Fourth Sunday of Easter

Song of Solomon 2:10-13

The Thanksgiving Address of the Onondaga People

We are celebrating Earth Day today and our readings reflect that celebration.  This year our Wednesday Kids have been using materials provided by the Jane Goodall Foundation to think about ways they care for the earth and all creatures.  They have made toys and small blankets for cats and dogs at Circle of Friends Humane Society.  They are planning for a small garden of indigenous plants which have healing properties.  In the process they are learning that all creatures are interrelated and we have a responsibility for the health of this complex life system we call Earth.

The Thanksgiving address reminds us of the important ways Native peoples respect the Earth and the gifts we receive from her.  We benefit from their wisdom.  Their ancient practice of using the land for sustenance without owning land individually reflects the deep roots of the Judeo-Christian tradition.  Our oldest spiritual ancestors were nomadic herders who traveled looking for pasture and didn’t own land of their own.  When they were given land allotments, there were rules about allowing tilled land to lie fallow and rest every seven years, and about returning purchased land to its original owner every 70 years.  Custom held that the land was meant to feed everyone, so those who grew crops left the edges of their fields unharvested so those without land could glean grain there and feed themselves.

In our time some people use the biblical creation stories to say God has given Earth and all her resources to humans and therefore we have the right to use all the land, water, oil, or minerals we want, regardless of long-term consequences.  That’s not true to the Bible, to science, or to the good of all creatures.  Humans were entrusted with the care of the first garden on earth, an origin story which promotes the truth that Earth can only care for us if we care for her.  

This Earth Day we’re asked to think about the consequences of the growing use of plastics in our modern culture.  It’s difficult to purchase food without also buying plastic packaging.  Now we learn that microplastics are found in our water and soil, that we are consuming them daily without knowing it, and that the health of humans and all other species is being impacted by them.  The rise of plastic packaging came with the explosion of the use of oil as one of the most basic resources for life.  We often ignore the fact that fossil fuels are a finite resource and can be used up, just as we ignore the fact that their residue in chemicals and plastics may be with our descendants for countless generations.  

So people of faith are asked to be responsible in our use of resources.  That’s been a call in the background for almost all of my life, and still I manage to ignore it more than I pay attention.  It’s easy to agree to the theories of caring for Earth and harder to put principles into action.  I’m by no means an expert at that.  So today, I want us to think together about what Earth Day and Earth Care can mean for us.

First, I’d like to know what you are already doing to preserve the Earth, her creatures and her resources…

Second, I’d like to know what one thing you are going to do next.  As I’ve been thinking about this during the week, I’ve realized that I’m a lazy recycler.  I don’t do a good job of rinsing the cans and containers I put in the recycle bin, and that means most of them end up in the landfill and aren’t recycled.  So I’ve started rinsing before I toss things in the bin.  What will you do this coming week in the effort to care for the Earth?

Earth Day is a good reminder of our responsibility to care for Earth.  Like so many good ideas, one day a year isn’t nearly enough to get the job done.  It’s not easy to use less, to reuse more, and to make the lifestyle changes that have a long-term impact on the health of Earth.  But it’s important.  Together we can encourage each other to do our best.  

Third Sunday of Easter

Matthew 9:9-13

In the first century, tax collectors did dirty work.  The collected hated taxes, they added to the bill to enrich themselves, and they worked for the Roman occupiers.  Three strikes and you’re out!  This coming week our country is going to watch the start of a trial that features an actress in “adult movies” and a Playboy bunny.  I think their career respect in our time matches that of tax collectors in the first century.  Which gives us a sense of the critique Pharisees had with Jesus’ dinner companions.

Add that to the fact that eating a meal was one of the most important cultural experiences of the time.  We eat in restaurants alongside perfect strangers all the time.  But first century folks only invited close friends to dinner.  The food was prepared according to strict Jewish law.  It was served and consumed according to those laws.  Their custom and religious observance made the meal one of the most telling signs of their standing in the community and their purity as adherents of their faith. 

Jesus seems to have been willing to eat with anyone.  In fact, when someone invited him to dinner, he went.  When they invited their friends to meet the travelling teacher, he was glad to see them.  He welcomed the conversation around the table.  He welcomed the people.  There are plenty of examples in scripture where Jesus told people to change their ways.  He was in favor of people keeping the rules and behaving well.  He never said, “Do whatever you feel like, it doesn’t matter.”  But even if you broke the rules and were shunned by the community, Jesus welcomed you.  He would share a meal with you.  To Jesus, people were more important than rules, and even those who behaved badly could be loved into a better way of living.

Those of us who want to be followers of Jesus in this time and place, need to work at being as nonjudgemental as Jesus.  How do we do that?

Let’s start with two words:  should and ought.  How many times have you used these words in the last week?  I should rake the leaves still on the lawn.  I should go to the gym or take a walk.  I should clean the bathroom.  I should stop working for the day.    I ought to lose weight.  I ought to save more money.  I ought to…  What would you add?

When we treat ourselves like folks who can’t do the right thing, it’s no wonder that we see other people in the same light.  People begging on the corners ought to get a job.  People  needing help from the community fund out to be ashamed.  People disagreeing with us about politics ought to wise up.  People dealing with addictions ought to be clean and sober.  There are lots of rules about how life is supposed to work, and folks ought to pay attention to them.

Jesus surely knew that there were lots of ways people could change their habits and their minds and live a better life.  But that didn’t stop him from connecting with them.  He was willing to listen to their stories.  I find that when you hear someone’s story, it’s harder to judge them.  Lots of those stories are hard to hear. 

I was remembering a story when I was thinking about this scripture.  It seems that in some native tribes, when a young person did something wrong, the tribe didn’t immediately punish them.  Instead they surrounded that person and “sang their song back to them until they remembered who they are.”  Who they are is someone who is good, someone with wonderful talents, someone who is valued and loved by the community.  There are lots of reasons to forget who you are.  Anger, disappointment, illness or self doubt can cloud our memory.  How important it is for a community to see the good in each person’s heart and hold that vision until they can see it themselves.

One of the most important things that Jesus did was see the good in each one.  Sometimes the church has suggested that at our core, we are sinners, not good.  We’re destined to mess up.  Jesus never said that.  He believed in everyone – tax collectors and Pharisees.  He believed everyone had something positive to contribute to the community and because he believed it, people could believe it of themselves.  He saw their hearts.  He sang their song.  He called them back to themselves.

I talk to lots of social workers on your behalf these days.  The usually have hard stories to tell me about people who need just a little help to start a new path.  I never hear one of them criticize a person for falling on hard times.  I never hear judgement about a person’s health or choices or need to ask again and again.  They believe in folks.  When they ask, if we have money, we help.  It’s usually a long list of things we’ve done in a week.  The money we give people isn’t often a lot, but it makes a huge difference.  Even more important than the money is the fact that we believe in them.  If a case worker tells us someone needs help, we believe them.  We don’t ask for further verification or remorse or promises of change.  We ask that they have a case worker who can help them learn new skills as appropriate.  But we believe that everyone deserves help.  That’s what it means to be in community. 

There’s a Buddhist practice that teaches people how to overcome judgement or condemnation of others and to extend care to ourselves and all people.  It’s called metta or loving kindness and we’ve used it before in worship.  I’d like us to take a few minutes to remember the practice again.  We want to extend nonjudgemental good wishes, that everyone will have whatever it is that is good for them.

Begin by taking a deep breath, closing your eyes if that’s comfortable, and letting any stress fall away.

Picture yourself and say in your mind:  May I be happy.  May I be whole.  May I have purpose.  May I be at peace.

Now picture someone you love: And now someone you find very difficult to love. And now all people in the world.

It’s easy for judgement to creep into our mind throughout the day, as we drive around, do our work, listen to the news, interact with family.  Next time you notice yourself thinking about another person with criticism, stop just a few seconds and say in your heart:  May you be happy.  May you be at peace.   We can train ourselves to live in this world as Jesus did, and we’ll all be better for it.

Second Sunday of Easter

Matthew 8:1-7

I find it tricky to talk about Jesus and healing, but there are so many stories of how Jesus made people well and whole.  Clearly one of the reasons people were attracted to him was because he cured diseases.  Jesus wasn’t the only traveling healer in his day.  In fact, it seems to have been fairly common.  A big part of becoming Jesus’ disciple was learning how to heal like he healed.  “Faith healing” is strange to us today.  Some churches do practice healing by prayer, but it hasn’t been a part of our traditions.  I think of it in the same way I think of energy healers in our time – those who practice healing touch or Reiki or Qigong.  I don’t understand that either, but I know that sometimes clearing the energy channels of the body allows the body to heal itself.

In the first century the practice of medicine was largely a mystery.  People had knowledge of medicinal herbs, but not an extensive knowledge of how the body worked or what caused illness.  Today we are blessed with extensive knowledge which continues to grow thanks to the work of dedicated researchers.  We have skilled and compassionate people who practice medicine in many forms.  We have diagnostic tests, surgical techniques and medications which no one could have imagined in Jesus’ day.  We may not frequently heal in the same way Jesus did, but many people are continuing the healing work in new and amazing ways.

I’d like to think today about other kinds of healing we experience.  Let’s begin with prayer.  Every Sunday we pray together for lots of people who need some kind of healing in their lives.  Some are physically ill, others deal with addiction or mental illness and still others face the consequences of poor choices or hard circumstances.  Some of those folks get better and many of them don’t.  Regardless of the results, I think we experience healing through our prayers.  They are a way of sharing our concern for others, and in the process we lighten the load of worry we carry for them.  When there doesn’t seem much that we can do to help someone, praying calls on God and all the power of the universe to care as much as we do.  Praying shifts the fear and sadness we feel from our single hearts to the community and to the power that moves through all that is, and in the process we can find peace.  We can come around to the point where we’re able to see some good even in the hardest situations.  We are more at peace, and from that peace we can better support those we pray for.  I call this a healing that doesn’t depend on a cure.

Then there’s the healing that comes from belonging to a people or a place and being loved and included just as we are.  Thursday night we heard stories of some of our gay and lesbian friends about what it means to feel whole and at peace with who you are and welcomed because you are you.  It’s part of the process of many more churches in our towns becoming intentionally welcoming of all people.  We’ll be glad when they catch up with us!  Belonging isn’t just about acceptance of gender identity.  It’s about all people being whole people.  Belonging is being loved by the community with all our individual quirks – our passions and our fears, our abilities and our weaknesses.  Belonging is about support for what you want to do and for what you don’t want to do.  For what you think when you agree with everyone and when you don’t.  If we’re building a healing community that follows Jesus, everyone is accepted.

Healing is also about folks believing you can change.  I want to be accepted just the way I am AND I want people to care about me enough to expect me to get better.  That may mean overcoming addiction to drugs, alcohol, gambling or food.  It may mean understanding the world in a more humane way, giving up some prejudice or intolerance.  It may mean becoming more helpful or less helpful.  It might mean getting more serious or lightening up.  Taking more risks or fewer of them. Community is a place where each one of us can grow.  Growth is healing, and so is the support system that nourishes that growth.

This congregation is an instrument of healing in this community. 

We make quilts for families whose loved ones are at the end of life in Valley Memorial Homes.  We never know who receives those quilts, but they know someone cares enough about them to wrap them up in beautiful fabric that took a lot of time and effort. 

We make food.  We feed students and watch them begin to feel at home far from home.  Over the school year international students relax into a new culture, learn a little more English, see a familiar face who is genuinely glad to see them week to week.  Students missing family see grandmas and grandpas behind the serving counter, asking how the day is going.  Hospitality is healing.

We feed people at LaGrave.  Sometimes we feed people who are too ill to feed themselves.  Sometimes we feed folks who haven’t taken their meds and can hardly decide if they want our food or not.  Sometimes we feed people who cook better than we do but like having a friend to share the meal.  Over time we’ve watched people come and go, face trauma and get better.  Good nutrition and consistent friendship are healing to body and soul.

We are healing when we help people in a jam without criticism or judgment.  In the last year or so we’ve bought lots of bus passes and gas cards, fixed brakes, bought tires, replaced batteries, repaired bicycles.  We’ve paid off back rent and utility bills and put down rent deposits.  We’ve bought coats for kids and adults and dry socks and underwear for toddlers. Most of these folks don’t know who we are.  Many of them are grateful.  Not once do we say, “You shouldn’t need this.”  “You should plan better.”  “You should be more careful.”  We make sure everyone we help has a case worker who can teach them coping skills when it’s appropriate, and we provide what they need without judgment. 

None of these things is as amazing as Jesus’ healing folks with miracles, but I think they are as much a part of what Jesus would do to heal the world.  They let people know that they aren’t alone.  They say as clearly as we know how that every person matters and everyone deserves a fair chance at life.  When people are in need, they need a community to surround them and care for them.  When they get better, they need a chance to help the next person.

All these things are important ways that Jesus is healing the world through us.  In the process, we too are made whole.

Easter Sunday

Mark 16:1-8

Each year we choose which version of the Easter story we will read from among the four Gospels in our Bibles.  We don’t often choose this story from Mark.  It was the first of the stories to be written down and it is the most abrupt.  It has more of what happened and less of what it means than the others.  Even so, it was probably written fifty years or more “after the fact.”  It’s based on the oral traditions shared among Jesus’ followers and it will have been shaped by the telling and re-telling of the story over time.  That means it gives us the remembered facts of the event shaped by how two generations of followers saw its importance.  It’s both a recording of an event and an experience of living in light of that event.  Both are helpful to us as we receive the story and understand it in our own lived experience.

Mark tells us that resurrection was both amazing and terrifying.  The women went to the tomb expecting to mourn Jesus’ death by giving him a proper burial.  They were going to pack spices around the body and wrap it so that it could decompose with dignity in the tomb.  They would shed tears and tell stories and grieve together as they worked.  Instead they find an open tomb, a missing body, and a young man that tells them Jesus has left and will meet them in Galilee. 

We have been conditioned by a lifetime of hearing this story to hear it as cause for celebration.  That it certainly is!  But I also want us to acknowledge that nobody celebrated that first Easter in any way like we celebrate today. What had happened was simply unbelievable.  Crucified bodies don’t stand up and leave the grave.  Yet his followers were told Jesus has done just that.  That he was alive.  That he expected them to keep going with the movement he began.  These people had just watched their beloved leader endure a horrible death at the hands of Roman authorities.  They were in shock.  Then here is another shock, just as jolting, even if the news is good.  If nothing else, Jesus’ followers were real people, and real people don’t make that many u-turns in life on a moment’s notice. 

Which is to say on the first Easter and the almost 2000th Easter, resurrection is a process.  It takes time to find life in the midst of death and destruction.  Resurrection is about finding life in the midst of death.  Yes, it’s about something that happened to Jesus.  AND it’s about how his followers figured out what it meant in their time and through the ages.  Easter may be about celebrating Jesus rising from the dead, but resurrection is about all of us rising from the deaths of ordinary living and finding new life and hope on the other side.

Jesus’ death was real and ugly.  Even though thousands of people were crucified by Empire in those days, it was never easy.  His followers were devasted when they watched him die and surely terrified that they would be next.  That fear and anguish isn’t going to be wiped away by a young man saying, “He’s raised.”  That’s a lot to process and it takes time.  Thankfully, no one we know and love is going to be crucified, but even  the calmest most expected death in old age is gut wrenching.  We are never the same after each one we love dies.  Yet there is also a resurrection.  There is a healing of grief that comes with time.  There are memories to share which eventually give us joy.  There is a sense that life can be good again and that our loved ones, although gone, are still with us.  We believe that in a new way they live.

I think of the refugees we’ve come to know this year who are celebrating Easter in North Dakota for the first time.  Surely they have known fear and danger or they wouldn’t be here.  They have loved ones still in danger with no guarantee that they will find safety.  They must know some very bad days as they adapt to a new climate, a new language, find jobs which are much different from before.  Yet I think most of them a grateful for this new life.  They have found their own resiliency as they adapt to this new home.  They have made new friends and see that strangers can accept them and offer support and encouragement.  These families are surely still in the process in making the many transitions that are required of them, but they see hope and resurrection beginning.

Tonight we’ll serve Easter dinner at LaGrave on First.  In five years of serving meals there we’ve become friends with many of the residents.  Those who came first came from decades of living without shelter.  They had to learn again what it meant to have a reliable home. They had to learn to trust each other and us.  Some of them came from living death, from the clutches of addiction, from the trauma of unmedicated mental disease.  Many of them still struggle to find health.  But today LaGrave represents hope to me.  People have found stability, health care, work, and family.  I’m glad we get to celebrate Easter by serving dinner there, because it’s a daily sign of resurrection in our community.

The first generations of Jesus’ followers lived in difficult times.  The Pax Romana or peace within Rome was maintained by constant warfare to extend the boundaries of Empire and violence to control slaves and conquered peoples.  Many followers were themselves slaves.  Many struggled to feed themselves and their families.  It was a hard time to be alive.  They coped by forming communities of friends and sharing the teachings of Jesus with each other.  They learned from Jesus how to live with dignity, compassion and hope in any circumstances.  It was a process of shaping a life by life-giving values, supported by those who cared.  They talked about Jesus’ resurrection and about their own resurrections, finding life in the midst of forces of despair.

I want to affirm to you who follow Jesus in this moment in history, Resurrection is real.  Jesus’ death was not the end of his ministry, but the beginning of his movement.  His followers then were convinced that he was still alive, teaching them and encouraging them to create the reign of God in their time and place.  His followers today are convinced that he is still alive, teaching us and encouraging us to create the reign of God in our time and place. 

In our own lives we face moments of discouragement, illness, broken dreams, but we never face them alone.  We believe Jesus is with us, and the community of Jesus is with us.  In every hardship, there is hope.  After every dark day, there comes a dawn – a new beginning, a new possibility, a new friendship, a new opportunity.  Each sign of new life is a resurrection and all of them are real. If you aren’t seeing that now, we’re here for you.  We’ll hold hope for you until you can hold it for yourself.  We’ll walk with you until your path is clearer.  We believe in Resurrection – for Jesus, for our community, and for you. 

Palm Sunday

Mark 11:1-11

I think this is my 49th Palm Sunday sermon.  The story of Jesus entering Jerusalem, welcomed by people who had heard rumors of his teaching and his healing is a great story.  It’s certainly worth reading every year.  Besides that, it calls us to celebration about how important Jesus still is in our lives.  We like celebrations.  Waving palm branches makes us feel young again. It honors the fact that we’ve signed on to something important.  It’s a good thing.

If you’re going to preach about something 49 times it has to mean something.  So I ask myself, “Why does this matter?”  In order to answer that question, we have to ask, “Why did it matter to the people who first remembered it and to those who wrote it down a couple of generations later?”  It’s a fun story to remember, and it certainly was part of what drew enough attention from the authorities to get Jesus executed.  But it has to be more than just the explanation of why Jesus was in trouble for every gospel writer to include it in their stories.

In the past few years scholars have suggested that this story is more than just an event.  It takes on mythological dimensions in the context of Passover week in Rome.  We’ve talked before about how Jesus is riding into Jerusalem from the east on a donkey, a symbol of peace, about the same time Roman legions are marching into Rome from the west, leaders on war horses, to keep peace by threatening violence as the crowds gathered for the Passover celebration.  It’s a stark contrast between peace and war.

We’ve also learned that the earliest Jesus followers formed communities of support to help them deal with the violence of their era during Rome’s conquering of most of their world.  They gathered together, shared meals and conversation, and talked about living in Jesus’ way as an antidote to the horrors of their daily lives.  If this story is about the contrast between Rome’s control of life through violence and Jesus’ way, what are some of the principles it would have represented to his early followers?  What can we lift up and apply to our world today?

Jesus honored everyone and treated them with dignity and respect.  We see him hanging out with the peasants who were his people, his neighbors for his whole life.  Fisherfolk and farmers.  We also see him welcoming women, who were almost always separate from whatever important was happening in the world.  He broke with custom to speak directly to women he didn’t know, and we are told that some women traveled with his band.  They were disciples. Jesus healed those who were ostracized from the villages because of illness – beggars, lepers, the mentally ill and more.   Jesus is often criticized for befriending tax collectors, representatives of the hated government.  We love the story of how he helped Zacchaeus turn his life around.  Leaders of the religious community came to talk theology with Jesus.  He challenged them to use their power and influence to help people rather than to make life harder for them.  Some of them also became disciples.  Jesus tells us that the whole of the law people can live by is love God, love your neighbor, love yourself.  In a world where it’s popular to emphasize difference and separation, to fear those who are strangers, Jesus gives us a new basis for community.  He asks us to look for our common humanity with all people and to treat everyone like a friend.  He often disagreed with some influential people; he challenged their thoughts and actions; he did so respectfully.

Jesus advocated for economic equality and generosity.  One of Jesus’ critiques of his own society was the heavy economic burden carried by the poor.  The peasants eked out a subsistence living because most of what they produced went to wealthy land owners.  Fishers owed a portion of every catch to Rome, who owned the waters.  Slaves worked for food.  The 1% lived in luxury.  Their life expectancy was double that of ordinary folk.  Jesus fed people and told those who had something to share with those who lacked basic necessities.  The Jewish people were used to the concept of owing a tithe of their crops and livestock to the Temple to support the priesthood.  It was an obligation.  But Jesus isn’t asking people to feel obligated to share what they have.  It wasn’t a requirement, it was a way of supporting each other.  If you have two coats, share one because you can.  The community that formed became its own safety net.  If you share now, when you are in need, someone else will share with you.  It’s like when we feed LaGrave or Christus Rex or when we use the community fund to help those who have no where else to turn.  We do it because we can, not because we’re forced to.

When that principle of community comes into our century, it doesn't look like putting everyone on welfare, as some assume.  It looks like economic equity.  Labor unions advocating for a fair wage for workers.  A minimum wage that actually covers expenses for those who work a 40 hour week.  For a few months our country had a child tax credit that lifted millions of children out of poverty.  Then we let it go.  Giving children the security of a place to live and enough food to eat is an investment in the future for all of us.  When children thrive, they become adults who contribute their abilities to us all.  It’s good that we help those who are in urgent need, but it would be even better if we advocated for policies that meant no one was one illness away from poverty. 

Jesus called for peace in the face of violence.  One of his best-known teachings is to turn the other cheek.  Remember he lived in a time when no one could fight a Roman soldier and win.  Everyone was at the mercy of their bullying.  But to turn the other cheek gives dignity to the one struck.  It gives control.  And it de-escalates the situation.  When the Empire is always at war, living in peace is an act of defiance.  It challenges violence.

Standing for peace in the 21st century is complicated.  I called Senator Hoeven’s office and asked for funding for Ukraine as a way of bringing peace.  My friend there suggested that billions of dollars in armaments was an odd way of peacemaking.  He’s right.  How do we stand up to aggressors without violating our commitment to peace?  Maybe it’s giving Israel defensive armaments and insisting they end the destruction of Gaza.  Maybe it’s negotiating a two-state solution.  Or a nuclear deal with Iran.  Maybe it’s choosing not to be the largest manufacturer of arms in the world.  Maybe it’s ending the threat of gun violence in our schools.  Maybe it’s learning how to talk with people whose politics differ from ours with respect.

Palm Sunday is a celebration about Jesus standing up to Rome and showing people a better way to live.  We get to decide what that means today.  And then we get to work together to make it happen.

Fourth Sunday of Lent

Matthew 7:24-26

I want to remind us about where we are in the sermon enterprise right now. Last summer/fall we "read" After Jesus: Before Christianity over several months. Through that we learned that the earliest Jesus communities (in the first two centuries) were a diverse and loosely related number of small groups who lived by Jesus' teachings in a variety of ways. Their common focus, which they lived out with endless variation, was how Jesus' vision for the world made their own lives better when they put it into practice. As we finished that, I began to wonder: if we put Jesus' teachings into practice in our century, what would that look like? Which led me to the question: What did Jesus teach? What were the principles and practices that the first followers remembered and tried to implement?

We've been hanging out since then in the Gospel according to Matthew because it's the source of what's called The Sermon on the Mount, which is a collection of what people remembered about Jesus' teachings gathered into a single literary device- a sermon. They were written down two generations after Jesus died, so by the time they were gathered, they had already withstood the test of time. If we assume that a preacher tells you what he or she really wants you to know or do, then The Sermon on the Mount become what early followers thought Jesus really wanted them to know and especially do.

I'm finding the teachings a little repetitious. Jesus wants us to love God by loving one another. He admonishes us to feed and clothe people, to share resources fairly, to be just and inclusive and compassionate and merciful. This doesn't seem to me like rocket science and it makes me wonder why in 2000 years we haven't come much closer to making it the heart of our society than when he first suggested it. In fact, global culture as a whole may be further away from this vision of life than the small groups who hid themselves in plain sight and tried to help each other live good lives.

Let's remind ourselves that these early Jesus folk weren't about creating a new religion or reforming an old religion. They were about making life better for themselves and others. Their faith didn't focus on what they believed so much as what they did with and for one another. They trusted the teachings of Jesus to describe a better way of living and they trusted each other to put those teachings into practice.

Today's scripture says that those teachings are rock solid. If you build your life on their foundation, it will be strong. It will support you through the storms of life. You can rely on it.

This week I read a new novel by Kristin Hanna, The Women, which tells about the Vietnam war and the experiences of the women who volunteered as nurses there. It's a tough read because that was a terrible war. It mangled bodies and it mangled psyches. It took a long time for our country to honor the people who fought the first war we lost in our history. Reading the novel, I was reminded of those times- my high school and college years.  It was about war and it was about protests at home. Some of those protests against the war were made by those who had fought it. It was tangled up with the civil rights movement and the protests and riots of people standing up for racial justice. It was the beginning of the women's movement as women proved they had important knowledge and skill and wanted to be able to use it.

As I read I wondered about all those movements which had a vision for a better world. What happened to them? I remember when church meetings passed resolutions calling for racial equity and women's gatherings called for peace. I remember when our government worked to increase justice and not roll back rights. It made me nostalgic for that time, and sad that we quit too soon. was tempted to be discouraged.

Then I remembered that the earliest Jesus followers had no illusions that they could change their world. They had no political power. They were just keeping their heads down and trying not to be noticed. And they were doing what they could to live like Jesus.

This week I took one of our refugee friends to Spectra Health for an eye exam. While I was there, several staff people were helping a man who had come in from the street. He needed help with a housing issue. He didn't have an appointment. They called him by name. They adjusted their schedules so he could see the most knowledgeable folks for his situation. They were kind and respectful. They treated him like Jesus would have treated him.

I was still waiting when I got a call from a school social worker about a young man who needed to move out of his home. He couldn't get into an apartment until Monday. Would we pay for a hotel for the weekend? Of course we would! The next day she called to say we wouldn't be needed. One of his friends' families invited him to stay with them. They welcomed him.

I realized about that same time that I was going to be late to take another friend to work. I called my daughter and she stepped up to that plate. I double scheduled the refugee appointments needed for this coming week. One text and someone had taken half of that load.

Wednesday Kids are thinking about ways to help the earth and our community. We have 3 families involved in the program. Every one of them has a parent or a friend who knows how to plant for pollinators, native plants or medicinal herbs. They gave Mary the right website to learn what the kids needed to know. They offered to come next time and share knowledge.

Thinking about all these things in just one week, I realized that public movements may be quiet right now, but there's a lot happening to shape the world by Jesus' vision. People are kind and respectful, willing to help a stranger, acting on strong principles of community.  People are remaking the world on purpose by the way they live.  Surely if we are surrounded by so many examples of good, the vision of Jesus is being made real today.

Third Sunday in Lent

Matthew 7:12

In everything, do to others as you would have them do to you, for this is the Law and the Prophets.

Several years ago I led the memorial service for the annual district convention of Rotarians in our area.  The Rotary Four-Way Test (used to make decisions in business and all of life) is this:

1.  Is it the truth?

2. Is it fair to all concerned?

3. Will it build good will and better friendships?

4. Will it be beneficial to all concerned?

Rotarians pride themselves in living by that standard.  I think you can see how it reflects the guide Jesus gave for living:  do unto others as you would have them to do you.  As part of that service, I did a little research and found a similar saying in virtually every religion.  Not just Christianity, but also Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, the Tao, many Native religions…all tell their followers to treat other people in the way they want to be treated.

Since the whole world thinks this is a good idea, we should give some attention to how that happens and what it looks like.  If you’re in worship to hear this sermon, you’re about to be invited to help write it.  If you’re reading at home, please stop a bit to think about these questions:

• How do you want to be treated?  What does it look and feel like to be treated that way? Respect?  Compassion?  Freedom?  Appreciation?  Like a treasure?

• How do you treat people in the same way?  What are some examples of ways that you’ve extended the same consideration to others that you want for yourselves? In the way you treat your children & grandchildren?  Those who need some help?  Those you work with?  Those of another political party?  Those who are new to our country?  Those whose values or actions are different from you own?

• What about our world would be different if we were all living by this “golden rule?”  In politics?  In the way we spend the government budget?  In the way we teach our children?  In the way we do health care?  In the way we incarcerate prisoners?  In the way we treat addiction?

Many times we talk about the possibilities of the Golden Rule as Impossibilities.  It’s a great idea, but no one can really do it.  I suspect that lets us off the hook before we even try.  If we can’t get it right, no one can blame us for not trying.  It also shifts what we expect of others.  Of course politicians look out for themselves.  Of course teachers or nurses or plumbers are going to be tired and cranky; they have a tough job.  If people aren’t nice to me, I don’t have to be nice in response.  The world is tougher than any sissy idea.  

Maybe this kind, respectful, ennobling idea is tougher than the world.  Maybe if we held ourselves and one another accountable to it, life would be better for everyone.  Maybe trying and messing up isn’t as sad as not trying at all.  Isn’t it the musical South Pacific the place where they sing about being cockeyed optimists?  If every religion in the world believes that people should treat one another well, then that’s a universal call to cockeyed optimism.  If everyone believes it’s important, then maybe it’s time to believe it’s possible.  Or at least to try.

Second Sunday in Lent

Matthew 7:7-11 

 “Ask and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.”  What a comforting scripture!  No matter what happens, God will take care of us.   

Let’s talk first about the ways this scripture isn’t true and just get that out of the way… Two sports teams playing each other both pray to win – and one loses. A family facing homelessness prays for a miracle – and doesn’t get one. A little girl praying for a pony – goes without. 

Praying for something we want is no guarantee that God is going to bend the arcs of time and space to give it to us.  I wish I could tell you that God is micromanaging the universe and our lives and nothing bad is ever going to happen.  We all know that’s not true. 

At the same time, we hear about double blind experiments with prayer and healing that demonstrates the people prayed for when they are ill do better than those who are not prayed for, even when they don’t know the prayers are happening.  Every one of us has stories of prayers answered.  My favorite is from 50 years ago when my pastor’s wife prayed for a ham to feed visiting missionaries and received 3 hams in 24 hours from people who dropped them off at her door. So how do we understand why sometimes prayers seem to be answered and other times they don’t?  (Right about now I’m wishing I hadn’t decided to preach this sermon.) 

Let’s talk first about what I don’t think is true: If you pray and get what you want, God likes you better than other people. If you pray and don’t get what you want, God is angry with you or punishing you. 

Too often people think about prayer as a guarantee.  Today’s scripture certainly implies that it is.  So when prayers appear to go unanswered, we wonder what’s wrong with us.  Not enough faith? Not enough sincerity? Not enough good works stored up to earn a reward?  I suppose that blaming ourselves for unanswered prayers is safer than blaming God.  After all, if it’s God’s fault that prayers aren’t answered even when they are heart-felt and important, then maybe God isn’t love or God is petty and pays people back for unintentional slights.  There are so many rabbit holes to fall into when we start thinking about prayer.   

This scripture helps us avoid one of them by clearly saying the bad stuff doesn’t come from God.  A child asking for fish won’t be given a snake.  You may not be healed, but the illness doesn’t come from God.  Your country may not avoid war, but God isn’t the one dropping the bombs.  It’s common for some people to say that disasters are God’s judgment – a hurricane for New Orleans because they like to party.  Let’s just say that isn’t so.  

Then let’s back up a bit.  What if the benefit of prayer isn’t getting what you ask for?  What if God isn’t Santa Claus, delivering toys to everyone all at the same time?  We seem to live with the fact that we don’t always get what we ask for at Christmas time.  We ask for a pony and we get a new basketball, and we’re okay with that.  What are the things about prayer that can be satisfying if not magical? 

One of the hard parts about this scripture is that it’s focused on material things.  In my experience, the best parts of prayer aren’t getting a reward.  The best part of prayer is a feeling of connection – someone to listen and care.  When praying is pouring our hearts out over something hard, it helps to feel like we are heard.  That it actually matters to someone how we feel, how scared we are or how sad.  There have been times in my life that I’ve really felt comforted by prayer – like climbing into a parent’s lap and being held close.  That feeling gets reinforced when flesh and blood people also listen and care.  One author calls that “God with skin on.”  Sometimes people are an answer to prayer. 

When I was working up to this sermon, I saw a quote from Kierkegaard on Facebook: The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays. 

In that case prayer functions very much like meditation.  It helps us clarify what it is that’s happening to us.  We get in touch with fear or anger or confusion.  We notice what it is in our lives that’s broken.  A loved one who is ill, a job that isn’t working, a pet that’s missing, a war about to start.  Having named what it is that’s wrong, we are better able to live with the problem.  It becomes less overwhelming when we understand it.  We can put a little space around it and then begin to find ways to manage it.  We can request a second opinion from a doctor.  We can look for a new job.  We can ask for help from a friend who listens well.  The problem doesn’t disappear, but our ability to deal with it shifts a bit.  That too is an answer to prayer. 

I no longer think of prayer as God on speed dial, ready to hear what’s up in my life and fix it for me.  Instead I think of God as the energy that permeates all that is, the vibration of life in every cell and particle of the universe.  That God is always present within and around.  That God connects me to everything that is – all people, all creatures, the earth and all that’s beyond.  I’m convinced that this God energy is, as Jesus told us, Love.  It is benevolent.  It wants everything to be Good – as the creation story tells us.  God said it was good. 

Prayer then becomes connecting with the energy of Love that wants what is best for all life.  Physicists tell us that a scientist can change the results of an experiment by the thought they hold about what will happen.  Expect a particle, see a particle; expect a wave, see a wave.  If that’s true, then surely we can change the reality of our lives by the way that we think about them.  Our positive energy connects across space and time to impact others.  That connection gives us strength and hope.  Two teams about to play a football game each pray to win.  And the energy of the universe helps every player do their best, the teams to work together, to capitalize on opportunities, to use skill.  One team wins and another loses, but the game is a good thing.  Someone we love is ill and we pray for healing.  Doctors and other caregivers do their best.  They use medicines developed to be helpful.  Sometimes our loved one gets better.  Sometimes they don’t because every life ends at some point.  But in the meantime there are good moments, times of connection, words spoken, memories shared, love expressed.  All those connections can be holy.  They speak of a love greater than any one of us and all of us. 

I no longer believe that God fixes the world for us when we pray.  But I do believe that the love that connects us all is activated by our attention.  That it matters when we hold a friend in loving thought when they are struggling.  It matters when we send out a hope for peace.  It matters that we believe the universe is on our side.  It matters that we believe in the power of community to make life better for everyone.  It matters when we answer prayers in our community – a prayer for rent, a prayer for food, a prayer for recognition.  Prayer changes us.  It makes us more kind, more loving, more hopeful.  And kind, loving, hopeful people change the world. 

Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany

Matthew 7:1-5

 I want to start today with a few program notes.

• Today is officially Religion and Science Sunday across the country.  We plan to celebrate this year, but our speaker, Tyler Bublitz, who is coming from Bemidji is better able to come next week.  So join us next Sunday for a consideration of Religion, Science and the Common Good.

• This coming Wednesday is both Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday.  Both are important days in the calendar.  We’ve found that attendance at an Ash Wednesday service at Family of God is so small that it’s hard to do a meaningful worship service, so we won’t be having a service here.  But every larger Lutheran and Catholic church in town will be having a service and I encourage you to attend one of those if this is a day which speaks to your heart.

• Folks have been asking me what sermon or study series I’m doing for Lent, which begins on Wednesday.  Most of you know that the traditional understanding of Lent isn’t my favorite.  Lent concentrates on penitence, or being honest about what’s wrong with us, so we can celebrate new life more enthusiastically on Easter.  I’m in favor of being honest about our need to be more aware of the needs of the world and how we contribute to those so we can be more intentional about bringing new life to broken places.  I’m not in favor of setting aside six weeks to focus on what’s wrong with us.  I prefer that we be honest about how both good and bad mingle in everyday life all the time, that we do our best to be more informed and more self-reflective, and that we celebrate how God’s love works in us and through us always, bringing life to the world.

• That said, we ARE in the middle of a learning series.  Last year we learned about the early church and how in a variety of ways Jesus Communities tried to live by his teachings and his example.  Now I’m finding in the Gospels stories that tell us what Jesus said and did so we can think about how they inform our living in this community today.

In today’s scripture, Jesus clearly tells us not to judge others.  He amplifies that by saying not to pay attention to what’s wrong with other people until after you’ve been honest about what’s wrong with you and fixed it.  That’s just simple good advice for living in community.

Every group of people has to be careful not to become a group of complainers.  It’s easy to see what’s wrong.  If we were a church of complainers, we could say that not many people came today, the service didn’t start on time, the Christmas banners are still up in February, we sang the wrong hymns (too old or too new), the sermon was wandering, the coffee was too weak or too strong, the treats were boring, the stuff on the bulletin board was old, the books on the bookshelf hadn’t changed…   Or we can say we saw some of our friends, the musicians did a valiant job of helping us sing, we heard about some interesting projects we helped with, Correen put great pictures on the front of the bulletin, and we got to linger over coffee.  The exact same situation can be annoying or uplifting, depending on how we look at it. 

That reality is true in marriages.  Every couple goes through times when they find each other vastly irritating and times when they have a great time together.  It’s true in families.  The children who fight as teens become best friends in adulthood – or vice versa.  It’s true in neighborhoods, community organizations, and work environments. Whenever people gather, we have a choice to look for the best or point out the worst – because both will be there.

One of the ways Jesus people infect the world for good is by lifting up what’s working rather than what’s not.  The neighbor who runs a noisy leaf blower to clean the driveway every day grows beautiful dahlias.  The club president who can’t run a meeting is great about welcoming new people into the group.  In our own thinking and in conversation we get to choose where we’ll put the focus.  Our choices change how we see the world and also how others see it.

There have been times in my life when I’ve been focused on what’s wrong and not on what’s right. The housemate with an annoying habit. A planning group going off the rails.  Some of those times I’ve been lucky to have a friend who called me on it.  To remind me that I was being unkind and that a lot of what was wrong was my attitude.  Just having someone point out how our focus is running along a negative path can be the trigger to helping us change.  When we realize what we’re doing, we can make the shift.  We’re better for it – and so are those around us.  It’s not easy to be the friend who points out what’s happening, but it’s a great gift to those involved.

Jesus reminds us that when we see a speck in someone’s eye – a little irritant making them see things a bit off – there is probably a log in our own.  When we’re noticing what’s wrong with people or groups is a great time to take a step back and ask, “What part of this is my doing?” 

• Am I offending someone by the things I say or the way I say them?

• Am I being kind and encouraging others?

• Am I irritated by something that doesn’t really matter?  Do I need to let it go?

• Am I angry because not everyone wants to do this my way?

•  Is there something I can do to help another person be more successful?

•  Take minutes, make coffee, say less or more?

•  Is it time for me to move on?

• Groups change, we change – sometimes the kindest thing I’ve done for a group is leave.

Finally, this teaching of Jesus is about group dynamics and interpersonal relationships.  It’s not about public policy, criminal behavior, or major ethical standards.  There are times when we need to judge behavior as wrong.  The Ten Commandments tell us not to murder, lie, or steal.  We make rules about how people behave in order to support the good of the community.  Jesus isn’t telling us not to discern when something is harmful. 

Jesus does tell us that even when we draw a line and prevent some behaviors, we still love the person involved.  That’s hard:  judge the action, not the person.  The person is a beloved child of God and entitled to our love and care.  In our country, we too often confuse the action and the actor.  A person is a murderer, not someone who committed murder.  A person is an addict, not someone with a harmful addiction.  A person is a liberal or a conservative, not someone with particular ideas about how the world works.  It takes practice to separate how we think about an action or a belief and how we feel about the person doing those things.  We have to remind ourselves that they aren’t the same.

Jesus says we aren’t to judge others in ways that break down community, but he doesn’t say we can’t disagree, present alternative possibilities, or even make rules that discourage some behaviors.  We can make ground rules about civility and respect and participation and expect them to be followed.  We can ask our neighbor to mow their weeds and our cousin not to smoke in our house.  We can enforce rules and at the same time work to stay in relationship with the people involved.  It used to be that our government representatives compromised on important matters, found some common understanding and remained friends.  It’s not too much to expect that they begin to do that again.

In some countries in the world people who commit crimes are put into rehabilitation.  They learn what caused the crime – anger, illness, poverty, desperation – and they are given tools to act differently in the future.  The actions have consequences, AND the people are valued.  Those who can learn to do better are empowered to do so.  Those who can’t are cared for in ways that prevent them from harming others.  The actions are judged, the people are loved.  We have a lot to learn from those models, which would make all our lives better.

Changing systems begins with changing people.  Jesus tells us not to judge each other when we don’t have to do so.  To work together to build community in which everyone thrives.  When we practice this every day, it’s a gift to ourselves.  Our lives are easier and more joyful.  And it’s a gift to the world.

Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany

Matthew 6:25-34

Thirty-five years ago Bobby McFerrin was winning awards for his song, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.”  I remember that I used that song as a sermon illustration, saying something like “This is great music and bad theology.”  My forty-year-old self wanted people to take seriously the way the world was broken and not simply ignore major issues in order to feel good.  How many sermon illustrations happen in almost 50 years of preaching and why would I remember that one?  Maybe because I need to correct the record.  I remember it because I got it wrong.  In today’s scripture, Jesus is reminding me:  Don’t worry, be happy is a good way to live.

Living without worry doesn’t mean that there aren’t things broken in the wider world or in our particular lives.  It doesn’t ignore the need to make things better when we can.  Jesus who said, “Don’t worry about what you will eat” fed people who were hungry. He said, “Don’t worry about what you will drink” and made wine for a wedding. He said, “Don’t worry about what you will wear” and told people who had two robes to share one of them.  The early Jesus communities focused on taking care of people who were feeling the weight of a hard life.  They held common meals so that those who had food could share it.  They sheltered people who were on the road without a place to stay.  They found work for people who had literally lost the farm and needed a new trade. 

Throughout history, Jesus’ followers have taken care of people who were in crisis.  They were innkeepers in medieval monasteries.  They began the first hospitals to care for the ill and spread hospitals throughout the world through the missionary movement.  We claim that heritage when we help people in our community.  This story doesn’t let us off the hook.  It reminds us that we are the hands and heart of Jesus, the love of God, in this time and place for those who need God to intervene and save their lives.

It also reminds us that the world works better when people take care of each other.  Jesus lived in a world where there was a gulf between rich folks and poor, powerful folks and those who did most of the work.  So do we.  He critiqued his world and chastised those who had the power to make it better and chose not to.  So do we.  Jesus told people who had nothing not to worry, God would provide.  Then he taught his followers to do the work of God and provide.  There’s a vast difference of opinion today about whether we as a society are responsible for the wellbeing of all people or not.  American individualism suggests that if people are hungry it’s because they are lazy.  Now that we know some of the folks who are hungry, we know that’s not true.  The root causes of hunger are much deeper.  They include mental illness and addiction and emergency medical conditions and gaps in education and a low minimum wage.  Domestic abuse and the need to flee to safety causes hunger and homelessness.  So does not having a safety net of family members.  We are getting pretty good at feeding people.  We need to get smarter about changing policies so that people can feed themselves.

While we’re waiting for people to come together and make the world an easier place to live, we come back to Jesus’ advice to those whose lives were difficult beyond anything we can imagine:  don’t worry.  Don’t worry doesn’t mean “ignore bad things.”  It means that when life gets hard, do what you can to make it better, but worry isn’t one of those things.  Much has been written about how worry makes hard situations harder and does nothing to make them better. 

Our Buddhist friends are so much better at understanding this than we are.  We’re lucky to have a Buddhist sangha available to us right here on Monday evenings.  We are always welcome to come learn meditation practice and join in their conversations about helpful books.  Our church library is full of books left by Tamar Reed, who collected them over a lifetime.  The Buddha was raised as a child of privilege and sheltered from all the harsh realities of the world.  As a young man he suddenly learned about some of those things he’d never faced:  illness, poverty, hardship.  In compassion, he set out to learn how to alleviate suffering of every kind, taking years to meditate and learn.  A very over-simplified explanation of his discovery is that life is often hard but suffering is optional.  Much of the suffering we experience comes from our own worry about what might happen or how things might turn out.  Scholars see a lot of overlap between the Buddha and Jesus who came centuries later and this might be one of them:  don’t worry.  Neither of these spiritual leaders tell us not to see what’s broken or to ignore what’s wrong.  Both ask us to face reality head on.  Not worrying doesn’t mean pretending there isn’t a problem.  Instead it puts a space around the problem and fills that space with confidence and peace rather than with worry. 

Worry tells stories that make whatever is wrong grow and become less manageable.  When I was first diagnosed with leukemia, I made the mistake of reading an official website that described symptoms and disease progression.  I learned that people with my diagnosis often died within 5 years and there was no medication that was particularly helpful.  I went into a panic.  What was I going to do?  What was I going to miss in life?  I set aside one evening to feel completely sorry for myself.  I cried.  I was miserable.  Then I set that down.  I went to the doctor and did what he told me to do.  I learned about medications and treatments.  I got better.  But over the years that getting better took, I lived life a day at a time.  I focused on living rather than on dying.  I enjoyed the people around me.  I did work I cared about – and some I didn’t. 

I learned to say about life:  it is what it is. I can worry and make up possible scenarios about how bad things are going to be, or I can take one day, even one minute, at a time and deal with what’s real in that moment.  Not every hard reality has an easy escape route.  But the events of our lives are only tragic if we decide they are tragic.  Some are very, very hard.  But we don’t face them alone.  God is on our side.  God’s people are on our side.  We can learn to face facts without worry and in the process, the burden of life gets lighter.  One moment at a time.

Learning not to worry about what’s hard in life sets us free to face life head on.  We do what we can.  We leave what we can’t do.  We set aside despair and anger and fear because each of them is just a story we tell ourselves.  In their place we choose stories of hope and compassion and possibility.  We can’t fix every problem life sends our way, but when we stop worrying and focus instead on what we can do, we make progress.  We may not be able to cure a dying loved one, but we can spend quality time with them.  We can’t keep adult children from making decisions we wouldn’t choose, but we can be there to help if it doesn’t work out and to cheer if it does.  We can’t personally end oppression in the world, but we can welcome New Americans one family at a time. 

Living without worry gives us back our power to live life with courage and hope.  Even if it doesn’t change the circumstances of life, it changes how we deal with them.   It helps us see what is possible and take a step forward with strength.  Don’t worry.  Trust God and the goodness of the universe.  We may find that we are happy.

Third Sunday after the Epiphany

Matthew 6:1-4

Do you know the song, “Lord, it’s hard to be humble when you’re perfect in every way?”

Our scripture lesson today is about giving, specifically about doing it discreetly.  Jesus tells his followers not to blow trumpets and make a big show when they drop their offering in the Temple box.  I wonder why he felt like he needed to say that since nothing we know about these people indicates that they would ever have much money to give or would be inclined to draw attention to themselves.  Maybe he did it to make them feel good, rather than to caution them against copying those who were getting credit for making big gifts.

What had the disciples given?  They had given their time, giving up their jobs to travel with Jesus, learn from him, and help him with his work.  They were in charge of logistics, crowd control, and catering.  They were learning to heal and to repeat Jesus’ teachings to others.  Some of them paid the bills, bought bread and wine, maybe even paid for lodging on rainy nights or piled lots of folks into their own homes when the group was in the neighborhood.  They were giving up judgment and prejudice against those who were beggars or “sinners” and learning to treat them with compassion.  They were giving their lives and livelihoods to a cause that was bigger than anything they had been a part of before.  And they were doing it under the radar.  They weren’t getting rich or famous.  They didn’t really want to be known.  Because they were human, they sometimes wanted credit, but don’t we all.

I’ve preached a lot of sermons in my time about giving.  I’ve encouraged people to tithe or give 10% of their income.  I’ve encouraged people to be generous and cheerful and hopeful that there would always be enough to meet the need of the moment.  I don’t think I’ve ever preached about what not to do.  For sure I’ve never said, “Don’t blow trumpets when you give your offering.”  

Long ago there was a day when a church was baptizing a Cameroonian baby and all the grad students from Cameroon and their families came.  After the baptism, the mother held an offering plate at the front of the church and the students sang and led a procession to drop offerings into the plate so the mother could give it in the child’s name.  Even some of the stodgy Americans came at the end of the line, singing and dancing and giving.  A few old timers objected, but it seemed like the best offering I ever remember taking.  It’s not such a bad thing to celebrate giving.  We do that a little when we give noisy offering and enjoy the noise it makes.

Family of God knows a lot about giving.  We’ve given away almost $16,000 in the community fund this year.  We’re about to pay off our building loan.  We’ve bought a lot of groceries with our LaGrave account and even more with things we slipped into our own grocery carts.  We’ve given space and time and transportation in amazing ways.  With all that giving, I haven’t heard a single complaint.  I think we’ve figured out how to give what we want to give. We give what makes us happy.  

I’m lucky to be able to be involved in a lot of what we give.  The social workers in town have me on speed dial.  I get to go buy gas cards and phone cards and bus passes.  I get to pay utility bills at Walmart or over the phone.  I took my granddaughter to buy $500 in baby supplies (which didn’t quite overflow the cart).  People thank me, but I always tell them it’s not me, it’s all of you who keep the account full.  

I know Jesus says to keep quiet about what you give, but I’m pretty noisy about what you do. When people ask me why my cart is full, I tell them.  When people ask how we feed so many people, I tell them you are generous.  Some folks who know our story ask to give along with us.  We get checks for the community fund from my book group and from the people who share our building.  We got $5000 for LaGrave from someone who lives in South Dakota and has a friend on the Grand Forks Homes Board.  This summer we got apples and tomatoes and sweet corn because people knew we’d give it away.  Because we are generous, we help other people know the fun of giving too.

I like the way we handle giving from our funds.  We trust the professional social workers in town to know what they are doing.  If they say there’s a need, we believe them.  If someone calls me directly, I send them to one of the helping agencies.  They know if there’s a grant or government program that can help first.  They know how to follow up so that people don’t get in a bind over and over.  They know that when they’ve exhausted all the possibilities, we’re good as a last resort.  We come through for them.

There are other churches in town that help people, but we have the least red tape.  We don’t ask people to make appointments with us or fill out forms.  We don’t lecture people about how they’d feel better about themselves if they got a better job and didn’t need to ask for help.  Most of the time we don’t know who we’re helping and I rarely meet people in person.  I like being in partnership with people who do hard work with compassion and great love.  It makes our gifts that much better because they deliver them so well.

Somewhere years ago I read that people of privilege should give until it hurts.  I’m not thinking that’s very good advice.  It’s possible to give too much and shortchange yourself or your family.  I think it’s better to give until it feels great.  Give what makes you excited to give.  Give what comes easily because it’s so much fun.  Giving like that brings joy to the giver and to the receivers and makes the world a joyful place.  Giving with joy is its own reward.

First Sunday after the Epiphany

Matthew 2:1-12

Today’s scripture is the one we always read for Epiphany.  The Wise Ones traveling far on exotic camels to bring precious gifts to baby Jesus is an image that speaks of Christmas to many of us.  It feels magical and important.  This Sunday, rather than focus on the story we’ve heard so many times, I’d like to unpack the word we’ve attached to it:  Epiphany.  What does it mean?

One dictionary defines Epiphany like this:
a moment when you suddenly feel that you understand, or suddenly become conscious of, something that is very important to you; a powerful religious experience.

Whenever I think about this word, I remember my eighth-grade algebra teacher, who would send us to the blackboard to solve problems.  We would work away looking for the least common denominator, which was the key to a right answer, and when we found it, we were each supposed to call out “Eureka!”  “I’ve found it!”  I know it’s not the same word, but it feels like the same experience to me.  A moment when we see with clarity something we hadn’t seen before and a knotty problem resolves itself, with the whole world falling into place in an orderly way.

I hope you can name at least a few powerful, Epiphany experiences in your lives.  Times when all that is awesome and beyond description was profoundly present to you.  Times when your mind or heart opened and you understood the world differently. For me these have been conversion experiences.  That’s a word often applied to “accepting Jesus in your heart” and becoming a Christian.   In the first church I served, that was the moment children were baptized and joined the church.  I was pretty skeptical when seven- or eight-year-olds were given credit for having a mature faith and being “saved” for life.  For me, conversion has been a process, not a moment.  The faith I held when I was confirmed at 13 became something quite different when I discovered Biblical scholarship at 18 in college, or when I was ordained at 23, or when the Jesus seminar taught me amazing new insights at 35, or when I learned about the missional church movement at 45,  or when I became involved in interfaith work at 50, or when I faced life-threatening illness at 60.  Each of those steps in my faith journey began with an epiphany of some kind, prompted by a book or a person or a community.  Faith that is alive changes as we change.  If you’re lucky, there is always another epiphany around the corner in your life.

The story as Matthew tells it proclaims that Jesus is King, recognized by foreign dignitaries who “saw his star” and drew his astrological chart.  Herod, the Emperor’s representative, tries to kill him before he has a chance to live, but he misses.  Eventually Pilate, another representative of the Emperor, crucifies him, but not before his teaching bring epiphany experiences to many people.  Those people continue to follow him in defiance of the Emperor.  They declare that he is their king and they will live by his rule, in spite of being simultaneously ruled by Rome.  Their affirmation is that Jesus matters.  That’s echoed four centuries later in Islam, which claims Jesus as a prophet second only to Mohammed, the final prophet.  We affirm Jesus’ importance today as we try in our time to follow his teachings and to shape our lives by his vision. 

The primary symbol of Epiphany is light.  It begins with a star brighter than any other.  It repeats in Jesus’ own words: You are the light of the world; let your light shine.  Light is a sign of hope, of vision, of courage in the face of danger.  We’ve taken up this symbol as our own through our light signs.  We are following Jesus by being light in our particular slice of the world and we celebrate that every Sunday.  I hope you celebrate it often through the week and think of all the ways you share love and hope with others as the light of God shining through you.

Another important theme of Epiphany is sharing the light of Jesus with the whole world.  The story features travelers from an exotic, far place.  We think of them arriving in a few days, but it was more likely months or even years.  In Epiphany we remember ways we share light with others near and far.  Over the centuries that motivated the Christian missionary movement, taking the gospel (and western culture) to the far reaches of the globe.  Many good things were done through that effort, particularly hospitals and schools which improved life for those who received the missionaries.  Many bad things were also done through that movement, which aligned with colonialism and white supremacy to exploit those who were visited and their resources.

In this century we can rethink the idea of bringing light to the world.  Rather than bringing a superior religion or culture to those who lack one, or trying to “civilize” people into being like us, we can have an “epiphany” in which we realize that the rich diversity of the world is a gift to us, not a problem for us to solve.  In a time when nationalism is becoming more popular around the world, we can use this theme as an antidote.  Nationalism sees “our” country as better than any other and “our” people as the best people.  That’s true whether we’re talking about American exceptionalism or Russian pride or any other nation.  Of course, we each want to be proud of our nation, but not so proud that we can’t see the good in others.  Jesus brought people together.  He accepted what was good in each one.  In his name, we can do the same.  Technologies of communication and transportation have brought the globe closer together. Maybe it’s time for us to see ourselves as one people.  If Jesus is going to be light to the whole world, then maybe we need to see the world as whole, not divided.  Space travel taught us that national boundaries aren’t visible from high above earth.  Maybe we’re called to make them less visible in the way we live together.  Think of the problems borders are causing:  our southern border is in crisis because we can’t defend it and so we become less welcoming of those who need asylum; Russia has crossed Ukraine’s border because they want to absorb the nation for their own rather than coexisting peacefully and cooperatively; Israel has sealed Gaza’s border and is bombing and starving the people because Israeli Jews and Palestinians see themselves as “other” rather than as brothers.  We are at heart and at DNA all one people.  It’s time we learned to live that way.

Epiphany comes at the beginning of the year and the church year, challenging us to see life in new ways.  It’s themes of light and unity give us something to consider as we begin a new journey around the sun.  Maybe we’ll have some important “epiphanies” together this year.

First Sunday after Christmas

Matthew 2:13-20

There are very few scriptures about Jesus as a child and they often get lost in the time between Christmas a New Year when churches and people are busy with other things.  For the most part these stories tell us little about Jesus’ history and a lot about what was important to his earliest followers.  They believed with all their hearts that Jesus was the Messiah, the anointed one, whom the Jews of the first century expected to come from God to transform their situation and restore their fortunes as a nation.  The stories about his childhood connect him with the prophecies about Messiah.  Because of our standards of history, we read them as proof of who Jesus was:  these things happened so he must be the one who was expected.  First century storytelling worked in the opposite direction:  Jesus is to us the Messiah, so we will tell stories that connect him to expectations.  These stories don’t record events so much as they affirm what people believe to be true about Jesus as the one who changes history.

There are two pieces of this story today.  The first I want us to think about is in the middle and is referred to as the slaughter of the innocents.  The Wise Ones had gone to ask Herod about a new king they wanted to visit, but hadn’t gone back to Jerusalem to report if they found him.  Herod waited and when he didn’t hear from them, he sent soldiers to kill every child in Bethlehem who was born in the time frame the Wise Ones suggested.  He was eliminating his competition in a brutal way. There isn’t a record in secular history of this event, so we can’t verify that it happened.  But the violence of the first century makes it plausible.  Certainly thousands of children died of violence, hunger, and disease in Jesus’ time.  Certainly mothers grieved every day for the children they lost.

We live in a time when children continue to die in horrible, wasteful ways.  The good news is that the world is making progress and fewer children die before age 5 of hunger and disease.  We are spreading vaccination and addressing famine in ways that are making a difference.  But the horror of war is exacting a terrible toll on our children.  This week Rev. Bruce Reyes-Chow, who was once the Moderator of the PCUSA, used his influence to remind churches and pastors that Christians have something to say about the continuing slaughter of innocents in our time.  As followers of Jesus, who promoted nonviolent responses to the violence of his time, we should be publicly denouncing the brutal attack Hamas made on Israeli villages on October 7 and the disproportionate response which has killed thousands of Palestinian civilians, including children, since then.  There is no justification for the initial attack AND no reason for the murder of civilians in large numbers in hopes of killing a few leaders of that attack.

Do you remember when our churches stood for peace in the world?  When did we go silent?  We have lived in times when war was a necessary response to aggression in the world, but when did we let it become the only response?  Children are dying in Gaza, in Israel, in Ukraine, in many African countries, in Weiger villages, on the paths leading to our southern border, in schools and shopping malls in America.  In the first century “Rachel weeping for her children” was a sign that God was about to lead the people to a different way.  It’s time for us to be making much more noise and insisting that war end and our children live in peace.

The second part of today’s story is called “the flight to Egypt” and tells that Joseph was warned in a dream that Jesus was in danger and took his family into Egypt for a while, before returning to settle in Nazareth.  Often I hear people saying that this means Jesus was a refugee and therefore we should be helpful to refugees.  I wonder if Jesus hadn’t been a refugee, if it would be okay to ignore them.  It seems to me that we involve ourselves with refugees because of Jesus, but not because he spent some time in exile in Egypt.  Jesus is the one who tells us to love our neighbor, and that our neighbors can be unexpected folks.  Jesus is the one who tells us to feed people who are hungry, to share our clothing, to welcome strangers…not because he might need those things but because life is better when we care about each other.

The crisis at our southern border has been in the news lately because some folks aren’t going to fund wars until we make life harder for those seeking asylum.  How did we get into this mess?  I hear people sharing wisdom about solutions for the migrant crisis – increase workers to process those who come, prepare for housing and feeding those who feel compelled to flee unbearable lives elsewhere, most of all create a multinational effort to change the circumstances leading to migration, including violence and climate change.  Those are big problems needing big solutions which are going to take time – and compassion, which right now is in short supply.

We know something about what it means to be a refugee and to welcome new people who are fleeing for their lives.  I was inspired this week by a Global Friends mailing written by Nell Lindorff and Claudia, whom she helps.  They both wrote eloquently about what it means to come to a new place and new make new friends through Global Friends. This year 77 people in 22 families came to Grand Forks from 8 countries. (There are 17 people already booked for travel to our city in January, 2024.)  It made me think that we have wisdom to share after seven months of being busy with these new folks.  So I’d like us to take some time to talk about what we know now that we didn’t know when we started, and how our lives have been changed in the process.  I’m going to ask Nell to start because she inspired me to do this, and then I hope many of you will join in….

We help refugees because they are people who need us and we can do it.  It is hard work, sometimes frustrating, sometimes overwhelming.  It’s also holy work which is incredibly rewarding.  We have been shaped by the work we’re doing and will continue to be shaped in the coming year.  We have more to learn, problems to solve, and most of all more friendships to celebrate. 

Third Sunday of Advent

Matthew 1 : 18-25

This advent I've chosen three stories from the traditional Christmas scriptures - John the Baptizer, Mary and Elizabeth and their unexpected pregnancies, and today Joseph the unintentional father. Often when we read these stories, they remind us that Jesus' birth was miraculous, and if it weren't for some significant interventions by God on his behalf, it might not have happened at all. I think that people of faith come to these stories as a way to describe God's miraculous intervention in our lives. We like the sense of awe and wonder that Christmas gives us and these stories lie at its heart.

One problem with that is that expecting miracles is a pretty unreliable way of dealing with everyday life, at least if by miracle we mean that God will swoop in and fix anything that's broken. There are great hymns that suggest that. "God will take care of you," comes to mind. Or "His eye is on the sparrow and I know he watches you." We want to think that God is on our side and willing and able to make all things right for us.

Then life happens. Our friends and family members become ill and some of them die. Our children and grandchildren make bad choices and no one rescues them from the consequences. Russia invades Ukraine. Hamas attacks Israel who attacks Hamas back. We pour hundreds of meals and thousands of dollars into healing the hurts of our community and there are even more people still hurting. In spite of our conditioning miracles are few and far between. Most people I know have stories about amazing things that have happened which they call miracles, but if we're honest, we also have stories about times we wished for miracles that didn't happen.

This year I've become convinced that Christmas isn't about God doing strange and wonderful things that cause sweeping changes in the world. I wonder if these stories aren't so much about miracles as they are about ordinary life and God being present in the middle of the ordinary. I think that's what we learned about the first century Jesus followers. They believed Jesus changed everything about their lives not because he made the hard things go away and defeated the oppressors, but because in spite of the bad things and the oppressors he hung in there with them. He was present in the thick of ordinary life and because he lived with hope and compassion, ordinary life became bearable.

Our stories are telling us that John criticized the powers that be and people signed on to the movement. That Mary got pregnant and Joseph didn't abandon her. That Jesus was born to peasants far from the seat of power but people noticed. That when the night was dark, starlight made it possible to see a bit of a way forward.

I don't want to promise you that when life gets really hard, God will send a miracle to make it better. I want to tell you that when life gets really hard, God is already here in the thick of it giving you strength and hope. I want you to believe that you are completely filled and totally surrounded by the Love that is God so that you are never alone. You never face anything alone.

The message of Christmas is this: we can do this together.

Sometimes the Love of the Universe sends me messages through Facebook, and this week a message came through a friend of mine who pastors Lincoln's church in Springfield, IL. She copied a post from a group called honestadvent. I wish I knew more so I could give them better credit. I read it and thought, I can't say this any better than they have already said it. I want to share it with you today:

It's assumed that Mary rode on a donkey, but the Bible doesn't say she did. It's assumed there was an innkeeper, but it doesn't mention one anywhere.

It's assumed there were three Magi, but it doesn't give a number of those who showed up. It's assumed there was a star overhead when Jesus was born, but it doesn't say that either.

It's assumed that Jesus was born in a stable, but all it says is that He was laid in a manger - and that could've been any number of places.

Christmas comes with many assumptions-some helpful, some not so much.

Spirituality also comes with many assumptions, and the ones that fail us are the ones we make about what it's supposed to look like, who is worthy for it to happen to, and what kind of outcome it's supposed to have for us. Assumptions like ...

• You should be more than you are now to be pleasing to God. Your weaknesses are in the way of God's plan for your life.

• Your lack of religious excitement disqualifies you from divine participation. You're probably not doing it right.

• Other spiritual people have something you don't have.

Our assumptions hinder our spiritual journey in all kinds of ways, and the antidote to assumption is surprise. The surprise of Christ's incarnation is that it happened in Mary's day as it is happening every day in your lack of resources, your overcrowded lodging, your unlit night sky, your humble surroundings.

• It's a surprise that life can come through barren places.

• It's a surprise that meek nobodies partake in divine plans.

• It's a surprise that messengers are sent all along the hidden journey of life to let you know you are not alone.

• It's a surprise that you will be given everything you need to accomplish what you've been asked to do.

• It's a surprise that nothing can separate you from the love of God.

Nothing can separate you from love. Your assumptions believe there must be something that can ... But surprise! Nothing can.

May you thank God with joyful surprise at how much you have assumed incorrectly.

Second Sunday of Advent

Luke 1:26-56

Today’s scripture is a piece of the story of two women.  One of the amazing things about Judeo-Christian scriptures is that at key moments in history, women play pivotal roles.  That’s interesting to us today.  It was revolutionary in ancient times, times which were patriarchal to the utmost and women had no agency or power.  In the longer tale, first Elizabeth, an old woman without children, and then Mary, an young woman without a husband, become pregnant.  Both pregnancies are attributed to God’s action.  (In Catholic tradition and the Koran, the story is extended to Anna, the mother of Mary, who also conceives on her own.)  Old women, barren women, unmarried women – all these are among the most vulnerable in first century society.  They are economically marginalized and have no one to protect them.  They are not generally the agents of change.  Yet here they are, mothering the men who shift people’s understanding of the world.

We have a complicated relationship with these stories.  They are a part of our heritage.  We’ve been listening to them at this time of year as long as we remember.  They point to a God who intervenes for good in a broken world and give us hope.  They are also problematic because they represent a miracle which is not only unlikely, it’s scientifically impossible.  Human babies don’t happen spontaneously.  They require the DNA of two parents.  Couples we know personally talk about their miracle babies, but none of them is conceived in scientifically impossible terms. 

Some folks are comfortable with saying we have to take this on faith, and that’s a great response.  And some folks aren’t comfortable with that.  Do we really have to believe the impossible to be part of what God is doing in the world?  No.  Believe or don’t believe – both are good answers.  Because these stories were never meant to be about biology.  They were written when the biology of the process was a mystery, and they don’t address it.

These stories are about power and influence and who has it.  In the first centuries every Roman Emperor had a story about how he was conceived by a human woman and a god.  When a man became Emperor – by vote or violence – the story was soon written by those in charge of the story of Empire.  Everyone knew that these men had human fathers, but they also knew the new story of the heavenly father as well.  It wasn’t about biology, it was about destiny.  This man has the blessing and support of the gods, shown by the fact that he defeated his opponents and gained power.  He rules as a god, and the peace and prosperity of his reign is evidence of the gods’ favor.  He is a Son of God.

The stories about John the Baptizer and Jesus being miraculously conceived were written like those of the emperors, after the fact.  They weren’t history recorded by everyone who knew these men.  They appear only in some of the gospels.  They are a statement that like the emperors, John and especially Jesus had power and influence over the world.  The fact that the women involved weren’t rich and famous but were marginalized amplifies the contrast between these founders of the Jesus movement and the Roman Empire.  They are saying, “Jesus had the power to change the world as we know it.”  That part of the story we can believe because that part of the story is still an active part of our story.

Mary’s song recorded as the finale of this story explains the difference people thought Jesus made:

            God lifts up those without power and uses them for change.
            God brings down proud and powerful rulers.
            God fills hungry people with good things.
            God balances economic disparity.
            God comes to the aid of those in distress and remembers those who struggle.

There’s some poetic license in putting these words in Mary’s mouth at the beginning of her pregnancy.  They are a strong expression of what people believed to be true about Jesus after his ministry with them.  They are the hope that early communities of Jesus’ followers lived by.

We don’t hear these words in exactly the same way because we live in very different times.  Indeed, they have meant many things to various moments in history.  But they do shape what we believe and how we live in our moment.  They are a part of the reason we take action to make this world view a reality. 

Those who told these stories in Jesus’ time had no hope of overcoming or even influencing Rome.  There were stark realities in their daily lives that they couldn’t change.  Economic hardship, violence, oppression – these were givens.  But they insisted that there was another vision for life, a God-given vision, which they could live by.  So in spite of their situation, they fed people, housed people, gave people jobs, helped people grieve, found joy.  They created the vision of God’s world hidden in plain sight.

We have significantly more power and influence that our spiritual ancestors held.  We can change the world.  So when we hear these stories, they become for us a call to action.  We feed people.  100 or more of them this week.  We make sure people have electricity.  One family this week.  We drive people to school and work.  Hundreds of miles each week.  We believe that you can create a better world by living like that world exists and being part of it.

These stories also call us to use our power for good.  We call our representatives.  We advocate for policies. We vote.  I suspect we don’t agree on the details of what should happen, but we agree on the vision of what’s possible.  That vision has been shaped over time and isn’t identical to Jesus’ first-century vision.  But its parameters are the same ones voiced by Mary – lifting up those without, ending abusive power, making the world good for everyone. 

We aren’t just the people who celebrate a miraculous physical birth.  We are the inheritors of those who saw Jesus as the challenge to the abuses of Empire and did something about it.  We are the ones of believe the world can change and that something holy and good is possible.  The Christmas story didn’t start out as a pretty miracle.  It began as a radical vision of what could be if people saw things God’s way and worked together to make it so.  It’s a call to hope and a call to action.  And what it becomes is in our hands. 

First Sunday of Advent

Mark 1:1-8

This is the day the church gets to say “Happy New Year!” a month before everyone else.  The first Sunday in Advent is the beginning of a new year in the church cycle.  That month’s difference between one new year and the other is a time of preparation, getting ready for something important to happen.  That’s not a bad way to start a year.

John the Baptist is a good choice for helping us prepare for important things to come because that’s the role he plays in the story of Jesus – getting people ready for big changes in the way they see the world.  In his day people were plenty tired of the way things were and more than ready for something new.  It was unlikely that the “new” would be getting rid of Rome, because everyone who tried that ended up conquered, enslaved, or dead.  But when John (who dressed weird and ate weirder) began preaching about God doing a new thing, people came to see him.

We learned some things about John in our study this summer that might be good to remember here.  John was known as “the bather.”  This was a culture that loved a good bath and built public baths everywhere.  Then they built aqueducts to bring water to the baths.  It was a sign of refinement that people could gather in beautiful structures and take hot or cold baths together.  John, however, had nothing to do with the beautiful Roman baths.  He preferred the Jordan River, claimed by the Jewish people as their own.  By bathing in the river, he was thumbing his nose at Rome and challenging the goodness of their accomplishments and their authority.

Bathing was a public sign of new beginnings.  The Jews bathed to purify themselves.  Romans bathed to celebrate milestones in their lives and invited everyone to join them at the party.  People bathed to show they had turned a corner or begun something new.  They washed off the old and put on a new beginning.  It might be something like a graduation celebration today.  Or a celebration of getting clean and sober.  Or of ending cancer treatment.  Or renewing marriage vows.  A public bathing announced something was going to be different with a person going forward.  John invites everyone who’s tired of Roman occupation and violence to come bathe with him and start something new.  It’s no wonder he was eventually arrested and executed. 

Like Jesus who followed him, John drew crowds.  People came to see the crazy man who was preaching.  They also came because he gave them hope that there was something better than the way the world was working for them.  Both John and Jesus told people they could live by values other than the ones Rome put forward.  They could be different than the world around them. When enough people live differently, the world changes.

Eventually bathing with John became baptism.  A lot of water became a little water.  A declaration of difference became the status quo.  A challenge to the way things are became the way things are.  Baptism has become the safe and expected thing that happens to babies whose families want the best for them.  It’s lost its edge.  It’s no longer countercultural.  Too bad.

Every moment in time has its assumptions about how the world works, how people behave, how things happen to be.  John represents for his moment in time a rejection of assumptions.  He says things can be different; things will be different.  Watch out! Something is about to happen!

I was trying to think of people who might be the “John the Bather” in our moment in history.  There certainly have been some orators who called out for change, although it’s hard to name one right now.  If we could, what would we like them to say?  What challenge would we like to hear?

In a world fighting wars in 33 places, could we declare ourselves on the side of peace?  Could we suggest that all people have a right to a nation, a voice and a future?

The leaders of the world are meeting about climate change right now.  Could we be in favor of valuing Earth and her resources?  Of clean water and air?  Of renewable energy?

What would we like to be better in our world?  Health care? Education? Support for parents?  Food security?  Care for those who are aging?  Affordable housing? Community gardens? End to homelessness?  End to racism?  End to gender discrimination and homophobia?

In my heart Christmas is about hope.  It’s about believing God is fully present in this world empowering us to make it all that is good for every creature.  Advent is about getting ready for big audacious hopefulness.  It’s about throwing off despair and washing away whatever holds us back.  Take a bath; put on new clothes; be ready.  The world can change and we can be a part of making it happen.

Last Sunday after Pentecost

Matthew 5:43-48

We are reading the teachings of Jesus, starting with the sermon on the mount, so that we can remember what early Christians remembered about things Jesus said.  Many of us grew up believing in Jesus because of what other people said about him – that he was the Son of God, that he died for our sins, that believing in him was a ticket to heaven.  Those are things that have become very important over the centuries the church has existed.  But they weren’t the reasons first century Jesus communities followed him.  They were attracted by the things Jesus said about how to live with dignity under violent oppression from Rome, about how to have each others’ backs in an unpredictable society, about how to form communities that made life better for everyone.  So we’re reading those teachings so we can remember what the first followers found life-changing about Jesus.

Today we’re reminded to “love our enemies.”  That’s about as counter-cultural as you can get.  In the first century there were plenty of enemies to hate:  Rome, Roman soldiers, landlords, puppet rulers, anyone who would turn you in to the authorities to protect themselves.  Jesus said to love all these folks, and people still came to hear him.  How could that be?  Contemporary politicians tell us that we should hate people not like us – those in the “other” political party, people from other nations who speak languages we don’t know, people out to take our jobs and expand the kinds of food we can buy in grocery stores, people who don’t look like us.  There’s money and popularity to be made in hate.  So why did people come to hear Jesus talk about love?  And why did they think love made life better for everyone?

I’m drawn to teachers today who tell us that the opposite of love isn’t hate – it’s fear.  There was plenty of fear in the first century and there’s plenty of fear in our world today.  Fear of war, of disease, of failure…  I suspect people then and people now are tired of being afraid.  When we discover the ability to love others, particularly those who might threaten us, we discover that love wipes out fear.  It’s smart to be cautious and careful in many situations, but those aren’t exactly the same as being afraid.  Fear takes our power away from us.  Love gives it back.  Fear makes us helpless.  Love gives us the power to decide who we will be and how we will live.  When you love someone who has the power to hurt you physically, you take away their power to kill your spirit.  And sometimes you transform their desire to harm you.

I remember the story of the Jewish couple in Omaha who cared for the white nationalist when he was ill.  They brought him food, gave him rides to the doctor, and befriended him.  In the end, he changed his mind about hating Jews.  Love can do that.

This week Pat and I were confronted by one of the residents at LaGrave who told us our food was terrible.  We didn’t get angry.  We wished her a good day.  The next day she apologized profusely about the way her illness sometimes made her lash out without wanting to.  Love can make a space for healing to happen.

Lots of people are quick to tell us that love doesn’t work in a dangerous world.  We can’t love our neighbor when our neighbor isn’t like us.  Jesus tells us it does work, and then shows us time after time that he’s right.  I wonder what would happen if we believed him.

The author David French writes: The biblical call to Christians to love your enemies, to bless those who curse you, and to exhibit the fruit of the spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control – does not represent a set of tactics to be abandoned when times are tough, but rather a set of eternal moral principles to be applied even in the face of extreme adversity.  When it’s hard to love, we’re quick to say it couldn’t work anyway.  But Jesus tells us that God is love and we are love and the only way to be true to ourselves and to God is to keep loving, even when it’s hard.

The poet June Jordan spoke in 1977 to a group of people who cared about children’s literature.  In that speech she suggested that “love is lifeforce…. I see love as the essential nature of all that supports life.”

Jesus tells us “God is love.”  Our religious heritage has taught us to think of God as a being beyond all beings which we relate to as other – beyond ourselves.  In the distant history of humanity when religions sprang into being, it made perfect sense to think of God in that way.  The entire creation was a mystery and the only way to imagine the origin and sustaining of all that is was as mystery.  Surely someone powerful was behind the way the world worked. 

Over the centuries humans have come to understand much more about how creation works.  I’m no scientist, but I’m intrigued by the new science that tells us everything is interrelated.  That the energy which pulses within us as electrons vibrate and molecules multiply and blood circulates is connected to all other energy so that we are not really separate beings but just small parts of a great being-ness.  Whatever happens to you impacts me, whether I know it or not.  In light of this amazing way to understand the world, I’ve come to think of God not as a separate life at all, but as Life itself.  For me God has become the energy that is life and moves through all life.  God is the motion within us and between us.  When Moses met God in the burning bush and asked God’s name, he was told, “I am.”  The very essence of being is God.  Then Jesus tells us, “God is love.”  I picture God as vibrating love which unites all that is, moves in and through all that we know and all that is yet to be discovered.  Across time and space – as tiny as the smallest particle and as big as the whole universe all at once.

Love isn’t something we add to our common life.  It IS our common life.  On Tuesday night at Justice Conversations we were wondering about whether or not it’s possible for humans to create a society that’s just, equitable, compassionate, caring about one another.  Can we act without violence?  Can we share earth’s resources so that everyone thrives?  It’s a bit of a stretch for the imagination.  There’s so much evidence that we can’t do it.  Maybe that’s because we think of love as something we have to learn instead of something we essentially are.

“Love is lifeforce.”  The life which animates us, beats with our hearts, courses through our veins is at the same time God and love.  When we love, we aren’t learning a new way of being, we’re remembering who we are.  We’re remembering that our very life is the presence of God in us and through us.  Long ago Eckhart Tolle shocked the viewers of an Oprah Winfrey special by asserting, “I am god.”  He wasn’t claiming to be an omnipotent being greater than all others.  He was affirming that the very life within him was one and the same with the life of all that is and that “all that is” is holy.  So Eckhart is God and so are you and so am I and so is all that is.  Not one of us God in totality but all of us completely and inextricably woven into the very being of God so that there is no other, no separation.  When we remember that, then we remember that we are one with every other person. 

Jesus who tells us to love our enemies also tells us that we are to love God, love neighbor and love self.  We hear that as three things to do.  But maybe it’s not.  Maybe it’s just one love because God and neighbor and self are all one being.  When we begin to see that those we fear, those we’re tempted to hate or disregard, are connected to us – heart to heart, life to life – then maybe even though we dislike what people do, we can love who they are.  Maybe we can see within each one some small light of God and focus on that until they can see it too.

Long ago people came to listen to Jesus because they wanted to believe him.  They wanted to believe that in a world filled with violence and distrust, warfare and greed, it was possible to love each other.  It’s possible to live each day caring for others, treating people with respect, and seeing within each one the light of God.  They created communities that lived by that hope and found possibility in their life together.  In every generation there have been those who still hoped and who still lived by that light.  This is our time to hold that light until others can see it.  To love in spite of the world until the world remembers they are love. 

Jesus told us to do it.  We should believe him.

Twenty-Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

Matthew 5:27-42

Sometimes when you start a project, it takes you places you wouldn't otherwise go. You decide to clean out the garden shed and end up needing to learn how to dispose of hazardous waste.

You clean out a basement cupboard and have to learn how to sell Disney movies on Facebook. Good beginnings can sometimes lead surprising places. We're beginning a project to read again the teachings of Jesus the Gospel writers preserved for us, which brings us to today's scripture. I hardly ever set out to preach about adultery and divorce, but here we are.

Most of us read today's scripture from a 21st Century view. When we think about adultery or divorce, we think of it in the context of chosen relationships, relatively equal gender roles, and no-fault divorce. Jesus' context was arranged marriage, women as property of their fathers until they are passed to their husbands, and divorce as economic disaster for a woman and her children who have no way to support themselves without the generosity of a husband. Adultery is a crime because it steals the property of another man - his wife or daughter. Only men were allowed to request a divorce, and some scholars suggest they did so for frivolous reasons - oversalting the stew or more likely losing youthful beauty. Divorce would not have been a mutual decision about compatibility.

Jesus clearly tells men to keep marriage contracts and act with fidelity toward their wives. Even more, he talks about not just keeping the rules, honoring the contract, but about how you think about marriage. Be faithful, he says. Honor your commitments to each other. Sometimes we hear about some young man with mental health issues taking this scripture literally and blinding himself or amputating his own hand. That's an extreme response. It reminds us that Jesus isn't about rules -in fact he often criticized those who were. He's about relationship. In that context, Jesus would be saddened by the number of divorces in today's society. The truth is, we are saddened too. Even those of us who are divorced regret the breaking of relationships and the complicating of family life for children. Contemporary divorce can be taken too lightly. It can also be essential for the ongoing health of the people involved. Life is complicated and so are human relationships. I've come to believe that Jesus would prefer that people stay married to each other and make things work. I also believe that when that isn't the healthiest option for people, he'd grieve with us and encourage us to begin again. Learn from your mistakes and do better next time. That happens in so many situations that the church does better to encourage healthy decisions rather than enforcing rules that no longer fit our situations.

That can also be true of the passage about swearing. Jesus isn't talking about colorful vocabulary (although I suspect many of us were raised by mothers who were convinced he was). The swearing Jesus refers to was a way of forming contracts in a verbal society. I swear by the hairs on my head that I will sell repay you this loan. I swear to God that I didn't take your prize goat. Jesus is right that if we're honest and truthful, we don't need to swear by something powerful to prove our point. Even calling on God's name won't make up for deceit. Rather, just tell the truth and let it be. Everything comes back to forming strong communities, and being able to trust each other's words makes community stronger.

Finally, Jesus talks about retribution. Torah limited the impact of revenge by saying if someone blinded you in one eye, you could take one of their eyes, but not both. If someone killed your donkey in a raid, you could take their donkey in repayment, but not slaughter their flock of sheep. In the violent first century the peasants in Jesus' audience were often violated by soldiers and people with power. When you live under oppression, you can't take revenge without making your situation worse. On the other hand, people can't take from you what you give freely. If you are struck on one cheek, offer the other. Suddenly you are no longer the victim but become the one who controls the situation. You respond with dignity rather than fear. If you are conscripted to carry a heavy pack for a mile, go two. Your generosity will cause trouble for the soldier who isn't allowed to make you go two miles, only one. Your generosity will put you in control of the situation rather than being its victim.

Jesus was teaching people how to change the world they lived in by changing themselves. The couldn't overthrow the Empire. They couldn't stand up to the local rulers without making things worse. But they could choose how they thought about themselves and how they responded to the world around them. In the face of violence and oppression, they could become kind, generous, centered. They could look out for each other. They could respect their wives. They could be honest with their neighbors. They could create a world within a world that was different.

Sometimes the church tries to create a "godly" world by making more rules. Don't do this; don't think that; you should always... you should never. I think of the folks I've known who wanted to "fix" education by posting the 10 commandments in the school room, or reform criminals by posting them in the courthouse. Then I remember the bit I read recently who suggested Christians should post the words of Jesus instead: blessed are the poor; blessed are the merciful; blessed are the peacemakers. I have relatively limited experience, but it seems to me that difficult situations don't need more rules; they need more love. When we love and respect one another, when we care about what's going on with one another; when we offer our best to the community, the community rises to the occasion and becomes better.

I can't help but wonder what today's passage has to say about the war happening in the middle east. It was started by a horrible act of terrorism, an act which no one suggests should go unpunished. It appears that the punishment is accomplishing just what Hamas hoped for - pushing peace in the area farther away rather than bringing hope for the future. Twenty-one years ago, I got in a lot of trouble on the first anniversary of the destruction of the World Trade Center by suggesting that war and retribution in response would only prove the terrorists right. That we should do everything we could to prevent another tragedy, but fighting a war would only cost more lives and bring more pain. I humbly suggest, after twenty years of war, that I was right. War didn't make the world better for anyone. War in Israel isn't accomplishing what it's supposed to, either. In a complicated world we have the power to stop some acts of terror, but uncontrolled violence is itself terror. I believe we can find a better way. I wonder who will be brave enough to try. Jesus is asking us to live out of the best impulses of our hearts, and that's a good starting place.

In his book Zen Shorts author Jon Muth retells a story about an old uncle who lived in a simple hut. One day he surprises a robber searching for something to steal (and not finding much). In kindness, the uncle gives the robber his second robe. The robber runs away in confusion.

Later, looking at the beautiful moon rising, the uncle remarks, "Poor man, all I had to give him was my tattered robe. If only I could have given him this wonderful moon." A robber or a friend; an opportunity to cheat or be honest; a victim or a whole person with choices. We get to decide how we will see life and how we will live it. Jesus encourages us to choose wisely.

Twenty-Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

Matthew 5:21-26

This summer we learned about life in the first and second centuries and the people who followed Jesus in that time.  More than anything else, those folks wanted to put Jesus’ teachings into action.  He spoke often about how people should live together, and they formed communities to follow his advice.  In the process, they said it was like getting a “new life.”  Near the end of that series, I realized that if we’re going to follow their example, we too need to know what Jesus told us to do.  One way to do that is to read and think about what we know Jesus said, so this fall and winter I suggest we do that, starting with the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew.

Some of today’s teaching is practical advice for people who live under a violent occupation army.  It’s a good idea not to come to the attention of the authorities, so if someone is dragging you to court, if you can settle before you get there, you’re both ahead.  The courts were likely to deal harshly with anyone they saw as a trouble-maker.  The court Jesus is referring to seems to be the one which settles debts owed.  People for centuries were thrown into jail for not being able to pay back loans.  They used prison time to work and pay back creditors, and it was a miserable experience.  In a time of extreme poverty, being in debt was a common reality, as it is for many in our own time.  People listening to Jesus surely identified with the situation he was describing.

And we can all identify with his advice about anger.  I don’t know anyone who isn’t either angry or frustrated with folks at one time or another.  Some years ago we read The Didache, a training manual for first century Christians.  The work is only 18 pages long and 10 of those deal with behaviors, mostly anger management.  First people mastered how to live in community and get along; then they were admitted to full membership.

The admonition to settle arguments with others before coming to worship or communion is in today’s passage and in The Didache.  Remembering that the meals we now celebrate as communion were originally long supper parties, it makes sense for two people having a disagreement to settle up before coming to dinner.  Having an argument drag out over hours of a long meal would be miserable for everyone.  Plus having a deadline for doing the hard work of settling differences helps us buckle down and do it.  

When we hear following Jesus as described as “new life” we are inclined to think of that spiritually. We are “saved” or guaranteed a place in heaven.  “New life” can have a daily explanation as well.  When we develop skills for community living, our lives become easier.  Anger management, clear communication, letting frustrations go, sharing generously with others, being clear about what we need and willing to meet the needs of others - all these make life better for ourselves, our families and the groups we join. The Jesus groups were making their lives new by following Jesus’ instructions about how to live together.

I suspect all of us have the experience of being angry at someone or some situation.  We easily fret over some real or imagined harm done to us, filling up our days with misery and creating heartburn and headaches.  The advice to resolve anger lets that go and sets us free.

There are a number of skills we learn over time to make that possible:

One is to be honest about what’s troubling us, but not in an accusatory way.  We say how we are feeling, not pointing out what the other has done wrong.  I remember practicing “I” statements when I learned mediation.  “When you… I feel… I wish…”  When you eat my ice cream I feel disappointed.  I wish you would ask me before eating something I’ve put in the freezer.”  “When you talk over my talking, I feel discounted and frustrated.  I wish you would wait for me to finish before you talk.”  

Another skill is to ask questions and wait for answers, without assuming what they will be.  “Why did you snap at me?”  “Why did you go to the movies without inviting me?”  “You seem down today.  Would you like to talk about it?”

An important skill is to learn to identify the stories we’re telling ourselves and decide if we want to change them.  We all want to know “the truth” about how things are, but in reality there is no objective truth, only what seems to be true from various perspectives.  Even what we think of as objective science now tells us that experimenters impact their experiments by what they expect to happen.  So that’s even more true in personal relationships.  Consider the person driving too fast and quickly passing you on a city street.  They could be an irresponsible kid showing off.  Or they could be rushing a wife to the hospital to have a baby.  Or they could be a grandma who really has to go to the bathroom.  Or they could be someone who just broke off a relationship and is emotionally distraught.  It takes practice to realize that we don’t know the stories of other people’s lives, and we don’t have to make them up.  “I wonder what that’s about” is a helpful thought rather than being quick to be angry or critical.  

Finally, our meditation friends teach us about not being attached to thoughts or situations.  We can notice:  I’m feeling angry, I’m feeling hurt, I’m feeling frightened or any emotion.  Then we can remind ourselves that emotions happen, they don’t become who we are.  We get to choose whether we’ll identify with them or not.  I’m feeling sad is not exactly the same as I’m sad.  That tiny bit of separation gives us space to notice the feeling, acknowledge it’s real, and then choose how to handle it.  Will we have a conversation with someone who’s hurt us?  Will we tell ourselves a different story about the situation?  Will we find something that makes us joyful to focus on instead?  We can learn to work with emotions rather than letting them take over, even if it takes some time to calm down and be ready to do that.

I realize that this sounds more like psychology and self-help than what we’re used to thinking about as religion.  It’s a good reminder that all the parts of our lives matter to Jesus; our whole selves are loved by God and we can bring all of ourselves into God’s light.  Jesus was teaching people how to live together in a more healthy and loving way.  I’ve said before that the key question is “What would love do?”   It remains the key question when we are angry, frustrated, or in trouble with others.  What is the most loving way to deal with one another, to learn about one another, and to heal relationships with one another?  That is what Jesus asks us to do.  Together, we can learn how to do it.

Twenty-Third Sunday after Pentecost

Matthew 5:17-20

In Jesus’ day the religious leaders, the scribes and Pharisees, believed that if every Hebrew kept the law perfectly for just one day, the kingdom of heaven would come.  This was an impossible task since they meant not just the 613 laws found in the Torah but the hundreds of rules about what each law actually meant and how to keep each one.  For instance, one of the ten commandments is to “honor the sabbath and keep it holy.”  That’s a command to rest and reflect one day each week.  But that one law devolved into rules about whether or not one could cook on the sabbath (not) or walk on the sabbath (only a few steps).  In our time those who observe Judaism strictly have two kitchens to help them to observe all the rules of kosher cooking, automatic light switches so no one turns on a light on sabbath, and homes near the synagogue so they need walk (not drive) only a short distance to services.

There’s a good side to all these rules when they help people be conscious of the presence of God in their lives. There’s a down side when the focus on rules becomes obsessive.  In Jesus’ time, some of the leaders were excessively focused on the rules, which were expensive to keep.  They took time, which hardworking peasants or slaves didn’t have.  They took extra cooking vessels, which were expensive.  The rules separated religious from non-religious people and they made it impossible for those who were poor to be religious.  Only the rich had the luxury of time and money to keep the rules and thus please God.

We know that Jesus was often critical of the Pharisees, so we’d expect him to say, “The law is a heavy burden.  You don’t have to follow it.”  Instead, he says people must keep every letter of the law.  But there’s a twist…you must be more righteous than the Pharisees – who keep every letter of the law.  Is Jesus contradicting himself?  Is he making it even harder to connect with God than the strict leaders of his day?  Or does he have something else in mind?

There’s a hint for us in Jesus’ statement that we must keep the Law and the Prophets.  The law, before all the rules which expanded on it, was about how people lived with each other as a sign of God’s love:

• Honor your father and your mother.

• Don’t steal.

• Don’t lie about your neighbor in court.

• Welcome the stranger.

• Care for orphans and widows who have no male householder to support them.

• Forgive debt every seven years.

• Every fifty years free all the slaves and give land back to its original owners.

When we read the actual laws at the heart of the Torah, it’s evident that the religious leaders weren’t really interested in following them.  There’s no evidence that property was ever restored in a jubilee year, or that slaves were freed to go home.  In Jesus’ time the world was full of people hungry and desperate and no one was making an attempt to feed or clothe or house them.

The prophets were more than folks who predicted the future, even a dire future of battles lost and nations conquered.  They were the ones who pointed out when people weren’t following the law.  The railed against economic injustice and abuse of power.  They called rich folks and leaders to task when the bulk of the populace was poor and desperate.  Just as the laws which were hard were ignored, the prophets were also discounted.  No one wanted to structure society by God’s law because equality is hard.  Economic justice costs rich folks money.  

Two weeks ago we read the scripture called the beatitudes, which is part of Jesus’ teaching about what’s important.  Blessed are the poor.  Blessed are the meek.  Jesus doesn’t talk about rules which reinforce the advantage of the rich over the peasants.  He tells us, “Blessed are the peacemakers” in spite of living in a time when Rome was inflicting violence on every nation and people.  

Jesus isn’t talking about following picky rules about what recipes you use or which plates you serve on.  He was talking about shaping the very fabric of society by God’s vision.  He would have been in favor of forgiving debt, returning land, feeding widows and orphans, welcoming strangers.  Jesus was teaching people to take care of each other, forming communities of equality and dignity and compassion.  In the decades after his death, his followers did just that.  They gathered in small groups and took care of each other.  They had a good time doing it.  Of course they had bumps in the road, but they learned how to manage disagreements and watch each other’s backs.  

On one had there are the religious leaders saying if you keep all the rules perfectly the reign of God will come.  On the other hand Jesus is saying if you keep the spirit of the law and prophets, you’ll discover the reign of God is already among you.  Love one another and figure out how to put love into practice every day.  That’s the spirit of God’s vision for the world.

In our time it’s as tricky to follow the spirit of God’s law as it was in Jesus’ time.  We’re constantly trying to figure out who our neighbor is and how to love them.  Some folks want to tell us we just need more rules to make life work better.  Rules about who can cross a border.  Rules about who owns the land and the oil.  Rules about who gets food and who doesn’t.  Rules about how to fight wars.  There’s no shortage of rules.

Remember how Jesus summed up the law when someone asked him?  Which is most important?  Love God.  Love your neighbor as yourself.  We make rules when love is in short supply.  Rules are meant to protect us from those we fear.  But love breaks down division and fear.  Rules aren’t nearly so important when we really care about each other.  It’s easy to make exceptions to the rules when we know the people involved and what they need.  

We’re in the midst of asking ourselves questions about who we are as a church and how we should live in our world.  It’s possible that only one question matters:  What would love do?  What is the most loving attitude we can hold; the most loving action we can take?  How do we love one another well and love our neighbor too?  

Keeping the law and the prophets isn’t about rules, it’s about love.  If we’re going to heal the world, we’re going to have to love it back to health.  That’s a big task.  So we start small – with each other and our community.  We love the best we can and hope that over time love is contagious.  There’s talk all the time of things going viral.  Let’s commit ourselves to infecting the world with the virus of love and pray that it spreads everywhere.