Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Philemon & Luke 14:25-33

We don’t often read Paul’s letter to Philemon, which is buried near the end of our Bibles.  It’s written on behalf of the slave Onesimus who has been working with Paul and helping him while he’s imprisoned in Rome.  We don’t know how Onesimus came to be with Paul, but it seems like he’s escaped from Philemon’s household, where he came to know Paul through the Christian community which met there.  Perhaps when he could no longer tolerate his enslavement he ran away and sought out Paul as a person who might help him.  If that’s the case, after spending time with Paul, the two men seem to have determined that it would be right for Onesimus to return and Paul sends him with a letter of commendation.

It takes a lot of trust for Onesimus to go back to Philemon, who had the right to take his life because of his actions.  Maybe he and Paul are counting on Philemon’s faith in Jesus to soften the punishment he inflicts.  In Christ they are not just owner and slave but brothers in faith.  Paul certainly plays all the right chords in his attempt to make this situation positive.  If Paul has brought the message of Jesus to Philemon’s household, then surely the folks there owe Paul their lives.  In comparison to all of life, a little leniency to a slave is a small request to ask.  And after all, Onesimus has been caring for Paul (on Philemon’s behalf!).  (One thing this letter tells us is that Paul isn’t shy about calling in all the favors he can.)  We don’t know “the rest of the story” but perhaps the fact that this letter has survived to become scripture is a sign that it was successful in reuniting these two men into a new relationship.

There’s nothing in Paul’s persuasive letter that suggests that Philemon should be lenient with Onesimus because slavery is wrong.  Even though they are now brothers in faith, they are still owner and slave.  Paul isn’t asking for that to change.  He sends Onesimus back to serve Philemon.  In the first century imagining an end to slavery was beyond anyone’s wildest imagination.  Some changes are so huge that even the Jesus followers who were rethinking the world couldn’t get there.  But to experience slavery in a kinder way was possible so that’s what they did.  There’s good evidence that both enslaved people and owners of people met together as equals within Christian communities.

Over the centuries the fact that neither Jesus nor Paul called for an end to slavery has been used to justify the owning of human beings.  In our own country, in South Africa and elsewhere people pointed to the practice of slavery in scripture as condoning the practice for themselves.  We believe this to be a great distortion of Jesus’ view of life.  It’s a good example of the fact that the meaning of scripture changes over time.  When we read the Bible we aren’t just looking for timeless truths and trying to duplicate life thousands of years ago.  We’re applying principles from one age to our own.  That means our understanding of God and Jesus and a holy life is different from just copying ancient practices.  The Reformed part of our heritage tells us that we are “reformed, always being reformed.”  In other words, we change and our faith changes with us.  I think it’s Maya Angelou who said,

“Do the best you can.  When you know better, do better.” 

Over the years and certainly over our lifetimes we learn and grow in faith and our practice grows with us.

Each one of us hopes to be a better person because of our faith.  We follow Jesus not just to earn a reward for ourselves, but to live a more just and moral life and to be more helpful to others.  Our church’s emphasis on justice and mercy, on compassion and acts of kindness, is how we live out our hope for a better world – a world God envisions as possible.  That means we’re constantly trying to know and do better for our community.

I wonder if that’s what Jesus had in mind when he talks about hating family and even our own lives in order to follow Jesus.  In the first century to become a disciple or to take Jesus’ teaching to heart would certainly have been divisive.  In many cases it would have endangered people who challenged the status quo like Jesus did.  It cost Jesus his life.  It’s not that Jesus encouraged people to cause trouble in their families or communities.  That wasn’t the point.  The trouble was the result of living life in a new way – a way that challenged rules for the benefit of people.  The result of that is a challenge to power and a challenge to power is dangerous.  You are risking your life because of your commitment to God’s way.

The stories about counting the cost are interesting.  They accurately describe how folks plan for big projects.  You don’t start out to remodel your house unless you can finance the work.  Is Jesus telling us not to bother with following him unless we’re willing to die for the cause?  Does he mean that we literally might die?  Many of his followers did, although that’s not a 21st century experience for most folks.  Or is he talking about “dying” to an old way of life to adopt a new one?  Paul asked Philemon to “die” to the old way of being an owner of people to live in a new relationship with Onesimus. 

Too often we think of Christianity as a “finished product” given to us by Jesus and then to be followed in exactly the same way forever.  Today’s stories are reminding us that to be a follower of Jesus is always a work in progress.  In our time Paul would have told Philemon to free Onesimus.  Jesus tells us that following his way of life may lead to conflict, but not because we’re “right” and we have to leave behind all those folks who don’t agree with us.  The conflict comes when we grow into a newer understanding of how to live out Jesus’ values and some folks just can’t come along with us yet.  It takes courage to notice when the way we’ve always thought about things is hurting others and to make changes to correct that.  We count that cost and we take the risk. 

In our moment in time we’re learning that the privilege we’ve never even noticed we have has harmed others and we’re trying to become more understanding. We’re trying to leave behind racism and injustice – even as we’re learning that that even means.  Our lives are changing as a result.  This week we’re apologizing to our native friends for the remains found at UND.  We didn’t take them or store them, but we’re still sorry for the hurt their existence is causing others.  We’re learning about that hurt and we’re changing.  President Biden is asking us to consider that we can’t uphold a democracy when we focus on who should be excluded – making voting harder, immigration more difficult, poverty a judgment and not a problem to be solved.  How do we count the cost of building a just and equitable community in our nation?  What do we have to give up – and what will we gain?

Science tells us that life that isn’t evolving is dying.  Faith that isn’t evolving is dying.  We aren’t the same people we were when we first believed in the message of Jesus.  Hopefully, we understand better now.  And when we understand more, we do better too.  Life is about change and so is faith.  I think that’s not a sacrifice but a joy.  It’s not something we lose it’s what we all gain.  We are invited to create the kingdom of God and we do that by learning more and doing better  -  together.

Twelth Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 14:1,7-14

How many of us have been to a big party, like a wedding, and hesitated at the entrance to the banquet hall because we don’t know where to sit?  If there aren’t place cards or assigned tables, we have to choose a chair.  Those of us who are introverts hate going up to a stranger and asking,  “Is this seat taken?”  What if they say “yes”?  There’s that awkward moment of rejection.

In the first century those who could afford to have parties for their friends knew that there was a strict ranking.  The most important guests sat nearest the host.  Presumably they got the most and best food as the dishes were passed, like today if we get to be first in line at a potluck.  Those farthest from the host were served last.  We’ve heard that in the Middle Ages this was called “sitting above (or below) the salt” with the salt cellar placed in the middle of the table.  On feast days the peasants and servants might be invited to the meal, but they sat “below the salt” and their food was inferior to those sitting higher.

I suspect Jesus isn’t terribly interested in the seating etiquette of his time but is using this story as an example of how we understand generosity and benevolence in our lives.  Often he tells his followers that they are to put themselves last and others first.  Practicing humility reminds us that life isn’t really about just us but about community.  It matters whether we prioritize our own self interest and importance or if we see others as equals and prioritize the benefit of all.  In this moment we’ve seen this difference show up in the debate about forgiving student loans.  I read an amazing satire about how if I had to struggle and sacrifice all future people should struggle and sacrifice.  It’s not “fair” to pay off the loans of some if others have already repaid their debt. Personally, when I graduated from college I owed a whopping $2700.  My grandmother helped me pay it off at $100/month.  Today students are going to spend more than that on spring break and taking the family out to dinner costs more than $100.  It’s not going to hurt me much if someone else’s debt is cancelled.  I’m no expert on the economics of this forgiveness program and it may or may not be a good idea.  But the fact that some people don’t qualify and others have paid off their debt and won’t benefit from the new program shouldn’t be a deciding factor.

We see this mindset in many places.  Why build a new school for today’s children when the old one was good enough for me 50 years ago?  Why subsidize new low income housing when my house is already paid for?  Why provide assistance to people who are hungry when I can pay for my own groceries?  If I don’t need it, no one should get it.  If people don’t work as hard or have as many advantages as I do, then that’s their problem, not mine.  I’m going to take the seat of honor because I deserve it.  I suspect if Jesus had advocated for this attitude, he would have had a very different set of disciples.  Every time his disciples wanted to send someone away or exclude a person they didn’t see as qualified, they were chastised.  Women, children, beggars, leppers, tax collectors, prostitutes and all sorts of unsavory folks got to sit at Jesus’ table.  Jesus lived on a level playing field and each person mattered just as much as any other.  If we’re going to be his contemporary followers, we have to check our mindset for humility often.

The second part of this reading is about reciprocity and gratitude.  We may all have been in a situation where we invite people to dinner and never get an invitation back.  I’ve gone so far as to say, “I’m not inviting them again until they invite me.”  We don’t always know why relationships like this become uneven.  Maybe the others are embarrassed because they don’t cook well, or their house is in disarray, or their schedule is crazy and they can’t manage the extra stress of inviting guests.  Jesus is telling us that we don’t do kind things in order to get something back from others.  We do them because they are the right thing to do and we are the right person to do them.  Sometimes people tell me they aren’t going to cook for LaGrave any more because they never get a thank you note.  I understand that it’s nice to be acknowledged.  I’m not going to quit cooking because it’s way too much fun.  There’s a “thing” out there called reciprocal altruism, which means doing the right thing because it will benefit you.  That’s okay, but how much better to do the right thing because it will benefit someone else.  Or simply because it’s the right thing to do.

There are lots of good deeds that are the right thing to do.  We hear about them every Sunday in the Light Signs.  Cooking for LaGrave.  Growing a garden to donate the produce.  Sending puzzles and movies to the Juvenile Detention Center.  Filling food boxes.  You make your own list.  A man down the block from me mows my neighbor’s front yard every week.  Any given week I’ll bet a couple of hundred folks in town take a friend to the grocery store.  There’s lots of tomatoes and zucchini being shared right now.  My daughter’s neighbor blows her snow when her husband’s deployed.  It’s campaign season and every night we get an update about who’s raising the most money.  Some of that money may be yours.  For the most part none of these things get done because we expect something in return.  The reward is in the good feeling of knowing we’ve brightened someone’s day and made the world a better place.  Those who are keeping score need an attitude adjustment.

How do you know if you’re the right person to do any particular act of kindness?  Check and see if it makes you happy.  Of all the things we do, none of them appeals to all of us.  Each activity draws the group that wants to do it.  I hope you hear often that you can choose to participate in those things that interest you.  If it brings you joy – it’s yours.  If it doesn’t – skip it.  Of the billion or so jobs that need doing we’re going to have to pick a few.  Nothing on our list is essential.  If no one is interested, we can leave it for someone else.  But leave it because it doesn’t fit your skill set, not because you don’t get enough recognition for doing it.  

Jesus invited us to help him build a better world.  He called that world “the kingdom of God.”  By that he meant a community in which everyone counted and all people had what they needed to live.  It’s a way of life in which we all look out for each other.  We do what we can.  When we can’t do for ourselves, someone helps.  We take turns.  We share.  Years ago we read that all those good qualities were a little like what you learn in kindergarten.  Hold hands.  Pay attention. Go together.  Maybe we’re all going to grow up together when we return to those basic, early learnings and remember how to form groups of compassion.

In the meantime doing any small part for the benefit of the whole is an end in itself.  We do it because it matters.  The reward is in the good feeling that comes from being truly helpful.  There may not be immediate payback.  In the long run we are all better for it because we actually are building the kingdom of God among us.

Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 13:10-17

This story tells us that Jesus had enough standing as a teacher to be invited to teach in a synagogue.  More than once we hear that he was reading scripture and talking about what it meant.  It also tells us that his teaching irritated the official teachers – the rabbis.  It was too radical for their comfort zone.

What is it that was so radical about Jesus’ teaching?  Mostly that people were more important than rules.  In this story a woman bent in pain comes to him.  This is already a rules infraction because women didn’t attend service in the synagogues.  Instead of reminding her to wait outside Jesus healed her.  The leaders point out that he has done work on the sabbath, another violation.  Jesus insists that helping God’s creatures is more important than following the rules.  Even though the commandment to rest on the sabbath comes out of the people’s understanding of God, the strict enforcement of this and many other rules based on the law was making it hard for people to live.  Those at the bottom of the economic ladder simply couldn’t keep all the commandments and so thought they were estranged from God.  The rules were a barrier to experiencing God’s love and participating in God’s community.  Jesus says when there’s a conflict between human need and rules, the rules are secondary.

I wonder where that happens in our world.  This week I talked with a woman in need of housing assistance so she’s not evicted.  We’re going to help her pay back rent and her landlord is going to roll her deposit toward a less expensive apartment.  I asked if she had contacted agencies in our communities who help with housing.  She had been turned down because her young adult daughter lives with her.  This daughter has medical issues which make it difficult for her to work right now.  Because the woman is caring for her daughter, she couldn’t get help with her financial situation.  She had made good decisions about how to live within her income, but she couldn’t implement those decisions because she was keeping her family obligations.  The rules prevented her moving forward.

Decades ago in our country we declared war on drugs.  We needed to do something to address addiction and drug use that was damaging our people.  Unfortunately what we did was impose strict punishment which has been unevenly enforced.  Minority folks have spent disproportionate time in jail, destroying the futures of so many and breaking communities.  We spend much more money on incarceration than on treatments that have been proven to work.  We tried to fix a problem with rules rather than with compassion.  As a result the problem is bigger and many folks have been harmed.

We pride ourselves on being a nation of laws and many of those laws serve us very well.  We are all safer because of speed limits and vaccinations and social security.  The laws that serve us best are those which help people live better lives.  The laws which don’t serve us well impose the beliefs of some people on all people or try to punish folks into healthy living.  By his actions Jesus gives us a way to evaluate our rules by the way they relieve suffering and encourages us to make adjustments when the rule has become more important than the people we are called to help.

I’m also intrigued by this woman’s illness which caused her to bend in pain for 18 years but could be cured in an instant. Our Tuesday study group is reading a book by Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrams about hope.  A story in this week’s reading seems very similar to this scripture and I want to share it with you:

[Douglas] told Jane about Ashlee Cunsolo, who works with Inuit communities in Nunatsiavut, Labrador, Canada, who have been impacted by climate change.  She was interviewing the communities about all they were losing – the ice that was breaking up; the temperatures that were rising; the plants and animals that were changing; and in many ways, an entire way of life that was disappearing.

“Cunsolo was hearing all these stories of despair and trying to write them up in her dissertation when she began experiencing radiating nerve pain in her arms and hands.  The pain was so severe that she couldn’t type or work.

“She went to all the medical specialists, but they could not find anything wrong with her nerves.  Finally, she went to one of the Inuit elders and he told her, ‘You’re not letting go of our grief.  Your body is stopping you from typing because you’re intellectualizing it, not feeling it.  Until you get it out of your body, your body won’t function.’  He told her she had to make space for her grief and speak it.  And she also had to find awe and joy every day.”

“What did she do?”  Jane asked.

“She went into the forests.  She immersed her hands in an ice-cold river and asked the water to take away the pain.  She apologized to the land for the harm that she and others were doing.  It was a reckoning.

“Cunsolo told me that she had been able to find awe and joy in the forest, “I continued.  “She said there’s always beauty, even when there’s pain and suffering.  She learned not to hide from the darkness, just not to get lost in it.”

“Did it help?” Jane asked.

“After two weeks of crying and letting the grief flow out of her body, the nerve pain was gone.”

(The Book of Hope,  Jane Goodall & Douglas Abrams with Gail Hudson, p. 75)

This is a remarkable story.  It reminds me of times when stress has lodged itself in my body and brought pain.  That may be true for you as well.  It also brings to mind the folks who are telling us that the pain of our history is lodged in our DNA.  That as a people we can’t just ignore past trauma and move on like nothing has happened.  Until we acknowledge that there is pain in our past, we can’t build a good future.

We aren’t directly responsible for terrible things that have happened in history:  for genocide and brutality that took the land we live on away from the first peoples; for slavery that still shows in racism and inequality in today’s society; for abuse and exploitation of women and children under the guise of male privilege or of people of color because of white privilege or of LGBTQIA folks because of heteronormative culture.  These atrocities are things that we personally would not do and certainly not something we condone.  But we stand at a moment when there’s a movement to deny that they happened rather than to face them.  We do have a voice to ensure that doesn’t happen.  When folks want to make rules that rewrite history or ban books or censor teachers we can stand up for justice.  It may make us uncomfortable, just like Jesus made the leaders of his day uncomfortable.  But healing comes from acknowledging grief and facing trauma so that we can choose to live a different way.  Healing comes when ALL people are more important than our comfort or the status quo.  Healing comes when we follow Jesus’ example and extend a hand.

Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 12:49-56

Scripture tells us that Jesus is the Prince of Peace.  This scripture doesn’t sound very peaceful.  Jesus is telling us that he’s come to shake things up and can’t wait until it gets really hot.  He anticipates that everyone is going to be arguing , maybe because of him or his message.  He tells us it’s easy to read the “signs of the times” – even easier than the weather – but then he doesn’t tell us what they say.

For centuries people have been referring to Jesus bringing life on earth to its amazing climax.  There have been classic poems and graphic novels and film series about how it’s all going to come to an end in a glorious revelation of God’s holy reign.  Everything as we know it will change.  Those who aren’t in Jesus’ camp will be sorry.  Those who are in Jesus’ camp will be glorified.  What does it all mean?  And if it’s going to be so great, why hasn’t it happened yet?

Jesus says it’s “from now on” but that was a very long time ago.

There’s plenty of evidence that the world is divided in the twenty-first century like it was in the first century.  Religion, class and political loyalty divided people then and still do.  Our country has been all riled up most of this week without much consensus about whether the news was good or bad.  In our own families we can’t often agree about how things are going.  If there were clear and easy answers in scripture about how things were supposed to go down, I’m thinking folks would have found them by now.  If God were going to make the world better in one fell swoop, I’m thinking there’s no reason for all this delay.

There’s also not much consensus about what a godly world looks like.  About the only thing most of us agree on is that whatever our vision of the reign of God looks like it matches God’s vision.  Which implies that competing visions are wrong.  Lining up on various sides of this debate isn’t doing much to improve the world.

So what is Jesus saying is happening in his lifetime and ours?  Certainly his ministry caused discord.  Some religious leaders loved what he was saying and others were furious.  Peasants were attracted to his ideas and threatened the wealth of landowners and power folks.  Eventually Rome thought he was dangerous enough to execute him and the Pharisee Saul saw enough danger to persecute his followers – until he became a follower himself.

Maybe there are clues in what Jesus said and did to help us know what he was trying to accomplish and why he thought it was okay to stir up trouble in the process.  

Wherever Jesus went he shared food with those who were hungry.

Jesus healed people who were ill.

Folks who were ostracized because of illness, disability, mental struggles, or profession were welcomed back into the community.

Men who thought they were holy were challenged and those who thought they were worthless were lifted up.

Women and children were treated with the same value as men.

People were allowed to make mistakes, learn from them, and start again.

Judging others was discouraged.

Jesus was describing a way of life in which everyone mattered and people looked out for one another.  Those are the kinds of communities his followers continued after his death.  They attracted more people who became followers because it was a good way of life.

I don’t know about you, but at least some days I feel like I’ve got this Jesus way of life down.  I’m a very nice person.  I do good things for others, even some folks I don’t know.  I’m humble beyond belief.  (insert laugh line here)

One thing I know about the stories Jesus told in his teachings is that the people listening were rarely the heroes of the stories – the ones getting everything right.  Over time we’ve decided that Jesus teachings describe Christians of all stripes and so reinforce our own ideas about how to behave.  That’s one sign that we’ve got it wrong.  Being a follower of Jesus is a journey – a goal to work for – and rarely a destination.  There’s always room for improvement.  There’s always more to know.

When we contribute to the dissention of the world by thinking we’ve got it all right and those who disagree with us are wrong, then we aren’t doing such a good job of following Jesus either.  There’s hard work to be done trying to understand those who are different from us and seeking consensus about the best way to move forward.  Sometimes that means we compromise.  Sometimes it means we stand for our principles and reject compromise, especially if someone is going to be hurt if we give in.

I’m intrigued by Jesus’ idea that the signs of God’s way are all around us to be seen and welcomed now – his now and our now, too.  If that’s the case, then life ought to be getting better for everyone.  Sometimes it is.  Most of the time there’s a long way to go.  Jesus seems to think it’s okay to stir thing up if it leads to positive change on behalf of everyone.  His follower John Lewis called that good trouble.  Maybe part of following Jesus is keeping an eye out for what good trouble we should be in next.  What action can we take to make the world better?  What policy can we advance that makes life easier for others?  

I suspect agreeing on what we ought to do isn’t the most important point.  Arguing about ideas can be interesting but it doesn’t always accomplish much.  Instead, we can just politely and determinedly do what we think contributes to good.  There are some folks in town that think people at LaGrave don’t deserve good meals.  That doesn’t keep us from feeding them.  There are some who think churches should be exclusive and call out those they call “sinners.”  That doesn’t keep us from welcoming everyone.  If we get in trouble, so be it.  But the trouble isn’t the point.  It’s doing whatever is the most loving thing in each moment that matters.  If that causes division, then division it is.  If not, then that’s even better.

Sometimes we’re going to get it right.  Sometimes we’re going to make mistakes and need to learn how to do better.  Listen and learn are important words for this journey.  Probably more important than “God says.”  Surely more important than “it’s always been this way.”

It’s not clear when Jesus is coming again in the way some folks think he’s coming.  It’s not clear when he’s going to change the world into the reign of God.  It is clear that Jesus is here now in and through those of us trying to live out his vision.  It’s a messy business.  And it matters.

Ninth Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 11: 1-13

Last week we read the Lord’s Prayer from the Gospel of Matthew where the emphasis was on the petition for forgiveness.  Today we read from the Gospel of Luke and see that this author stresses that prayer works.  Ask and you will receive.

Jesus grounded his entire life and ministry in prayer.  He often went away from the work and other people to pray.  He got up early and stayed up late to talk with God.  Prayer was part of his entire being.  So it’s no surprise that the disciples asked him to teach them to pray.  They saw how prayer gave him confidence and courage and energy for his ministry and they wanted what he had.   They wanted to be the kind of person that prayer helped Jesus to be.

In response Jesus teaches them a simple prayer focused on everyday life issues.  He doesn’t give them an elaborate ritual or fancy words.  They are taught to ask for what they really needed.  Here’s one way we could think about those needs:

God, we believe you are real and have power and influence in this world.
Make your good vision for life our reality.
Give us enough food.
Forgive us and help us to be forgiving of others.
Don’t let the hardships of life threaten us.

This is a practical prayer for people living under military occupation in a world where many folks were poor and hungry.  It’s also a prayer that the ministry they were engaged in – helping people live in a more loving and forgiving community – would be successful.

Two thousand years after Jesus taught his disciples this simple prayer, those who call themselves disciples are still repeating it.  We use it every Sunday.  It’s familiar and loved.  I wonder, though, if sometimes we say it just because we say it without believing in its power.  It’s a helpful exercise for us to think about what this prayer means in contemporary times.  Here’s one take on that:

God, you are the power of the universe that unites all life.
May we see goodness and holiness in our world.
May the way we live reflect the values we hold because of our faith.
Help us be sure everyone has food and the necessities of life.
May we forgive others and ourselves and heal divisions.
When we face hard choices, help us to choose wisely and for the common good.

You might want to think about what the words of this prayer mean to you.  What are we really asking God to do and what result do we want to see in our lives when we pray it?

One of the benefits of the Protestant Reformation which birthed our two denominations is giving prayer into the hands of ordinary people.  Prayers aren’t rituals or fancy words that only trained and ordained people can speak.  They aren’t confined to holy buildings or religious occasions.  Prayer, like Jesus taught, is a conversation with God, who listens to us all.  Sometimes those official prayers are helpful and we find comfort in them.  But the thoughts that come into your mind when you can’t sleep are also prayers.  They also connect you to the loving heart of the universe that we call God.  Even the spontaneous words we speak when things go wrong can be prayers.  “This is the pits!” is a prayer.  Or when things are beautiful and we say, “What an amazing sunset!” that also can be a prayer.  Jesus prayed because he lived in constant connection with God.  It can be our goal to live immersed in that kind of connection, and everyone can do it.  God is always with us and whenever we remember that presence, we are living in prayer.

Luke stresses that prayer works.  Jesus believed that what he asked for would happen.  He taught his disciples to expect results when they prayed.  What does that mean?  I’ve spent my life preaching that prayer is effective and we should all do it.  But we all know that sometimes what we pray for doesn’t happen, even if we’re persistent.  People we love die of illnesses that aren’t cured or age that doesn’t go away.  Russia invaded Ukraine and is killing thousands of people.  Our country and the world is still full of racial injustice and political divisions.  Children in our country and around the world go to bed hungry at night and get up to work instead of going to school.  If prayer works, why over two thousand years haven’t we prayed a better world into existence?  If there were a simple answer to that question, we’d be living in a different reality.

Jesus was convinced that prayer was worth the effort, that it helped him.  The reality is that it didn’t keep him from being executed and it didn’t make his movement an overnight success.  It did give him courage and hope.  In the long run, it made a difference not only to the way he lived and the way he faced death, but to all of us – to the world.

Many folks have written that prayer isn’t about changing the world; it’s about changing us.  That when we pray we approach life differently and that shift in our own attitudes can make a difference in the way we live and in what happens around us.  Praying for a person we love can help us see good in their lives, even if it’s not exactly what we asked for.  Praying for a person we don’t get along with can bring us patience and understanding which changes our relationship.  Praying for a better world can give us the energy to get up and make changes.  If enough people pray, we can find consensus for a new way forward.  

Most of all prayer keeps God’s vision for the world front and center in our thinking.  Prayer can keep us from being resigned to injustice or hardship.  Not all the brokenness of the world is inevitable.  It can be changed and God can work through us to accomplish that change.  Holding a friend in prayer during a hard time keeps them in our hearts and helps us reach out with some help – a cup of coffee, a few minutes to listen, a card that says we care.  We often say that our goal is to live like Jesus.  Jesus prayed – alone and with others, at intentional prayer times and in the midst of doing other things.  For Jesus prayer was his way of staying connected to God and to the vision of life that worked better for everyone.  This prayer and all words of prayer can help us keep that connection for ourselves.  It’s a way of holding the vision in hope and finding the courage to act on it in all the ordinary moments of our days.  Eventually, it becomes who we are – people of faith and action.  And in that way prayer changes us and through us it changes the world.

Eighth Sunday after Pentecost

Matthew 6:5-18

Today we’re finishing up our walk through the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew that’s been a summer project. Next week we switch to the Gospel of Luke and we’ll read familiar stories there into the fall. Today’s reading contains Matthew’s version of the Lord’s Prayer and next week we’ll see Luke’s version of the same prayer so we can compare.

There are a couple of themes in Matthew’s setting of this prayer. One is public piety. In this telling Jesus encourages people to pray but to do so quietly, avoiding public displays in the temple or synagogue and rather just talking with God. The point of prayer isn’t to get recognition from other people but to have a conversation with the power of the universe. The same is true about fasting, which was a common practice in the first century. Think of fasting as being publicly religious or drawing attention to how hard you are working at being spiritual. Folks in Jesus’ day put on clothing made of rough fabric and took ashes from the cooking fires to rub on their faces so everyone could know they were doing something holy. In contrast Jesus suggests they clean up – wash their faces and anoint their hair with oil, which is our equivalent of dressing up for something special. Look like you’re having a celebration rather than making a sacrifice. Jesus is telling us that faith shouldn’t be hard to do – it can be a daily joy.

I’m thinking of this in contrast to the voices in our day calling for the United States to be a Christian country and to restrict the rights of other religions, particular Jews and Moslems. We may not hear much about this, but it’s loud and proud in some circles and growing as a movement. I wonder if stating that Christian is best is a contemporary way of praying publicly and fasting with big show. The Supreme Court just said that coaches could pray prominently after public school games, even though public prayer has been discouraged in non-religious settings for most of our lifetimes. Prayer in schools has never been forbidden, but prayers which highlight one faith over another have been restricted because of the separation of church and state. Standing on the 50 yard line after a game seems to me to be a lot like making a big show in the temple. It’s more about drawing attention to a person than about talking with God. It's something to think about. Our denominations have always been great encouragers of prayer for all of us at the same time we respect the rules which prohibit exclusively Christian prayers in settings open to people of all faiths. We lend our voices to those who protest religious discrimination of any kind and build bridges instead of walls to people who worship differently from ourselves.

The second theme in this scripture is about forgiveness. Jesus asks us to pray for forgiveness of debts (or trespasses or sins) in accordance to the way that we are forgiving. Praying for forgiveness has grown to be a significant part of the Christian tradition. Many worship services include a prayer of confession and confession is a sacrament in the Catholic tradition. For some this forgiveness has become the main point of believing in Jesus – forgiveness of sins is a ticket to heaven for eternity. About the time that our denominations were forming in the Protestant Reformation, the debaters of theology gave it a prominence that continues for us today. They defined sin as doing, saying or thinking something which violated God’s rules and made us deserve punishment. Punishment evolved into “going to hell” and forgiveness became a “get out of jail free” card which promised heaven instead. Some folks went so far as to wait to be baptized until they were dying so that they wouldn’t commit any sins after baptism and risk not being ready for heavenly reward.

Because Jesus is the one who forgives sins and his death has become God’s punishment which he takes instead of us, Christianity stands in a unique place among the major world religions in looking at our responsibility for our actions. Forgiveness is related to what we think about Jesus and not about what we do. When we can’t earn forgiveness, we are somewhat removed from responsibility. No other religion does that to the same extent as ours.

It helps me in thinking about this to remember that Jesus wasn’t a Christian, he was a Jew. His ministry was a Jewish reform movement and it only became Christianity decades after his death. With that in mind I want to share a Facebook quote about forgiveness. (You can tell this thought is touching a chord with people because it’s being widely shared.) It’s a quote from Rabbi Harold Kushner who writes about Judaism to help all people understand better:

In Jewish thought, a sin is not an offense against God, an act of disobedience. A sin is a missed opportunity to act humanly.

In other words “sin” isn’t a violation of divine rules. We see that in the Jewish celebration of the Day of Atonement. First forgiveness is asked of those we may have harmed in the past year. It acknowledges that people argue, hurt one another, are forgetful and tries to make amends. When we patch up relationships with people who matter to us, we not only say we’re sorry for being wrong, we agree to change in the future. We act differently going forward. When Jesus is teaching about forgiveness, he reminds us that it’s a mutual event. We forgive others and are forgiven. Only when it’s not possible to seek reconciliation with others is forgiveness asked of God. God is the last resort for being absolved of sins, after we’ve done our part. I love that the symbol of this day is turning your pockets out and letting any lint fall into running water, which takes it away. It’s a sign of being made new and getting a fresh start.

Kushner tells us that sin is “a missed opportunity to act humanly.” That implies that an opportunity missed can be revisited and become an opportunity taken. We may not always be kind or generous, but when we realize we’ve made a mistake, we can correct it. I like it when doing the best we can counts for something and learning to do better makes a difference. Our current world is broken in many ways – from personal interactions to war and climate disaster. So much needs to be changed as we relate to each other, learn more about correcting past wrongs and build a world of peace, justice and opportunity for everyone. The idea that God believes we can do something about this brokenness gives me hope. It’s a reason to get up in the morning and try again.

This past week I met some new friends who recognized my name as being connected with justice issues in our community. Together we all have made a name for ourselves in caring about how our towns work and being leaders in caring about others. These folks must have thanked me three separate times for what we do. I was surprised and realized that even the small things we do are making a difference. Do we need a forgiveness that’s bigger than those efforts? Of course. But we also need to know that what we can do counts for something. For that we can be grateful.

Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

Matthew 5:38-48

This summer we’re reading scripture from The Sermon on the Mount in Matthew (and its counterpart The Sermon on the Plain in Luke). So many familiar sayings come from today’s scripture – turn the other cheek, go the extra mile, love your enemies.  Sometimes these scriptures give Christians a reputation for being weak in the face of evil.  I want to suggest they are actually a formula for greater strength.

Let’s start with the instructions of Jesus in their first century context.  Jesus lived in a country occupied by Rome and full of Roman soldiers.  These soldiers could beat people who weren’t obeying, demand they hand over goods or even clothing, or conscript them to carry heavy loads. While the actions described in this scripture are unusual to us, they were common to the original hearers.  But even Rome put restrictions on what soldiers could demand and exceeding those limits brought punishments.  So if a soldier requires your shirt and you give him also your cloak, he’s in trouble.  If he asks you to carry his pack a mile and you go two, he’s violated the rules.  Often when people of higher authority wanted to discipline a slave or underling by beating them, they would strike their face with the back of the hand.  This indicated that they were superior.  If you have been struck in this way and turn the opposite cheek for a second blow, the abuser would have to strike you with an open hand.  But to do that infers equality.  It places a dilemma on the one giving the blows – admit equality or back down.  Already the one being beaten has won that match.

These stories are about situations in which people are rendered powerless by those who control them and in each they turn the situation around and without violence get some measure of control.  This is nonviolent protest against an unjust system.  Jesus isn’t saying “give in.”  He’s showing people how to make their own choices at times when it seems they have no options.  He’s giving them strength in the face of oppression.

The same is true about the teaching on loving our enemies.  Jesus is right that it’s relatively easy to love people who love us and treat us with respect and high regard.  Whether it’s family, and employer, our neighbors – we like folks who like us.  Jesus points out that there’s not a lot of virtue in responding in kind to our friends.

Loving enemies is harder.  How are we to love those who malign us, argue with us, cheat us, or gossip about us behind our backs?  How do we love people who take advantage of our generosity or our good will?  How do we love those who do horrible things – murder, theft, abuse – or hold opinions we believe are harmful to all society?  Most of us just never pull that off.

Let’s start with thinking about what “love” means in this context.  Usually we see love as “like” on steroids – we really, really, really like the people we love.  That’s what it means when we’re falling in love with someone.  It can be what it means when we think of our love for family – folks we’d be willing to die for even.  Jesus isn’t necessarily talking about that kind of love here.  We can love some pretty undesirable characters without liking them at all.

Remember Jesus told us that God is love.  We believe that God loves every person, every creature, with a vast and unending love.  We are loved!  That’s because such love is the very fabric of all being.  I’m pretty convinced it’s the energy vibration of all that is.  Love is pervasive to all existence.  So even those folks we find totally unacceptable are loved, just like us.

This love isn’t related to liking behaviors or ideas.  God can love Vladamir Putin who is murdering thousands of Ukrainians as we speak.  God can love the young men who have created mass murder in terrible ways.  God can love your neighbor who always puts up yard signs for the party you object to in elections.  God IS love but God isn’t pleased by folks who harm others or create chaos and damage in the world.  

In the same way, we can separate our foundational love for everyone from our preference for positive actions and attitudes.  We can love the person while objecting to their behavior.  In fact, there are countless examples of people whose love toward another helped change that behavior.  The Jewish couple in Omaha who showed love to a Neo Nazi until he changed his mind about Jews comes to mind.  The capitol rioter who apologized to police this week is another example.  It doesn’t always have magical results, but love can be healing in difficult relationships.

Even more, showing love toward others can heal us.  You may have someone in your life who’s treated you badly.  They may still be at it.  Loving that person doesn’t mean you have to spend time with them.  It doesn’t mean you have to like them or ignore the harm they do toward you.  But if you can separate in your own mind their obnoxious behavior from the person they are, and then see them as a beloved child of God, you can diminish the pain you feel.  What they are doing is wrong, but seeing them through the eyes of love can keep you from obsessing about all the ways they hurt you.  You may not stop them, but you CAN stop the hurt.  That’s because you get to choose how you respond to them.  You get to decide if their belligerence is going to get to you or roll off of you.  You can de-escalate a difficult situation by refusing to engage in it.

Jesus lived in dangerous times.  Most of the people who came to hear him faced situations daily that could result in their own harm or death.  Teaching them to de-escalate by touching into a depth of love had the potential to save their lives.  Our times are usually less dangerous, at least for us, but they are still difficult.  There are many ways we can be triggered by actions or beliefs which seem harmful to us.  When we embrace Jesus’ call to love, we increase the chance that we can connect with people who disagree with us.  We give ourselves a way to find peace when someone wants to rile us up.  We can respond to difficult conversations from a place of calm and control rather than shouting back.

It takes practice to turn the other cheek or go the extra mile.  It takes practice to love our enemies.  But these practices give us strength in situation which would otherwise disempower us.  These practices give us control over ourselves and sometimes over an entire situation.  Over time, with intention and repetition, we find that we really can love all people – even the most difficult.  Over time we find a bottom line that says we have no enemies.  We still have people who push our buttons.  We still find people whose behavior needs correction.  But we have no enemies because everyone is a person we can love.

Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

Matthew 5:13-16

Today’s scripture is part of the collection called The Sermon on the Mount, mostly short teachings which summarize the point of Jesus ministry.  “You are the salt of the earth.”  “You are the light of the world.”  These sayings have come into many languages as familiar ways to say positive things about people.  In our congregation they remind us every week of what we’re about as followers of Jesus’ Way.

In the first century and throughout most of history salt was a seasoning and a preservative.  To say folks are salt means they make life better the way salt makes food taste better.  It also means they keep things safe and whole instead of allowing them to rot and decay.  Salted food keeps without refrigeration at home and on long journeys.  Salt allowed people of wealth to have meat throughout the year and not just when an animal was slaughtered.  Salt was a valued commodity and broadly traded across national lines.  In some ways it connected the world. 

Light is as highly valued as salt.  Light allows us to see what’s going on in the world.  Daylight is for working and for safety.  A lamp extends daylight – for seeing loved ones after supper, for finishing important tasks, for keeping bandits away.  In the first century people traveled by day and travelers camped by fires after dark.  Light then and now carries more than just a practical function.  Light lifts our spirits.  We feel better on a sunny day than on gray and rainy ones.  We are moved by colored light through stained glass.  When we are little, we ask for a nightlight to assure us through the night.  We light candles for celebration and their flames speak to us of holiness and hope.

Most of Jesus’ audience as he traveled and taught were poor folks without power or influence.  Even wealthy leaders had very little opportunity to impact how their world worked.  And their world was hard.  People were hungry, overworked, susceptible to illness, in danger from occupying armies.  With this teaching about salt and light, Jesus is telling them that what they do with their lives matters.  Each one can make life better in their families and their villages.

You can be salt.  You can be light.  You can be kind.  You can be loving and compassionate.  You can laugh and have fun and celebrate the people you love.  You can be welcoming of others and live without judgment or condemnation for your neighbors. 

First century Palestine wasn’t a democracy.  They couldn’t vote out bad leaders and choose better.  They couldn’t overthrow Rome and become self-governing again.  Those who tried died.  Those who complained about harsh bosses or owners lost their jobs or were brutally disciplined.   But they could choose how they lived their lives.  They could choose the values they lived by and the quality of their daily actions.  They could choose how they responded to hardship and how they thought about others.  They could choose to love, no matter what happened to them.

We’ve decided that this teaching of Jesus is one of the priorities of our church.  We too choose how to respond to the world around us and celebrate that with Light Signs every time we gather.  We have a lot more options open to us than the folks who first heard and remembered these words.  We can vote.  We can be leaders in our community.  We can stand up to our employers.  We are free from slavery.  We have property and financial assets to put to good use.  And we do just that.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I find this world overwhelming.  It seems like there’s a lot that’s broken and not much to be done to fix it.  That’s true of racial justice in our country.  Those of you who like me were alive in the ‘60’s thought we had done a lot to fix segregation and violence that denied freedom to people of color.  We did make progress, but we didn’t finish the job.  Now every day in the news we see evidence of more work to be done.  Reforms to policing and education and investment in communities.  Voting rights.  I don’t want to think that things are getting worse instead of better.  The struggle seems hard again.

Those of us who care about the rights of women and of the LGBTQIA+ community and immigrants want to believe we’ve made progress in giving people the right to live as full citizens and make their own choices.  Current events remind us that those rights are fragile and the future is less certain than we hoped.

The war in Ukraine and violence in many places in our world remind us that we haven’t yet fought “the war to end all wars.”  People are capable of death and destruction still.

Most of my life I’ve believed that people are good and the world is a kind and happy place.  I grew up that way.  I’ve tried to live that way as a parent and a pastor.  With the pandemic many of us have been reading more.  I’m learning that the world can be harsh.  That history is full of danger and injustice.  That people can behave very badly.

We need to work with partners across the nation and the world to address all those things which beat people down.  None of us can do it all, but we can elect leaders who want to make change – to lift people up, build bridges, share resources.  We can stand up for what matters to us – make some holy noise and good trouble.

When I get most discouraged about how much is broken in our world, I cook for LaGrave.  It helps me remember that I can’t end hunger but I can make sure one group of people is fed.  A few folks are doing better in life because of good nutrition.  I know that each of you has those things which lift you up too – helping neighbors, connecting with kids and grandkids, donating blood, planting trees. 

 Jesus’ message isn’t meant to be about how much is on our to-do list for the world.  It’s meant to encourage each one of us that what we CAN do to make life better matters. It matters how you live.  It matters how you think about others.  It matters when you do the best you can. 

Every act of kindness is something to celebrate. 
The salt you bring and the light you shine are evidence
that God is present in the world through you. 
That gives us all hope.

Forth Sunday after Pentecost

Today we revisited some important readings from US (and Canadian) history. Following are some of them.

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Preamble

We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Gettysburg Address

“Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.”

Abraham Lincoln, November 19, 1863

By the President of the United States of America:
A Proclamation

Whereas, on the twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the following, to wit:
“That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.
And by virtue of the power, and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free; and that the Executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.
And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence; and I recommend to them that, in all cases when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages.
And I further declare and make known, that such persons of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.
And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington, this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the eighty-seventh.

By the President: ABRAHAM LINCOLN
WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.

Let America Be America Again
Langston Hughes - 1901-1967

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed —
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me.)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
(There’s never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.”)
Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?
I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek —
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.
I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one’s own greed!
I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean —
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today — O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
Yet I’m the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That’s made America the land it has become.
O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home —
For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore,
And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came
To build a “homeland of the free.”
The free?
Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we’ve dreamed
And all the songs we’ve sung
And all the hopes we’ve held
And all the flags we’ve hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay —
Except the dream that’s almost dead today.
O, let America be America again —
The land that never has been yet —
And yet must be — the land where every man is free.
The land that’s mine — the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME —
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
Sure, call me any ugly name you choose—
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives,
We must take back our land again, America!
O, yes, I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath —
America will be!
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain —
All, all the stretch of these great green states —
And make America again!

The Hill We Climb
Amanda Gorman – inauguration 2020

When day comes, we ask ourselves, where can we find light in this never-ending shade?
The loss we carry. A sea we must wade.
We braved the belly of the beast.
We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace, and the norms and notions of what “just” is isn’t always justice.
And yet the dawn is ours before we knew it. Somehow we do it. Somehow we weathered and witnessed a nation that isn’t broken, but simply unfinished.
We, the successors of a country and a time where a skinny Black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president, only to find herself reciting for one.
And, yes, we are far from polished, far from pristine, but that doesn’t mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect.
We are striving to forge our union with purpose. To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and conditions of man.
And so we lift our gaze, not to what stands between us, but what stands before us. We close the divide because we know to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside.
We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another. We seek harm to none and harmony for all. Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true. That even as we grieved, we grew.
That even as we hurt, we hoped. That even as we tired, we tried. That we’ll forever be tied together, victorious.
Not because we will never again know defeat, but because we will never again sow division. Scripture tells us to envision that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid. If we’re to live up to our own time, then victory won’t lie in the blade, but in all the bridges we’ve made.
That is the promise to glade, the hill we climb, if only we dare. It’s because being American is more than a pride we inherit. It’s the past we step into and how we repair it.
We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation, rather than share it. Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy. And this effort very nearly succeeded.
But while democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently defeated.
In this truth, in this faith we trust, for while we have our eyes on the future, history has its eyes on us. This is the era of just redemption. We feared at its inception.Z
We did not feel prepared to be the heirs of such a terrifying hour. But within it we found the power to author a new chapter, to offer hope and laughter to ourselves. So, while once we asked, how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe, now we assert, how could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?
We will not march back to what was, but move to what shall be: a country that is bruised but whole, benevolent but bold, fierce and free.
We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation because we know our inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation, become the future.
Our blunders become their burdens. But one thing is certain. If we merge mercy with might, and might with right, then love becomes our legacy and change our children’s birthright. So let us leave behind a country better than the one we were left.
Every breath from my bronze-pounded chest, we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one. We will rise from the golden hills of the West. We will rise from the windswept Northeast where our forefathers first realized revolution. We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the Midwestern states. We will rise from the sun-baked South.
We will rebuild, reconcile, and recover.
And every known nook of our nation and every corner called our country, our people diverse and beautiful, will emerge battered and beautiful. When day comes, we step out of the shade of flame and unafraid. The new dawn balloons as we free it.
For there is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it.

Third Sunday after Pentecost

Cynthia Shabb, Director of Global Friends, was our guest speaker today to talk about what’s new in the Grand Cities with welcoming New Americans. She told us that there are now 100,000,000 official refugees in our world and many times that many people unable to live in their home countries. Global Friends has registered with Church World Service and hopes to begin once again welcoming new Americans to Grand Forks in the fall. When that happens, we can decide if we’d like to be a special sponsor to help a family adjust to this new home. In the meantime, there are a number of volunteer opportunities to explore with the people already here. It was a wonderful hopeful message that Cynthia brought and we were privileged to hear from her.

Second Sunday after Pentecost

Matthew 5:1-12 & Luke 6:20-23

We know today’s scripture as The Beatitudes.  In Matthew they are the beginning of The Sermon on the Mount, which we’re going to spend some time with this summer.  In Luke’s version of the Gospel they are in what’s called The Sermon on the Plain.  So two different settings for this teaching but the same sharing of wisdom.  I wanted us to read them together so that we can notice what’s the same and what’s different.

This comparison gives us a chance to remember that the Gospels aren’t a transcription of Jesus’ teachings written down as they happened.  They are written near the end of the first century, compiling what was remembered about Jesus’ teaching and perhaps some written sources we no longer have copies of.  They are the result of telling the story of Jesus over and over until it became part of the collective memory of the church.  They tell us how people who heard Jesus remembered what he said.  So they also tell us what those people and the generations who came after them thought was most important.  

Every author brings a unique style and emphasis to writing and this is also true of the Gospel authors.  We see the difference between Luke who talks about poverty, hunger and mourning as realities in people’s lives and Matthew who gives these realities a spiritual twist – blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.  We don’t need to decide that one is more accurate than the other.  Both can be faithful remembrances of the essence of what Jesus said.  In fact, he probably said things like this over and over in his ministry, not just on one occasion.  But talking about “that time on the mountain” or “when we gathered on the plain” gives a literary setting to teachings that were central to Jesus, who had both a practical/social justice message and a spiritual message combined.

Both of these renditions talk about the fact that those who followed Jesus faced ridicule and persecution.  In their day they were radicals advocating for some clear changes in the way society worked.  They were religious reformers, wanting all people to have a loving relationship with God whether or not they could afford the time or equipment to keep strict Jewish laws.  They were social reformers, challenging those with wealth and power to share with those who had nothing.  Any group that challenges the status quo in these ways is going to face resistance.  Jesus’ surely encouraged them that the fight was worth it.  Today we’re reading these words on Juneteenth, the new-to-us celebration of the end of slavery and the continuing struggle for equality in our country.  Surely those who challenge the status quo today in favor of rights and opportunities for everyone take courage from these words.  We’re going to sing a song which includes these words in a few minutes.  That song has been important to me since I first heard it in the 1970’s.  These words spoke to me then of the struggle of women to find acceptance in ministry, and they remain important to me as we work together to bring justice to our contemporary world.

Both of the meanings of Jesus’ teaching – the spiritual and the political – are important.  We’re tempted to take them as “either/or” and focus on the spiritual.  Over centuries that’s justified acceptance of the fact that some folks have it hard in life.  We quote Jesus “the poor are with you always” and settle for the fact that folks will get a reward in heaven.  But these are “both/and” words; both the spiritual and the material meanings matter.  We are meant to work together to make life better for everyone.  We do that by feeding folks and sharing generously when people need help.  We also do that by advocating for policy change that levels the playing field and makes it possible for people to care for themselves.

Sometimes those are hard struggles and the spiritual truth of these words can help us sustain the effort over the long haul.  It’s true that saying there are blessings in life in spite of hardships isn’t enough, but it IS something important.  Looking for blessings every day does sustain us. We have experienced that in grief.  Sadness can sometimes overcome us when we’ve lost a person we love.  AND the kindness of friends, the memory of good times we shared, the healing of time all bring blessings to that mourning time.  Matthew’s framing of these words especially talks about a world view or lifestyle that approaches life in a positive way in spite of negative circumstances.  He talks about mercy and righteousness and peacemaking.  Those are qualities that serve us well and help us face even difficult challenges with godly hope.

It’s become popular for folks to keep a gratitude journal each day to remember the good things that happen, even if the day didn’t go very well.  Acknowledging the bright spots even in a dark day shifts our focus a little and helps us see the presence of God’s love. When I was at Mayo for transplant and Pat was with me, keeping me going, we made it a practice to write down every night the good things that had happened.  Usually that was a list of kind things people had done for us.  Sometimes it was a celebration of some medical progress.  Sunshine and flowers and good food made the list.  At the end of every day, sometimes late at night, we could remember that the day had been filled with goodness and it kept us going.

Pierre Pradervand has written a book called The Gentle Art of Blessing. In it he teaches people how to bless those around them even in difficult circumstances.  He tells of being punched by a stranger who broke his nose.  In the emergency room he mentally sent blessing to his assailant and by the time it was his turn to be x-rayed his nose had healed.  I don’t know what to think about that, but I do know that consciously moving through the day sending blessings to others heals my spirit. When we read that book some years ago, we made a habit of sending blessings and positive energy whenever we drove past the hospital or a school.  We learned to bless other drivers who irritated us.  We practiced blessing people in stores, especially those whose children were acting up or who were rude to us or others.  I like to think it made a difference to all those folks.  I know it made a difference to me.  Moving through life expecting blessings and actively blessing others changes how life unfolds for us.  Maybe it brings us closer to heaven.  I know it brings heaven into our daily lives.  That in itself is a blessing.

First Sunday after Pentecost

Matthew 28:16-20

Today’s scripture is known as the “great commission.”  Jesus commissions the disciples to “make disciples” of all nations.  How do they do that?  First they baptize them.  Then they teach them to obey Jesus commandments.  In the process, they are always in the presence of Jesus: 

“I am always with you.”

This seems so straightforward.  And it is.  And it’s not.

For centuries people have believed Jesus told the disciples to go make Christians of the whole world.  They traveled the lands they knew preaching about Jesus. Future popes conquered lands ruled by people of other religions because of this commission.  The great missionary movements of the 19th century were motivated by it.  People are still insisting that we must convert every person to Christianity because of this story.  But it’s not what it says.  It doesn’t say “make Christians.” It says “make disciples.”

Disciples and Christians aren’t the same thing.  The original disciples were Jews and stayed that way, thinking that the ministry of Jesus was a Jewish reform movement.  They had great debates about whether or not Jesus’ message was for gentiles or non-Jews.  We read about those debates when we read the book of Acts.  The followers of Jesus weren’t commonly called Christians until after the first disciples died.  This isn’t an instruction to make everyone in the world join the Christian church.

So what is a disciple?  I think of disciples as interns.  They follow the leader around, learn from the leader and act as assistants to the leader.  In this case it meant literally walking from town to town with Jesus and listening to what he said, both to the crowds and when they were together on the road or around the supper fire.  The disciples did crowd control and kept people from overwhelming Jesus.  They managed potlucks and food-shares so crowds could be fed.  They learned from Jesus how to heal people and were sent out on their own to heal and bring a message of hope, multiplying the number of villages Jesus could reach by dividing into pairs to cover more territory.

Along the way these disciples – the twelve men named in the Bible and the rest of the men and women who were traveling with them – learned from Jesus a new way of thinking about life.  There were just a few commandments – not the hundreds of traditional Jewish law:  love God, love your neighbor, love yourself.  When people wanted to debate intricacies of how the law applied to life, Jesus usually cut to the chase:  love.  What would love do?  Do that.  Rather than the usual looking-out-for-self way of living, these disciples were taught to look out for each other and for the crowds that gathered wherever they went.  They learned to share food.  They learned to heal illness.  They learned to offer wisdom without arguing and to move on when they weren’t welcome.  In a world where life was incredibly hard and economic and political injustice were everywhere, they learned to form communities and make life easier for everyone.  They became the kingdom of God – a vision for a better world.

Jesus tells them to keep doing more of what they’d already been doing together.  First they baptize folks – like John the Baptizer had baptized them.  Baptism was a ritual of joining on to a new vision for life.  It was a turning around point where you stopped living like you always had and started living in a new and more cooperative way.  You put others first.  You committed to love God and each other.  It was an intentional beginning of something new.

Once folks were baptized, they taught them how to live by the law of love.  When we read the Didache we learned that they taught them anger management so they wouldn’t get in trouble with other folks, particularly the Roman soldiers patrolling the towns.  They taught them simple rules of right and wrong that followed the law of love.  They taught them how to share their bread with travelers and how to set boundaries so they weren’t overwhelmed with requests.  They taught them how to be a community of equals even though they lived in vastly different circumstances – rich and poor, men and women, Jews and gentiles.

Over time being a follower of Jesus turned into being a Christian.  Being a Christian turned into believing particular things about Jesus – that he was God and he mostly cared about getting you into heaven.  That he died and was physically resurrected and that was the key to heaven.  Those may be good and helpful things.  But they’re not what Jesus taught the disciples or what he asked them to pass along.  We can keep all those ideas, but we can’t be true followers of Jesus if we don’t remember the beginning and learn to live in the way Jesus taught disciples to live.

How do we do that?

Well, some of you are healers.  You continue the ministry of healing disease and restoring people to wholeness.

Some are teachers.  You share knowledge and help people learn the skills they need to make a good life.

Some are policy wonks.  You figure out how we can work together to bring a better life to everyone.  Others just call legislators and remind them what bills you’d like them to pass to implement those policies.

Some are builders and crafts folk.  You make stuff and fix stuff and provide the world with the things we need.

Some are servers and helpers.  In stores and restaurants and activity centers you take care of people so the community works well together.

Most of all I think we are called to be lovers.  Lovers of other people in the way God loves them.  We do whatever it takes for each and every person to be valued and to have a good life.  If someone hurts or is hungry or struggles to find a good way forward, that’s our responsibility.  We’re here to support each other and to stand up to those who want to look the other way.  To insist that the world work in a way that’s good for everyone.  All lives matter.  No one is left behind.  Those aren’t just slogans, they are a way of life.  A Jesus way of life.  And that’s what it means to be a disciple.

Make disciples of all nations means make the world work for all people.  It’s a big job.  It’s what followers of Jesus have been asked to do for 2000 years.  Our turn is now. 

Pentecost

Acts 2:1-18, John 14:8-17

When the day of Pentecost had come…  Pentecost falls on the Jewish festival of Shavuot, which is a harvest festival and comes 50 days after Passover.  Like Passover Shavuot is a pilgrimage festival and people who are able travel to the Temple in Jerusalem to bring the tithe offering of their harvest.  That means that the crowd which had gathered for Passover was back and people from many places crowded the streets of Jerusalem and filled the Temple.  The soldiers would have been back, too, to keep the peace and control the crowd.

Jesus’ followers were still there – or maybe returned after going home for a while.  It’s not clear, but they were gathered.  They were still in hiding, concerned that they might be executed next because of their association with Jesus.  They were still confused and afraid.

The way the Pentecost story is told, the Spirit of God begins rushing through the room, sounding like wind and looking like fire.  They all rush out into the streets and begin talking about Jesus and resurrection with such enthusiasm that people think they are drunk, even though it’s morning.  They spoke with such conviction that people heard what they had to say in the many languages spoken among the crowds of travelers.  Peter preaches a sermon and 3,000 folks become Christians and the church is born.

I love this story.  It’s such a reason to celebrate!  It’s such an exaggeration.  We know that Rome wouldn’t have let a mass baptism happen.  We know that Jesus’ followers weren’t called Christian for several decades after this.  We know that the church as we know it didn’t emerge for several centuries.  But this is a birth story and it’s okay to exaggerate.  Remember the old song, “on the day that you were born the angels got together and decided to create a dream come true”?  This story is like that.  It helps us remember that the continuation of Jesus’ ministry by his followers was a miracle and changed the world.

When we hear this story we focus on the part where God sends the Spirit.  First the disciples didn’t have Spirit and then whoosh! they did.  Like wind and fire.  I want to think about that in another way today.  In the Gospel of John, which is the last Gospel in the Bible written, the disciples ask Jesus to show them God.  Jesus points at himself and at them.  You know God because God is in you.  I wonder if the Spirit “sent” on Pentecost wasn’t also already within the folks who had gathered.  In each one and in the gathering itself.  We’re used to thinking about God – over there – and us – over here – as separate.  Lots of what Jesus teaches in his years of ministry is about God being in the people and among the community.  If that’s the case, then maybe on Pentecost the people didn’t get covered with Spirit as something new.  Maybe they woke up to the fact that Spirit was already there.  God was there.  Jesus was there – resurrected and living in them.  Maybe they just got tired of being sad and scared and hiding and said, “to hell with it.  Let’s keep telling Jesus’ story.”

And what’s the story?  How do we summarize the message that created the church we’re a part of two thousand year’s later?  We’ve heard that the message is “Jesus died for your sins.”  That’s an “outside” message.  Here you are in trouble for being a sinner and over there is God, mad about that, and Jesus, dying on the cross so God won’t be mad any more.  All the action takes place outside of us, in some cosmic battle.  That’s not the way Jesus told the story.  He said, “God is love.  Love one another.”  Love is the heart of the message and love is an “inside” story.  We’ve been told that we’re made in the image of God.  If that’s true, and God is love, then so are we.  We are love and when we act on that love, when we truly work at being love in the world, then God is in us and we are in God – just like Jesus said.  If you want to see God, look at the places where folks are living out God’s love.

Lots of times the battle between Jesus and Rome or God and Rome is told like a power struggle.  Rome killed Jesus because they were afraid he’d stir up a rebellion.  They were in control and they wanted to stay that way.  Some folks thought Jesus was going to start a war and overthrow Roman power.  He didn’t, and he wasn’t trying to.  But he was giving control back to the folks through love.  An occupying force can tax you, scare you, starve you, beat you, crucify you.  But they can’t control who you are if you are determined to love yourself and your neighbor.  Nonviolent resistance works like that.  Community organizing works like that.  If you’re determined to love, nothing has power over you – the power comes from deep within.  If a community is organized around love, nothing can stop them.  They can change the world.

Jesus talked about the Reign of God being among us.  People at first thought that meant God was going to raise up an army and overthrow Rome.  But that’s not how love works.  Empires use power to control the people and the environment they live in.  But love transforms people and environments and nothing can stop them.  The Reign of God doesn’t have to wait for an army to win a battle.  It’s alive and well and can grow through us no matter what.

I suspect the true story of Pentecost isn’t nearly as dramatic as the way we tell it.  Maybe a bunch of Jesus’ followers just got sick and tired of being afraid and quiet.  They decided they were going to tell the story of the time they spent with Jesus.  They were going to  talk about how he made them feel and how he gave them hope.  They were going to believe that his message about God’s love was true and live to make it a reality wherever they were.  Since God was right there in them and the Spirit was already moving through them, they came back alive.  They got set on fire with enthusiasm and hope.  They committed to live with love.  They changed their world and slowly they are still changing ours.

I’ve been reading lots of deep thinkers lately who want us to transform the way we see God and the world.  They are done with a God off somewhere waiting for us to get things right so he can bring us to a better place.  Some of them talk about God being the life energy of the universe.  Everything is made up of the vibrating love of God, permeating all creation.  Some of them talk about God among us evolving into more and more awareness of love and connection.  Creating a new life in this time and this place.  

Pentecost is an invitation to see God right here, right now.  Pentecost is the awakening to God living in us and through us.  It’s the power of love bringing us more and more alive, making the whole universe new.  We can dream dreams and see visions and share the amazing story of God-with-us because God IS with us.  Jesus LIVES in us.  The Spirit MOVES us out of fear into freedom and life.  

No wonder this is my favorite day!  Let’s live it together today and always!

Seventh Sunday of Easter

Deuteronomy 5:20-21

This is the last sermon in our series on the Ten Commandments (or the Ten Best Ways to Live).  Today’s last three focus on how we live in harmony with our neighbor.  Don’t bear false witness, don’t covet his wife, don’t want anything else he has.  

Don’t bear false witness may have originally been an admonition to tell the truth in court, but today I think it speaks to us more as “don’t gossip.”  Gossip may not exactly be the same as lying, but often it comes pretty close.  When I first joined Rotary, I learned The Four-Way Test which guides Rotary interactions:

Is it the truth?
Is it fair to all concerned?
Will it build good will and better friendships?
Will it be beneficial to all concerns?

Those are pretty helpful guidelines if we want to get along with our neighbors and build up our community.  It can be pretty tempting to pass along interesting rumors about people or organizations or our cities, but unless you know for sure it’s accurate, don’t repeat it!  We can also remember that not every thought we have needs to be spoken.  Words can build up another person and make situations better, or they can cause pain and destruction.  Let’s be on the side or “build up” or be silent.  “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.” 

You’ll remind me that sometimes hard truths need to be spoken aloud.  When injustice happens, if we ignore it, we give permission for it to continue.  That’s right.  Sometimes we need to speak up, but we can do so with a spirit of civil discourse and love.  We speak up to make things better – to make all people concerned better – not to tear anyone down.  We correct without criticism.  There are times in my life that friends pointed out gently things I was saying or doing that were unhelpful.  I still cherish those friendships and appreciate how they helped me be a better person.

The last two commandments are about not wanting what other people have.  I don’t know about you, but I seldom covet someone’s ox or donkey and slavery is a thing of the past (we hope).  Another person’s house or garden – that’s another thing!  If we were writing these commandments today we might include another’s success, or physical fitness, or great car, or lake house, or friends.  The list in the Bible is a starting point, not a complete catalog.  

One of the ways this idea is expressed today is in the framework of gratitude – be thankful for what you have and not worried about what you don’t have.  Be content with your home, your job, your family.  Find a way each day to see something good in your situation and decide that what you have is enough.  If you are always comparing your situation to that of others, there will always be cause for jealousy.  When those thoughts creep in, set them aside.  That doesn’t mean you never upgrade your wardrobe, your kitchen, or your vehicle.   It’s fun to be able to make improvements and enjoy them.  But don’t live for having the most or doing the best.  Constant competition with others divides us rather than bringing us together.

I want to acknowledge that this is a middle-class attitude toward this commandment.  We say “be content with what you have” because we all have more than enough for a comfortable life.  This isn’t meant to justify economic inequality, which is one way community is broken today.  If someone is hungry, we don’t say “be glad you have one meal today.”  We find a way for that person to eat.  Much of the world and many in our country live in crushing poverty.  Remember sixty years ago when Lyndon Johnson declared war on poverty?  We lost that war.  We can still hold the dream of ending the vast inequality of today’s world and working for a better way.

During this series I’ve found myself saying many times that the questions these guidelines raise are harder than the simple answers they’ve sometimes been seen to be.  I want to say something about living with the questions before we finish.  Those who want to fix the world by posting the Ten Commandments in schools and courthouses imply that if everyone kept the rules the world would be just fine.  Many of these same folks don’t want the world to be reformed, to address racism or poverty or unequal access to education or violence or any of the other things that make this world difficult for many folks.  The Bible isn’t a bandaid for the gaping wounds of our time.

This week I came across a quote from Marcus Borg that helps explain that:
The Bible is a human product.
It tells us how our religious ancestors saw things, not how God sees things.

The Ten Commandments and all the other laws in the Bible describe how the people who spoke them or wrote them and those who remembered them over time understood what God was doing in their lives.  They describe ways that people wanted to build a good life for everyone, a life they described as God’s vision for the world.  These teachings are helpful to us because they show us what worked in those times and places.  Some things work the same way today.  Others don’t, because our world is constantly evolving and the questions we must answer change with it. 

A week or so ago a woman on Facebook told me that I was living in sin and causing great harm to you because I preach that God loves everyone, and that includes standing up for the rights of LGBTQIA+ people.  She quoted a verse of scripture to prove that she was right.  I didn’t bother to look it up because I’ll never agree that she’s right.  And I don’t agree because I read the Bible and hear that God is love.  That Jesus was giving his life to reform religion to be more helpful to people.  That he was teaching people how to live in supportive communities and think for themselves – encouraged by God’s love.

The Bible was never intended to give us simple answers – do this; don’t do that.  It’s a record of generations of people who thought life in relationship with a living God and a living people was better than life without.  So do we.  But it’s up to us to figure out what that means in our own time and place.  How do we love God and our neighbor in the twenty-first century?  I think we start with love.  With valuing our neighbor rather than competing to be best.  With respecting our neighbor and listening to needs and dreams.  

The questions we have to answer as we build community today are tough.  It takes lots of input from many perspectives to address them.  It takes everyone’s ideas to find a way forward.  I believe that God trusts us to do that hard work and to find a way that brings us a bit closer to a holy vision for how life works.  We won’t find the perfect solution for all time.  We can take a few steps closer to the goal and make life better for our time and the people today.  That may have to be enough.

Sixth Sunday of Easter

History of the Flower Communion

The Unitarian Universalist Flower Communion service which we are about to celebrate was originated in 1923 by Dr. Norbert Capek [pronounced Chah-Peck] founder of the modern Unitarian movement in Czechoslovakia.  On the last Sunday before the summer recess of the Unitarian church in Prague, all the children and adults participated in this colorful ritual, which gives concrete expression to the humanity-affirming principles of our liberal faith.  When the Nazis took control of Prague in 1940, they found Dr. Capek’s gospel of the inherent worth and beauty of every human person to be – as Nazi court records show – “…too dangerous to the Reich [for him] to be allowed to live.”  Dr. Capek was sent to Dachau, where he was killed the next year during a Nazi “medical experiment.”  This gentle man suffered a cruel death, but his message of human hope and decency lives on through his Flower Communion, which is widely celebrated today.  Our service includes versions of the original prayers of Dr. Capek to help us remember the principles and dreams for which he died.

The flower communion was brought to the United States in 1940 and introduced to the members of our Cambridge, Massachusetts, church by Dr. Capek’s wife, Maja V. Capek.  The Czech-born Maja had met Norbert Capek in New York City while he was studying for his Ph.D. and it was at her urging that Norbert left the Baptist Ministry and turned to Unitarianism.  The Capeks returned to Czechoslovakia in 1921 and established the dynamic liberal church in Prague; Maja Capek was ordained in 1926.  It was during her tour of the United States that Maja introduced the flower communion at the Unitarian church in Cambridge.  Unfortunately, Maja was unable to return to Prague due to the outbreak of WW II, and it was not until the war was over that Norbert Capek’s death in a Nazi concentration camp was revealed.  

The significance of the flower communion is that no two flowers are alike, so no two people are alike, yet each has a contribution to make.  Together the different flowers form a beautiful bouquet.  Our common bouquet would not be the same without the unique addition of each individual flower, and thus it is with our church community – it would not be the same without each and every one of us.  Thus this service is a statement of our community.  By exchanging flowers, we show our willingness to walk together in our search for truth, disregarding all that might divide us.  Each person takes home a flower brought by someone else, thus symbolizing our shared celebration in community.  This communion of sharing is essential to a free people of a free religion.

For the Flowers Have the Gift of Language (no author given)

Speak, flowers, speak!
Why do you say nothing?
The flowers have the gift of language.
In the meadow they speak of freedom,
Creating patterns wild and free as no gardener could match.
In the forest they nestle, snug carpets under the roof of
Leaf and branch, making a rug of such softness.
At end tip of branches they cling briefly
Before bursting into fruit sweet to taste.

Flowers, can you not speak joy to our sadness?
And hope to our fear?
Can you not say how it is with you
That you color the darkest corner?

The flowers have the gift of language.
At the occasion of birth, they are buds before bursting.
At the ceremony of love, they unite two lovers in beauty.
At the occasion of death, they remind us how lovely is life.

Oh, would that you had voice,
Silent messengers of hope.
Would that you could tell us how you feel,
Arrayed in such beauty.

The flowers have the gift of language.
In the dark depths of a death camp
They speak the light of life.
In the face of cruelty
They speak of courage.
In the experience of ugliness
They bespeak the persistence of beauty.

Speak, messengers, speak!
For we would hear your message.
Speak, messengers, speak!
For we need to hear what you would say.

For the flowers have the gift of language:
They transport the human voice on winds of beauty;
They lift the melody of song to our ears;
They paint through the eye and hand of the artist;
Their fragrance binds us to sweet-smelling earth.

May the blessing of the flowers be upon you.
May their beauty beckon to you each morning
And their loveliness lure you each day,
And their tenderness caress you each night.
And their eyes make you aware.
May their stems make you sturdy.
And their reaching make you care.

Fifth Sunday of Easter

Deuteronomy 5:17-19

You shall not murder.
Neither shall you commit adultery.
Neither shall you steal.

This is a very short scripture that contains very big ideas.  In reality, it’s all about stealing something that’s not yours.

Murder steals a life.

Years ago when women were the property of their husbands, adultery stole property.  It also stole the assurance that a man’s children were really his own.

Stealing property of any kind takes away something that belongs to another.

All of these commandments take about how we relate to one another in community.  When we respect each other, then we are unable to do harm to each other.  These rules are about not doing harm.

These seem pretty straightforward, but there are complexities and nuances that make them much more difficult to follow.  Consider murder.  It’s pretty easy to say we don’t kill one another.  None of us is inclined to do that.  But consider warfare when soldiers of one side kill the other – kill or be killed.  Wars are sometimes fought over important issues.  We agree that it’s good to support Ukraine in their battle for freedom and we’re supplying them the weapons that are killing many Russian soldiers.  Is supplying weapons murder?  Does it matter if we shoot first or respond to attack?  All of our denominations are on record as supporting members who are conscientious objectors.  That was more of an issue when our nation had a draft.  Then we affirmed those who wanted to serve in the military as medics or support personnel rather than being in direct combat.  

We are all horrified at the civilian deaths in the war in Ukraine.  At the same time we’re unaware of how our own nation has contributed to civilian death.  I just finished reading An Indigenous People’s History of the United States which lays out how we murdered women and children in villages in order to open our nation to settlement.  We didn’t come to a land that was unpopulated, so we depopulated it.  The kind of warfare that does anything necessary to win continues to this day.  We killed many villagers in Viet Nam.  Our drones have missed military targets and killed many civilians in places all around the world.  To what extent are we responsible for what our country does around the world?  What influence should we have over our military?

We are hearing a lot right now about the issue of reproductive rights and access to abortion.  Some people are convinced that abortion is murder and others say it’s not.  How do we talk to one another about women’s rights and health care?  

Adultery is much less of an issue in contemporary culture than it once was, maybe because it’s become so common.  We no longer consider women as the property of their husbands so adultery is no longer stealing the property of another.  When these commands were written, adultery was much more the action of a man toward another man’s wife than a mutual decision among consenting adults.  Adultery breaks a commitment that has been made.  This commandment encourages us to take those commitments seriously.  

At one time ending a marriage was considered adultery, but now divorce is much more common.  Divorce allows people who are being abused in a relationship to end it – men or women.  Divorce allows people who have grown apart over time to end unhealthy relationships and perhaps to begin another in a better way.  This commandment suggests that we not do that lightly.  That we not be too quick to give up on one another without making a sincere effort to make marriages work.  At the same time we need to support people whose marriages are unhealthy in finding a better way to live.

And then we consider “do not steal.”  That’s perhaps the most clear of these commandments.  Don’t take what doesn’t belong to you.  In any way.  Don’t cheat on your taxes.  Pay your employees a fair wage.  Today we might say, “support economic justice for everyone.”  It is ungodly, perhaps, for some to make billions of dollars while their employees barely scrape by.  None of us becomes affluent on our own.  Those who are successful in business benefit from the work of their employees and the support of customers.  Wealth doesn’t happen in a vacuum.  It’s appropriate for it to be shared equitably.

All of these commandments are about how we order society for the benefit of everyone.  They are about creating norms and regulations that make life good for all people.  They are about respecting and trusting each other and not taking advantage of anyone.  We live by these rules not just because God tells us to do so, but because we genuinely care for one another.  Maybe that’s why Jesus summarized the commandments as “love God/love your neighbor.”  When you treat each other with love and respect , there are things you don’t do to each other.  When we rely on each other to behave in loving ways, our world works better.  That’s why the commandments can be called “the ten best ways to live.”

Fourth Sunday of Easter

Deuteronomy 5:12-16

We have two of the ten commandments to consider today in our effort to talk about all ten during the season of Easter.  We’re looking at these commandments not as rules we must follow but as gifts which help us live long and full lives.  Today we talk about honor – honoring time and rest and honoring parents.

The honoring of sabbath is about taking a break from physical work.  It’s a radical thought that everyone deserves a day off.  We are used to thinking about weekends as down time, but they are a very recent development in the history of humanity.  In a subsistence economy where you work to stave off starvation, exposure to the elements and death, taking a day off is a risk.  It’s also an exaggeration.  Of course someone has to cook, stoke the fire, feed the livestock and keep life going, even if you aren’t weaving or working the fields.

Notice in this commandment that everyone gets time off, not just the wealthy or those who own slaves who can insist that someone else work while they rest.  Everyone rests.  This surely bolstered the case of organized labor for first 60 and then the amazing 40 hour work week.  It also led to the complicated sabbath laws of our most orthodox Jewish neighbors – leading to lights on timers so no switch is flipped on the sabbath, meals cooked ahead, and housing clusters near synagogues so that no one walks too many steps to get to the services.  We might think of these rules as extreme, and they certainly can be.  They also help to focus on God, just like fasting during Ramadan, which has just ended.  They can be a rule as an end in itself, or a practice as a means to deeper faith.  

We may have rejected the practices of 100 years ago when no one worked on Sunday, children only played with religious-themed toys or read religious books.  Stores closed.  But we’ve lost something if we give up the idea of rest in the rhythm of our lives.  Already our work week is creeping closer to 50 hours.  Weekends become the time to clean house, shop for groceries, do laundry for the week ahead, mow the lawn.  When everyone works away from home, time off is time to do household chores.  As our world becomes more global, our friends may observe Sabbath on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday.  We can’t make local rules to favor one over the other.  But it’s good for us to protect some time for rest, for reflection, for restoring our souls.  

Sabbath may look quite different to each of us because we have different personalities and varying demands on our time.  You may find sabbath in reading a book, going to dinner with friends, watching a movie with family.  Sabbath means doing something you love in an intentional way.  It might be painting or gardening or jogging in the greenway.  It’s a change of pace, a time without stress or deadlines.  In a culture which seems to expect more and more of us, it’s good for us to stand up for time off.  It’s good to praise folks for doing a bit of nothing on a regular basis.

The second commandment for today reminds us to honor our parents.  It’s good for this to fall on Mother’s Day, although the original Mother’s Day was a peace movement and not a time for giving gifts and breakfast in bed.  In recent years we’ve been encouraged to celebrate this in the church as Christian Family Day, since all of us have families of one kind or another and not all of us are parents.  This becomes a day of gratitude for our families and for the older folks in our lives who have nurtured us in formal and informal ways.

Our Tuesday study group last week read about Native cultures in which both children and older adults are honored by holding special responsibilities in the community.  Older folk are valued as the sharers of stories and wisdom.  Children are given tasks that match their growing abilities.  Often in contemporary times both the old and the young are marginalized as contributing members of society.  I notice a difference in the children I know between those whose chores are essential and those without regular chores.  Being valued for who you are matters AND so does being valued for what you do.  The older women I hang out with often talk about becoming invisible as they age.  People talk past them rather than to them.  Those who have been competent professionals are treated as though they have nothing to add to the conversation.  Discounting anyone because of age – young or old – is to withdraw honor and it doesn’t serve us.

Sometimes this commandment has been used to tell children that they must obey parents or authority figures without question.  I don’t think that’s what this means.  We can give honor to a parent without always agreeing with them.  Loving parents often encourage children to explore their own truth and form their own opinions.  I don’t always like what my children think, but I’m glad they have the confidence to think for themselves.  As parents, grandparents and mentors we need to remember that honor is due us not for our roles or our age but because of our behavior.  We need to act in honorable ways.  We need to be loving and compassionate and just.  Honor isn’t about being obeyed, it’s about being valued because we have been loving.

Not all family relationships are easy.  This commandment isn’t meant to gloss over those times when families are broken and healing is needed.  There’s great pain in being poorly parented.  There’s pain in raising children who don’t thrive because of illness or mental illness or poor choices.  I hope our community is strong enough to open our hearts to those who experience family pain and help bring hope and peace to difficult situations.  We aren’t meant to pretend that family is always ideal.  Perhaps we’re meant to be family for those whose own families have let them down.  To be a place of hope and encouragement and home.

Third Sunday of Easter

Deuteronomy 5:7-11

In this season of Easter I’ve set a challenge for us to read and think about the Ten Commandments.  We’re doing this because we’re thinking about the ways Easter is a celebration of life in the here and now, and because the traditional commandments are sometimes called the “ten best ways to live.”  I want to think about them together not as rules but as world-view – a description of how we understand life in general and God’s relationship to us in the thick of that life.

So today we start with what are the first two or three commandments, depending on how you count:

You shall have no other gods before me.
You shall not make idols.
You shall not take God’s name in vain (or make wrongful use of it).

Our spiritual ancestors lived in a time when people related to many different gods – one for each aspect of their daily lives.  We read stories about Greek, Roman and sometimes Egyptian gods of thunder, beauty, wine, fire, and more.  We see paintings and statues of these various which we associate with idols or images that are worshiped.  Each country or city had its own favorite God which they hoped to persuade to protect them and send them what they needed – rain, sun, harvest.

In the oldest passages of our scriptures God is called El or the plural Elohim.  This is the god associated with Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Leah and Rachel.  El is not thought of as the only God but simply as the Hebrews’ god, better than the gods of their neighbors.  The first commandment “no other gods before me” implies that there are other gods, and people would have thought that way.  In fact several times in the biblical narrative people get in trouble for worshiping other gods, particularly Ba’al, who was god of the Canaanites.

More recent (as in only 3500 years old) passages use the name Yahweh for God.  This is the name revealed to Moses in the burning bush.  With this new name for God the people began to move from “our god is the best god” to “our God is the only god.”  This is monotheism (one God) and echoes earlier movements in Egyptian and Zoroastrian religions.  It’s not widely popular because having more gods improves your odds of survival.  Maybe that’s why there are such awful threats made for the consequences of worshiping idols.  Becoming monotheists was hard.

An idol is not actually a god, it’s a representation of the god to help people remember their relationship with god.  It could be argued that a crucifix functions in the same way ancient idols did – reminding people of Jesus.  It’s not the image that’s worshiped but the god behind the image.  Yahweh has no images, being more than any one thing can represent, but the Ark of the Covenant functioned for early peoples in the same way that idols might.  It was the “throne” of God, where God “sat” in fire or smoke when present with the people.  It was placed in the holiest place in the tabernacle and later the temple and represented the presence of God.  After it was lost in war the thinking about God’s presence had to evolve to a higher level which didn’t require an object but was still associated with the place in the Holy of Holies.  Devout Moslems take this commandment to another level and forbid any art which depicts actual objects or people and therefore we get the beautiful mosaics of medieval mosques.

Then there’s the command not to make wrongful use of God’s name.  We think of that as “don’t swear” and it’s not widely enforced today.  Originally people swore oaths in God’s name, asking God to confirm that they would keep their word.  It was like signing a contract and bound a person’s honor and God’s honor together.  Not taking it lightly meant not obligating God to a promise you didn’t intend to keep.  When we studied The Four Agreements we talked about “be impeccable with your word.”  Be truthful and accurate in your speech.  This commandment is really about honesty and integrity more than about colorful vocabulary.

Let’s think more about what it means to honor only God in our time.  We take this with its original meaning of “our god’s better than your god.”  I was raised to believe that Christianity is the one true religion and all others worship false gods.  But what if the world’s religions don’t worship different gods but instead worship a single god in different ways.  Islam sees Allah as the god of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.  One god.  Hinduism talks of 3000+ gods but also understands one holy being uniting all gods.  Buddhism doesn’t worship god but still sees a universal connection of all life.  We might benefit from considering whether our religion has become an idol that we worship more than we worship God.  Looking for connection rather than rejection of others would help the world respect everyone better and perhaps expand the ways we honor God.

We also need to consider the ancient assumption that God chooses us for special privilege – for the blessings in life.  It’s good to be chosen and cherished.  It’s not helpful to think that others are rejected.  In our country we have a great fear of Sharia law practiced in some Moslem countries, but we’re quick to make laws that match our personal preferences and name them as God’s will.  The current debate about abortion law isn’t about how to best care for mothers and children.  That debate would be helpful and important.  New laws are more about controlling women than about helping them bear and raise children in healthy relationships.  Under the doctrine of Manifest Destiny we conquered the native peoples of North America and took their land, saying it was God’s will that we rule from sea to sea.  Some folks currently are lifting up Viktor Orban as a wonderful ruler because he’s restoring Hungary to Christianity, beginning with the oppression of LGBTQIA+ folks.  Is it really God’s will that some people be persecuted for who they are?  

As a congregation we have made a commitment to justice and equality.  We try hard to understand economic justice and to encourage mental and physical health for everyone.  We question systemic racism which leads to unequal incarceration rates, unequal educational opportunity, and fear of immigrants.  It’s important that we continue to speak out as a faith community to correct the mistakes of the past because at the same time folks are claiming such injustice is God’s will.  That seems like idolatry to me:  claiming God’s support for our personal preferences.  Even as we speak out in support of change, we need to constantly examine if we are doing what we accuse others of doing.  With humility we seek to understand Jesus’ teachings about compassion, mercy and justice and not assume we’ve got it right.  

We are working to make rightful use of God’s name in shaping a world in God’s image.  Not as an idol but as a growing life.  We ask ourselves in every situation if we are acting out of love, God’s love for every creature.  We remain open to learning more about what it means to live in God’s way.  We try, we change, we try again.  

This commandment isn’t about being Christian like we’ve always been and assuming we’ve got it right.  It’s about seeking to align our lives with what is holy and loving and inclusive and learning every day to do better.  To be more respectful, compassionate, generous and just.  To not let convenience take the place of God in all we do and say.

Honoring God as having first place in our lives is a way of understanding life as holy.  It sets the tone for all the other commandments and covenants we’ll consider in this season.  It’s the framework for understanding who we are and what we do.  That’s a good beginning.

Second Sunday of Easter

Deuteronomy 5:1-6, 17-20

Last week when we celebrated Easter I talked about the fact that the Easter story is about life in two ways – an eternal life which overcomes death and a new and better way of living while we occupy these bodies we call ours.  During the Easter season of seven Sundays, I want to focus on the second way in which we have new life in and through Jesus – a life for living today and every day.  And I want to start by looking at the Ten Commandments, or as my favorite version calls them:  the ten best ways to live.

Before we can think about the individual commandments, some of which appear in today’s reading, I want to back up a step and think about what these commandments are.  They are part of one of many covenants that our spiritual ancestors understood as defining their relationship with God.  And before we can talk about this covenant, we have to back up two steps and talk about who are spiritual ancestors were.

The earliest physical or historical evidence of the people known as Hebrews (or Hapiru) shows up in the land now claimed by Israel about 1200 BCE – or about the time we know as the Exodus from Egypt.  This is the story our Jewish friends were celebrating as Passover, ending last night.  Moses leads the people out of Egypt into the Promised Land, a process that required over 40 years and two different leaders, Moses and Joshua.  It’s interesting that the records of Egypt, an empire which kept meticulous records, don’t mention this event.  Maybe because they were embarrassed by it or maybe because our version of it is more precise than the actual events.  At any rate, about this time several nomadic tribes, some from Egypt and some from farther east of this land along the Jordan River appear in archaeology and written records.  They don’t seem to be a single nation but over time become a loose federation of tribes, each with its own ancestors.  Scholars believe that as these tribes cooperated in warfare, and in settling in a new land they began to tell their origin stories in a way that braided them together.  It’s like when our generation does an search on Ancestry.com and we have a “mother’s side” and a “father’s side” and more and more branches as we trace our history, but in the current moment, all these stories come together and are OUR story.  

It's hard to reconstruct this weaving of stories because its roots are so ancient and the record is very murky.  But it’s probable that those who came together about 3000 years ago told the story of being set free to come to this new place.  And each group told ancestor stories with names like Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Leah and Rachel.  Over time these stories become one long story.  These diverse peoples then become our spiritual ancestors.  For the purposes of the next few weeks, we need to recall that they identified themselves as being the people of their God and they described that relationship by way of covenants they had made with God.

Covenants were familiar to these people because that’s how rulers made agreements in their time.  We call them treaties and trade organizations in our time.  They described what each party was going to do for the other, how they would relate to each other, and they started with a ceremony marking the beginning.  Let’s recall some of the covenants that are part of our spiritual heritage. 

• There’s the covenant with Noah that says God won’t destroy all the earth’s creatures through flood.  The ceremony of this covenant is the rainbow that appears after the storm. 

•  There’s the covenant with Abraham that says his descendants will be the tribe that’s special to God.  The first sign of this covenant is a ceremony in which Abraham cuts in half a heifer, a goat, a ram, a dove and a pigeon, sets them in two rows, and while Abraham is in a semi-trance a “smoking pot and a flaming torch” move between the rows.  The second sign of this covenant is the practice of circumcision.

• There’s the covenant with Moses, which is represented by the Torah or law which describes how the people will act in daily life.

• There’s the covenant with David that his descendants will rule Judah forever, which came to be represented by the hope for a Messiah King in David’s lineage.

We have to remember that covenants describe relationships.  They are about the responsibilities each party accepts and what they will do as they keep the covenant.  Covenants we enter into today include marriage and mortgages.  There are neighborhood covenants that tell us what we can plant and what color our house can be (and in the past, what color our skin could be).  We call baptism a covenant that defines who we are as a person of faith.  So when we talk about commandments and covenants over the next few weeks, we’re going to be thinking about all the relationships which are a part of our lives and how they function.

I want to suggest one more way we think about these relationships to set a starting place.  We are told that humanity was made in the image of God.  Usually we think of that as God – the first being – taking dirt and making a sculpture that becomes a human, in God’s image.  As we become more sophisticated in our thinking, we say that it’s not our bodies that are in God’s image (after all there are many different kinds of bodies) but our spirits.  The soul which is the heart of our humanity is the image of God.  Let’s take that one step further.  My oldest daughter many years ago gave me a book which suggested that everything that IS comes from the essence of God.  It described that by saying whatever was before the “Big Bang” was God, and the BANG was God exploding into matter which forms everything.  In that suggestion the image of God is the DNA which determines everything about life and the energy which animates it.  We are in the image of God because the stuff of which we are created comes directly from the being of God.  

If we are all made of the substance of God, then we are in covenant with each other because we are all made of one life.  We are connected in our very cells by who we are.  Relationships become not agreements made between separate people or beings that last as long as we get along and end when we choose.  If we are all part of one life, we can’t simply choose to go our separate ways because there’s no true separate.  We’re interconnected by our very existence.  We must then learn to get along.

So let me suggest that this is our starting place for the next few weeks:  we are all creatures made in the image of God and connected to each other.  What connects us is the essence of God at the very heart of our being.  What we do about that is the way we form communities and live lives which reflect the presence of God through us.  The questions we bring to this series are these:  How are we to live together so we make God visible and known?  And how does God live in this world through us?

Easter Sunday

John 20:1-18

This year the three Abrahamic religions are celebrating major holy days at the same time.  Christians celebrate Easter; Jews are in the midst of Passover; Muslims are observing Ramadan. These three celebrations honor differing stories but they have a common theme:  God in our midst brings life.

At Passover our Jewish neighbors tell the story of the Exodus when God set their ancestors free from slavery in Egypt and brought them to a new land where they could become God’s people in a new and intentional way.  In Ramadan our Moslem neighbors fast and pray during daylight hours to commemorate Muhammad’s receiving the words of the Quran, their holy scripture.  Both of these observances are life-giving.  God gave the Jews a new life in a new place as a new people.  God gave Moslems the Quran as a guide to a new way of living centered on God’s love and guidance. 

We are familiar with Easter as the celebration of Jesus’ resurrection after he was killed by Rome. We read the story of how first the women among his followers and then the disciples themselves found his tomb empty, saw angels, heard that he had been raised to life, and then saw for themselves a resurrected Jesus.  Most of this celebration focuses on the belief that if Jesus can overcome death, so can we.  It’s a celebration of the persistence of life, even in the face of death.  Because he lives, we will also live forever – beyond this life into the life of eternity.  In our hemisphere is usually coincides with the celebration of spring when the world comes alive again after winter.  (Although this year the weather is more appropriate for the celebration of Christmas with its snowy nights.)

There’s a second way that Easter means new life that I’d like us to think about today.  This way focuses on Jesus’ vision for what life can be when we are fully connected to God and to each other.  We talk often about Jesus’ vision that he shared in his years of traveling and teaching.  

• It was a nonviolent vision – not advocating for the revolution that people wanted but for meeting violence with peace.  Turn the other cheek; love your enemy.

• It was a vision which honored all people – men, women and children; leaders and peasants; workers and beggars, including those who were ill or disabled.

• It was a vision of economic justice, calling on those who were wealthy to make the lives of  poorer folk easier.

• It was a vision of healing – body, mind and community.

• It was a vision of a good life in which everyone ate, everyone was included, everyone worked together to see that all were cared for.

People came to Jesus in crowds.  They wanted to see if he really was healing folks who had been blind, lame, or mentally ill.  They wanted to hear him talk about a new way of living together.  They wanted to hope that new life was possible.

When Jesus was executed, his disciples assumed that the movement Jesus started was over.  He was dead. Rome had the last word.  They were afraid that they’d be executed next and they hid.  Only the women dared to go to the tomb and care for his body.  But they didn’t find a body.  Instead they found hope.  The word was that Jesus had risen from the dead.  If he is risen, maybe his vision can rise with him.

Notice that those who “see” Jesus on Easter and the days following don’t recognize him.  He looks different.  Sometimes they only know him from his voice.  He speaks to them and then they see.  Scripture tells us that getting to an understanding of Easter is a gradual process.  It takes days, even months.  Some people sign on right away and others need more evidence.  Seven weeks from today we’re going to celebrate Pentecost, the day the disciples came out of hiding and started sharing Jesus’ message with the world.  Easter and Pentecost bookend a process in which people assimilate what it means for Jesus to be alive.  The message is “He is risen!” which also means “He is still with us!”  It’s not over.

The prominent message of Easter is about eternal life.  Over the centuries, it’s what Christianity has become – a promise of life beyond death.  It gives us comfort in hard times and solace when we grieve.  The second message of Easter may be just as important.  Jesus is still among us and his vision for life is still powerful.  These two messages tell us that Easter is about life – beyond this life AND in the midst of this life.  God through Jesus is a part of both.

We come to this Easter celebration in a moment that’s difficult.  The world is at war in a more visible way.  Our nation is divided about who we should be and what we should do for one another. We are struggling to understand those divisions and their roots in racism and injustice.  AND we come to this Easter celebration with hope – a hope that began on the first Easter and has continued for over 2000 years.  Our hope is rooted in the conviction that no matter what the world does, Jesus is still with us and his vision is still alive among us.  We can make peace.  We can connect with one another, even across lines of difference.  We can heal bodies and minds and spirits.  We can feed and clothe and house those in need.  We can welcome those who have been cast out.  Life is stronger than death and we can create life among us. 

As followers of Jesus we have the privilege of making his life visible now.  We are his body in this time and place and he is with us, in us, through us.  Every day we affirm that he is risen as we show he is present here and now.  Today we celebrate Easter.  Every day we ARE Easter.  That is a sign of hope and a life of joy.