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.”