Spirit and Truth

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was John 4:3:26:

Today’s gospel passage isn’t the one normally assigned for today, although it could be, because people coming to worship the Christ child is an important element of the Christmas story, as we will hear about next week when we talk about the arrival of the magi, or the wise men from the east. Worship of Jesus also plays an important part after the resurrection. But, we are talking about the woman at the well, or Jesus encounter with a Samaritan woman, because way back in February, which seems like a decade ago, when the Ark held their Mardi Gras fundraiser, my donation was to allow the winning bidder to pick any piece of scripture for me to preach on. Now, I was supposed to have given this message way back in the summer, but with all the changes this year, that didn’t happen, and as I said, I thought talking about worship after Christmas was appropriate. And so that is why we are looking at this passage for today.

As was said in the introduction, after Jesus encounters Nicodemus, a named man, a prominent official, and a Jew, and that will become important in a moment, we are told that Jesus is then going back to Galilee, which is in the north, but to get there, John says, he “had to go through Samaria.” Now it could be that he had to do this because that was the easiest way to get back to Galilee. But, in John, when something has to be done, it normally implies that it is task that God is requiring. So, it’s possible that Jesus has to go through Samaria in order for this encounter to take place. Now when we hear the word Samaritan today, most of us probably think about the parable of the Good Samaritan. In that story the Samaritan comes off as the moral hero, as Jesus says he is the neighbor to the man who was beaten and left on the side of the road. And so we have then this association with Samaritans as being a good thing. They are positioned high in the moral order. They have virtue. But that was certainly not how they were seen by Jews of the time, and to understand that story, and this story, we have to understand how despised the Samaritans were. To be a Samaritan was to be impure otherness.

Here is my message from Christmas Eve. The text was Luke 2:1-20:

Last Christmas Eve I told the story of having ordered a little people nativity set for our youngest daughter, who was one at the time, and after unpacking the toy realizing that we didn’t have Mary. After I frantic search I was able to find her, but that got me thinking about the characters in the nativity, and the fact that if you were going to lose a character, it probably would be Joseph, because he is sort of anonymous in the crowd. He doesn’t really play a key role, and he is much more like us than probably the others, and yet he makes a difference for Mary and Jesus, and we too are called to be like Joseph and make a difference in people’s lives and in the world, even if we might not ever get the recognition, or even realize we are making a difference. But, tonight we are going to talk about the one character who has to be there, the one who caused me to panic because she was missing, and that is Mary, the mother of Jesus.

Now for as important is Mary is, or has been in the history of the church, especially as a person to whom devotions are made, we really know very little about her. Most of what people think they know about Mary are stories that develop much later in the history of the church. Luke, who we just heard from, mentions her the most.  She is named 12 times in Luke, but all of these are in his infancy narrative.  She appears in two other stories in Luke, but is not named in those.  In Matthew, she is named 5 times.  Four of those times are in his infancy narrative, and then she is talked about two other times, being named once, although it’s a reference to her, not something directly involving her.  In Mark, she is named only once, and like in Matthew it is simple a reference of a crowd saying that Mary is Jesus’ mother, and then there is one story in which she is not named.  In John she is not named at all, but there are two stories make reference to her.  And that is all that we have in the gospels.  Not really a lot to go on. But when we compare Mary against other characters in scripture, especially women, the fact that we know as much about her as we do, and that she is referenced in all four gospels, is quite extraordinary.

Christmas Miracles

Here is my message from our Blue Christmas service. The text was Isaiah 9:2-7 and Luke 2:1-20:

Tonight I’d like to share two stories with you.  The first comes from Jenee Woodard, who runs a website called Textweek.com, which gives resources on the weekly lectionary readings.  Jenee was a lay minister working towards a Ph.D. in biblical studies, when she gave birth to Philip, who is severely autistic, requiring her to put her career plans aside, although her ministry now takes place through her website, which has helped hundreds of thousands or perhaps millions of preachers, and gets more than 2 million hits a month.  Here is her Advent story which was written in 2002:

As many of you know, my son Philip has autism. He is 10 years old and is severely handicapped by his disability. Our family learned to slow down at Christmas a number of years ago when he was unable to tolerate *any* of the celebration. He could not handle the changing scenarios - the twinkling lights, the changes in grocery store displays, the changes in the sanctuary at church, presents appearing under the tree, the tree ITSELF, and the moved furniture. He would fall on the floor and scream, unable to move, afraid to open his eyes, almost constantly from Thanksgiving until well after Christmas when it was all over. We carried him through that time his head covered with his coat so we could get through the grocery store, or sat with him huddled in his room, carefully ordered EXACTLY the same since summer, with no Christmas trappings.

Creating Christmas: Love

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was Matthew 2:1-11 and 1 Corinthians 13:1-13:

One month from today, Joe Biden will be sworn in as president and will deliver his inaugural address as he tries to set direction and a call for the country. There have been some inaugural speeches that very few, if anyone, remembers, and then there are those that have risen into greatness, like Lincoln’s second inaugural address, which includes the phrase “with malice towards none, and with charity towards all.” Or FDR’s first address, in which he said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” What all of the best of these speeches try to do is to pull us out of ourselves, and connect us to something bigger and unite us behind some common understanding of who we are as a people. Think about Kennedy’s “ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” That is a call out on individualism, and selfish intentions, a call to live for something more, to give ourselves for others. Might I even be bold enough to say that it is a call to love, which can bridge divides we put between each other?

Paul is doing something very similar in the passage we heard this morning. Because although we often hear this passage used in weddings, and I’ve done it myself many times, Paul is saying in this passage that really don’t have anything to do with the love we think about revolving around weddings. The first thing he is doing is rebuking the Corinthian community. There are some who think they are better than others because of the spiritual gifts they have received, with those who speak in tongues seeming to think themselves at the top of the spiritual gifts hierarchy, which means not only that they are the best, but that others are below them, which is why he talks about the fact that every part of the body is necessary, that no part is greater or lesser than the other. And then he says that even if you can talk in tongues, and you are extremely generous and you have faith to move mountains and can prophecy, which means you are talking to God, but if you don’t have love, if you are not living in love, then you have nothing, you are nothing and you gain nothing. As important as those things are, without love they are worthless.

Blue Christmas Invite

I have a attended a funeral for a family member on Christmas Eve and also on Good Friday, and let me tell you it’s a lot easier to mourn and to hear about life eternal on Good Friday than it is at Christmas. And after the Christmas Eve service, which had the worst funeral message I have ever heard, I said one of the stupidest things I have ever said, and that was, as I was leaving to drive back to New Mexico for Christmas, saying to my Aunt, “I hope you have a good Christmas.” My only excuse is that we tend to say dumb things around death because we don’t know what to say.

Mourning at Christmas is hard because we are told that we are supposed to be filled with holly, jolly and merry because it’s the most wonderful time of the year after all. Except that for many people it’s none of those things. Christmas simply reopens wounds or reminds us of the things and people that are no longer present for us. And so Christmas ends up being a time of pain and sorrow rather than jingle bells, ho, ho, ho, mistletoe and all that stuff.

This coming Monday, which is the longest night of the year, we will be holding our Blue Christmas service which gives space to name those hurts and pains and losses, and also to hear of God’s hope for the world and for us. As I have said before, while this is often the least attended service we do each year, I think it is one of the most important that we do. It’s also the one I always feel least adequate to lead, but trust in the Spirit to speak even with sighs too deep for words.

So, if you need to be reminded of Christ’s light that shines most especially in the darkness, I would encourage you to “attend” the service online. And please make sure to invite others you know who may need this service wherever they are in the world. It will take place at 6 pm on Facebook and YouTube, and for those who are not regular attendees, the worship guide may be found on our website. We will conclude the service with the singing of Silent Night, so we encourage you to have candles available as well.

And speaking of candles, candles for our singing of Silent Night on Christmas Eve will be distributed this week. We encourage you to keep one bag of candles for yourself and deliver the others to neighbors and ask them to join us in singing Silent Night at 7 pm on Christmas Eve. If you need more candles, we have more available at the church and can deliver them to you as needed.

We will have our Christmas Eve service, which will be a combined traditional and contemporary service, streaming at 4 and 5:45 pm on Christmas Eve on Facebook and YouTube. Both times will have the same service. You may also watch the service at your convenience after the first service ends. Unfortunately, we will not be holding our open house or labyrinth as we had originally planned.

I wish you all a continued blessed Advent, and a transition to a merry Christmas as we celebrate that the light of Christ has come into the world and darkness cannot overcome it.

Creating Christmas: Joy

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24 and Luke 1:39-56:

Towards the end of his life, Henri Nouwen, a Roman Catholic priest, was still looking for some meaning or purpose to his life. Even though he was a world famous author and theologian and had taught at Notre Dame and Yale and Harvard, he still felt there was something missing. And so he left the academy behind and moved to a L’Arche community in Toronto to live with people with intellectual disabilities, some of them severe that require nearly 24 hour care. It was there that Nouwen was matched with Adam, to be his companion and care taker, of whom he said “"It is I, not Adam, who gets the main benefit from our friendship.” 

Nouwen would take members of the community with him whenever he traveled to speak around the world, and what he also found in this community was joy. He says that there were people there who radiated joy, not because their lives were easy, because they most certainly weren’t, but because they habitually recognized God’s presence in the midst of all human suffering, their own as well as others. And that is at the heart of joy, which we’ll get into, and so, Nouwen says, “The great challenge of faith is to be surprised by joy.” Let me say that again so you can let it sink in and begin to percolate in your mind, “The great challenge of faith is to be surprised by joy.”

Creating Christmas: Peace

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was Philippians 3:4-7 and Mark 1:1-8:

At one of the churches I served in Boston, the clergy association held an interfaith Thanksgiving service that brought together nearly all of the church and synagogues. While there was not a mosque in the town, the next town to the south did have the Islamic center for western Boston, and so as it came up to be our turn to host the event, I said that we would do it, on the condition that we also invite the Islamic community to participate. But, of course it wasn’t just that easy. After September 11, as the community, which had lost several citizens in the planes, sought to put together an interfaith service, someone else had recommended that the Islamic community be invited, and it was said that that would never happen in this town. Much of the opposition, although not all of it, came from one of the two rabbis, who was an Israeli and had lost several family members in terrorist attacks, and I understood his position and was completely sympathetic to his position. Additionally, we had to answer the question of whether it was justified to destroy and break the community we had established in order to widen the circle. Did the ends justify those means?

Eventually, we had one of the other protestant pastors, who had a closer and longer relationship with the rabbis, talk with them and both of them, to their inordinate credit, agreed that not only would they agree to the invitation, but they would still participate as well. When the day of the service finally arrived, we weren’t really sure what was going to happen, but the rabbi walked up to the representatives from the Islamic center and he put out his hand, remember when we could do that, and he said to them “shalom Aleichem” which is Hebrew for peace be with you, and those greeted replied “Aleichem shalom”, which is unto you peace. In his letter to the Romans, Paul says, “If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.” And I think in that moment, we broadened peace and community just a little bit. Shalom Aleichem.

One Toy At A Time

Sometimes it’s hard to believe that it’s the year 2020. And I don’t mean that in the sense of how strange this year has been, and how many people want it to finally be over (including me). But, in the sense of “can you believe this is happening in the year 2020?” For example, I recently received a message from a group, who are going to remain nameless, who said their offices were closed but that you could leave a message or send a fax. A fax? Seriously? This isn’t 1995, this is 2020.

But a more poignant story comes from that of 7-year-old Vivian Lord. Last year, Vivian was playing with the iconic plastic toy soldiers when she realized that all of the army men were literally men. There wasn’t a single female represented in the group. Women have been involved in the US military for a long time, including being able to hold combat positions since 1983 and tactical air positions since 1989. And yet that was not represented in the toys that Vivian was using. It is the year 2020, right?

Now I grew up as one of three brothers, and so one of the things that I found surprising when we had daughters was how gendered toys were, or had become. There were specific boundary lines, often delineated by color and other things to say that this is what boys play with and this is what girls play with. Now there has been some improvement in this area in recent years, with both boys and girls show playing with a play kitchen for example, and I know because we just purchased one. But for Vivian, she was still playing with all male soldiers.

And so Vivian decided to do something about it and wrote a letter to the manufacturer asking them to make female soldiers. Jeff Imel, the CEO of BMC Toys, said he had never gotten a letter like that from a child before, and he moved the creation of female soldiers to the top of the priority list.  And so under many Christmas trees this year, for the first time, there will be 22 different options of female soldiers. And Vivian says “I will play with them every day.”

If you don’t think that pointing out disparities, this is 2020 after all, can make a difference, or that one person can make a difference, just ask Vivian. She has changed the way that children from now on will see themselves, and others, in this role, and in many other roles as well. Perhaps Pixar might even consider putting in female army soldiers into any new Toy Story films they might make. And, I bet that Vivian also understands her ability to change the world, one toy at a time. May we learn the same.

Creating Christmas: Hope

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was Romans 8:18-25: 

When Congressional Medal of Honor winner and Hanoi Hilton survivor Admiral James Stockdale was asked who it was that had the hardest time as a prisoner of war, he said, “That’s easy. It’s the optimists.” He said that the optimists would think, “We’ll be out by Christmas,” but when that didn’t happen, it was “we’ll be out by Easter,” and then “We’ll be out by the 4th of July,” then “we’ll be out by Thanksgiving,” and then they were back to Christmas again. The constant crushing of their optimism, would lead to delusion and other problems.  It shattered their endurance, and Stockdale said, “I think they all died of a broken heart.” But, the ones who were most likely to make it through were the ones who went through the full cycle of grief, and then held onto the faith that they would prevail in the end. That they would make it out. They didn’t know when, and they hoped it would be sooner rather than later, but no matter what was happening to them in the prison camp, they had faith in the final outcome. The suffering could not be eliminated, but how they decide to approach it and think about it can make all the difference.

And so in hearing that, we have to understand that Admiral Stockdale was not arguing against hope, but against false optimism, because although we often talk about optimism and hope as being the same thing, they are in fact difference. Shortly before his assassination, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., when asked about the move towards racial justice, he said that he was not optimistic, but he was hopeful. That is, you can have hope even when you have lost your optimism, and not false hope, but the hope that we will prevail in the end, or even more importantly that we know that God will prevail in the end. And so today as we begin our advent journey, making our way to celebrating the birth of Christ, we will begin looking at the four themes of Advent, which are hope, peace, joy and love, and as we already talked about in lighting our advent candle, today is hope. And we have to know, as Paul sort of tells us, we don’t need hope when things are going well, we need it when we are in trouble, when we are suffering, when we wonder what’s going on, and the exact same thing is true of Christmas. We don’t have Christmas because everything is great. We have Christmas because we live in brokenness.

Jesus as King

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was Matthew 25:31-46:

Today is Christ the King Sunday, the day we celebrate and recognize that Jesus is the Christ, the messiah and King, or that he is the King of king and Lord of Lords, a phrase most of us are familiar with from the Hallelujah chorus from Handel’s Messiah, but actually is found in the 1st letter to Timothy and also in the book of Revelation. And so this title of King is an early title given to Christ, and not just by the church, but even by others, even if ironically, remembering that the charge that appears over the cross, the reason why the Romans sought to crucify him, was that he was said to be King of the Jews. And of course in Matthew’s gospel this claim about Jesus being a king goes all the way back to the nativity story when the wise men come seeking the one who was born King of the Jews, which is the reason that Herod sought to have him killed. And so this was a title not only that was applied to Jesus, but which had significant ramifications in proclaiming it, and still should today. Because although there are lots of people who say that we should never talk politics in church, the simple truth is that is impossible, because to proclaim Jesus as King, Jesus as Lord, is a political statement. It was a political statement in the first century, and it is a political statement today.

Because to proclaim Christ as King means is to claim where our allegiance belongs, and also where our allegiance doesn’t belong, to the things of the world. As I said, the reason I decided to do this series talking about the offices of Christ after the election was to help us remember that neither political party holds a monopoly on truth, nor is any politician going to save us. We have a savior and he is not running for election. Christ is our hope, our salvation and our King, and that is a political statement, even if we don’t comprehend that as much today. But what we have to understand is that most of the titles that got applied to Jesus, also happened to be titles that were applied to Caesar Augustus, including that of Lord, Son of God, bringer of peace, savior and even the beginning of good news, to name just a few. Even more importantly, even though we talk about the Roman Empire, that’s not how they referred to themselves. Instead it was called the Kingdom of Rome, which also makes the emperor a King, whereas Jesus was talking about and proclaiming the Kingdom of God, and of course a kingdom needs a king, whom was found in Christ. And so the question the early church posed to its followers, and still poses today, is who are you going to follow, Jesus or Caesar? Who is Lord, Jesus or Caesar? To whom do you pledge allegiance, Jesus of Caesar? That is not a rhetorical question, because it demands an answer.

Thanksgiving and Gifts

This morning, The Washington Post published an article about the best toys of the year according to Stephanie Oppenheim, a toy tester. Oppenheim said that while puzzles have been making a comeback in recent years, this year has solidified their place, along with games, because “Everyone is very hungry for something that is very low-tech and doesn’t involve a screen. I think, more than ever, it’s just a nice way to spend time together,” she said.

Of course as we move into another holiday in which we aren’t spending time together, perhaps this can serve as another reminder of the things that truly matter in our lives, and it’s not the things. I know that I am going to miss, and have missed, the gathering of the congregation for worship, which is more than just about the worship. It’s also about community and relationship.

In talking with my mom last week, she said how much she misses us and seeing the girls, whom she hasn’t seen since last Christmas. That’s a lot of missed time, especially with Elizabeth, let alone Abigail and Samantha. Talking on the phone or even over zoom or facetime, just isn’t the same, and honestly I think most of us, as Oppenheim said, want to do things that don’t involve a screen.

And so as you think about the coming holiday season, and gifts, let alone what we are thankful for, I encourage you to think of things that connect us. And so perhaps a gift this year might not be something someone can enjoy right away, but instead is an experience you can have together once we are back to being able to socialize. Or it’s a game or a puzzle that can be shared together. Or maybe even something as simple as being in touch more often than we have been.

We have a turkey in the church that is waiting for you to create a feather with the things you are grateful for to be put on it, and you can also reach out to those who are important to give your thanks to them and also learn to have less screen time, and more together time.

What crises always do is to take us out of our ordinary lives, the ordinary routine, and make us remember what life is really about and what is truly important. We have that same opportunity right now, so let’s not let it pass us by. Let’s turn something positive out of what is happening.

And let me finish by saying that I am grateful for this congregation and all of you!

Jesus as Priest

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was Genesis 14:17-20 and Hebrews 7:11-28:

Immediately after Moses comes down from Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments, the people, who have seen the thunder and lightning and the mountain smoking, basically said to Moses “Don’t let God talk to us anymore because that scares us. Instead you talk to God and then tell us what God says, and then you can tell God what we say.” Basically they wanted Moses to be an intermediary, an intercessor, between them and God. Now last week I said that Moses was considered the greatest of the Israelite prophets, even though we don’t normally think of him that way, because he served as God’s spokesperson delivering God’s message to the people, which was one of the primary roles of a prophet. But, what we also see in Moses, at least at this point is also the role of a priest, someone who serves as a mediator between God and the people, communicating information both ways. And that is the historic role of a priest in ancient Israel. To be an intercessor between God and the people.

And yet, as the society grew and became more complex, the role of the priest also increased and could no longer be done by someone in the family as Abraham and Jacob had also done. Instead there was a need for more centralization to provide stability and continuity as the 12 tribes of Israel grew. And so it isn’t much longer after the people ask Moses to be an intermediary, a priest for them, that we actually get the call of the Levites to become the priestly class, and of course this happens after the failure of Aaron in the story of the golden calf while Moses is away. It becomes clear that the people need more than what Moses can provide, and so new priests are called to lead the people and be responsible for the people in this way, and Aaron, Moses’ brother becomes the high priest.

Jesus as Prophet

Here is my message from Sunday. The scripture was Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:5-12  and Luke 4:14-24:

In his first letter to the church in Corinth, Paul says that he didn’t come to them using lofty words or wisdom, but instead to make known amongst them only Christ and him crucified. And yet, that term Christ had a lot of meaning that eventually would have to be unpacked. Because Christ is a specific term. Even though we talk all the time about Jesus Christ, Christ is not his last name, and H is not his middle initial. Christ is a title, coming from the Greek word Christos which is the Greek word used for the Hebrew word Messiah, which means the anointed one. And so in proclaiming Jesus as Christ, Jesus as messiah, Jesus as the anointed one, there was a lot of understanding that went along with that. Or we might say that there was a lot of explanation that the early church had to do to come to understand who Jesus was that encapsulated his life, his death and most especially his resurrection. Jesus did not match the role that people expected of the Messiah, and so a new interpretation had to be given about Jesus, and one of the first titles was that of Christ. But when people asked “who is Christ”, or when the disciples and apostles set out to explain who Christ was, they didn’t seek to talk about his nature, but instead about his function. What does Christ do? Why is he important? How do we find salvation in his acts? How do we understand him as the Messiah?

And so the church spent years and years trying to answer some of those questions. And one of the ways that explanation was done was through assigning certain offices, or positions to Jesus, namely that of prophet, priest and king. And we have these titles and ideas appearing early on in the church. In the mid-first century, Justin Martyr was writing about these three offices, and just as an aside, like Jesus, Martyr was not Justin’s last name, that was given to him after he was martyred, otherwise that would be a rather unfortunate circumstance and heavy burden to carry. Later, Eusebius, the father of church history, would do the same. In the middle ages, Thomas Aquinas took up the topic, as did John Calvin in the Protestant Reformation, and John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement encouraged the preaching of Christ in all three of his offices.

A Purple Nation

Take a deep breath. Pause. Then release. Keep doing that until you feel your anxiety going away, because the election is going to be a very narrow one. And the fact that we don’t know the winner shouldn’t be surprising to us, because that’s more the norm then knowing on the night of the election. That’s the reason states have dates well after the election to finalize their numbers and that the Electoral College members don’t meet until December. It’s to give time for everything to be sorted through.

But, one of the problems with elections is that there are “winners” and there are “losers.” Some in the country, and in our congregation, will feel happy and others will mourn, with little of the in-between. Or at least that’s how it often gets cast. And if you look at the maps of red states and blue states, it looks like there is a deep divide in the country, an “us” and “them.” That seems to be true even if you break it down by county. And yet that’s not really true.

A number of years ago, political scientists tried to come up with a better way to represent voting in the country. Dr. Robert J. Vanderbei, a professor at Princeton, said his county was showing as red, but it had a split 51-49 in the presidential election. Which meant that saying his county was red wasn’t true at all. So he began looking for a different way to show elections and came up with using the color purple: (This is from 2016)

It turns out that we are a lot more purple than we are red or blue, and I think that’s a good thing to remember.

One of the our core values we have at our church is that of being inclusive. While there are lots of things that that means, one of them is that we welcome a wide spectrum of belief, and I certainly see that represented in the congregation. It also means that we are just going to love people, even if we might disagree with them. But we also believe that we can disagree without being disagreeable. And of course that also goes along with that whole loving neighbor thing.

What this also means is that there are a lot more things that unite us then things that divide us. And, as I wrote last week, those who seek to divide us are not offering good news and they should be called out, because it doesn’t have to be this way.

I just finished a biography of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and I knew about her close friendship with Antonin Scalia who was her polar opposite in many ways. But, what I didn’t know about was her relationship with Sandra Day O’Connor, who, as it turns out, was farther away from her on court decisions than any other justice while they served together.

When Ginsburg was set to deliver her first majority opinion, O’Connor, who wrote the dissenting opinion, handed her a note that said something like “Relax, you’ll do fine. It’s a good opinion and I look forward to hearing many more in the future.” That is called collegiality.

We don’t have to agree on everything to get along, and we don’t have to reject someone simply because we disagree. Our table should be larger than that because we are enlarged by being around people who are different from us. And, more often than not, as we get to know people it turns out they aren’t all that different after all.

Envy Versus Persecution

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was Matthew 10:16-31:  

John Chrysostom, who was the 4th century arch-bishop of Constantinople, in writing about rules for clergy, especially in relation to abuse of power, said that he thought that rather than lust being the chief clerical sin, as most people supposed, that it was instead greed. Now, I don’t know much about 4th century clergy, and perhaps he was right for his day, but I would argue that today, at least amongst United Methodist clergy, our chief clerical sin, when looking at the seven deadly sins, is that of envy.  And it’s been said that out of the sin of envy come many of the other sins, including lust and greed, but we clergy like to look around at what other clergy are doing and make judgments. We look at other clergy salary, sometimes whispering under out breaths, can you believe how much they make? We look at what other churches people get appointed to, and make judgments about whether they deserve it or not. We look at what committees people get appointed to, or where the conference might be sending some clergy for some training or to represent the conference, and we make judgments. But, it’s a specific type of judgment. It’s been said that with suffering we ask “why me?” but with envy we ask “why not me?” or sometimes leading to “why them?” which comes with the follow-up; I’m so much better, or more deserving, or more honorable, or whatever it might be, than they are.

Earlier in this worship series we heard the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector praying at the temple, and the Pharisees prayer of thanksgiving to God for not making him like the sinners there, especially like the tax collector. And so his prayer became one of self-righteousness, rather than true thanksgiving, because he felt superior to others, but only because he was spending his time looking at everyone else and comparing himself to others, rather than being focused on his prayer. Envy does the same thing to us. Envy is a sin of looking around and seeing others and making destructive comparisons either because we judge ourselves less than, or others less than. And so remembering that the seven deadly sins were compiled in monasteries, where, for the most part everyone was exactly the same, and wore the same clothing, and ate the same things, any little change that could cause envy could destroy the community that had been established. And as Joseph Epstein said, of all the deadly sins, only the sin of envy is no fun, and it is the only one that is always directed at someone else, which is not true of the others, because even lust can be directed at an inanimate object.

Wrath Versus Peacemakers

 Here is my message from Sunday. The text was Matthew 5:38-48:

One of my favorite movie characters comes from the movie Inside Out and it’s the character of Anger, voiced by the inestimable Lewis Black. For those unfamiliar with the movie, most of it takes place inside the head of a 12-year-old girl, and features the emotions of joy, sadness, disgust, fear and anger as they sort of battle for their spots in how Riley lives her life. And so anger plays a role as one of her natural emotions, and really has some of the best lines in the whole film, including after Riley and her mother receive pizza with broccoli on it, saying “Congratulations San Francisco, you ruined pizza. First the Hawaiians and now you.” Although I actually like Hawaiian pizza. But, as it turns out that even though Joy is trying to deny sadness a place in Riley’s life, she can’t because sadness belongs, just like anger belongs as a primary emotion. 

And so as we think about anger, we have to understand that there is a natural place for anger in our lives, it’s just a matter of what that place is, and why we are angry. After all, we are even told that God “is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” So God gets angry, and when God is angry it’s normally because of injustice or violation of the commandment to love. We even see Jesus getting angry, thinking of him turning over the tables of the money changers is probably the most prominent of them, but would anyone describe Jesus as being an angry person? No, just as when we talked about gluttony we said that while that was an accusation made of him, it would not be how we would describe him.

Five Reasons Why The Big 10 Is Playing Football

Today, the Big 10 will begin playing football (although they technically started last night). There are five reasons why the Big 10 is beginning and feels justified in doing so:

1. Money

2. Money

3. Money

4. Money

5. Money

The Big 10 was the first of the big 5 conferences to come out and say that they weren't going to play football this fall. They were quickly followed by the Pac-12. Now they weren't the first conference to say they weren't playing. Many of the smaller conferences, I think led by the Ivy League, had already said they wouldn't play. 

But the smaller conferences were honest that it was both the health risk but also the economic impacts. They simply couldn't afford to pay for the testing that would be necessary to do it. Costco is now selling Covid-19 tests at $139, and so if that is a good going rate imagine testing several hundred people several times a week and you can see that would get really expensive really quick and most schools couldn't afford that.

But, the Big 10 didn't make that argument. Instead they said that they were concerned about the safety of their players and employees. They didn't see anyway to keep players safe and isolated so that there wouldn't be outbreaks. And, as it turns out, they were exactly right as we have seen with outbreaks among teams that were playing with games being cancelled or postponed every single week.

But, in seeing the other leagues start, and seeing that they were going to be making all the money that comes from college football, especially for the playoffs, and that the Big 10 would be excluded, they gave in and repented of their ways and set a schedule.

And so they start playing this weekend even as Covid-19 counts spike in nearly all of the states in which they play. They are recording rates we haven't seen since the summer, when it wasn't safe to play football, or in some cases setting new records. And yet they are going to play today.

The Big 10, and the Pac-12 following, cannot make any claims of moral superiority anymore. In fact, their claims of player safety are even worse than those of the ACC, SEC and Big 12 who at least said it was always about the money and decided to play anyways.

So congratulations Big 10 you will get your pay day, but at what and whose expense?

Lust Versus Pure in Heart

 Here is my message from Sunday. The text was Matthew 5:27-30:

After receiving the law from God on Mount Sinai, Moses came down from the mountain and said to the people, “I’ve got some good news and some bad news. The good news is that I talked God down and there are now only 10 commandments. The bad news is that adultery is still one of them.” I’ve heard that joke from several clergy over the years, but the one that most surprised me was when conservative theologian and Anglican Bishop NT Wright told it. But I thought it perhaps maybe appropriate for today’s message when we talk about the sin of lust, which is one of the seven deadly sins, and compare it against Jesus telling us that those who are pure in heart are blessed.

Now if you were to just listen to what seems to be emphasized in church, or talked to secular society about what the church emphasizes as the primary sin, it would probably revolve around sexual morality. And yet, Jesus has very little to say about it, especially when compared to other things, like money. Indeed, Jesu eats with prostitutes and says that they will enter the Kingdom of God before the more religious folks. Now it’s not because there aren’t sinful attributes, but because of their desire for salvation not being self-righteous. They know that they have fallen short of the glory of God, and know they need God’s grace in their lives, and so are seeking it out, and Jesus too is seeking them out as lost sheep. But, what we also have to know about sexual morality in the church is that our understanding of, and conversation about, sexuality is extremely narrow. We rarely, if ever, talk about celibacy, for example, even though that was the preferred arrangement in the early church, or at least according to Paul. But it’s completely ignored today.

The other thing to keep in mind is that much of the church’s position about sexuality is not really scriptural, but instead comes to us from St. Augustine, who, to put it politely, had trouble controlling his own urges, his own lust, and so therefore felt that everyone needed to be controlled. Indeed, he even once prayed to God, “Grant me chastity and continence, just not yet.” And the final piece to keep in mind is that nearly all of the moralists over time have been men, and so their views about sex and sexuality have been limited, but have been applied to both men and women, and they harbor many of their fears about women, and we can even see that in the rules surrounding adultery that Jesus addresses in today’s gospel passage. But before we dig a little deeper into that, we need to step back a little bit to look at lust itself.

Pastor Appreciation Month

October is Pastor Appreciation Month. Someone who knows I'm a minister, but doesn't attend my church, came up to me and asked what she could do to show her minister her appreciation during this time. Here is what I told her:

1. Pray for them. But don't just pray, also tell them that you are praying for them and ask if there are any particular concerns that they need lifted up. Knowing others are praying for me always encourages me.

2. Write them a card or a note of appreciation. While emails saying the same thing are nice, they are not necessarily as effective. I keep a collection of these cards on my desk and on my worst days I look at them to be reminded that not everyone hates me or thinks I am doing a terrible job, and it helps to keep me going. (Her church secretary had told her the same thing, but she didn't believe it.)

3. Volunteer to help. Tell them you are willing to assist in some ministry where there is a need, or ask them where they could be of assistance. Please note, this does not mean tell them what else should/could be done and they would assist if the minister will start it, that just adds more stress. Instead, try and take something off of their plate, or someone else's plate, in order to make the church more effective in it's ministry.

There are lots of other things that can be done, but this is a great place to start, and I can guarantee your minister will appreciate it.

Greed Versus Mercy

 Here is my message from Sunday. The text was Luke 16:19-31:

“Ladies and gentleman, greed -- for lack of a better word -- is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms -- greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge -- has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed -- you mark my words -- will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA.” Most of you probably recognize that speech by Michael Douglas from the 1987 movie Wall Street. What might be less known is that the speech was not really the creation of the screen writer of the film, but instead came from the person on whom Douglas’ character was based, Ivan Boesky. Speaking at the graduation ceremony for the business school at the University of California at Berkley, Boesky said, “Greed is alright, by the way. I want you to know that. I think greed is healthy. You can be greedy and still feel good about yourself.” That was just a few months before he would be arrested by the SEC for insider trading to which he would plead guilty to one charge and pay a then record individual fine of $100 million. But before all that happened, he turned against his former compatriots and while collecting information against them for the SEC was allowed to continue doing insider trading making millions in profits until the SEC had enough information to also indict Michael Milken who was then forced to pay what is still the record individual penalty of $600 million. In response to the actions of wall street in the 80’s, congress passed a law that called for life in prison for certain financial crimes, and if you are wondering how many bankers or wall street execs have been subject to that penalty, the answer is less than one. What other studies have also found is that the average sentences for financial crimes are half those of other federal crimes. Who says that crime doesn’t pay, and that greed is not good?

And so today we look at the deadly sin of greed. In some of the other seven deadly sins we have looked at, we have talked about different types of sins, or several sins that have been grouped into one idea, but that’s not the case here. Greed is greed, and of the deadly sins this is probably the one that has the most indoctrination and support from the general culture. And of course you can be greedy for lots of things, power, possessions, accomplishments, conquests, but the thing we most often hear about greed surrounds money. And while we often talk about rich people being greedy, greed itself is not dependent upon the amount of money that we actually have. You can be greedy and only have a dollar to your name, and you can be greedy with a million dollars in the bank; the same way as you can be generous as a millionaire and generous with only a dollar, as the widow was with her two mites contributing all she had to the Temple. Money is value neutral, as we heard in that passage from 1 Timothy, which is often misquoted as saying that money is the root of all evil, it actually says that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. Therefore, greed is about an attitude of the heart, and most often plays itself off at the expense of others who are around them, with a total lack of care for them. which is why greed made the list of the seven deadly sins because remember that they came out of the earliest monastic communities, and these sins were considered to be the things that would destroy community, and so it’s how greed plays itself out in community, in relationship with others, that makes it so problematic.

Gluttony Versus Those Who Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness

 Here is my message from Sunday. The text was Matthew 6:25-34:

One of the accusations that was leveled against Jesus, both by opponents, and even somewhat by supporters was that he was a glutton. This accusation was especially true when compared against John the Baptist. We are told that John was living an ascetic lifestyle wearing a camelhair cloak, which wasn’t very comfortable, and that he ate locusts with wild honey. I’m thinking the honey was a dipping sauce. That is a very different picture than what we see of Jesus, and in fact John’s disciples come and ask why it is that they are fasting while Jesus and the disciples are not. To which Jesus says that someday they will fast, but they should feast while the bridegroom is still with them. The accusation that Jesus was a glutton was a slur used against him to try and denigrate him and his message, more than a reality. But, it does appear that it was fun to be around Jesus, at least most of the time, and as I said in this week’s newsletter, we have lots of stories of Jesus eating with the disciples and with others.

Eating, breaking bread, was important to Jesus and a part of his witness about the Kingdom of God, and we still talk about the feasting that Jesus is preparing for us, and yet what we see in that is the judgments about his behavior could be made. We still see that today because of the seven deadly sins, the one that many people feel comfortable making a judgment about, especially when it comes to others, is the sin of gluttony. Most people just assume that people are overweight because they are gluttonous, and while gluttony does have something to do with overeating, it doesn’t really have anything to do with obesity. The two are not necessarily connected. You can be gluttonous and skinny. And we have to remember that when it was the poor who were skinny that having a little meat on your bones was said to represent divine favor, virtue and nobility. Oh how things change.

The One Thing Trump Didn't Learn From Roy Cohn

Donald Trump learned a lot from his attorney Roy Cohn. For those of you unaware, Roy Cohn had also been legal counsel for Senator Joe McCarthy during the red baiting of the 50s. One of the things he learned was that when you are attacked, you attack back and harder. We can see that happening every day.

But, here is a lesson that Trump didn't learn from Cohn, and he should have. When McCarthy was censured (or "condemned") by the senate and basically went away in disgrace, his popularity rating was still around 40%. That seems to represent the base of Americans supportive of McCarthy, and also of Trump. But, in the end, what Cohn said did McCarthy in was that people got tired of it.

People got tired of the show. They got tired of the chaos. They got tired of the lies and continually changing story. They got tired of seeing people bullied and abused. The show got old and so it got cancelled. 

I am hearing from more and more people, including Republicans who were not never-Trumpers, that they are tired of the show. It's a rule that ever the showman Trump might have learned, should have learned, but never did.

Companion and Compassion

This Sunday is World Communion Sunday, a time for us to gather at the table with Christians all over the world. It has been the tradition of this congregation to have different breads representing different cultures for people to choose for the bread being offered for this celebration. We obviously cannot do that this year, but we can still be at the table, even when we can’t be together.

Sharing a meal is an important thing. There are lots of stories telling us of Jesus sharing a meal with others. There is something that happens when we share a meal with someone else, or break bread with them. We enter into a different relationship with them. Indeed, the word companion literally means “with bread.” A companion is someone with whom you have shared a meal.

That is part of the reason why communion is so significant for us. It is the time in which we can come together and share a meal together as a congregation. It is a time that we are re-membered as one body in Christ and are reminded not just of Christ’s saving actions on our behalf but that we also don’t do this alone.

This leads us to one more significant word: Compassion. Normally when we talk about passion, it means something like having a strong emotion. But, an older meaning was that of suffering, which is why we talk about the passion of Christ. And so compassion literally means “to suffer with.” That too is part of who we are called to be, and something we do as we share a meal together, and as we support one another in the faith.

At the One Board two months ago, I shared that every church says they are welcoming and they are caring, but, obviously, not every church actually does those things. We have stipulated that one of our core values is that we are compassionate and caring, and I think we actually do live into that. Are we perfect? No. There is always room to grow, but one of the things that has impressed me is the way that you do reach out and help each other in times of need, and in times of celebration.

If you are worshipping from home this Sunday, I would encourage you to stop by the church to pick up communion elements, regular or gluten free, so that as we celebrate World Communion Sunday, we may indeed be compassionate companions in this journey of faith.

Sloth Versus Those Who Mourn

 Here is my message from Sunday. The text was John 11:17-27, 32-44:

Just a little over two year ago, the bookkeeper at the church I was serving literally dropped dead one morning. He was sitting on the couch reading and his wife walked into their bedroom to grab something, and when she came out a few minutes later Don was on the floor without a pulse. It was one of those reminders of the fragility of life. But we had already had a reminder of that at the church because just a few months before that, the head of our praise band came down with the flu, which rapidly turned into double pneumonia, and four days later she died. And then on top of that, two weeks after Don died, Elizabeth was born, and she spent the first four days of her life in the NICU and came home on continuous oxygen. I think I definitely could have managed one of these events in my life, and perhaps two of them, but three were just too taxing to me in every way possible. And so while I was still working, I was only focusing on what I considered the most important things, trying to take care of the fires, and everything else fell to the side.

We didn’t buy pumpkins that year, and I spent Halloween day trying to find some for the girls to carve, which we couldn’t find. and those of you who saw the parsonage last year lit up with Christmas lights now how much I love Christmas, but I didn’t put up a single light that year. We did get a Christmas tree, and to be honest, if we didn’t have children, I doubt we would have even done that. The grief and exhaustion were just too much; and as much as people wanted me or needed me to do things, I just couldn’t get anything done. I know that many of you have been in a similar space after a loss. The mourning and the grief are just too much to be able to live as normal. And in fact in some cases we just shut down. And so as we are thinking about the Beatitudes and the seven deadly sins,  and looking at Jesus’ blessing of those who mourn  it seemed natural to link it with sloth because they seem to have similar behaviors. But they are not the same.

Voting Information

My undergraduate degree is in political science, and I always imagined I would go into politics in some way. An experience working with the legislature here and my call to the ministry changed those plans (and church politics don’t count). But, at one point my personalized license plate was “Vote”. Voting is one of the most important things we can do as citizens of this country. It is one of the ways we fulfill the “we the people” part of the constitution.

Yesterday was National Voter Registration Day, which takes place on the fourth Tuesday of September every year as a civic “holiday” to celebrate our democracy. If you are not already registered to vote, I would strongly encourage you to do. The deadline to register online in New Mexico is October 6, and you may do so here.  If you want to register by mail, it must be postmarked by October 6 as well. But, you can register in person through October 31, and that can be done with the county clerk which is in the municipal building, suite 204.

As for election information, as you are probably aware the election date is Tuesday, November 3. If you would like to request an absentee ballot, that must be done by October 20 (Click Here) and they must be received, not postmarked, but received by the county clerk by November 3.  They will have a drop box outside the municipal building for absentee ballots starting October 12. Early voting is available starting October 6^th in the municipal building. White Rock will have early voting at the White Rock Town Hall starting on October 17^th, and both locations will run until October 31^st. Election day voting will also be at those locations as well as at the golf course.

My final instruction comes John Wesley’s journal, and has come to be known as his rules for voting. He says: “I met those of our society who had votes in the ensuing election, and advised them:

1. To vote, without fee or reward, for the person they judged most worthy.

2. To speak no evil of the person they voted against.

3. To take care their spirits were not sharpened against those that voted on the other side."

The one other piece, which would have been a given for Wesley is to pray, or as Ministry Matters, a United Methodist website says, “Spend time in prayer, not only reflecting on whom you should vote for but also asking God to guide your words, attitudes, and actions toward those with whom you disagree.”

Pride Versus the Poor in Spirit and the Meek

 Here is my sermon from Sunday. The text was Luke 18:9-14:

In Star Wars, Luke Skywalker is shown two different ways to live. He can live with the force, and we might say live in the light, or he can choose the dark side, and he has two masters, Obi Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader, showing him their particular way and seeking to get him to follow, even enticing him or telling him that it is his destiny. But it is up to Luke to decide which he is going to choose, while also seeing that choosing one over the other does not necessarily mean its forever, as best demonstrated by Darth Vader who first chooses the dark side, but, 40 year-old spoiler alert, is later redeemed and saved and brought back into the light. Two ways of living in the world, and two ways that are opposite of each other and lead to radically different ways of living and two different results. 

I thought that was an appropriate analogy for us today as we begin a new worship series in which we are going to be looking at the seven deadly sins and comparing them against the Beatitudes, which are two different ways of living, as I said in the worship intro on Friday, it’s sort of comparing the ways of the world against the ways of the Kingdom of God, and we do indeed get to choose which to follow. Or another way to think of it as we drop into the final weeks of the political campaigns is that they are two different platforms being presented to us to for us to choose who we will follow and which way we would like to see the world run. Now this idea came from a book entitled Seven by Jeff Cook, in which he compares the Beatitudes and the Seven Deadly Sins, which I first read several years ago and so he deserves the credit for the idea. I don’t follow his set-up of comparisons, and I’ve seen others who have done the same sense, and so whether they took his idea and did it as well, or it was done before, I don’t know, but he did inspire me.

Evacuation at Disneyland

It seems weird to think that our family might end up being one of a relative few to have actually been to Disneyland this year. But, while we were there in February, there was a fire in the backstage area behind Main Street. We had just finished dinner on the patio of a restaurant to celebrate Sam’s birthday and were packing up the stroller when the fire alarm went off.

Initially no one did anything. Indeed, the waiters were still taking orders and bringing food out to the guests. Then a cast member came out of the main restaurant and started telling everyone they needed to leave, and so everyone started congregating out in the street and security showed up to keep everyone from going into the buildings. Then I heard another cast member say that all the cast members had to go to a certain area so they could be counted and to be safe, and so the cast members started walking away to their evacuation point.

But, all of the guests were still just congregating in the street and we were being given no instructions what so ever. The staff were following guidance on what to do in an emergency, and at least some people knew what that was, but nothing was happening with us. Or to put it another way, the cast members went to safety and the guests were left to fend for themselves.

Now, we just walked away because we wanted to get onto more rides, but no one told us that we should leave Main Street, or not leave, or what we should do. I would have to say that it was not Disney’s brightest moment and I hope that they did a post-mortem and learned from the event and will do it better next time.

But, what would happen if we had the alarms go off while we were in worship? What would you do? If the children are in a class, where do they go? Do parents go to get them, or do they meet them at a designated spot? What would happen if there was a medical emergency during worship? Who would respond? Who would be in charge? Who calls for assistance?

We don’t really have answers to those questions at the moment, or at least ones that would lead to an organized response. And these are not all that unusual. I have had a fire alarm go off twice during worship in my ministry, and while it has not happened to me, I know plenty of clergy who have had medical events, most often heart attacks, happen during worship.

To take the first steps towards preparation and a plan, we are going to be installing signs at the front of the church on the light pole closest to the street, and then on a shed at the back of the church, to serve as our evacuation points. Everyone will be directed there so that we can then do a count and make sure everyone is out of the building. Secondly, we are working on an emergency response guide that we will put into every room which will have directions for responding to the most common emergencies.

While that’s a good start, it’s not a complete plan, and so our next follow-up steps will be to create plans for how we respond, especially during worship or other large church gatherings. If you would like to either participate, or even better spearhead that effort, I would love to have a conversation with you. It’s better to be prepared then to be figuring it out in the moment.

Forgiveness

 Here is my sermon from Sunday. The text was Genesis 50:15-21:

There is a story told about a new minister to a congregation and on his first Sunday there he preached a sermon on forgiveness, which was well received. The next Sunday he preached exactly the same sermon, which left people a little puzzled, but wondering what he would do the next week. But on the third week, he delivered exactly the same sermon of forgiveness, and so that week some leaders of the church paid a nice visit told him to tell him that while they appreciated the message the first time, they wanted to make it known that they expected to hear something different the next Sunday. But, for the fourth time he delivered the same message, only this time he added at the end, and when we start practicing forgiveness in all that we do, then we’ll move onto a new topic.

Now giving the same sermon on forgiveness over and over again is probably over-kill, although it does make sermon prep really easy, we can’t really hear about forgiveness enough because while we very often talk about God forgiving us, it’s also, and just as importantly as us forgiving others and us seeking forgiveness. Indeed, Jesus says that unless you forgive you will not be forgiven. Pretty high standards. But here is some good news. The first is that holding a grudge, the desire to get revenge is actually programmed into us by evolution. We want retribution for what has wronged us. We want vengeance. We want something bad to happen to the other person. This is a natural part coming from the base part of our feelings. Even people who are opposed to this, still feel it, as maybe perhaps summed up by an essay written by Rev. Mary Lynn Tobin in response to September 11, called “Vengeance is the Lord’s (but something inside me wants to ‘bomb the hell out of them’).” and so if you judge yourself because you hold grudges and want revenge, you can let that go because it’s natural. But it’s a matter of what you do with those feelings.

And so here is even better news. Forgiveness is also a part of who we are. It too has been programmed into us by evolution. The desire to heal and rebuild relationship and community are just as much, or maybe even more, a part of who we are as revenge is. In fact, in every animal that has been studied except for one, they have demonstrated acts of forgiveness, conciliation and reconciliation.  The one animal that doesn’t do this is the house cat, and for those who own cats, and those who dislike cats, this should not come as a surprise.  The reason why it is found in other animals, including humans, is because we live in community, and to stay in community which is necessary if we are to survive, we have to have the ability to forgive wrongs.

Speaking Out

 Here is my sermon from Sunday. The text was Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28:

In the book of Numbers and in Exodus, we are told that God will punish the sins of parents to the third and fourth generation (Num 14:18; Exod. 34:7), and while there are other passages that counteract that, in particular Deuteronomy, and then Jesus saying that the blind man was not born blind because of the sins of his parents, we can still see if maybe not punishing to future generations, that the sins the parents committed keep happening generation after generation. That is even true today. There have been some very interesting sociological studies of crime extending through multiple generations. In one study in England it found that 2/3 of all male youths convicted of crimes came from just 10% of families. And while there were many reasons, much of it was about expectations and also about learned behaviors. The same way that families will have multiple generations of doctors or lawyers or even preachers. We imitate what we see our parents do. There are learned behaviors that we follow. The same is also true in churches.

Every church has a unique DNA that is learned about how things happen and how we do things. One church I served had a particular way that they handled conflict, and so you could read back through the history of the church, which was over 100 years old, and keep seeing the same things happening over and over again, especially when it came to conflict. People learned the behavior of how that church operated. But, what I can also say about that church is that in knowing that history, they were making a concerted effort to stop it. To break the pattern, and learning and teaching healthy and appropriate ways to deal with conflict. And so sometimes the sins continue, and sometimes they can be stopped. We see this in families as well. Linda’s father was physically abused when he was a child by his father, as, more than likely, his father had been abused, and his father had been abused, for who knows how long. But you know what he didn’t do to Linda or her sisters? Abuse them. He stopped the pattern of behavior and hopefully that behavior has now been wiped out of the family line. It is no longer being perpetuated and carried on generation after generation.

Wrestling With God

 Here is my sermon from Sunday. The text was Genesis 32:22-31:

Names are important things and convey things about a person. They can give some connection to heritage or family or culture, or perhaps the name means something specific that is supposed to be conveyed. There is also a certain type of person that we associate with some names. So, if I say Cindy of Jennifer, we have an idea of who that person is, or we make a preconceived notion based on other Cindys and Jennifers we have known. And I’m sure you’ve probably met someone and they told you there name, and you wanted to say “No” because they name didn’t match them. And then there is the idea that not naming someone or not using their name is a way of negating them, as we talked about in the story of Hagar in Abraham and Sarah refusing to use her name. That’s why the black lives matter movement has the emphasis of using say their names in order to give identity and belonging and purpose. Names are important things. When Linda was pregnant with our first child Samantha, we already had a girl’s name picked out, But, we didn’t have a boy’s name. So I suggested that we consider using the name of the first Yankee who hit a homerun at the next Yankee game we attended, and Linda was on board.

It happened to be that we were going to see the Yankees play the Cubs, at Yankee stadium. Early in the game, almost everyone in the stadium thought that Gary Sheffield had hit a homer down the left field line, and we thought “well, Gary’s not a bad name.” But, as I said, it was almost everyone, but the one person who didn’t think that was the only one who mattered, which was the third base umpire who called it fair, and this was before instant replay was allowed. Later in the game, Derek Jeter, the Yankee captain, came up with the bases loaded. Jeter had never hit a grand slam in his career, and we thought, this is it. And what was great is you had two options of using either Derek or Jeter, but Jeter flied out, although he did hit his first grand slam the next day. Then in the seventh inning our hard hitting left fielder Hideki Matsui came up, and, of course, he corked one, and Linda immediately turned to me and said “we are not naming our son Hideki,” although Matsui could have worked as well. But, in the end it didn’t matter because we had all girls, and so never got to use our boy name, which was cooper by the way, for Cooperstown, New York. Names are important things, and they matter, and we see that in scripture as well.

Blinded

 Here is my sermon from Sunday. The scripture was Genesis 27:1-29:

One of the common ways that God is referred to in scripture, especially in the Pentateuch, which is the first five books of the Bible is as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Some have argued, however, that God might be better referred to as the God of Abraham, Rebekah and Jacob, as Rebekah plays a much bigger role in scripture than does Isaac. Although we might also use all the matriarchs names in there as well. Last week we heard the story of Abraham getting Rebekah to be Isaac’s wife, in which Isaac is not involved until the end, and Rebekah is one of the primary actors throughout that entire story. And then we have today’s story, in which while Isaac is involved, but, again, Rebekah is the mover and driver of the story. In fact, especially in comparison to Abraham or Jacob or even Rebekah, we know very little about Isaac or his life, and have few stories about him as a character.

But what we do know is that after they marry, Rebekah remains without a child, just like Sarah, which obviously endangers the promise God has made to Abraham and to Isaac that they will have descendants more numerous than the stars. And so we are told that Isaac prays to God for assistance, and after twenty years of marriage, Rebekah gets pregnant with twins. But, they are wrestling and struggling with each other in the womb, which also presages next week’s passage of Jacob and God, and so Rebekah goes to seek guidance from God, and God tells her that there are two nations struggling within her, and “one shall be stronger than the other, the elder shall serve the younger.” It is striking that this oracle is given to Rebekah and not to Jacob, and it also appears that perhaps she does not tell Jacob that she has received this bit of information, because we are told that while Rebekah loves Jacob, who is the second born, that Isaac loves Esau.

When God Doesn't Speak

 Here is my message from Sunday. The text was Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67:

When we began this series, we started at the beginning in Genesis 1:1, when we are told that God said “let there be light.” And what happened? There was light. And so, simply by speaking God was able to create. That means that words matter, especially the words of God. Indeed the beginning of the most important statement of faith within Judaism, known as the shema, begins “Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one.” It doesn’t say speak O Israel or believe O Israel, but “hear O Israel…” Listen to this statement. For us as Christians speaking and language are just as important, because we are told that at the beginning of the Gospel of John, that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.  And who is the Word?  Jesus.  So God speaking is important, and God talks a lot in Genesis.  God talks with Adam and Eve, God talks with Cain, God talks with Noah, God talks with Hagar and of course God talks with Abraham.  God talks a lot with Abraham.  In every step of Abraham’s story not only is God present and active, and yet in the passage we just heard, which is the last significant story of Abraham, God does not speak.  Now after the past two weeks in which we have heard God tell Abraham that he should listen to the voice of his wife Sarah and expel Ishmael and Hagar, and then last week when God calls for Abraham to sacrifice Isaac perhaps we are a little relieved that God is not talking or asking anything.

Today’s passage is a nice story.  A simple story.  It has a nice beginning, a good middle and even a happy ending because we are told that Isaac loves Rebekah.  But it’s not like this is an insignificant story.  This sets up the rest of the Book of Genesis and the creation of what will become the nation of Israel, and yet in striking contrast to everything that has come before, God is not a primary character.  In fact, God is not even there.  Abraham decides to send his chief servant back to his native land to find a wife for Isaac.  Why he is concerned about getting a wife from among his own country, versus those amongst whom he is living, is unknown.  God doesn’t tell him to do this. But, the steward sets off, along with other servants, many gifts and ten camels, which will become important, and as he approaches a well near the city of Nahor, he says a little prayer that God might help him find the right girl.

Then He Raised The Knife

 Here is my sermon from Sunday. The text was Genesis 22:1-19

There are many debates amongst scholars about who wrote particular books or passages of the Bible, with some scholars looking for clues that might indicate that one of the authors may have been a woman.  I think that we can unquestionably solve the debate about today’s passage.  This story could have only been written by a man, simply for the fact, as my wife often says to me, the author is not giving enough information.  He is a masterful storyteller, there is no question about that, but even as a man at the end of this story I want to ask questions in order to get more information.  Was Abraham’s conversation with God really that short?  Did he not ask more questions?  What did Sarah say?  Did she even know?  What were the servants thinking when Abraham and Isaac went up on the mountain?  Did Isaac really just go along with no resistance?  Did Abraham have no doubts whatsoever about carrying out this request out?

So right at the start we are told two things. The first is that we are told this happened after these things had happened, although it’s not clear what these things actually are. Is it the banishment of Hagar and Ishmael and then making covenant with Abimelech? Or is farther back? Is it everything that has happened? We don’t really know. But after whatever these things are we are then told that God decides to test Abraham. And so we are now in the know as it were, as is God, but Abraham doesn’t know this is a test. For him this is deadly serious, because if he knew it was a test, then it wouldn’t actually be a test.  And honestly we might see everything that had happened in Abraham’s life up to this point as a test of his faith and his faithfulness. But, God shouts Abraham’s name for some reason, and Abraham answers “Here I am” an important phrase, and then God says “Take your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt-offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.”