Category Archives: Grace

Hemmed in Thanksgiving (Sermon 11/18)

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Isaiah 6:1-8
            There are many details in this story that can be distracting. Who was King Uzziah? What exactly does a seraph look like?  Why is Isaiah’s call to be a prophet happening six chapters in, instead of in chapter 1? All of these are good questions, but not ultimately what this short passage is about.
            Isaiah is in the holy of holies, inside the innermost part of the temple. He is a having a vision or an experience, where the shapes on the Ark of the Covenant are slowly transformed until they are no longer carvings, but are revealing to him the activity that happens around the throne of God.
            When Isaiah says, “Woe is me…” This is not a Charlie Brown-kick-the-dirt kind of grousing. It’s a gulp of terror. To see God, in Hebrew Scriptures, is to know that you are about to die. No one sees the face of God and lives. Isaiah has nothing to offer; yet what happens next isn’t based on what he can bring. It’s based on what God can do and how Isaiah responds.
            God’s attendants come and purify Isaiah, giving him a real experience of forgiveness and grace in the presence of God… mercy when he expected to die, absolution without a sacrifice or offering, righteousness on God’s terms (not human definitions). Thus, Isaiah is so moved that when God converses with the heavenly host: Who will go for us? Whom shall I send?– Isaiah pipes up, “I’ll go! Send me!”- even before he knows what he will be asked to do or say.
            Isaiah is so grateful for his life and for grace, that he’s willing to undertake a task from God- the details of which he does not know, but if he thought for a minute about prophetic history, he’d probably offer someone else’s name instead. Isaiah realizes that God does not abandon unclean people, but makes them holy, makes them ready, and invites them into the work that needs to be done. He says, “Send me”, not because he is an amazing prophet, but because he recognizes the grace in being involved in God’s work in the world.
            How much of God does Isaiah see? Certainly not God’s face or even God’s hands- these are not visible. Isaiah only gets a view of God’s feet: “The hem of God’s robe fills the temple.” Only God’s feet… but it is enough. This experience, God’s feet and hem, an encounter with forgiveness, is enough to move Isaiah to gratitude and to action.
            In the coming week, most of us will be considering the things for which we are grateful. We will listen to others around us say for what they are thankful. Almost in the same breath, as we speak of gratitude, we will think of new things that we want or perceive that we need. What if we stopped and just thought about the hem of God’s robe? What if we became absorbed, like Isaiah, in a vision of God’s activity in the world, in our communities, in our lives? And what would happen if we realized that all we are grateful for, all that we are able to perceive is just the hem of God’s robe?
            It’s not the whole picture. It’s not even half. The grace that we are able to comprehend is just the tip of the iceberg. And yet it is enough. It is enough for us to know just this much and to not die. Let this be your Thanksgiving thought: all that you can think of to list as blessings in your life barely begins to list all that God has done for you.
            So it is for all people and all creation. Having received more, and costlier, grace than we can comprehend through Christ, may God’s Spirit move our thanksgiving beyond “thank you” to “Here I am. Send me” – a thanksgiving response to the grace of in being involved in God’s work in the world.
Amen. 

Grace: Motivator or Excuse? (Sermon 11/11)

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Jonah 1, 3-4
            I do not love the last line of the hymn “O Zion, Haste”: “Let known whom he has ransomed fail to greet him/ through your neglect, unfit to see his face.” That makes me itchy all over, in part because I think salvation is not my job. I don’t save people. Jesus has saved people. Isn’t that the point of grace? That it’s available to all people and we don’t work for it.
            Yet what is grace, saving grace, costly grace, grace that comes from death and resurrection, if I don’t know about it? What does it mean to me? Furthermore, what does it mean to the person who knows, but doesn’t think it is worth talking about every day? What does it mean to the person who knows about grace, who believes grace is amazing and true, but not quite amazing and true enough to risk anything for it? What does grace mean to the person who loves benefitting from it, but not enough to take a message of grace to people who ache for grace, people in a place like Ninevah?
            The story of Jonah has a very specific function in the Hebrew Scriptures. We tend to narrow it down to the part about the big fish, sometimes forgetting how Jonah ended up in that place anyway. A few people say the conversion of a whole city is a bigger miracle, especially with such a lousy sermon, “Forty days more and Ninevah shall be overthrown.” We could talk about resisting God’s call in our lives, but that’s not why the story of Jonah is important or why it lasted for years and years, even to us today.
            Jonah is written down in this very critical time period in the Hebrew scripture history, when things are going okay for the Israelites. With a righteous leader and the exile far off enough into the future as to be unpredicted, the Hebrew people can live for a moment into what it feels like to be “chosen people”.
Basking in God’s favor, as they see it, however, they are doing nothing to communicate the message of one God- creator and redeemer of all- to the people around them. They have forgotten that this is for what they have been chosen: to carry the message of Adonai to the world. They love the idea of a gracious and merciful God, as long as the grace and mercy are for them. Not the others nearby and certainly not the others far away.
Jonah has no interest in taking a message of grace to Ninevah, a city full of non-Hebrews, a city of infamous iniquity. Why should they get the grace he knows God will provide? So he goes in the opposite direction to Tarshish and, when that plan seems foiled, he’d rather die by drowning than go to Ninevah.
Why should Jonah go? If God will be gracious in the end anyway, why does it matter if Jonah goes or not? Why are you here this morning? At some point, we all have to decide if grace is an excuse or an motivator? Are we using the grace of God, the grace we believe that applies to all, to relieve us of responsibility? Are we skipping the third verse because we know that people will still get to see Jesus- no matter what we do?
Or is grace our motivator? Are we motivated by joy in our salvation? Are we stirred up in knowing that God intends something better for the world now, as well as the world to come? Not only that, but God chooses to use us in the bringing about of those improvements? Are we moved enough by the idea of grace to embrace a call to good works?
By hearing the story of Jonah, the Hebrew people of the time were reminded that God’s gift of grace to them was not to set them above others, but to bring them into the midst of a world that truly needed to hear about the one God- maker and redeemer of all.
The last couple sentences of Jonah are my favorite in the whole of the Bible. Then the Lord said, “You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?”
They reveal God’s sense of humor and God’s boundless love for all. Furthermore, Jonah’s whole story reveals God’s intention to use each of us to share that love and the message of repentance and grace. For me, I have to consider these lines with the last line of that hymn. Even if I believe that people receive grace through the faithfulness of Christ, there is still work for me to do… for you to do… so that people may see a face of Christ in this life.
Are you moved enough by the gift of grace to go to Ninevah? To do the very last thing that you want to do? Grace is not simply for heaven later, it is to prevent feeling like hell is on earth now. Each of us has a call and gifts to help people experience the presence of Christ with them today.  That’s why we’re here, not to simply see friends, have communion, and check off church for a week. We gather to be recharged so that we can go out and publish glad tidings… tidings of peace… tidings of Jesus… redemption and release. 

Amazing Grace

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Today a visitor came to church, sat alone, thumbed through the hymnal before the service and during communion.

After the service, he asked someone to help him find the thing he’d found about confession. Several people, including myself, tried, but failed. He kept looking for nearly half an hour before he found it and signaled to me.

He had found this section of Luther’s Small Catechism:

What is confession? Confession consists of two parts. One is that we confess our sins. The other is that we receive the absolution, that is, forgiveness, from the pastor as from God himself and by no means doubt but firmly believe that our sins are thereby forgiven before God in heaven. 

He pointed this out to me and said, “Do you do this?”

“Do you mean, am I the person, the pastor, who would assure you of God’s forgiveness?”

“Yes.” He then went on to name some struggles and then said, “Can you, as the pastor, give me forgiveness?”

On a Sunday where we celebrate the priesthood of all believers, the work of God in ever-reforming God’s church, the gift of the Holy Spirit… on this festival day…

I looked at that man and said what he needed to hear, “Yes, I can assure you of God’s forgiveness. I will tell you that in the darkest of nights and the least certain of moments, that Jesus Christ is with you. I promise you that the Holy Spirit is always working to bring peace and comfort to your heart. Know that what I am telling you is true: there is nothing that you have done that will separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus. God knows your confession. You are forgiven.”

He flinched a little as I raised my hand to make the sign of the cross, but then smiled as he received it, relief plain in his eyes.

Are you the one who can offer words of forgiveness as though from God’s ownself?

I am.

I can.

I do.

This is the gift of God’s reformation.

Not Safe for Children (Sermon, 9/16)

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Text: Genesis 6-9            

          In all the things I do for our children’s service, Heavenly Sunshine, one thing I never do is read the flood story. I do a lot of wild and crazy things, but I never read that story. I do not like presenting it as a story for children. It’s not a story about cute animals- it’s a story of the idea that the world went so wrong that God decided to undo creation. That’s not Vacation Bible School-friendly, that’s apocalypse. No number of cute songs or rainbows can make me okay with this story.
            This is an interesting perspective because most of us never hear about the flood again after our VBS or day camp days are finished. A few of us may have discussed Genesis as adults or once or twice heard a sermon on the flood, but so rarely. Who wants to talk about it? Who wants to consider that God, who was merciful to Adam and Eve and to Cain (after he killed his brother), decided a few generations later that things were so bad, they had to end.
            Things were so bad (how bad were they?) that Genesis 6:5-7 says: The Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, “I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created—people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.”
            What was the great sin of the time? As I thought about this story this week and wished I had anything else on which to preach, I read an interesting thought in a Torah commentary. A Torah commentary is a Jewish commentary on the first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures. This modern commentary sifts through thousands of years of Jewish scholarly thought and offers small nuggets to chew on regarding different texts.
            The commentary suggested that the early people- the pre-flood people- stopped valuing children. I am not saying this is what’s in the Bible, but when commentators through the centuries have read this story and the rest of Hebrew Scripture, one of the conclusions they have reached is that the destruction of the flood is attributed to a societal neglect of children.[1]
            Since Noah lived to be quite old, the Scriptural tradition understands that he did not have children until he was five hundred years old. (Remember one of the punishments that comes with the flood is that people will no longer live past 120.) Noah waited a long time to have children, possibly, because he did not think the world was a good place in which to bring children.
            A lack of spiritual and social role models, a failure to plan carefully for the future, a disregard for community support of parents, a breakdown of the societal institutions that offer support and structure for future generations… all of these might have been characteristics of that pre-flood culture (or a contemporary culture, come to think of it). Everyone did what they wanted, focused on themselves and their needs first, and failed to consider God’s preference, God’s desires, God’s commands toward relationship and fruitfulness- which means bearing children, supporting children, and being a part of a society that values children.
            To value children does not mean that everything becomes child-centric. Not everyone can or should have children, but we all live in a world in which children are affected by all kinds of decisions. Economic, political, spiritual, educational, environmental… if our thoughts are not on the impact of what we choose and how we choose it, then we have stopped considering the future generations, we have stopped valuing children.
            And so we have the story of the flood. A story told and re-told to make sense of a devastating event. A story that is filled with grief and anguish. Noah and his family surely had friends and neighbors who died, who were killed. A story in which God has regrets. A story that may have been repeated because in later generations, when the world seemed very upside down, people wondered how bad could it really have been before the flood?
            It is a story that is not for children because it can be understood to be about children. The later events of the Hebrew scripture are completely focused on children- on having them, on their struggles, on God’s promises of children. Even when we read about the time of slavery in Egypt, the Hebrew people were more focused on continuing to have and preserve the lives of children than they were on obeying the Pharaoh.
            At the end of the Noah story, God promises not to destroy the known world by flood again. Very shortly thereafter, Noah gets drunk and his sons get in trouble over their reaction. Despite the warnings of the flood, people didn’t change. Mistakes are made.
            Yet the story reveals God as resolute, as having made up God’s mind. The price of destruction is too great for a creator to pay. The pain of the loss is not worth the break in relationship. So God makes plans, plans for the generations, plans for hope and a future. There will still be judgments, but there will also be mercy. And there will not be massive destruction that comes from the hand of God as a judgment. God takes the long view and the long view includes many, many, many children.
            The question for us is do we have that same view? In a week with the death of a U.S. ambassador and many others, where are our values? Have we thought about children- about our children, about the children of our neighbors, about the children of the world? Do we trust enough in God’s promises of life and hope for all, in Jesus, that we make decisions based on the continuity and value of the people who are to come after us? Decisions about relationships, leadership, natural resources, or economics?
            The story wraps up neatly when we tell it to children, but for we who are older… it’s tough stuff. Maybe we avoid the flood story, not because of the deaths and the destruction and even what it makes us question about God, but because we can see that the same behaviors are rising, like dark water, all around us. 

           God will not forget God’s promises. Do we remember them? Do we care enough about those promises to be guided by the Spirit in all things, for the sake of children? Do we trust enough in God’s memory to believe that destruction has not been forgotten and that, if we are willing to see them, all around us are signs of renewal and creation? If not, maybe we should just leave this story to the kids.
Amen.

[1] Artson, Rabbi Bradley Shavit. The Everyday Torah. McGraw-Hill, 2008. p. 10 f. 

Tension

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I have been re-reading parts of Victoria Sweet’s God’s Hotel for two months now. I’ve maxed the renewal time of my local library and finally decided to buy my own copy. Though the book is about the last almshouse in the United States, located in San Francisco, it is about more than healthcare. I strongly recommend this book.

Sweet writes about the spiritual and emotional dimensions of caring for the chronically ill. She studies the work of Hildegard of Bingen and considers how the tools of ancient medicine apply to practice today. In a sermon here, I talked about Sweet’s understanding of the difference between anima and spiritus.

She also details the tension between different factions in the hospital, between doctors and nurses, administration and city government, willing patients and resistant patients. Though many of the decisions for the future of the hospital are necessary, but lamentable- Sweet reflects on the writing of Florence Nightingale regarding the necessity of tension in medicine.

Nightingale wrote:

“A patient is much better cared for in an institution where there is the perpetual rub between doctors and nurses and nuns; between students, matrons, governors, treasurers, and casual visitors, between secular and spiritual authorities… than in a hospital under the best governed order in existence.” (Nightingale, Notes on Hospitals, 184).

Sweet interprets: 

“But then I remembered what Florence Nightingale had written about the struggle between medicine and nursing and administration. That struggle was irresolvable and should not be resolved, she said, because it was in the patients’ best interest. If medicine ever won control of the hospital, too much would be practiced on the patient; if administration, too little; if nursing, medical progress would be curtailed in the interest of the spiritual and emotional care of the patient.” (Sweet, God’s Hotel, 327). 


Part of the reason I’ve kept this book for so long is for the passages like this. I turn this over and over in my mind and I wonder about the necessary tension in the church. What is the critical balance between laity, clergy/rostered leaders, and administration/judicatories? How do we balance the interests of all and how do we discern to whom God is speaking and who thinks the sound of their voice is God speaking? 
There is also the balance between history, tradition, and spontaneity, between styles of music, prayer, and preaching, between interpretation, meditation, and contemplation. 
Some of the truly difficult work of the church is learning to live with the tensions, when to give and who should give, and how to move forward. And in all this, we must also remember not to let the work of the church interfere with the work of the Lord. 

Sweet, Victoria. God’s Hotel: A Doctor, A Hospital, and a Pilgrimage to the Heart of Medicine. Riverhead Books, New York. 2012. p. 327, 372

God’s Verbs

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In trying to come up with a bulletin cover for this Sunday, we made a Wordle of the Ephesians 1:3-14 reading.

Those are the top 100 words from the reading. Clearly, Christ is the main word. Surprise! Yet, I’m drawn to the verbs- destined, ransomed, intended, blessed, sealed, adopted, believed, chose, received… Almost all of these refer to God’s actions toward us (and all creation) through the Living Word, through Jesus, through Christ. We are often too quick to list or listen to harsh verbs about God’s action. God does get angry (see: Amos, Ezekiel, Jonah), but typically with just cause. Yet, God’s modus operandi– FROM THE BEGINNING OF TIME- is not anger, but relationship. The verbs of Ephesians 1 reveal that desire- choosing, blessing, adopting- in a way that we should sit with, respond to, and ponder in our hearts.

God’s Punctuation (Sermon 2/12/12)

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Epiphany 6 (NL, Year B)
12 February 2012
Mark 7:1-23
            Some of you may remember George Burns and Gracie Allen. Some of you may have heard of them. Some of you may have no idea what I’m talking about. Burns and Allen were a comedy duo couple in the first half of the last (20th) century. He was the straight man to her comedy lines and they were very successful on the radio, on stage, and on television. Their television show was on from 1950- 1958. After having some heart trouble, Gracie decided to retire. George attempted the show without her for one year, but it didn’t work without Gracie. She died of a heart attack in 1964. When George went through her papers, he found a note she wrote to him, which included the line, “Never place a period where God has placed a comma.”
            Never place a period where God has placed a comma. George Burns took this reminder from his beloved that his life on earth wasn’t over yet. He went on to continue acting, directing, and writing until he died at the age of 100 in 1996, always missing Gracie, but continuing to truly live his own life. Never place a period where God has placed a comma.
            I was thinking about this phrase with regard to our text today because it is hard to know if the Pharisees thought there was a period at the end of the law or a comma. It is too easy for us to immediately make the Pharisees the villains of any gospel story in which they appear. The organ music ratchets up, “Dum dum dum”, and we practically see them holding their capes up and cackling.
           
            That’s not exactly the most accurate picture. What is that the Pharisees are upset about in this chapter? They are not thrilled that the disciples are not washing their hands before they eat. It’s not just that the disciples aren’t hygienic, but that they are not performing the rituals of cleanliness before eating and not just for their hands, but also their dishes, cookware, and so forth.
The Pharisees are a reform movement. (What, reformers already?!?) They are trying to help people understand and live out the written and oral laws. Why do those laws matter? As the saying goes, “cleanliness is next to godliness”. Both the written law (Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) and the oral tradition are aimed at keeping the community of the Israelites pure. When the Israelites are wandering in the desert, they have with them the Tabernacle of the Lord. This is where presence of the Lord dwelled, God’s RV if you will. The Lord is holy. The presence of the Lord is holy. Where that presence lives needs to be holy. The people who enter that presence better be holy. And it helps if the people around them are… holy. Laws about cleanliness, sacrifice, and punishment are also about keeping the community holy so that the presence of the Lord can and will remain there.
Cut to the Pharisees at the time of Jesus. Part of their mission is to help people understand and follow the myriad rules for cleanliness so that they will continue to be a holy people and, thus, so the presence (and, possibly, the favor) of the Lord will be with the Hebrew people. This does not seem quite so evil, when you consider the oppression of Rome and the long history of struggle to survive.
Then Jesus enters the picture and he touches dead people, women who are bleeding, and a leper. He eats with Gentiles and sinners of all stripes. His disciples were not chosen because of their success in Hebrew school (shul), but on their willingness to follow. Furthermore, he is teaching these disciples (and everyone else) to disregard the laws that regulate cleanliness and, thereby, holiness. This Jesus is not just a threat to the power of the Pharisees. That’s not their problem. The way they see it, he has the ability to destroy the holiness of the community by making it impossible for God to dwell with God’s people.
Where they see a period, Jesus is a comma- a place where God has broken into the story and is altering the narrative. The story is still the same, but now God is telling it through Jesus in the world.  Jesus tells the Pharisees that it is not that the laws or the traditions are wrong, but that theyare going in the wrong direction. By continuing to focus on minutiae as holiness, the Pharisees are missing the forest for the trees. Is it right to allow your elderly parents to have a leaky roof because you financed a new wing to the church (synagogue)? Is it right to proudly carry your beautiful offering of birds past many hungry beggars? Is it right to have prayed a formula perfectly and then to be so proud of how much better you can do it than others? This is the point that Jesus makes to the Pharisees and that he makes to us as well.
These are some of the questions for us as individuals, as a congregation, as part of the Church catholic. Are we worried about the mechanics of our spiritual life or are we actually concerned with our own actions? Let’s say no one here has any sexual sins, thefts, murders, or unrestrained immorality on their record. That leaves greed, deceit, arrogance, envy, insults, and foolishness. If anyone here is totally free of those, I invite you come forward and take over because I may well have done two or three already this morning.
            Does how you live from day to day reflect the idea that God is still acting? In Mark, the purpose of Emmanuel… God-with-us… Jesus is to give us a deeper understanding into God’s desires and actions. But it’s not just touchy-feely, it’s a deep, gritty, too bright revelation that God is present at all times and God cares about us doing the right thing for the right reason.
            The very traditions and habits we think are helping us to live faithful lives may very well be getting in the way of living in the way God is calling us. That includes our attachment to this space, our feelings about the order of worship, formulas we’ve developed for spiritual practices, the excuses we give for not having spiritual practices… all these things can become the minutiae of holiness that prevents us, like the Pharisees, from seeing Jesus right in front of us.
            Never place a period where God has placed a comma. By embracing the idea 1) God continues to act and 2) God continues to bring us to a deeper understanding of God’s written word, we are living into the truth that we are known and loved by a living God. Through the Holy Spirit, we are called out of the distraction of details. We are called away from the habits of religiosity that can themselves become idols, gods of false hope and comfort. We are not defiled by what comes into us, but by what we do and we must be honest with ourselves about the wrongs we do. God already knows them. We are called into wholeness, into holiness with the God who made the whole world a tabernacle. We reflect the holiness of that relationship by how we treat the world around us. We are participants in this relationship, not performers hoping to get the motions right to appeal to a God who appears and disappears on a whim. We are participants in the relationship, which means our input matters. We are living with and in a living God.
            George Burns’s life wasn’t over when Gracie Allen died. There was a comma. God continued speaking through his life for over 30 more years.
            God’s presence is not limited to the tabernacle of the ancient Israelites or to physical body of Jesus. God’s presence is in the world, in every place, through the power of the Spirit. That same Spirit that continues to refresh us with deeper understanding of God’s revelation… That same Spirit continues to shape us… cleanses us… makes us holy places where God can and does dwell…
            The God of creation has not stopped creating… The God of our salvation has not stopped saving…. The God of renewal has not stopped reforming… A light still shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.
Never place a period where God has placed a comma.
God is still speaking.
Amen.





** “God is still speaking” is one of the mottos of the United Church of Christ (UCC). They also quote Gracie Allen. Having recently spent sometime with UCC clergy, I’ve been turning over the idea in my head ever since. 

Sunday Sermon: Costs and Benefits

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Reading: Mark 5: 1-20
Everything we do has costs and benefits. In each decision we make, we weigh the pros and cons, coming up with a little balance sheet. For example, it’s late. If we order pizza, we don’t have to cook and there’s only a little clean up afterwards. There’s a bonus, too, in that it comes to us. On the other hand, we have to spend the money, we’re not eating food we already have, and we always eat too much pizza when we order it.
Even decisions that seem automatic have costs and benefits. Do I go to the bathroom right now or wait five minutes to finish this task? In all situations, we weigh costs and benefits and then make a decision. That’s what the people did in today’s gospel story. Jesus gets into a boat and he crosses over to the “country of the Gerasenes”. This means that he is expanded his ministry into Gentile territory.  How do we know that? The presence of pigs is a big clue. This isn’t one or two pigs- it’s 2000- the livelihood (and food) of most of the village. This village also has a town crazy man, who has been plagued by demons for years. When the original readers of Mark’s gospel heard this story, they would have picked up on several different things we need explained. A legion is a group of six thousand (6,000) Roman soldiers. Not only, then, does the man have a large number of demons, but the story is constructed to have the hearers think about how Rome has “possessed” their land. They would also recall how they, like the Gerasene demoniac, had hoped the Messiah would bring an exorcism. However, in this story, the people weigh the costs and benefits of having Jesus in town and the cost is too great.
Gerasenes
Costs
Benefits
Pigs (livelihood)
Healed Man
Change
6000 demons gone
Community order
God in their midst
Stability
Change

What does it cost the Gerasenes to have Jesus in their territory? First, it cost their livelihood. Pigs can swim, but apparently not demon-possessed pigs. It’s like Jesus
shut down the mill- this affects the whole town- not just the man who came for healing. This is very high cost. Secondly, Jesus brings change. He takes the livelihood of the town and heals the crazy man, he upsets the order of things and how they’ve been handled for years. Lastly, Jesus is messing with their stability. They have an understanding of God, through either their own practices or what Jewish leaders tell them. They probably have a town hierarchy. Jesus rocks the boat in a big way.

On the plus side, they do have a healed man who can be restored to family and friends, if they’re accepting of him. They are rid of 6,000 demons. (Though, it’s arguable that they demons were really only bothering one person.) They have God in their midst. (But do they know that?) Finally, again, Jesus is bringing change. Change to the status quo can be a huge benefit, if people are able to accept it. The people of the town weighed this situation in the balance and they were afraid. The benefits did not outweigh the costs that they could see, so they ran Jesus out of town.
That’s okay, though, because Mark is a sixteen chapter gospel and this is only the start of chapter five. After this, people will totally be able to perceive what Jesus has to offer and they will laud him as Emmanuel, God-with-us…
Wait, what? That’s not how it will happen?
Well, what about today?
Us
Costs
Benefits
Time
Relationships
Certainty
God in our midst
Control
Change
Physical resources
Light
Your life is not your own
Consolation
We too have to weigh the costs and benefits of our life in faith. Believing in God, trusting in Jesus, and relying on the Spirit all take their tolls. The first cost is the greatest. It takes time to be in relationship, whether deep or superficial. It takes time to pray, to listen, to help, to praise, to wrestle. Sometimes we just want to sleep in or do it tomorrow or wait until the kids leave home.
In faithful living, we sacrifice certainty. While we continue to believe in scientific discovery, expanding human knowledge, and deeper intellectual understanding, we also come to know that there are just some unknowns, some mysteries that will always be beyond human comprehension. We don’t understand how Jesus is present in communion or how God acts in baptism, we only know that these things have been promised to us and we go on in faith.
In faith, we circle the reality that we are not in control. Each of us has to remind ourselves of this daily, just as we are reminded of the One who is. In remembering that all we have is a gift, we spend our physical resources. The costs of money, energy, goods, and services are part of what living faithfully entails. Each expenditure reminds us, again, that our life is not our own.
These huge costs are weighed against the benefit of relationships- with our Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer and with other people. Faith brings us into unexpected quarters and finds us with unplanned allies. We are encouraged, enticed, and sometimes forced to interact and commune with those whom God loves, even if we do not know how that’s possible. In these relationships, we encounter Emmanuel, God-with-us. Jesus promises to meet us in people all around us and so he shows up, invited and unexpected.
Just like for the Gerasenes, Jesus brings change. Salvation is an event and a process and we who are being saved are also being changed, becoming more fully the people God intends us to be. In the life of faith, we are participants in this change through obedience, repentance, and boldness in love. We are brought more fully into the light no darkness can overcome. We are consoled in our knowledge of grace, our belief in the life of the world to come, and God’s work in Jesus Christ.
We constantly weigh these costs and benefits. Do the benefits outweigh the costs? We all want to say, “Amen! Hallelujah!” Yet, we know plenty of times when we were unable to perceive the benefits or unable to bear the costs.
There is one more being in this scenario. One other who weighs costs and benefits and makes decisions.
God
Costs
Benefits
Everything
Relationship with all creation
God’s desire is for relationship with the entirety of creation, to bring justice and peace to the world that God has created and loved. What does it cost God to have that relationship? It costs everything.
We cannot know the mind of God, but if we consider the actions of which we know…
The outpouring of the Trinity into the creation
The frustration we see in the histories and in the prophets
The hope with which God comes into our world as Jesus the Christ
The triumph over the power of death and the grave
The continuous expectation that creation will respond to grace and mercy
How is this any less than everything?
We look at our cost and benefit list and it seems difficult. And it is. That’s true. We are only able to incur the costs because we have already received the benefits. This is the knowledge we have that the Gerasenes did not, because we are Easter people- already rejoicing in resurrection.  
We are able to pay the costs because we have been loved first, received grace first, been born out of a desire and call for relationship. We are able to love because we have first been loved… by the One who is Love.
The thing is, God has decided repeatedly… on your behalf, on mine, for the sake of the world… the cost is worth it. Every. Time. 
Amen.

Friday Five: The A-ha! Moments

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Over at RevGalBlogPals, kathrynzj spurs us along an Epiphany theme: 

This past holiday season is not one I will soon forget, but not for the reason some may think. Certainly, it was a busy one for those involved in the life of the church. The 1-2 punch of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day on a Sunday brought more than a few of us to our knees (or hopefully to a more comfortable napping position).

In the midst of the holiday season I had one of those moments where a path suddenly was made clear – A-ha! This experience has prompted me to wonder what some of your A-ha moments may be.

They can be mundane – a realization that you like/don’t like a certain food or that you really look good in that color you never had the guts to try. They can be sacred – a way to better pace your day clicks into place or finally a devotion or meditation practice that really works for you. They can be profound – the moment you realized he/she was the one (or wasn’t)or the moment you realized where your deepest passion could meet the world’s greatest need. 

Please tell us – what are five (more or less) of your ‘A-ha’ moments. Where have you had a moment of clarity?



1. From the time I was five, I really, really, really wanted to be President of the United States.  I played church, using the clothes hamper as a pulpit. People found their way to me to unburden themselves of problems. I was interested in what I would later figure out was family systems and developmental issues. Nevertheless, I really wanted to go into politics, which I perceived as an avenue for helping people. I went to many events around my state and outside it, designed for high schoolers were interested in politics, government service, and law. Then the Clinton impeachment dovetailed with my first class in psychology. Suddenly, I could see clearly what I wanted to do and where it wouldn’t happen: the White House. Not only was that not too likely to happen, but I didn’t have the drive to pursue that end through the means necessary to do so. I liked stories, forming relationships, and personal touches. “Hail to the Chief” will never play for me and I’m okay with that. A-ha!


2. A-ha #1 led to A-ha #2. When I transferred to a four-year college, I was majoring in psychology. I specifically picked a school that had a strong psych department, with an emphasis in developmental disabilities. In particular, Meredith College had an autism intervention program wherein students were trained and children were helped in reaching their highest level of functioning. I was (and am) very interested in this work. I had a client with whom I enjoyed working and I looked forward to taking on more. Then one day, after working for several weeks to get the client to use a spoon, I arrived to see him eating Cheerios with his hands. His very tired mother said, “I just didn’t want to fight with him about it today.” A-ha! came the epiphany. This work was exhausting and led to much frustration, with occasional bursts of hope and inspiration. I saw myself burnt out at 26. Yikes. I looked at my colleagues in the program and they didn’t have the same feelings. I realized this was not my vocation, for this time in my life, possibly ever. I finished with that client and never took another intervention rotation. I declared a second major in religion (with my first in psychology) and, well, the rest is history. I remain extremely interested in developmental psychology and read frequently about the new concerns, developing interventions, and the latest in disability issues. 


3.  A-ha! Sometimes you have nothing but good choices and God will be with you in which ever path you choose. I understand through physics that time moves both forward and backward, but as a human being- I live it forward and learn from it backward. When I was graduating from college, the path I thought I would take fell through in November. Then in late March and early April, I suddenly had three choices for my future: a position as a caretaker in a L’Arche community in Boston, a position assisting in a congregation in England through the Young Adults in Global Mission program of the ELCA, or a position, through Americorps, with KNOM Alaska Radio Mission in Nome, Alaska. I decided against L’Arche before I got to the final steps, but I was offered the other two spots within one week. A pastor told me that sometimes we get to choose from among blessings, part of free  will and part of God’s faithfulness to us and in us. A professor told me I should take the job I didn’t think I’d get again. So I moved to Nome, Alaska to be the Deputy News Director for KNOM (Yours for Western Alaska) from August 2002- July 2004. Two years in Nome changed my life. It was neither a better or worse choice than England. It was a different 
choice. 

4. I had a list of things I wanted in a life partner (in my case, a husband). When I met the man I eventually married, he was so many things I never expected or planned for. His career wasn’t what I would have picked, I wouldn’t have described him if you asked for physical characteristics, our meeting in a bar wasn’t my dream encounter. Yet he met what I really wanted and, more importantly, showed me what I couldn’t live without- so I married him. Those things I couldn’t (and can’t) live without were a real A-ha! 


5. My final A-ha! happens again and again. Within one’s sense of call to ministry, within seminary, within the process of call, no one tells you that you will eventually look up from presiding at the table or praying or the announcements and realize that you love the congregation you serve. I mean you LOVE them. In the moment that it happens, you will feel punched in the stomach because you will realize 1) the power they have to hurt you, 2) the hopes you have for them, 3) the hopes GOD has for them, and 4) like Moses, you will not likely be with them when they reach the Promised Land. Oh, it hurts! It burns! You will rejoice with, ache for, mourn among and swear about the flock for whom you pray. The only relief comes from knowing that you cannot save them and that’s not your job. The congregation I serve is a part of me in a way I cannot describe and that will not let me go. So I care for them and they care for me and we move forward together toward, God willing, more epiphanies. 

Like One Who Lifts an Infant to the Cheek

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A Sermon on Hosea 6:1-6, 11:1-9


Who knows anything about Hosea (the book or the prophet)?

Hosea is a prophet in the Northern Kingdom, probably just a little more than seven hundred years before Jesus is born. The Northern Kingdom of Israel, remember, has more money, more tribes and more power, but it doesn’t have the Davidic line (the line of kings descending from David). During the time of Hosea’s prophecies, the Assyrians will come and conquer the Northern Kingdom and carry them off into exile.

One of the reasons we don’t get a whole lot of Hosea is because the book can cause a lot of indigestion. There are two main metaphors in the book: a husband/wife metaphor and a parent/child metaphor.

In that first one, the husband/wife metaphor, God is the faithful husband and Israel is the unfaithful wife, deserving of punishment- possibly death. While we can understand a metaphor of idolatry as adultery, we don’t always think about the fact that in ancient Israel, there wasn’t really any such thing as an unfaithful husband. Men controlled money, land, power and women’s lives. When we try to bring the metaphor forward into modern times, the language of faithfulness and unfaithfulness stands, but not the husband and wife language, which can get in the way of what prophet is using the metaphor to express.

How were the Israelites unfaithful? They didn’t honor their covenant with God, the God who had brought them out of Egypt and sustained them. By the time of Hosea, Israel had little religious cults that worshipped the Caananite ba’als. A significant portion of this worship involved fertility ceremonies- sacrifices, worship and sexual activity to ensure the fertility of the land, especially rain, safe planting and plentiful harvest.

We know that the Israelites should have trusted God to provide these things, but in an arid, desert climate- we can have a little sympathy for people who tried to hedge their bets so that they could have enough food.

After all, how many of us have ever said, “Knock on wood” or thrown some salt over our shoulder? Did we really think that would do anything? Then why do we do it? It’s something we’ve heard about and we think it can’t hurt to do it. Technically, if we trust God for and in all things, we don’t need little rituals like that. Furthermore, we shouldn’tperform little rituals like that. Same for the Israelites, but on a bigger scale.

Before I talk about the parent/child metaphor, I’d like to ask how many of you are afraid of God? I know we talk a strong and long line about God’s grace and mercy, but in the end how many of us still worry about God’s anger?

Here’s the thing, though. If we were going to be afraid of God, we shouldn’t be afraid of God because of who God is. We should be afraid because of who we are. We are to fear, love and trust God, but all of those emotions stem from knowledge that goes two ways… knowledge of God and knowledge of ourselves.

Lots of times, children get grouchy about the punishment their parents dole out, but there is a way to avoid punishment. What would that be? (Don’t do it in the first place.) This is the heart of the parent/child metaphor of Hosea. Israel deserves punishment for violating, for forgetting, for abandoning the rules of the covenant between them and God. God is tempted to wipe them off the map.

What stops God from doing this? Not a sense that the punishment would be too harsh, but the love that God has for them. Listen to those verses again:  

1 “When Israel was a child, I loved him,
   and out of Egypt I called my son.
2 But the more they were called,
   the more they went away from me.
They sacrificed to the Baals
   and they burned incense to images.
3 It was I who taught Ephraim to walk,
   taking them by the arms;
but they did not realize
   it was I who healed them.
4 I led them with cords of human kindness,
   with ties of love.
To them I was like one who lifts
   a little child to the cheek,
   and I bent down to feed them.
 5 “Will they not return to Egypt and will not Assyria rule over them because they refuse to repent? 
6 A sword will flash in their cities; it will devour their false prophets 
and put an end to their plans. 
7 My people are determined to turn from me. Even though they call me God Most High, I will by no means exalt them.
 8 “How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? 
How can I treat you like Admah? How can I make you like Zeboyim? 
My heart is changed within me; 
all my compassion is aroused. 
9 I will not carry out my fierce anger, nor will I devastate Ephraim again. 
For I am God, and not a man— 
the Holy One among you. 
I will not come against their cities.


I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks. I bent down to them and fed them.

What did I say before? If we were going to be afraid of God, we shouldn’t be afraid of God because of who God is. We should be afraid because of who we are. We are to fear, love and trust God, but all of those emotions stem from knowledge that goes two ways… knowledge of God and knowledge of ourselves.

Even though we don’t like to admit it, we know ourselves. We, like sheep, have gone astray and we will again. We could knock wood after each confession and assurance of forgiveness, to hope that we won’t need it again, but we know we will.

So we need the knowledge of God to bring us comfort. We are afraid because we know the judgment we deserve, but we trust in God’s goodness and mercy because of who God is and because of God’s compassion toward all creation. In the Hebrew Bible, knowledge isn’t only intellectual- head stuff. It’s in your gut, in your heart, in your body. Knowledge is knowing AND doing. Acting on knowledge brings relationship. God acts on God’s knowledge of creation and keeps God in relationship with all creation, because God will not break his end of the covenant.

We have to act on our knowledge of God. And this is what Hosea tries to impart to the Israelites (and to us) through his metaphors. God is the Holy Parent, bringing people into the world to share in creative love. As a parent teaches, so God gives us the Spirit to instruct us, shape us and help us become the people God means for us to be. God is a patient parent, who will allow mistakes, forgives them and knows there will be more. God’s love is unconditional, more so than even the best parents among us.  God’s love heals us, bringing wholeness and peace.


I led them with cords of human kindness,
   with ties of love.
To them I was like one who lifts
   a little child to the cheek,
   and I bent down to feed them.


God’s parental love always leaves the light of faith shining for us, drawing us back home. Amen.