Fearless Living

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was Luke 1:26-33, 46-55

When it comes to fear, Halloween is sort of an amazing holiday when we look at it from a 30,000 foot level, because what we do is to turn on lights and invite all the gremlins and goblins to come into the light and then rather than shrieking in fear, we instead ooh and awe over their costumes and tell them how great they look, maybe even how scary they look, and then give them candy and send them off to be bathed in someone else’s light. How great is that? What if the world acted like that all the time? Because normally we shrink in fear, we turn off our lights and lock the door to the gremlins of the world, or those who are different, those who don’t meet the standards we want them to have. We keep them at arms distance and away from us and we fear them. But a holiday that is in some ways to celebrate the fear in actuality works to overcome it, which was part of the purpose. And Christmas is working to try and do the same as well, because the refrain we continually hear from the angels in their proclamation about the coming of Jesus the messiah is do not be afraid, and so that is our theme for this Advent season of learning how not to be afraid.

And so last week we heard the story of the announcement to Zechariah that his wife would become pregnant in her old age and give birth to a son who would become John the Baptist. And even though he has been praying for this to happen, it doesn’t seem he actually believed it would happen because he questions Gabriel about the reality of it. And because of that questioning he is struck silent, unable to speak for the nine month pregnancy of his wife Elizabeth. But the other piece of his story is that we are told that when he sees the angel Gabriel as Zechariah is serving in the Temple that he is terrified. And Gabriel’s response? “Do not be afraid.” And so then let’s compare that against today’s passages.

Fearing God

Here is my sermon from Sunday. The text was Luke 1:5-20:

After I had moved to New Mexico, I went back to visit my parents and Phoenix and went to the local Christian bookstore that I used to frequent, and in their best seller section was a book entitled The Joy of Fearing God. An interesting title. And so when I got back to Santa Fe, I went to a Christian bookstore there, and not only was it not in their bestseller section, they didn’t even have it in stock, which confirmed for me that Santa Fe was a little more enlightened than Phoenix. But they did order it for me. Now in the book of proverbs, which is part of the wisdom literature and we will be looking at that after the new year, in the 9th chapter we hear a famous phrase that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. That was the passage that the author was basing his book on and using our understanding of fear as being afraid that “someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat.” But is that the understanding of God that we are to have, or the way that we are to approach a relationship with God thinking that God is dangerous, a threat or likely to hurt us? There is certainly some scriptural witness to that, at least on the part of humanity.

In Genesis, after Adam and Eve eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, although they don’t eat an apple nor are they tempted by the devil, they hide. After God finds them and asks them what they are doing, which is actually the first real interchange we have between God and humanity, we also get the introduction of the idea of fear because Adam tells God that he heard God walking in the garden and he was afraid. And why? Because he was afraid of being punished for doing what he was told not to do. That matches that definition of fear, and what also comes out of this interchange in the idea of blame and scapegoating. But that becomes the way that some people begin to view God, that is through a sense of fear of punishment or danger. And yet we also continue to see God try and counteract that.

Extravagant Joy

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was Matthew 6:25-33 and 2 Corinthians 8:1-12:

When I was serving churches in New England, I was attending a clergy meeting, although I don’t remember the purpose, but one of the other clergy there was serving a church that had a sizeable homeless population in their neighborhood that they served. And so he was talking about that, and said that during a worship service he saw one of the homeless men put a couple of dollars into the offering plate, and he went out and stopped the plate, took the money out and handed it back to the man and told him he didn’t need to make an offering. My response to that was “who do you think you are that you would stop him from giving.” Now I understand all the other arguments that could be made about someone who is homeless needing the money more than the church. Or perhaps he felt like he had to make an offering. That he would stand out if he didn’t put anything into the plates. But the flip side of all of those is our need or desire to give. That even though the man did not have a lot of money, and perhaps even what he put in was all he had, but that he was going to give because of his blessings. He was going to give out of his abundance, as Jesus says of the widow in the Temple who puts in her only two pennies, rather than trying to preserve from a sense of scarcity. I don’t know, but I do know that we all need to have the opportunity to be able to give, because giving is not a requirement, it’s an opportunity, and a response to what God has already done for us.

That was the story that came to mind this week as I was working on the passage from Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians. In the letter as a whole Paul is trying to rebuild relationship with this church that he established and clearly thinks so much of, but they have come under the influence of a group that Paul facetiously calls the super apostles. But before he gets to them, he returns to a topic that he had actually been addressing to them before and that is taking up an offering for the church in Jerusalem. While the Corinthians had originally begun to do that, it appears they stopped, although why is not clear, and so Paul is giving them an example of the other churches, and notice that it is plural, in Macedonia, which is north of Greece and is possible the churches in Philippi and Thessalonica, although that’s speculation again. But what is striking is what Paul says about these churches. As they were suffering some unknown affliction, that they were still filled with abundant joy and gave out of their extreme poverty an offering overflowing “in a wealth of generosity.”

Extravagant Church

Here is my sermon from Sunday. The text was Luke 16:19-31 and 1 Timothy 6:6-19:

Last year for Christmas, Kay Reiswig, who is a long time member of this congregation, got our family a clear acrylic bird feeder that hangs in the window so that we could watch birds feed, which was really great. But, in the spring, one of the birds decided that it shouldn’t really be a bird feeder, but would be a better place to have a nest. At the start she wasn’t really successful in that enterprise because the other birds didn’t really think a nest belonged there, and so they kept coming to eat and messing up everything that she was working on. But, eventually her persistence paid off and she got her nest built in the feeder, which we actually thought was going to be pretty cool to watch, especially after she laid her three eggs and began to sit on them. Unfortunately, one of the times she flew off, presumably and ironically probably to find some food, a much larger bird came to see if there was food and sit on the top of it and they were just heavy enough to dislodge the suction cups from the window causing everything to fall to the ground, and the eggs didn’t survive, which while sad was also another learning point for the children about life.

But the point of that story is not the sad loss of baby birds, but instead about the nature of nest building. Now when we talk about nests for humans, it’s about security and protection. We build a nest egg in order to provide for ourselves, to make sure we are protected for the future. In some ways it’s the story of the parable we heard from Luke this morning about Lazarus the beggar and the rich man, who is, contrary to some presentations, unnamed. And the rich man is actually possibly practicing extravagant generosity, as he is feasting sumptuously, except he’s only being generous with himself and friends, not with those who are in need. His nest egg is for self-protection. But, that mother bird building a nest as we watched it was not building it for herself; she was building it for future generations. Her nest egg was not about her and her security, but about protecting and building for generations to come. And what’s even more impressive is that the mother bird will take care of whatever eggs are in the nest, even if they aren’t hers. And that is an example of extravagant generosity that’s closer to what we’ve been talking about and what we do here as a congregation.

Extravagant Love

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was Deuteronomy 6:1-9 and John 13:33-35:

In the 12th chapter of Mark, in a story we didn’t touch on in our series on Mark, but with which most of us are familiar, a scribe comes to Jesus and asks what is the greatest commandment? There is a parallel story in Matthew, although the set-up is a little different. In answer to that, Jesus quotes from the passage from Deuteronomy that we just heard: “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” And then he says, quoting from Leviticus, “The second is this, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” And then concludes “There is no other commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:28-31) Now the first of those commandments is known as the shema, coming from the Hebrew word hear, and is one of if not the most important prayer within Judaism. Following this commandment, it is the prayer that is said when rising in the morning, and it is the prayer said when going to sleep. If you see Jews with items strapped to their foreheads and arms in prayer, known as tefillin this is part of the scripture contained in those, as well as in mezuzah, which are the small scrolls at the entryway to a Jewish house. It is centered around the love of God; everything else comes out of that. Now it could be said that if we are to love God, then we are to also love our neighbor, as God commands that, and so maybe that’s not necessary, although it would be easy to forget as we forget other things that God tells us to do.

But, for us as Christians, it’s concluded not just in Jesus saying both are important, but also in the commandment that he gives to the disciples, to us, on his last night that we are to love one another, and that by the love that we show we will be known as his disciples. That is our faith is based in and flows out of love for God and love for neighbor, or love for the world. And why do we love God? Because God first loved us and God has already given to us. We see that too in the passage from Deuteronomy because of the promise that the Israelites are moving into a land flowing with milk and honey. The bounty they have received in their lives has been given to them by God, and so the only appropriate response to that is to love God and to praise God and to teach not just their children about what God has done for them, but even their children’s children. I think that’s a pretty amazing and strong injunction, and they make this teaching a key part of every moment of every day of their lives. You cannot be separated from the call to love God with all your heart, and all your soul and all your strength. There is nothing held back. It’s with everything we have, and this is how we will be known, by how we live in that love and how we give.

Baseball Has a Problem

Major League Baseball has some significant problems, and they are of their own making. They are also solvable, although they don’t seem willing to do anything. 

Last night the team from Atlanta beat the team from Houston and won the World Series and I didn’t watch even a single pitch of the whole series. I am a huge fan, and even when the Yankees aren’t in the playoffs I still watch. But not this year, because the choice between cheating and racism was untenable for me.

So let’s start with the easiest one and that is the team from Houston whose World Series victory from 2017 is forever tainted because they were found to have cheated, and they eliminated my Yankees on the way. Although the commissioner said it wasn’t a big deal because they just won “a piece of metal.” Makes you wonder what the commissioner thinks is the most important thing in the game.

There is evidence that they were cheating in later years as well, and perhaps they still are. And I say that, not just as a disgruntled Yankee fan, but because there were no repercussions for the players for their cheating. Additionally, they have never truly apologized for what they did, and as Maya Angelou said, if you show me who you are I’m going to believe you. You don’t get your integrity back simply because you say you aren’t doing it any more. And to get to the World Series this year they had to beat the team from Boston, who were also caught cheating in winning the 2018 World Series. Sounds like there is a problem doesn’t it?

Then we move to the team from Atlanta, who originally started out in Boston and were named the Braves then, when people didn’t really think about such things. Perhaps it really was intended as an honorific, although I would doubt that, but times change. Just as a certain Washington football team and baseball team from Cleveland have decided to change their name, I think it’s time for Atlanta to do the same, and maybe, possibly, perhaps they are thinking about it. It depends on the day you ask.

But, the tomahawk chop has to go. Even though the commission has said it’s not a problem, and the team has said it’s not a problem, it’s a problem. And the fact that the team has one tribe, with whom they have significant financial deals, say it’s not a problem doesn’t mean it’s not. Because many other groups and tribes say it absolutely is a problem and they object, including other players of indigenous heritage. And the harder truth is that white people don't get to tell others something is acceptable or not.

The president of the National Congress of American Indians, Fawn Sharp, said, in response to MLB saying it’s fine, the Braves’ name, logo and the chop “are meant to depict and caricature not just one tribal community, but all Native people, and that is certainly how baseball fans and Native people everywhere interpret them.”

And as Suzan Shown Harjo, a Cheyenne civil rights activist, said, it’s not as if it is even taking a native practice and accommodating it to something else. Instead, “that’s a White person’s invention… the ‘boom-boom-boom’… the ‘woo-woo-woo’… is just drunken White people coming out of bars at closing time and has nothing to do with Indians.” It’s other people trying to pretend to be another culture or group, and doing so in a demeaning way. And it doesn’t even have history to support it as it didn’t get introduced in Atlanta until 1991.

Here is some more history. Even if they were trying to honor local indigenous persons, there are exactly zero federal recognized tribes in the state of Georgia. Zilch, nada, none. Not because there were no indigenous tribes in the area, or even that they were all wiped out through genocide, although that played a role. Instead, they were all moved to other areas of the country, particularly Oklahoma. The Trail of Tears includes tribes from this area. And so what MLB has decided to do is to thumb their nose, not just at cheating, but also at the idea that this behavior might even be considered by anyone as inconsiderate.

And so this year I didn’t watch. I know other people who also didn’t watch, and the fact that they had record low ratings says that many other people did the same. And that’s on top of the fact that the average age of MLB fans is the highest of the major sports at 57.

MLB has done everything they can to avoid dealing with their issues because they feel like they are still printing money. But, short-term gains often go against long-term success, and when you begin to lose even your most dedicated fans, it’s problematic, and perhaps even a sign that it may be too late. But, as one very wage sage once said, “Baseball has to be a great sport because the owners haven’t been able to kill it yet.”

Without An Ending

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was Mark 16:1-8:

Have you ever been watching a movie when it just suddenly ends? That is there is no resolution, or perhaps you want to know a lot more information then was presented, and you’re like, wait, what? You can’t end it like that. There has to be more story there, what happened after that? I need more; give me more. The gospel of Mark is just like that. Our earliest and best manuscripts end at verse 8a with the women fleeing from the tomb in fear and not telling anyone. And so our desire to wonder if that is it and expect a little more, is nothing new, because at some point later scribed or editors added in more stories to make it match closer to what the other gospels contain. To have post resurrection appearances and to have Mary tell others of the resurrection. And so if you open up the pew Bible, for those in the sanctuary, to page 55 in the New Testament and those watching online I encourage you to open your Bible to the end of Mark in chapter 16, and you will see there that you have what is called the shorter ending starting at verse 8b, and then the longer ending starting at verse 9. You will also see they are in brackets and there is a footnote saying that these ending are not original to Mark, although they are part of the tradition and so the translators are not removing them, at least not yet. Now part of the problem is that the Greek actually ends very strangely, as it there might have originally been more. That has led to speculation that perhaps Mark was arrested or otherwise stopped from being able to finish, or perhaps the last page of the manuscript was lost, although those seem extremely unlikely. And the other theory, and the one I subscribe to, is that it ends exactly the way that Mark intended it to end. Because, in my opinion, if you pay attention to the story Mark tells, and why he is telling it, his abrupt ending makes total sense, and I’ll tell you why, although not quite yet.

Last week when we looked at chapter 13 and the little Apocalypse, I said that it is believed by most scholars that Mark was written sometime around the year 70 during the time of the Jewish revolt, and is the first of the gospels to be written. It’s also speculated that it was perhaps written in Rome, although there is not a consensus on that, where the church had also been facing persecution under the emperor Nero and his fiddling. Perhaps it was the fiddling that was the torture. And while the gospel has also traditionally been attributed to Mark, a partner of Peter, there is nothing in the gospel supporting that attribution and it does not claim to be written by Mark. I say all that first to note that the reason the gospels were even begun to be written down was because the second coming had not yet happened, as the early church it would come shortly, and therefore there was no reason to record the stories, but when it didn’t happen, they didn’t want to lose the story. And so these stories are being recorded to start around 40 years after Jesus’ death and resurrection, and so the community first hearing Mark would have known about the resurrection, and later appearances, which gave Mark, as I have argued, greater latitude in telling his story. He didn’t really need to tell us about Mary passing on the story to the disciples because people already knew that she had done that. They had heard Paul’s stories of post resurrection appearances, including to him. And so as I said in the first week, Mark is not writing history or a biography, he’s writing a gospel, which is theological, and Mark can leave out some stories because they are not crucial to his particular story.

The Little Apocalypse

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was Mark 13:1-9, 12-13, 21-26, 32, 35-37:

There are just some passages from scripture that at the end it’s a little hard to say, this is the good news of Jesus Christ, or even this is the word of God for the people of God. And the passage we heard from Mark today, and even to a degree from Daniel, is one of those passages. Pain, war, destruction, suffering, “yea, God.” Or as I overheard one of the choir members say one time, if that’s the good news, what’s the bad news. That passage we heard from Mark is known as Mark’s little apocalypse, although it’s not technically an apocalypse at all. But a little prelude and postlude for this story so that we can better understand not just what Jesus is saying, but also what Mark is doing with this story it its construction. Last week we heard Jesus’ third passion prediction which was given as he and the disciples and others were making their way to Jerusalem. Mark then has the story of the transfiguration, which we will come back to next week, then Jesus triumphal entry into Jerusalem, which we celebrate on Palm Sunday. The Jesus spends a few days in and around the Temple grounds, which is where the passage we heard picks up as he is leaving the Temple. But, Jesus is not just being a tourist there, he’s also engaging with the religious leaders on various questions, and then he makes a judgment against the Temple its leaders.

When we looked at the Parable of the Sower, I said that New Testament scholar Mary Ann Tolbert said that there were two parables which described not Jesus’ ministry and mission, but also the entirety of Mark’s gospel. One of them, and the most important was the parable of the sower, and the second is that of the Parable of the Wicked Tenants. In that Parable, which comes at the beginning of chapter 12, we are told that a man plants a vineyard, and builds a watchtower, and prepares everything then leases it out to tenants. Then, when the time comes for the landowner to collect what’s do to him he sends servants, but they are rejected and beaten, and insulted and some are killed, and so finally he decides to send his beloved son, his only son, and they too kill him so they can claim the land. So what does the landowner do? He comes and destroys the tenants and gives the vineyard to others. And so this parable we should be hearing the owner as God, the tenants as the religious leaders, and a watchtower is a common metaphor used for the Temple, and of course the son is Jesus. And so really this could be seen as a potential fourth passion prediction, although the purpose is to make judgment against the leaders of the Temple.

Give Us Power

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was Mark 10:35-45:

Exactly two weeks before he would be assassinated, martyred for his work for racial and economic justice, and calls for peace, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., educated at a United Methodist school, preached his last sermon. Entitled “The Drum Major Instinct” it was based on the passage that we just heard from Mark. And what King said was that there is a natural tendency in most people, and maybe all people, to want to be out front. And in being the one out front it also give us the glory, people applaud us directly, even if it’s meant for the whole band, but we are separated from them as well, leading the way. And yet that’s the opposite of what Jesus has called us to in the life of discipleship, and we see that in the audacious request, or perhaps we might even say brazen request, that James and John make to Jesus. And yet we shouldn’t be all that surprised, because as we have encountered several times already as we have made our way through Mark, the disciples continue to not get or understand what Jesus is telling them and teaching them about discipleship.

As I’ve said before, Mark likes to group stories and themes together, to sort of serve as a framework of emphasis. And so two weeks we heard Jesus’ first passion prediction, which was then immediately followed by a teaching by Jesus about discipleship. And why was that teaching necessary? Because Peter rebukes Jesus for the passion prediction. And so Jesus tells them ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.” That’s chapter 8, and as a reminder that happens after Jesus heals a blind man. Then in chapter 9, along with the story of the transfiguration, which we will come back to in two weeks, Jesus gives his second passion prediction, and this time we are told specifically that the disciples don’t understand what he is saying and they are afraid to ask him to explain it. And then to show us how much they don’t understand, they begin arguing amongst themselves about who is the greatest, and in overhearing this Jesus tells them “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Now the truth is that there is a hierarchy within the disciples, that there are three who seem to be in positions of prominence, or at least preference, and those three are Peter, James and John, although it’s not clear what part they play in the argument about greatness or if there is jealousy amongst the other disciples for their position. But, we have two passion predictions, two examples of the disciples not getting it, and then correction and teaching from Jesus about discipleship. So surely they must be starting to understand right?

The Confession

Here is my sermon from Sunday. The text was Mark 8:27-38:

For those who study the literary structure of scripture, some have argued that the gospel of Mark is circular. Not that he is making a circular argument but that the stories that happen at the beginning of Mark are paralleled at the end, so that there are rings to the story. If you accept that argument then the center of the gospel can also be found, the story around which everything else centers. But, even if you don’t accept that theory, and I’m not arguing either for it or against it, in Mark there is a clear center of the story. A clear place in which everything leads up to it, and then everything leads away from it, and that is the story we heard this morning of Peter’s proclamation of faith and the first passion prediction that Jesus makes. It also happens to be conveniently enough, basically right in the center of the gospel as well. There are 16 chapters in Mark and the story is found in chapter 8. It also represents a break in time. There are three years of Jesus’ ministry encapsulated up to this point, and he begins making his way to Jerusalem with 3 passion predictions in the next two chapters, and then the remaining five chapters tell the last week of Jesus’ life. That delineation is why Mark has sometimes been referred to as a passion narrative with an extended introduction. And it is this passage that begins that passion narrative especially with Jesus’ passion prediction. I’ve already talked a little about how Mark structures the story around grouping stories or common themes. And this chunk of text is also bracketed by two healing stories, that also happen to be the healing of blind men, and we’ll come back to why that is important.

But Jesus and the disciples have left Galilee and are traveling to the cities, or the area of Caesarea Philippi. Now this is a town named for two Roman rules, first for Caesar Augustus, and then for Herod Phillip, Herod the Great’s son who is the ruler, the tetrarch, of the area. And so there is a clear roman presence and political importance to this town. Additionally, depending on when Mark was written, and we’ll address that in a few weeks, Vespasian, before he becomes Emperor, rested his troops in the city before going forth to crush the Jewish resistance in Galilee during the Jewish Revolt, and his son Titus, before he too becomes emperor, celebrated his victory over Jerusalem in the city by executing captives and holding a victory games. So there is a lot of significance to where this is taking place for those who first heard Mark’s story. But, Jesus is not in the city, he is on the way there. Instead he is in that in-between that is so important in Mark; he is in the wilderness. And he asks the disciples “who do people say that I am?”