Cokesbury Doesn't Get It

As a United Methodist Pastor I would love to be able to support Cokesbury, and I do when I can, but every time I get one of their catalogs I also get really frustrated.  I just received their catalog for Advent and Christmas items and there are lots of things I would like to use for my congregation but I can't because they are too expensive.  I would love to be able to give my members Advent devotionals to use, or things to do as a family to prepare for Christmas, but most of the items are $7 and up.

At the same time I am getting catalogs and samples from other companies with similar programs.  Except this time the devotionals are less than a dollar, and the more I buy they less expensive they get.  Now I am never going to reach their lower prices because my congregation is not big enough, but it is also that fact that makes price even more of a concern.

The vast majority (70%) of United Methodist churches are under 100 in worship each Sunday, and I assume their finances are as tight as ours are.  We would like to use Cokesbury, but the simple fact is I go elsewhere for most things these days because others can offer similar products for less money.  They simply don't match the reality of what is going on in the local church.

Three Simple Questions: Who Are We Together?

Here is my sermon from Sunday.  The text was 1 Corinthians 12:12-31:

For the past two weeks we have been seeking to answer three simple questions posed by Bishop Reuben Job in his book by the same name.  Those questions are, who is God, who am I, and who are we together.  Of course those are anything but simple questions and we started with what I thought was the hardest, and really is the building point, who is God.  What I said was that God is love, which is an idea of God found throughout scripture and everything else that we might think about God can build from that point.  Because God is love, that also means that God wants to be in relationship with the creation and most importantly, at least for us, God also wants to be in relationship with each and everyone of us because we are all children of God, which led us into our second question, Who am I, and that is that we are children of God and we are made in the image of God.

We remember that we are children of God each time that we perform a baptism or remember our own baptism.  The Protestant reformer Martin Luther said that whenever he was feeling unsure, or feeling attacked, or having doubts, all he needed to do to reassure himself of who he was was to say, “remember you are baptized,” and when he did so he remembered that God had called him by name, just as God calls us by name, and that he was a child of God.  But when we recognize and remember that we are children of God, we must also recognize and remember that everyone else is a child of God as well.

Bishop Job says “When we claim our full inheritance as children of God, then we are able to see clearly and to know in the depth of our being that when we look at another human being, we are looking at a sister or brother who is God’s beloved child, just as we are…. Our identity is not something we create but something that is given by the God who made us, leads us, sustains us, and loves us.  We can, however, give up our own identity and inheritance.  When we forget who we are and begin to see others as anything less than beloved children of God, we are giving up our identity and our inheritance as children of God.”  Whenever we stop seeing others as children of God in their own right, as being loved by God, then Bishop Job says we give up our own inheritance and identity as children of God, because when we do that then we stop following Jesus’ example and injunction to love others as God has loved us, which leads us directly into answering today’s questions which is who are we together.

When we accept Christ and are baptized we enter into the body of Christ, and not only are we reconciled with God but we are given the ministry of reconciliation, to be reconciled with each other.  Last week when Landry was baptized not only did she take her own vows of baptism, but we also took vows on her behalf.  We vowed to “proclaim the good news and to live according to the example of Christ, and to surround” the baptized, not just the ones receiving baptism but all of us, “with a community of love and forgiveness,” and then we pledge to “pray for them that they may be true disciples who walk in the way that leads to life.”  And when we make that pledge, we make it together, the same as others undertook exactly the same pledge for us when we were baptized.

Baptism is not an individual event, it is not just between that person and God, it is a community event, just as being a Christian is not an individual enterprise it is a community enterprise.  We walk this journey together as the body of Christ.  I have said before that I don’t believe that you can be a deeply committed Christian and not be involved in a faith community of some sort or in some way.  You simply can’t.  Jesus says, “wherever two or more are gathered in my name, there I am amongst them.”  Every Sunday when we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we do not say, “My father, who art in heaven,” what do we say, “Our father.. give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.  And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”  The Lord’s prayer is a communal prayer, not an individual petition.  The earliest creedal statement of the church, known as the Nicene Creed, does not say “I believe in one God,” it says “we believe.”  We believe, we are, we do, give us, forgive us, this is a community and communal exercise we are in as Christians together.

As Tilden Edwards said, community is “what everybody wants, but almost no one is able to sustain well for long.”  Any time a group of people get together there are bound to be conflicts and issues, regardless of the people.  We want to live in harmony and get along, but that’s simply not possible, and that is exactly what Paul is talking about in today’s scripture reading from 1st Corinthians.  Apparently, many in the Corinthian community had come to the conclusion that speaking in tongues was the greatest of the spiritual gifts and that everything else was less important, and so Paul wants to combat this type of thinking.  God has given each and every one of us certain gifts and graces, and we are, in Paul’s belief, all gifted.  We are like the children of Lake Wobegone, we are all above average.  Paul is telling not only the church in Corinth, but us, that not only do we need to be unified, but we also need to be diverse.  That, I think is what we often miss in our calls for unity in understanding who we are together.  In order to be seen as one, we often try to crush out our differences and in doing so, we overlook the nature of creation and the necessary differences that not only make us who we are, but make the body of Christ operate effectively.  Sometimes we put aside who we are because we don’t feel that what we have to offer is important or significant, and other times we put aside who we are because we are told that what we have to offer is not important or significant.

In order to function properly, in order to be the body of Christ, all of us are important.  All of us are vital.  All of us are needed. And all of us are gifted.  I want you to look at one of your fingers.  Now unless you are one of the incredibly rare people who are born without fingerprints, that pattern in unique to you.  If I have your fingerprint I can identify you specifically, and if I have a sample of your DNA I can match you instead of the other approximately 6.7 billion people on the planet.  If our fingerprints and our DNA are utterly unique, why would we possibly ever believe that we are not marked individually in our spirits as well?  Imagine, God has created a system in which each of us is uniquely different in our DNA and fingerprints and in our spirit print.  None of us pray alike, think alike, talk about God the same, or have the same relationship with God than anyone else.  And if you accept that as true than you will understand how important you are for the body of Christ.

But, this is not individualism the way we typically understand it, in fact our uniqueness flies in the face of our normal understanding of individualism.  Our spirit print, our gifts, are not given to us in order to build ourselves up or for our own private edification.  Instead they are given to us in order to help build up the church.  Our gifts are not for ourselves, they are given for the unity of the church, and each of us has to give of them in order for the church to be effective and whole.  Unity is not found in the diminishment of gifts, unity is found in the flourishing of gifts, in the recognition that all gifts come to us from God, and therefore are all important and all equal.  If all our gifts are not being seen and utilized than there can be no unity.  Look at the gifts that Paul outlines today, and this is just one of several lists of spiritual gifts that Paul talks about, but they are all outwardly focused.  While faith might be personal, it is never private.  The ministry of the church is for all of us, and all of us are necessary.

We cannot all be ears or eyes or hands, nor can we say that those parts are unimportant because we are not those things, or try to say that other things are unimportant or even unnecessary because we would rather not have them around.  Even the armpit is important.  Sure it’s stinky and we try and mask it and cover it over, or not talk about it at all, but the armpit is extremely important.  Imagine trying to raise your arm without your armpit?  You simply cannot do it.  All of us play a role in the body of Christ and every part is just as important as every other part for the successful operation of the body, and as we all know when even just one part goes wrong the entire body is impacted, but that when one part is helped, or healed, or allowed to function properly that the entire body is helped and healed and allowed to function properly.

Charlie was a standout football player in the state of Missouri when he was growing up.  But not only did he stand out on the athletic field, but he also excelled in the classroom and was accepted to the United States Naval Academy, where he also excelled, graduating near the top of his class.  After graduation he became an officer in the Marine Corp and served on the front lines of the first gulf war, we need to stop having wars that have sequels.  While he was in Iraq, Charlie was awarded several decorations he came home to his small town as a hero.  Everyone was proud of their boy and couldn’t say enough things about him.

But as happens with many soldiers, Charlie came home with some issues that were not properly dealt with and he began spiraling downward into mental illness and he began committing violent crimes, which ended him up in jail, where his mental issues only proceeded to get worse.  He lost an extraordinary amount of weight, he chewed off the tips of some of his fingers, and then gouged out one of his eyes with his own hands, and ended up in the psychiatric unit at the prison.  Every week Charlie’s parents, Bill and Barb, would visit him, and would sometimes bring the pastor of their Methodist church, Scott Chrostek.  But Charlie was no longer known as the great athlete or war hero, he was now known for the crimes he had committed and what he had become in prison.  He was Charlie, the one who used to be that, but who is now this.  He was not talked about as much and certainly was not heralded as the person that others should emulate or people they wanted their sons to be like.

After serving several years in prison, Charlie was released into a half-way house near his parent’s home and he began coming to church with them, and then he asked the pastor if he could begin serving as an usher.  Rev. Chrostek said he was got scarred, and wondered how people would respond.  How would they feel about seeing Charlie serving in this position. And what would they see, after all he didn’t look great, he was missing some of his fingertips, and one eye was gone, what would people do?  But Scott said yes, and the next week Charlie was handing out bulletins.  Scott still said he was so afraid of what might happen.  The first few people through the door, kind of smiled and took their bulletins, and then as more people saw him they sort began to brighten up and say “hey Charlie, good to see you, how you doing,” and Charlie thrived in the role.  He began to put on weight, he began wearing nicer clothes, he got his hair cut and eventually began taking some courses at a local college.  Remembering that we are an Easter people, Rev. Chrostek said “this is what the resurrection looks like.”

Today, Charlie, with the help of his parents, owns 34 acres outside of town where he raises sheep, and he invites people to come out and help sheer the sheep, and he teaches children about how to turn the wool into yarn and then turn that yarn into everyday objects.  Charlie is a shepherd who tries to pass on to some of the kindness and compassion he has received from his brothers and sisters in Christ.  But, Rev. Chrostek also wonders what would have happened if the congregation had responded differently?  What if the congregation had lived into all the worst fears that he had for them and for himself?  What if they could not push themselves beyond their boundaries to see Charlie as a child of God, a hurting child of God, and instead only saw him for what they saw on the outside, or for the terrible stories they had heard of who he had become.  He doesn’t believe that Charlie could be the person he is today, his resurrection story would not be a reality, without the support and love he received from his church community.

As United Methodists we are called to make disciples of Christ for the transformation of the world, but in order to transform the world we must also transform ourselves.  We must first recognize that we are children of God, to be willing to take up that mantel and call, to take up our crosses as Jesus says, and then we must be willing to see everyone else as a child of God as well.  “If anyone is in Christ there is a new creation,” Paul says in second Corinthians, “everything old has passed away… all this is from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.” (2 Cor. 5:17-18)  As baptized people we are brought into reconciliation with God and we are also give the ministry of being reconciled with each other.

Who are we together?  We are the body of Christ, being transformed together, becoming new together, sometimes being resurrected together, and working to transform the world together.  The power of the church resides in each and everyone of us.  The only thing that keeps us from being the people who God called us to be is ourselves, because God has given us the Holy Spirit and through the Holy Spirit we receive what? Power, the power to accomplish the things that God has called us to do.

In Ephesians, Paul writes “I encourage you to live as people worthy of the call you received from God.  Conduct yourselves with all humility, gentleness, and patience.  Accept each other with love, and make an effort to preserve the unity of the Spirit with the peace that ties you together.  You are one body and one Spirit just as God also called you in one hope.” (Eph 4:1b-4)  or as Bishop Job says, “Prophet and saint remind us that saying ‘Yes’ to the invitation of Jesus to ‘Come, follow me’ brings costs and rewards far beyond our wildest expectations.  One of these rewards is the assurance, satisfaction, and pure delight of the awareness of living in Christ’s presence as we follow where he leads.  As we become companions of Christ, we naturally find ourselves at prayer, worship and service, just as he practiced so consistently.”  In deepening our relationship with Christ we will automatically find in prayer, worship and service with others, just as Jesus did.

Who is God?  God is love and because of that God wants to be in relationship with us, God loves us and beckons us to come home.  We are made in God’s image and we are children of God.  Who am I? I am a child of God and you are a child of God, and who are we together?  We are brothers and sisters in Christ seeking to make disciples of Christ for the transformation of the world, while being transformed ourselves, while living into the call that God has given to us as part of the body of Christ.  May it be so my sisters and brothers.  Amen.

Support Your Schools

School begins back for our small town today, and I though this was an appropriate message as we begin the school year:

Who Should I Boycott?

I stayed out of the whole Chick-Fil-A brouhaha because I thought first that it was overdone by people on both sides, and others were making much better comments than I ever could.  Rachel Held Evans might have summed up the Christian perspective best when she said that showing up to eat a fast food chicken sandwich in order to prove what a good Christian you are = Christianity Fail.

Of course those in support of Dan Cathy's quote against gay marriage said they were supporting his right to free speech, and those in opposition said they were fighting against his infringement on the rights of gays and lesbians.  That's an argument that neither side is going to win, and both sides said the opposite party were wrong.  Of course here is the irony.  Now the same thing is happening with Amazon, although the news has not been as big, except that the roles are totally reversed.

Jeff Bazos, CEO of Amazon, has come out (no pun intended) in support of gay marriage, and is putting his money where his mouth is.  This has led some conservatives to call for a boycott of Amazon, because, I guess, Dan Cathy has the right to free speech but Jeff Bazos does not.  And now progressives want to buy from Amazon, not that they weren't already, in order to show support, even though they were quick to say how ridiculous it was for Chick-Fil-A supporters.

Now this is obviously not the first time these things have happened, nor will they be the last, and the ironies never stop.  When Rush Limbaugh made his typically ridiculous and slanderous comments about Sandra Fluke, people called on sponsors to cancel their support or they would be boycotted.  Many of them did, to which Rush said it was "economic terrorism" and an attack on his free speech rights.  Which, of course it wasn't.

Somehow we have lost the connection that with rights come responsibilities, as well as the understanding that there might be consequences for our actions.  Simply because a sponsor stops their support, or customers stop coming, or start coming, because we said something does not mean that our rights are being infringed upon.  It simply means that there are consequences for what we said.  We still have the right to say it, and others have the right to be offended and act accordingly.  As Gregg Easterbrook said, and this could apply to all such situations, "that's the free market in action!... Isn't refusal to purchase a free-market choice? Like many, Rush extols the free market when it favors him, then wants special exemptions when the market's verdict is negative."

But here's is the biggest problem.  When have boycotts actually worked?  Sure there are some examples, but most have not made the changes they sought.  The UMC once called for a boycott of Taco Bell because of the treatment of people working for their tomato supplier.  Ever hear of it?  Didn't think so.  Many "family" groups have called for a boycott of all Disney products, which you probably have heard of, but it has not been successful.  The other problem is that if you followed all the boycotts that people you support call for you wouldn't really be able to go anywhere or do anything.

There are some companies I don't like and I try and stay away when I can, but sometimes it's hard.  When we were in Boston we never shopped at Wal-Mart because we don't like them as a company and there were alternatives that allowed us to go somewhere else.  But these companies were not always better.  Now that we live in the middle of nowhere we shop at Wal-Mart not because we are suddenly happy with the company but because there are little alternatives for some of the things we need to get.  Sure we could get some of them from Amazon, but what about their treatment of people working in their warehouses?

The simple fact is all companies fall short in one way or another, regardless of where you stand on the political spectrum, somewhat because companies are not people and they are also not Christian.  They are corporations whose purpose is to make a profit for their owners and/or share holders.  Some do better ethically than others and some do worse, but they all fall short.

I want to spend my money in responsible ways and I try, but it's really hard to try and keep track of everyone that you don't like, and as soon as you think you know, something else will change, and when your options are limited it becomes even harder.  I can say I am boycotting Chick-Fil-A but the simple truth is there is not a location closer than 2 hours (and really 3 with the time change) so any statement I would make about not going would be disingenuous at best and so I really choose to just ignore it.

Random Sports Thoughts

Congratulations go out to King Felix who threw a perfect game yesterday for the Seattle Mariners, their first.  I was at home sick so got to watch the final three innings.  There is no doubt that Hernandez is one of the best pitchers in the game and every time the Yankees face him I just go ahead and count it as a loss.  This is the 23rd perfect game in the history of the MLB, but the third one this year, which is a first.  I wondered before if we are seeing a statistical anomaly or something more, and that question is still in my mind.  Not to take anything away from Cain or Humber, who threw the other two perfect games this year, but facing the Rays line-up is much harder than either Seattle or the Astros, the other two teams who had perfect games thrown against them.

In addition to yesterday's perfect game we also found out that Melky Cabrera had been suspended for 50 games for testing positive for performance enhancing drugs.  I've always liked Melky and he was having an incredible year, and now we know at least part of the reason.  This was also a contract year so it would appear to me that Cabrera was trying to have a great year to make big money, and it caught him.

But here is the fact with which that MLB is going to have to deal: They keep saying we are in the "post-steroid" era but it's clear that we are not.  Ryan Braun, last year's NL MVP, and Melky Cabrera, who most people thought would be this year's NL MVP, have now both tested positive for PEDs.  And don't let the fact that an arbitration committee overturned Braun's suspension confuse you.  His attorney's did not argue that Braun had not in fact used PEDs.  Instead they argued that the chain of evidence was not clean and thus could be questioned.  It's the same as someone who is accused of a crime being released because the police obtained evidence illegally.  It does not make them innocent, and in my opinion Braun is not.  If the two possible NL MVPs are using it should be pretty clear that lots and lots of others are also using, it's just that they are using something for which there is not yet a test.

The Red Sox are in complete disarray.  It would be tempting to say they are in disarray again, but it's truer to say they are still in disarray.  This really should not come as a surprise to people who have been watching the team for a while.  This ownership group has always worked on coddling players, just remember when Manny was "being Manny," and you can see the root of the problem.  But when they turn on you it can and will be very nasty, which, according to many reports, has led many of the current players not to trust the team, and truth be told they shouldn't.

Most people thought that Valentine would be a disaster, because he has been a disaster most places he has been in MLB.  The fact that he was the ownership's hire, versus who their new GM wanted, and then they didn't let him hire his own coaching staff, has not made anything better.  He was really set-up to fail.  Of course the fact that Ownership has released a statement of support for Valentine should be seen as all such statements should be seen: "We will fire you soon, but not immediately."  Show me one time that a statement of support for a coach has been followed by a long-term career in that position.  The only thing statements of support show is that the end is near.

As happy as I am to see them under .500 and 13.5 games back of my Yankees, this is a team that needs to be blown up and everything started again.  Of course, Larry Lucchino, who is a weasel and the president and CEO of the Red Sox, and the one who chose Valentine, has already shown were the blame will be placed because he told Ben Cherington, the GM, he had the authority to be "bold" at the trading deadline and nothing happened.  So the GM had the authority to make the team better and he didn't so clearly it's his fault, and definitely not Lucchino's or any of the other owners who pushed for some of the ridiculous contracts for bad personalities with which they are stuck.

Last night the US soccer team beat Mexico for the first time in Mexico.  Up to this game they were 0-23-1 in Mexico, and 33-16-12 all-time, but ESPN kept referring to the "rivalry" between the two teams.  I'm sorry that's not a rivalry.  The hammer and the nail don't have a rivalry.  Sure sometimes the hammer will miss and nail your thumb, but that doesn't mean that the nail is somehow suddenly a true competitor.  The US is doing better as of late, but I still have a hard time seeing this as a serious rivalry because one team has simply dominated the other.

In addition, last night the Little League Softball World Series was won by the team from Albuquerque, congratulations girls you did a great job!  At the same time, the Little League Baseball World Series begins today.  ESPN and Little League baseball will make millions of dollars off of this, and yet the players, the ones doing it all, will make nothing.  I understand the desire to keep them "amateur" but that's really a joke because so much money is being made off of them.  And some point something will be done, it's just a matter of time.

A few months ago Nick Saban, head football coach at Alabama, said that he is going to be there for the rest of his career.  If I were an Alabama fan I would begin thinking about who the next coach will be because Saban has never kept his word when he has made such a statement.  First there was the fact that he would never leave Michigan State, until he went to LSU. Then he said he would never leave LSU, until he went to Miami Dolphins. While there he said "I guess I have to say it. I'm not going to be the Alabama coach."  So like a statement from ownership supporting a manager, the only thing a statement of support from Saban means is that he will soon be going somewhere else.

Saban also said that what happened at Penn State could never happen at Alabama because the football coach had no power to affect anything there, and the entire world broke out in laughter.

Ohio State has decided to turn around it's troubled program by hiring Urban Meyer, which is also a joke.  Meyer had 31 arrests of players under his leadership is Florida.  To show you how bad it was I began typing "how many players arrested" into Google and the first response was "under Urban Meyer."  That's not really the sign of integrity you want for a troubled program.

And as long as we're talking about Ohio State, can someone explain to me how the NCAA can talk about lack of institutional control at Penn State and not then do anything about Ohio State?  When everything was coming out there about Jim Tressel's time there, as well as at his prior schools, the president of Ohio State, E. Gordon Gee, was asked if he would fire Tressel and his response was "I'm just hoping the coach doesn't dismiss me."  Of course Gee said he was joking, and I'm sure everyone was laughing.  How does that not smack of loss of institutional control?

It should be noted that while at Vandebilt Gee eliminated the athletic department and put it under student life.  He could never do such a thing at Ohio State, or at most division one schools, because he wouldn't have the power or authority to do such a thing.  But if Tressel or Meyer or Saban or Paterno wanted something done you can be sure it would be done.

And finally, the Olympics are over and we have to wait another 18 months for the winter games, which I prefer, and another 4 years for the summer games.  I'm sure that NBC could have done a worse job in their coverage, but it would be hard to do.  I understand their desire for tape delay to draw a big audience, but the simple fact is we don't live in that world anymore.  I also don't understand the weird editing they did, and I hate most of their background stories.  I simply don't care, just let me watch.

They don't do this for other sports.  We don't lose several minutes of game time, or have it delayed, so we can learn all about how hard it was for the third and long pulling guard for the Colts to grow up.  Instead they let the games speak for themselves.  But where they could use some time to provide us information is in actually explaining the game to us since most are not familiar with most of these sports.  If you are going to blather on about something make it useful to us, not fluff to fill air time.

Three Simple Questions: Who Am I?

Here is my sermon from Sunday.  The text was Matthew 12:46-50 :

Last week we began a new series looking at Bishop Reuben Job’s book Three Simple Questions, but as it turns out those questions are really anything but simple.  The questions are: who is God? Who am I? and, finally, Who are we together?  Last week we tackled the first one, which is, at least in my mind, the hardest question which is who is God.  We looked at several different conceptions of God, and twenty-five minutes greatly condensed we stated that God is love.  But what we also discussed is the fact that since God is love that God wants to be in relationship with the creation, and most importantly to be in relationship with each and every one of us.  For God so loved the world, John says, and God loves us not only because God created us but most importantly because we are created in the image of God, we are God’s sons and daughters, which is how we answer today’s question.  Who am I?  Who are you?  We are the sons and daughters of God, we are brothers and sisters in the faith, and since we’ve answered that so easily and so well, let’s all go home, right?

Of course it’s not that simple.  At the end of today’s service we will be conducting, participating, witnessing the baptism of Landry Widner as she takes the vows of the faith and enters into the waters of baptism.  There are many things that we claim happen through the sacrament of baptism.  The first is that we are cleansed of sin, not just the sins we have already committed, but we are also offered forgiveness for the sins we have yet to commit.  It is a covenant of the past the present and the future.  Some want to leave it at that, but baptism is much more.  John the Baptist did a baptism of repentance, but the early church said that was not enough, because we must also be baptized into the Holy Spirit, which we receive when we baptize, we will actually pray after Landry comes back out of the water for the Holy Spirit to work in her life.  In addition we also recognize that through the waters of baptism we die to our old self and are reborn as followers of Christ.  But into what are we reborn, what is this new life?  We are reborn into Christ.  The church at its most basic form is a collection of the baptized, so by being baptized we become members of the body of Christ, the church, and finally, and most importantly for today’s message, through the waters of baptism we become brothers and sisters in Christ, but we also recognize ourselves as children of God.

A few weeks ago we looked at Paul’s understanding of how we are adopted by God.  Under Roman law, the only reason that adoption was practiced was to protect or pass on an inheritance, and when you were adopted you took on a new name, a new identity, a new family, and any debts you had from your previous family, or previous life as it were, were wiped out.  You became an entirely new person.  Let me say that again to emphasize its importance.  When you were adopted, you became someone new, you died to your old self and any debts you had were totally forgiven, they were wiped away and you entered into your new life completely free and clear.  You took on a new identity and a new family.  But the only way you could be adopted in the ancient world is if the family who was to adopt you did not already have a legitimate heir.  If they had a son, or many sons, they could not adopt anyone else into the family. 

But Paul says that in our case it is because of Jesus, the son of God, the legitimate heir, that because of Jesus was can be adopted and become children of God, and we recognize that adoption through the process of baptism.  When Jesus is baptized after he comes out of the water, the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove descends on him and a voice from the sky says, “this is my son, with whom I am well pleased,” and the same thing happens with us, in recognizing our relationship with God, when we are baptized God says to each and every one of us, “I am well pleased,” and we recognize that we are children of God.  As Bishop Job says, “we are made in God’s image, and God chooses to dwell within us.”

Now the answer to the question of who am I is directly connected to the question of who God is, and there are two pieces of scripture that I think illustrate that.  The first comes from the 43rd chapter of Isaiah, the first three verses which say “I have called you by name, you are mine.  When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.  For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your savior.”  Now we are going to hear that again, but this time I want you to insert your name into the passage after God says I have called you by name.  “I have called you by name, (name) you are mine.”  I have called you by name, and you are mine.  I have called you by name, and you are mine.  When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.  For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your savior.”  I have called you by name, and you are mine, because we are children of God.  Bishop Job says that “we are not given a special place because of our birth, place of origin, wealth, gender or occupation.  As children of God, all receive an identity and place as God’ beloved child.”  We all have inherent worth because we are made in the image of God and we are all sons and daughters of God, and God loves us.

In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus tells us the parable of the prodigal son.  A man has two sons, and the youngest son goes to his father and asks for his half of the inheritance, and for some reason the father agrees to do this, we guess because he wants his son to be happy, but the son takes the money, goes off to a foreign land and spends all the money.  Prodigal means wasteful or extravagant.  After all the money is gone, the son has to get a job, and he is reduced to working for someone feeding his pigs.  This is about the worst thing that a Jew can do as dealing with pigs is forbidden by Jewish law, so not only has he sunk to the lowest position, he is also sinning in what he has to do, and to make matters worse the pigs are getting better and more food than he is getting.  Realizing where he is and what he has been reduced to, he resolves to go back to his father, to confess what he has done to his father and beg his father to treat him as another hired hand since he is not worthy to be called his son, and so he sets off for home, not really knowing what to expect.  But here is what we are told: “But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and kissed him.  Then the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly, bring out a robe – the best one – and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.  And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ and they began to celebrate.” (Luke 15:20-24)

The father has been sitting out watching the road waiting for his younger son to return, and rather than being upset or waiting to give him a good tongue lashing, what does the father do, he runs to him, he doesn’t walk, he doesn’t sit and wait for him to come in the gate, instead he runs to his son filled with compassion with his arms open wide and his envelopes him in a hug and kisses him, and then tells the servants to go get a robe, not just any robe, but the best one, and put a ring on his finger, which symbolizes his position within the household, and sandals on his feet and then they slaughter a fatted calf and they celebrate and party.  That we are told is what God’s love is like for us and how much God wants us to return, and we know this because of the stories which come immediately before it in which we are told that of a shepherd who when he loses one sheep, leaves the other 99 behind to go and find it, and when he does he rejoices in it with his neighbors and we are told “Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over the ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.” (Lk 15:7) and then the next story is the woman who loses one coin and she searches the entire house until she finds it and then she rejoices with the neighbors and again we are told, “Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” God wants to be in relationship with us because God loves us.

Sister Helen Prejean, some of whose story was told in the movie Dead Man Walking where she is one of the main characters said, “People are more than the worst thing they have ever done in their lives.”  If that weren’t true we wouldn’t be here, because we have all done some terrible things in our lives, now maybe there are others who have done worse, but that’s when we get into trouble is when we begin thinking things like that.  We all fall short of the glory of God, we have all fallen short of living into the image of God, and we have all fallen short of being good disciples of Christ. None of us love a life of Christian perfection.  None of us live in total alignment with God’s will for our lives, as Methodists we claim that we are moving on to perfection, on to being in total alignment with God.  But you know what?  In spite of all of that God still love us, God is still waiting for us with open arms, waiting for us to come home so that God can through a party for us and celebrate.  This is the God of love who wants to be in relationship with us, and it is the key to our identity, it is who we are, we are children of God, warts and all, sins and all, wants, desires, failures, successes, all of it is utterly stripped away in the presence of God, because God doesn’t care, God loves each and every one of us just as we are because we are God’s children.

In Romans, Paul writes, “Who will separate us from the love of Christ?  Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? … No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, not things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38-39)

Some of us carry deep wounds, deep scars, deep secrets things we have only told a few people or maybe never told anyone, things that we keep hidden away from others, including God because we are afraid of them, and we are afraid that because of them that God does not like us or want us, let alone love us.  Sometimes we feel this because it’s what we think about ourselves, and sometimes it is because others have told us that we are broken or unlovable or that we have done something that God could never forgive, but that is not what we are told in scripture, nothing, absolutely nothing can separate us from the love of God Paul says, Jesus says that the father waits watching the road for the son to return and that when he returns he runs to him and celebrates that what was lost has returned, and in Isaiah we hear God say, “I have called you by name, and you are mine.”  We have inherent worth because we are children of God.  When we look for outside validation of ourselves, when we look to others to claim that we are worthy, then we will never be happy, we will always need more and more validation, it will never be enough.  But when we remember that we are made in God’s image, that we are children of God, and that God will always love us no matter what, then our souls can be filled and we can stop looking to fill it with other things.

The story of the prodigal son ends with the older brother getting upset that the father is slaughtering the fatted calf for his wastrel of a son who has squandered everything.  The brother wants things for himself, but not for his brother, he thinks he brother is no longer deserving, that the father should rebuke him and send him away, certainly he shouldn’t love him or do any of the things he is doing.  But the father rebukes him and tells him that he could have always had what the younger brother is getting, but the father’s love does not change for either of them because of what has happened in the past.  The father loves them both because they are his children.  Bishop Job says “When we claim our full inheritance as children of God, then we are able to see clearly and to know in the depth of our being that when we look at another human being, we are looking at a sister or brother who is God’s beloved child, just as we are…. Our identity is not something we create but something that is given by the God who made us, leads us, sustains us, and loves us.  [But] when we forget who we are and begin to see others as anything less than beloved children of God, we are giving up our identity and our inheritance as children of God.  We are no longer following Jesus when we refuse to walk as he walked and refuse to obey his command to love,” which leads us into next week’s question of answering who are we together.

Who am I? Who are you? We are children of God, who has called us by name, who waits for us, who celebrates our return, who loves us unconditionally and there is nothing which can separate us from that love.  When Martin Luther was feeling unsure of himself, when he was having doubts, when he was feeling threatened or challenged, he said that all he had to do to assure and reassure himself was to simply say, “remember you are baptized,” and when he did that then he remembered that he was a child of God and that was all that mattered.  “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” Jesus asked.  And then he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers and my sisters! For whoever does the will of my father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”  Who are we?  We are brothers and sisters in Christ and we are children of God, and we remember every time we baptize and every time we remember our baptism that we baptized into, as Paul says, “one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.” (Ephesians 4:5-6)  May it be so my sisters and brothers.  Amen.

Increasing Awareness Of Concussions

I have written on this blog quite a bit about concussions and the potential damage they might cause long term, especially to athletes who face greater risks of not only concussions but sustained trauma to the brain, which some have speculated might be even worse long-term than just concussions.  But I saw two very positive signs this week that maybe things are in fact changing.

The first was a friend I grew up with who posted this week that her son had gotten a new helmet that is better at protecting against concussions.  She is in the deep south where football and "manliness" are a religion so this was a huge sign that people are paying attention.

The second was a little more subtle.  I have been reading through the Hunger Games trilogy, and in the third book, Mockingjay, Katniss Everdeen, who is the main character, has suffered a concussion.  Because of this she is kept from doing some things that she wants to do.  She would probably prefer to be out doing them even though she still has headaches and dizziness, but her doctors keep her from doing so.  After she does go out again, she sustains some more trauma, which aggravates the concussion, and she is again shut down.

How awesome is that?  Concussion awareness and protection are making their way into literature.  Now they cynical part of me wonders if the same thing would have happened if the main character had been male, but I am just as happy that it happened at all.  Now if we could just get similar things to be modeled in television shows, movies, etc., so that they will become even more acceptable and be modeled in real life.

Three Simple Questions: Who Is God?

Here is my sermon from Sunday.  The text was Acts 17:22-31.  This was one of those sermons that preached much better than it was written:

About a year ago we did a sermon series entitled Three Simple Rules based on a book of the same name by Bishop Reuben Job which discussed the general rules written by John Wesley the founder of Methodism.  Does anyone remember those rules? (do no harm, do good, stay in love with God, glad to see I was effective).  Well this year, Bishop Job published a new book entitled Three Simple Questions, although as it turns out the questions are anything but simple, at least not for me.  Those questions are Who is God, second who am I, and finally who are we together.  I think those questions are a lot of things, but simple is not one of them, especially trying to answer who God is.  People have written tomes on this topic, and you’ll find me referencing more people than normal today, and we still haven’t exhausted what might be said, or any of the arguments that surround the topic.  If we were to open the conversation up between all of us I doubt that we would come to any unanimous claims about who God is.  Even within United Methodism we can’t agree.  Every Wednesday all the Methodist clergy from the area get together, and of the nine clergy, I’m willing to guess there would be at least 18 opinions offered as to who God is.  As someone once said, united Methodists are a lot of things, but united is not one of them.  And if we were to begin talking with other denominations it would become even worse.

There are some who have proposed that a lot of the arguments that are currently taking place within American Christianity are rooted in differences in the conception of God between the liberal and conservative sides of the church, and liberal and conservative in this sense do not correspond to political positions.  It is said that on the conservative side that they view God as father as the authoritarian figure, who to some degree is distant from us,  and while recognizing that God loves us is also the disciplinarian because God must uphold a sense of justice.  Those who hold such a position also tend to want the family unit ordered and operating the same way, with men firmly in charge of the family, making all decisions and judgments, whose word is sacrosanct and final.  On the other side of the spectrum are those who might still view God as father, but in a more familiar role more like daddy, which is how Abba should be translated.  God is all loving, there for us at every step, waits for us to return when we are away and is ready to welcome us back with loving arms.  While there may still be some judgment elements, view of God is much more forgiving, more loving, more egalitarian in its approach, and a similar attitude is also seen in family structures, in which there is less assignment of roles based on gender, and there is a closer affinity between parents, especially fathers, and their children.  Now obviously this position is a gross over simplification, and there are lots of overlapping beliefs and characteristics, and yet there is also a large degree of truth to be found there as well.  The simple fact is who we conceive God to be plays a significant role in our lives and in whom and what we worship.

As Methodists we follow what is known as arminian theology, which is named after Jacob Arminius, not after the country of Armenia, we are arminian not Armenian, and that stands in contrast to Calvinist, who follow the teachings of John Calvin.  One of the major differences, and the one most pertinent to us here is the idea of atonement, that is for whom did Christ die and how does it work.  Calvinists believe in limited atonement, that only some people will be saved, which is typically talked about as predestination or sometimes called double predestination.  So if you ever hear people talking about our salvation already being predetermined, that is Calvinist.  What is also true of Calvinists is the believe in what is called as preservation of the saints, which means that once you are saved you are saved for all of eternity, there is nothing you can do to change that because God’s grace is irresistible, you have no choice in accepting God’s grace or not, because either God is going to give you God’s grace or you’re not going to receive it you have no choice.  The final piece is the fact that Calvinists believe that there is nothing redeeming about humanity, that we have what is called total depravity.  We are all just little bundles of sin and there is nothing good about us.

Now as arminians, we differ with them on most of these issues.  The one area where some people agree is on the issue of total depravity.  That is not a position with which I agree, but you can believe that and still be primarily armininian.  But where we do disagree is on the issue of atonement, in that we believe that Christ died for everyone, that God’s grace and mercy and forgiveness are extended to each and every one of us.  But we must also be willing to either accept or reject that offer of grace, which means that God’s grace is resistible.  But it’s not just that God’s grace is resistible but that we exist on sort of a sliding scale in our relationship with God.  Sometimes we are doing really well and at other times we may have turned our backs on God, and so we do not believe that once you are save you are always saved because being a Christian, and being in relationship with God, is a lifelong journey.  That is who we understand who God is and how God works.  But of course God is so much more than that.

Bishop Job relates a story about when he was early into the ministry and he had a twelve-year-old girl come up to him after service and say “Can you tell me more about God?”  He sat down with the girl and says that “she was looking for guidance, direction, truth, light, and understanding and she was looking to me to provide it.”  As they talked and Bishop Job tried to tell her about who God is, what he and the girl encountered was that God is always somehow just beyond our ability to understand let alone describe because our knowledge is always incomplete and the nature of language is also always lacking, but that doesn’t stop us. Somehow we still have to try and find a way, find a word, that will help us to understand or describe who God is, even when we feel like we will never be successful.  But we have to keep using words, not only because it’s really all we have, and trying to describe God playing charades is even harder, but it’s also because words are so important to our understanding of who God is and how God works.  In the beginning all was darkness and void and then God said, “let there be light.”  God spoke it into existence and it came to be, and then of course we are told in John’s gospel, “in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.”  Jesus is that word, so even though language is limiting and cannot ever serve to fully explain God, at the same time it is central to understanding who God is.

But in addition to naming God with our words, we also name God through our actions, where we are silent, and where we put our trust.  Sometimes these things do point us to God, but sometimes they show our god to be our career, or money, or hobby, or something else which claims our allegiance.  There’s a great book called The Christian Atheist by Craig Groeschel, which talks about claiming that we believe in God but living as if God doesn’t exist, or replacing God with another god.  The simple fact is we all have a God of one sort of another, even atheists and agnostics.  We all have something which drives us or where we put all of our attention, passion and adoration, “something that determines the direction of our lives,” as Bishop Job says.  In addition, what we think about God can have great impact on what or how we worship.  Whenever someone tells me that they don’t believe in God, my first question to them is to have them tell me about the God they don’t believe in because more than likely I don’t believe in that God either.  I once had one of the youth of a church I was serving come and say that he didn’t want to be confirmed because he didn’t believe he could make the profession of faith with integrity, certainly a position I respect.  So I asked him why and he told me all the things he didn’t believe, or didn’t believe in, and at the end  of his list I think he was a little shocked, and perhaps dismayed, because I told him that I didn’t believe in any of those things either.  But that doesn’t mean we still don’t have some misconceptions about God.

Bishop Will Willimon has said we have a desire to turn God into our personal genie who will give us whatever we ask for our desire, and when it doesn’t happen then we question whether God actually exists, or worse we don’t even ask let alone believe that God could ever do such a thing.  For some reason we want to make God either too small, or too safe.  Thinking back to last week’s passage from John in which, after the disciples haven’t caught any fish, Jesus tells the disciples to cast their nets on the other side of the boat and then their nets get filled.  But we want God to simply fill our nets, we don’t want to have to do the work ourselves.  Mark Buchanan says “We want a God who provides but doesn’t intrude, who protects but never demands, never judges, never meddles.  We want a God who keeps his distance and doesn’t crowd us.”  We don’t want to be challenged by God, we don’t want to be asked to do things, especially things that, like we talked about last week, take us out of our comfort zones.  We want God to answer to us, but don’t want to have to answer to God.  We want a God who will fill our nets, but not one who asks us to do it ourselves.

Often that’s simply because either we want to make God safe, or we want to keep God at arm’s length because we’re too afraid of what will happen is we truly invite God into our lives.  We are told in Exodus that after the Israelites had escaped from Egypt and were in the wilderness, Moses had been talking with God on Mt. Sinai, but “when all the people witnessed the thunder and lightning, the sounds of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking, they were afraid, and trembled and stood at a distance, and said to Moses, ‘You speak to us and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us or we will die.’” (Exodus ) or as someone else I read this week said, “we long for hearsay about God, but do not ourselves want to hear God say anything.”  It’s the same reason why we are afraid of truly inviting the Holy Spirit into our lives because when that happens we know that things will be taken out of our control, that God will be in control and that leaves us nervous and scared.

The other great mistake we do is to make God in our image.  In taming and controlling God, in trying to make God safe and in making God small, we reverse the order of things, and as we discussed when we looked at Paul, we become convinced that if we believe something, if we do something, then God must be okay with it because we would never do or think something that was wrong.  There are lots of problems with making God is our image.  The first is that if God is just like us, then there is really no need for God, except as justification for our actions, and if that is God is for, then God is certainly not someone who demands out attention, let alone our worship or awe, the same can be said of a God who is safe or small.  Here’s a good way to decide if we are making God is our image, in the words of Anne Lamott, “You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do,” and it might be added if God only like the people you like.

Does God challenge us, make us different and hopefully better?  Or does our conception of God simply match everything we already believe and do?  We are made in God’s image, and because of that simple reality we are called to be more than who and what we are, we are called to live into that image, we are called to be challenged and pushed, we are called not to sit back and let God fill up our nets we are set aside to follow God’s call of come follow me.  Jesus is constantly challenging the religious leaders, challenging those who surround him, challenging the disciples, and challenging us.  Jesus, the manifestation of God in human form, constantly and totally manifests God’s nature and that is one of love.  If there is one thing that we can say about who God is, it is that God is a God of love and everything else manifests out of that.  “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.  Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.” (1 John 4:7-8)

In the book Joshua by Joseph Grizone, a retired Catholic priest, Joshua is sort of a modern Jesus.  As a carpenter he is hired by two churches to carve for them statues of Jesus.  But Joshua reverses what each church asks for.  For the liberal church, they want an image of Jesus conveying compassion and love, but he gives them one of an angry Jesus, remembering the time that Jesus overturned the tables in the Temple, as an example.  The conservative church wants a statue of Jesus that conveys Jesus as the judge, or maybe the angry Jesus, and instead they get Jesus who shows compassion.  Both of those sides are the nature of God because both of those sides are the nature of love, and these are the pieces of God that we have to hold in tension with each other when we make the claim that God is love, and it is a claim that we will explore next week when we look to answer the question, who am I? Because God wants to be in relation with the creation, and God invites us all to live as God’s children, because God is love. Amen.

Kids Say The Darndest Things - Olympics Edition

My family, like many, have been watching the Olympics while also trying to explain to our daughters what is going on.  Both of them are sort of excited but also have their own thoughts on the topic.

We were watching swimming and my youngest daughter, said "I want to do that, but I'd have to use my elephant floaty."

Then my oldest daughter asked what sports are in the Olympics, and so we were trying to list just some of the sports, and she said "what about the sack race or three legged race?" When we told her that no those were not in the Olympics she wanted to know why, and really we didn't have an answer, but how great would that be to watch? Maybe a little leap frog too?

Losing Your Head

Here is my sermon from Sunday.  The text was 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18:

As I was preparing for this last sermon in our series on Paul this week, Linda said to me that she didn’t want me to be finalizing the writing on Saturday night like I normally do, since Saturday is technically my only day off.  She said she wanted me to have it done by Thursday and so I set that as my goal, and I came pretty close.  I had six pages written, and normally I’m around 8, so I thought I would finish it off and Friday morning and everything would be great.  And then I woke up Friday and turned on my computer to hear of the horrific shooting in Aurora, Colorado, and watched with horror not only at the scene but at the sort of uncontained glee with which the news, all of the news reported it.  As they say “if it bleeds it leads”, and this one certainly bled, and I realized I couldn’t preach exactly what I had been planning on and so scrapped what I had written and began all over again.

But it wasn’t just the shooting in Aurora, it was also the news on Friday from the Los Angeles Police Department reporting that they have someone who is stabbing homeless men and then leaving death warrants with their bodies, an act that is very similar to another series of murders of homeless men in LA in which the accused murderer said that he wanted to kill them because they were worthless, because they were taking from society without giving anything, that they were a blight to the community, and so they should all die.  It is the continuing fallout from the scandal at Penn State with the release of the investigation conducted by Louis Freeh indicting the administration, including football coach Joe Paterno, whose motto of victory with honor came crashing down with the realization that he and others covered up for a known sexual predator allowing his reign of terror to continue for at least 11 more years

But it wasn’t just Friday.  Stories like this seem to surround us on a daily basis. Nor are we surprised at the posturing being done by some about the shooting: it’s the videogames, or violent movies, or objectional music, or the lack of gun control.  Everyone has some reason, based solely on what they believe, for why things like this happen, and I haven’t even begun to discuss what’s going on in the political world and the vicious, demeaning, derogatory attacks that surround us on an everyday basis and are only going to continue to get worse as we get closer to November.  It seems that in this country we no longer can actually sit down and approach anything in a wholistic way because we can never admit that another group might be right about something, or even budge just a little bit from our own position.  You’re either with us, or you’re against us.  Either good or evil.  Either red or blue. Either this or that.  We want to try and make everything black or white, right or wrong, and of course we are the ones who are right and everyone else is wrong, after all, we can’t be wrong can we?

Recently the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the organization for catholic nuns, was rebuked by the Vatican for their positions. In an interview on NPR this week, Sister Pat Farrell, who is head of the group, said “there are issues about which we think there is need for genuine dialogue and there does not seem to be a climate of that in the church right now.”  What she could just as easily have said is that the level of intolerance, the inability or unwillingness to listen to other opinions and beliefs with which we differ, makes genuine conversation and dialogue in the church impossible, and if we can’t get along in the church how could we possibly ever imagine that things would be different in society in general?

In today’s passage from 2 Timothy, Paul is reportedly writing from prison while awaiting his death, a death which is caused by and then comes at the hands of an angry mob who believe they are right and that Paul is wrong.  This really brings us full circle to where we began with Paul who as a zealous persecutor of Christians oversaw the stoning of Stephen who becomes the first Martyr of the church.  Paul was righteous before the law, righteous before God because, after all, he was absolutely convinced beyond even the shadow of a doubt that he was right that he was killing someone God would want killed, because God had to be just as opposed to the followers of Christ as Paul was, it had to be so because if it wasn’t then Paul would be wrong, and Paul simply couldn’t be wrong, after all he could find all of his justification in the scriptures, so it had to be true, Paul had to be right.  Except that he wasn’t. “Paul, Paul, why are you persecuting me,” Jesus asks?

Last week we left with Paul completing his third missionary journey ending in Corinth from where he writes his letter to the Romans, which is Paul’s theological masterpiece, to let the Christian community in Rome know, among many things, that he is intending to come to Rome before traveling on to Spain to proclaim the gospel message there.  But before he can go to Rome he must return to Jerusalem in order to deliver the offering that he has collected from other churches to help support them because they were a poor community.  Notice that they didn’t claim that the Jerusalem community should support themselves, that if they couldn’t it was because they were too lzay or undeserving, I think there’s a sermon in there somewhere.  So Paul traveled back to Jerusalem with this offering where he was met by James, the brother of Jesus who was also the bishop of Jerusalem who told him that some Jews had been railing against Paul claiming that he was abandoning Moses, and worse encouraging others to abandon Moses, and so he, along with five other men, should go through a purification rite to prove his fidelity to the faith.

At the end of that time, Paul and the men make their way to Temple where Paul is spotted by some of his opponents from Ephesus who see him with the other men and assume that they are Greek converts to the faith and by having brought them into the court of the Israelites that he has defiled the Temple and broken the law, which was punishable by death, and so they seize Paul and are preparing to kill him when Paul is rescued by Roman soldiers who take him into captivity, and very long story short, several plots against Paul’s life are made, he is transferred to Caesarea which is the Roman capital of Palestine where he spends two years, before he appeals to be presented to the emperor for trail, as is his right as a Roman citizen, and then he is transferred to Rome where he lives under house arrest for another two years.  That is a very abbreviated story and if you have been following the daily Bible readings for this week you’ve covered a portion of it and will finish this week, but if not you can find it all contained in the book of Acts, chapters 21-28.

What happened after Paul’s two years in Rome we don’t know for sure, as that is where Acts ends.  Some speculate that he was killed in the year 62 at the end of that imprisonment, but others believe that was released and in fact made another missionary journey.  Around the year 96, Clement who was either the second or third bishop of Rome wrote a letter in which he said that Paul “reached the farthest limits of the west,” which would mean that he had made his trip to Spain as he planned to do when he wrote his letter to the Romans.  Sometime after that he returned to Rome and was again arrested and executed under the persecutions of the emperor Nero who blamed the Christians for starting the fire that burned Rome to the ground.  Few people actually believed that the Christians had started the fire, but they sure made for good scapegoats and the people were just as happy to see them eaten by lions, burned, or tortured in other ways and tradition holds that Paul was beheaded by Nero as part of this persecution probably around the year 66.

I’ve always wondered if Paul appreciated the irony that surrounds the end of his life.  Paul was absolutely convinced that he was right and justified in his persecution of Christians and in the killing of Stephen.  Those in the Temple were absolutely convinced that they were right in seizing Paul and trying to kill him.  The Emperor Nero, and his followers, were absolutely convinced that they were justified in scapegoating the Christians because after all who cares about them, no one is going to defend them or protect them, they were evil, they were the other, they are not like us.  How easy it is to justify our own beliefs and actions, after all if we are doing it or thinking it then it must be right, because we would never believe anything that was wrong would we?

A few years ago, Mitch Albom, who wrote Tuesdays With Morrie and The Five People You Meet in Heaven, wrote about Abigail, who at the time was a five-year-old who had recently been kicked out of her kindergarten class at the Capital Christian School in Sacramento, California.  Now we might think that for a five-year-old to be kicked out of kindergarten that she had to have done something pretty bad, but as it turns out Abigail did nothing wrong.  Instead it was something her mother had done, or more correctly was doing, because Abigail’s mom worked as a topless dancer.  Christina, who was twenty-four and a single mom, said dancing was the only way she could make enough money to support her and Abigail, and most importantly to be able to afford to send her to a private Christian school.  When Albom called Pastor Rick Cole about what was happening, pastor Cole said “God’s word instructs me what my responsibility is.  We can’t let [Abigail or her mother] adversely affect the morale of the church.”  He can’t be wrong, after all scripture tells him what he has to do, he says, and so Abigail was expelled from the school.  When Albom asked about other parents and what they may do, such as maybe those who lie, or who don’t honor their mothers or fathers, or who covet their neighbor’s belongings, or worse their spouses, all violations of the ten commandments, Pastor Cole said “We don’t get into everyone’s life.”

Now we might certainly understand where Pastor Cole is coming from.  He doesn’t want this woman’s profession to be held up as acceptable, we can get that, but shouldn’t she at least be  praised and supported in the fact that she wants her daughter to receive a Christian education?  Why not counsel her, help her find another job, give her free tuition so she doesn’t need as much money to support her family, help her get an education so she can get a better job?  Instead they kicked Abigail out.  What do you think Abigail, let alone her mother, now think about the church and about Jesus Christ?  I really doubt that when Jesus sat down with prostitutes and tax collected that he was worried that others would enter into prostitution or tax collection because of that, or that people would suddenly think that these professions were acceptable.

Certainly others worried about it, others complained about it, others railed and attacked him for it, but what did he say, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repenance” (Luke 5:31-32)  Jesus associated with prostitutes, tax collectors, lepers, fishermen because those are who needed what Jesus had to offer.  The simple truth is we are all sinners in need of redemption, we all fall short in the eyes of God each and every one of us, but that knowledge doesn’t stop us from looking at others and judging them, of making claims and statements that we are right and they are wrong.  It is the belief that makes us wonder if you can be a republican and still be a Christian?  I know that’s not many of you, but it’s the same for those who wonder, can you be a democrat and be a Christian?  Can you drive a BMW and be a Christian, or a Honda or a Ford?  Can you really belong to that church and still be a Christian?

Jesus says go out and make disciples, not go out go out and brutalize your neighbors and the world, either physically, emotionally or verbally because they are not like you. He does not say go out and tell everyone how wrong they are, that if only they lived exactly like us, thought exactly like us, acted exactly like us, dressed exactly like us, and looked exactly like us then everything would be okay.  He did not say go use the scripture as a tool of violence to attack and demonize, to assault and scapegoat.  Jesus did not say go out and attack your opponents because you know you are right and they are wrong so anything you do therefore is justified.

Instead, what does he say?  Blessed are the peacemakers.  Blessed are the meek.  Turn the other cheek.  Give to everyone who begs from you.  Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.  Let those without sin cast the first stone.  Before you remove the log from your neighbor’s eye remove the splinter from your own.  Forgive others as your Lord forgives you.

It was intolerance, scapegoating, fear, ignorance, it was an ability to see the humanity in others, an unwillingness to take a step back and say “what if I am wrong?” that lead to the death of Stephen, and of Paul and of Jesus.  (Frankie Schaeffer) what if I am wrong?  We have become so polarized in this country that that is a position which neither side is willing to even consider let alone recognize.  I am not blaming anyone in particular, I am blaming everyone, because we are all guilty of the sins of commission and the sin of omission.

Now one of the biggest problems when we talk about something like this is that we know it’s a problem, we know we want to do something about it, but we don’t know where to start.  But the solution begins with us.  Twice this year I gave out these baptismal reminder tags to hang in your shower to pray.  It’s one I pray every day, it says “Lord as I enter the water to bathe I remember my baptism.  Wash me by your grace.  Fill me with your spirit.  Renew my soul.” And then what I think is the most important part, “I pray that I might live as your child today and honor you in all that I do.”  If all of us, everyone one of us, went through every day asking all the time, “is this honoring God” what difference would that make in the world?  If all of us were to ask ourselves when we feel justified about something, “what if I’m wrong?” what difference might that make in the world?

It is time for the church to begin to set a new example, and it begins with us.  It is time for us to say that we are not going to accept this intolerance anymore.  That we can sit down with others, even those with whom we disagree and we can disagree without being disagreeable.  That we are going to turn off the hate that’s spewed at us every day, whether from the right or the left.  That we are not going to support candidates who demonize their opponents or make scapegoats of groups of people.  That we are going to show to the world a different way of being.  How is the world changed?  It’s changed one person at a time through simple actions that we undertake.  St. Francis famously prayed, “Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.  Where there is hatred, let me sow love.  Where there is injury, pardon.  Where there is doubt, faith.  Where there is despair, hope.  Where there is darkness, light.  Where there is sadness, joy.  O divine master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved, as to love.  For it is in giving that we receive.  It is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.”

If we want the world to change, we have to change.  If we want the world to be better, we have to be better.  If we want the world to be at peace, we must be at peace.  If we want the world not to hate, we must not hate.  If we want the world not to be violent, we must not be violent.  If we want to be heard, we must listen.  If we want to be understood, we must understand.  If we want to be respected, we must respect.  If we want to be loved, we must love.  If we want to be forgiven, we must forgive.  If we want the world to accept Jesus, then we must be like Jesus to the world.

Since this concludes, at least for the moment, our look at Paul, let me give him the last words from his 1 letter to the Corinthians, which as you may remember is largely a rebuke of the community for all the things they are doing wrong Paul tells them “If I speak in the tongues of morals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.  And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.  If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.  Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.  It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.  It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never ends.”  If we want the world to be a better place it begins with us and we are called to love the world as God has loved us.  May it be so my sisters and brothers. Amen.