Advent 4: Love

⁴⁶ And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord,  ⁴⁷ and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,  ⁴⁸ for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;  ⁴⁹ for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.  ⁵⁰ His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.  ⁵¹ He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.  ⁵² He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly;  ⁵³ he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.  ⁵⁴ He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy,  ⁵⁵ according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.” – Luke 1:46-55   

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⁶⁷ Then his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke this prophecy:  ⁶⁸ “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them.  ⁶⁹ He has raised up a mighty savior for us in the house of his servant David,  ⁷⁰ as he spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old,  ⁷¹ that we would be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us.  ⁷² Thus he has shown the mercy promised to our ancestors, and has remembered his holy covenant,  ⁷³ the oath that he swore to our ancestor Abraham, to grant us  ⁷⁴ that we, being rescued from the hands of our enemies, might serve him without fear,  ⁷⁵ in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.  ⁷⁶ And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,  ⁷⁷ to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the forgiveness of their sins.  ⁷⁸ By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us,  ⁷⁹ to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”  ⁸⁰ The child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness until the day he appeared publicly to Israel. – Luke 1:67-80   

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Now when the king was settled in his house, and the LORD had given him rest from all his enemies around him,  ² the king said to the prophet Nathan, “See now, I am living in a house of cedar, but the ark of God stays in a tent.”  ³ Nathan said to the king, “Go, do all that you have in mind; for the LORD is with you.” ⁴ But that same night the word of the LORD came to Nathan:  ⁵ Go and tell my servant David: Thus says the LORD: Are you the one to build me a house to live in? […] ⁸ Now therefore thus you shall say to my servant David: Thus says the LORD of hosts: I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep to be prince over my people Israel;  ⁹ and I have been with you wherever you went, and have cut off all your enemies from before you; and I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth.  ¹⁰ And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, so that they may live in their own place, and be disturbed no more; and evildoers shall afflict them no more, as formerly,  ¹¹ from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel; and I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover the LORD declares to you that the LORD will make you a house. […] 2 Samuel 7:16   ¹⁶ Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me; your throne shall be established forever. – 2 Samuel 7:1-11  

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Today is an unusual day. It’s not often we celebrate the fourth week of Advent AND Christmas Eve on the same day! For this service we will be focusing on the fourth week of Advent, and we will celebrate Christmas Eve later this evening.

So on the fourth week of Advent we light the candle of Love; and in the fourth week of our Advent series How Does a Weary World Rejoice? the fourth lesson is entitled “We Sing Stories of Hope”. So this morning we have Love, and Rejoicing (or Joy), and Hope, and might as well toss Peace as well: bottom line, Advent is now complete! But the baby Jesus has not quite arrived yet… so I’d like to take a few moments to listen to what Mary and Zechariah had to say about their miracle babies.

Our scripture readings today are actually songs, or at the very least poems, and the words have been set to music many times over the centuries. And they’re two parts of the same story.

I’ll start with the song of Zechariah. Zechariah spoke (or sang) these words over his baby boy, John, right after John was born. Zechariah started out by praising God for showing kindness and mercy to Israel by making good on God’s promise to send a redeemer. John will not be the redeemer; John will be the one who will prepare the way for him; but as Zechariah sings, he looks forward to the coming of the savior, who will come from “the house of his servant David”.

This reference to the ‘house of David’ would have had a lot of meaning for the people listening that day in Israel. Especially during the time of the Roman occupation, it would have been a clear reference to the messiah who God had promised through the Old Testament prophets. Many people believed the messiah would be a military savior – someone who liberate Israel from the Romans – although Jesus later made it very clear that his kingdom “is not of this world,” and that his mission on earth was bigger and more important than the Roman Empire.

At the same time, this messiah – according to the prophets – would save Israel from its enemies and from anyone who hated them. So how could this not mean liberation from Rome? That story will unfold, and questions will be answered, in the decades ahead.  But as we keep listening to Zechariah’s song, we hear some of these promises beginning to coming true…

The messiah will show mercy to God’s people. The messiah will remember the holy covenant between Abraham and God, and he will renew it. God’s promise to Abraham was that he would have many, many descendants (at the time Abraham had no children); and that Abraham would have a land of his own; and that all the nations of the earth would be blessed through him. All the nations – including us! Jesus will be the messiah who not only fulfills God’s promises to Israel but also fulfills God’s promises to us Gentiles as well.

In addition, God made a promise to King David – which Zechariah also mentions in his song – that there would always be one of David’s descendants on the throne of Israel. Looking at Old Testament history, it appears as though David’s royal line died out; the nation fell to invaders around 400 years after David died, and there were no more kings of Israel after that.

But we see in the book of Matthew that Jesus is a descendant of David, both through his father Joseph and through Mary (and through the Holy Spirit!) So Jesus is the promised king, the descendant of David, whose kingdom will never end. Zechariah says: “…as he spoke through his holy prophets of old.”  Prophecy is being fulfilled.

Zechariah goes on to say that through this savior we will all be able to serve God without fear: without fear of falling short, without fear of not being good enough, without fear of the things we’ve done wrong in the past, without fear of what other people might say about us, without fear of what other people might think of our backgrounds, without fear in a world that’s changing faster than we can keep up with, without fear of having too much month left at the end of the money.

There are so many ways that people can be afraid; but when we become God’s people we serve God without fear of any kind, because through this descendant of David, this Messiah, God brings forgiveness. This forever-king will make us whole and make us holy and bring light into our darkness, and calm into our fears, and life into a world that’s under the shadow of death.

And then turning to his baby John, Zechariah says: “and you child” – and you will prepare the way for the savior. You will give the people knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of sins. You will bring light into the darkness. You will show them the way of life and peace.

That’s what Zechariah sang.

Mary’s song is then sung in response to her cousin Elizabeth’s greeting. Mary’s song has literally been set to music many times over the centuries; her words have inspired millions of people. And this is a song we all can sing along with her.

Mary starts off with words that have mystified people for centuries: “My soul magnifies the Lord.” We understand that Mary is praising God when she says this, but what does it really mean for someone’s soul to magnify the Lord?

For me, it helps a little to look at the original Greek: ‘soul’ in Greek is ‘psyche’ – the word we get ‘psychology’ from – it’s a word that means the very foundation of one’s being: everything that’s in our minds and hearts. And the word ‘magnifies’ in Greek is megalunei – which literally translates ‘huge light’, like the sun. So put the two together and we have “my soul – beams a huge light on God!” “My soul is a spotlight on the Lord.”

That’s one way to understand it. There’s a second interpretation, very similar to it, but I’ll need to share a story to explain it. There was a Catholic nun awhile back who knew Mother Teresa personally and she tells this story about her. One day Mother Teresa was told about a family in Calcutta with several children, and the family had no food. So Mother Teresa prepared some rice and took it to the family. The mother of the family split the rice in half and disappeared for a moment. When she came back, Mother Teresa asked her, “where did you go?” and she answered, “To my neighbors next door who are Muslim. They also have no food.”

Mother Teresa repeated this story over and over, many times… and in doing so she magnified the kindness of this woman. This woman whose name we don’t know became an example of generosity and love for millions of people she never met, because Mother Teresa shared her story so many times. That’s also what it means to magnify.

In a similar way we magnify Jesus whenever we repeat his story – telling other people about his kindness and his goodness, and the prayers he has answered, and the lives he has saved. Mary says: “The Mighty One has done great things for me, holy is his name!” That’s magnification.

And then Mary gives a word of prophecy. She sings about a world that’s upside down (the world was as upside down back then as it is now) and how it will be turned right-side-up one day. God will scatter the proud; God will bring down the powerful; God will lift up the lowly; God will provide food for the hungry; God will fulfill hope, and bring justice and joy and peace to a broken and weary world.

It’s interesting to notice that Mary’s song does not stand alone in the Bible. There’s another song like it in I Samuel 2, where Hannah sings a similar song when God answers her prayer for a child – a song that talks about God lifting up the lowly and the poor, God feeding good food to the hungry, God filling those who are empty. The vision and the promise remain the same from the Old Testament straight through to the New Testament. These women sing about the things that matter to God: God’s relationship with the people, and God reaching out to provide for their needs, for the hungry, for the homeless, for the poor, for those who have nothing.

As for Mary herself, she sings that “all generations will call me blessed” – and this has certainly turned out to be true! Even for those of us who don’t keep statues of Mary around the house, we still honor her in our thoughts and prayers as the mother of our Lord.

Scripture doesn’t tell us a whole lot about Mary; but tradition says that she was orphaned as a young girl, and the only relative of hers mentioned in the Bible is Elizabeth, who was a cousin. But we do know both Mary and Joseph were descendants of King David, and that Mary’s ancestry also included at least one Levite – which means that she inherited from both the line of Kings and the line of Priests – or as we would say today, both church and state. Jesus then becomes the leader and perfecter of both the kingdom and the faith.

We also know that Mary could have said ‘no’ to the angel’s message. She could have backed off in fear. She knew, that as a pregnant woman without a husband, her reputation would suffer. She knew that no-one would believe she was pregnant by the Holy Spirit. She knew that no-one believe the strange man who paid her a visit was an angel. She knew this pregnancy was going to complicate her life in a BIG way.

But she also knew and understood the honor of being the mother of the Messiah. And she loved God enough to share God’s vision for the world, and to say ‘yes’ to God with her whole heart.

We also, in our own way and in our own time, have the opportunity to say ‘yes’ to God. Like Mary, we know that saying ‘yes’ to God could complicate our lives a bit. But when we say ‘yes’ to God we are blessed. And when we light the candle of love against the shadows of hate we are blessed.

In this Advent week of love, we see a picture of what Love really is: God’s love for us, in becoming small enough to get inside Mary’s womb; and Mary’s love, being willing to risk everything to say ‘yes’ to God; and the love of so many others who have written down what happened, and copied it out by hand for generations, so that we can know about God’s love.

As we receive his love tonight, will we be faithful to share it with people who haven’t heard the story yet? In our world today, there are more people who have never heard the story of Jesus than there are people who have heard it. Will we follow in Mary’s footsteps and say ‘yes’ to all that God has in store for us?

If so, we can also say to God the words that Mary spoke: “Behold – the servants of the Lord. May it be to us as you have said.” AMEN.

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Advent 3 – Joy

The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners;  ² to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn;  ³ to provide for those who mourn in Zion– to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit. They will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, to display his glory.  ⁴ They shall build up the ancient ruins, they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.

⁸ For I the LORD love justice, I hate robbery and wrongdoing; I will faithfully give them their recompense, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them.  ⁹ Their descendants shall be known among the nations, and their offspring among the peoples; all who see them shall acknowledge that they are a people whom the LORD has blessed.  ¹⁰ I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, my whole being shall exult in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.  ¹¹ For as the earth brings forth its shoots, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up, so the Lord GOD will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations. – Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11

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When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream.  ² Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy; then it was said among the nations, “The LORD has done great things for them.”  ³ The LORD has done great things for us, and we rejoiced.  ⁴ Restore our fortunes, O LORD, like the watercourses in the Negeb.  ⁵ May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy.  ⁶ Those who go out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, carrying their sheaves. – Psalm 126:1-6  A Song of Ascents

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⁵⁷ Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son.  ⁵⁸ Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown his great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her.  ⁵⁹ On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to name him Zechariah after his father.  ⁶⁰ But his mother said, “No; he is to be called John.”  ⁶¹ They said to her, “None of your relatives has this name.”  ⁶² Then they began motioning to his father to find out what name he wanted to give him.  ⁶³ He asked for a writing tablet and wrote, “His name is John.” And all of them were amazed.  ⁶⁴ Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue freed, and he began to speak, praising God.  ⁶⁵ Fear came over all their neighbors, and all these things were talked about throughout the entire hill country of Judea.  ⁶⁶ All who heard them pondered them and said, “What then will this child become?” For, indeed, the hand of the Lord was with him. – Luke 1:57-66

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Before we jump back into our Advent series today, we have a special date to remember this week. Tomorrow, December 18, is the birthday of Charles Wesley – brother of John. Charles was a co-founder of Methodism and a hymn-writer. This time of year we remember Charles when we sing “Come Thou Long-Expected Jesus” or “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing”. Charles was actually the first of the brothers to experience a deep movement of faith in his life – which he then shared with John – so without Charles there would not have been a Pastor John Wesley or a Methodist Church. ‘Happy Birthday in Heaven’ to Charles Wesley!

As we head into Week Three of Advent and our series on “How Can a Weary World Rejoice?” – the darkness and the weariness in our world begins to shift and break up a little, because this week we light the candle of Joy. This candle – unlike the others – is pink, which represents joy. I don’t know who it was back in the mists of time who decided pink was the color of joy… but they did, and here we are, and there it is!

Up until this point Advent has been a time of repentance, a time of longing: longing for better days; longing to put away the things that displease God; longing for an end to the weariness. This week we begin to look forward to God’s salvation – which Jesus brings – and also to God’s restoration of our lives and our world.  The theme of the restoring of ruins is as powerful and relevant today as it was in ancient Israel.[1]

Joy is not the same thing as happiness. Joy is not something we can chase after. We as Americans love to pursue happiness – according to the Declaration of Independence that’s our right! But real joy can’t be pursued. It has to come to us.  Joy is a much deeper thing.

One local author recently wrote:

“We must risk delight. [which was his word for ‘joy’.] We can do without pleasure, but not delight… we must have the stubbornness to accept gladness in the ruthless furnace of this world. To make injustice the only measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.”[2]

I think that’s insightful, because whatever we focus on becomes our life and our experience. So while we acknowledge that evil and wrong exist in the world, we don’t allow these things to become our only thought… or even our main thought. We need delight; we need joy.

The author continues:

“For Christians, joyful celebration (even of the little things) is part of the battle. In our joy, we declare that tragedy, violence, pain, and tears do not have the final word.”[3]

That’s where we’re headed this week. In our Advent series, “How Does a Weary World Rejoice?”, our theme for the week is: “We Allow Ourselves to Be Amazed”. Similar idea. The experience of being amazed is a close relative of joy. When we’re amazed we let down the barriers and let in the good that comes to us from God and through God.

The authors of our Advent series suggest that “When we are weary, we find it hard to express joy. When we are weary, we might find it hard to share space with others because our weariness has seemingly stolen our joy.” And they pose the question: “is it possible to be joy-filled by yourself?”[4]

Interesting question – and I’m not going to try to answer that today. But I would love to hear what you think. So if you have a mind to, let me know after the service how you experience real, deep joy – with others, or by yourself, or both?

One thing I think we can all agree on though: God’s works – the things God does – often bring us joy. I love line from the movie The Color Purple, where Shug Avery says to Celie:

“I think it [ticks] God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it. People think pleasing God is all God cares about. But any fool living in the world can see God always trying to please us back.”[5]

That is joy!

And that’s what the people of Israel were talking about in Psalm 126: “When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream.”  In fact, in all our readings for today, people are being amazed by what God is doing and has done and will do – and their amazement gives way to joy!

In Isaiah we hear the words:

“The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners;  ² to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor…”

These words were given by God to the prophet Isaiah to give to the people of Israel while they were still captives in Babylon. God said these things to get the people ready to return home to Jerusalem. After 70 years of being strangers in a strange land, the people were finally going home! The psalmist said: “We were like those who dreamed”.

Hundreds of years later, this prophecy was read aloud in a synagogue by Jesus when he preached in Nazareth. The people listening would have recognized the passage immediately, and would have immediately thought of freedom and home and all the things that came with leaving Babylon behind. Then after Jesus read, he rolled up the scroll, sat down, and said “today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

The people were stunned. God had been the savior of the people once before – was it possible God was about to do it again? Only this time it would be Jesus leading us to freedom, and Jesus will open the door to God’s kingdom for all people, not just the descendants of Abraham.

The Advent, or the coming, of our Lord Jesus gives every one of us “a garland… of gladness… praise… righteousness… joy.” No more half-measures, no more guesswork, no more self-doubt – because we’re not trusting in ourselves any more or in our ability to be right with God (because we can’t). Now we trust in Jesus – and we know that Jesus will succeed even in the places where we have failed. God’s anointed is sent, in the words of Isaiah, to the oppressed, to the ones whose hearts are crushed, to the captives, to the imprisoned, and to all who mourn or grieve.

For us today, we (like the Israelites) are living in a kind of exile, in the sense that we’re not home yet. We’re not home in God’s kingdom yet. We are, in the words of Robert Heinlein, “strangers in a strange land” – living in a world that has rebelled (and is still rebelling) against God.

Advent speaks to us about a return to God’s kingdom, in every sense of the word. A return to God’s kingdom will include: relief for people who are oppressed; healing for hearts that are broken; freedom for those who are trapped in slavery – and even those who are trapped in prisons of their own making, like addictions. God’s kingdom brings comfort for those who grieve, and beauty for those whose spirits have been broken.

And more than this: Isaiah says:

“They shall build up the ancient ruins, they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.”

Whenever I hear this passage it makes me think of places like Centralia or Yellow Dog Village: ghost towns right here in Pennsylvania. Or even old mill towns like Braddock or Clairton. In God’s kingdom, places like these will be remade – this time without the dirt of the mills and the injustices that left the cities looking like ghost towns. Imagine these cities with every road repaved, every storefront clean and shining in the sunlight, every house restored and lived in. Imagine Clairton becoming a destination riverfront town. Wouldn’t that be a joy to see? Wouldn’t that be a wonder? Wouldn’t that be a story to tell? “They shall repair the ruined cities…” Isaiah says.

God will make it happen, not just for Clairton but for everyone, everywhere. God says: “for I the Lord love justice.”  Justice in God’s eyes isn’t just fairness; it goes beyond that. Justice has nothing to do with settling scores. Justice is about wholeness, and restoration, and health, and shalom.

The people experiencing these things in Psalm 126 say: “We were like those who dream.” They are filled with laughter and shouts of joy. The word on the street was: “The Lord has done great things for us.” The people say: “We went out weeping, carrying nothing but seeds… but we came home celebrating with a full harvest.”

Then as we turn to our Gospel reading, we discover still more joy: the arrival of John the Baptist. People all around Elizabeth were blown away by God’s mercy to her: first off, because she was ‘getting on in years’: she was an elderly woman who made it through nine months of pregnancy AND childbirth without the help of modern medicine.

Scholars of Bible history estimate that in Jesus’ day, the mortality rate for mothers was around one in every 50 births. (The mortality rate was much higher for babies!) For mothers, even things like a breach position could mean death. One out of every fifty – those are not good odds! I think that’s why they call it ‘delivery’ – being delivered from danger! In this case both mother and baby John are well and thriving.

And then the icing on the cake, Zechariah confirms what the angel said: “the baby’s name is John”. And immediately Zechariah is able to speak again and join the celebration.

The good news spreads throughout the neighborhood and the whole region like wildfire. People didn’t need Facebook back then to get news around! And all the people talking wondered and said to each other: with all these miracles we’ve witnessed, what is this child going to become?

Tune in next Sunday for the answer to that question!

In the meantime, all these things – all these actions and gifts of God – come together and work together to bring us joy – a joy that will last. Joy to the world – the Lord is coming!  AMEN

[1] CMJ’s 2023 online newsletter for Advent 3

[2] Matthew 25 Initiative, Costly Joy: Light Where Hope Falters email update

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid

[5] Alice Walker, The Color Purple

Advent 2: Peace

Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God.  ² Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins.  ³ A voice cries out: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.  ⁴ Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain.  ⁵ Then the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”  ⁶ A voice says, “Cry out!” And I said, “What shall I cry?” All people are grass, their constancy is like the flower of the field.  ⁷ The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the LORD blows upon it; surely the people are grass.  ⁸ The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever.  ⁹ Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good tidings; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings, lift it up, do not fear; say to the cities of Judah, “Here is your God!”  ¹⁰ See, the Lord GOD comes with might, and his arm rules for him; his reward is with him, and his recompense before him.  ¹¹ He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep. – Isaiah 40:1-11

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²⁴ After those days his wife Elizabeth conceived, and for five months she remained in seclusion. She said,  ²⁵ “This is what the Lord has done for me when he looked favorably on me and took away the disgrace I have endured among my people.”

²⁶ In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth,  ²⁷ to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary.  ²⁸ And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.”  ²⁹ But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.  ³⁰ The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.  ³¹ And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus.  ³² He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David.  ³³ He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

³⁴ Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?”  ³⁵ The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God.

³⁶ And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren.  ³⁷ For nothing will be impossible with God.”  ³⁸ Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.

³⁹ In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country,  ⁴⁰ where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.  ⁴¹ When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit  ⁴² and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.  ⁴³ And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me?  ⁴⁴ For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy.  ⁴⁵ And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” — Luke 1:24-45

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Welcome to Advent Week 2!

Brief recap so far: last week was Week 1 of Advent, and also Week 1 in our series called How Does a Weary World Rejoice? The focus last week was that we begin by “acknowledging our weariness” – and I think it’s a good place to start, because we really do live in a weary world these days. And if we happen to be of a certain age (like myself) and are generally tired to begin with, or if we are waiting for answers, or waiting for things we hope will happen, or if we find ourselves living the same routine day after day after day – all of these things wear on our souls. We want to look to God and say “Lord, how long?”

So last week, in the first week of our series, we read a passage from the prophet Isaiah where Isaiah cried out to God and said: “you have hidden your face from us; but we are the work of your hand – restore us… repair the land…” This is the request to which Christmas is the answer: the coming of Jesus the Messiah.  That’s why the Advent candle for the first week of Advent is Hope.

This week our candle is the candle of Peace, and our Advent series encourages us to find peace – and joy as well – in connection with each other and with other believers. This church – this community of Christian believers – is drawn together by the Holy Spirit. All believers in Jesus share the same Holy Spirit in our hearts. We know that God the Father is God-above-us, and Jesus is God-with-us, but the Holy Spirit – the third person of the Trinity – is God-in-us. Not that we are little gods (because we are not) but there’s a part of God that enters the human heart when we turn to Jesus in faith and love and say “yes Lord I will be Yours”.

When this happens, it is really literally true that we share each other’s griefs and we share each other’s joys – because what touches God, or what touches any of us, touches us all. In a community built by God’s Spirit, we carry and magnify each other’s joy. When one person rejoices, we all celebrate!

In the readings for our Advent series, the authors suggest that “When we are weary, we find it hard to express joy, or even to share space with others” – and the authors ask – “Is it even possible to be joy-filled by yourself?”[1] Can we be joyful alone?

That’s a good question… and I invite all of us to reflect on it. I’m not going to tell you what I think right now, but I would love to hear your reactions to that question. If you have thoughts on this please let me know after the service!

Having said this, I’d like to get back to our theme of Peace for today. The desire for peace runs deeply in our world, and in both of our readings for today.

In Isaiah, these words are being spoken to the people of Israel as they are about to be deported to Babylon. (If you were here last week, we are going backwards historically because last week we were talking about the return of Israel from the Babylonian captivity.) This week we go back to the fall of Jerusalem and the deportation to Babylon. It was a devastating time for God’s people. Israel – the ‘Northern Kingdom’ – had already fallen. Jerusalem in the south, and the areas around it, were home to the last of the descendants of Abraham: the last of God’s chosen people. Their city had been attacked, their king was taken captive, the city wall was torn down, and the temple was set on fire. And all of the people – except for the poorest of the poor – were forced to walk nearly 1000 miles to Babylon. Forced immigration. The people couldn’t help but wonder if God still cared.

Granted, the people had turned away from God: they had worshipped idols, they had even sacrificed their own children to false gods, and they killed the prophets who tried to bring them back to God. So God allowed them to be conquered… allowed their kingdom to fall. It was at a time like this, when judgement fell, and the people were devastated, that God gave Isaiah the words: “Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem…”

God did not forget God’s people. And God will never forget us, no matter what. Isaiah is sent to remind the people of this. Their warfare is over; their iniquity is pardoned.

In our Gospel reading today, we find peace in an unlikely place – as a young woman named Mary speaks with an angel; and we also find peace between Mary and Elizabeth, who support and bless one other, and encourage each another, especially because they have what are probably the two most remarkable pregnancies in the history of the world!

Starting off with Isaiah: In the middle of the heartbreaking deportation to Babylon, God makes a promise to the people of God. God says:

“A voice cries out: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”” (Is 40:3)

How would the people have heard this back then? Most certainly they would have thought to themselves that God’s place is in the temple – which was now damaged beyond repair.

But preparing a way for the Lord in the wilderness? That didn’t make sense; how could that be? The people have already forgotten all those years when God was with them in the wilderness – a long time ago, back when the people were leaving Egypt and traveling to the Promised Land. I think God might actually prefer the wilderness; when God’s home was in a tent – and God was able to move with the people and among the people. God does not live in houses of stone or wood or brick; God lives in houses made of skin – and always has.

There are other parts of Isaiah’s message – parts that we didn’t read today – where God tells the people through Isaiah to go along with this deportation; to go peacefully, and get along with their captors. God tells them to seek the welfare of Babylon, and to pray for the city and do good for it. God will be with them, even in a foreign land.

But going back to that line about making straight in the desert… This could also mean that someday there would be a road back home – through the desert places that lay between Israel and Babylon. Maybe that was it; but the people weren’t sure, and at the time their hearts were broken; they weren’t thinking about the future.

For those of us who feel like our times today are also difficult, who feel like we’re wandering through a wilderness of confusion and weariness – we can also trust that there is a straight path through our wilderness as well.

The prophecy was true – 70 years later, the people did return through the wilderness; and it became true again when John the Baptist arrived. John lived in the wilderness eating locusts and honey and preparing the way for the Lord.

It’s important to remember that all four Gospel writers – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John – all quote this verse in Isaiah, and they tell us it refers to John the Baptist. John – this baby that Elizabeth is having – IS the voice in the wilderness, letting everyone know that God is on the way.

Jesus himself pointed to John as being ‘the last in the line of the prophets’. There will be no other like John the Baptist ever again.

Isaiah’s message also tells us that the Messiah is coming: not on a warhorse like a Caesar but as a gentle leader, a teacher, and a healer. Isaiah says, “He will lead his flock like a shepherd… and gently lead those that are with young.”

In our reading from Luke, the story is also set in a violent time. The land of Israel is occupied by Roman forces; and the fall of Jerusalem in the year 70AD is only a few decades away.  Jesus’ birth, death, and resurrection took place before the fall of Jerusalem; but the Gospels were written down after the fall of Jerusalem. When Luke wrote his gospel he went and located all the eyewitnesses to Jesus’ life that he could find – all the people who had known him personally – and he interviewed them and collected their stories. That’s why we have so many wonderful personal stories in the book of Luke, including the stories of Mary and Elizabeth.

The conversation between Mary and the angel is remarkably calm.  In almost every scenario where a human being meets an angel in scripture, the person usually passes out – or at least trembles to the point of being speechless. Mary doesn’t seem to have this problem. Why? Was the angel different this time? No – this is Gabriel, the captain of God’s angelic forces. Was it Gabriel’s opening words? Perhaps. When Gabriel says, “blessed are you” the word he uses is makarios – a word the ancient Greeks used to describe the joy of the gods.

If I’m not mistaken, Mary is the only human being ever called “blessed” or “favored” by an angel. She’s the only one to whom an angel ever says “the Lord is with you” personally. Maybe Mary wasn’t so scared because she was young – she was barely a teenager – at that young age we don’t scare easily. Maybe she still had all the curiosity and fearlessness of youth.

But take a moment to picture the scene in our minds: the leader of God’s angelic forces appears to 14-year-old, just barely a woman, speaking these words of greeting and joy. Mary has long brown hair, brown eyes full of wonder; she is wondering who this majestic being is, and why is he talking to her like this, and why he greets her like she’s royalty. But she’s not scared. She’s curious, she’s interested… she’s puzzled… scripture says, “very much perplexed” – very baffled. Mary is wondering what’s up; but scared, she is not. This angelic being, this Gabriel, who causes grown men to faint, piques her curiosity. She wants to know more.

So Gabriel tells her more. He says:

“you’re going to be pregnant and have a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, the Son of the Most High, and God will give him the throne of his father David. He will reign over God’s people forever – his kingdom will never end.”

Imagine all the possible reactions Mary could have had to this: “who, me?” “I’m going to give birth to a king?” “Are you talking about being the mother of the Messiah? Me?”

But Mary doesn’t say this; Mary has no doubts. She trusts Gabriel. Her only question comes from a position of teamwork – she’s all in, but there’s a technical detail: “how’s this going to happen if I don’t have a man?”

Reasonable question. And Gabriel has a reasonable answer:

“the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will come over you; therefore this child will be called holy, the Son of God.”

People sometimes ask: “do you really believe in the Virgin Birth?” My answer to that is: why not? If God created the entire universe, and the world and all that’s in it, and if God can take sinners and make them into saints – and these are things God can do and has done – then why couldn’t God father a baby?

But this responsibility is too much for Mary to take on alone, at her age and in her culture; so Gabriel also tells her: “your relative Elizabeth, in her old age, is six months along. For nothing is impossible with God.”

I like the way Mary answers in The Message Bible. She says to Gabriel: “Yes, I see it all now: I’m the Lord’s maid, ready to serve. Let it be with me just as you say.”  Mary is a role model for us all.

The peace of this scene is not the kind of peace the world gives. It is shalom – a total well-being – from within. This peace is the work of the Holy Spirit, who was guiding Mary and preparing her, long before she met Gabriel.

There was an interesting take on this passage from Luke posted on Facebook this past week. It was – as so many things on Facebook are – designed to be controversial; but stripping out all the sociopolitical nonsense, it made some good points:

• First, God didn’t do any of this without getting Mary’s buy-in. Mary was wholeheartedly on board with the game plan. She agreed with the idea and she said ‘yes’.
• Second, the angel spoke directly to Mary – not to her father, not to her fiancé, not to her rabbi – he spoke to her. This would have been unusual back in those days, because women in those days had no legal rights. But there’s another angle here that’s important: I too often see people and relationships get tangled up because someone wants to talk with someone else but they go through a third person to say what they want to say. Psychologists call this triangulation (because it’s a three-sided conversation) and it’s always a bad idea. Always.
• And third, God chooses who God chooses. God calls people regardless of social status, or income, or education – none of which Mary had. God knew what God was doing when God chose Mary to be the mother of Jesus.

The other remarkable thing about this passage is how peaceful it is. The angel speaks gently; Mary speaks with a quiet courage. It could almost have been an everyday conversation, but of course it’s not, because the future of the world is hanging on what is decided here. The world changed forever, and salvation became possible, because one fourteen-year-old young woman said ‘yes’ to God.

One last reflection on peace at Christmastime, from our friends at the SALT Project: There’s a story you may have heard before – but it’s worth repeating – it’s about the Truce of Christmas in 1914. This took place during WWI. The Pope at the time proposed a temporary truce for Christmas, and the leaders of both armies refused; but the soldiers had other ideas. On Christmas Eve, the soldiers in their trenches began singing Christmas carols – in German, in English, in French – and they could hear each other singing from trench to trench. Then some of the men climbed out of the trenches, and crossed over no-man’s land. They shook hands, exchanged gifts of cigarettes and chocolate and sometimes bits of their uniforms like buttons and medals. No shots were fired that night… or the next day, Christmas Day, when someone found a soccer ball and games were played.

Imagine the peace that came from laying down those weapons… it was a foretaste of Armistice Day, which came four years later. It helps us understand what Christmas IS: not just hope, but peace: God’s peace: a peace that makes enemies into friends, and rebels into colleagues.

May the peace of God be with us all this Advent season. AMEN.

[1] Rev Cecelia D Armstrong, Sanctified Art: How Does A Weary World Rejoice?

Advent 1: We Acknowledge Our Weariness

Psalm 80:1-7  To the leader: on Lilies, a Covenant. Of Asaph. A Psalm

Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph like a flock! You who are enthroned upon the cherubim, shine forth  ² before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh. Stir up your might, and come to save us!  ³ Restore us, O God; let your face shine, that we may be saved.  ⁴ O LORD God of hosts, how long will you be angry with your people’s prayers?  ⁵ You have fed them with the bread of tears, and given them tears to drink in full measure.  ⁶ You make us the scorn of our neighbors; our enemies laugh among themselves.  ⁷ Restore us, O God of hosts; let your face shine, that we may be saved.

Psalm 80:17-19   ¹⁷ But let your hand be upon the one at your right hand, the one whom you made strong for yourself.  ¹⁸ Then we will never turn back from you; give us life, and we will call on your name.  ¹⁹ Restore us, O LORD God of hosts; let your face shine, that we may be saved.

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Isaiah 64:1-9  

O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence–  2 as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil– to make your name known to your adversaries, so that the nations might tremble at your presence!  3 When you did awesome deeds that we did not expect, you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence.  4 From ages past no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who works for those who wait for him.  5 You meet those who gladly do right, those who remember you in your ways. But you were angry, and we sinned; because you hid yourself we transgressed.  6 We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.  7 There is no one who calls on your name, or attempts to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us, and have delivered us into the hand of our iniquity.  8 Yet, O LORD, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.  9 Do not be exceedingly angry, O LORD, and do not remember iniquity forever. Now consider, we are all your people.

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Luke 1:1-23

Since many have undertaken to set down an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled among us,  ² just as they were handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word,  ³ I too decided, after investigating everything carefully from the very first, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus,  ⁴ so that you may know the truth concerning the things about which you have been instructed.

⁵ In the days of King Herod of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly order of Abijah. His wife was a descendant of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth.  ⁶ Both of them were righteous before God, living blamelessly according to all the commandments and regulations of the Lord.  ⁷ But they had no children, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were getting on in years.

⁸ Once when he was serving as priest before God and his section was on duty,  ⁹ he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to enter the sanctuary of the Lord and offer incense.  ¹⁰ Now at the time of the incense offering, the whole assembly of the people was praying outside.  ¹¹ Then there appeared to him an angel of the Lord, standing at the right side of the altar of incense.  ¹² When Zechariah saw him, he was terrified; and fear overwhelmed him.  ¹³ But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will name him John.  ¹⁴ You will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth,  ¹⁵ for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He must never drink wine or strong drink; even before his birth he will be filled with the Holy Spirit.  ¹⁶ He will turn many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God.  ¹⁷ With the spirit and power of Elijah he will go before him, to turn the hearts of parents to their children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”  ¹⁸ Zechariah said to the angel, “How will I know that this is so? For I am an old man, and my wife is getting on in years.”  ¹⁹ The angel replied, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news.  ²⁰ But now, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time, you will become mute, unable to speak, until the day these things occur.”  ²¹ Meanwhile the people were waiting for Zechariah, and wondered at his delay in the sanctuary.  ²² When he did come out, he could not speak to them, and they realized that he had seen a vision in the sanctuary. He kept motioning to them and remained unable to speak.  ²³ When his time of service was ended, he went to his home.

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The season of Advent is, and always has been, considered the “New Year of the Church”.

One author I was reading this past week puzzled over the fact that the church would choose Advent to start the year. He asked: why not Easter, with its victory over death? Or why not Pentecost, with its baptism of fire – the birthday of the church? With Advent, he said, our new year starts not in victory but in the “shadows of war, sorrow and hate”. This is exactly where our God of grace arrives.

Therefore on our Advent wreath we have candles of “hope, peace, joy, and love – to light against the shadows of despair, war, sorrow, and hate.”[1]  We celebrate Advent because it’s the time when God defeats the darkness in our world – and that’s what the light of these candles shows us.

So it’s fitting that our Advent series this year is called How Does a Weary World Rejoice?  It’s a line taken from the Christmas carol O Holy Night: “A thrill of hope – the weary world rejoices; for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn…”[2] You will see artwork and other things related to this theme through the coming weeks.

I think it’s an especially good theme for this year, because our world really does feel weary right now. We’ve made it through the pandemic (more or less, though we’re still caring for people here and there who are still catching COVID). We hear story after story about wars in places like Ukraine and Israel, places where many of us have friends or loved ones. We pray for peace, but peace seems very slow in coming. Day after day we hear about more shootings and we wonder what it might take to put a stop to them. And in just the past couple of weeks, even locally, there have been delivery truck hijackings and check-writing scams… it’s that time of year when money is flowing and people are doing whatever they can to jump into the stream of cash and grab a handful.

Strange way to celebrate the birth of Jesus, isn’t it?

All of these things weary us. They wear on our souls. And if we happen to be of a certain age (like myself) and are just generally tired to start with, or if we are waiting for answers, or if we are waiting for things we hope will happen, or if we’re searching for someone or something we can trust in this world, or if we find ourselves living the same routine day after day after day – all of these things wear on our souls. They weary us. They make us look to God and say “Lord, how long?”

Our scriptures for today tell the stories of people who were also living in weary times. In the passage from Isaiah, the people of Israel have started to come home after their long exile in Babylon – and they return to Jerusalem to find that the city has fallen into ruins. The people look at the piles of stones, and the breaches in the city walls, and the overgrown fields, and they feel weary just thinking about all the work that’s going to have to be done to make a life here possible again. This was not the homecoming they dreamed of or hoped for.

And in our passage from Luke, the people of Israel are living under Roman occupation – which they are bone-tired of – and they are hoping for the promised Messiah, but they’ve been waiting for so long. When the angel Gabriel comes to Zechariah and says “you will have a son who will be great in the sight of God” – Zechariah looks at his old body, and his wife’s old body, and all he can see is weariness.

People in both of these passages cry out to God to be present, to be here with God’s people, and save us from the pain and the tragedies and the weariness around us. For us in today’s world, as the SALT Project says:

“in an age of struggle and conflict, many people are already in the shadows of suffering, anxiety, exhaustion, and grief. A key message of Advent and Christmas is that such shadows are precisely the place where Jesus comes, and where the church is called to go.”[3]

In this time of year we are reminded that Jesus is on the way – both in Advent and in the promise of His second coming. God is indeed coming to be with us and to save us from the pain and tragedy and weariness of our world.

But waiting is not easy! Isn’t it easy to relate to what Isaiah says to God: “Oh that you would tear the heavens and come down!” Lord, what are you waiting for?? How much worse do things have to get before You step in? And Isaiah’s words echo the heart of Psalm 80: “Lord, be with us – be among your people again! – bring peace, bring blessing.”

This morning we turn first to Isaiah – and again, Isaiah is writing during that time when the people of Israel had been captives in Babylon for seventy years: at least two generations. There are very few people in the crowd listening to Isaiah who are old enough to remember the glory of Israel back when it had a king and a temple.  For the past seventy years, Jerusalem has been the home of robbers and wild animals and the poorest of the poor. As the people begin to return home, they find any buildings still standing after seventy years crumbling, overgrown with weeds, and anything that was of value long since stolen. In their grief the people cry out to God: “oh that you would tear the heavens and come down!”

This passage in Isaiah reminds me in a way of something a young adult said to me recently: “I wish we had known what life was like when people were safe.”

What this person meant was, a world like the one I grew up in: a world in which we didn’t have to be afraid of being shot, a world in which people didn’t steal a password and empty your bank account, a world in which people didn’t steal someone’s identity, a world in which was safe to walk across downtown from one end to the other – by yourself – even if you were a woman. A world in which it was safe for children to play in each others’ back yards or even in the streets, like we used to – “come home when the street lights come on” – remember that? My young friend said, “I would like to have known what it was like to live in that world.”

I wish she could. I wish I could take her and all the people in the younger generations back to those days for a visit.

Of course, if we’re honest, we know this world is not a safe place, and never was… but there was a time when we weren’t constantly worrying about safety. Having to think consciously about our own personal safety 24/7/365 makes a person weary.

So we turn to God and we say: Lord, please forgive wherever we’ve gone wrong. Lord, you are the potter, we are the clay – take us in Your hands and work with us. Work out our flaws, work in strength and wholeness. Come, set our world to rights. Lord, our weariness has shaken our hope.

“Let your face shine so that we can be saved.”

That cry from Psalm 80 is so right on the mark, because this world is beyond our ability to set right. Being good is not enough; and going to church won’t make the change. We need God. We need God to “let [His] face shine so that we can be saved.”

And then as we turn to the story of Zechariah – whose name, by the way, means “God remembers”. How cool is that? God’s people are not forgotten!

Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth are descendants of the ancient priestly families of Israel – they can trace their family tree all the way back to Aaron in Moses’ day! Both of them have lived lives of great faith and service to God’s people, and Zechariah in his old age still serves in the temple. Their one great sadness in life is that they never were able to get pregnant – and now they are past child-bearing years.

One day as Zechariah is serving in the temple, an angel appears: and not just any angel, this is Gabriel, the captain of the heavenly forces!  Gabriel says to Zechariah, “you will have a son, you will have that joy and gladness you’ve always wanted; and he will be great in God’s sight, and (most importantly) he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before birth.” Which, by the way, is true, because a few months later when a pregnant Elizabeth meets a pregnant Mary, the baby John “leaps in her womb” when he hears the voice of Jesus’ mother. (Luke 1:41) Unborn babies – they know things!

But I’m getting ahead of the story. In this particular moment, hearing Gabriel’s message, Zechariah can’t believe it. He answers, “but we’re both old.”

Now this is something I can relate to. As a woman in my sixties I cannot imagine anyone saying to me “you’re going to have a baby!” I would be stunned, shocked… and scared! With all the aches and pains of old age, getting pregnant could be dangerous. And I’m not sure my husband would be nuts about the idea either.

Zechariah asks, “How can this be so?”  For those of us ‘of a certain age’, doubt and uncertainty has a way of creeping in. If any of us find that disappointment or disbelief is sneaking up on us… Advent is a good time to bring these things to God. God knows where we are; God knows our physical and spiritual weaknesses; and God can restore hope in us.

As Advent begins: let me ask each of us to give some thought to this question: what weariness, if any, do we carry today? What is it that makes our hearts, or our minds, or our spirits, bone-tired?

For anyone who is having a particularly difficult time during this time of year, that’s why we’re offering the Blue Christmas service this year – for people who want to be with God at Christmastime but without all the holiday noise – just a quiet time with God. If you know anyone who needs this please invite them to come.

For the rest of us who are simply weary – how can we rediscover hope? The people at the SALT Project say, “Before broken hearts can be healed, they need to be heard.  The truth and the feelings must be named.”[4]

We can bring these feelings to God in prayer – whatever they are. We do not need to hold back with God – God knows who we are and where we are and God knows how to deal with it!  Remember Isaiah and the people of Israel crying out to God – “rend the heavens and come down”. Whatever it is, we don’t need to be shy about telling God our difficulties and asking God for what we need.

And for those of us who are not feeling in any way weary or down at this time of year – I’m so glad to hear it! Try to spend some time encouraging those people who are down. (SALT says:) “Name the truth, honor the losses, and [stand] in solidarity with our neighbors in pain: [be] a candle in the middle of the night.”[5]

When Isaiah cries out to God: “you have hidden your face from us; but we are the work of your hand – restore us… repair the land…” – this is the request to which Christmas is the answer: the coming of Jesus the Messiah.  Isaiah calls on God to be ‘God-with-us,’ and that’s exactly who Jesus is.

God’s promise is that this dark night will end; that this weariness does have an end to it; that this Advent time of waiting will come to a joyous end; and the answer of Christmas will be the greatest news of joy this world has ever heard. AMEN.

[1] SALT, https://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog/2017/11/27/keep-awake-lectionary-commentary-advent-week-one

[2] Adolphe Adam, O Holy Night

[3] SALT, https://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog/2017/11/27/keep-awake-lectionary-commentary-advent-week-one

[4] Ibid

[5] Ibid

Christ the King 2023

“For thus says the Lord GOD: I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out.  ¹² As shepherds seek out their flocks when they are among their scattered sheep, so I will seek out my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places to which they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness.  ¹³ I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land; and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the watercourses, and in all the inhabited parts of the land.  ¹⁴ I will feed them with good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel shall be their pasture; there they shall lie down in good grazing land, and they shall feed on rich pasture on the mountains of Israel.  ¹⁵ I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord GOD.  ¹⁶ I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice.” – Ezekiel 34:11-16   

^“Therefore, thus says the Lord GOD to them: I myself will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep.  ²¹ Because you pushed with flank and shoulder, and butted at all the weak animals with your horns until you scattered them far and wide,  ²² I will save my flock, and they shall no longer be ravaged; and I will judge between sheep and sheep.  ²³ I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them: he shall feed them and be their shepherd.  ²⁴ And I, the LORD, will be their God, and my servant David shall be prince among them; I, the LORD, have spoken.” – Ezekiel 34:20-24   

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[Jesus said:] “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory.  32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats,  33 and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left.  34 Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world;  35 for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me,  36 I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’  37 Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink?  38 And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing?  39 And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’  40 And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’  41 Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels;  42 for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink,  43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’  44 Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’  45 Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’  46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” – Matthew 25:31-46 

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Today is Christ the King Sunday – and I was wondering if any of us have ever wondered why we have a special holiday called “Christ the King”?  This is the newest holiday on the Christian calendar – it was started in 1925 by Pope Pius XI – so there are still people alive today who can remember a time before this holiday was created.

Pope Pius created the Solemnity of Christ the King in response to what he saw as “a rise in secularism” in the early 20^th century, particularly in Mexico, Russia, and some parts of Europe. I have no doubt that at least part of what he was seeing was the rise of Bolshevism in Russia and the rise of Fascism in Europe – particularly the beginnings of the Nazi movement.

One of the things the Pope said about this new holiday was that…

“For Christians, when our faith is… marginalized in public life, we can fall into the habit of compartmentalizing our lives.  We love Jesus in our private lives, but we shrink from acknowledging the kingship of Christ in social life.  When we celebrate… Christ the King, we declare to the world and remind ourselves that Jesus is the Lord of the Church and of the entire universe.”[1]

It makes a lot of sense at a time like that – and also at a time like this. Today we remind ourselves, and each other, and the world, that God is in charge, and Jesus is King, and Jesus will reign forever. The God we meet in the words of Ezekiel is the same God we meet in Jesus in Matthew’s gospel and the same Jesus we can meet today, right here and right now.

Having said this, there’s one thing ‘Christ the King’ does not mean, and that is that Jesus is kind of like our boss at work. When we leave work and come home, we take off our work clothes and set aside our ‘work’ way of behaving – and we put on something comfortable and relax and do whatever we like. When we leave church and go home we do not take off our Christian selves or set aside our Christian way of behaving. A Christian is someone who walks with God every day, all day. There is no such thing as a difference between ‘myself at home’ and ‘myself at church’. We’re either a follower of Jesus 24/7/365 or we’re not a follower of Jesus.

And that is exactly the point both Ezekiel and Jesus are making in our scripture readings this morning.

Both Ezekiel and Jesus talk about God being the shepherd of God’s people. Like a shepherd, God feeds and protects and heals and cares for each individual sheep, even at great risk to Godself sometimes.

The other common theme between Ezekiel and Matthew is that God is both shepherd and judge – and we’ll see how that plays out in a moment.

Starting with Ezekiel: In this book, God knows God’s people have been in pain and have been mistreated by the very people who should have been taking care of them, namely the priests and the Levites. God begins with words of tenderness to the sheep – and through them, also to us. God says to them and to us:

“I will seek you and I will find you; I will never let you be lost; if you wander off, I will search for you and bring you home. I will give you good things to eat and drink: clear, mountain spring water, and the most delicious food you can imagine. I will watch over you and give you a soft place to sleep. And if you get hurt I will make you well; and if you feel tired or weak I will care for you and give you rest.”

God also mentions through Ezekiel “my servant David” who is the ancestor of Jesus. At the time that Ezekiel is writing, Jesus is still far in the future; but Ezekiel catches a glimpse of someone who is coming, who is on the way.

There’s a medieval monk and theologian by the name of Bernard of Clairvaux who said that we can think of Jesus as coming into the world in “three advents” – three arrivals:

• the Advent when Jesus is born in Bethlehem (that’s the one we usually think of);
• the second Advent, which is Jesus’ second coming at the end of the age;
• and a third Advent – an everyday advent in which Jesus arrives in our lives and in our hearts here and now.

Ezekiel experienced that third advent – the ‘here and now’ advent – even though he didn’t know Jesus’ name yet. He simply called him ‘God’s servant David’.

All these words from Ezekiel so far have been sweet and wonderful promises… but then the scenario shifts, and God starts comparing fat sheep to lean sheep. (Parallels the sheep and goats in Jesus’ story in Matthew.)  In Ezekiel…

• The “Fat sheep” are not necessarily large physically; the meaning is more like “fat cat” – someone with great wealth and power who doesn’t really care how he or she got there
• The “Fat sheep” push weaker sheep around in order to steal their food
• The “Fat sheep” use their horns to hurt weaker sheep and to chase them away

God says the “Fat sheep” will be destroyed; and those who are weak or injured will be cared for by his servant David who is still to come and who will be a ‘ruler after God’s own heart’.

So Ezekiel gives us the prophecy, and then we turn to Matthew and see the fulfillment of this prophecy – at least in part. The ‘end-times Advent’ hasn’t happened yet, but Jesus is teaching about it. At the same time Jesus is telling this parable, in the background, in the shadows, there are people planning his death. Jesus is only days away from being crucified. But in the middle of all this, Jesus gives the disciples a vision for the future – his future and ours.

There is a day coming when Jesus will return to this earth in glory. All the angels will come with him – which, by the way, will be terrifying: angels are not cute little things we wear on our clothing. Most people in the Bible who see an angel faint and they don’t get back up until the angel directs them to. So when Jesus returns with the angels this will be an awesome sight. There will be no doubt as to who coming in power with angels.

Jesus will sit on the throne of the entire world, and every person who has ever lived from the beginning of time, from every country, people, and tribe, will be brought to Jesus. These people will be separated into two groups: sheep and goats – very similar idea to Ezekiel’s lean sheep and fat sheep.

It appears from the story, that the sheep themselves will not be fully aware of what’s going on. The sheep will know that Jesus is here, and they will be aware of movement, but how they’re being grouped and what those groups mean will be a surprise to both the sheep and the goats.

Jesus turns first to the sheep on his right hand, and he invites them to come and enter God’s kingdom. Why? Because they have been kind and generous and merciful even when they thought no-one was watching. They might even have been teased or put down during their lifetimes for being kind – for being a ‘soft touch’. They went the extra mile to give food or clothing, or visits to the sick or imprisoned – simply because the need was there, and they were able to meet it.

For those of us who take Jesus’ words to heart, Jesus’ words are not meant to be a to-do list. The story doesn’t mean that all of us should be looking for opportunities to be involved in ministry to refugees, prisoners, hospitals, etc etc. What it does mean is being aware of the needs of the people around us; and showing compassion; and sharing what we can – especially to those on the fringes of society.

It’s interesting to notice also what Jesus doesn’t say. Jesus doesn’t say anything about going to church, or being able to lay out a clear theology of what Christians are supposed to believe, or voting the right way, or asking people if they’re sure if they died tonight they’ll go to heaven, or any other kind of ‘religious’ activities. Yes, it’s important to go to church, and to know the Bible, and to share Jesus with others – but it’s more important to have a heart for the hurting and to do what we can for those in need.

The Goats in the story, by contrast, saw the pain and the needs of others and did nothing. In fact they often took advantage of situations to line their own pockets. Goats are the people who do things like making it legal to tax Social Security payments. Goats invent things like coinsurance and co-pays that impoverish people who have serious medical issues. Goats see people in need and they figure out how to make a profit. And because Jesus identifies so strongly with those in need – Jesus says when we help them, we help Him – the bottom line is the Goats have never seen Jesus. They could have seen him in the eyes of the sick or the injured or the refugee – but they never noticed. They missed Jesus completely. And that’s why Jesus can say to them very honestly, “I never knew you”.

But the Sheep on Jesus’ right hand are called “blessed”. A Lutheran theologian puts it this way:

“The blessed ones are those who have seen a King who is not like the kings of this world.  They are blessed because they know a King who brings real peace, who sees the needy, and who hears the cries of the oppressed. In God’s kingdom, no one is hungry, naked, sick, or alone. To bear witness to Christ as King is to be a messenger of this kingdom—to serve others and thereby profess the invasion of God’s glorious empire.”[2]

So as we hear Jesus’ words, should we make plans to feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, welcome strangers, clothe the naked, visit hospitals, visit prisons?

The rub is this: if we do all these things in order to get into heaven – that is, for our own benefit – we disqualify ourselves. Whatever actions we take must come from empathy and compassion: the ability to feel what someone else feels, and to respond from the heart. We need to be able to put ourselves in other peoples’ shoes and walk around in them. We need to stand with others in the storms of life so that they’re not alone or afraid. We learn how to do these things because Jesus did them for us.

Jesus has one more word for those who follow his lead. He says, “I, the Lord, will be their God… into eternal life.” From now, until forever.

Let’s pray:

Lord Jesus, we are not worthy of you, but we need your help. We cannot do what pleases you without you. We cannot be forgiven without you. So we pray that you will forgive where we’ve fallen short, and teach us how to do what you ask us to do – because we don’t want to imagine life without you. Help us to be for others a foretaste of Your joyful kingdom in this broken world. Help us to show by the way that we live, how good and pleasant your Kingdom is, and how loving and faithful you are. AMEN.

[1] Solemnity of Christ the King: Background https://www.usccb.org/committees/religious-liberty/solemnity-christ-king-background

[2] Carla Works, Working Preacher,  https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/christ-the-king/commentary-on-matthew-2531-46-10

Reformation Sunday 2023

Scripture Readings:

Then Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, which is opposite Jericho, and the LORD showed him the whole land: Gilead as far as Dan,  ² all Naphtali, the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the Western Sea,  ³ the Negeb, and the Plain– that is, the valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees– as far as Zoar.  ⁴ The LORD said to him, “This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, ‘I will give it to your descendants’; I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not cross over there.”  ⁵ Then Moses, the servant of the LORD, died there in the land of Moab, at the LORD’s command.  ⁶ He was buried in a valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth-peor, but no one knows his burial place to this day.  ⁷ Moses was one hundred twenty years old when he died; his sight was unimpaired and his vigor had not abated.  ⁸ The Israelites wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days; then the period of mourning for Moses was ended.

⁹ Joshua son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom, because Moses had laid his hands on him; and the Israelites obeyed him, doing as the LORD had commanded Moses.  ¹⁰ Never since has there arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face.  ¹¹ He was unequaled for all the signs and wonders that the LORD sent him to perform in the land of Egypt, against Pharaoh and all his servants and his entire land,  ¹² and for all the mighty deeds and all the terrifying displays of power that Moses performed in the sight of all Israel. – Deuteronomy 34:1-12

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A Prayer of Moses, the man of God

Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.  ² Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.  ³ You turn us back to dust, and say, “Turn back, you mortals.”  ⁴ For a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past, or like a watch in the night.  ⁵ You sweep them away; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning;  ⁶ in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers. Psalm 90:1-6

¹³ Turn, O LORD! How long? Have compassion on your servants!  ¹⁴ Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.  ¹⁵ Make us glad as many days as you have afflicted us, and as many years as we have seen evil.  ¹⁶ Let your work be manifest to your servants, and your glorious power to their children.  ¹⁷ Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and prosper for us the work of our hands– O prosper the work of our hands! Psalm 90:13-17

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When the Pharisees heard that [Jesus] had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together,  ³⁵ and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him.  ³⁶ “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”  ³⁷ He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’  ³⁸ This is the greatest and first commandment.  ³⁹ And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’  ⁴⁰ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

⁴¹ Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them this question:  ⁴² “What do you think of the Messiah? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “The son of David.”  ⁴³ He said to them, “How is it then that David by the Spirit calls him Lord, saying,  ⁴⁴ ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet” ‘?  ⁴⁵ If David thus calls him Lord, how can he be his son?”  ⁴⁶ No one was able to give him an answer, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions. – Matthew 22:34-46

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Sermon:

Today is Reformation Sunday!  Today we remember the day, 506 years ago, when Martin Luther nailed 95 very controversial Theses to the door of the church in Wittenburg Germany. We celebrate this day as the birthday of the Protestant church – especially the Lutheran church, which inspired a number of other Protestant denominations. (BTW the actual date of the 95 Theses is October 31, and it is pure coincidence that the day Luther chose was Halloween!)

Why is it that this piece of paper nailed to a church door changed history? And why did Luther’s words put a price on his head?  And beyond that – when we talk about ‘reformation’ – what does it mean to ‘reform’ something, and what was it that was being ‘reformed’ back then?

The answers to these questions have filled books; today I just want to touch on some highlights. I hope as we listen again to the words of the reformers throughout history, that the faith that inspired them will inspire us also.

When we think about the word ‘reformation’ – does it mean changing something for the better? Restoring something? Re-building or re-creating? All these things and more.

The Protestant reformers looked at the church the way it was in their time and they said, “this is wrong. This no longer represents the truth of God; the people are not learning about God; in fact they are being fleeced.”

But even before then – throughout human history – there have been difficult times for God’s people followed by times of reforming. The arc of faith history (as I’ve mentioned before) kind of looks like a series of bell curves, and this goes back actually to the Old Testament. Many times in the Bible we see God creating something or doing something… and everything goes well for a while… and then it doesn’t… and then God sends a prophet to get things back on track… and everything goes well for a while… and then it doesn’t. Over and over.

We can see this happening, first in our scripture readings today, and then in the Reformation, and perhaps even in our own time.

Let’s start with the scripture from Deuteronomy. This passage describes the last day of Moses’ life. Moses is walking and talking with God on Mt. Nebo. The two of them are looking northwest over the Jordan River, opposite Jericho – and Moses can see with his own eyes, for the very first time, the Promised Land. Moses sees where everything has been leading. And then God closes the eyes of Moses and buries him – no one knows where.

It was the end of an amazing life. Born in Egypt, in a time when it was illegal to be a baby boy… floated into the Nile… found by Pharoah’s daughter… raised as her son… nursed by his own mother… Moses grew up in the royal palace at a time when God’s people were brutally oppressed as slaves. Moses also grew up in a time when God’s people had pretty much forgotten the faith of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Joseph.

But Moses never forgot who he was, or whose he was. And it’s not long before God appears to Moses in a burning bush, and God says ‘my name is Yahweh (which means ‘I AM’)’. And the fact is that God IS. This is the beginning of a rebirth and re-forming. Moses brings God’s word to the people, and then brings God’s people out of slavery and into fellowship with God.  Moses also teaches the them how to build a tabernacle and how to worship. And Moses’ teachings were still being studied and taught when Jesus was born.

The Psalm we read today was a prayer written by Moses. It gives us an example of how Moses taught the people to pray; how he re-formed their faith. He prayed: “Lord, you have been our dwelling-place in all generations… Before the mountains were brought forth, you are God…” “…O Lord, prosper the work of our hands.”  This is a good psalm to pray over our own church as we head into the future.

Our second scripture today is from Matthew, and tells the story of yet another debate between Jesus and the Pharisees. Jesus of course was far more than a reformer; he was the Messiah. But he did re-form peoples’ faith. Jesus was essentially re-forming Judaism. He was teaching the Jewish people about their own scriptures, and sharing the love of their God. So much of what the people knew about God was the law… and they needed to see God with skin on, loving them, the way Jesus did.

Jesus taught the same things that Moses taught 1400 years before him. Jesus said: “I have not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it.”  But he also taught that the law of Moses can be summed up by saying: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.” Loving God, loving neighbor – on these two things hang all the law and the prophets. Easy to remember; not so easy to do!

Then Jesus turns to the Pharisees who have been challenging him and he asks them: this Messiah the prophets talked about, the one we’re taught to watch and wait for – whose son is he?

According to the law and prophets, the Messiah will be the son of David – and the Pharisees answer this question correctly.

Jesus then asks the Pharisees: “King David once said: “The Lord said to my Lord (that is, God said to David’s lord – the Messiah) ‘Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet.’ If David calls him ‘Lord’, how can he be his son?””

If the Pharisees had remembered that Jesus was born in Bethlehem – the city of David – and that his father was Joseph, a descendant of David – they might have been able to solve this riddle. But as things were, even if they did remember, they didn’t accept the answer.

As Jesus reforms the faith that Moses taught, we discover that having faith means having a relationship with God. It’s not thinking the right things. It’s not knowing the right things. It’s not believing the right way. It’s not belonging to the right church. The Christian faith is about walking and talking with God; loving God; and allowing God to love us.

All down through history, reform has always started this way: stripping away the things that are not needed, and building a relationship with God, directly, one-on-one.  The focus is on Jesus as God’s Son, the living fulfillment of God’s laws. No other laws are needed; no other authorities need step between us and God.

Which brings us to the Reformers we remember today: men and women who risked their lives to bring the love of God and the truth of God’s word to the people of God.

For the rest of our time today I’d like to share a little bit about three of those Reformers. There are many more, and each one of them has a story worth hearing – but I’ve picked just three, otherwise we’d be here all day!

By the way, as background: the Protestant Reformation was protesting against the Catholic church from within the Catholic church. The Catholic church existed for roughly 1000 years before the Reformation began. I also want to say: if anyone here today is or was Catholic, no offense is meant. This is just how history played out.

Today the first Reformer I’d like you to meet is Jan Hus. He lived from 1369-1415. He was a Catholic priest and a professor at the university at Prague (which today is in the Czech Republic).  Hus was born about 100 years before Luther, and he taught many of the same things Luther did.

Like Luther, Hus never intended to start a whole new church; he intended to reform the one that existed. But also like Luther, his followers discovered this was impossible. For this reason, Hus is considered the founder of the Brethren Church and the Moravian Church – and our United Methodist Church today would not exist without either one of these churches. The Brethren – some of them – merged with the Methodist Church back in the 1960s to create the United Methodist Church. And of course it was at a Moravian church where John Wesley “felt his heart strangely warmed” and he was inspired to become a reformer himself. So without Jan Hus and his ministry in Prague, we would not be sitting here today.

Some of the things that Hus taught became foundational for the reformers who came after him. For example:

1. The people of God should receive communion in both kinds. Back in those days – and actually, still today – the Catholic church only gives bread during communion, not wine. Hus and Luther both said people should receive both bread and wine.
2. Worship services should be in the language of the people.
3. Churches and church officials should not seek to be wealthy.
4. People and God have a direct relationship; there is no need for a priest as a go-between; we can talk to God directly.
5. Jesus is the head of the church, not the Pope.

You can imagine this was not particularly popular with the Vatican – especially that last one! Jan Hus was excommunicated, but he appealed – to the highest Christian authority, namely Jesus – and this was as bold a move as Luther nailing those theses to the door. The people of Prague agreed with Hus and ignored the Pope – they allowed Hus to continue preaching and teaching.

A little while later, Hus spoke out against indulgences – the same thing Luther was protesting in his theses – and the Pope had had enough. It’s one thing to appeal to Jesus; it’s another thing to cut off the flow of money to Pope’s treasury. The Pope called a council to look into Hus’s actions, guaranteed him safe passage – which of course was ignored – and Hus was burned at the stake in 1414. A statue of him and a memorial to his life still stands today in the Old Town Square in Prague.

Today, in an era of fake news, one of the things I like to do is to listen to original sources – to what people actually said. So I’d like to share a few things Jan Hus actually said:

• “It is better to die well than to live badly…”
• “Therefore, faithful Christian, seek the truth, listen to the truth, learn the truth, love the truth, tell the truth… defend the truth even to death.”

That’s Jan Hus. The second reformer I’d like to mention today is John Wycliffe. Wycliffe was a friend of Hus – I don’t know if they ever met, but they wrote to each other and shared ideas. At one point, both of them were writing books with the same title, in different cities – De Ecclesia (Of the Church) – books in which they both said that the church does not primarily consist of the clergy but of the people.

Like Jan Hus, John Wycliffe was a Catholic priest and a professor – he taught at Oxford. Wycliffe and a few of his colleagues risked their lives to translate the Bible into English – which at the time carried a death penalty. All of us owe them a huge debt for that sacrifice – because of what they did, we can read God’s word in our own language.

Wycliffe taught his students that:

1. Scripture is the only reliable guide to the truth about God
2. People should trust the Bible more than the teachings of popes or clergy
3. There is no scriptural foundation for having popes
4. People should be able to appeal an excommunication to their king or monarch
5. Clergy and church leaders should not have privileged status
6. That there is ‘an invisible church of the elect’ that is different from the visible church on earth. In other words, not every person in church is a Christian – including members of the clergy – and not every Christian is necessarily in church.

You can imagine Rome was not thrilled with these ideas. Wycliffe died of a stroke before he could be excommunicated. After he died, he was declared a heretic, and his dead body was dug up and burned. I can’t begin to imagine…

Here are a few of the things Wycliffe said:

1. “Trust wholly in Christ; rely altogether on his sufferings; beware of seeking to be justified in any other way than by his righteousness. Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ is sufficient for salvation.”
2. “Holy Scripture is the highest authority for every believer, the standard of faith and the foundation for reform.”
3. “I believe that in the end truth will conquer.”

And last but certainly not least, today we remember Martin Luther (1483-1546), the founder of the Lutheran Church. Luther never wanted to start a separate church. Luther was both a monk and a priest, and he loved the church very much. But when he made a pilgrimage to Rome and saw the splendor of the palaces that the Pope and the archbishops lived in, he became disillusioned: not about the faith, but about the church hierarchy. Think about this, just as an example: the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, painted by Michelangelo, was finished just 10 years before Martin Luther was born. It was still brand new when he visited. It’s gorgeous, and I would never regret that it was built; but as beautiful as it is, Luther knew how it was paid for: largely by selling ‘indulgences’ to the poor.

Indulgences were payments made to the church by people, who were promised God’s mercy for themselves (or a loved one) when they died. The church taught that the souls of the dead passed through a place called Purgatory on their way to heaven. Purgatory was basically a ‘refinery for the soul’ – a place where all the imperfections and flaws were burned out on their way to heaven. And for a price, the length of time spent in that fiery furnace could be shortened – if you bought some indulgences.

Luther taught that people are not saved by financial transactions. He said we are saved by God’s grace alone, through faith alone. And he also taught that scripture is all we need to teach us about salvation. He became known for this saying: “Sola gratia, sola fide, sola scriptura” – that is: grace alone, by faith alone, through scripture alone. The Bible, not the Pope, is the final authority; and priests are not needed to go between the people and God.

Martin Luther was excommunicated in 1521 but he was never martyred; he was protected by wealthy friends. For a while he was living in a castle, translating the Bible into German. Luther also got married – to a former nun – and they had six children.  Here are a few things Martin Luther had to say:

• “To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing.”
• “The Christian shoemaker does his duty not by putting little crosses on the shoes, but by making good shoes…”
• “Our Lord has written the promise of resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in springtime.”

These are just some of the men and women who gave their time, their skill, and often their lives to pass the faith on to us – in our own language. So today we honor them.

As for us today – I think we may be coming close to another time of reformation: a fresh focus on the word of God as against the words of human beings; a fresh communication with God; a fresh commitment to fellowship with God and relationship with God; a fresh commitment to prayer. What that new reformation might look like – and how it might play out – I don’t know yet, but I’m keeping my eyes open – and I invite you to do the same. In the meantime we give thanks for those who have gone before us, and pray that we will be faithful in our own time. AMEN.

Stewardship Part 3 – Time and Talents

The LORD is king; let the peoples tremble! He sits enthroned upon the cherubim; let the earth quake!  2 The LORD is great in Zion; he is exalted over all the peoples.  3 Let them praise your great and awesome name. Holy is he!  4 Mighty King, lover of justice, you have established equity; you have executed justice and righteousness in Jacob.  5 Extol the LORD our God; worship at his footstool. Holy is he!  6 Moses and Aaron were among his priests, Samuel also was among those who called on his name. They cried to the LORD, and he answered them.  7 He spoke to them in the pillar of cloud; they kept his decrees, and the statutes that he gave them.  8 O LORD our God, you answered them; you were a forgiving God to them, but an avenger of their wrongdoings.  9 Extol the LORD our God, and worship at his holy mountain; for the LORD our God is holy. – Psalm 99:1-9 

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15 Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap him in what he said.  16 So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality.  17 Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?”  18 But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites?  19 Show me the coin used for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius.  20 Then he said to them, “Whose head is this, and whose title?”  21 They answered, “The emperor’s.” Then he said to them, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”  22 When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away. – Matthew 22:15-22  

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Welcome to Week Three of our month-long series on Stewardship. Just to give a quick recap: last time I was here with you, two weeks ago, I preached on thinking about who it is we’re giving to when we give to God.  We give because we want to give back to God, because God has already done so much for us. In a lot of ways, when we give to God, we are like children giving a gift to a parent: there’s nothing we can give God that God doesn’t already have; but when we give to God, we become more like God – just like our children become more like us as they mature.

Last week, for week two of our series, I was at Hill Top, and we looked at giving to God from what we own.  The scripture reading was from Exodus and it told the story of the golden calf – how when Moses was missing for 40 days on Mount Horeb, the people panicked, and they assumed that God was missing too, and they demanded that Aaron the Priest make them a god to lead them through the wilderness – so Aaron told them to take off all the gold jewelry they were wearing, and made it into a golden calf, and they worshipped this idol – until God and Moses put a stop to it.

We learned a number of things about stewardship in this passage. First, if we ever find ourselves thinking “God has forgotten me” – we need to know this is not true. The prophet Isaiah says:

Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me;
my Lord has forgotten me.”

[but God answers]
15 “Can a woman forget her nursing child
or show no compassion for the child of her womb?
Even these might forget,
yet I will not forget you.
16 See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands” – Isaiah 49:14-16

Before we give, we need to know that these words are true. We need to know because – as children of God – when we give, we give from a position of security and strength, not from weakness or fear. We need to know because if we give from fear – like the people around the Golden Calf did – we often end up giving to something that is an idol. (Idols are far from gone in our world today, and there are quite a few out there who would be very happy to take our money.)

So we can be sure that God remembers us.  Secondly, before we give, we need to know who we are giving to, especially in times when God feels far away. I believe we are living in times like that right now. We currently live in a time when, like the Israelites, we are waiting for God. We are waiting for God to renew our churches; we are waiting for God to set things right in our nation and in our communities; we are waiting for God to put an end to the floods and fires and earthquakes and wars that we see all around us. We are living in a time when people are looking at each other and saying “Jesus has to be coming back soon!”  Don’t believe it! In times like these, beware of idols.

In times like these, where it comes to giving, we begin with prayer. We ask God what God wants us to do, and we take time to listen for God’s answers. And when we give, what we give is between us and God – it’s no-one else’s business.

That’s a quick summary of what I shared last week.  This week we have a different scripture and a different angle on giving.

To set the scene: Our scripture lesson for this week, from Matthew, takes place during Holy Week. Palm Sunday has already happened, and (unknown to the disciples at this point) the Cross is only a few days away. Jesus is using the time he has left to be in the temple, teaching the people, and they are hanging on every word.

Suddenly there’s a group coming toward Jesus to ask a question. The group is made up of disciples of the Pharisees (I notice the Pharisees themselves didn’t bother to come; they sent the seminarians) and Herodians. This is a strange alliance, because these two groups usually hate each other. They hate each other because the Pharisees oppose Rome: they oppose Roman occupation, Roman officials, everything about Rome. They want control of Israel to be returned to Israel. The Herodians are supporters of Herod, who is the puppet king ruling under Rome’s authority. So they’re total opposites: except they both agree that Jesus is dangerous, so they come together to try to catch him in a question.

The question is this:

“is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor or not?”

The answer to this of course depends on which set of laws one is obedient to: Roman law, or the law of Moses. The Herodians, who support Rome, of course say ‘yes’ to paying the tax; the Pharisees oppose the tax for two reasons:  (1) the tax makes it possible for the Emperor to oppress the people, so basically they’re paying their oppressors to oppress them; and (2) the coin used to pay the tax has a picture of the Emperor on it, and the Emperor thinks he’s a god, so even owning a coin means having a false god in your house. The coin was, as one recent theologian recently put it, “a bite-sized bit of blasphemy…. ”[1]

So if Jesus defends the people and the faith by saying ‘no’ to the Emperor and the Emperor’s tax… that’s treason, and a charge like that could get him crucified.

Jesus’ answer to the question is as deep as it is brilliant. He says: “show me the coin: whose likeness is this?”  “Caesar’s,” they say. Jesus answers: “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s – and give to God what is God’s.”  (If this conversation happened today, Jesus might have said, “give to Washington what is Washington’s and give to God what is God’s.”)

The important point is that we are created in God’s likeness. Human beings – each one of us – are made in the image of God. That’s true no matter where a person is from – America, Europe, Asia, Africa, South America… you get the idea. Every human being is created in God’s likeness. The tragedy of life here on Earth is that people forget that; and as a result there’s a lot of pain in the world, and when we’re hurting we tend to forget who we are and whose we are.

No matter what life brings us – we are made in God’s image.  Not that we look like God, because God is a spirit. But our ability to think, to reason, to feel, to love, to experience empathy: this is what God is like, and we were designed by God to be like God.

Therefore, where it comes to paying taxes – which people in all times and all places have found to be a burden (what is the old saying about nothing being certain in life except death and taxes?) – but if the emperor wants this cheap metallic stuff, let him have it! In the long run it’s worthless. That old coin with Caesar’s face on it, that people fought and died over back then – you couldn’t buy a stick of gum with that today. And 100 years from now this (holding up a quarter) won’t be worth anything either. People will be using crypto and killing each other over nothing – quite literally.

But for eternity we are made in the image of God – and this is worth infinitely more because God has made us for eternity. God’s image – like God – lasts forever.

This also means that people who bear God’s image belong to God. We are God’s to care for, to love, to teach, to lead, as God sees fit – for God’s purposes. God made each one of us unique to fit the times and places in which we live. Not only are all of us different, but the experiences that make up our lives are different, so that no two of us is ever exactly alike, and no two of us ever experiences life exactly the same way. For this reason we are able to work in tandem with one another, to help one another, which is God’s plan.

And this leads us to the third thing to consider about Stewardship: the stewardship of our time, our talents, and our abilities.

One theologian puts it this way: stewardship includes “participating in God’s mission, listening to God’s law, doing justice, loving kindness — [it’s] a way of life that [includes] opposing cruelty, injustice, and arrogance in all their forms.”[2]

The question then becomes: what has God gifted me to do? This may or may not have anything to do with our careers; the question deals with the raw materials that God has put in each one of us. In a sense we grow into self-knowledge throughout our lives – we never stop learning about ourselves.

But there are usually a few things that usually remain constant. What I’m talking about, to some extent, is like the old book What Color Is Your Parachute? (if anyone remembers that; BTW it’s still being published!). The book is designed to help people plan their careers, but it does far more than that. It asks questions not only about what we did in school, but about things like: do we work better in large groups or in small groups or on our own? Do we prefer a lot of direction from our bosses or do we prefer working independently? Do we learn well from books or do we prefer to hear people explain things verbally? Answers to these questions – and others like them – tell us a lot about what God has created in each one of us. There are no right or wrong answers – just an amazing variety of combinations – which is exactly what God intended.

As we get to know ourselves – during adolescence and beyond –  we discover our purpose (or maybe a handful of purposes) for our life. We begin to learn – with joy – who we are and why we’re here.  The lectionary book we’re working from says, “God has marked every human with a role, an image, an identity that comes with challenge, joy, and fulfillment.”[3]

So as we learn about ourselves, and who God created in us, we also learn about what we have that we can offer to others.  The question, then, is: what is God calling us to offer to the body of Christ and/or to the community around us? If we know what God has given us, then we know what we have to offer. And like any type of giving, giving from our time and talents begins with prayer. We talk to God, and we ask what God would have us share from the many gifts God has given us?

Some of the gifts we might discover in ourselves might include things like:

1. The ability to empathize
2. The ability to comfort others
3. The ability to welcome strangers
4. The ability to advise and/or offer wisdom
5. The ability to see through nonsense (I like that one!)
6. The ability to have faith in others
7. The ability to heal
8. The ability to teach

This is just a tiny sampling of all the gifts God gives. We can pray about this, and we can ask others who know us what they see in us that could be of help to others.

The answer to this prayer, and God’s direction for how we share, will be different for each one of us. Keep asking God, and keep listening for answers. May God bless our efforts to discover what God has created in us, and to discover the joy of living into God’s plan. AMEN.

[1] SALT Blog

[2] SALT, https://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog

[3] A Preacher’s Guide to Lectionary Sermon Series Vol 2, many authors

Stewardship Part 2 – Avoiding Golden Calves

When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered around Aaron, and said to him, “Come, make gods for us, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.”  ² Aaron said to them, “Take off the gold rings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.”  ³ So all the people took off the gold rings from their ears, and brought them to Aaron.  ⁴ He took the gold from them, formed it in a mold, and cast an image of a calf; and they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”  ⁵ When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a festival to the LORD.”  ⁶ They rose early the next day, and offered burnt offerings and brought sacrifices of well-being; and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to revel.

⁷ The LORD said to Moses, “Go down at once! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely;  ⁸ they have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them; they have cast for themselves an image of a calf, and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!'”  ⁹ The LORD said to Moses, “I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are.  ¹⁰ Now let me alone, so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; and of you I will make a great nation.”

¹¹ But Moses implored the LORD his God, and said, “O LORD, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?  ¹² Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people.  ¹³ Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them by your own self, saying to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.'”  ¹⁴ And the LORD changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people. – Exodus 32:1-14

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Praise the LORD! O give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever.  ² Who can utter the mighty doings of the LORD, or declare all his praise?  ³ Happy are those who observe justice, who do righteousness at all times.  ⁴ Remember me, O LORD, when you show favor to your people; help me when you deliver them;  ⁵ that I may see the prosperity of your chosen ones, that I may rejoice in the gladness of your nation, that I may glory in your heritage.  ⁶ Both we and our ancestors have sinned; we have committed iniquity, have done wickedly.  ⁷ Our ancestors, when they were in Egypt, did not consider your wonderful works; they did not remember the abundance of your steadfast love, but rebelled against the Most High at the Red Sea.  ⁸ Yet he saved them for his name’s sake, so that he might make known his mighty power.

¹⁹ They made a calf at Horeb and worshiped a cast image.  ²⁰ They exchanged the glory of God for the image of an ox that eats grass.  ²¹ They forgot God, their Savior, who had done great things in Egypt,  ²² wondrous works in the land of Ham, and awesome deeds by the Red Sea.  ²³ Therefore he said he would destroy them– had not Moses, his chosen one, stood in the breach before him, to turn away his wrath from destroying them. – Psalm 106:1-8, 19-23

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Welcome to Week Two of our four-week series on Stewardship this month. Last week I said I wouldn’t talk about money just yet – that grace period is now over!  But there’s a lot more to stewardship than money, so I’m going to start elsewhere and work my way in.

Thinking about giving gifts to friends, the first thing we usually do is think about the person we’re giving to. For example when we Christmas-shop: we think about the person we’re buying for, and what they like and what they enjoy, and we get a gift that’s right for the person.

So when we give to God – we can ask ourselves: what does God want? What does God enjoy?

Right away we run up against the fact that God doesn’t really need anything. And if God did need something, God could just create it… so what can we give to God that might have some meaning?

I like to start with the idea that we are God’s children. I can remember when we were kids, my siblings and I used to like to pick dandelions and give them to Mom as a bouquet.  Mom was never crazy about dandelions, but she loved getting bouquets from her children. In a similar way, the things we give to God might be nothing more than a fistful of dandelions in God’s eyes, but God loves the gift because God loves us.

So when we give – whether we give time, or skills, or abilities, or money – we give because we love God. And we give because we want to help others, as God has taught us to do.

When we talk about ‘stewardship’ in the big picture, what we’re really talking about is making good use of the gifts God has given us. If we are gifted in teaching (for example), then we are being good stewards when we teach. If we are gifted in hospitality, then we are being good stewards when we welcome strangers, or cook or bake food to make people feel welcome. Using our gifts – doing the things God created us to do – that’s stewardship.

Which brings us to our scripture reading for today.

In our passage from Exodus we hear a familiar story. The people of Israel are in the wilderness. They have just been set free from being slaves in Egypt for 400 years. For them, freedom is new and exciting and sometimes scary. At the same time they’re not big on trusting authority, because they have not had good experiences with authority in the past.  But so far, for the most part, they have been willing to follow Moses and the God who Moses talks to.

In today’s reading, we see the people of Israel at the foot of Mt Horeb, which is where Moses will receive the Ten Commandments. (That hasn’t happened yet.) All the people know is… it’s been 40 days since Moses went up the mountain, and they haven’t heard a word from Moses – or from God for that matter – since then. They’re worried. They’re scared. They want to keep traveling towards this Promised Land they’ve been hearing about, but they need someone to lead them. And they’re afraid Moses and God have gone off and left them, all alone in the desert, with no idea where to go next. They think God has forgotten them.

Side Note:  If we ever find ourselves thinking “God doesn’t care about me any more” or “God has forgotten about me” this is NEVER true. We do sometimes feel that way. And sometimes people who don’t care about us encourage us to think that. But it’s always a lie. It’s the same lie that was told in the Garden of Eden: “God is holding back on you. God doesn’t really care about you.” That’s what the snake said. Whenever we’re tempted to think these things – look at the Cross, and say “God does care, and God will never forget.”

Back in the desert with the Israelites… To get an idea of how they were feeling: think back to when we were small kids. Did you ever get lost – like in a mall or a grocery store – and look around and suddenly Mom and Dad are gone! Remember how terrifying that was? That’s how the people of Israel were feeling. They feel lost and alone and they want to see God NOW.  So they say to Aaron, their priest, “we need a god to lead us through the wilderness!”

And Aaron made them a golden calf. What Aaron was thinking, I don’t know. It was not Aaron’s job to conjure up God. But as we read in Exodus, he told them, “bring me all your gold that you and your children are wearing.” And he took the gold and melted it down and made a calf out of the gold. Statues of calves – or bulls – were common idols in ancient times: they represented strength and power. But they were most definitely not God.

Side note #2: where did all this gold jewelry come from, out in the desert? Remember Exodus chapter 12, the night before the Passover: God told the Israelites, “ask the Egyptians for silver and gold jewelry and for clothing. And the Lord gave the people such favor in the Egyptians’ sight that they gave them what they requested.” The people of Egypt felt so sorry for the Israelites, and their suffering, they gave generously.  Sadly, those gifts – which would have helped the people of Israel build homes in the Promised Land when they got there – have now been wasted. That’s what false religions and cults do – they waste time and huge amounts of resources, in very painful ways.  End of side note.

So Aaron took all this gold and made a calf, which the people immediately identified as their god, and at that moment God tells Moses what’s going on, and Moses goes down and puts a stop to it in God’s name. That’s where we leave the story of Israel for today.

As odd as it sounds, there are a number of things in this story that have to do with giving.

1.  We need be careful who and what we’re giving to. There are still lots of golden calves out there. We need to do our homework before we give.
2.  If and when we feel like God is either taking a long time to answer us, or like God is far away – be careful. When God feels far away we are vulnerable to temptations. And I believe we are living in times like that right now. We live in a time when we are waiting for God to renew our churches; we are waiting for God to set things right in our nation and in our communities; we are waiting for an end to the floods and fires and earthquakes and wars that we see all around us. We are living in a time when people are looking at each other and saying “Jesus has to be coming back soon!”  Don’t believe it. In times like these, beware of idols.
3.  Wait for God. Unlike the people of Israel, be patient. Pray, and ask what God wants us to do – both in worship and in giving – and take time to listen for God’s answers.

And while we’re waiting for answers, use the time to get rid of anything in our lives that is more important to us than God. It’s tempting, for example, to focus on numbers: how many people do we have in church? How many visitors are we getting? How much money are we taking in? These things are important; but it’s tempting to think that we need more members because we need more committee members, or because we need more offerings. These are wrong reasons for asking people to join the church!  Wait for God; wait for God’s leading before making decisions.

And if we should find ourselves getting nervous with all this waiting, take a look at Psalm 106 that we read earlier. This psalm was written about 400 years after the golden calf. And it looks back to that event, and praises God for God’s loyalty and faithfulness. It’s a song of praise for a God who never gives up, whose love never fails, who never abandons God’s people. If we ever find ourselves in a place – either as individuals or as a church – where something has become more important to us than God – bring it to God, and lay it at God’s feet, and leave it there. God loves us, and God will lead us.

So if the people of Israel approached giving in wrong ways, what are the right ways? The author of the book Pastor Dylan and I are using for this series offers this idea:

“Faithful giving is not just about donating, but about supporting missions that bring glory to God and challenge the community to make positive steps toward the Promised Land.”

That makes sense doesn’t it? Especially from the point of view of being people who, like the Israelites, are on the way to the Promised Land… which we are.

Notice his focus: it’s on bringing people to God, pointing people in the direction of God’s kingdom. If we say or do something that brings people to church, great! But it’s also a good thing if our visitors go home to their own churches with renewed faith that we have shared with them. The object is to give to God, to build up God’s kingdom.

So with all of this said as background, I want now to move to the topic of giving financially.

In all my years here at the Partnership, I have never heard or preached a sermon on giving. I have no idea what you have heard about giving from the people before me. So I’m going to start from the very beginning.

Where it comes to giving money, we should be as generous as we can, without hurting ourselves or our families. John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Church, famously said,

“Earn all you can. Save all you can. Give all you can.”

When the Methodist movement first started, most of the people who joined it were poor. So Wesley encouraged them to work hard at honest work, and to save, and by ‘saving’ he meant not just tossing money in a savings account (I’m not sure they even had those back then), but he also meant being thrifty  and not buying things we don’t need.

There was just one problem: the people listened to Wesley, and they did what he said… and by the end of Wesley’s long life, he wasn’t worried about Methodists being poor any more, he was worried that Methodists were becoming too rich!  They were working hard and saving like he said. So Wesley taught them the third part: ‘give all you can’.  He said (and I quote):

“wealth and the failure to give [are] the most serious threats to the Methodist movement in particular and Christianity in general.”

Wealth, and the failure to give, are the greatest threats to the Christian faith. Food for thought!

So what does the Bible have to say about giving? The New Testament talks mostly about using the spiritual gifts God has given us – and that’s another sermon for another day.

The Old Testament talks about the tithe. The people of Israel were commanded to bring 10% of everything they earned every year to the temple as an offering.  Some churches today still teach the tithe. They say that we should give 10% of our income, right off the top, to the church. Some churches say that the tithe was an Old Testament thing and it no longer applies. The United Methodist Church is of two minds on the subject. I did some Google research and I found some Methodist websites that say ‘yes, the tithe is required’ and I found other Methodist websites that say ‘no it isn’t’.

I am pleased to tell you Pastor Dylan and I both agree that the tithe is no longer required in the New Testament era. There are a lot of theological reasons for that, and I’m not going to get into them – you can ask me about it later if you want to. Dylan and I both agree that giving 10% of income is something to shoot for if and when personal and family necessities have already been met. If giving 10% would mean going into debt, or not being able to pay bills, then don’t do it. A tithe is a goal, not a requirement. A tithe is an act of faith. But for some people, especially today, it’s a struggle just to pay rent and buy food – and we do not believe people who are struggling should be pushed into giving what they can’t afford.

So what you give is up to you. Talk it over with God in prayer. I can say that everyone should be giving something regularly. The question is: what can each of us commit to? And the answer to that is between you and God – and it’s nobody else’s business.

Let me toss out one other question for our consideration: if we believe the tithe is a good thing, should churches tithe? In other words, should churches include in their budgets giving 10% to the community around us? Most churches say no to that. Once or twice I’ve been in churches that say yes, and it is amazing what grows out of their generosity. But again, the tithe is not for everyone; it’s something to think about.

As far as personal giving goes, let me share one other thought, for whatever percentage of income we give. (And I do recommend working on a percentage, because it’s easier to plan for.)

Here;s the thought: however much money we have to give, my advice is (and this is just me, not the Bible, but I find it helpful): think like a foundation.

Here’s what I mean by that. You all have seen on PBS, at the end of their programs, they always say “we’d like to thank our supporters, the Ford Foundation, the Alcoa Foundation, etc etc”. These nonprofit, non-taxable foundations, are organized by wealthy people to focus their giving in order to have a greater impact in the world. In other words, it’s more bang for their buck. I learned about this when I was working for a nonprofit, where my job was to write grant proposals, to ask these foundations for money.

The sponsors of a foundation – usually family members of the founder – have specific goals in mind they want to reach. And they give only toward those goals. So for example, the Ford Foundation gives grants to organizations that work to dismantle inequality. They give to nothing else. The Pittsburgh Foundation supports similar things but only inside Allegheny County, and nowhere else. The Alcoa Foundation supports efforts to undo climate change. The Mellon Foundation supports the arts and humanities. You get the idea. One focus, nothing else.

So if we think of our giving as being a little tiny foundation, what is our one goal? What do we want to support? As I see it, we are here to invest in the kingdom of God – both with our time and with our money – by doing what God and Jesus have taught us to do: Share the gospel. Feed the hungry. Give to the poor. Care for the sick. Welcome the stranger.

And where will we do this? Will we give locally (like the Pittsburgh Foundation), or will we give nationally, or will we give worldwide?

If we think through these questions before we give, our giving becomes more focused, and I believe more effective – for the same reason foundations are effective.

One of the things I love about the United Methodist Church is the existence of UMCOR – the United Methodist Committee on Relief. I have never seen another denomination with an organization like this, that offers opportunities for focused giving.

So for example, if I want to give to help refugees I can go to the UMCOR website and find out who is providing food for refugees at our southern border, and I can give directly to that ministry. If I want to help people whose homes were damaged by the fires in Hawaii this past summer, I can go to the UMCOR website and give directly to that need.

And by the way, when I talk about this kind of giving, this is above and beyond what we give to our church. Charity really does begin at home. We should begin our giving here – at our church home. But once that’s happening, there are other needs that we can help to meet. So we ask ourselves: where do we see the greatest needs? And how can we give to meet those needs?

Sadly the needs always outweigh the money. That’s why we need to pray – and ask God where God would like us to give, and ask God to multiply what we give. We need to bring our thoughts and feelings to God and ask for direction: what more can we do? And then watch and listen for God’s answers.

I hope I’ve given some food for thought today. And I encourage everyone to talk amongst yourselves about giving… because two or three working together can accomplish far more than one.

For now though, let’s wrap up with a prayer:  Lord Jesus, thank you for all that you have given us. Thank you for this church which is our spiritual home; thank you for our homes and our families and for all that you’ve provided. Help us to trust in your provision and in your promise that those who give will be blessed. Lead us, Lord, to be good stewards of all you have given us – whether it be time, or talents, or treasure. AMEN.

Stewardship Series Part 1: Who Is It We’re Giving To?

Then God spoke all these words:  ² I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery;  ³ you shall have no other gods before me.  ⁴ You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.  ⁷ You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.  ⁸ Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy.  ⁹ Six days you shall labor and do all your work.  ¹² Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.  ¹³ You shall not murder.  ¹⁴ You shall not commit adultery.  ¹⁵ You shall not steal.  ¹⁶ You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.  ¹⁷ You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.  ¹⁸ When all the people witnessed the thunder and lightning, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking, they were afraid and trembled and stood at a distance,  ¹⁹ and said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, or we will die.”  ²⁰ Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid; for God has come only to test you and to put the fear of him upon you so that you do not sin.” – Exodus 20:1-20  

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[Jesus said] “Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country.  34 When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce.  35 But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another.  36 Again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they treated them in the same way.  37 Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’  38 But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.’  39 So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him.  40 Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?”  41 They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.”  42 Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the scriptures: ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is amazing in our eyes’?  43 Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom.  44 The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.”  45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them.  46 They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet. – Matthew 21:33-46 

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The month of October is traditionally the time of year when many churches focus on the subject of Stewardship.  It’s odd to me that I’ve been with the Partnership as long as I have, and I have never preached a sermon on giving – or heard one for that matter. And I will get to it one day, but not today!  As Pastor Dylan said in an email earlier this week, “God trusts us to use what God has given us in God’s service” – and this can be done in a lot of different ways.

Before I begin, I want to start by focusing on God.  When we talk about giving – in any context – we need to start with who we are giving to. Think for a moment about how we Christmas shop: we think about the person or people, we are shopping for: what do they like? What do they enjoy? This involves thinking about that person or those people.

So before we start thinking about giving to God, let’s spend a moment thinking about God. God is our heavenly parent; our creator; our designer; our provider; our teacher; our Saviour. God is the One who loves us more than anyone else. When we stand in God’s presence we stand like children, wanting to say ‘thank you’ to God who has given us more than we can imagine.

At the same time, when we think about giving to God, it’s like the old question, “what do you get for the One who has everything?” because God really does have everything! God created everything, and if God needed something, God could create that too.

So we begin by letting God be God. What is it our heavenly Parent might want from us? What is it that any parent wants? Love, of course, and respect. That’s what every parent treasures most from their children. What a child has, or what a child does, may please a parent but that’s not what the relationship is about.

More than anything, like a parent, God wants to hear from us. God loves to hear our voices. When we pray, when we sing, when we read God’s word, we are being God’s children. Above all, God wants us to hear God saying to each one of us: “You are my beloved son or my beloved daughter and I love you.” That’s where it all begins.

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This morning in our scriptures we heard only two lessons – the Psalm and the Gospel – but as you know, every Sunday we have four scripture readings: Old Testament, Psalm, New Testament, and Gospel. Today I’d like to set a foundation for the subject of stewardship in what would have been our Old Testament reading.

The Old Testament reading for this Sunday is Exodus 20:1-20. I won’t read the whole thing, because I don’t need to: you all know it! The passage begins:

“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery;  you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol… you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain… remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy… honor your father and your mother…”

Does this sound familiar?  Today’s Old Testament reading is the Ten Commandments: words that most of us have known most of our lives. Just to finish out the ten, God also said:

“You shall not murder; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor; you shall not covet… anything that belongs to your neighbor.”

So what does this have to do with Stewardship? Quite a lot actually. Stewardship, at its foundation, is making good use, wise use, of what God has given us. And God’s word is one of the greatest gifts God has given us. That’s why I really appreciate the message on Fairhaven’s church sign this week:

Read the Bible. It’s user-friendly, plus we offer tech support on Sundays at 9:30 A.M.

I love that!  That’s exactly what we’re here for! We approach God’s word today with an intention to be good stewards of it by reading it, understanding it, explaining it to others, sharing it, living it.

God’s word in the Bible is the greatest resource we have for living. In the Bible we learn about how God called the people of Israel to be God’s chosen people, and how God set them free from slavery and guided them through the wilderness and into the Promised Land.

And we learn all these things are true for us also: God has set us free from slavery to sin; God has set us free to be God’s people; God is guiding us through the wilderness of this life and into the Promised Land of God’s Kingdom.

In the Old Testament, we see the people of Israel becoming a nation, not just in the political sense, but in the sense that they were (and are) God’s people.

The promises given in the Old Testament to the people of Israel talk about a Messiah who will come one day and call God’s people back to God.  Here are just a few of those promises from Old Testament:

Numbers 24:17,19: “I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near. A star will come out of Jacob; a scepter will rise out of Israel . . .”

Isaiah 42:1,4: “Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him and he will bring justice to the nations . . .”

Isaiah 60: 2-3: “For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people; but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and His glory shall be seen upon thee. And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.”

All of these passages – and many more – come to us from Jewish prophets and Jewish kings. We build on their foundation.

So the first thing we need to be good stewards of, is God’s word – in all its fullness, in all its history, with all of its foundation, in all that God has done for God’s people for thousands of years.

Where it comes to the Ten Commandments specifically, in the words of the SALT commentary, the Commandments are “not arbitrary prohibitions, but rather loving limits that guide human beings toward living with justice, grace, and dignity with both God and neighbor. […] [The Commandments] transform “doing the right thing” into a calling… something we do because we are devoted to God.”[1]

Following these commandments comes from the heart, not just from a sense of duty. We do what we do because we love God; and we love God because God first loved us.

At this point I need to stop just for a second and talk about the word stewardship itself.  One dictionary defines stewardship as “the job of supervising or taking care of something”. Another dictionary says stewardship is “the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one’s care.” (I like the second one better.)

But there’s an older meaning, an historic one, that I think is closer to what God is talking about. In the old days – and even today in some very wealthy places – a ‘steward’ is someone employed in a large household to manage domestic concerns such as the supervision of servants, collection of rents, and keeping of accounts. In other words, it’s a position with a very high level of trust: to care for, and manage, a large household – including the financials – on behalf of the owner. That’s what a steward does.

For those of you who enjoyed watching Downton Abbey – Mr. Carson, even though he was the butler by title, was for all intents and purposes the steward of the household: he was the one everyone trusted; he was the ultimate in being discreet; and he was the right-hand man of the Earl of Grantham – who he served with all his heart, out of love.

This is the role we are called to as stewards – each one of us. We are called to be stewards of what God has placed in our hands, whatever that may be; and to hold for God, and preserve for God, and use for the benefit of God, everything that we have and everything that we are, and everything that we have the ability to influence.

Thinking along these lines: John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Church, considered stewardship to be absolutely essential to the Christian faith. Wesley’s teachings usually centered around money, but not for the reasons we might think. As the Methodist movement grew, and as people got better at earning money (by using the gifts and skills God has given), and began to be more deliberate about managing money, what happened – really quite naturally – was that Methodists began to be wealthy people! The Methodist movement had started out with ministry to the poor, and to those in need of justice; but toward the end of his long life, John Wesley became concerned. He said, “wealth and the failure to give [are] the most serious threats to the Methodist movement in particular and Christianity in general”[2].  Wealth and the failure to give are the greatest threats to Christian faith.

Food for thought.

Wesley’s teaching on stewardship was simple and direct. You’ve probably heard it before. He said: “Gain all you can. Save all you can. Give all you can.[3]” Three points he drilled home with the early Methodists. “Gain all you can” – of course, by working for it. “Save all you can” – not just by stashing money in the bank, but also by limiting spending and not buying things we don’t need; and “Give all you can” – doing our part to distribute God’s resources fairly. Wesley said doing the first two (gaining and saving) without doing the third (giving) would be worse than never having been Christian in the first place.

Of course Wesley was speaking of money here, but his teaching applies to other areas of life as well. We should never, for example, stop gaining in knowledge or in understanding or in compassion; we should never stop saving knowledge (in order to share it) or compassion (in order to offer it). If we have knowledge, but we never speak what we know, our knowledge is wasted. If we feel kindness and compassion, but never express it, the people we care for will never know. So it needs to be all three: gaining, saving, and giving.

With all of this said as background, I’d like to turn our attention now to our scripture reading for today. At this point in the reading from Matthew, Jesus is in the temple. The events of Palm Sunday have just happened a day or two before, and Jesus is sitting in the temple and teaching – and the crowds love to listen to him!  But not so much the Pharisees and religious authorities, who are standing around in the background waiting for Jesus to make a mistake so they can pounce.

So Jesus tells a story.  He talks about a man who planted a vineyard.

Immediately the people listening to Jesus knew that he was talking about the nation of Israel, because Israel is often referred to in the Old Testament as a vineyard, as God’s vineyard.  God, as the owner of the vineyard, has done everything to raise healthy vines: he has protected it, he has built a watchtower so guards can watch over it. Then he leases it to tenants and goes away for a while; and the tenants represent the nation of Israel’s kings and priests and religious leaders – the people in power.

When it comes time for the harvest – which should be a time of celebration, like Thanksgiving – tragedy happens. The landowner sends a message to the tenants to bring some grapes to the celebration, but the tenants mistreat and murder the messenger. The owner tries a second time, and the same thing happens. Then the owner sends his son, saying to himself, ‘they will respect my son’… but the tenants say to each other: ‘this is the heir – let’s kill him and the vineyard will be ours.’

What Jesus hasn’t told them yet is that he himself is the son, and the religious leaders are the murderers. At this point in the story Jesus asks the religious leaders point-blank: “What will the owner of the vineyard do to those tenants?” And they answer, “he will put them to a miserable death”.

Jesus said, “have you not read in the scriptures: ‘the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone’… therefore the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who produce the fruits of the kingdom.”

Then they realized he was talking about them – and they went away to make plans to do the very thing Jesus had said they were going to do: kill the Son.

This particular passage doesn’t have a whole lot to do with stewardship, at least not in the main point; the main point of the story is not directed at the vines. Jesus is speaking to the evil tenants. The parable is actually a word of warning to those of us who preach, to be certain that we are doing it with loyalty and accuracy and love for God and God’s people.

But this parable does have a secondary meaning for all of us, which is: as vines, we were created to grow and be healthy and produce fruit. One commentator put it this way: “Let us be challenged by this parable to speak into our culture words of life and hope and… blessing.”

Some of the fruits we bear include justice, mercy, and humility, and we are not limited to these. But if we don’t see fruits in our lives, we can turn to God and ask for God’s help, because God is the ultimate vine grower, and God knows what we need to be fruitful.

I would also add, from my own life experience, that we bear fruit when we use the gifts and talents God has given us. For example, I have known all my life that I have gifts in teaching and in music, so I use them as often as I can. The great joy of this of course is that, when we use the gifts God has given us, it’s a pleasure to do it – because it’s what we’re designed to do!  The artist takes joy in painting; the sportsman takes joy in sports; the cook takes joy in cooking; and all of these gifts and so many more can be shared with God’s people and offered to God’s glory.

So the Ten Commandments that God gives us in Exodus… and the words of warning Jesus gives us in Matthew… guide us to think about what’s “in here” (in our hearts)… what has God created “in here” that God wants to share with the world? Each one of us has something unique and beautiful to share, given to us by God.

Using those gifts is what stewardship is all about. It is our calling, our joy, and our privilege, to be stewards of everything God has given us. To God’s glory, AMEN.

[1] https://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog/2020/9/29/amazing-grace-salts-lectionary-commentary-eighteenth-week-after-pentecost

[2] https://www.resourceumc.org/en/content/john-wesley-on-giving

[3] Ibid.

World Wide Communion 2023

From the wilderness of Sin the whole congregation of the Israelites journeyed by stages, as the LORD commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink.  ² The people quarreled with Moses, and said, “Give us water to drink.” Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the LORD?”  ³ But the people thirsted there for water; and the people complained against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?”  ⁴ So Moses cried out to the LORD, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.”  ⁵ The LORD said to Moses, “Go on ahead of the people, and take some of the elders of Israel with you; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go.  ⁶ I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.” Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel.  ⁷ He called the place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled and tested the LORD, saying, “Is the LORD among us or not?” – Exodus 17:1-7

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Give ear, O my people, to my teaching; incline your ears to the words of my mouth.  ² I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings from of old,  ³ things that we have heard and known, that our ancestors have told us.  ⁴ We will not hide them from their children; we will tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the LORD, and his might, and the wonders that he has done.

¹² In the sight of their ancestors he worked marvels in the land of Egypt, in the fields of Zoan.  ¹³ He divided the sea and let them pass through it, and made the waters stand like a heap.  ¹⁴ In the daytime he led them with a cloud, and all night long with a fiery light.  ¹⁵ He split rocks open in the wilderness, and gave them drink abundantly as from the deep.  ¹⁶ He made streams come out of the rock, and caused waters to flow down like rivers. – Psalm 78:1-4, 12-16, A Maskil of Asaph

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When [Jesus] entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching, and said, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?”  ²⁴ Jesus said to them, “I will also ask you one question; if you tell me the answer, then I will also tell you by what authority I do these things.  ²⁵ Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?” And they argued with one another, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’  ²⁶ But if we say, ‘Of human origin,’ we are afraid of the crowd; for all regard John as a prophet.”  ²⁷ So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And he said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.

²⁸  [still speaking to the authorities, Jesus said:] “What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’  ²⁹ He answered, ‘I will not’; but later he changed his mind and went.  ³⁰ The father went to the second and said the same; and he answered, ‘I go, sir’; but he did not go.  ³¹ Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you.  ³² For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him. – Matthew 21:23-32

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Today, October first, is a unique day in the church year. For starters, it’s World Wide Communion Sunday – and that really does mean world-wide. In every country around the globe Christians will be celebrating Communion today.

This fact has all kinds of meaning on all kinds of levels. In the next 24 hours, someone somewhere will be speaking the words of Jesus: “this is my body given for you… this is my blood shed for you” in Spanish, French, Chinese, Swahili, Ukrainian and Russian, Hindi and Arabic, Japanese and Korean. This is the first glimmer of what things will be like in heaven. When we all gather around the throne of God, and worship God together, we will speak in all these languages – and I believe by the power of the Holy Spirit we will be able to understand each other.

And even now, today, as the old hymn says:

“As o’er each continent and island
the dawn leads on another day”

– in other words, as the world turns and sunrise happens in yet another place –

“the voice of prayer is never silent,
nor dies the strain of praise away.”

God’s people are always singing God’s praises, somewhere on this earth, 24/7/365.

Worldwide Communion is a celebration of this reality.

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On top of this we also have some great historical events that happened on this day:

• October 1 is the saint-day of Therese of Lisieux, a Carmelite nun who was a Doctor of the Church. She is best known for being the inspiration for the ministry of Mother Teresa of Calcutta.
• October 1 is also the 99^th birthday of Jimmy Carter, former President and retired Sunday School teacher. Jimmy Carter once taught, in words that are still appropriate today:

“A strong nation, like a strong person, can afford to be gentle, firm, thoughtful, and restrained. It can afford to extend a helping hand to others. It is a weak nation, like a weak person, that must behave with bluster and boasting and rashness and other signs of insecurity.”  Happy Birthday Jimmy Carter!

• And last but certainly not least, tomorrow is the birthday of Mohandas Gandhi, whose teachings were a great influence on the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

All of these great men and women of faith are people whose teaching we can look to for inspiration and encouragement on this day of Worldwide Communion.

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As we turn to our scriptures today, at first glance they don’t seem to have anything to do with worldwide communion, either theologically or geographically. BUT – like Moses leading the Israelites in the wilderness – I’m going to take us in the long way ‘round.

I want to start with our reading from Exodus.  If you were here in church last week, you would have heard a reading from Exodus chapter 16, which comes right before our reading for today. In chapter 16 we heard about the Israelites, who at this point have left slavery in Egypt behind, having walked through the waters on dry land, and are now in the desert, some distance from Egypt – and they’re complaining there’s no food. God tells Moses “they’re not complaining against you, they’re complaining against me” – because it’s easier to take issue with human being than it is to take issue with an all-powerful, all-knowing, almighty God!

But God also comments to Moses: “I need to know if I can trust the people to follow my instructions.” God is about to provide a whole flock of quail for the people to eat, followed by a miracle food in the morning that will become known as manna. God tells the people to gather manna every morning, and not to keep it because it will go bad – except for on the 6^th morning of the week, when they are to gather twice as much so they can rest on the morning of the Sabbath.

God wants to know if the people will follow his instructions. God understands what the people are feeling, and God is not finding fault. God knew that the people of Israel had lived through some very deep trauma in Egypt. The people had been slaves in Egypt for over 400 years. They did not yet know what it meant to be free. They had no experience with dealing with authority figures they could trust. God knew this; and God also knew that a relationship of love can’t exist without trust. God knew that the trauma and abuse of slavery – like any pain, whether physical or emotional – takes time to heal; and Step One in that healing is being willing to trust the Heavenly Doctor.

So God gives the people an opportunity to trust God. Many of them do. Many of them gather the manna at the times that God says to do it. Some don’t – and they end up with rotten manna.

All of these are things we heard about in last week’s reading.

This week, our reading from Exodus finds the people of Israel somehow forgetting whatever trust in God they gained in the previous chapter. Once again they say to Moses – as they did last week – “why didn’t you just leave us in Egypt? Why did you bother us by bringing us out here so we and our children could die in the wilderness?”

This time the issue is a lack of water – which is understandable, as they were, after all, in a desert. Moses goes to God and says, “Lord help – these people are about to stone me!” God tells Moses where to find water, AND gives Moses a prophecy to share with the people at the same time.

This isn’t going to be just about water. There will be water – in fact there will be more than enough water for everyone to drink, including the animals. But Moses has been given a message, both for the people of Israel and for all people of all times. God says: go to the rock at Horeb – which is at Mt. Sinai, which is where they will soon receive the Ten Commandments – and God says to strike the rock, and water will come out, and the people will drink.

Moses names the place Massah and Meribah, which means “testing and quarreling”.

Set Moses’ version of the story for a moment next to our Psalm for today. We see that by the time of King David, not quite 500 years later, the people of Israel look back on this event in the wilderness with praise and celebration for God’s marvelous works. The psalm-writer, Asaph, a friend of King David’s, praises God saying: “He split rocks open in the wilderness, and gave them drink abundantly as from the deep.”

Later on in the New Testament, the apostle Paul will also write about Israel’s journey in the wilderness, in I Corinthians 10, where he says this:

“I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.” (I Corinthians 10:1-4)

So Paul says Jesus was present there with Israel, while they were still in the wilderness… that He was the rock that the water came from, and on some spiritual level that we don’t quite understand, this is very true.

In this same way Jesus is present with us now, today, in our wilderness.

Which brings us to Communion. Like the people of Israel all those years ago, we live in a world where trust is difficult; but trusting God is essential.

We have one other scripture passage for today. The people in Israel back in Exodus were questioning God’s trustworthiness. In Matthew chapter 21 we hear this familiar story of Jesus teaching in the Temple.

Here we see the spiritual leaders of Israel, 1400 years after Moses, still not sure they can trust God. The people, though – the common people who are listening to Jesus – trust him. They know where Jesus comes from. For them, listening to Jesus is a joy. It’s a pleasure. Some of the people there have taken a day off work just to hear Jesus and be with him. Some have dared to whisper that Jesus might be the Messiah, even though the authorities have threatened to throw them out of the synagogue if they say it out loud.

It all comes down to trust. Will the Israelites trust in God through Moses? Some of them will. Some won’t. Will the people of Israel trust that Jesus has come from God? Some will, some won’t.

What’s clear in both the Old Testament and the New is that God desires to be in relationship with God’s people. Throughout the centuries God keeps reaching out to God’s people – first to Israel in the Old Testament, and then to all the world through Jesus, the Messiah, the one who the Old Testament promised would be “a light to all the nations and the glory of Israel”.

Today, on Worldwide Communion Sunday, we enter into that story. We come to receive the promise; to receive the salvation that is ours through Jesus, through his death and resurrection. As Paul says in I Corinthians 11:26, “as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” And not just Jesus’ death, but his resurrection as well.

Today we enter into the story ourselves and become one with the people who sat at Jesus’ feet in the temple: the people who found a way to survive under the Roman Empire, the people who traveled the world to share the love of Christ. That’s the big picture.

And then there’s us, coming forward today in trust, to receive what God offers. In a few moments we will come… in trust and in faith… as the people of God… to receive communion with all the people of God. AMEN.

On Trust

“The whole congregation of the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness.  ³ The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”

        ⁴ Then the LORD said to Moses, “I am going to rain bread from heaven for you, and each day the people shall go out and gather enough for that day. In that way I will test them, whether they will follow my instruction or not.  ⁵ On the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather on other days.”  ⁶ So Moses and Aaron said to all the Israelites, “In the evening you shall know that it was the LORD who brought you out of the land of Egypt,  ⁷ and in the morning you shall see the glory of the LORD, because he has heard your complaining against the LORD. For what are we, that you complain against us?”  ⁸ And Moses said, “When the LORD gives you meat to eat in the evening and your fill of bread in the morning, because the LORD has heard the complaining that you utter against him– what are we? Your complaining is not against us but against the LORD.”

        ⁹ Then Moses said to Aaron, “Say to the whole congregation of the Israelites, ‘Draw near to the LORD, for he has heard your complaining.’”  ¹⁰ And as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the Israelites, they looked toward the wilderness, and the glory of the LORD appeared in the cloud.  ¹¹ The LORD spoke to Moses and said,  ¹² “I have heard the complaining of the Israelites; say to them, ‘At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall have your fill of bread; then you shall know that I am the LORD your God.’”

        ¹³ In the evening quails came up and covered the camp; and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp.  ¹⁴ When the layer of dew lifted, there on the surface of the wilderness was a fine flaky substance, as fine as frost on the ground.  ¹⁵ When the Israelites saw it, they said to one another, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. Moses said to them, “It is the bread that the LORD has given you to eat.” – Exodus 16:2-15

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O give thanks to the LORD, call on his name, make known his deeds among the peoples.  ² Sing to him, sing praises to him; tell of all his wonderful works.  ³ Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the LORD rejoice.  ⁴ Seek the LORD and his strength; seek his presence continually.  ⁵ Remember the wonderful works he has done, his miracles, and the judgments he uttered,  ⁶ O offspring of his servant Abraham, children of Jacob, his chosen ones.

        ³⁷ Then he brought Israel out with silver and gold, and there was no one among their tribes who stumbled.  ³⁸ Egypt was glad when they departed, for dread of them had fallen upon it.  ³⁹ He spread a cloud for a covering, and fire to give light by night.  ⁴⁰ They asked, and he brought quails, and gave them food from heaven in abundance.  ⁴¹ He opened the rock, and water gushed out; it flowed through the desert like a river.  ⁴² For he remembered his holy promise, and Abraham, his servant.  ⁴³ So he brought his people out with joy, his chosen ones with singing.  ⁴⁴ He gave them the lands of the nations, and they took possession of the wealth of the peoples,  ⁴⁵ that they might keep his statutes and observe his laws. Praise the LORD! – Psalm 105:1-6, Psalm 105:37-45

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        ²¹ For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain.  ²² If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me; and I do not know which I prefer.  ²³ I am hard pressed between the two: my desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better;  ²⁴ but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for you.  ²⁵ Since I am convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with all of you for your progress and joy in faith,  ²⁶ so that I may share abundantly in your boasting in Christ Jesus when I come to you again.

        ²⁷ Only, live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that, whether I come and see you or am absent and hear about you, I will know that you are standing firm in one spirit, striving side by side with one mind for the faith of the gospel,  ²⁸ and are in no way intimidated by your opponents. For them this is evidence of their destruction, but of your salvation. And this is God’s doing.  ²⁹ For he has graciously granted you the privilege not only of believing in Christ, but of suffering for him as well–  ³⁰ since you are having the same struggle that you saw I had and now hear that I still have. – Philippians 1:21-30

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“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.  ² After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard.  ³ When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace;  ⁴ and he said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went.  ⁵ When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same.  ⁶ And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, ‘Why are you standing here idle all day?’  ⁷ They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard.’  ⁸ When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.’  ⁹ When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage.  ¹⁰ Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage.  ¹¹ And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner,  ¹² saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’  ¹³ But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage?  ¹⁴ Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you.  ¹⁵ Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’  ¹⁶ So the last will be first, and the first will be last.” – Matthew 20:1-16

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I don’t know about you, but on first hearing, today’s scriptures seemed to me like a bouquet of flowers that arrive without a note – great variety, lots of color, beautiful – but is there a message in it?

With God there is always a message. And with God ultimately the message is love. But I think this morning the common thread through the scriptures we heard is about that part of love we call trust.

It is impossible to have a love relationship without trust. We know this from our parents, from our siblings, from our spouses, from our friends. Even mutually beneficial relationships like employer-employee require a certain amount of trust in order to thrive.

In today’s world, trustworthiness is becoming more and more important even as it becomes less and less easy to find. And now that we’re in the next election cycle, trust is going to become even more difficult to find! How do we know who we can trust? How do we define what is ‘trustworthy’?  Does being trustworthy mean a person keeps his or her word? Or does it mean the person is consistent?  Or does ‘trustworthiness’ mean that we approve of what a person says and does? Does it mean we agree with them? Does it mean that we believe what they believe? Can a person be trustworthy even if we don’t like the things they say?

And then there are the people – far too many people in this world – whose trust has been broken: by tragedy, by betrayal, by violence, by crime, by abuse, or by silence.

And when we bring God into the mix, things become even more complex. God is greater and more powerful than we are. God can do things we can’t do. And yet God understands the need for trust… both our need to trust God, and God’s desire to trust us.

We’ve often been told to trust God, and we struggle with that sometimes, because God is beyond our ability to understand. But do we ever stop and think that God wants to trust us – because God created us to be in relationship with God, and relationships need trust to thrive.

Mutual trust, going in both directions, is needed for love to be present. There are lots of relationships in this world that don’t require love: relationships built around mutual interests, or mutual support for a cause – these things don’t necessarily require trust, just a basic level of mutual agreement. But real love needs deep-down honesty and openness – real trust. One theologian of the 1900’s, George MacDonald, said:

“To be trusted is a greater compliment than being loved.”

I think he might be right.

Trust is what our scripture readings are about today: people trusting God, and God trusting people.

Out Psalm today is a song of God’s people singing about how trustworthy God is. The Psalms of course were the hymn-book of the people of Israel: the songs they sang as they worshiped God in the Temple. This particular song sings about telling the nations all the great things God has done: all that God has made… all of God’s miracles… all of God’s judgements, that is, God’s truth-telling. God is a Creator-God who created this universe, this planet, every person on it, and God has provided richly for all of us. Our God is a God who can be trusted.

I was wondering: if we were writing this song today, what would we sing about God? What are the things God has done in our lives that help us to trust God? We might think of the beauty of creation – especially now in the fall… we might think of family and loved ones… about safe and healthy homes… we might think about the wisdom God shares with us in the Bible. What else might we add to the list?

We also remember that God has been faithful, not only to us, but to our parents and our siblings and our grandparents and our great-grandparents and all of our ancestors as far back as we can remember, and even further.

To give an example: A few decades ago, my Dad and sister and I went to Europe to dig into our family roots, to see what we could find out about our family tree. We traced Dad’s family back to the 11^th century – back to the time of William the Conqueror. We couldn’t go back any further because the records don’t exist anymore, at least not in the place where we were. But that’s 1000 years of God’s faithfulness to our family – and there’s more that we don’t know about!

This is true for every person here today. God’s faithfulness has been with each one of us – our ‘tribes’, so to speak – as far back as memory goes, and further. That’s what the Psalm is singing about today.

The people who wrote this Psalm were descendants of the people we read about in Exodus. When we go back to the time of Moses, we go back around 475 years before our psalm today was written. Just to give an idea of how long that is, 475 years ago for us King Henry VIII was on the throne – a good while back, but still within common memory. So the writers of our psalm looked back that far to the time of the Exodus.

At this point in Israel’s history, Moses had led the people of Israel out of Egypt and was bringing them into the Promised Land, and they were passing through a desert land. The people of Israel had just been liberated from over 400 years of slavery in Egypt.

Remember their history: the people of Israel originally lived in Canaan, but there was a great famine. The only food to be found was in Egypt… because… God had sent Joseph there ahead of time. We remember the story from the book of Genesis. Joseph, the son of Jacob, sold into slavery by his brothers, came to the attention of Pharaoh while he was in prison, rose to command all of Egypt – including storing up food for a famine that God had said was coming. Eventually the family of Israel (which was Jacob’s other name) arrived in Egypt as refugees, and they were welcomed with honor for Joseph’s sake.

But as time passed, and Joseph was forgotten, the people of Egypt began to be afraid of the Israelites – and so the Egyptians made them into slaves.

The glory Israel once had, and the greatness of Joseph, was lost in the sands of the desert – until Moses came along. God chose Moses to lead the people of Israel to freedom, to lead them back home to the Promised Land.

God is the same today as God was back then. This story of Israel is the foundation of our Christian faith. Without the Promised Land there would be no Messiah, and without the Messiah there would be no Christianity. Therefore what we see happening in Exodus is our story too.

Today, we now live in a wilderness, a modern-day wilderness of confusion and mistrust and violence… but we, like the Israelites, are on a journey to the Promised Land of God’s kingdom.

In our reading from Exodus we see trust being tested. Testing trust is something we all do from time to time – we all need to explore how we feel about other people. In this case, the people of Israel – after generations of slavery and abuse – have developed some issues around trust, understandably so. They want to know: Who is this God that Moses keeps talking about? Why does God care about us? And where has God been all this time when we were slaves?

When our reading begins, Israel has been in the wilderness for some time, and the food supplies they took with them from Egypt are starting to run low. The animals they have with them – back then people didn’t use money much, so the animals were their currency, their wealth. They don’t want to eat into their future, so to speak. So here they are in the middle of a desert, many days’ journey to civilization, and they’re saying to Moses, “why couldn’t God have just left us in Egypt? At least we had food to eat there!”

These are words of a people whose hearts and spirits have been broken many times over.

And God knows this. God also knows that – just like with physical injuries – the first step in healing injuries of the heart is wanting to be well.  So God wonders: will these people, so recently rescued from slavery, be willing to follow the heavenly doctor’s orders? Will they trust God to begin the healing process?

God explains to Moses: “they’re not complaining against you; they’re complaining against me.” So God provides meat and bread. First, God sends a flock of quail to eat… and then in the morning this flaky substance appears on the ground which God says can be eaten. The people look at it and they say “Ma-na?” which in Hebrew means “what is it?” – and that becomes its name (manna).

Moral of the story: God has provided, and God can be trusted.

And there’s a second moral of this story for those of us reading today: Jesus in the gospel of John draws a parallel between manna and himself. During a conversation about this manna, Jesus says: “I am the bread of life – who came down from heaven.”  God has provided Jesus for us… to meet our needs. And God can still be trusted.

Finally today we have a passage from Matthew, in which Jesus tells a parable. The issue here again is still trust – will God’s people trust God to do what is right?

In spite of appearances, this is not primarily a story about employment and workers rights. It poses the question: what’s it like to work for the most incredibly generous boss in the universe? And the answer shines light on the kind of damage that’s been done to God’s people, both then and now, in this sinful world.

The parable is about the Kingdom of God, and God’s economy. People who believe in God – all people who believe in God – receive the same salvation, no matter how long we’ve served, no matter what our title is (in fact Jesus says ‘the last will be first’).

The people listening to Jesus back in the day, would have assumed that the average workday would be 6AM to 6PM, and that a denarius would be a fair wage for a days’ work.

In this case, in Jesus’ story, the manager did some things that were out of the ordinary: he went out looking for workers again at 9AM, and at noon, and at 5PM – just before quitting time! Jesus doesn’t say why, but we can assume there must have been a tremendous amount of work to be done, and all hands were needed on deck, as many as they could get. This is certainly true of God’s kingdom and God’s people.

But at the end of the work day in Jesus’ story there are two surprises: first, the people who were hired last are paid first – which is the reverse of what would have been normal back then. Usually the first hired would be first paid. And second, everybody got paid the same amount!

This landowner, this boss they were working for – in other words, God – is wise and generous, and has the right to give away his possessions as he chooses.  But the workers aren’t happy – at least not the ones who worked all day. They are grumbling – not that they were paid unfairly (they got the wage they agreed to) but they’re complaining that the latecomers should have received less. Their complaint is: “you have made them equal to us”.

Their problem is not envy, because envy is wanting something someone else has. Their problem is they were wishing some people didn’t have as much as they did. It’s the complaint of the privileged – one that we are very familiar with in our society, where people believe that if you work hard you’ll be rewarded, and ‘you get out what you put in’.

In the economy of heaven, life in God’s Kingdom is always a gift. It cannot be earned. Nothing we can do can get us there. If we are living in the Kingdom of God, it is because God was generous. No exceptions.

The landowner in the story – who represents God – his question to the people who are grumbling is (this is the literal translation) – “Is your eye evil because I am good?” In the ancient world people believed that eyes put out rays that made it possible to see, kind of like little lamps.  The problem with the people who had been working since 6AM was that they failed to see that what should have been “we” (together) became “us vs. them”. Instead of “we’re working together to accomplish something” their cry was, “you’re being unfair!” Their eyes were not seeing in a healthy way.

Again it’s all about trust. When we live God’s way in God’s kingdom we demonstrate our trust in God. We trust that in God’s kingdom there will always be enough, and more to share. We show our trust by welcoming others – especially those who haven’t had the privileges we have. We show our trust by standing against the “us vs. them” thinking that is so common today. Above all, we thank God for God’s generosity – to us and to others. We celebrate our generous, trustworthy God in song and in service. In God’s kingdom, the words “you have made them equal to us” is cause for celebration!

Which brings us back to where we began. In our relationship with God, it’s all about trust. God wants to know if we will take what God has given us and use it for others. God – who loves us more than His own life, as we see in Jesus Christ – wants to know that he can trust us – trust us to listen, and trust us to live God’s way, trust us to be generous.

We live life God’s way when we hear or read God’s word and believe it and allow it to come alive in our lives. We live life God’s way when we look to God to be the source of our joy and inspiration. We live life God’s way – as Jesus says – when we share God’s blessings with others, no matter how long they’ve been with us, no matter if they’re strangers. In God’s house there is enough for everyone, and when we know this, we can trust God and be generous like our Heavenly Parent.

So let’s pray: Lord, thank you for entrusting us with your word and your many gifts. Help us to trust you more with every passing day. If we have any doubts or fears, we bring them to you now. Build up in us the knowledge of your word and the trust to live it – to your honor and glory,

AMEN.

Blogsurfing Find – A Cat at the Cross?

Giving thought today to how comforting cats can be, especially in times of trouble, and the thought occurred: I wonder if there was a cat at the foot of Jesus’ Cross?

It appears I’m not the only person who has thought so. Check out this blog entry from ten years ago:

A Story of a Cat, A Rooster, and the San Damiano Cross

On the 60th Anniversary of the Bombing of the 16th St Baptist Church in 1963

God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind, and the cattle of every kind, and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw that it was good.  26 Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”  27 So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.  28 God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” – Genesis 1:25-28

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 As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.  13 Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.  14 Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.  15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful.  16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God.  17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. – Colossians 3:12-17  

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Today’s message is not an easy subject. This past Friday, as many of us have seen on the news, was the 60^th anniversary of the bombing of the 16^th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, AL in 1963.

I don’t consider myself particularly worthy to talk about this subject. I have never suffered the way the members of that church suffered. But I think that terrible day needs to be remembered, and the story needs to be told, especially for those who were born after me. (I have give credit to Wikipedia for filling in some of the details I didn’t remember myself.)

The bombing of the 16^th Street Baptist Church was one of the greatest tragedies of my lifetime. In 1963 it was the height of the civil rights movement. Only nineteen days before that bombing, Martin Luther King Jr. had given his “I Have a Dream” speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC.

That September in 1963 was a beautiful Sunday morning. The 16^th Street Baptist Church – which, by the way, is celebrating its 150^th anniversary this year – the church back then was a popular place for civil rights speakers to gather, as well as for Christians to worship; it had a large sanctuary that could seat a few hundred people. On that morning, the members of the church had just finished Sunday School and were getting ready for the morning worship service.

BIRMINGHAM, AL – Exterior of 16th Street Baptist Church

Unknown to them, four members of the KKK had planted dynamite and a timing device under the steps on the side of the church, close to the basement. Shortly before 10:30AM that bomb went off, with the bulk of the blast moving down the stairwell into the ladies’ room below. Five young girls were there, changing into their choir robes, when the blast hit.

Eyewitnesses tell us the explosion shook the building, destroyed cars that were parked nearby, and blew out glass in homes more than two blocks away. All the stained glass windows in the church were destroyed except for one: a window that showed Jesus leading a group of children.

When the rubble was finally cleared, four young girls were discovered dead: Addie Mae Collins (age 14), Carol Denise McNair (age 11), Carole Rosamond Robertson (age 14), and Cynthia Dionne Wesley (age 14). About two dozen more people were injured, including Addie Mae’s 11-year-old sister who was blinded in one eye by a flying piece of glass.

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was eight years old that day, and she was attending church a few blocks away, where her father was the pastor. She remembers hearing the explosion from where they were – and one of the girls who was killed, Carol McNair, was a good friend of hers. Years later Ms. Rice remembered:

“It is a sound that I will never forget, that will forever reverberate in my ears. […] The crime was calculated, not random. It was meant to suck the hope out of young lives, bury their aspirations, and ensure that old fears would be propelled forward into the next generation.”

The bombing of this church marked a turning point in the civil rights movement of the 1960s. The church’s website says:

“The tragedy of that Sunday produced outpourings of sympathy, concern, and financial contributions from all parts of the world. More than $300,000.00 was contributed for the restoration of the damaged church. It was reopened for services Sunday, June 7, 1964. A special memorial gift – a large stained-glass window of the image of a black crucified Christ – was given [to the church] by the people of Wales…”

The Civil Rights Act passed Congress the very next year. Most people agree it would have taken much longer for that law to pass if it had not been for this tragedy, because the champion of the Civil Rights Act, John F. Kennedy, was assassinated only two months after this bombing. These violent acts forced people to see and understand how much civil rights were needed.

After all was said and done, it was discovered four men were responsible for the bombing. But it wasn’t until 1977 that the first of the four men was prosecuted. Two more were sentenced in 2001 and 2002 – almost 40 years after the bombing. The fourth man died in 1994 before he could be tried. As Martin Luther King once said, “justice delayed is justice denied”.

It would be nice to think those days are gone; that the time of prejudice and violence is over. But all we have to do is look at the news every day and we can see that’s not true. Prejudice – whether it’s based on skin color or religion or gender or national origin – is sadly alive and well, and on the increase these days.

I know in a way I’m preaching to the choir here. Everyone present today is either Methodist or attending a Methodist church. The founder of the Methodist church, John Wesley, was one of the first people to declare prejudice a sin… his word for it was “ungodly”.

John Wesley lived back in the 1700s, back before the United States was a country, back when the slave trade was still legal. He witnessed slavery first-hand when he and his brother Charles lived in Georgia. John Wesley hated slavery with a passion, and he said so in his sermons. The Georgia slave-owners, who heard these sermons, basically saw to it that his stay in America was short.

Here’s what got the Georgians riled up:

First off, Wesley said that all people are equal in the eyes of God; and he gave three reasons, three proofs for that: theology, ethics, and the study of human beings.

Theology says that all people are equally sinners in the eyes of God and are equally saved by the cross of Christ. Wesley said where a person’s family is from doesn’t change this one bit. God sees no difference.

In terms of ethics – that is, right and wrong – Wesley said we are all commanded by God to love one another,  and there are no exceptions. We are to care for others as we care for ourselves. Wesley said, “Love, like death, makes all differences void.” In other words, if we really love, then what does it matter if people are different from one other? Wesley went on to say this:

“Give liberty to whom liberty is due, that is, to… every partaker of human nature. Let none serve you but by his… own voluntary choice. […] Be gentle toward all…; and see that you invariably do unto every one as you would [have done to you].”

And finally, from the study of human beings, Wesley said this about the so-called races – he said:

“[The] inhabitants of Africa, where they have equal motives and equal means of improvement, are not inferior to the inhabitants of Europe; [and some] are greatly superior.”

I can just imagine what the plantation owners thought of that!

People back then said to Wesley that slavery was OK because it was legal. He answered:

“Notwithstanding ten thousand laws, right is right, and wrong is wrong.”  “It is clear,” said Wesley, “that slavery [cannot be reconciled] to justice [and] to mercy.”

The very last letter that John Wesley ever wrote – just days before he died – was to a man named William Wilberforce, a friend of his, and a member of the British Parliament. Wilberforce had made it his life’s work to see the slave trade was ended. Wesley wrote to encourage him, and he said:

“if God be for you, who can be against you? . . . Go on, in the name of God and in the power of His might, till even American Slavery (the vilest that ever saw the sun) shall vanish away before it.”

Wesley was absolutely certain that equality and brotherhood/sisterhood for all people was God’s will. Wesley didn’t live to see it, but around forty years later Wilberforce finally won, and the slave trade was abolished in England. It took another few decades for the same to happen in America.

Our scripture verses for today are some of the verses that inspired John Wesley and that inspired Martin Luther King Jr.  Both men read in the Bible about a God who said “let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness” and they knew that meant all human beings everywhere.

16th St. Baptist Church, Interior Today

Both Wesley and Martin Luther King Jr. knew the words of the apostle Paul who said, “clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience”: they knew that this meant all people everywhere. They knew that, in Paul’s words, we are supposed to “give thanks to God the Father” for our brothers and sisters in Christ, from all nations around the world.

Both Wesley and Martin Luther King Jr. knew the words of King David who said in his psalm, “The Lord works vindication and justice for all who are oppressed.”

Martin Luther King Jr. also said – at the funeral service for those young girls back in 1963 – “God still has a way of bringing good out of evil.” That’s a really hard message to hear when people are grieving, but King wanted everyone to know that the four girls had not died in vain. King himself had received death threats many times at that point, and he had had some close calls, so he knew what he was talking about. His words came from experience. He went on to name the evils that conspired in that bombing: “the system, the way of life… the racist ideology… that has been nurtured, coddled and permitted” by the society in which we live.

Black author and scholar Jemar Tisby – who is one of my favorite Black writers today – says:

“King’s words prove instructive for the present day. As white supremacists, white Christian nationalists, and attacks on racial justice initiatives grow bolder, all people must fight against the violence racism does to our communities, and resist the complicity that creates the context for racial terrorism.”

Martin Luther King’s final words at the funeral in 1963 included the verse from scripture: “a little child shall lead them”. I pray that these girls, these young martyrs, will continue to lead us, 60 years later, towards a brighter future – both on earth and in God’s Kingdom. AMEN.

Immigration Quotations

“The bosom of America is open to receive not only the Opulent and respected Stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations and Religions; whom we shall welcome to a participation of all our rights and privileges…” – George Washington

“Nearly all Americans have ancestors who braved the oceans – liberty-loving risk takers in search of an ideal – the largest voluntary migrations in recorded history… Immigration is not just a link to America’s past; it’s also a bridge to America’s future.” – George H.W. Bush

“More than any other nation on Earth, America has constantly drawn strength and spirit from wave after wave of immigrants. In each generation, they have proved to be the most restless, the most adventurous, the most innovative, the most industrious of people. …they have strengthened our economy, enriched our culture, renewed our promise of freedom and opportunity for all….” – Bill Clinton

“A child on the other side of the border is no less worthy of love and compassion than my own child.” – Barack Obama

On Immigrants and Immigration

¹⁴ Although heaven and the heaven of heavens belong to the LORD your God, the earth with all that is in it,  ¹⁵ yet the LORD set his heart in love on your ancestors alone and chose you, their descendants after them, out of all the peoples, as it is today.  ¹⁶ Circumcise, then, the foreskin of your heart, and do not be stubborn any longer.  ¹⁷ For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe,  ¹⁸ who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing.  ¹⁹ You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. – Deuteronomy 10:14-19

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Thus says the LORD: Go down to the house of the king of Judah, and speak there this word,  ² and say: Hear the word of the LORD, O King of Judah sitting on the throne of David – you, and your servants, and your people who enter these gates.  ³ Thus says the LORD: Act with justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor anyone who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place.  ⁴ For if you will indeed obey this word, then through the gates of this house shall enter kings who sit on the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they, and their servants, and their people.  ⁵ But if you will not heed these words, I swear by myself, says the LORD, that this house shall become a desolation. — Jeremiah 22:1-5

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[Jesus said:] “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory.  ³² All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats,  ³³ and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left.  ³⁴ Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world;  ³⁵ for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me,  ³⁶ I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’  ³⁷ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink?  ³⁸ And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing?  ³⁹ And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’  ⁴⁰ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’”– Matthew 25:31-40

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I’m going to be doing something a little different this morning. I’m taking a request – like musicians do. This past month, I have had a request, from more than one person, actually, but most importantly from our new Book Club.

Our Book Club has been reading is The House That Love Built, a very moving and true story of a young woman in Denver, Colorado, who – without realizing it – rented an apartment across the street from a detention center for people who have applied for asylum in the United States who are waiting for their cases to come up in court.

It tells the story of how this young woman named Sarah would see people on the streets: people who had been approved to stay and live in the country: and they would come out the door of the building with paperwork in hand, and their clothing, and not much more. Very few spoke English; very few had money; and none of them had any idea where they were or how to find their loved ones.

Sarah began to watch for these people as they were released, and she invited them into her apartment to make a phone call, or grab a bite to eat, or figure out how to get to their families. Sometimes if their family was far away, she would let them sleep on her sofa until someone could come get them.

Long story short, after some time and with help from a lot of friends, a house was bought and fixed up for the people being released from this facility. They named the house Casa de Paz, or House of Peace. Casa de Paz is still open and running today.

So our Book Club made a request of me: they said, “preach us a sermon on immigration.”

I’ve thought about doing this in the past, and I’ve resisted the idea because I respect and support the separation of church and state. In this country we separate politics from faith for a lot of good reasons. We worship God and not politicians (though that’s getting a little sketchy in some places these days). We vote for politicians but not for God – because God is King of kings, and Lord of lords, and has never needed to be elected.

But today the sermon is a ‘yes’ to our Book Club’s request.

The first question people usually ask me when I talk about immigration is, “Why are you interested? What’s it to you?”  My interest in immigration started when I was a kid: learning the stories of our family who came to America in the 1800s. My father’s family left the island of Guernsey and moved to Philadelphia; my mother’s family left Switzerland and moved to the suburbs of New York. I heard their stories growing up and I appreciate the richness of their stories, and all the things our ancestors did to build a better life for our family. I could preach a sermon on just that!

Many of us here have similar stories in our own families. Every American knows how to answer the question “so where are you from originally?” No one from any other country has a clue what Americans mean when they ask that question!

Another thing I remember from my youth – probably high school years – is when Dad told us about a ship called the St. Louis that came to America from Europe at the beginning of World War II. Dad was a serviceman, but he served during Korea; he was too young to serve during WWII. But he remembered WWII. He told us the story of this ship that carried almost 1000 Jewish people away from the Nazis. They were hoping to find a safe place to land across the Atlantic. But Cuba turned them away, and the United States turned them away, and Canada turned them away. The ship was eventually forced to turn around and go back to Europe. Some people got off the boat in England – they were the lucky ones. The rest landed in Belgium; and shortly after that the Nazis took over Belgium, and it’s estimated only 87 people were able to get to safety – the rest died at the hands of the Nazis.

(image: Holocaust Encyclopedia)

If we had only made room for not quite 1000 people, we could have saved every one of those lives – plus the generations that would have come from them. We who believe in God look back at this part of our history and we say to the world: “never again”.

But the thing is… it’s happening again.

Don’t get me wrong: most Americans are good, caring, godly people. We hear the words of Jesus when he says, “I was a stranger and you welcomed me”. We get it.

But somehow this doesn’t translate into reality when outsiders come into contact with our institutions, and our borders, and our media, and our legal systems. Somehow God’s call to “love the stranger because we were once strangers ourselves” gets tangled up in red tape – and too often in violence.

We need to do better than we have done in the past – and I believe we can.

Another thing that troubles me is taking in the worldwide view: the big picture of global immigration. Things are worse now, in many parts of the world, than they were in Europe at the end of WWII. At the end of that war, there were millions of people displaced from their homes and their countries. There were children who had been forced from their parents. There were survivors of the prison camps. There were POWs and MIAs from many nations. There were children who had been sent to foreign countries for safety; and all these people had to somehow find their way back to their homes across land that had been bombed into rubble. It often took years to reunite those families – if indeed reunion was possible at all.

Today in many parts of the world, things are worse than this.  Just to give a few examples: in countries like Myanmar in Asia, civilians and children are considered fair game as targets in a civil war. And in the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo in Africa, rape has become a weapon of war. Over six million people in the DRC have died since that war started.

Many of us can remember a few years ago in the news, that terrible photo of the young Syrian boy lying face down on the sand. Many of us remember the words of the poet, Warsan Shire, who wrote:

“…no one puts their children in a boat
unless the water is safer than the land…”

That photo was taken eight years ago; and the situation in Syria has not improved. We don’t hear about it in the news any more, but their civil war is still going on. Over 3 million people have left Syria, running for their lives, running away from a government that drops bombs on its own people.

In total, the United Nations estimates there are over 108 million displaced people in the world today – it’s a number beyond imagining. 108 million people who cannot go home if they want to stay alive.

Most of these people don’t want to come to America, because America is too far away and too expensive to get to. Most refugees travel to a country close to home – which makes sense. This explains why the top five receiving countries – countries who allow refugees in – are Turkiye (3.6 million), Iran (3.4 million), Colombia (2.5 million), Germany (2.1 million), and Pakistan (1.7 million), in that order. All of these countries have welcomed more than a million refugees.

(source: Advocates for Human Rights)

What troubles me, though, is why we’re not doing more. Our government sets limits every year on how many refugees the United States will take in. The highest number in recent history was under Ronald Reagan back in 1980 – we received 230,000 people – almost a quarter-million. In 2020, 40 years later, the number was only 18,000. I can’t help wondering why the greatest country in the world isn’t doing better than that.

I don’t think it’s because we don’t want to. I recently visited the website of the City of El Paso, Texas – which has been in the eye of the immigration storm for years. Their website says this about the refugees who arrive there:

“The City of El Paso places our priority on the individual migrant, providing food and water, connectivity, transportation assistance, and temporary shelter if needed. … The people crossing [the Rio Grande] come from all parts of the world to escape economic devastation and extreme crime.”

Their website goes on to say El Paso receives approximately 900 people every day – which works out to over 300,000 per year. This does not mean 300,000 people have moved into Texas; some people cross the border to go to work every day and then go back home to Mexico. Some people want to emigrate, so they apply and then return to Mexico to wait. Some people request asylum, which is legal to do, and these people are sent to holding facilities – detention centers – to wait to have their cases heard in court.

This can take months… which is where our Book Club book, The House That Love Built, comes in. Asylum can be granted to a person if that person can prove persecution or threat of bodily harm based on “race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group”.[1]

The city of El Paso is doing their best to help, and so is the city of Juarez across the river in Mexico. The detention centers, however, have become what’s called a “growth industry”. They are not government-run; they are for-profit facilities usually built in rural areas to create jobs. (We have four of them in Pennsylvania on the eastern end of the state.)

The detention centers are like jails in everything but name. And because they’re built for profit, the owners keep the budgets as lean as possible – which means poor food and poor medical care for the people inside. These people – who are guilty of nothing – find themselves without rights: not even the right to a lawyer or a phone call.

So immigration concerns me because I care about justice and fairness and humane treatment for people in need.

Finally, the last – and best – reason I’m involved in working with immigrants is because the people I’ve met, who are newly-arrived in our community, are amazingly good people: hard-working, family-oriented, salt-of-the-earth men, women, and children. To share the stories of just a couple of them: There’s a mother and father from South America whose children have been winning awards for their schoolwork in our local elementary school. Then there’s another mother, about my age, from Ukraine, who went back over to the old country and risked her life to find her son and bring him here, bring him home to safety. There are so many more real-life stories of wonderful people who live in our neighborhoods.

(Credit: Pittsburgh Tribune Review – new citizens taking the oath)

As we’ve heard in the scriptures today, God teaches us to show kindness and welcome to the stranger. God talks about justice. What I hope to do – what I hope to continue to do – is to show God’s welcome and God’s caring, even if it’s just in small ways.

And when we’re open to doing something, when we’re willing to follow the Lord’s leading, opportunities come: and that includes for our little book club. As we were reading and sharing, one of us discovered that the House That Love Built has a ministry to the people in these detention centers called Cartas de Paz, or Letters of Peace.

So I sent an email to the Casa to ask about this, and long story short, one of their volunteers ran a training class for our Book Club via Zoom this past Tuesday, and now we can help! We had to be trained because it’s not legal for individuals to write to people in detention directly, but we can write to them through Casa de Paz.

Sending a greeting card or a quick letter might seem like a very small thing, but it’s a huge thing for the people receiving them. Being shut up in a detention center for months, often without contact from family or friends, can wear a person’s soul down. Just one letter, even from a stranger, can bring light and caring to someone who is very lonely. This is water to the thirsty if ever there was.

Someday every one of us, myself included, will answer to the things Jesus asks about in our gospel reading. Jesus says: “I was hungry… I was thirsty… I was a stranger… I was naked… I was sick… I was in prison.” Jesus identifies with the poorest and the weakest, the homeless and the imprisoned.  These are the people Jesus can be found with. And where Jesus is, that’s where I want to be. And as your pastor, I encourage you to join me there – join us there – in any way that you are able.

I want to encourage everyone, when the subject of immigration comes up in conversation, to remember that each one of these millions of people who have no country and no home to go to, each one is a person made in the image of God – someone who Jesus loves. Remind people of that when you have the chance.

Barack Obama once said:

“A child on the other side of the border is no less worthy of love and compassion than my own child.”

I couldn’t have said it better. Please keep these folks in your prayers. Keep our national leaders in your prayers. Pray that we as a nation will do justice, and love mercy, and walk humbly with our God. AMEN.

[1] https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/refugees-and-asylum/asylum