It's the Blood!

Romans 3:19-28

Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For “no human being will be justified in his sight” by deeds prescribed by the law, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin. But now, apart from law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and the prophets, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith. He did this to show his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the sins previously committed; it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies the one who has faith in Jesus. Then what becomes of boasting? It is excluded. By what law? By that of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law.

Reformation Sunday happens at this time of year because it was on All Hallow’s Eve… Halloween… that Martin Luther nailed his 95 Thesis to the door of the Wittenberg church and kicked off the Protestant Reformation. It also seems appropriate that we have this lesson from Romans every year too, because it talks about THE BLOOD! “A sacrifice of atonement by his BLOOD!” You almost can’t help but read it in a Béla Lugosi accent… THE BLOOD!

When we hear about… THE BLOOD… what comes first to mind, for a lot of people, is that sort of gruesome, blood-going-everywhere, Passion of the Christ, sort of image. I don’t think that’s an accident either. It’s an image that’s been pushed for centuries by the people who really love the theory that God was so mad at humanity and God just couldn’t get over it without some blood being spilled! It’s called the Substitutionary Theory of Atonement. It’s basically the idea that in order for you and me to achieve atonement, or “AT-ONE-MENT” with God... in order to be re-connected with God, God (the One who created the entire universe out of nothing, by the way ) was simply UNABLE to reconnect with us without payment IN BLOOD.  But lucky for us, Jesus substituted his blood for ours. It’s a super popular theory. Evangelicals and Fundamentalists of all sorts seem to love it. Mel Gibson’s movie, Passion of the Christ, pushed it with tankers full of cinematic Hollywood blood and the only problem with it, is that I think it’s horribly, gruesomely, terribly WRONG!

With Jesus God gets OUT of the retribution business, not more gruesomely into it! God isn’t unable to forgive without first receiving payment… God can do whatever God wants! God doesn’t need showers of blood to quench the fires of some sort of uncontrollable Divine rage. It’s people who have PUT that vengeful rage ONTO God because they themselves can’t imagine forgiving without payment first. They themselves want (a what John-Arthur?  Quid-pro-Quo.  Right!) retribution and punishment in order to quiet their OWN rage. They’ve plastered their own human nature onto God, because making God work like they do is MUCH easier for than accepting that God, in Christ Jesus, has just HANDED atonement to us as a FREE GIFT! Because, you see, if it’s true that God has given it to us as a GIFT… well, then we might be expected to forgive others as a gift as well… and honestly… most of us really want some BLOOD to be spilled!

I know that BLOOD spilling stuff has been pounded into us for centuries, but for just a minute, try to put the Dracula, Halloween, gruesome, horror-movie-style-bloodbath stuff away and try to SEE this passage, NOT through all you’ve heard before, but just as it is on the page. Because when we focus so intently on the blood flowing-out-in-a-horrible-death part, we miss something really important. So let’s hear it again… “The redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by Jesus’ blood, effective through faith.” What does this mean? (That’s a little Martin Luther humor there!)

Redemption is what happens when a brokenness is repaired or healed. But that can happen in many ways. If it’s a monetary debt, it can be healed by the debt being paid off OR simply forgiven. If it’s an injustice it might be healed with recognition and a commitment to walk a new way with something like reparations and then forgiveness and healing. If the brokenness is a bondage like sickness or addiction or incarceration or slavery, it would be healed by being set free. The take home on redemption is that blood-spilling as payment is NOT the only way that redemption can happen nor the only way brokenness can be repaired.  St. Paul uses LOTS of different images to try to get people to understand this in his letters depending on his audience. 

BUT, Pastor Erik, it does say, “God put Jesus forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his BLOOD” and indeed it DOES. BUT what it DOESN’T say is that it was put forth by the SPILLING of Jesus’ blood. Blood does a whole lot of other stuff… hopefully for years and years, decades and decades, on our insides before it does any fatal spilling! So, might it be, that God gave us his Son to give us the gift of atonement… A way to be AT-ONE with God… through MORE than just the SPILLING of Jesus’ blood? Could it be that God gave us, not just the Jesus of the Passion, but the rest of Jesus as well?  Including the part where Jesus’ LIVING blood allowed him to walk around and teach us about God’s infinite love? The part where Jesus’ LIVING blood brought healing to the sick, food to the hungry and life to the dead? The part where Jesus’ LIVING blood flowed through him as he walked on water, calmed the storms, stood up to oppressors, and insisted on lifting up the least and the lost and the last of the people of creation?

I think we have unfortunately been tricked over the centuries to not pay close attention to Jesus’ LIFE BLOOD and focus only on Jesus’ DEATH BLOOD. I think we not only MIGHT want to work on fixing that, but rather that we MUST! And we MUST because it is Jesus’ LIFE, and yes, his death as well as HIS RESURRECTION… ALL OF IT… that makes up the FULL gift of God, given to all of us and all of creation without any strings attached. 

Then, when we imperfectly step into each day of our lives, putting one of our imperfect feet after the other, clumsily into the footsteps of the Jesus who LIVED, the Jesus who DIED and the Jesus who ROSE AGAIN... THEN we are living our FAITH, and in that imperfect walking we will begin to really understand that we are already, AT ONE with God. Amen. 

A Divine Kick in the "Hip Socket"

Genesis 32:22-31

The same night he got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had.

Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, “Let me go, for the day is breaking.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” Then the man said, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.” Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.” The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.

ALL change, transformation, new life, recovery, growth, healing… all of it… and not just the religious bits… ALL OF IT... happens by way of death and resurrection. It happens all around us every day in ways we often hardly even notice and then it also happens in ways we can’t possibly ignore, even if we wanted to. It happens in the simple things like going to sleep and rising in the morning to a new day. It happens out in nature every year as the trees change into vibrant shades of reds and yellows, mottled browns and tangerine orange and then, in a fiery, swirling, show… they let go of life for the winter, always to rise again in the spring. It happens when we end a career and begin a new life in retirement. It happens when we surrender ourselves in an operating room and then wake in recovery. It happens when we are finally able to move through an old trauma, forgive the ones who hurt us, and rise to a new life no longer needing to carry that old grudge. It happens in our Christian Sacraments when we die to sin in the waters of baptism and rise to new life in Christ and when in the Eucharist we say together, “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.” And of course it happens in that one monument-raising-moment that comes for every single one of us when we physically die.  For that one, we try very hard to believe from this side of that death, to trust that we will indeed rise in glory to the fullness of eternal life.

But there’s the rub, isn’t it? On this side we can only TRUST that to be true. We can’t ever be fully certain, can we? We only see now through the glass dimly, as Paul says. THEN we’ll see face to face… but NOW isn’t THEN, is it?! And because NOW is not THEN and I can’t clearly see the… “THEN”... I, at least, tend to NOT approach change, transformation, new life, recovery or growth with the fiery, flamboyant, confident show with which the trees make it all look so easy. I don’t let go of the old as easily as the trees let go of their leaves. I’ve been in situations that were far less than wonderful… some were even horrible… but they were KNOWN! To give up the KNOWN, even a horrible known, for only the HOPE of something better… what if it’s worse!? I can see that death and resurrection is the way God designed creation to work but, dear Lord, was the “death” part of all that really necessary? Can’t we do it another, less painful, less scary, less unknown, less... deadly way?

That’s what wrestling with God looks like. God told Jacob to go back home and face the brother he had cheated out of everything. God told Jacob to die to his former scheming ways and rise to the new life of a healed relationship. God told Jacob to go through the waters of the Jabbok river and let the person he had been up to that moment, FULL-ON-DROWN, and then rise up on the other shore into a new life. Jacob wasn’t so sure. His brother was big. Really big! Jacob had been a big jerk.  A really big jerk!  So he approached the river without any confidence it would work out.  Then there in the middle of the river, Jacob met God and Jacob told God for an entire night, just how God should REALLY have the world work! Death and resurrection was a TERRIBLE idea, Jacob told God. The death part is scary and unknown and sometimes VERY painful. God had CLEARLY made a mistake, Jacob told God, and when God saw that Jacob would not let go of what was… would not stop fighting no matter what, God kicked him right in the “hip-socket” and yes, Virginia, it was not the “hip-socket”… It was indeed the “HIP-SOCKET” and low-blow and behold, after that… Jacob stopped fighting God.

One of the great bits of wisdom from this story is the truth that God created creation to work by way of Death and Resurrection and is sticking with it! The irony is that even though Jacob fought that truth and did NOT win his argument, MANY of us still insist on continuing Jacob’s argument with God about it even to this day! I do it.  I have wrestled with God over God’s “death and resurrection” plan… more than once! In each of those fights, I too have left the fight with a Divine kick to the hip-socket, limping into the new life God was determined I have... And determined God is! DETERMINED to get you and me and all of creation all the way THROUGH… EVERY SINGLE ONE of those changes, transformations, deaths, growths and recoveries we face and bring us into a new and abundant life AND GOD WILL DO WHATEVER IT TAKES to get us there!

We do have some say in God’s death and resurrection plan though. We can take the beautiful reminder that the trees give us every autumn, and approach each of life’s changes, transformations, deaths and opportunities for growth and recovery with a flurry of color and a beautiful release of what was, confident that the promise of new life and spring will come... AND spring does ALWAYS come... OR we can choose to fight and wrestle and struggle against each of those changes, transformations, deaths and opportunities for growth and recovery with the God who decided Death and Resurrection IS how the world is going to work and end up… still on the other side, mind you… but with our “hip-sockets” out of joint and a very painful, lingering, limp.

Either way God IS GETTING us to the other side, either as a beautiful dance partner full of color and light or by whatever means it might take, up to and including a Divine kick to the ol’ Hip Socket! EITHER WAY we get there God will bless us. EITHER WAY it happens we will be transformed into a new creation. Because you see, God is perfectly WILLING to do anything it takes to get us there, but God is totally UNWILLING to just leave us to settle for anything less than a new, abundant, and eternal life. Amen. 

Meandering Mobile Mulberry

Luke 17:5-13

The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!"  The Lord replied, "If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it would obey you.

 "Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, 'Come here at once and take your place at the table'?  Would you not rather say to him, 'Prepare supper for me, put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink; later you may eat and drink'?  Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded?  So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, 'We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!' "

There’s a scene in the movie Jaws where they’re out in the boat looking for the shark. They haven’t seen it yet… they’ve only seen what it’s done! Then suddenly…. there it is… at the stern of the boat! It’s huge! Beyond their worst nightmares! The Chief of Police, slowly backs up, staring at the roiling water... back, into the cabin, still staring dead astern, and tells the grizzled Captain Quint, “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.”

That’s the disciples. They had seen what Jesus had done. Then suddenly they understood!   Jesus wants THEM to do the same! It’s huge! Beyond their worst nightmares! They slowly back away, still staring wide eyed and tell Jesus, “We’re gonna need some bigger faith.” And who could blame them! They were desperate for the tools to do this impossible job they were being asked to do! That’s how it works! Right? When you don’t have enough of what you need, you go out and get more! So if you need more faith, you go out and get Jesus to give you bigger faith! Right?

But as it turns out, even though that might be the way it works at Big-Y with groceries, it’s actually NOT the way faith works. BECAUSE faith works SO differently, Jesus pulls out this over-the-top, Mobile Mulberry story, to make that difference REALLY clear. With that part of the lesson and the parable about the slaves settling into their roles, and doing their work with consistent practice and discipline, Jesus, I think, was trying to help the disciples understand that as they began to DO the things he was calling them to do with consistent practice and discipline, they would FIND that they actually weren’t short of faith at all, but instead, ALREADY had ALL that they needed to do everything God was calling them to do.

Other very smart and very spiritual folks have tried to teach this same truth over the years. Mother Theresa said, “Our calling is not to do great things, but to do small things with great love.” She too didn’t think we needed MORE faith. What we needed was already there and by doing the small things with great love, we would come to realize over time that we have all we need to also do the bigger things as well.

The Spanish Poet Antonio Machado says, “Wanderer, your footsteps are the road, and nothing more; Wanderer, there is no road, the road is made by walking. By walking one makes the road and upon glancing behind one sees the path that will never be trod again. Wanderer, there is no road - only wakes upon the sea.”

Thomas Merton said, “We are indoctrinated into ‘means and ends’...But that is not the way to build a life of prayer. In prayer we discover what we already have. You start where you are, and you deepen what you already have, and you realize that you are already there.” He is saying the faith we need is already present in our lives and with discipline, prayer, and practice, we will be able to dig deeper into that already-present faith and access all that we need. Richard Rohr says something similar. He says, “We cannot attain the presence of God because we are already totally in the presence of God. What is absent, is awareness.”

This confusing bit of Gospel, with dutiful slaves and meandering, mobile, mulberries is trying to tell us how radically different faith really works from the rest of the world. Faith is a complete and total gift… a fulsome, generous and overflowing gift that we have ALREADY BEEN GIVEN in the waters of Baptism. We have been given this gift, not because we said the magic words or did enough nice things. We have been given this gift… each of us… simply because we are loved so completely that God gives us all that we need through the Spirit, to love God and love neighbor and live abundant lives, fully immersed in that Divine love.

Like the disciples, we can’t get any more faith. We’re already full-up to overflowing... where would we put it!? What we CAN do is to use the faith we have been given a bit more deeply every day. Even with just the smallest piece of faith we feel able to hold in any one moment, we can do small things with greater and greater love each day. With the tiniest sliver of faith, we can take one small step and with each step slowly realize that there is always solid ground beneath each and every step and open up more of the faith we’ve been given with each step. What we can do is to encourage each other to slowly open our eyes and our hearts and our minds and our souls to the realization that everything we do in this life, we do within an infinite ocean of the presence of God, in whom we live and move and have our being… an ocean filled with an infinite amount of faith, and love, and hope for all.

This is why we gather here in this wonderful community of faith, not to ask Jesus to give us more faith, but to remind one another (in a WORLD that makes it very hard to remember) that each of us already possess all the faith there is to have. We gather here in this community of faith to remind each other (in a TIME that makes it very had to remember) to reach out for the hand of another and then together, each day, take just one more step… to do one small thing, with just a pinch more love... to be thankful for the littlest of things and in doing so open ourselves to ever greater things. We gather here in this beautiful community of faith to remind one another (in a world that makes remembering the GOOD things such a challenge) to keep an eye out for God doing something just as impossible as having a tree walk down the street to the ocean and plant itself in the sea. Because even though the world makes it VERY hard for us to remember, God is at work doing more for us in each and every moment than we could ever ask or imagine… and thanks be to God, for that! Amen.

Greta, Amos, and Jesus

Amos 6:1-7

Alas for those who are at ease in Zion, and for those who feel secure on Mount Samaria, the notables of the first of the nations, to whom the house of Israel resorts! Cross over to Calneh, and see; from there go to Hamath the great; then go down to Gath of the Philistines. Are you better than these kingdoms? Or is your territory greater than their territory, O you that put far away the evil day, and bring near a reign of violence? Alas for those who lie on beds of ivory, and lounge on their couches, and eat lambs from the flock, and calves from the stall; who sing idle songs to the sound of the harp, and like David improvise on instruments of music; who drink wine from bowls, and anoint themselves with the finest oils, but are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph! Therefore they shall now be the first to go into exile, and the revelry of the loungers shall pass away.

Luke 16:19-31

“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. He called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.’ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.’ He said, ‘Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father’s house— for I have five brothers—that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.’ Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.’ He said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

This week you have seen Greta Thunberg speaking in the greatest tradition of the prophets. This sixteen year old Swedish activist has taken a diagnosis of Aspergers and the unique gifts that come with it and forged them into a sword of razor sharp focus, unrelenting in its attack on arguably the most critical crisis of our time. And if that weren’t enough, she has also managed, again using the unique gifts of Aspergers, to forge an impenetrable shield of immunity from the very worst of our so-called-adult-leader's personal attacks.  Attacks that would hook, distract and derail all but the most extraordinarily enlightened a long time ago.

If you’ve ever wondered what a prophet looks like and sounds like, wonder no more. She is what Amos would have looked like and sounded like to the people of his day. He too had razor sharp focus and an undistracted determination to deliver a message that transcends the ages. If you have any doubts about that, you only have to change the place names in our first lesson for today into ones closer to home, and the ancient beauty treatments into modern ones and THIS lesson cuts like Greta’s sword:

Woe to you who think you have it made in America who think Wall Street makes the good life for everyone.  You assume you’re at the top of the heap, voted the number-one best place to live in the world. Well, wake up and look around. Get off your pedestal. Take a look at Canada. Go and visit Sweden. Look in on Denmark, Switzerland and Finland. Doesn’t that take you off your high horse? On that quality of life list, you’re 17th! Not much, are you?

Woe to you who are rushing headlong to disaster! Catastrophe is just around the corner! Woe to those who live in luxury and expect everyone else to serve them! Woe to those who live only for today, indifferent to the fate of our children tomorrow! Woe to the playboys, the woo-girls, who think life is a party held just for them! Woe to those addicted to feeling good—life without pain, and those obsessed with botox and spray tans—life without wrinkles! They could not care less about their country going to ruin.

But here’s what’s really coming: a forced march into exile. They’ll leave the country whining, a rag-tag bunch of good-for-nothings.

It is tempting to dismiss the prophets as people only meant for an ancient time, but in Amos’s time the rich and powerful left the poor and powerless to drink poisoned water. Ask the people of Flint how ancient that sounds. In Amos’s time they had driven the justice system into a joke and a shambles. Ask Eric Garner’s family, a man who was killed for selling single cigarettes on the street, if that is just an ancient problem. In Amos’s time the rich got richer on the backs of the poor. Ask the children who will soon no longer qualify for free or reduced school lunch, to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy if that is just an ancient issue.

With all of that it would be easy to conclude then, that money is the problem. Wealth and riches the prophetic problem at the root of climate change, injustice, and poverty. But if that’s the conclusion you’ve reached, today’s parable is there to show us we’ve missed something VERY important. Because even though I HOPE you will be generous with your pledge this year. And even though I HOPE you fulfill your capital campaign pledge so we can finish doing the work on the Memorial Garden and our Signage, in addition to the work that has already been done on the rectory. And even though I HOPE you remember the church in your end of life planning with generosity with something maybe even as simple as adding the church as one of the beneficiaries on a life insurance policy. While I HOPE for all of that… Money, Riches and Wealth are NOT what Greta, Amos, or Jesus are talking about.

Take a closer look at that hard core parable from Luke. It’s not wealth that got the rich man sent to hades and it wasn’t homelessness that got Lazarus a ticket to sit with Abraham.  The difference is that it was clear to Lazarus that HE wasn’t God! Lazarus KNEW he wasn’t in control! Lazarus understood that all he ever had, or would ever have, in this life or the next, was always and only and completely... a gift from God. The rich man, on the other hand had believed his whole life… and EVEN IN HIS DEATH FOR CRYING OUT LOUD… that HE was the one who had the whole world in his hands! He was the one, who with a word from on high could make anything happen… “Send me Lazarus! Get me a drink! Send someone to my family!” Even in Hades, with 24 hour demon led aerobics from hell, he refused to wake up and confess that he was not God!  In his mind he didn’t need God. In his mind he was God! He didn’t need to change. It was the air conditioning that needed to change! He didn’t need to change! He needed Lazarus to change and bring him a bottle of Perrier!

Greta, Amos and Jesus blast us all… but it is a mistake to see that blasting as a desire to scare, threaten or intimidate us. Instead, all of them do what they do with power, focus, and in-your-face clarity with the very DEEPEST hope and desire that we will FINALLY wake up and turn our lives from driving 100 mph toward the edge of the Grand Canyon and instead... please, please, PLEASE, take a new path... a path toward life. Greta does not wish for cities to flood, people to go hungry and life to be lost as a result of climate change. Amos does not WISH for the people of Israel to be sent into exile and Jesus does not wish for any of God’s creation to be tormented in hades. For all three, they wish for us EXACTLY the opposite!

Activist, Prophet and Messiah… ALL of them desperately want to remind us though, that it is only by going THROUGH DEATH that we receive the gift of life!  Only when we die to the idea that we are god. Die to the idea that that our financial and political power is the ultimate force in the universe. Only when we die to the notion that the world exists only for me, myself and I and that we owe nothing to our neighbor. Only when we die to EVERYTHING else, will we finally discover what we have ALREADY been give the gift of life. And that’s not just any old life, but an abundant life that begins each moment we die to the ways of the world and rise into the gift of eternal life, given as a free gift from God! 

May we die each day to the love of money, the lust for power, the comfort of living as we’ve grown used to living, and may we rise each day into the gift of abundant life that is neither impossible nor even far away. Because it really is just as close as the water in that font. It really is right there, in, with, and under the bread and the wine, and it really does sit right next to you, in the love of Christ that binds us together in the gift of Christian Community.  Thanks be to God.  Amen

Evangelism Chairs

Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16

Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it. Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured. Let marriage be held in honor by all, and let the marriage bed be kept undefiled; for God will judge fornicators and adulterers. Keep your lives free from the love of money, and be content with what you have; for he has said, “I will never leave you or forsake you.” So we can say with confidence, “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can anyone do to me?” Remember your leaders, those who spoke the word of God to you; consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Through him, then, let us continually offer a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.

I will admit that sometimes we get a reading and it needs to be run through a translator.  Not just from Hebrew or Greek into English, but also to translate it from a very different time and a very different culture. Sometimes the Scripture uses lingo from the time or even intentionally coded language that needs to be unraveled. Sometimes it just seems to be impossible to make heads or tails of any part of it.

But that’s not what we get today in that lesson from Hebrews is it? It very clearly translates into English and it is free from innuendo, cultural winks, nods, or coded language. It just says flat out, “Let mutual love continue.” Boom! Done! Continue doing what is in the other’s best interest. That’s it. Just do it. Oh and that the “mutual” part reminds us to take our turn gratefully receiving that sort of love too.  Both giving AND receiving that sort of love is critical. It’s really just that straightforward. Let mutual love continue. Good idea!

The same is true of “showing hospitality to strangers.” Not exactly some sort of hard-to-grasp theological concept. It’s not like we’re trying to wrap our minds around the mystery of the Trinity here. It really is just, “Show hospitality to strangers”… just that. Somebody drives by you wave. Somebody stops in you invite them to sit down and find them a drink and a snack. This Scripture looks, at first glance, like it’s about sharing snacks with people. Turns out… upon further research... IT’S ABOUT SHARING SNACKS WITH PEOPLE! Again… good idea!

Then “remember those who are in prison and being tortured.” This really is just telling us to close our eyes, imagine we are in prison or being tortured and wonder, “what would I really appreciate if that were me?” Then try to do that thing you just imagined! No symbolic dragons or mysterious numbered beasts here. Just a straight up call to use human empathy. This really does just say, “Empathy… GOOD!”

After that you get to the marriage bed part. That too… not coded language. Sleeping around… not good for anyone and NOT what they meant by the “mutual love” thing. Then there’s the part about avoiding a “love of money” which very clearly says it’s the LOVE of money that’s the problem. LOVE is something we share with God and others.  Money, clearly being neither a god NOR a people, is not something to love. We can earn it, buy things with it, give it to others, thankfully receive it, but Love it? That’s a clear “NOPE”, there.

And the last part of that lesson just makes an already really straightforward lesson even more straightforward. God is always with us. Fact! Look for people who have lives that look full of meaning, purpose and contentment and try to live like they do. Smart! Remember that the love of Christ… that unconditional, all inclusive, radically forgiving and welcoming love of Christ… does not change. What it LOOKS LIKE to share that unlimited, unconditional, all inclusive love of Christ in our actions and in our words might change with culture and time… it might require a little work… maybe even some sacrifice... but loving others the way Christ loves us? THAT, doesn’t change and THAT is what makes God happy. Happy God? Again… Good!

It’s crystal clear. It isn’t culturally or linguistically or historically impossible to understand. It is, in fact, DIRT SIMPLE… and I for one, continually insist on trying to make it harder... all... the... time! More research. More books. Get a consultant. Attend a workshop. Organize a meeting about it. Form a new organization. Write a grant, hire an intern, write a doctoral thesis. At the VERY least we need to form a commission or a task force, write a resolution for Synod Assembly AND Diocesan Convention and memorialize all of this to the national church bodies for them to consider at their Triennial Conventions so they too can begin a decades-long study on it as well! Right?

OR, the Holy Spirit gently suggests, you could just put a few chairs along a trail or in front of the church, sit down, and see who stops by. Get them something to drink. Maybe a snack. Listen to their story. Hear their joys and sorrows, hopes and fears. Close our eyes and imagine how they might be feeling and do whatever pops into your mind to make their sit just a tiny more comfortable.  Really? Yeah, I suppose we could do that.  

It dawned on me this week, with the subtlety of a 2x4 to the noggin, that in the last couple of years, I have connected with more “strangers”… done more successful “evangelism” if you want to use that dirty, scary, church word… simply by sitting outside in a chair than I ever have using any other sort of program or scheme or even highly researched church growth solution! More than all the other more complicated “strategies” combined, just SITTING and letting mutual love continue and showing hospitality to strangers… THAT’S THE STUFF THAT ACTUALLY WORKS! Could it be that this very clear, very straightforward lesson from Hebrews really IS just that straightforward? Just that clear? Could it really be that letting mutual love continue and welcoming in the stranger… all while sitting in a folding chair or a rainbow colored Adirondack chair, REALLY is as complicated as it gets!?

I know, believe me, I know! It sounds WAY too easy. But I’ve seen it happen! Just this week I saw it again! Right out there on the lawn! But I know me, and maybe you’re a bit like me.  So, it’s very likely I will soon try to make all of this more complicated. But in the mean time, I think I’m just going to sit out there, let mutual love continue, welcome the stranger. Maybe  entertain an angel... who knows? And if you want to give it a try, it really is just as simple as sitting outside in a chair.  Amen.

One Seventh & Six Sevenths

Isaiah 58:9b-14

If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday. The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail. Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.

If you refrain from trampling the sabbath, from pursuing your own interests on my holy day; if you call the sabbath a delight and the holy day of the Lord honorable; if you honor it, not going your own ways, serving your own interests, or pursuing your own affairs; then you shall take delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride upon the heights of the earth; I will feed you with the heritage of your ancestor Jacob, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

Luke 13:10-17

Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.” But the Lord answered him and said, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?” When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.

This week, both Isaiah and Jesus are talking about the Sabbath. Now, you might think the Sabbath started when Moses came down the mountain with that crazy glowing tan and a couple of tablets, but it actually goes back to the very beginning when God finished all the work of creation in six days and THEN, on the seventh day God rested, blessed the day, and made it Holy.  But why did God rest on that seventh day? Was God tired? Were the Patriots playing? Did God wrench the Divine back creating the Himalayas? NO! It’s God! God didn’t NEED to rest… God was MODELING for US how to live as humans in this new creation! As a species we didn’t really take the Divine hint back then… and frankly we haven’t gotten much better since. So… God wrote it down and Moses brought it down the mountain!

Now, contrary to some folks idea, the ten commandments aren’t God’s way of keeping us from having fun. They are meant to be the manufacturer’s instruction manual for being human in God’s creation. These commandments were MEANT to be a gift… our operators manual… so we didn’t have to just GUESS how to live the life we were created to live. They’re also not random either. They’re in that order on purpose with the top part of the list full of instructions for how humans would best interact with God and the bottom part of the list for how humans would best interact with other humans.

Now notice, that the one about the SABBATH… the one we’re particularly interested in today… is smack dab in the middle of the two sections. That’s not an accident. THAT’s because it is BOTH about how we interact with God AND how we relate to other people. This commandment is BOTH about Loving God AND Loving Neighbor.

It is absolutely a guide for our relationship with God. It IS meant to tell us that spending 1/7th of our lives plugged into God is part of our human design. Some people get very distracted by what that 1/7th of our time has to look like or on what day and hour it begins and ends or whether you should be able to buy beer or not, but I think God cares WAY more that we simply understand that when we plug ourselves into God for 1/7th of our lives, our lives simply run better!

But the God-oriented dimension of this commandment wasn’t the main trouble that Isaiah or Jesus had. And even though church attendance is down in our country, I really don’t think the God-oriented dimension is our biggest trouble with this commandment either. The real trouble is forgetting that the Sabbath ALSO has an equally important dimension that tells us to how we are to live with our neighbors as well. What Isaiah saw in his time was a people who were trying to connect with God for 1/7th of their lives, BUT who spent the other 6/7ths of their time living in opposition to God’s ways in how they treated their neighbors.

In the passage for today, Isaiah makes it inescapably clear that the specific injustice happening in that other 6/7ths of their lives was an economic injustice. It’s the “yoke” of unjust economic practices filled with selfishness, greed, indifference and exploitation piled onto the most vulnerable in the community, like a yoke on an ox… that was the problem. An oppressive economic “yoke” turns out to NOT be the way to “love your neighbor” and God tells the people through Isaiah that until you remove that yoke, all of your worship will be just talking to the Divine hand! If you want to show your love for God in 1/7th of your life, then make sure you are showing your love for your neighbor in the other 6/7ths!

Sabbath is not just meant to connect us to God, but it is also equally meant to be a check on our own selfishness for the good of our community. The thing that will truly “delight” the LORD, this passage tells us, is a community formed around economic justice… a community that notices the neighbor, not just as individuals noticing the needs of other individuals, but as the community as a whole noticing the needs of the neighbor in ways that inform and then transform community policy and are put to action for the benefit of the WHOLE community.

The people in Isaiah’s day… the leader of the synagogue in Jesus’ day and I think a whole lot of us, including me… We all seem to continually get sucked into this place of self indulgence, where we begin to believe that WE can buy, earn, construct, or manipulate the world around us so that we will really be living! We slide into this notion, that with enough effort and good ideas, we can find a way to live in the world that’s a BETTER way to live than the way God designed us to live. But guess Who turns out to be better at knowing how humans can really live the abundant lives they were created to live? Yeah, that One! The One who gave us a commandment that reminds us that the best way to connect to God for 1/7th of our lives, is to love our neighbor and create a neighbor-loving community out there in the other 6/7ths of our lives. THAT is what will Delight the LORD, and the Delight of the Lord is the best, and ONLY way we have, to really have life and live it abundantly! Amen.

Elmer's Toaster

The Holy Gospel According to St. Luke, the 12^th Chapter

Jesus said, "I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!  I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed!  Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!  From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided:

  father against son

    and son against father,

  mother against daughter

    and daughter against mother,

  mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law

    and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law."

He also said to the crowds, "When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, 'It is going to rain'; and so it happens.   And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, 'There will be scorching heat'; and it happens.  You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?

Elmer Snodgrass’ living room, looked “almost” normal. I say “almost” because, there was… this toaster. Yes, a toaster... silver with two slots where you and I would put the bread. But into Elmer’s toaster, there was a light bulb screwed into each of the slots. As we sat down, Elmer reached over and pushed down the lever. Nothing happened and Elmer gave the toaster a disgusted look. These days it would not have phased me and I would have never asked, but early in my pastoral career I had to learn many things the hard way…. including not to ask about things like shiny, silver, toasters with a couple of sixty watt-ers screwed into the slots. But back then I just couldn’t stand it, “Elmer, why are there light bulbs screwed into that toaster?”

“Well,” said Elmer with a nostalgic air, “When electricity came to town no one really had any idea what to do with it. It was new… strange… no instructions. The town just got electricity one day and electrical stuff showed up on the train the next. People just had to try different things to figure it out but my great grandpa… he KNEW the truth from the start! He KNEW you were supposed to screw the light bulbs into these slots and you would get light. Nobody believed my great grandpa, but he kept trying it until the day he died.”

“So he tried to get light from a toaster… his whole life?” I asked. “Yup, his whole life. Of course, he only lived that one day after electricity came to town. You see he wanted to read in the bathtub, so he set the toaster with the light bulbs on the side of the tub for light… tubs are slippery… And well... You know my great grandpa is a town hero because of that. No one’s ever taken bath with a toaster since… saved countless lives, my great grandpa did.”

“After his heroic death,” Elmer went on, “his son took up the cause and kept trying to get light by screwing light bulbs into toasters. He passed on the mission to my father who has now passed it on to me. People keep saying it won’t work, but it’s our tradition! Every Snodgrass has sworn to keep trying until we get a toaster to light up a light bulb.” “So, you’ve tried to get light by screwing a light bulb into a toaster for four generations?” I asked. “Yup, and nobody’s gonna tell ME that light bulbs don’t go into toasters. You aren’t! Are you?” asked Elmer. “Oh, no!” I said, with newfound wisdom. Then Elmer added, “But I won’t take a bath with a toaster…I’m not stupid.”

The lesson of Elmer’s story is the same as the lesson from the Gospel, “change burns like fire… or maybe it burns like a toaster in the bathtub.” Either way, it wasn’t that the Snodgrass family needed to do what they had always done MORE faithfully. What they needed to do was something ENTIRELY different! But for Elmer, logic wasn’t a part of this any more. It was tradition! It was “How Snodgrasses had always done it!” and it connected him with his family through the generations and even the THOUGHT of betraying his family like that burned like fire.

In the Bible translation called The Message, the first part of this lesson goes like this: “I’ve come to start a fire on earth - how I wish it were blazing right now! I’ve come to change everything, turn everything right side up!” Jesus came to change everything. Turn the world right-side-up so that the world would work as God created it to work… with grace and love and justice, not just for the wealthy few, but for those on the margins as well. To make that happen meant changing the world from the empire it had become, where only a few had everything and the many had nothing. It meant changing the world from what it WAS… into the Kingdom of God... where everyone had enough. THAT sort of change, Jesus knew, would feel like fire to those who had grown used to the world as it was. For those who had everything it would burn for sure… but it would even feel like fire to those who had the most to gain from the change as well. Even they, Jesus knew, would be upset, because even for them, right-side-up would be an enormous change from the up-side-down they had grown used to for generations. For everyone… change is hard.

This story then, is both thousands of years old and as new as today’s headlines. You can feel it, can’t you? We live in the middle of the burning fire of an up-side-down world being turned right-side-up. Traditions of racism, might makes right, money equalling power, toxic masculinity, white supremacy and all the rest are burning harder than ever to keep the world as it is, rather than have the world work as God created it to work. The change from up-side-down to right-side-up burns like fire.

So how do we live in this world that burns with fire with every headline? First, we need to remember what that burn is all about and hold onto the hope that the burn we feel is God at work changing the world! Next we need to remind one another that only God has the power to make God's will be done "on earth as it is in heaven.” You and I?  We can’t raise the dead or to turn the world right-side-up... but that burn means God is on it!

Once we remember that, we can set aside our worries about turning the world all on our own and get busy doing what we DO have the power to do in the world. Because while we can’t raise the dead or turn the whole world right side up, we DO have the power to create little, beautiful windows for others to glimpse the Kingdom of God wherever we find ourselves in each moment of our lives. Wherever we are, we have the power to create tiny, little, islands of  what God’s Kingdom is all about... places of peace, love, compassion, and kindness even in the most mundane places, even in the midst of a world on fire. We are called to do that individually, as we walk through our regular days AND we’re called to do that together as larger and larger circles as part of the Body of Christ. Rainbow chairs on our lawn become a window to God’s Kingdom.  Solar on our roof.  Together with Old Parish a giant A-frame on the AT becomes a window for us to show hikers a glimpse of God’s Kingdom.  

God’s got the whole world in those Divine hands and is changing it from up-side-down to right side up.  God’s got that.  Really.  Our part is to fill each other’s lives, and the lives of the people around us, with peace, love and hope, even in the middle of a world on fire. Our bit, together with whoever else wants to play with us… is to shine a brighter and brighter beacon of light… of hope.  To shine a light in the darkness for people who are overwhelmed with a world on fire.  To welcome them into our little corner of kindness, peace and hope and together pull back the curtains on that few so each day, that vision of the Kingdom of God grows larger and larger until the day God has finished making the up side down, right side up. Amen.