John the Evangelist & John the Beatle

 1 John 3:1-3

See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.

The Message version of that lesson from First John begins… “What marvelous love the Father has extended to us! Just look at it—we’re called children of God!  That’s who we really are!”  

This First John was laying out the immeasurable LOVE we have been given… it is the equipment we need to play the game we call life.  Now I think for many of us, LOVE plays in the background of our everyday lives, but this week in particular… THIS WEEK, I think we need to be very intentional and move the equipment of LOVE that we’ve been given into the foreground of our lives so that it can carry us through the week ahead.  

Another John, in another time, was also a strong advocate of the power of LOVE being in the foreground of our lives... not just playing somewhere in the background.  He talked about it this way:

Love, love, love

Love, love, love

Love, love, love

There's nothing you can do that can't be done

Nothing you can sing that can't be sung

Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game

It's easy

It IS easy!  He’s right!  And he’s right because of what that First John helped us to understand.  It’s easy… because the love we have is a complete and totally free gift from God!  We don’t make it or mold it… we don’t have to go find it, or refine it.  The powerful transformative gift of love is  ALREADY at work in you and in me!  It has made you now already, Children of God!  The other John sings it this way… 

Nothing you can make that can't be made

No one you can save that can't be saved

Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you in time

It's easy

All you need is love

All you need is love

All you need is love, love

Love is all you need

Love, love, love

Love, love, love

Love, love, love

All you need is love

All you need is love

All you need is love, love

Love is all you need

Now the First John will let you know that not everyone in the world will be able to see it.  They won’t be able to see you as the Child of God that you are... and they won’t be able to see themselves as the Children of God they are either.  It’s not that they aren’t.  It’s just that they haven’t yet learned to play the game.  Even though it’s easy!

Maybe the people who dismiss the power of love do it because they just can’t believe it could possibly be that easy?  Regardless of why, folks like that spend much of their lives feeling anxious and restless… frightened and nervous about what will happen next.  Because there is a lot of that going around these days, their anxiety and nervousness seems to be rubbing off on the rest of us.

So even those of you who regularly carry love in the foreground of your lives... even those of you who on regular days, really lean into the power of love… Even those of us who preach continually about the power of God’s transforming love… EVEN jokers like THAT!  We all need a little help... a boost for the week ahead... a reminder for this week that there is... 

Nothing you can know that isn't known

Nothing you can see that isn't shown

Nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be

It's easy

All you need is love

All you need is love

All you need is love, love

Love is all you need

We all need to re-hear this God’s-Honest-Truth from these two disciples of LOVE named John this week!  Each of us needs a reminder that we started off this life as dust and were transformed by Divine love… into the creation we are.  And because of that, each of us has the grandest of titles attached to our names… Child of God!  

We all need this reminder this week because as the First John once said, “the world doesn’t recognize us or take us seriously, because it has no idea who God is or what God is up to.”  We all need this reminder this week because as the Second John once said, “They, whoever they are, don’t stand a chance, because they can’t beat love. Because all those old bits from religion and that, about love being all-powerful, it’s true, you know. And that’s the bit they can’t do. They can’t handle it.” 

We all need this reminder because there are still those who can’t handle a life lived out of LOVE and because of that, they seek to draw us into their chaos, their hopelessness… down into anger, hatred and despair.  So we NEED this week in particular to be REMINDED of what we KNOW to be true!  

What we DO KNOW is that, on this side of the week ahead, WE ARE Children of God!  Formed from the dust of stars, with the creative power of Divine love, and named Children of God!  AND on the other side of this lifetime, on the other side of this infinitely long Covid year, and on the other side of this week… no matter how long or short any of those might be, we will STILL BE and will ALWAYS WILL BE, Children of God!  So take a deep breath and sing this mantra from the Second John with me throughout this coming week, this coming year and throughout our lifetime to come.  And REMEMBER through it all, it really is, all we need.

All you need is love (All together, now!)

All you need is love (Everybody!)

All you need is love, love

Love is all you need

Love is all you need (Love is all you need)

Love is all you need (Love is all you need)

Love is all you need (Love is all you need)

Love is all you need (Love is all you need)

Love is all you need (Love is all you need)

Love is all you need (Love is all you need)

Love is all you need (Love is all you need)

Love is all you need (Love is all you need)

Love is all you need (Love is all you need)

Love is all you need (Love is all you need)

Love is all you need (Love is all you need)

Yee-hai! (Love is all you need)

Love is all you need (Love is all you need)

Yesterday (Love is all you need)

Love is all you need (Love is all you need)

Love is all you need (Love is all you need)

Love is all you need (Love is all you need)

Oh yeah! (Love is all you need)

She loves you, yeah yeah yeah (Love is all you need)

She loves you, yeah yeah yeah (Love is all you need)

One Little Word

 Psalm 46

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.  

Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult.

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High.

God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be moved; God will help it when the morning dawns.  The nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms totter; he utters his voice, the earth melts.

The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.

Come, behold the works of the Lord; see what desolations he has brought on the earth.  He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow, and shatters the spear; he burns the shields with fire.

“Be still, and know that I am God! I am exalted among the nations, I am exalted in the earth.”

The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.

 

Martin Luther, back in 1527, right in the middle of the Plague… wrote about how Christians should act in the midst of that terrible time.  Some people, he wrote, “are much too rash and reckless, tempting God and disregarding everything which might counteract death and the plague. They disdain the use of medicines; they do not avoid places and persons infected by the plague, but lightheartedly make sport of it and wish to prove how independent they are… That is not trusting God but tempting him!”

Luther’s plague was caused by an infection from a bacterium since named Yersinia pestis.  Our plague of COVID-19 is caused by an infection of a virus named SARS-CoV-2.  Beyond those details of microbiological nomenclature, it would seem there are many similarities between the plague of 1527 and the plague of 2020.  We too have our own “rash and reckless” who tempt God by disregarding science. We too have those who “do not avoid places and persons infected by the plague, but lightheartedly make sport of it and wish to prove how independent they are.”  

Back in 1527 Luther felt that Psalm 46 spoke to that time.  He even set that Psalm to a popular beer drinking tune to create the hymn A Mighty Fortress is our God.  I think this Reformation Sunday I appreciate Psalm 46 more as Luther did than in any other year of my life.  This year HAS felt like the earth is changing, the mountains are shaking, and the waters are roaring.  This year, more than any other, feels like our nation IS in an uproar… our kingdom is tottering and if that weren’t enough, the earth is also melting with wildfires and receding glaciers!

 

Now, Luther didn’t put Psalm 46 to music just to rub in the horrors his people were dealing with in their time. He set that Psalm to music to remind his people how important it is to first NAME and BE HONEST about what they were going through AND THEN ALSO to remind them that God’s promises are always TRUE… EVEN when the troubles are as big as the earth shaking… even when the horrors are as awful as the Black Death!

It is really important for us to do both as well in our time.  We too must acknowledge, name, and face up to the realities that the world presents us, including the horrors of our time.  It is now more than 225,000 times clear, that shouting denials, demonizing medical experts, or calling it a hoax does not keep anyone safe from the plague of our day.  Both the Psalmist and Luther both recognized the importance of facing, with honesty, the realities of this life.  But both the Psalmist and Luther ALSO knew that just facing our realities was not where we should stop.  Regardless of how bad reality is… even when it’s as bad as plagues, mountains shaking, waters roaring, kingdoms tottering and the earth melting… there has been, there is now, and there always will be our God… standing with us through it all.  Our God, who is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.  Because of that Truth, the Psalmist, Luther and I will tell you all again… WE WILL NOT FEAR! 

We will NOT fear.  When the Psalmist, Luther and I tell you we “will not fear” it is because all three of us know that God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble and it is because of that TRUTH that we have been given the ability not to fear.  The three of us are not advocating denial!  The three of us all clearly lay out our time’s genuine realities, regardless of how terrible they are.  BUT IT IS BECAUSE we honestly face that reality WITH GOD, that we need not REACT to, or DEAL with those realities with fear… FEAR… which limits our brains to only our basest of instincts… fight or flight, attack or denial, rage or inaction.  

When we react out of fear, our brains only allow us to choose from those two polar options.  What the Psalmist, Luther and I are trying to remind you of today, is that with God as our our strength, our refuge, our present help, our mighty fortress, our calming mantra inside our heads… with God’s presence, however it is described, we can face all of it… the very real plagues, the insanity of these elections, tottering kingdoms and even the melting earth!  And we can face it all head on.  Because with God's presence we are not trapped in our responses by the limitations imposed on us by fear.  With God and without fear, we have access to the entire breadth and width of the human brains God has given us, and we can use those brains to confront and tackle even the darkest of this world’s horrors.  

In fear we only have access to the part of our brains we share with orange lizards, green turtles, and side-winding snakes.  With God as our bulwark, our champion, our sword and shield… with the Lord of Hosts standing with us, this world’s tyrants can rage all they want (and they want to rage a lot!) but we are rock-solid-guaranteed that every tyrant’s might is doomed to fail because ONE LITTLE WORD subdues them.  

That one little word is love.  It is with love that God created this world.  It is with love that God redeems this world and it is with love that God will move us all through every plague and tyrant’s rage and toward abundant life.  Living in fear we cut off our access to that love.  Standing with God as the Psalmist did... standing with God as Luther did... Standing with God as we do now... God calls us beyond the limitations of fear and into the limitless possibilities of love.  May you and I and all of creation be strengthened in the days ahead by God’s unmoving presence in our lives and may we join with God in living our lives out of the immeasurable power of that one little word.  Amen.

That Face

 Matthew 22:15-22

Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap him in what he said. 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. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the coin used for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius. Then he said to them, “Whose head is this, and whose title?” 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.” When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away.

Once again, Jesus dodges a trap set by two political groups who normally can’t agree on anything.  The Herodians had gotten rich and powerful by sucking up to the the Romans and supporting their puppet king Herod.  The Pharisees were the fundamentalists looking for God’s blessing.  The BIGGEST possible blessing, would be getting rid of the Herodians!

  
The trap (they thought) put Jesus in a no-win situation.  If Jesus said, “don’t pay taxes” the Herodians would get the Romans to literally crucify him for trying to start a revolution.  If Jesus said, “pay your taxes” the Pharisees would get him killed as a heretic because, the coin used for paying the taxes had BOTH a picture of Caesar and the title he picked for himself, which was “Son of the Divine” on it.  Both of which made that coin a big, giant idol!

Jesus, of course, proceeded to slip through the trap, BUT… there’s WAY more going on here than Jesus just making hypocritical politicians look like idiots.  (Although I do like part too!)  The REALLY important part here is a powerful reminder of who is really in control, ESPECIALLY, when it looks like those in power, hold all the cards.

Look past the zinger Jesus gave them and think about what he said: “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”  On the surface Jesus seems to be playing their game… a game that says politics and religion are separate, but underneath what they heard, Jesus is proclaiming a powerful truth! 
On the surface Jesus asked, “whose face is on that coin”, but the real question Jesus asked was, “who do you think gave the emperor his face to begin with!?”  The real take home lesson from this encounter is that this whole creation… which includes every person, every coin, every piece of politics, both good and awful… ALL of creation including pandemics and wars, the unemployed, small businesses hanging on for dear life, airline employees who don’t know what’s next, newly rising numbers of COVID infections, white nationalist militias plotting to kidnap a governor, hay bales lit on fire, the hungry… ALL OF IT… every single part of ALL of creation right down to the smallest little fly!  Everything… EVERYTHING… without exception… everything belongs to God.  God really does have the whole world, the good, the bad and the ugly of it all, in those Divine hands!

In our world today there are many, many people who read and teach this lesson like the Pharisees and the Herodians heard it, rather than the way Jesus told it.  The Herodians and the Pharisees lived and acted like “World Stuff” and “God Stuff” were completely separate.  Many people do the same today.  They live as if over here there the are political, business, and worldly things that “belong to Caesar” which work with one set of rules, completely separate from God.  Then there are the religious, church, and spiritual parts of life over there that “belong to God” where God’s rules are allowed to apply. The two, they claim, are never supposed to mix. 

 
God’s ways and Jesus’s teachings are good for Sundays and on Christmas… fine for inside churches… fine for inside hearts, minds, and souls; but outside the church walls during the week... God’s rules, which Jesus sums up as loving God and loving neighbor, those just don’t apply to how we run our lives, governments, businesses…  how we handle violence, deal with the poor, marginalized, or oppressed… how we do politics or administer justice. 

  
This lesson challenges that notion head on.  This lesson reminds us that God not only has a strong opinion about how we run every single aspect, of every single moment, of every single one of our lives… but that God has every single aspect of every single moment, of every single one of our lives and every atom of creation wrapped up in God’s infinite, unconditional, loving and redeeming embrace!  Jesus’ life, death and resurrection put an exclamation mark on that truth by SHOWING us that living a sacrificial life outside of the church for the good of others is not just for suckers and losers, but is the WAY to real living!

All the faith stuff and spiritual stuff isn’t at all separate from the work stuff, political stuff and business stuff.  Because ALL THE STUFF is in God’s hands!  God really DOES mean for all of those ideas the world thinks are upside down like unconditional generosity, unmerited grace, forgiveness, and love to be the way we live in EVERY aspect of our lives.  God really does mean for us to work for genuine justice where everyone has enough food, shelter, purpose, dignity and worth so that every part of the world will experience real and lasting peace.  God really does mean for THAT to be the way the whole world works... not just on Sunday mornings.  Not just in our thoughts and prayers but in every nook and cranny of ALL of creation.  

Now, that doesn’t mean we need a legislated “Christian” nation the way that idea is usually sold, where everyone believes the same thing.  What it means, is that as Christians, you and I are called to infect the world with God’s ways of love, grace, compassion, healing and generosity.  To bring it our of our churches and into the everyday routine of our lives including bringing into the voting booth with us.

  
I am voting here in Sheffield.  On that ballot no candidates bear Caesar’s title of “Son of the Divine” regardless of what they think of themselves or what their followers have been led to believe.  Only God is God... and God’s got this!  So our job as Christians is to pick the people and the measures we believe will build up our town, state, country and world in the direction of God’s vision of unconditional love, compassion, and healing, with the kind of justice that allows all of our neighbors to live more deeply into the abundant life God created them to live.  Amen. 

Calfapolooza!

 Exodus 32:1-14

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.” 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.” So all the people took off the gold rings from their ears, and brought them to Aaron. 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!” When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a festival to the Lord.” 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.

The Lord said to Moses, “Go down at once! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely; 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!

The Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are. 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.” 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? 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. 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.’ And the Lord changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.

I love the story Ed just read from Exodus but, of course, they left off the best part!  When Moses finally worked his way down the mountain and saw the Calf-apolooza Party himself, he totally lost it!  He smashed the tablets on the ground, burned the golden calf, ground it up into a powder, mixed it with water, and made the people drink it!  The god they had made BY themselves and FOR themselves would literally be getting flushed down the toilet in the very near future!  

As a kid, this lesson seemed easy. I didn’t have any gold or a foundry and if my school clay projects were any indication, I wasn’t much of a sculptor either.  I figured I was safe from the dangers of idolatry!  

As I got a bit older I realized, of course, idol worship wasn’t limited just to golden calves.  Idols are the things we turn to when God is either NOT doing what we want, OR is moving much too slowly for our taste.  They are not literal golden cows but they are still pretty easy to spot… at least when they belong to someone else.  

Idols using the language of Christianity but without the unconditional love, grace, and inclusion that Christ was all about are all around us.  These modern idols allow their followers to claim, for example, they are pro-life and still hold children in cages.  These idols allow the follower to embrace racism and claim that poverty is the poor person’s fault.  People turn to idols because only idols will go along with their limited and conditional sort of grace.  Only idols allow their followers to tell a person to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and not care that they have no boots.  Only idols allow their followers to tell a person they should learn to fish if they are hungry and at the same time deny them access to a safe, clean, lake.  

Genuine Christianity is about following in the footsteps of Jesus, the One who gave EVERYTHING… both FOR us and TO us, without condition, as a free gift.  LONG before we were even a glimmer in our great great great grandma’s eye, this gift was completely ours!  Jesus didn’t conditionally die for only the ones who look like you!  Jesus didn’t rise on Easter for a few and stay dead in the tomb for all the rest!  Dying with conditions and rising only for some... that's a golden calf thing… not a Jesus thing, not a Christian thing.  

Back then they cast a calf in gold, proclaimed it to be the same God who led them out of Egypt and called it Lord.  They created a false god that would work on their schedule and used the methods they wanted to use!  Today we make idols for exactly the same reasons.  Is it an accident that a literal golden bull is Wallstreet's idol of unbridled capitalism? The God who gives gifts of love and grace is not okay with us hoarding them all for ourselves.  The idol of White Nationalism is made because only an idol can promise a salvation to just those who look like them.  The idol of American Civil Religion is made by those who are enamored with the words of Christianity but find living lives of compassion, grace and love not to their liking.  Others make idols of guns.  Idols which falsely promise them security.  Others make idols of money which give them permission to get rich at the expense of the poor.  Still others make idols of other human beings and demand if you’re not for them, then you’re against them!  People build these idols so that they can have a god in their lives that God and Jesus refuse to be for them.  Only these idols will promise them what they want, when they want it, and that whatever they can grab, they can keep for themselves. 

Idols and golden calves made by others are easier for us to see.  The most difficult golden calves to identify, of course, are the ones we make for ourselves.  Most people don’t sit down one day and say, “today I’m going to make an idol!”  But as we get frustrated and impatient with the One True God... as God feels far away, we slowly begin to decide that we need to take this god business into our own hands and we begin to shape an idol in a form of our thinking and our liking and our way of getting things done.  

So much hatred, a pandemic, denial of science, poverty, hypocrisy, racism, climate crisis, putting others at risk of sickness or death… AND even literal nazis for crying out loud!  THAT'S our world!  So it's VERY understandable that we ALL want God to BE HERE NOW... FIX IT NOW!  It is incredibly tempting to make a god who will fix ALL this the way WE want it fixed!  We live in very real and very desperate times!  Not at the base of a stormy mountain like the people of Israel, but in the stormy year of 2020!  We want… we NEED God to act!  NOW!

And still with all that understandable temptation, here is God's promise God's call for you and me.  God knows what we are enduring and God is acting.  Idols will promise to get you there faster but they never deliver.  Idols will show you another path filled with lies and tricks and force and anger, but following that path is not one of loving God or neighbor.  So be patient my friends.  Keep walking God’s path... loving God and loving neighbor.  God is working as you and I are walking.  God is even working while we take a day off every week!  God is working... working to fully include all of creation in God’s compassion, grace, and love... ideas of really living which idols know nothing about.  Stay with the path God has given us, because God knows, it's only on a path of love, compassion, grace and inclusion that we will get through whatever lies ahead.  Amen. 

Crisis Rules

 Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20

Then God spoke all these words: 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, 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. 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. Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work.

Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. 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 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.

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, and said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, or we will die.” 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.”

The entire people of Israel ran out of Egypt. They ran because they knew Pharaoh had been stung and soon he might recover. Recover he did, and Pharaoh’s army gave chase, backing them against the sea. In what seemed to be a hopeless crisis, a path through the sea was opened and the people passed through with Pharaoh’s army swallowed up in the wake. But that turned out to be far from the end. Disaster followed disaster. Crisis followed crisis. Bitter, undrinkable water, a shortage of food, blazing hot weather, and an endless stretch of wilderness and sand with an unseeable end to it all. Imagine what they would have left us if they had been able to create MEMES!

It was in the midst of all of that crisis, trauma, and trouble that they were given the commandments. They didn’t get them back when they believed Pharaoh was the worst thing that could ever happen, nor after they had finally made it to the Promised Land. No, these commandments were given IN and FOR a long term time of crisis. When the people of Israel cried out in crisis after trauma after horror, “How can we possibly remain the people of God in times like these? Is there any way for us to retain our humanity and dignity with an onslaught like this?” THIS is the answer God gave them, “Live together in relationship with God and each other using this set of rules.”

God knew their temptation would be to sink to the selfish and destructive ways of those around them.  God knew (because God made them after all) that diving deeper into the water currently swirling down the drain was NOT the path to better days! God knew the real way to better days was through the crises, through the horrors, through the traumas.  

To make it through, God laid out a path paved with these commandments.  This path, God promised, would get them through when all the world around wqs determined to keep swirling them ever deeper. And… spoiler alert… God’s way turned out to be right! It worked. They got through it all by following this set of rules… through each crisis and each horror and every trauma and in the end, they stepped into the Promised Land.

So what does that have to do with us? After all, we’re a people far removed in time, culture, and circumstance from the people of Israel way back then. We’re not like them, swayed back on our heels by the awesome power of thunder and lightning (very, very frightening) coming from the top of a mountain. And yet, if you tilt your head just a tiny bit and honestly look again, they end up looking a lot more like you and me than we might have first thought.

Could it be that a world wide pandemic has driven God’s people into a new wilderness time? Could it be that we’ve been backed up against a wall of political chaos, rather than backed up against the Red Sea? That we face an unknown time before a safe vaccine is developed, rather than an unknown time in the sun and sand? Could it be that Pharaoh’s injustices and irrational behavior in the face of a threat to his power isn’t all that strange after all and that Federal police in riot gear don’t actually look too terribly different than Pharaoh’s charioteers? Could it be, that in our own way, we too have been knocked back on our feet, fearful not of constant lighting but of each new terrible flash of white supremacist dog whistle… not of thunder but of each new crashing bombshell news revelation? Could it be that these rules given to God’s people to see them through THEIR ongoing set of crisis after crisis THEN, might just be the rules that we need to see us through OUR ongoing set of crisis after crisis NOW?

If that is true... if this is our path through, then our path includes not using or manipulating God’s name to get our way. Others do it all around us…“You can’t be a faithful Christian and vote for this person or party”… but we are called to not sink to that level. We are called to use God’s name instead as a means to spread the selfless, steadfast love and compassion that we have first been given by God so that it might give light in the darkness and hope to the hopeless.

If these are our rules too, then we are called to take time out, ESPECIALLY when we think the world can not spare us for a moment. As Eugene Peterson reminds us that, “If you don’t take a Sabbath, something is wrong. You’re doing too much, you’re being too much in charge. You’ve got to quit, one day a week, and just watch what God is doing when you’re not doing anything.”  This will strengthen us for the long road ahead.  

If these are our rules too, then we can not dismiss the lives of the elderly and those with underlying medical conditions. Dismissing over 210,000 deaths by saying “COVID wasn’t the only condition they had” or “that is just a tiny number compared to everyone who dies each year” does not honor those fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, EACH of whom was a precious child of God.

If these are our rules too, then we must look beyond just me, myself, and I. That greed and selfishness has resulted in the hoarding of resources from toilet paper to health care, stealing from our neighbors with tactics from phone scams to unjust policies and tax dodges. Wanting what others have and hoarding what others need always leads to breaking other commandments.  Our path instead is to bring life and build up our neighbors and their resources.

And lastly, if these are to be our rules to see us through our own time of crisis, horror and trauma we must remain impeccable with our word. In these dark times when so many treat bearing false witness as a sport where the goal is to continually drive up the score… if these rules are to be our rules, then that can not be our path.

These commandments pave the path that will see us through this time. Many around us seek to race to the bottom in a fatal downward spiral, but that is not what God wants for us.  So, if you are willing, I would ask that you help me to follow THESE rules. Rules that saw God’s people to the Promised Land and I will help you do the same. I believe it is loving God and loving neighbor, Jesus’s own summation of this path, that will pave a Way in Truth toward the Light of a world ruled in justice... a world of healing, wholeness, dignity for all. May the One who calls us to this path through these difficult times give us the strength to walk it, all the way to the end. Amen.

Continue

Romans 12:9-21

Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” No, “if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

In 2016 Maya Angelou wrote a poem titled “Continue” for Oprah but I’d like to believe she would let us in on it as well. It goes like this:

Into a world which needed you

My wish for you

Is that you continue

Continue

To be who and how you are

To astonish a mean world

With your acts of kindness

Continue

To allow humor to lighten the burden

of your tender heart

Continue

In a society dark with cruelty

To let the people hear the grandeur

Of God in the peals of your laughter

Continue

To let your eloquence

Elevate the people to heights

They had only imagined

Continue

To remind the people that

Each is as good as the other

And that no one is beneath

Nor above you

Continue

To remember your own young years

And look with favor upon the lost

And the least and the lonely

Continue

To put the mantel of your protection

Around the bodies of

The young and defenseless

Continue

To take the hand of the despised

And diseased and walk proudly with them

In the high street

Some might see you and

Be encouraged to do likewise

Continue

To plant a public kiss of concern

On the cheek of the sick

And the aged and infirm

And count that as a

Natural action to be expected

Continue

To let gratitude be the pillow

Upon which you kneel to

Say your nightly prayer

And let faith be the bridge

You build to overcome evil

And welcome good

Continue

To ignore no vision

Which comes to enlarge your range

And increase your spirit

Continue

To dare to love deeply

And risk everything

For the good thing

Continue

To float

Happily in the sea of infinite substance

Which set aside riches for you

Before you had a name

Continue

And by doing so

You and your work

Will be able to continue

Eternally

You hear it don’t you? Maya Angelou’s call to take a step and then another along our lifetime’s long path? To Continue. Continue with steps of laughter, love, kindness, justice, humility, prayer, service, and dreams… all walking toward a vision… a vision not yet achieved. A vision still far off. Often much, much too far off. But still we are called to continue… step by step even when that vision seems fleeting, like a mystery engulfed in flames and smoke.

Paul too reminds us that this is God’s call for us too.  He too would have us... Continue  

                                                                                                                

To let love be genuine; hate what is evil                                                                                             Hold fast to what is good, love one another                                                                                      Outdo one another in showing honor.

Continue

To be tireless, enthusiastic, passionate                                                                                            Glowing in your service to the other

Continue

To rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering,                                                                                    and persevering in prayer.

Continue

To care for the sisters and brothers we know                                                                                      Show hospitality to the strangers we have yet to meet                                                                                                 Shower blessings, not curses on those                                                                                                 who persecute you.

Continue

To live, bound to your neighbors                                                                                                   Laughing with them when they laugh,                                                                                            Weeping with them when they weep,                                                                                           Rejoicing with them when they rejoice.

Continue

To live in harmony                                                                                                                                     Free from arrogance,                                                                                                                        Learning from the lowly,                                                                                                                       a life humble of heart.

Continue

To go high when they go low,                                                                                                                    A living example of a better way.

Continue

To leave vengeance and wrath                                                                                                                 and the heaping of burning coals                                                                                                                       to God’s hands.                                                                                                                                  Our hands are meant for feeding our enemies,                                                                                                                              and giving water to our foes.

Continue

To not become the evil you fight,                                                                                                                 To count the means and not only the ends,                                                                                          To drown evil with rivers and lakes and oceans of good.

Eternally

You hear it again don’t you? Paul’s call to each next step on the long path? It is God’s call for you. To Continue… even in the darkest of times. To Continue, even with 180,000 dead American neighbors. Even with racism proclaimed as patriotism. Even with yet another unarmed black man shot in the back by police. God calls us through all of that, out of the smoke and inexplicable fire... God calls us to Continue.

Continue with one step and then another… a step of laughter, a step of love, then one of kindness.  A step of justice, one of humility, and then one of prayer. A step of dreaming. A step of service. All of those steps... one at a time... one after another... all walking toward a vision… a vision which the world raging around us has not yet been able to grasp. A vision that yes... is still painfully, terribly, dishearteningly at times, very far off. A vision as hard for mortals to hold as smoke from a burning bush.  

But still, it is a vision.  A vision which points us to something that is very, very real. It IS out there. It WILL come. This one is for us, but it like the visions given and fulfilled through countless generations in innumerable forms.  Each time a vision was given, it has been followed by a promise fulfilled.  Each time the God who knows the people’s sufferings, comes down to deliver and brings up God’s people, out of the place, the time, the struggle, the plague, the hatred, the brokenness, the fear, the pain, the injustice… The God who has ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS brought God’s people out of whatever sort of Egypt they were in and into a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey.  Out of death and into abundant life.  Even now that same God is doing it once again!  And so we Continue.  

I know you are weary.  We are all weary these days. Weary of this pandemic. Weary of the death, the hate, lies, uncertainty, violence, racism, injustice and all the rest. All that you endure now is real.  You feel tired because ALL of what you endure is too much!  Often much too much.  All that is true...AND… AND… AND… THIS WILL END. There will be a vaccine. The pandemic will end.  The hate, violence, racism and injustice will end. Those promised lands are real! They exist! They are out there! An so today we take one more step and remind one another that we are NOT walking toward nothing!  We walk to the Promised Land... to Resurrection... to Abundant Life! So let us all... Continue... with a step in love, then another in kindness, one in service, and one in humility... always guiding one another to Continue.  Amen.

Jesus Said the "D" Word!

 The Holy Gospel According to St. Matthew, the 15th Chapter

Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.” But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly.

Jesus used the “D” word! Just like the racist word that is so awful it only goes by it’s first letter in our day, calling someone the “D” word was in that same category in Jesus’ day. It was bad. Really bad. So, did Jesus have work to do? Did he, like us, need to grow in his awareness of his own bias, prejudice, and privilege? OR, was Jesus using the “D” word as bait to hook the Pharisees?

Of course we can’t know what Jesus was thinking but we can learn from both of these possibilities. It could be that the fully human Jesus was not fully enlightened when it came to his own bias and prejudice. After all, he grew up and lived in a time, culture, and faith that drew clear and exclusive boundaries and no one even pretended they were separate but equal. She was not Jewish, she was not from Israel, she was a woman… a huge part of the population would have easily concluded… she was a “D” word! If this is what was going on with Jesus in this story, it is still something we can learn from. Because even while Jesus was acting out of what he had learned, as all of us do, when he was confronted with his bias, he was open to begin to see the world in a new way.

If, living in his learned prejudice and privilege is where Jesus was at in the beginning of this encounter… If Jesus was drawing the circle of God’s love and grace in a way that excluded this woman and her child... then this lesson reminds us again that EVERYONE has work to do in widening the circles of inclusion we draw in this life. To do that work, Jesus was willing to hear the cries of a mother in pain. To really listen and engage in conversation. He was willing to stick with that conversation even when it got hard. It took time. It was hard. It was a process. But it was worth it. Because at the end we see the healing power of transformation that can happen when we open our ears and eyes, hearts and minds and begin to draw the circles we have always drawn in ways that include people we had never considered including before.

The other option is that Jesus knew EXACTLY what he was doing and used this situation as bait for the Pharisees to get them on the hook and then to reel them in to dramatically finish the argument Jesus had been having with them in this chapter. Point. Set. Match. The Pharisees, you see, were certain that only people like them… people born to Jewish parents and perfect followers of the Law, could be drawn inside God’s circle.  That Canaanite woman was not inside that circle because she had the wrong parents. Jesus and the disciples might have had the right sort of parents but they were failing miserably at following the law in the eyes of the Pharisees. Jesus had tried to reason with them earlier in this chapter but when that didn’t work, perhaps Jesus tried a different, more shocking approach.

Maybe Jesus treating the woman in the same way the Pharisees would, was Jesus dangling the bait.  “Oh, look” the Pharisees would say, “Jesus is finally coming around to our way of thinking.”  But then Jesus did what Jesus did all the time… First he dangled the bait…  “Woman, you're a dog"!  Then, when they bit, he set the hook!  "Woman great is your faith!”  The Pharisees had been caught!

Regardless of whether this was Jesus confronting his own bias, or Jesus hooking the Pharisees to try to get them to confront theirs, when people first begin to confront thier bias, privilege and prejudice, it can be very scary. Drawing a circle to include more people, we often worry might mean less for me! The fear of scarcity is a powerful fear. But as Christians we believe in a radical abundance from God. Even when the human math won’t work, we are reminded of what God’s math can do with just a couple of mackerel a some sesame seed buns! With reminders like that, we believe that God’s abundance is SO inclusive… SO wide… that it draws a circle large enough to even include even the likes of me and you!  And if that circle includes us, then who could be excluded!

The Pharisees had trouble with ALL. One glimpse of the news and you know the whole world still has trouble with a circle that includes ALL. The defacing of the Black Lives Matter sign on the Sheffield Green shows us that even in little ol’ Sheffield there are people who have trouble with the idea of drawing a circle that includes people who are different in any way. The Gospel message for today… the GOOD NEWS… is that Jesus has already drawn the circle of God's love so it includes us ALL!  Jesus lets all us dogs in!  His death and resurrection has thrown open the kennel door and let even the mangiest of us feast at God's Table.

So no matter if we read this lesson as Jesus himself being challenged to grow, or as Jesus setting a hook to challenge the Pharisees to grow, the message for you and for me is the same. We are called to do the work to see and to hear the people we have not previously been able to see or hear or include because of our bias, privilege, and prejudice. We are called to enter into difficult conversations and stick with them even when they become hard… Even when those primal instincts swell up and tempt us to be fearful of scarcity. We are called each day to draw the circle of who is “in” ever wider. And then we are called to move that work beyond ourselves, standing with, shielding, advocating, singing and eating, laughing and crying with, all those who the world attempts to draw outside of the circle. We are called to do this work, for as long as it takes until the demons of exclusion are cast out, until everyone’s child is healed, and the circles of this world look as wide and welcoming and inclusive as the circle God has drawn for God’s Kingdom.  Amen.