle or predicament, it would have been unwelcome for Joseph to find his new wife pregnant with another’s child.

Because Joseph is a kind man, he doesn’t want to accuse Mary of infidelity publicly, condemning her to punishment, social ostracism and possible death.  He will “put her away quietly.”  But the angel insists, “Don’t be afraid to marry her.  The child is about to become a great blessing to the world.”  So Joseph takes a chance on Mary.  Perhaps he already loved her.  He completes the marriage and becomes the father of the one we call Messiah.

Last week the message from God was that blessing can come from difficult circumstances and from taking risks.  This week Joseph is asked to take a risk with Mary in order to bless the world.  He has every right to reject her and condemn her to an even more difficult life than a peasant girl would normally expect.  But he takes a chance.  I’m thinking God is telling us that blessing comes from taking a chance with people.  Many folks face hardship in life, often through no fault of their own.  How much blessing happens because someone sees them without judgement and dares to offer another chance?

When Jesus grew into adulthood and accepted his ministry, he went about the country taking a chance on folks others had rejected.  Unclean women who were bleeding.  Unclean people with leprosy whose bodies were decaying day by day.  Unclean tax collectors who were hated by their villages.  People with mental illnesses who couldn’t function.  Those with crippling injuries who couldn’t work.  Children.  Pharisees.  All sorts of people no one else wanted to befriend.  He welcomed them, accepted them, included them, and helped them become whole.

When we were feeding the folks at LaGrave on First we saw what happens when people on the street are given shelter, sobriety, work skills, and trust.  Sometimes they turn their lives around.  Every week you give me the privilege of saying to people in our community, “You matter to us.”  You give them a chance to stay housed, to have transportation so they can work, to receive prescriptions so they can be healthy.  You are taking a chance and shifting the future of folks bit by bit.  When we said “yes” to Global Friends, we took a chance to welcome New Americans into our community.  They have become our friends and continue to make this town a better place.  My daughter and all the special ed teachers in this town take a chance on children who are struggling every day, and with support some of them are learning new ways to grow into healthy adults.

The angel message:  Don’t be afraid; take a chance; trust this person…is an important message in this moment in our history.  Day after day we’re hearing another message from what constitutes the Empire of our time. 

• I don’t want them here.  They are the worst of the worst. Immigrants aren’t welcome.

• Those who live in poverty are lazy.  They don’t deserve to eat, or to have health care.

• We don’t want to see people without shelter.  They are a danger on our streets.

•  If one person commits a crime, thousands of others should be punished – for their color or their language or their birthplaces.

• Drug trafficking is an excuse to kill people without due process or trial or even evidence.

• Often all this and more is spoken in the name of God, of Christianity.

The message to Joseph gives us a way to push back on those who would dehumanize or divide us.  We are about to celebrate God coming into this world to redeem it.  To show us how to live by a better vision – to trust each other, care for each other, lift one another up.  We are invited every day to take a chance on people, some of whom may be in trouble, different from our expectations, a little scary.  That is God’s way.  One person at a time we can lift people up, give them a chance to put life together, invite them into community.  When we do, slowly the world changes.  That’s what it looks like when we become a blessing, and when God redeems the world through God’s people.  That’s the world we are building together.

First Sunday of Advent

Genesis 12:1-3

Today we begin the celebration of Advent, the time of getting ready for Christmas.  It’s also the beginning of the church year calendar – so Happy New Year!  Like any New Year’s celebration, it’s a good time to reflect on what’s been and what’s next.  A time for taking stock, celebrating accomplishments, and setting goals.  This year for Advent, I thought it might be fun to focus on the voices of angels.  Angels play a big role as messengers from God in scripture.  They help us put into perspective what’s happening in the world and how God is moving around us and through us.

There are plenty of angels in the Hebrew scriptures explaining how God’s people came to be.  In the story of our ancestors Abraham and Sarah angels show up at key moments, often arriving in the form of visitors traveling thorough.  They come to tell Abraham and Sarah that the promise of children is about to come true, even though they are so old they have given up on that one.  They come to tell them that Sodom is about to be destroyed and perhaps they want to warn their nephew Lot to move on.   Today’s scripture isn’t strictly spoken in an angel voice, but it’s a clear message from God.  “Move on. It’s time for something new.  You are to become a blessing for the whole world.”

Abraham and Sarah are part of what we call our “origin story.”  They explain how God’s people became God’s people.  In the ancient pre-history of the people of Israel, there were wandering tribes known as “Habiru” or “Hebrew” which moved across what is now Israel.  They followed their herds, looking for pasture and water.  Sometimes they moved into the neighborhood and stayed.  Sometimes they moved on.  In scripture we read, “A wandering Aramean was my father,” and we hear echoes of these wandering tribes.  Often important stories aren’t so much remembered as they are written backwards.  At a future point in time people will want to explain how their relationship with God works, and they will tell a story about how it might have come to be.  This story says that Abram and Sarai were living with Abram’s father Tehra in Hebron, now in Iraq.  They had many flocks and servants.  God spoke to them and urged them to move to a new land, which turned out to be Canaan.  God promised that if they went, they would become fabulously wealthy, but more importantly, they would become the ancestors of a great nation.  “By you all the families of earth shall be blessed.”

A thousand years later, when God’s people were living in Canaan, they remembered that they came from wandering stock.  And they understood that their relationship with God asked them to be a conduit of blessing – God to all people’s on earth.  It all started with Abraham and Sarah, they said.

What is it that we learn from Abraham and Sarah?  One important lesson is that they were willing to take a chance. “Go!” God said, and they did.  As the poet reminds us, “That has made all the difference.”  Way back before we can even imagine, some shepherds with hungry sheep decided to pack their tents and follow good pasture.  A thousand years later when the story was told, the storytellers reminded people that when you strike out in faith, good things can happen.  God can be in them.

In 1989 I moved my family to Seattle to pastor a smallish church in the north end.  It was the beginning of the AIDS epidemic and a member of that church had started a hospice for those people dying of AIDS.  That was the time when everyone died.  The larger church in Seattle said homosexuality was a sin, but that woman showed me that people are people and everyone deserves respect care.  What an important lesson that was.  It would have taken much longer to learn if I hadn’t been in that place. 

In 2019 you sent me to ask what was needed at LaGrave on First.  Do you remember?  We thought we could bake a few cookies!  Then we served thousands of meals over 5 years and now the organization itself provides meals every night.  That journey began with one question.  Who knew we’d become the church that feeds people!?

As you reflect this Advent, I hope you will be able to identify moments in your own lives when you took a chance, did something unexpected, and changed everything.  Maybe it was saying “yes” to a job or a person.  Maybe it was staying put when life got hard, adjusting to new medical realities or financial circumstances.  Maybe it was trying a new volunteer opportunity or learning a new skill.  When you look back, where do you see angels pointing out new possibilities.

I also hope you’ll ask yourself how you have been a blessing to others.  Abraham didn’t move just to make himself wealthy.  Our ancestors were clear:  God blesses us so we can bless all people.  Where have you been a blessing?  Who have you mentored or helped in other ways?  Who has eaten? Or learned a new skill?  Or known you to be a life-saving friend?  Who has hope because of where you have been and who you are?  Angels don’t just talk to people in the Bible in years past. Angels whisper in our ears.  They show us new places to go and new ways to be.  And they go with us, so we never go alone.  I hope by the time we’ve walked this Advent journey, we see places where angels have blessed our lives, and helped us to bless others.

Twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost

Acts 2:43-37

On this Sunday before the United States celebrates Thanksgiving, it seems good to stop for a few minutes and think about gratitude.  Often when we’re asked what we’re grateful for, people list things that make them happy.   We’re grateful for food, clothing, and shelter.  My granddaughter is grateful that her mom bought a second car.  I met a young man this week who said he didn’t care about things, but he loved travel experiences.  Instead of wrapped presents this holiday, his dad is taking him to New York for Thanksgiving and his mom is taking him to the Caribbean for Christmas.  He knew how lucky he was, and he was grateful.

Sometimes we think gratitude is connected to good circumstances in life:  enough money to be safe and well-fed, friends and family near to us, a good job, a chance to be useful to others.  These are easy to be grateful for.  But spiritual leaders tell us that the attitude of gratitude doesn’t have to be connected to happy situations.  Gratitude is a way of looking at life, no matter what’s happening around you.

The Psalms in our scripture are full of prayers of thanksgiving.  People thank God for beauty, for harvest, for protection, for victory.  All these are good things.  But the Psalm weren’t written only when ancient Israel was doing well.  Many of them reflect tribal warfare, uncertain harvests, or illness.  Even in difficult circumstances, or maybe because of difficult circumstances, people were grateful for God’s presence in their lives.

Our scripture today describes an idealized version of early Christian communities.  People gathered for worship, for potlucks, and to support each other.  They ate “with glad and generous hearts.”  We know that first century followers of Jesus didn’t have easy lives.  Many were enslaved.  Most were poor, in debt, at the mercy of rich overlords.  Some were persecuted for their faith.  All lived under the thumb of Rome.  Yet when they got together they had a good time and they were grateful.

As we celebrate this week, there will be people celebrating because we have pooled our resources to share with others.  We paid half a utility bill this week and Tri-County social services paid the other half so a family has heat and lights.  We paid another family’s back taxes – only a few hundred dollars, but it means they won’t lose their mobile home at the end of the year.  We helped feed 220 people on Monday traditional Thanksgiving dinner and another 100 on Friday.  They were all grateful, although they didn’t all eat the vegetables.  Having enough to share can make us grateful for that privilege.

When we celebrate this week, there will be some folks who have little reason to be grateful.  I think of those whose countries are at war:  Ukraine, now being asked to accept a peace agreement that favors Russian aggression; Gaza, where an uncertain ceasefire is only the beginning of a long road of recovery; Sudan, Afghanistan, Syria, Myanmar, Venezuela, and so many other places where life is dangerous.  But even there, people look around and find reasons to be thankful. 

Willie Nelson, the country singer, is reported to have said once, “When I began to count my blessings, it changed my life.”  Nine years ago our friend Pat and I celebrated Thanksgiving in the transplant house at Mayo Clinic.  Volunteers brought us piles of food.  We were warm and well-cared-for.  I was healing.  It was a good celebration.  I’ve told you before that while we were in Rochester for a season, we kept a daily gratitude journal, listing every evening at bedtime all the good things that had happened that day.  There were successful procedures, gifts of food, flowers on the porch, and always kind and helpful people.  Like Willie Nelson, I would say that the practice of looking for some reason to be grateful every day changed the whole experience of serious illness.  There are many times in life when we can’t change what is happening to us, but we can change how we react to what’s happening around us.  It’s not always easy.  We don’t have to do it perfectly.  We only have to make a beginning, see one good thing, and that will make a tiny crack in negativity and start the process of transformation.

There are lots of myths surrounding our story of the first Thanksgiving.  We imagine it was much more of a feast than it probably was.  Life in a new place wasn’t easy.  The work was backbreaking; many died of illnesses we never experience now.  But there was a harvest and hope for food to last the winter.  There were neighbors who helped and friends.  They were thankful.  Over the years our country has celebrated Thanksgiving when times were plentiful and when they were not.  During peace and war.  Through pandemics which separated us, after natural disasters, and in times when we prospered.  This year we’ll feast in a variety of ways.  But the most important won’t be how much food is on the table or how many people are around it.  The most important will be our own gratitude.  To be thankful for what is and hopeful for what may be.  Thanks be to God, who gives us life and allows us to enjoy it, to treasure each moment, to share it with friend and sometimes strangers.  And to be grateful.

Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost

Revelation 22:13

We know Jesus through our experience.  There is no other way to become acquainted with one who lived so long ago and who lives in ways we can barely understand through church, scripture, and good works and in the faces of our neighbors.

– Diana Butler Bass

Since we live in a sort-of-small town, it’s pretty common when a person’s name comes up in conversation for someone to ask, “Do you know them?”  Then folks wrack their brains, muttering the name over and over, until someone replies, “Yes, I’ve heard of them.  But I don’t really know them.”  The only way we truly know someone is if we have experience with them, some kind of relationship, however superficial.  We know the people we’ve spent time with, worked with, shared neighboring hockey seats with, or in some way interacted.  The more experience we have with someone, the more we can affirm, ”Yes, I know them.”

So what happens when someone asks us, “Do you know Jesus?”  Jesus lived 2000 years ago.  None of us interacted with him during his lifetime.  There’s a lot of distance between us; we live in very different parts of history and vastly different cultures.  Yet people often say, “Yes, I know Jesus.”   Knowing Jesus begins with hearing his story – in Sunday school or worship, by reading the Bible or picking up information from the public domain.  But we’ve heard stories about George Washington and Amelia Earhardt and we wouldn’t say we know them.  Beyond the story, Bass points out that we know Jesus when we have some experience of him.  We’ve been reading her experiences with Jesus this fall, which led her to name Jesus as her friend, her Savior, the presence of God.  I hope you’ve been asking yourselves over the past few weeks about how you know Jesus and how he shows up in your life.

We’ve come to the end of this book, Freeing Jesus. Now is a good time to summarize how 21st century people experience Jesus who lived in the first century.  We certainly begin with his story, but only in the ways that story enters into the story we are telling about who we are and how we understand ourselves today.  When the life Jesus lived begins to inform the lives we are living, we can say that we encounter him in a real way.  When the values Jesus stood for and the lessons he taught match up with our values and his lessons answer questions we’re asking, then his life informs our living.  We can say we meet Jesus in the thick of our everyday lives.

I want us to look this morning at two ways that happens.  First, Jesus spent much of his time thinking about and critiquing the systems of his day – the way society around him, powerful and powerless people, worked.  Much of his conversation about how we should live highlighted what wasn’t working in the villages and cities of Roman Empire.  He had harsh words for rich and powerful men who enjoyed luxuries while neighbors went hungry, lacked shelter or clothing.  He encouraged people to live in peace in spite of the violence around them.  He used his abilities to heal people crippled by disease.  Jesus often talked about the reign of God as a new way of living in society where everyone had what they needed to thrive.  I’m confused these days when churches and governments denounce DEI, Diversity Equity and Inclusiveness, because Jesus was always paying attention to those who were different or outcast, those who were treated as lesser than the rich and powerful, and those who were outcast.  His teaching lifted up a better way for people to form communities that truly cared for everyone.  I find that I encounter Jesus when I’m applying those values to the way we live together in this moment in history.  Jesus calls us to rethink how society works and to make life better for everyone, and when we do that work, we meet him in the middle of it.

The second way we experience Jesus is in his acceptance and love for everyone.  Many folks talk about being born again or saved and finding their lives changed by Jesus.  I suspect at the heart of those experiences is acceptance.  Hearing that Jesus loves and values us, particularly if we’re not feeling cherished by anyone else, can be transforming.  The stories of Jesus show him talking to those who lived on the margins, listening to women, the ill, foreigners, impoverished folks.  Jesus saw people as whole and valuable, and they responded by seeing themselves that way, too.

We all benefit by hearing that God loves us, Jesus values us and believes in us.  We hear that from Jesus through the voice of his community.  We form a relationship with Jesus by forming relationships with each other, which his people.  Everyone who comes to this place should hear words of welcome, inclusion, respect and joy.  We hear Jesus naming us a friend when we name each other that way.  We experience the presence of Jesus in the heart of the community here.

We also share the love and acceptance of Jesus with others when we treat them with respect and dignity.  This week I had the privilege of sharing Jesus’ love through the community fund.  Because you are generous, we bought antibiotics and pain meds for a young man with a toothache.  His gratitude was even more generous than our funds.  We also gave a young mom a check for back rent so she could stay in her apartment.  We gave her $200 so that she has time to earn the $200 she needs to finish the payments next month.  She too was profoundly grateful. We said to her:  we trust you, we believe in you; we’re giving you this without strings attached or judgment.  It’s the kind of thing Jesus would do, and when we do it, we keep him alive among us. When we hold Jesus’ vision for what life can be, and do the work he taught folks to do, he is alive and thriving here. We learn to know him by receiving his love and passing it along.  Like the old song, “They’ll know we are Christians by our love.”  Jesus is the love, and he lives within it wherever love moves among us.     

Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost

Matthew 9:18-20

The Christian faith is different from what the world teaches.  The Christian faith is not “seeing is believing,” but rather, “believing is seeing.”  We must open our eyes and hearts and see Jesus’s presence in our lives. We need to see him in the places that we dare not to look and dare not to think about.  – Grace Ji-Sun Kim

This fall we’ve been “reading” Freeing Jesus by Diana Butler Bass.  We’ve considered some of the ways she understands Jesus in order to think about who Jesus is for each of us.  We’ve heard about Jesus as friend, teacher, savior, Lord, and way.  Each of you may have resonated with one or more of those descriptions.  Today we think about Jesus as the presence of God in the world and with us. 

There are two key ways in which human beings think about God.  We can think about God who is holy, divine, and utterly different from us.  That is God as other.  God in heaven – mighty, controlling, pure.  The word the church uses for that God is “transcendent,” a being that transcends or is above and beyond all that we are.  We recognize that God from many Bible stories and church services.  The other way to think about God is the God who has chosen to be born in Jesus.  This is the God who comes to earth.  Immanuel, God-with-us.  This is the God who seems near to us when we’re in trouble, when we pray, when we hold a new grandchild, when the world seems full of goodness and light.  The word the church uses for that God is “immanent,” a being as close as breath or a heartbeat.  We recognize that God from the Psalms and the testimony of both ancient and modern people who speak of God’s love.  The immanent God, known in Jesus, is the God of presence. Jesus who said to his disciples, just as he was leaving them, “I am with you always to the end of the age.”

You may be able to tell stories about moments in your life when you felt that presence.  I suspect those times are precious to you.  People associate words like “comfort” and “hope” and “courage” with those experiences, and they convince us that God’s love is real.

I’ve been preaching about transcendence and immanence a long time, and I want to suggest a further option for you to consider.  The transcendent God watches over us; the immanent God draws near to us.  I’ve come to believe that God is in us – not just near but a part of the fabric of who we are, of all that is.  We’re coming up on Christmas when we’ll be talking about God born as Jesus.  Certainly those who knew Jesus said they saw God in him and through him. We consider it a great mystery and miracle that God would come to humanity as human.  Ancient Hebrews believed the Spirit of God was a wind or a breath.  What if God’s Spirit is in our first breath and every breath we take after that?  What if the spark that is our life is the very presence of God?  What if when God creates all that is by blowing across nothingness like a wind and speaking the words of creation, the very existence comes from the exhaled breath in those words?  God is not just near, but God inhabits our lives and the life of all that is?  

I know there’s a lot of evidence of humanity not being at all like God.  We could make long lists!  But there’s also a lot of evidence that God is truly present in the lives of many folks.  We list those signs of light every week!  Grace Kim invites us to believe in the presence of God in the presence of Love, and because we believe God is there, we see that evidence all around us.  We all know that when we’re looking for things going wrong, it’s easy to see them.  But it’s also true that when we’re looking for things toing right, we see those too!  A month ago in the middle of my moving process, I realized that when you all asked how things were going, I told you everything that was broken or missing or not happening on time.  But the greater truth was all of you were helping me and lots of good things were coming together and I really like my new house.  Sometimes we make a choice about what to look for and that’s what we see.  Believing Jesus is still living and breathing through us helps us see him every day.

We talk about doing God’s work often.  Bass reminds us this:  We do not build a kingdom: we participate in creation.  Just as God breathed creation into existence, our living, breathing presence in this world continues that creation.  When we choose to see God at the heart of it, that’s what we create – a godly, loving reality that gives this world Life. 

Grace Kim invites us to look for Jesus every day.  We look for him where we dare not:  perhaps in the face of the mom whose SNAP benefits aren’t there yet, who has to put groceries back; or the face of those unhoused in our country, those misplaced by war in far places.  Jesus tells us he will always be with those in need.  But we will see him also when we hand someone a check for a rent deposit, when we fill food boxes, when we speak up for peace. 

Believing in the presence of Jesus among us and even in us, gives us courage to hope. Courage to keep trying to right wrongs and stand for justice.  Courage to believe that the small acts of kindness we manage will multiply and the cruelty of some will end. 

Some folks are waiting for the return of Jesus to bring God’s reign on earth.  We say Jesus never left.  He’s here with us.  And we can see God’s ways breaking through all around us.

All Saints Day

Hebrews 12:1-2

Today we are celebrating All Saints Day, which was officially yesterday.  It’s a day dedicated to “the great cloud of witnesses” who have over the centuries attested to the importance Jesus holds in their lives. Sometimes we honor those friends and family members who have entered eternal life on this day, but we did that on Memorial weekend this year.  Some traditions have a procedure for naming particular outstanding persons as saints.  Usually some kind of miracle is required for this recognition, as well as exemplary service and often martyrdom.  It makes the application list rather short.  Our traditions have held instead that all those who follow Jesus are among the saints.  We are part of the “great cloud of witnesses” by virtue of living our lives in connection with Jesus.

This fall we’ve been “reading” the book Freeing Jesus by Diana Butler Bass.  In each chapter she has described one way to understand Jesus – friend, teacher, savior, way…  I’ve been surprised how each week we end up in much the same place, putting emphasis on living in community and working out together what following Jesus looks like.  It’s a hands-on process of putting faith into action.

Over the past few years we’ve talked often about life in the first century among those who heard Jesus story and tried to adopt his way of life.  They also emphasized community.  They enjoyed meals and conversation, they watched out for one another, and they worked out among themselves how to love God and neighbor as Jesus inspired them.

In our present time, we are facing some of the same disruptions to life that the first century experienced.  We are watching abusive power harm some of our neighbors.  We’re watching leaders claim the power of empire for themselves.  We’re unsure of how to make a difference or to stand up for democracy and justice. Wise folks suggest that we do much of what first century folks did – enjoy meals and conversation, watch out for one another, do our best to love God and neighbor.

All Saints Sunday gives us an opportunity to reflect on how that happens among us and to name some of the folks who have taught us about living our faith and impacting our community.  I want to invite you to share names or even stories of people who have been important to you.  I know that not everyone enjoys speaking aloud in worship, so please feel free to name people in your own heart.  If you’re watching online or reading this after the face, take the time to reflect on your own experiences.

Let’s begin with people who influenced us when we were children.  They may be family members or Sunday School teachers or coaches.  Who are your adult mentors who stand out in your memory as showing you what it means to follow Jesus or live with integrity?

Now I invite you to think about famous people who have influenced you.  Musicians?  Philanthropists? Authors? Politicians?

Next let’s think about contemporary people who make life better for us.  Who are some of the people in your life that you value?

Who are the folks who stand up for justice, near or far, in this present moment?

Finally, I want you to think about yourself as one of the Saints of God.  I won’t ask you to share this part aloud because that would put us all on the spot.  But please think about one person you helped in the past week, even if it was just a phone call or a smile…

Think about a value you hold that makes the world better…

Think about one thing you can do in the week ahead to show your faith…

We aren’t just people waiting for God to make the world better, we’re people who hold a vision of God’s justice and mercy and peace.  When we act on that vision we are co-creators with God of God’s reign on earth.  We’re bringing life with God into reality all around us.  It’s not just miracles or big deeds that make us saints, it’s participating in the community that believes loving your neighbor matters.  Treating people with respect and dignity matters.  Living with hope matters.  It’s easy to be overwhelmed or to give up, but that’s why we hang out together.  We need to remind each other that what we are doing makes a difference.  God is counting on us to be a part of the new thing God is doing among us.  We can claim that for our own. 

Look around at the saints who have gathered here.  Let’s thank one another for what each one is doing to make God’s way real among us today.

Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost

John 14:6

There is a journey you must take.  It is a journey without destination.  There is no map.  Your soul will lead you.  And you can take nothing with you.

– Meister Eckhart

Christianity is not, in essence, a set of teachings, but a way of life. Christian faith is a vision of flourishing that bears witness to God’s love everywhere at work in the world.  To say, “God is love” is neither sentimental nor facile; rather, it expresses the truth that God’s love is the ever-present, ever-active source and sustenance of all reality.

– Norman Wirzba

We are walking our way through Diana Butler Bass’s book Freeing Jesus this fall, as a way to consider who Jesus might be for each of us.  So far we’ve talked about Jesus as friend, teacher, savior and lord. Today we’re looking at Jesus as the Way, as in our scripture, “I am the way the truth and the life.”  Just a note about process:  Next week we’re going to take a break and celebrate All Saints’ Day.  In preparation for that, I’d like you to think about people in your life, living or in eternity, who represent the love of God for you.  We’re going to share some of those names next week during the message.  Then we’ll finish Bass’s book before Advent.

Since we’re more than halfway through this project I’ve been reflecting on the overall themes emerging from many ways to think about Jesus. I’ve been surprised by how often I find myself saying, “This isn’t a formula, it’s an adventure.”  In each of the ways we’ve looked at Jesus we’ve found that there isn’t a “right” answer to discover, but a relationship to be lived. As we’ve learned more about the first century experience of Jesus, both during his lifetime and after, we’ve discovered that being a disciple wasn’t like attending a training academy with a fixed curriculum.  You didn’t go through the program and emerge a “Jesus person,” kind of like becoming a Marine after bootcamp.  Instead Jesus invited people to live with him for a while and in the daily interaction of the community, they learned and grew into something more than when they started.

Often when we hear, “I am the way,” we understand that like a curriculum or a roadmap.  You follow it, memorize the content, follow all the directions, and when you finish you arrive, you graduate, you’ve got it.  But Jesus didn’t have a scope and sequence or a final exam.  His band of disciples walked between the villages and talked with people.  He told stories and when he finished people weren’t sure what the stories meant.  They had to talk it over and think about it. People asked questions and Jesus had to think about how to answer.  They responded to the news of the day.  They were all part of shaping what the ministry was becoming. 

Meister Eckhart tells us that life with Jesus is a journey.  The experiences you have along the way shape where the journey goes and what it means.  I have a friend who used to put his family in the car and drive out of town on a small road, not the interstate. When they came to a stop sign, they had to choose – right, left, or straight.  At each pause, they chose again.  They never knew where they were going until they got there and all of them were a part of deciding the way. 

Your journey with Jesus is like that.  It’s not a fixed program you have to try to get right.  It’s an experience and Jesus is your companion.  The choices you make along the way, the times you learn something new or change your mind, are a part of the way.  You are helping to create what it means for Jesus to be your way.  Bass talks in each chapter about times in her life when her faith was quite different from what it is now.  She spent years in very conservative churches, trying to follow the rules and get everything right.  Her wisdom for us is that “right” isn’t a thing.  There are many ways to follow Jesus, and no one can tell you what’s right for you.  It’s not like hopping in the passenger seat and waiting for Jesus to drive you to the right place.  It’s like taking the wheel, inviting Jesus to ride along, and working out together where you want to go.  If one map doesn’t work so well, then try another. Have a conversation about what would work better and give it a try.

Those of you who have experienced good marriages know that the plan you started with isn’t the plan you followed.  Life happens along the way.  Your interests change.  You try new jobs. You learn better ways of communicating.  As you mature in your understanding of yourself, you mature in your relationship.  No one dictates what will happen for everyone; you work it out together.  Following Jesus is working out your life in conversation with him and with all the ways God speaks through people and circumstances so we can hear.  We don’t always know where we’re going – but we know who we’re going with.

Long ago a young teacher told me that the problems of troubled youth would all be solved if we just posted the 10 commandments in the classroom and made everyone follow them.  Jesus was very familiar with the 10 commandments, but when people asked him about the law, he didn’t quote the 10.  Instead he said, “Love God.  Love your neighbor.  Love yourself.” I always thought that what troubled youth needed more was someone to love them, take them seriously and ask them where they wanted to go in life.   Loving relationships don’t follow a formula; they evolve in conversation.  Wirzba reminds us that Christianity isn’t following the rules – a map – it’s a way of life – a journey taken in company with God.

Jesus is God’s love made personal and real in our lives.  If we are going to follow him, we’re going to have to watch for where love shows up.  We’re going to have to let love direct us.  We’re going to have to work out together how to be love in the world.  Following Jesus as the way means waking up each day ready to see where love will take you.  How love will show up when you need it.  Who you will become when you let love guide you.  The way isn’t a rulebook or a roadmap, it’s a process.  It’s a journey you share, and Jesus is willing to share it with you if you ask him to. 

Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 6:46-47

To say “our kinde Lord” was to say “our kin Lord.”  Jesus the Lord is our kin.  The kind Lord is kin to me, you, all of us – making us one.  This is a subversive deconstruction of the image of kingdo and kings, replacing forever the pretensions and politics of earthly kingdoms with Jesus’s calling forth a kin-dom.  King, kind, kin.

-  Diana Butler Bass, Freeing Jesus (p. 150)

Let’s review the ways Diana Butler Bass has suggested we might understand Jesus now that we’ve passed the half-way point in our series.  We’ve considered Jesus as friend and as teacher.  Last week we thought about Jesus as Savior, and suggested that meant not that we were “saved” from the world into heaven, but that the world was redeemed so we lived in community in a new, more holistic way.  This week we’re asked to examine what it might mean to say, “Jesus is Lord.”  In the first century, this was a claiming of the common phrase “Caesar is Lord” which would have been required of everyone in the Empire.  Caesar was the one and only ruler, whose will and every whim were followed.  He was seen as becoming divine because he was so worthy to rule over everyone.  When Christians said instead, “Jesus is Lord,” they were giving their ultimate loyalty to Jesus.  Some of them died for saying it publicly.

We are inclined to hear “Jesus is Lord” as the equivalent of saying “Jesus is Caesar.”  Not only does Jesus take first place in our lives, but he takes it in the same way Caesar ruled the Empire. He should replace Caesar as ruler.  That would indeed have been treasonous, and surely the phrase was understood that way in the first century, too.  But that’s not the only Christian way to understand Jesus as Lord.  Bass quotes Julian of Norwich as calling Jesus “our kinde Lord” using the middle English word “Kinde” to describe Jesus.  You’ll recognize the connection to our contemporary word kinde.  Even more than just being nice or “kind,” the word describes Jesus as being the merciful and just one who connects us as one family.  We’ve sometimes used prayers from the UCC worship resources which replaces the word “kingdom” with the phrase “kin-dom,” and “kinde” carries that connotation.  Jesus is the one who makes us “kin” and when we follow him we are related, one people, one community.

These are two very different options for understanding Jesus as Lord.  A powerful ruler, imposing his will on everyone versus the one who claims our loyalty because of his kindness and goodness, who unites us as one.  Bass doesn’t comment on the issue of Christian Nationalism in the context of Jesus as Lord because her book was written in 2021, when we weren’t focused on the rise of Christian Nationalism, but the difference in the ways of understanding Jesus as Lord illuminate the difference between following Jesus and being a Christian Nationalist.  Christian Nationalists say “Jesus is Lord,” meaning that Jesus should rule the earth, or at least our nation, as the supreme leader. It’s a claim of power.  It suggests that only those who follow Jesus are right and all others must sign on to being Christian, or at least agree to follow the Christian rules.  For some in that movement the rules include male superiority, white supremacy, the primacy of the oligarchs and wealth, the end of programs which help people who might be ill, or poor, or struggling in favor of rewarding those who seem successful – even though no one really succeeds without a little help.  This Jesus IS Caesar.  He’s in charge and he’s rewarding those loyal to him with wealth and power.  The problem is, this is a Jesus made in the image of those who worship wealth and power and not anything like the Jesus who lived and taught before the birth of Christianity.

That Jesus said things Christian Nationalists find disgusting:
Love your neighbor.
Welcome the stranger.
Share your food and clothing and shelter with those who are without.
Use power to help others. Do justice.

These are the principles the first Jesus followers practiced in their kin-dom because it’s the way he taught them to live.

Saying “Jesus is Lord” isn’t about changing who is in charge – Jesus instead of Caesar.  It’s about changing what being in charge means.  We follow Jesus’ principles rather than living by the values of the world.  Jesus is Lord is about being kind and merciful.  It’s about having compassion for people rather than judging their circumstances and dismissing their pain.  It’s about sharing bread and work and economic equity.  It’s about practicing peace, turning the other cheek, and forgiving.

Christian nationalists want the United States to be a Christian nation by giving Christians, especially white, male, straight Christins, the upper hand.  Those who follow Jesus practice living the way he showed us to live.  Then the nation, or all nations,  become fair and just and loving – a good place for everyone.  And if folks want to call that way of life Christian, so be it.  But if they want to call it Jewish or Moslem or Buddhist or humanist – that’s ok too, as long as the values are shared and benefit everyone.  Jesus isn’t Lord in order to make rich white Americans the best game in town.  Jesus earns authority among us by showing us the best way to live. We say, we’re part of his kin-dom because he’s inviting us all to this good life.  He becomes our Lord by helping us create the world which works for us all. 

Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 2:10-11

We often thing of being “saved” as being rescued and when it comes to Jesus as Savior, the popular conception is one of Jesus snatching believers from the perils of hell.  Jesus saves us by taking us to heaven.  That is not, however, what the word “salvation” means.  The word “salvation” comes from the Latin salvus, which originally referred to being made whole, uninjured, safe, or in good health.  Salvus was not about being taken out of this life; it was about this life being healed.  In this sense, salvus perfectly describes the biblical vision of God’s justice and mercy, peace and wellbeing, comfort and equanimity.  This is the dream of a saved earth – one where oppression ends, mercy reigns, violence ceases to exist, and all live safely under their own “vine and fig tree.”  Jesus the Savior is the one who brings this dream to reality; he is peacemaker, light of justice and the good physician.  Jesus saves in all these ways and more.

-   Diana Butler Bass, Freeing Jesus (76-77)

We’re working our way through Diana Butler Bass’s book Freeing Jesus in order to discover a number of ways it’s possible to understand Jesus as someone who finds him important and wants to follow him.  Sometimes we think there’s just one way to understand Jesus – the RIGHT way.  But Jesus lived as a real flesh-and-blood person in a particular moment in time, and that means that he, like all humans, was complicated and multi-faceted.  He lived in relationship to many different people, and none of those relationships was identical to others.  He was subject to moods, hunger and exhaustion, frustration and great joy.  Jesus was, and for many of us IS, real.  So when we describe in a variety of ways, we’re affirming his real-life complexity.  That also means that we aren’t looking for the “right” words to describe Jesus; we’re exploring options.  The ones which speak to us are right for us.  The ones which don’t speak to us may be right for others.  It’s possible to be historically inaccurate or way off-base, but we’re not looking to prove anyone wrong about Jesus – just to find meaning for ourselves.

In the chapter about Jesus as Savior, Bass tells the story of some of the many ways she understood “Savior” in her own lifetime.  Like many teens, she spent some time in an evangelical youth ministry in which the purpose of talking about Jesus was to help kids have a particular kind of salvation experience (accepting Jesus as Savior).  This kind of conversion can be life-changing and important.  It is, however, based on some assumptions about Jesus which don’t have to be universally accepted.  This kind of theology of salvation begins with the assumption that people need to be saved.  That there is a fatal flaw in humanity, a factor of birth since Adam and Eve began it all, which defines being human as being sinful.  Sin isn’t just actions or thoughts you DO; it’s the condition of who you ARE.  Step two in this line of thought reminds us that God is perfect and holy and HATES sin.  Therefore, as one woman explained to me, “God isn’t able to look at me because I’m so sinful.”  Because Jesus lived at a moment in time when many religions dealt with their gods by offering sacrifices, nice roasted meat or grain to show God how much they were loved and honored, Jesus death is seen as the sacrifice which takes away sin.  God requires death to overcome sin, and a perfect Jesus is the sacrifice that makes people right with God.  Those who believe in this explanation, get to go to heaven when they die as a reward, their sin having been forgiven.

This particular story line has become so prevalent in Christianity that we forget there are other options, options endorsed by people who consider themselves Christian.  For instance, not everyone believes in “original sin.”  Most folks agree that humans are quite capable of doing things wrong, but not everyone believes that means humans ARE wrong.  Humans also get things right, acting with love and compassion and selflessness.  And who says God requires that we get everything right?  Making mistakes and learning from them can be an important experience. 

The Bible is full of stories describing God as loving, compassionate and merciful.  So why isn’t it possible for God to forgive people and stay in relationship with people because God forgives?  Who says something must bleed or someone must die in order to purchase forgiveness.  I don’t know about you, but in my lifetime I’ve forgiven some folks just because I wanted to.  It seems like God should have the same option.

During his years of ministry, in the stories we read about Jesus in the Bible, we often hear him tell people they are forgiven.  We see him invite people into a new way of living.  We watch him teach people new ways to live in community.  Jesus didn’t wait until after he was dead to give people new life.  He lived in a new way WITH people every day.  Bass suggests that this healing of the world and forming of community is also a way of being saved.  It’s a way of finding new life together.  Jesus is the savior who shows us how to heal the world, care for one another, reshape society to be just and merciful.  In her understanding Jesus saves us by including us in this new way of living, and we don’t have to wait for heaven to come in order to experience it.  We work it out together and enjoy it now.  We read in scripture how many groups of people formed Jesus communities and enjoyed salvation by caring for one another.  They said, “Jesus lives among us.”  They told their friends they have found new life.  Jesus is our Savior not just because we agree to words about him at one point in time, but also because we can spend a lifetime learning how to live from him and with him.  That’s an expression of God’s love for us, our love for God and each other.

World Communion Sunday

You call me teacher and Lord, and you are right, for that is what I am. 

- John 13:13

Jesus was a sage, a teacher of wisdom.  Regularly addressed as “teacher” during his lifetime by followers, opponents and interested inquirers alike, he has been hailed by subsequent generations of Christians as more than a teacher, as indeed he was.  Nevertheless, he was not less than a teacher….Jesus was not primarily a teacher of either correct beliefs or right morals.  Rather, he was a teacher of a way or path, specifically a way of transformation.  – Marcus Borg, Jesus: A New Vision

This fall we are working our way through the book Freeing Jesus by Diana Butler Bass, in which she explores some of the ways people may understand who Jesus is.  Last week we considered what it means to call Jesus friend.   I hope you’ve been thinking about that from time to time during the week.  This week we’re asked to think of Jesus as teacher, a title he gave himself.  In fact, of the 90-some times Jesus is given a title in the gospels, about 2/3 of them are some form of the title teacher.

What does that title “teacher” mean to you?  Someone who is knowledgeable?  Authoritative? Demanding? Interesting or boring?  One stereotype is the teacher who pours knowledge into students.  I picture college students frantically trying to write down lectures word-for-word so they can repeat them on exams.  I suspect that’s an out-of-date image in the age of technology!  My daughter is a teacher of special needs elementary students.  Her current project is teaching kindergarteners how to behave so a classroom can function.  Her rules include don’t bite, swear, kick or punch others.  That seems like a good starting point.  Some of Jesus’ teaching recorded in the scriptures would include ways to behave and basic knowledge about God.  But Marcus Borg reminds us that Jesus’ primary purpose wasn’t correct belief or right behavior.

Think instead of those teachers you have found most inspiring.  The ones who asked the best open-ended questions.  The ones who assigned research projects that led to more questions than answers.  Teachers who were comfortable with rousing debate in class and were able to share basic knowledge AND invite you into the mysterious complexities of their chosen fields.  That comes closer to the kind of teacher Jesus was. 

The word often used for teacher in reference to Jesus is “rabbi” or “rabbouni” (which means “my rabbi”). When we hear that word, we think of Jewish rabbis today – the men and women who function much the same as Christian pastors.  They are indeed teachers, and administrators, and counselors and comforters.  That image places Jesus in the synagogue, and there are stories of Jesus teaching people gathered in local synagogues.  But in Jesus’ moment in history, there wasn’t a rabbinical tradition.  In fact, Bass tells us that Jesus is the first person called “rabbi” in written literature.  He wasn’t adopting a traditional role of leadership, but was forging something new.  He wasn’t the guardian of a body of knowledge to be share, but was a radical re-interpreter (along with others beginning this new role), crafting what came next when the priests who had been the religious leaders for centuries no longer played that role.  Soon after Jesus’ death the Temple in Jerusalem would be gone and the rabbis would rise to prominence.  Jesus helped begin that movement.

Jesus had knowledge of life and of God and shared it freely, but his teaching wasn’t a catechism or fixed body of knowledge you could memorize and hold the right answer.  His sayings were gems of truth, but they were designed to make you think what they might mean in your own context.  His parables or stories often turned things upside down, and even today those who read them find many layers of meaning in them. 
                “The kingdom of heaven is like a woman who hides yeast in flour and bakes bread.”
                  “Your neighbor is the outcast who becomes your caregiven.”
                  “God is like the shepherd who misplaces a sheep.”
We’ve all struggled to decide what these stories are really about.

Most of all, I think, Jesus taught by example.  “Come with me,” he said, “and I’ll show you the reign of God.”  Then he demonstrated boundless trust, incredible compassion, miraculous healing, anger at injustice, enduring patience, unquenchable hope.  Being with Jesus was a series of teachable moments in which people became like him by living with him.  That’s still true today.  When we are “with” him through stories, through mystical connection, or through his body the Church, we become like him.  He shapes us.  And we shape him.  That’s what a teaching relationship means.  We continue to grow together as we learn to love God and neighbor in a changing world. 

Because this is World Communion Sunday, we might add a little bit to Dr. Bass’s book and acknowledge that Jesus is our special teacher and also one among many teachers who have improved the world.  Jesus himself was shaped by the prophetic tradition of a thousand years of Jewish development.  He shaped the teaching of Mohammed, who knew and treasured the knowledge of Jews and Christians he met in his trading journeys.  We are blessed by the teachings of the Buddhists, the Taoists, the climate scientists, the medical researchers, the poets and the musicians.  We are part of a big beautiful world, rich in many traditions and cultures, all of which have wisdom to offer.  Jesus would have and still does welcome that diversity as we travel together seeking the best ways to love God and one another.  There is always more to learn!

Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 7:33-34

“Close friendship is made up of three things:  somebody to talk to, someone to depend on, and someone to enjoy.” 

- William Rawlins

 Welcome to week two of our sermon series following the outline of the book Freeing Jesus by Diana Butler Bass.  Last week we started with Jesus’ question “Who do you say that I am?”  I want to remind you that this isn’t a quiz and we’re not looking for the one right answer, or even the three best answers.  The question isn’t, “Who is Jesus?” but rather “Who is Jesus to you?”  That question might have several answers, many of which change over time.

Today we’re exploring Jesus as friend, as one of the options Bass chooses because they speak to her.  I wonder if you have, at some time in your life, thought of Jesus as your friend.  Bass reports a time in her childhood at Sunday School looking atht a painting of Jesus welcoming children when she felt that Jesus was her childhood friend.  Reading this chapter this week I was reminded of the time when I first decided to enter ministry.  I was quizzed by many groups about why I felt called to do that.  I had forgotten that my answer at the time was that I wanted people to know  that Jesus is their friend.  It brought back a time when I understood Jesus to be my companion in life and my trusted support system – not a bad understanding at all.

To think of Jesus as our friend, we need to remember what friendship means, and what it doesn’t.  What do you expect of your closest friends?  A listening ear?  Someone to have your back through thick and thin?  A person who care deeply for you?  How about someone who’s fun to be with? Or someone who makes you laugh out loud?  All of those are good reasons to think of Jesus as a friend.  Here’s a not-so-good reason:  Jesus solves all our problems and takes away all our troubles.  I realized as I wrote that that we’re singing a song at the end which says just that.  It’s an oldy-goldy so we’re going to sing it anyway.  But Jesus doesn’t do that for us.  Life happens, whether we believe in Jesus or not, and not all of it is joyful.  It would be too bad if we expected Jesus’ friendship to mean that he made everything easy for us, because when we struggle, we might give up on Jesus.  We don’t do that for our other friends.  We don’t blame our friends for the things that go wrong in life, so why would we blame Jesus or turn away when life is hard?

Our second reading today suggests that friendship means three things:  somebody to talk to, someone to depend on, and someone to enjoy.  Talking to Jesus can look like prayer, or it can be pouring your heart out as you think though a tough situation.  That’s easier if you have a sense that you can depend on Jesus to listen and to care.  That’s a big part of faith – believing that God/Jesus is paying attention with compassion and understanding. The third part may be a new idea for us – enjoying Jesus/enjoying God.

The enjoyment part is what Jesus and the disciples modeled.  We see them travelling together, eating together, maybe laughing together, always telling stories.  That same kind of friendship is what we’ve learned to see in the first century church:  people gathering, eating and drinking, working through problems together, protecting each other when they could.  Most of all, following Jesus meant having a good time with friends.  I think it still does.

As you think about Jesus as friend in the days ahead, consider especially this idea of enjoying each other.  The Bible is full of stories that suggest God loves us, not to control us, but to enjoy being with us.  What does it mean if God isn’t just some cosmic kind of love, but a being who likes us, wants to be with us, laughs at the Joke of the Day, feels great when we pull off a big project.  What if Jesus is the kind of friend that wonders what adventure we’ll think of next and can’t wait to have that with us?  That feels more real, more approachable to me.  We surely benefit from being friends with Jesus, and perhaps he benefits from being friends with us.

That kind of friendship brings people together for good.  Bass talks about her roots in the Society of Friends – the Quakers.  They were committed to seeing all people of the world as friends, and to connecting with people heart to heart.  When you see everyone as a friend, then you treat people with respect and dignity. We can think of friendship with Jesus not as just a one-to-one relationship, something that benefits us personally, but also as a friendship that connects all the peoples of the world.  How many of our current frustrations with how the country is going would be shifted if we all treated each other as friends.  One of our communion songs reminds us that “strangers now are friends.”  It may be easy to think ill of or mistrust a stranger, but not a friend.

Bass suggests that friendship between two people is very nice, but it has little impact on the world.  On the other hand, friendship that spanned hundreds or even millions of people would have an impact.  She says, “changes everything.”  I suspect that’s the kind of friend Jesus wants to be.  Someone who know everybody and can’t wait to introduce us so we know them too.  Someone who wants to be there for everyone and bring the whole world together, one people, working for a common good, enjoying life across every boundary.  Having Jesus as a friend is most real when it means we’re friends with everyone.

Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost

It’s fall, and that means it’s time for us to begin a new focus as we finish the church year.  Several weeks ago I came across the book Freeing Jesus by Diana Butler Bass.   Bass tells the story of  her praying one day in a side chapel at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., near her home.  She knelt before a painting of Jesus that was familiar to her, but her usual prayers seemed blocked that day.  After some time of nothing, she recalls hearing a voice saying, “Get me out of here.”  Although no human was near, she heard again, “Get me out of here.”  Eventually she became convinced that she was “hearing” the voice of Jesus, and she came to believe that she was to write about Jesus and who he is, beyond the traditional “churchy” teaching about his life.  She tells this story in the introduction to her book and the scripture she chooses for that introduction is the one we read in Matthew 16. 

 Mattew 16:13-16, 20

When Jesus arried in the villages of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “What are people saying about who the Son of Man is?” 
They replied, “Some think he is John the Baptizer, some say Elijah, some Jeremiah or one of the other prophets.”
He pressed them, “And how about you?  Who do you say I am?”
Simon Peter said, “You’re the Christ, the Missiah, the Son of the living God.”…
Jesus swore the disciples to secrecy.  He made them promise they would tell no one that he was the Messiah.

We can read about possible answers to the question, “Who do people say that I am?”  The answers in Matthew include several dead prophets, telling us that people heard the voice of the prophets in Jesus’ teaching.  When Jesus asks the disciples, “But who do YOU say tat I am?”  We get Peter’s answer recorded, “You are the Messiah.”  That answer holds hopes of political and spiritual change, of remaking the known world, of the presence of God entering forcefully into their lives.  When we read it in the Bible, it has the sense of being the one “right” answer.  Jesus is the Messiah, even if we don’t really know all that meant to first century Jews or even what it means now.

I decided about six weeks ago that we’d “read” this book this fall, and like so often happens, I had no idea that it would have particular relevance beyond being interesting to consider.  Then last week Charlie Kirk was murdered and we began to hear that he is a Christian martyr and we must all salute his amazing message of faith, especially his desire to imbed this faith and his politics in our nation’s youth.  Kirk’s death is a great tragedy and certainly a call for us to reduce gun violence in our country.  He should not have been killed.  But as he filled the news, his teachings were repeated over and over.  They gave me a profound sense that when Charlie Kirk answered Jesus’ question, “Who do you say that I am?” he was wrong.  His politics and his faith and his Jesus bear no resemblance to the Jesus I know.  That reminds me of how many times I’ve chosen scriptures for worship and had them mean much more in the moment they appear on the calendar than they would have when they were chosen.  Diana Butler Bass is going to help us understand how there can be such vastly different understandings of Jesus and what his life means.  Charlie Kirk, Diana Butler Bass, each one of us…we’re going to answer the question about Jesus over the next few weeks.

Bass reminds us that over 100 years ago Bible scholars began to distinguish between the Jesus of history – a Palestinian Jew who lived under first century Roman occupation – and the Christ of faith – a Messiah that 2000 years of church theology has given particular meanings to.  One is a person of significance; the other is a way of understanding God.  They are related, but not identical.  And both are obscure.  We can’t track down the historical details with any certainty.  We can’t understand the theology without it being colored by the experiences of the people who first suggested its truth and by our own experiences of faith.

Hear how Bass describes this in her life:

(From Freeing Jesus: Rediscovering Jesus as Friend, Teacher, Savior, Lord, Way and Presence. Diana Butler Bass)

Understanding the Jesus of history has proved helpful (and even life-giving) for me; and I appreciate the theological traditions surrounding the Christ of faith.  Yet neither historical scholarship nor conventional doctrine quite captures who Jesus is for me – the skepticism bred by one and the submissiveness inculcated by the other do not fully tell the story of the Jesus I know: the Jesus of experience. Well before I studied Jesus the Jewish peasant or worshipped Christ the King, I knew Jesus.  Even as a small child, I knew his name.  I had a sense of his companionship.  I knew he was the heart of Christian faith.  Although I now understand both history and theology, neither intellectual arguments nor ecclesial authority elucidates the Jesus I have known.

Over the next few weeks we’re going to let Bass help us explore six ways she finds meaning in the life of Jesus:  friend, teacher, savior, Lord, way and presence.  Each time we consider one of these, we’re also going to ask, “Is this a way that Jesus has meaning for me?”  I suspect no two of us will have the same responses.  Jesus was never meant simply to be an object of faith to get right.  From soon after the moment of his death his disciples began to insist, “He is alive.”  And so we cannot any one of us say who Jesus is without also saying how we encounter Jesus alive in our own lives.  How does he live among us?  Who do WE say that he is?

Bass continues:

My story can never be your story…But my story might inform yours, or be like yours, or maybe even add depth or another dimension to yours.  If nothing else, sharing our stories might lead to greater understanding, tolerance, appreciation, and perhaps even celebration of our differences.  (Introduction)

As we begin this journey, I want to say, “Jesus matters.”  At the outset, I don’t have a finished answer to the question, “Who is he?”  I feel in my bones that Charlie Kirk’s answer, while it may have held deep meaning for him, is not my answer.  There’s a part of me that wants to cry out NO! when I hear his ideas about what Jesus wants.  I know that Jesus has meant many things to me over my life, and I’m looking forward to reflecting on those along with our author and maybe adding to the list.  I hope you’ll come on this journey with me with an open mind, an open heart, a sense of more possibilities than you’ve considered before.  And I hope you’ll continue to ask the question of yourself, “Who do you say that I am?”  I’m pretty sure we’re going to find many possible answers, that we’ll discover a rich diversity of experience and thought, and that along the way we may be surprised by faith.

PRIDE Worship at Family of God

Luke 15:1-10

There are three stories in the Gospel of Luke about being lost – the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son.  We’ve heard two of them today and I’ll bet you know the third about the son who takes his inheritance and squanders it, until destitute he crawls back home and is welcomed. 

There’s a strong theme in Christianity about being lost, the remedy for which is being saved. You may be suspicious of me choosing this theme for PRIDE worship, simply because there are plenty of churches where you could hear a sermon about LGBTQ folk needing to get right with God and be saved – and at the same time denying their reality and their joy.  Don’t worry – we’re not going there. 

First I want you to notice that these stories are not about things or people who are missing.  They are about how excited a shepherd, a woman, a father and GOD are to be reunited after a separation. Follow that line of thought and we realize that when lostness ends, it’s not just the “found” one who benefits.  GOD rejoices!  There is joy and celebration attached to homecoming.   

For many years I’ve had a hunch about the theology of being lost. Mostly  I’d say it’s not possible.  How can anyone be lost from God, who is in all and is all?  The idea that we can be separated from God is impossible.  I’ll give you that we can feel separated from God, indifferent to God, unaware of God.  I think of it like this.  At a certain age my grandchildren become very independent.  They think they can do things for themselves!  Most of them insist that they are grown up and capable.  They make me hide my eyes while they draw a picture or pour their own milk.  Mostly, I try not to peek.  But that doesn’t mean I’m not intensely interested in what they are doing or that if they changed their mind and asked for help I wouldn’t be right on it.  How could God care about us any less than a mere grandma?  We often think we’re on our own, but that’s an illusion.  At any moment we’re willing to accept it, all the help and support in the world is available to us…from God, from the community of God’s people, from those who care about making life better for everyone.  He celebration is for us, because we’re connecting, because life is better when we’re in it. 

We can never be lost from God.  But I chose this scripture for PRIDE because I think all too often we are lost from ourselves.  We’re disconnected from who we are, how we want to be.  At some point in life this is true for almost everybody.  We find ourselves playing the wrong sport or the wrong instrument.  We are stuck in the wrong job, doing things we hate because we need the money or somebody told us they thought we’d be good at it.  We end up in wrong relationships – romantic relationships we don’t know how to improve or end; friendships that don’t support us; co-workers that treat us badly.  When we are lost from the core of our own being, it’s hard to find our way home.  Usually it takes someone who cares about us to walk along side us until we can find the way. 

The tragic truth about our current world, is that for many folk who identify as gay or lesbian, transgender, nonbinary, or any reality not in the current mainstream, there are often more roadblocks in the path than companions.  One reason it’s important to celebrate PRIDE is to change that. We are here to say that we’ll walk with anyone searching for their truth.  We’re here to say that every person has value for who they are, not only when they conform to social norms.  It’s possible to celebrate everyone. It’s our joy to help each person see their worth and claim their place among us.  And if someone is acting out because they’ve been put down and cast aside too long, then we can stick with them while they heal.  We can give them the safety they’ve been missing.  We can show them true friendship looks like. 

The church should be a place where everyone can try identify on for size to see if it fits.  A place where we can try out ways to be and things to do.  Are you a singer?  A quilter? An artist? A runner?  Do you love being single?  Or connected to a surprising partner? Do you want to do something you’re not very good at. Or never do something you do well again?  Life is full of so many possibilities.  Let’s claim all of them and hang on to what fits and what builds up community.  Let’s rejoice in the way God shows us each time someone comes a little closer to being home with themselves.  Let’s say loud and proud that no one deserves to be lost and it’s a celebration every time a person says, “This fits me.” 

God rejoices when the lost is found, because finding ourselves is worth celebrating.  It makes us proud and whole and holy. 

Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost

Didache 12:1-5; 2 Thessalonians 3:6-9

On this Labor Day Sunday, we’re honoring the request of national unions to celebrate Labor in the Pulpit.  That gives us an opportunity to acknowledge the important differences unions have made in American history.  Those of us who have only lived under fair labor laws, OSHA regulations and such need to remember that life in our country wasn’t always as safe and fair as we have known it.  Safety rules, the five-day work week and 8-hour day, the right to bargain for fair wages workers compensation for injuries, benefits including healthcare, sick leave, vacation days and holidays – these can be taken for granted as a way of life, but they haven’t always been so, and for some people they still aren’t a reality.  The work that unions have done on our behalf and that government has supported when it supported unions matters.  And it matters when we see many of those rights eroding in this moment as contracts are ignored and workers’ rights threatened.

In that context, we read our two scripture passages, both written in the first century BCE in similar communities of Jesus’ followers.  Both the Didache and the second letter to the church in Thessalonica show concern with people travelling through and needing to work.  Although it’s unlikely that Paul himself wrote 2nd Thessalonians, the author was familiar with Paul’s practice of staying several months or more with churches he was founding and supporting himself as a tentmaker while he was in town.  He worked for his livelihood and taught about Jesus after hours. 

The Didache is a training manual for early Christian communities and introduces us to the reality that these communities served as hostels  ar BNB’s for many who followed Jesus and were traveling through.  Scholars suggest that many of these folks could have been escaped slaves, men released from debtors’ prison, or those fleeing violence in their villages.  The Didache presumes that many travelers who needed to stay more than a couple of days before moving on to a farther destination were healing from some trauma.  The community could well want to provide a safe place for these folks, but they needed a plan to do so without them bankrupting people who were mostly themselves poor.  They are encouraged to make a plan:  who can employ these people as an apprentice, or give them space in the corner of a shop to use a skill they already have?  How can they lend an extra hand to someone already in business while they are getting their feet on the ground?

The need for people to work isn’t only economic, although certainly if people were going to eat, they needed to contribute to the grocery bill.  People who have lost everything need to know they still have value.  Finding a skill and earning a living is healing to a broken heart.  Becoming a productive member of the community gives a person dignity and hope.  Having work and purpose is good for everyone.  Just like in our day, helping people find work is rehabilitative.

Over our lifetimes the meaning of work and its social reality have shifted.  Once among the middle class mostly the men worked for pay and the women took care of the family.  Before that many families were farmers and everyone worked to be sure the family ate and was clothed.  Those at the lowest income levels have always worked, needing two incomes or more to cover the basics.  We’ve watched the workforce become more diverse and inclusive.  We’re watching now as hundreds of thousands of workers are arrested and deported, not knowing what that will do to industry and business.  Some folks assume that those who don’t work are lazy, without considering shortcomings in training or health care or mental health treatment.  When most of the population lived in very small towns, people divided up the jobs that needed doing and each worker played an important role.  When towns became much larger and less personal, there weren’t always jobs in places where there were people.  Our town struggles with some workers without transportation being able to get to where the jobs happen.  Some who want to work have no affordable child care. I suspect that we’re at a new inflection point and we’re going to see many changes in just a few years.  Will the minimum wage become a living wage?  Will everyone receive benefits that make work possible – sick leave, health insurance, retraining as new skills are needed?

With more questions than answers about the world of work, it’s good for us to celebrate the people who stand up for workers, like the unions.  We need the people who ask the important questions and suggest helpful solutions.  If we’re going to see big changes, we need to work together to push those changes in positive directions.  We could use a little out-of-the-box thinking about what workers deserve, how we all benefit from various skills and jobs, and how to thank those who do work we would never want to do ourselves.  I’ve long wanted to celebrate Labor Day and unions by recognizing the importance of the work that we do – real jobs for real people – so today we’re going to do that.  If you got the word in advance and have brought a symbol of your own work, great.  We’ll take turns creating a work display on the alter.  Please say a few words about the work you’ve chosen to celebrate and why.  If you don’t have an object, please join us in celebrating by sharing just the words.  What matters to you about what you do for a living or as a volunteer.  We can take our time and enjoy these stories.  When we finish we’ll pray the prayer provided by the AFL-CIO and enjoy Ron’s music as a finale.

Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

Isaiah 58:6-14

For the people Isaiah was addressing in today’s scripture, God had proved to be unfaithful.  They had been conquered, taken into exile far from home.  “What did we do wrong?” they asked.  Did we not make enough sacrifices?  Did we not sing enough psalms or offer the right prayers?  Like many of the prophets in the Hebrew scriptures, Isaiah tells the people that the rituals of religion are not a payment for God’s favor.  Saying prayers, making burnt sacrifices, keeping all the rules about being religious don’t guarantee an easy life.  God isn’t impressed with external trappings, but cares deeply about matters of the heart.

If you want to live a good life in a prosperous country, create a good life in a country where everyone prospers.  Isaiah tells the people what matters:  justice, fairness, economic opportunity for everyone.  Before first Israel and later Judah were conquered by invading nations, their prophets had warned them about income inequality, the rich exploiting the poor, those with comfortable lives ignoring those who struggled to put food on the table.  If you don’t stand for justice, they said, you will fall.  And fall they did.

Jesus knew the prophets and internalized their message until it formed his very core.  Then he repeated it in his day.  He told those with power that they weren’t going to get ahead by cooperating with Roman occupiers or exploiting workers or sharecroppers to line their own pockets.  He denounced those who didn’t care when children had no bread or adults had no work.  He repeated the message of ancient prophets:  If you want to live a good life, create a life that’s good by your daily actions.

The first century followers of Jesus weren’t able to change the ways of Empire around them, so they created communities of people who lived by Jesus’ values in spite of Empire.  They focused on ways to love their neighbor – sharing food, giving shelter, offering food.  They learned to tell the truth in their dealings with each other.  They cultivated generosity.  They protected people from the harm of Empire as much as they could.  They still had to deal with the hardships of first century Empire, but they also lived lives of joy and purpose.  They believed they were living in God’s reign in spite of also living in Caesar’s reign.

I love the ways we are growing into creating a first-century community in our own time.  We even use some Isaiah-like vocabulary when we talk about being light in the world.  We take seriously the fact that people need food and shelter.  Right now we’re working with other churches and agencies to help a man who is camping in a storage unit.  He would qualify for housing vouchers, but first he must pay over $4300 in past-due rent.  Together we’re going to pay that bill.  Housing will give him stability and allow him to access food assistance and medical care.  Helping one person doesn’t solve the problem of people without homes, but it does plant a seed of hope that the problem can be addressed.  It makes a public statement that the problem of homelessness belongs to the whole community, not just people having a hard time.  It says we look forward to the time when enough realities shift that people in financial trouble get redirection before they fall in a hole so deep they can’t get out.  When housing is affordable and medical care doesn’t bankrupt families.  Shelter, food, medical care, work -these belong not just to the rich and powerful but to the community and we get to decide how it’s shared to benefit everyone.  When we center justice and dignity in the heart of who we are, then we create a God-like community in which everyone can participate. We make the love of God and the reign of God visible every day in our everyday lives.

Our passage today mentions the Sabbath.  In Isaiah’s time and Jesus’ time there were lots of rules about how Sabbath was observed.  Rules about not cooking or walking or working.  People hoped that keeping the rules would earn them a reward.  Prophets tell us that keeping rules isn’t the same as being holy, being steeped in the heart of God from the inside out.  You can keep every rule and not be kind or just or generous.  But you can’t be filled with the presence of God and not be kind or just or generous.  Good deeds don’t count unless they come from your heart and your heart beats in tune with God’s love.  Lots of people want to keep the letter of the law and earn credits toward heaven.  Jesus tried to show us that living the SPIRIT of the law creates heaven right now.  In his day, keeping the Sabbath meant not doing everyday things on the sabbath day.  Instead he wanted people to make every day a day to put God’s love into action. The sabbath was meant to help people focus on God by resting.  But when the needs around us are so great, we focus on God by helping and caring.  When God’s love flows through us, even though we are working to help others, we’re resting in God. And when we physically rest from that work, we know we are that much more connected with God.

I’m not telling you today that until we fix everything that’s wrong with the world, we can’t rest.  Or that every problem needs to be your personal problem.  I am telling you that we have the privilege of seeing the world through God’s eyes, and that allows us to see some ways that we can bring love to a few folks.  We do what we can, when we can, but God allows us to see both a need and a solution. By being God’s hands in this bit of the world, we find God’s joy, we see God’s hope and we rest in knowing we’ve made a difference.  We are creating God’s reign in partnership with all those who allow God’s Spirit to move through them into this holy life.  Watch for it, and you will see it.

Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

Hebrews 11:29-12:2

 from Loves Braided Dance by Norman Wirzba, p. 150

Hope is born when people come together and commit to the nurture of each other and their shared places. Hope lives in the diverse forms of “love’s braided dance covering the world.” The braiding of lives in the joining of hands is the fundamental need of our existence. Hands reaching out, hands cradling another, hands clasping hands, hands offering comfort and support, hands protecting and building, hands nudging and releasing, hands cheering another on - gestures like these demonstrate our shared vulnerability and self-insufficiency, but also our fidelity to and our desire to live for each other. When we intentionally join together, we communicate, however inchoately, our conviction that the future is worth working toward together. Hope is the power that propels people to give themselves to the care and celebration of life with fellow creatures.

Today’s passage from Hebrews is a long list of heroes and sheroes from ancient times up to the moment it was written.  It’s a catalogue of the important people who made up the history of Israel plus some recent (at that time) martyrs who stood up for the faith.  Because this was a violent thousand years in history, it’s a bloody and violent list.  But it’s also a hopeful list – these people stood up to the tyrants of their day and prevailed.  It’s a list meant to encourage folks living in tough times that they can make it through.

The Bible as we know it was gathered from the stories people were telling about the heroes of their past and written down when the times were especially hard…after the northern kingdom of Israel fell to the Assyrians in 722 BCE, after the southern kingdom of Judah fell to the Babylonians in 587 BCE, after the Greeks conquered the new Israel in 333 BCE.  Whenever the nation was in danger of extinction, scholars and priests gathered their history so people could remember who they were – God’s people.  Telling stories of the past help a people remember their values and their identity.  During the sometimes violent opposition to Christianity in the first and second centuries, authors like those who wrote the book of Hebrews reminded people of their heritage as a way of helping them claim their faith and their commitment to the new way of living taught by Jesus.

It's important for us in this moment in time to remember that this heritage is also our heritage, as well as the many stories of our nation’s founding and evolving into a nation of values today.  We need to keep telling those stories so that we can hold strong to our values, and so we can acknowledge mistakes and build a better future.  We remember the founding fathers and the women who were their partners; those who fought to end slavery; those who fought against aggression in the 20th century; Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks and John Lewis and so many more who were the freedom fighters of the civil rights movement; those who settled the prairies; those who struggled to maintain Native culture in the face of settlement; those who speak out against climate change; those who resist authoritarianism in our moment. Some are trying to erase that history in an effort to redefine greatness by values different from equality or opportunity for all. They are trying to erase the mistakes we made so that we can no longer learn from them.  We can’t let that happen.

So it’s important that we name folks who are our mentors and our heroes, whether they are famous or whether they’re just folks around our family tables.  Who would you name who inspires you by the story of their courage and persistence?...

Remembering our ancestors and their courage is a part of our faith heritage.  It’s worth insisting on our right to do that.  Norm Wirzba reminds us that one of the keys of our past is when people stood up for one another.   When people called out injustice or acted with compassion toward one another.  Jesus was all about forming communities where people practiced living by the rule of love.  That practice is just as important today as it’s ever been.  We are living our faith when we insist that love be our guiding principle.  It’s love that helps us stick together and say, “times are hard but we have each other.”  It’s love that calls out mass deportation or unequal incarceration or the ending of health care or whatever as wrong.  It’s love that prays for those who are ill or struggling and makes spaghetti sauce (like Victoria did for me in the middle of my 3-day garage sale marathon). 

Here are two strands that braided together make us stronger:

• Remembering our history and that folks have made it through hard times before, even becoming better for it.

• Hanging on to each other with compassion and support no matter what each day brings.

We do both of these things because they work and they remind us that God is with us through whatever our moment brings us.  People have believed that for 3000 years, and we can believe it now.  And then we can live in that confidence and that hope one day at a time.

Ninth Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 12:29-40

Let’s put today’s scripture into the context that Luke gives it when he edits his gospel:  Jesus has been teaching the crowds about income inequality.  The stories that precede this one are about the greed of rich and powerful people.  In particular, a wealthy landowner has so much grain that he has no bins in which to store it.  So rather than returning some of the grain to the struggling farmers who grew it, he tears down his small bins and builds big ones.  There his excess grain can be stored, where he can see it and be glad of how much he has.  The twist of the story is that the landowner dies suddenly in the night and all his wealth hasn’t saved him from mortality.

In Jesus’ day income inequality was everywhere.  There were a few men who owned the land and everything it produced – grain, wine, sheep, fish.  They had more than enough for a comfortable life of feasting with their rich and powerful friends.  Most of the people worked for these landowners as farmers, fisherfolk, servants, day-laborers.  They literally didn’t know where their next meal is coming from. If the landowners had shared, there was enough food for everyone.  In practice, most people were hungry.  Jesus is speaking against that injustice.

He tells the crowd that wealth doesn’t come from possessions; it comes from participating in the reign of God in which everyone shares in the bounty God provides.  Wealth isn’t a bank balance, it’s an attitude toward life that sees the world and all her peoples filled with the goodness and the presence of God.

People practice living in God’s reign by being generous, confident that God will provide enough to share and still have what’s needed for life.  They live this way because they see God everywhere they turn.  God is in the opportunity to hire someone without work, give bread to someone without supper,  offer shelter to someone without a home.  Treasure isn’t in a bank balance, but in the experience of living in community with all God’s people and lightening the load some folks carry.

Jesus goes on to explain that they should expect to see God moving among them all the time and should live in anticipation of seeing God show up in unexpected places.  He says it’s like servants waiting for the master to come home from his honeymoon, staying up late so they won’t miss the arrival.  Those who are waiting are rewarded for their diligence.  The master shares the banquet leftovers with them and serves them, rather than expecting to be served. Being ready to serve each other is pretty much the point.

These days we’re encouraged to be vigilant…to watch out for undocumented folks trying to take advantage of us, to guard the national budget against people expecting food and health care without earning it, to report coworkers who dare to say something inclusive or accepting of others.  That’s no way to live.  Instead, Jesus tells us to be vigilant for the ways God’s love shows up as opportunities to help each other.  God shows up all the time.

• When the community fund spends a few dollars for life-saving medication…

• When the weeders pick up a neighbor’s branches downed by the storm…

• When we can cheer for the Boy Scouts…

• When you encourage a store clerk having a bad day…

We do Light Signs every week to remind us that we can see God in ordinary places every day, and seeing God there makes each day holy.

The first century folks were in a battle with the Empire over who got to define how life worked.  Was the Emperor in charge, making life scary and threatening?  Or was God in charge in spite of the Emperor, making life a beloved community where there were signs of love everywhere.  More and more we’re in the same kind of battle with a similar Empire.  Are we to see each day as a struggle to grab what we can from a world that’s out to take what’s rightfully ours?  Or are we to see opportunities to share God’s abundance with one another so everyone thrives?  Are we to see ourselves surrounded by enemies or encouraged by neighbors?  Are we to watch our backs or open our hearts?  Just like those who first followed Jesus, we get to choose how we’ll see the world and how we’ll respond to one another.  We can live in artificially created fear, or we can live in faith and confidence that God is good and Love Wins.

I saved this week’s extra reading for this spot because it talks about living in troubling times.  The book is The Impossible Will Take a Little While, a collection of essays about how even when times are tough, people can do good for one another.  This essay is The Optimism of Uncertainty by Howard Zinn.  I want you to hear the opening paragraphs:

In this awful world where the efforts of caring people often pale in comparison to what is done by those who have power, how do I manage to stay involved and seemingly happy?

Some quick lessons:  Don’t let “those who have power” intimidate you.  No matter how much power they have, they cannot prevent you from living your life, thinking independently, speaking your mind.

Find people to be with who share your values and commitments, and who also have a sense of humor.

Understand that the major media will not tell you of all the acts of resistance taking place every day in the society – the strikes, protests, individual acts of courage in the face of authority.  Look around for the evidence of these unreported acts.  And for the little you find, extrapolate from that and assume there must be a thousand times as much as you’ve found.

Note that throughout history people have felt powerless before authority, but that at certain times these powerless people, by organizing, acting, risking, persisting, have created enough power to change the world around them, even if a little.  That is the history of the labor movement, the women’s movement, the anti-Vietnam War movement, the disabled persons’ movement, the gay and lesbian movement, the movement of black people in the South.

Remember that those who have power and seem invulnerable are in fact quite vulnerable.  Their power depends on the obedience of others and when those others begin withholding that obedience, begin defying authority, that power at the top turns out to be very fragile.  Generals become powerless when their soldiers refuse to fight, industrialists become powerless when their workers leave their jobs or occupy the factories.

When we forget the fragility of that power at the top, we become astounded when it crumbles in the face of rebellion.  We have had many such surprises in our time, both in the United States and in other countries.

Don’t look for a moment of total triumph.  See engagement as an ongoing struggle, with victories and defeats, but in the long run slow progress.  So you need patience and persistence.  Understand that even when you don’t “win,” there is fun and fulfillment in the fact that you have been involved, with other good people, in something worthwhile.  You need hope.

In the first century people who followed Jesus looked their world square in the face and said no to greed and yes to community.  Now it’s our turn to see how our own Empire wants us to treat each other and to say “no”.  Instead we will share what God provides, see each person as God sees them, and believe in a world in which the kindom of God is growing among us every day.  Be ready, for God is working wonders among us and those who expect it to happen will see when it does.

Eighth Sunday after Pentecost

Colossians 3:1-13

Love is the action that creates the social and economic contexts in which life has the best chance to thrive.  Without love, the world literally falls apart. 

- Love’s Braided Dance,  Norman Wirzba

We started out this summer looking for clues about the faith values that inform us and help us explain what seems broken in our country and the world just now.  What is it that matters to us and to God that looks and acts differently from what’s in the news?  If we have a chance to explain what we think is the right way to act, what words frame that?

I don’t know about you, but I was pretty uncertain we’d find a clear answer.  Sometimes when nobody seems to be paying attention, it can feel like we’re crazy.  What seems obvious to us is so out of the mainstream; if it’s not obvious to everyone, ho can we describe what a healthy world and nation look like?

Now as we’re a couple of months into the project, it seems clearer to me.  The scriptures have been saying the same thing over and over:  love God, love your neighbor.  Behave in the most loving way possible and you’ll be living the life Jesus described.  Duh!  Seems easy.  Only it’s not.  If it were ever easy, we wouldn’t have multiple Bible books ranting about how people were supposed to put love into action.  Living from a core of love is hard, especially when the world around you is looking out for themselves, abusing power, taking advantage of others…

Today’s scripture is yet another list of what love looks like (or mostly what it’s not):  profanity, lust, self-serving, greed. Remember back when we read Corinthians?  Love is patient, kind, not jealous or boastful or rude, not insisting on its own way?  In the midst of an Empire that is anything but loving, it’s possible to think with the mind of love, act with the heart of love, speak words of love.

Over the centuries folks have been inclined to see these passages as rules.  Lay down enough rules and everything will be fine.  A teacher once told me she thought all kids’ problems would be solved if we just posted the 10 Commandments in the classroom and made them follow them.  Not my favorite teacher.  I’m inclined to say the classroom would be better if we loved kids enough to listen to their hurts and understand that life can be brutal.  Kids who don’t know they are loved anywhere else, need a school that loves them.

We all need people who love us, believe in us, encourage us, walk beside us.  People who don’t pay attention to the things we get wrong more than when we get it right.  People to try to become loving community with us. We can learn how to live lives centered in love if we do it together.

We’re reading from a new book today:  Love’s Braided Dance by Norman Wirzba.  Wirzba is the son of immigrant parents who survived the holocaust. He knows first hand how the world can break us, and how we can heal.   His book builds on Robin Wall Kimmerer’s work we’ve been reading so far this summer.  She tells us that nature shows us how to care for each other and work together to thrive. Wirzba names that natural phenomenon “love” and explores how love works when we believe enough to try to make it the heart of our living.

Love isn’t a rule, it’s a world-view.  It’s a super-power.  It’s the presence of all that’s holy in the thick of all that’s not holy.  Neal Donald Walsh tells us the most important question around any action is “What would love do?”  Marianne Williamson ran for President twice telling us that we needed to learn how to love each other.  Love isn’t some smarmy option that pretends everything is great.  Love is the strong power that sees what’s broken and still believes it can be healed.  That acknowledges that people aren’t all the same but believes we can still work together.  That stands up to bullies without giving up on them.  That takes what’s MINE and makes it OURS until we all have enough.  Love levels playing fields, sees human in every being. Love is God creating the world through us.

There’s a lot of talk about being Christian these days, but not necessarily a lot of talk aout following  Jesus. I was taught that being Christian wasn’t about what you did – earning God’s love – but about what you believed – that God loved you.  That’s true.  But it’s also about what you do – loving God and neighbor.  It’s not about posting rules, it’s about caring about everyone.  It’s not about being rewarded, it’s about gladly taking resources and spreading them around until everyone thrives.

We do need to be able to explain what the world looks like when it’s following Jesus – or Mohammed or any of God’s messengers who show us a good way.  But when people aren’t listening to words, we just need to be about living it.  Treat neighbors with respect and compassion.  Share food and medicine and rent money.  Speak kindly but clearly.  Smile often.  Tell jokes.  Break bread.

“Without love the world literally falls apart.” 

With love we can pick up the pieces and heal.