What’s the point of all this? Of shouting “Hosanna” and then “Crucify Him!?”
What is the point of Holy Week?
What’s the point of opening our hearts to all the sadness?
What’s the point of highlighting the betrayers, the deniers, the hiders, the liars and the terrified?
What’s the point of lamenting the loss, the emptiness, the death of Love?
What’s the point of descending into the depths of the grave, of nothingness, of despair?
What is the point of going through it? It’s violent, it’s scary and it’s depressing…
Just like the 6 o’ clock news.
The Rev. Rhonda Waters wrote a terrific article I shared on Facebook a week or so ago…and while her article focused on why she and her husband bring their children into the fullness of all that Holy Week is, I think her words apply to all of us:
The world is not a safe place. God knew that before the Word was made flesh. Jesus knew that before his flesh was subjected to violence and death. The world is not a safe place, but the Word was still made flesh and Jesus still taught the radical good news of God’s Kingdom because the world is not a hopeless place. In fact, the world is a deeply loved and loveable place, and Holy Week invites us to confront the depth of both of these truths.
As Christians, we need to experience Holy Week in its fullness… By participating in these days we learn that popularity is not all it seems, that service is a sign of strength, that empire will go to horrifying lengths to preserve itself, that innocent people are sometimes punished, and that good people sometimes suffer. We also learn that God loves the world anyway and that God’s love is always stronger than hate and injustice.
God’s love is ALWAYS stronger than anything THIS world can throw at us.
This is the journey of Holy Week, in which we emerge beyond the guilt and fear and pain in order to proclaim the victory of love, revealed on Easter but too often hidden from view in our daily lives.
The world is not a safe place, but it is a powerfully loved place. The liturgies of Holy Week give us a chance to not only hear but to experience both of these truths so that we can live wisely, compassionately, and without fear.
I find Rhonda’s words eloquent and wise and I commend them to you.
So, as I did on Ash Wednesday when on behalf of the church I invited you to the observance of a Holy Lent, today I invite to the observance of a Holy Week.
I invite you to walk with us as we enter the pain and emerge in the glory.
I invite you, not because I think suffering is noble, or because I think you don’t deserve your Easter chocolate without some Holy Week pain. No I invite you because Holy Week exposes us for who we are--- fallible, broken, trying the best we can but often messing it up--- human beings.
Holy Week, in a very concentrated way, outlines what the human experience is all about:
We try. Really hard.
We have the best of intentions. The Best.
But we aren’t always that great at following through.
The fact is, we blow it. A lot.
We don’t always respect the dignity of every human being.
We don’t love everyone everywhere, all the time, no exceptions.
We don’t make time for God.
We sometimes forget God all together.
We shy from our faith outside these doors.
We love Jesus, but we really try to avoid talking about him.
We have a tendency to get caught up in the here and now of this world instead of the hope and promise of the next.
We feel terrible about the state of the world but often forget that the only way this world will change is if we set out to change it. One tiny act of hope and light and love at a time.
Holy week teaches us that in spite of our failings, in spite of our misguided choices, in spite of us, God loves us.
Holy Week helps us learn that no matter how awful the pain, no matter how endless the despair, no matter how hopeless things seem, God will not be denied, Hope won’t disappear and Love? Love always wins.
Amen.
Sunday, March 29, 2015
Monday, March 23, 2015
Lent 5 2015 Preached by John Harris
Sermon Lent 5 - 2015
When Maddie was just a bit short of two years old, she dressed up as Tinkerbell for Halloween. It was a super cute outfit, the green tights, the little wings, and, of course, the magic wand. As any nearly two-year-old would assume, when Maddie was dressed up like this, she literally became Tinkerbell, working wand and all. So as we are getting ready to go trick-or-treating she looks over at Sam, who was dressed up as a pterodactyl. She points the wand right at him and says, “Toof!” That would translate as tooth, for those of you who don’t speak two-year-old. Nothing happens. She stares at the wand for a second, then points it at Sam again. “Toof!” Again nothing. At this point, she turns to me, shakes her head sadly, and says, “This wand no work.”
We will return to Sam and Maddie briefly toward the end, but for now let’s talk about our Old Testament passage.
Jeremiah gives us the language of change. God is establishing a new covenant, and the terms of this covenant serve to create a new people. But notice the phrasing: I shall be their God and they shall be my people. This same basic promise was made to Abraham, and to Moses, and to many other prophets, patriarchs, and matriarchs before Jeremiah. God was already their God, and they were already God's people. Yet with this new covenant, God wants them to recognize in a new way a fact that was already true: That God is their God, and that they are God's people.
To illustrate what is going on here, let me give an example from my work. I work at M&T, and a big part of my job is explaining complicated concepts about securities over the phone. Now a challenge of this job, if you are me and have a tendency to talk with your hands, is that you cannot communicate anything with body language. There are times that I would love to do a video chat, because just by waving my hands the point would be so much clearer. Oh you don’t understand what a market-linked CD is? (exaggerated hand waives) Well, how about now? I feel that God is doing something similar in this new covenant. God has tried to make the previous point, now God tries to say it again with a little more handwaving, handwaving that we might call the incarnation, and that we will get to in a minute.
But there is further point to be brought out of this language about a new covenant. Jeremiah speaks in the context of the fall of Jerusalem and the exile. In a book about destruction, but also of lamentation, this is an extended note of hope. Jeremiah is the weeping prophet, but here he foresees comfort. Jeremiah lamented at length the destruction of his homeland, but here he saw hope for the future. Here he saw that temporary trials and travails, no matter how severe, were not enough to destroy the good that God could and would do. Here Jeremiah gave us in miniature the lesson of lent.
Turning to the gospel now, Jesus makes the same point, though in a bit more obscure way. Using the analogy of a grain of wheat, Jesus says, "unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." The death of the grain of wheat, then, is not the end. It is instead the start of something much greater. In the context of the upcoming crucifixion and resurrection, this basic point about a plant gains a lot more force.
Context is key to understanding this passage. In John's gospel, this story follows immediately after Palm Sunday. Not only do we get the Easter story about good, about hope, coming from unspeakable darkness. We also get the Lenten story of dark coming out of joy. The story of the Christian life covers the full spectrum, as does the story of Lent through Easter: we go from joy to pain to joy again.
This topic always makes me think of the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He had a gift for expressing these ideas with amazing insight. In an article in 1958, he wrote:
Evil may so shape events that Caesar will occupy a palace and Christ a cross, but that same Christ arose and split history into A.D. and B.C., so that even the life of Caesar must be dated by his name. Yes, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” There is something in the universe which justifies William Cullen Bryant in saying, “Truth crushed to earth will rise again.”
But to add on to Dr. King’s words, we see good triumph, we see the victory of joy over pain, we see the triumph of the resurrection over the Crucifixion, because we constantly strive toward them. We strive as we are enabled by a loving God. We strive to surpass the limits of the problems and sadness and darkness that hold us back.
Remembering our first story, about Maddie and the wand, even on days when you want to turn your brother into a toof, that is not the end of the relationship. Whether we are talking about one bad relationship or ten, one bad job or ten, one crushing loss or ten, that is not the end. Our gospel tells us that we can persevere through the dark times of lent, through stories of dying and the supremacy of death, to the greater truth of Christ conquering death, and hope and joy triumphing over pain.
I want to wrap up by talking a bit about that word I just used, gospel. One time, my family and I were walking out of a barbecue place in Tulsa, OK, when a woman came up to me and asked, “are you saved?” I said was a little startled but quickly said yes, and she went on her way I’m certain convinced that she had shared the gospel that day. Gospel in the New Testament is the Greek work euangelion, which means literally “good news.” What was the good news in what that random woman said to a total stranger? No. The good news that we have, the gospel that we share, is that God through Jesus Christ triumphed over death, that joy will triumph over pain, that Easter will follow Lent, and that we can always trust in the power of the resurrection following upon the terror of the crucifixion.
As C.S. Lewis said, “No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. Those who knock it is opened.”
Amen.
When Maddie was just a bit short of two years old, she dressed up as Tinkerbell for Halloween. It was a super cute outfit, the green tights, the little wings, and, of course, the magic wand. As any nearly two-year-old would assume, when Maddie was dressed up like this, she literally became Tinkerbell, working wand and all. So as we are getting ready to go trick-or-treating she looks over at Sam, who was dressed up as a pterodactyl. She points the wand right at him and says, “Toof!” That would translate as tooth, for those of you who don’t speak two-year-old. Nothing happens. She stares at the wand for a second, then points it at Sam again. “Toof!” Again nothing. At this point, she turns to me, shakes her head sadly, and says, “This wand no work.”
We will return to Sam and Maddie briefly toward the end, but for now let’s talk about our Old Testament passage.
Jeremiah gives us the language of change. God is establishing a new covenant, and the terms of this covenant serve to create a new people. But notice the phrasing: I shall be their God and they shall be my people. This same basic promise was made to Abraham, and to Moses, and to many other prophets, patriarchs, and matriarchs before Jeremiah. God was already their God, and they were already God's people. Yet with this new covenant, God wants them to recognize in a new way a fact that was already true: That God is their God, and that they are God's people.
To illustrate what is going on here, let me give an example from my work. I work at M&T, and a big part of my job is explaining complicated concepts about securities over the phone. Now a challenge of this job, if you are me and have a tendency to talk with your hands, is that you cannot communicate anything with body language. There are times that I would love to do a video chat, because just by waving my hands the point would be so much clearer. Oh you don’t understand what a market-linked CD is? (exaggerated hand waives) Well, how about now? I feel that God is doing something similar in this new covenant. God has tried to make the previous point, now God tries to say it again with a little more handwaving, handwaving that we might call the incarnation, and that we will get to in a minute.
But there is further point to be brought out of this language about a new covenant. Jeremiah speaks in the context of the fall of Jerusalem and the exile. In a book about destruction, but also of lamentation, this is an extended note of hope. Jeremiah is the weeping prophet, but here he foresees comfort. Jeremiah lamented at length the destruction of his homeland, but here he saw hope for the future. Here he saw that temporary trials and travails, no matter how severe, were not enough to destroy the good that God could and would do. Here Jeremiah gave us in miniature the lesson of lent.
Turning to the gospel now, Jesus makes the same point, though in a bit more obscure way. Using the analogy of a grain of wheat, Jesus says, "unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." The death of the grain of wheat, then, is not the end. It is instead the start of something much greater. In the context of the upcoming crucifixion and resurrection, this basic point about a plant gains a lot more force.
Context is key to understanding this passage. In John's gospel, this story follows immediately after Palm Sunday. Not only do we get the Easter story about good, about hope, coming from unspeakable darkness. We also get the Lenten story of dark coming out of joy. The story of the Christian life covers the full spectrum, as does the story of Lent through Easter: we go from joy to pain to joy again.
This topic always makes me think of the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He had a gift for expressing these ideas with amazing insight. In an article in 1958, he wrote:
Evil may so shape events that Caesar will occupy a palace and Christ a cross, but that same Christ arose and split history into A.D. and B.C., so that even the life of Caesar must be dated by his name. Yes, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” There is something in the universe which justifies William Cullen Bryant in saying, “Truth crushed to earth will rise again.”
But to add on to Dr. King’s words, we see good triumph, we see the victory of joy over pain, we see the triumph of the resurrection over the Crucifixion, because we constantly strive toward them. We strive as we are enabled by a loving God. We strive to surpass the limits of the problems and sadness and darkness that hold us back.
Remembering our first story, about Maddie and the wand, even on days when you want to turn your brother into a toof, that is not the end of the relationship. Whether we are talking about one bad relationship or ten, one bad job or ten, one crushing loss or ten, that is not the end. Our gospel tells us that we can persevere through the dark times of lent, through stories of dying and the supremacy of death, to the greater truth of Christ conquering death, and hope and joy triumphing over pain.
I want to wrap up by talking a bit about that word I just used, gospel. One time, my family and I were walking out of a barbecue place in Tulsa, OK, when a woman came up to me and asked, “are you saved?” I said was a little startled but quickly said yes, and she went on her way I’m certain convinced that she had shared the gospel that day. Gospel in the New Testament is the Greek work euangelion, which means literally “good news.” What was the good news in what that random woman said to a total stranger? No. The good news that we have, the gospel that we share, is that God through Jesus Christ triumphed over death, that joy will triumph over pain, that Easter will follow Lent, and that we can always trust in the power of the resurrection following upon the terror of the crucifixion.
As C.S. Lewis said, “No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. Those who knock it is opened.”
Amen.
Sunday, March 15, 2015
The Cross of Amazing Grace Lent 4 2015 Yr B
+Well these are some interesting readings aren’t they? Raging, whiny Israelites, a vengeful and mean God (I mean, really….poisonous snakes, biting people left and right? Seriously, God?) and then “God so loved the world, God came to us in the flesh, in the person of Jesus Christ.”
Which is it? Does God love us beyond all measure or does God also have that dark and vengeful side?
Now, I do think that the God of the Hebrew scripture was, well, a little moody, but I don’t think our God has ever been mean, vengeful and spiteful.
Even though, after reading our story from Numbers today, one could make a case for a mean God, I maintain that God is, like God’s creation, evolving, growing, moving, changing.
To me the wonder of today’s readings is this---our behavior toward one another and toward God hasn’t gotten any better over the generations—but God will not be deterred. Even though when God came to live among us, as one of us, in the person of Jesus Christ, we killed him on that tree, God still loves us.
Seriously folks, our God is indeed an awesome God, because I don’t know about you, but I can’t even IMAGINE being able to forgive the death of my child. And yet, God did forgive us, God does forgive us. Again and again and again.
God’s reaction to our ultimate rejection---the death of Jesus-- was an act of Love …it was an act of unmitigated, inexplicable, unquantifiable Grace-filled Love.
You see, as we head toward the last two weeks of Lent, I think it is important that we get real clear about what is about to happen. Humanity, the very people God came to live among in the person of Jesus killed God. And God forgave us. Jesus had to die, it’s the cornerstone of our faith, but why he died is a matter of theological debate. My stance is that Jesus died to defeat death---the Jewish authorities and the Romans thought death by crucifixion would, once and for all, squash this crazy movement about love for all, no exceptions… but they didn’t know the rest of the story, did they? They didn’t know that death was no match for Love.
But Love still hasn’t won the day…there are still those who maintain that God sacrificed Jesus due to our sins. This is known as “Atonement Theology.” Atonement theology states that Jesus died on the cross as a sacrifice for our sins. That Jesus dies because we were bad.
Now while we often use phrases that suggest atonement theology in our liturgy, that isn’t what they—at least to me and many others—mean.
Yes, Jesus died for our sins, this is true. But not as a ransom. It wasn’t like God decided: “ the only way these people will learn is to send them my Son and then have him killed. That’ll teach ‘em.”. And when you hear today’s first reading it makes sense…in many instances God does appears vengeful, spiteful and down right mean. Mean enough to send Godself in the flesh to be tortured and killed….just to get a point across.
But that’s not it.
By the time God decided to walk among us as Jesus, God had changed. Our evolving, dynamic God is still figuring it all out. When God gave humanity free will God gave up a lot of control. And so, as we have engaged in free will, we have made a boatload of lousy choices. We have rejected God’s overtures again and again and again. So finally…finally God came among us, as one of us, to help God “figure us out.”
A significant part of this “figuring out” is outlined in today’s Gospel.
But, here’s the surprise… instead of figuring US out, God coming to us as Jesus helps US figure this out: God loves us. No matter what.
For God so loved the world, God came to be among us and God experienced us at our worst as we took God in the flesh and nailed him to a tree, once more turning our backs on God.
And God so loved the world—God so loved US that God didn’t turn God’s back on us.
God took the worst that humanity could offer and turned it around. It’s the ultimate re-frame, the ultimate “life gives you lemons you make lemonade” scenario. God took God’s own death and made it the singular most loving action of all time. God, once again, turned it all upside down and inside out.
God, in the person of Jesus Christ, didn’t die on the cross as a ransom for our misbehavior-- Jesus’ death on the cross isn’t tit for tat, Jesus’ death on the cross isn’t the point. It’s what happened after Jesus died on the cross that’s the point….there’s the Resurrection—that’s important---but that’s not what I mean.
No the thing that happened after Jesus’ death, the thing that is so amazing, incredible and unprecedented is:
NOTHING HAPPEN.
Or maybe EVERYTHING Happened.
God so loved the world that after the world killed God in the flesh, God continued to love us.
God’s grace just kept flowing and flowing and flowing.
Jesus’ death isn’t about paying a ransom or atoning for sins. The death of Jesus on the cross is about endless waves of love-filled grace.
The message of the cross isn’t just forgiveness, though we are certainly forgiven by God for our misdeeds, small and large.
The message of the cross is LOVE.
The message of the cross is GRACE.
Our job, then, is to live into this grace, to live into this Love.
Our job is to stop worrying about everything we haven’t done and wish we had; to stop worrying about what we’ve done and wish we hadn’t. Our job is to allow ourselves to be washed through and through by God’s amazing, astounding and abundant grace. And then, thoroughly awash in this Love, we will, we must, respond in kind. Loving others as we have been loved. The message of these next few weeks, the lesson of Jesus’ death upon that cross isn’t punishment for who we’ve been, it’s hope for who we can be. The message as we walk up to Calvary and descend deep into the grave isn’t punishment for our sins, it’s love in spite of our sins. +
Which is it? Does God love us beyond all measure or does God also have that dark and vengeful side?
Now, I do think that the God of the Hebrew scripture was, well, a little moody, but I don’t think our God has ever been mean, vengeful and spiteful.
Even though, after reading our story from Numbers today, one could make a case for a mean God, I maintain that God is, like God’s creation, evolving, growing, moving, changing.
To me the wonder of today’s readings is this---our behavior toward one another and toward God hasn’t gotten any better over the generations—but God will not be deterred. Even though when God came to live among us, as one of us, in the person of Jesus Christ, we killed him on that tree, God still loves us.
Seriously folks, our God is indeed an awesome God, because I don’t know about you, but I can’t even IMAGINE being able to forgive the death of my child. And yet, God did forgive us, God does forgive us. Again and again and again.
God’s reaction to our ultimate rejection---the death of Jesus-- was an act of Love …it was an act of unmitigated, inexplicable, unquantifiable Grace-filled Love.
You see, as we head toward the last two weeks of Lent, I think it is important that we get real clear about what is about to happen. Humanity, the very people God came to live among in the person of Jesus killed God. And God forgave us. Jesus had to die, it’s the cornerstone of our faith, but why he died is a matter of theological debate. My stance is that Jesus died to defeat death---the Jewish authorities and the Romans thought death by crucifixion would, once and for all, squash this crazy movement about love for all, no exceptions… but they didn’t know the rest of the story, did they? They didn’t know that death was no match for Love.
But Love still hasn’t won the day…there are still those who maintain that God sacrificed Jesus due to our sins. This is known as “Atonement Theology.” Atonement theology states that Jesus died on the cross as a sacrifice for our sins. That Jesus dies because we were bad.
Now while we often use phrases that suggest atonement theology in our liturgy, that isn’t what they—at least to me and many others—mean.
Yes, Jesus died for our sins, this is true. But not as a ransom. It wasn’t like God decided: “ the only way these people will learn is to send them my Son and then have him killed. That’ll teach ‘em.”. And when you hear today’s first reading it makes sense…in many instances God does appears vengeful, spiteful and down right mean. Mean enough to send Godself in the flesh to be tortured and killed….just to get a point across.
But that’s not it.
By the time God decided to walk among us as Jesus, God had changed. Our evolving, dynamic God is still figuring it all out. When God gave humanity free will God gave up a lot of control. And so, as we have engaged in free will, we have made a boatload of lousy choices. We have rejected God’s overtures again and again and again. So finally…finally God came among us, as one of us, to help God “figure us out.”
A significant part of this “figuring out” is outlined in today’s Gospel.
But, here’s the surprise… instead of figuring US out, God coming to us as Jesus helps US figure this out: God loves us. No matter what.
For God so loved the world, God came to be among us and God experienced us at our worst as we took God in the flesh and nailed him to a tree, once more turning our backs on God.
And God so loved the world—God so loved US that God didn’t turn God’s back on us.
God took the worst that humanity could offer and turned it around. It’s the ultimate re-frame, the ultimate “life gives you lemons you make lemonade” scenario. God took God’s own death and made it the singular most loving action of all time. God, once again, turned it all upside down and inside out.
God, in the person of Jesus Christ, didn’t die on the cross as a ransom for our misbehavior-- Jesus’ death on the cross isn’t tit for tat, Jesus’ death on the cross isn’t the point. It’s what happened after Jesus died on the cross that’s the point….there’s the Resurrection—that’s important---but that’s not what I mean.
No the thing that happened after Jesus’ death, the thing that is so amazing, incredible and unprecedented is:
NOTHING HAPPEN.
Or maybe EVERYTHING Happened.
God so loved the world that after the world killed God in the flesh, God continued to love us.
God’s grace just kept flowing and flowing and flowing.
Jesus’ death isn’t about paying a ransom or atoning for sins. The death of Jesus on the cross is about endless waves of love-filled grace.
The message of the cross isn’t just forgiveness, though we are certainly forgiven by God for our misdeeds, small and large.
The message of the cross is LOVE.
The message of the cross is GRACE.
Our job, then, is to live into this grace, to live into this Love.
Our job is to stop worrying about everything we haven’t done and wish we had; to stop worrying about what we’ve done and wish we hadn’t. Our job is to allow ourselves to be washed through and through by God’s amazing, astounding and abundant grace. And then, thoroughly awash in this Love, we will, we must, respond in kind. Loving others as we have been loved. The message of these next few weeks, the lesson of Jesus’ death upon that cross isn’t punishment for who we’ve been, it’s hope for who we can be. The message as we walk up to Calvary and descend deep into the grave isn’t punishment for our sins, it’s love in spite of our sins. +
Monday, March 9, 2015
Outrage and the 10 Best Ways to Live Lent 3 March 8 2015
+ Modern day Jerusalem is divided into East and West Jerusalem. East Jerusalem is part of the West Bank, a Palestinian territory and West Jerusalem is part of Israel. East Jerusalem includes the “old city” which is the Jerusalem referenced in the Bible. At the center of the old city is the temple—well what remains, part of the western wall and most of the northern —so whenever I hear the gospel we just heard I’m transported back to my time in the old city. And I totally “get” Jesus’ rage. The old city, including the area around all the Christian hot spots the hill that is Calvary, the tomb and the courtyard where Jesus was “tried,” is crowded, dirty, loud and everywhere you turn someone is hawking this that or the other thing. It is really difficult, until you’ve been there a few days, to find the Holy in the old city. My first few days I really disliked the Old City, I couldn’t wait to get out of there. So yes, I really get Jesus’ rage at turning his “father’s house” into a den of thieves.
The Middle East has the same problem that we here in the relative peace and tranquility of the Great Lakes’ region of North America have---people don’t resepct the sanctity of sacred space. You’ve heard me lament about the people who clamor to see our windows, walking in and treating this space as a museum rather than a worship space. But it isn’t just tourists---a few weeks ago I did a private baptism on a Saturday morning---one of the people attending the baptism sent the entire service taking pictures of our windows!!! People don’t respect the sanctity of our worship space, nor do people respect the faith that is proclaimed within these walls. It’s a special challenge here at GS. Mr. Jewett wanted this place to be a community gathering spot for the Parkside neighborhood and we certainly try to honor his vision. Usually the two functions, a sacred place of worship and a community gathering spot works, but when it doesn’t work, the sanctity of our worship is what suffers. Yep, I get Jesus’ rage.
Some days I become discouraged, feeling as if the world is simply passing us by.
Of course, the most common response to laments such as mine is: well people just don’t know, they aren’t taught respect for the church, they don’t know that their behavior is offensive.
And these folks are probably right—people don’t know. People aren’t taught. People don’t learn.
Not now, and not 3500 years ago when Moses was given the ten commandments on Mt Sinai.
In Godly Play the lesson about the Ten Commandments is called The Ten Best Ways to Live. I think this is a better title, for they really serve as guidelines for a better living. These guidelines--these best ways to live---will, when followed, keep us on the right track, keep us focused.
They help us keep our side of the street clean.
And that’s the real link between today’s reading from Hebrew Scripture and our New Testament reading. Jesus was cleansing the temple---ridding his Father’s, our Creator’s, house of trash. Clearing the way so the focus of the worshippers would be on God instead of on stuff. The ten best ways to live do just this, they cleanse us, freeing us from distraction and misdirection, allowing us to give God the attention and focus God deserves.
Listen to the Ten Best Ways to live again, hear them in a new way!
1. Love God and Love people. People are God’s creation, so loving people is loving God. And that is good.
2.God Loves us beyond all reason, so don’t worship other gods and don’t confuse stuff with God. [This is a big one because we easily confuse stuff with God.] Seeking happiness and security, a sense of worth from the stuff we have (or the stuff we want) instead of seeking our joy, our contentment in the one who is always ready to give us that security: God.
3. And speaking of God: Be serious when you say God’s name. Don’t toss it around as an expletive or in exasperation.
4. Keep the Sabbath holy…make one day solely for those whom you love, including God. These relationships need nurturing, our relationship with God, with all our loved ones: devote one day a week to this nurture.
5. Honor your parents and all who raise you. There is no more important job than raising children. We must always honor those who devoted themselves to our growth, our health, our well-being. And then we get into the don’ts. But these don’ts seem pretty reasonable:
6. Don’t kill. And don’t stand for the killing of others!
7. Don’t break your commitment to your spouse, your partner, your husband, your wife!
8. Don’t steal.
9.Don’t lie.
10. Don’t even want what others have.
These are GREAT guidelines. We really can’t go wrong if we follow them. Of course, we often confuse everything, complicating things. It really is as simple (not easy, but simple) as these best ways to live: keep our focus on God and on all those things in life which are God-given: love of family and friends, respect for creation, respect for each other. The Ten Commandments, if taken seriously, keep us from getting too self absorbed, keep us from getting too distracted, keep us from getting off track. The Ten Commandments keep us clean.
I don’t know if I’ll ever stop a wedding or a baptism or a funeral to rage at the drunk bridesmaid, or the oblivious photographer or at the man who insists on wearing his baseball cap throughout the service… I hope not. I don’t know if I’ll ever interrupt a tour group and scream, “this isn’t a museum, it is God’s house,” but I understand the desire to do so….but really, the frustration I feel, and the frustration Jesus felt isn’t for the merchants in the temple or the ignorant tourists, the frustration is for a culture, a society, that is so distracted, so wrapped up in the here and now, in the gaining more and more, in the having this and that, that the Love of God and respect for all that God has given us, gets lost in the shuffle.
So, as we settle into the middle of Lent, rage against those things that get in your way, rage against the distractions of your daily life, and free yourself to follow the good road, the one paved with the ten best ways to live.
The Middle East has the same problem that we here in the relative peace and tranquility of the Great Lakes’ region of North America have---people don’t resepct the sanctity of sacred space. You’ve heard me lament about the people who clamor to see our windows, walking in and treating this space as a museum rather than a worship space. But it isn’t just tourists---a few weeks ago I did a private baptism on a Saturday morning---one of the people attending the baptism sent the entire service taking pictures of our windows!!! People don’t respect the sanctity of our worship space, nor do people respect the faith that is proclaimed within these walls. It’s a special challenge here at GS. Mr. Jewett wanted this place to be a community gathering spot for the Parkside neighborhood and we certainly try to honor his vision. Usually the two functions, a sacred place of worship and a community gathering spot works, but when it doesn’t work, the sanctity of our worship is what suffers. Yep, I get Jesus’ rage.
Some days I become discouraged, feeling as if the world is simply passing us by.
Of course, the most common response to laments such as mine is: well people just don’t know, they aren’t taught respect for the church, they don’t know that their behavior is offensive.
And these folks are probably right—people don’t know. People aren’t taught. People don’t learn.
Not now, and not 3500 years ago when Moses was given the ten commandments on Mt Sinai.
In Godly Play the lesson about the Ten Commandments is called The Ten Best Ways to Live. I think this is a better title, for they really serve as guidelines for a better living. These guidelines--these best ways to live---will, when followed, keep us on the right track, keep us focused.
They help us keep our side of the street clean.
And that’s the real link between today’s reading from Hebrew Scripture and our New Testament reading. Jesus was cleansing the temple---ridding his Father’s, our Creator’s, house of trash. Clearing the way so the focus of the worshippers would be on God instead of on stuff. The ten best ways to live do just this, they cleanse us, freeing us from distraction and misdirection, allowing us to give God the attention and focus God deserves.
Listen to the Ten Best Ways to live again, hear them in a new way!
1. Love God and Love people. People are God’s creation, so loving people is loving God. And that is good.
2.God Loves us beyond all reason, so don’t worship other gods and don’t confuse stuff with God. [This is a big one because we easily confuse stuff with God.] Seeking happiness and security, a sense of worth from the stuff we have (or the stuff we want) instead of seeking our joy, our contentment in the one who is always ready to give us that security: God.
3. And speaking of God: Be serious when you say God’s name. Don’t toss it around as an expletive or in exasperation.
4. Keep the Sabbath holy…make one day solely for those whom you love, including God. These relationships need nurturing, our relationship with God, with all our loved ones: devote one day a week to this nurture.
5. Honor your parents and all who raise you. There is no more important job than raising children. We must always honor those who devoted themselves to our growth, our health, our well-being. And then we get into the don’ts. But these don’ts seem pretty reasonable:
6. Don’t kill. And don’t stand for the killing of others!
7. Don’t break your commitment to your spouse, your partner, your husband, your wife!
8. Don’t steal.
9.Don’t lie.
10. Don’t even want what others have.
These are GREAT guidelines. We really can’t go wrong if we follow them. Of course, we often confuse everything, complicating things. It really is as simple (not easy, but simple) as these best ways to live: keep our focus on God and on all those things in life which are God-given: love of family and friends, respect for creation, respect for each other. The Ten Commandments, if taken seriously, keep us from getting too self absorbed, keep us from getting too distracted, keep us from getting off track. The Ten Commandments keep us clean.
I don’t know if I’ll ever stop a wedding or a baptism or a funeral to rage at the drunk bridesmaid, or the oblivious photographer or at the man who insists on wearing his baseball cap throughout the service… I hope not. I don’t know if I’ll ever interrupt a tour group and scream, “this isn’t a museum, it is God’s house,” but I understand the desire to do so….but really, the frustration I feel, and the frustration Jesus felt isn’t for the merchants in the temple or the ignorant tourists, the frustration is for a culture, a society, that is so distracted, so wrapped up in the here and now, in the gaining more and more, in the having this and that, that the Love of God and respect for all that God has given us, gets lost in the shuffle.
So, as we settle into the middle of Lent, rage against those things that get in your way, rage against the distractions of your daily life, and free yourself to follow the good road, the one paved with the ten best ways to live.
Sunday, March 1, 2015
Lent 2 Yr B March 1, 2015: All Sufficient Lenten Love
+Abraham laughs.
God gets a little needy.
Paul hits the nail on the head.
And Jesus loses it a bit.
Yes, we’re in Lent, where all pretense is stripped away and we get down and dirty with this thing called faith.
Lent is when we’re reminded just why God had to come and be among us in the flesh, in the person of Jesus Christ…
..Lent is when we’re reminded that our relationship with God has been, more often than not, pretty rocky and that together we, humanity and God, have had our ups and downs…
..Lent’s when we’re reminded of just how difficult it is for God to understand us, God’s beloved; and how difficult it is for us to understand God.
Things gets all stripped down in Lent because this stuff can be confusing and we don’t have much time---40 days give or take---to make sense of God’s love for us and our love for God before we dive headlong into the crux of our faith, those heart wrenching, faith challenging three days.
It’s in Lent when we wrestle with our limitations while learning to accept God’s limitlessness.
Lent is when we get clear that while we may see through a glass dimly, God sees all that has been all that is and all that will be.
Lent is when we get real clear about who God is, The Divine and who we are, the Not Divine.
Lent is when we practice living fully into who we are rather than who we are not.
Scary? Sure.
Exciting? Yes.
Surprising? Always.
Lent’s not easy, but when has being a Christian ever been easy? What we learn from our readings today, what we learn from the beautiful struggle of our individual wilderness experiences is this: standing up for those who have no standing, demanding dignity for all, protecting our children, our elderly, our downcast isn’t easy, pretty or fun.
But we don’t tackle any of this alone because, as promised to Abraham in the book of Genesis and as promised in the birth of Jesus himself, God never stops reaching out to us, reaching out for us. God never leaves.
We have a great example of this in today’s first reading from Genesis. This reading is famous for being the one where God renames Abram and Sarai, Abraham and Sarah, making them the parents of a multitude of nations rather than just parents of one…but the first name change, the first change of focus, the first new identity isn’t theirs….it’s God’s. You see, up until now in Genesis God’s name has been The Most High God (El Elyon) or the God who sees me (El Roi), here in chapter 17 is the first time God refers to God’s self as El Shaddai, the All Sufficient, All Encompassing One. Today, God, Abram and Sarai all get new names,
New identities.
It’s seems clear here---God is making something all together new and God has begun with God’s very self.
Now embracing a new identity, whether it’s a name change, a life change or a faith change, can be pretty unsettling. So God, in God’s All Sufficient and All Encompassing manner paves the way by going first. God tells Abraham, “yes I am leading you into a new identity, I am leading you into the all together new, but I’m going first, just follow me.” God then proceeds to tell Abraham that he and Sarah will have many descendants that God will make fertile and lively that which had been infertile and dying---
Of course Abraham has no idea what God’s talking about---our translation says that Abraham falls on his face which, at first blush, suggests that he assumed a posture of adoration and worship but in truth, the Hebrew word used here suggests less adoration and more incredulity, less worship and more shock. Less falling down in joy and wonder and more tripping over his own feet while saying, “you’re gonna what?????”
And, in a scene of beautiful longing, El Shaddai, the All Encompassing All Sufficient One, doesn’t smite Abraham for disbelief, doesn’t move on to to someone else. No God persists. Imploring, maybe even begging, Abraham to believe. “Yes, Abraham, I’m talking to you, YOU and Sarah are the ones through which I am going to do this marvelous thing. I want, I need I long for YOU to do this with me.”
Here it is in black and white: God reaches out to us, God longs for us, God, even in God’s all encompassing, all sufficient divinity, does not, can not, will not walk this path alone. God needs, God wants, God longs for us, the descendants of Father Abraham and Mother Sarah, to walk alongside.
This is where the rest of today’s readings come in…. Paul, in Romans, goes on and on about the Law vs. Faith, what he’s working out, what he’s realizing is, to coin a phrase from another of Paul’s letters:
there is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, man or woman…every one, all of us, any of us, each of us, are invited to journey with the Almighty, All Encompassing All Sufficient Love that is God.
This is why Jesus loses it with Peter…Peter can’t bear the thought that Jesus would have to endure what Jesus will endure. He cannot fathom it, so he denies that it is true.
What Jesus is saying to us, through Peter, is this:
Yes I have great trials ahead—we all have great trials that we endure, we all have great crosses to bear, we all are constantly and relentlessly pulled toward the darkness of Not God but through the promise of the Almighty One, El Shaddai, we can walk through the dark and barren valleys of life because we are never ever alone. Jesus is telling Peter and us just what God was telling Abraham, just what Paul figured out in his letter to the church in Rome: we are in this together. We are invited we are all wanted, we are all needed. The path won’t always be smooth, the way not always easy, but together, walking with the God who created us, the God who redeems us and the God who sustains us we will make it. So, welcome to Lent, welcome to faith, welcome to the all-encompassing, all sufficient Love that leads the way. Amen.
God gets a little needy.
Paul hits the nail on the head.
And Jesus loses it a bit.
Yes, we’re in Lent, where all pretense is stripped away and we get down and dirty with this thing called faith.
Lent is when we’re reminded just why God had to come and be among us in the flesh, in the person of Jesus Christ…
..Lent is when we’re reminded that our relationship with God has been, more often than not, pretty rocky and that together we, humanity and God, have had our ups and downs…
..Lent’s when we’re reminded of just how difficult it is for God to understand us, God’s beloved; and how difficult it is for us to understand God.
Things gets all stripped down in Lent because this stuff can be confusing and we don’t have much time---40 days give or take---to make sense of God’s love for us and our love for God before we dive headlong into the crux of our faith, those heart wrenching, faith challenging three days.
It’s in Lent when we wrestle with our limitations while learning to accept God’s limitlessness.
Lent is when we get clear that while we may see through a glass dimly, God sees all that has been all that is and all that will be.
Lent is when we get real clear about who God is, The Divine and who we are, the Not Divine.
Lent is when we practice living fully into who we are rather than who we are not.
Scary? Sure.
Exciting? Yes.
Surprising? Always.
Lent’s not easy, but when has being a Christian ever been easy? What we learn from our readings today, what we learn from the beautiful struggle of our individual wilderness experiences is this: standing up for those who have no standing, demanding dignity for all, protecting our children, our elderly, our downcast isn’t easy, pretty or fun.
But we don’t tackle any of this alone because, as promised to Abraham in the book of Genesis and as promised in the birth of Jesus himself, God never stops reaching out to us, reaching out for us. God never leaves.
We have a great example of this in today’s first reading from Genesis. This reading is famous for being the one where God renames Abram and Sarai, Abraham and Sarah, making them the parents of a multitude of nations rather than just parents of one…but the first name change, the first change of focus, the first new identity isn’t theirs….it’s God’s. You see, up until now in Genesis God’s name has been The Most High God (El Elyon) or the God who sees me (El Roi), here in chapter 17 is the first time God refers to God’s self as El Shaddai, the All Sufficient, All Encompassing One. Today, God, Abram and Sarai all get new names,
New identities.
It’s seems clear here---God is making something all together new and God has begun with God’s very self.
Now embracing a new identity, whether it’s a name change, a life change or a faith change, can be pretty unsettling. So God, in God’s All Sufficient and All Encompassing manner paves the way by going first. God tells Abraham, “yes I am leading you into a new identity, I am leading you into the all together new, but I’m going first, just follow me.” God then proceeds to tell Abraham that he and Sarah will have many descendants that God will make fertile and lively that which had been infertile and dying---
Of course Abraham has no idea what God’s talking about---our translation says that Abraham falls on his face which, at first blush, suggests that he assumed a posture of adoration and worship but in truth, the Hebrew word used here suggests less adoration and more incredulity, less worship and more shock. Less falling down in joy and wonder and more tripping over his own feet while saying, “you’re gonna what?????”
And, in a scene of beautiful longing, El Shaddai, the All Encompassing All Sufficient One, doesn’t smite Abraham for disbelief, doesn’t move on to to someone else. No God persists. Imploring, maybe even begging, Abraham to believe. “Yes, Abraham, I’m talking to you, YOU and Sarah are the ones through which I am going to do this marvelous thing. I want, I need I long for YOU to do this with me.”
Here it is in black and white: God reaches out to us, God longs for us, God, even in God’s all encompassing, all sufficient divinity, does not, can not, will not walk this path alone. God needs, God wants, God longs for us, the descendants of Father Abraham and Mother Sarah, to walk alongside.
This is where the rest of today’s readings come in…. Paul, in Romans, goes on and on about the Law vs. Faith, what he’s working out, what he’s realizing is, to coin a phrase from another of Paul’s letters:
there is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, man or woman…every one, all of us, any of us, each of us, are invited to journey with the Almighty, All Encompassing All Sufficient Love that is God.
This is why Jesus loses it with Peter…Peter can’t bear the thought that Jesus would have to endure what Jesus will endure. He cannot fathom it, so he denies that it is true.
What Jesus is saying to us, through Peter, is this:
Yes I have great trials ahead—we all have great trials that we endure, we all have great crosses to bear, we all are constantly and relentlessly pulled toward the darkness of Not God but through the promise of the Almighty One, El Shaddai, we can walk through the dark and barren valleys of life because we are never ever alone. Jesus is telling Peter and us just what God was telling Abraham, just what Paul figured out in his letter to the church in Rome: we are in this together. We are invited we are all wanted, we are all needed. The path won’t always be smooth, the way not always easy, but together, walking with the God who created us, the God who redeems us and the God who sustains us we will make it. So, welcome to Lent, welcome to faith, welcome to the all-encompassing, all sufficient Love that leads the way. Amen.
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