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As the Ebola crisis continues to escalate, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
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Thursday, October 16, 2014
Presbyterian Disaster Assistance and the Ebola Crisis in West Africa
Saturday, October 11, 2014
Continuing The Conversation, Dreaming Our Future
This Monday Evening, October 13
6 p.m. - 8 p.m.
Come join together for dinner, conversation and prayer as we continue our work to discern our future as a congregation, using the resources from the New Beginnings/Unglued Church process.
We'll gather at 6 p.m for dinner (entree provided -- please bring a side dish or dessert), then break into small groups at 6:30 p.m. to consider three options for our future that came out of the New Beginnings process.
Each small group will look at one of three future stories suggested by our New Beginnings report and house meetings, then consider what steps would need to be taken to move toward that desired future. At the end of the small group discussion, we will gather a a single group again to talk about the discoveries generated by each group.
We will also participate in an exercise called, "Animal Farm" in which we will talk about the "animals" in our midst that can hinder our process of becoming the church that God is calling us to be. These animals are:
Sacred Cow -- What do we treat as that which cannot be "messed with" in our church?
Elephant in the Room -- What issues need to be acknowledged and discussed that we are afraid to tackle?
Dinosaur -- What is extinct or needs to die in order for us to move forward?
Squirrel(!) -- What distractions are keeping us from moving forward?
Road Kill -- Are we willing to name and embrace our epic failures in the past? Are we willing to risk them in the future by creating an environment in which failure can be celebrated?
We hope you will join us on Monday evening as we continue these important conversations that will be so critical in our movement forward. If you have questions, please contact Pastor Susan via phone or email.
Sunday, October 5, 2014
World Communion Sunday, October 5, 2014
The Common Language of Love
For audio, click here: https://soundcloud.com/emsworthup/october-5-2014-11-17-36-am/s-QZkaq
For the You Tube video played before the Lord's Supper, click here: http://youtu.be/0KekKTvAVD0
For the You Tube video played before the Lord's Supper, click here: http://youtu.be/0KekKTvAVD0
Exodus 19:3-7,
20:1-17
Then Moses went up to God; the Lord called to him from the
mountain, saying, "Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the
Israelites: 4 You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on
eagles' wings and brought you to myself. 5 Now therefore, if you obey my voice
and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the
peoples. Indeed, the whole earth is mine, 6 but you shall be for me a priestly
kingdom and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the
Israelites." 7 So Moses came, summoned the elders of the people, and set
before them all these words that the Lord had commanded him.
20:1 Then God spoke all these words: 2 I am the Lord your
God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; 3
you shall have no other gods before me. 4 You shall not make for yourself an
idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on
the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow
down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God,
punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth
generation of those who reject me, 6 but showing steadfast love to the
thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments. 7 You
shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will
not acquit anyone who misuses his name. 8 Remember the sabbath day, and keep it
holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work. 10 But the seventh day
is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or
your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident
in your towns. 11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and
all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the
sabbath day and consecrated it. 12 Honor your father and your mother, so that
your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. 13 You
shall not murder. 14 You shall not commit adultery. 15 You shall not steal. 16
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. 17 You shall not covet
your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or male or
female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
When we arrive at this part of the Exodus story, it has been
three months since the Israelites left Egypt, walked through the Red Sea, and
headed south into the vast Sinai Desert.
Along the way, the Israelites have learned a lot about God’s provision for
them. God’s protection has kept
them safe, God’s improvisation with a rock has given them water, and God’s
manna has kept them from starving.
And no doubt, Moses’ persuasive and persistent prodding has kept them
moving forward. Now, the ragtag
band of former slaves has finally reached Mt. Sinai.
Before we get much further, I must admit that I’m not much
of a rules and regulations kind of Christian. You’ve probably figured that out about me by now. I love our Presbyterian way of doing
things decently and in order, and I’m not a radical by any stretch of the
imagination. I am, however, apt to
become furiously impatient when rules and regulations seem to get in the way of
people experiencing the love of God, the peace of Christ, and the friendship of
the Holy Spirit. We do that
when we get hung up on hanging up the Ten Commandments as a moral checklist. In
other words, we use the law to communicate all the ways in which we are
horrible people who disappoint God, rather than all the ways in which God is
crazy in love with us and gave us the law not as a way to feel guilty, but to
experience that love up close and personal.
Imagine our dollar bills carrying this phrase: “In love we trust.” Imagine posting “10 Rules for Loving
Your Neighbor” instead of “The Ten Commandments.” Too wussy?
Guilty as charged.
Yet, I wonder how we might be transformed as people if we
listened for the love of God in the Ten Commandments, rather than hear judgment
and shame?
You may not agree with me on changing the tag line on your
dollar bill, but one thing for is for certain – God’s love is the spirit behind
the law given to Moses on Mt. Sinai.
God loves the people of Israel, despite their many flaws, foibles and
endless murmurings. As we enter
into the text today, we hear that love expressed so beautifully from the very
beginning. God lifted the people up on the wings of an eagle and opened up
God’s self to draw them in, close and safe. The people of Israel are treasures, a holy nation, wholly
loved by God. And out of God’s
passionate devotion, the law is given to Moses and to the people.
God is also entirely realistic about people. How hard it is
for us to get along with one another and how easily we become distracted. God knows the odds are excellent that
the murmuring of the Israelites will continue, even when they reach the
promised land. So God lays out a
pattern of living that will increase the odds that this small nation of newly
freed people might be able to make it in the rough and tumble ancient world.
But the law is about much more than survival, success or
about righteousness. It is about
God’s high expectation that God’s people may actually be a blessing to the
world, by living a life rooted in care for their neighbors. Which is a completely crazy idea in the
ancient world of warring kingdoms and disputed territories. Caring for
neighbors isn’t exactly how the world works. Yet God is undeterred in sketching out a better idea for the
Israelites. God intends for these
people to be a new kind of kingdom in the world – a priestly kingdom, a just
kingdom, a kingdom rooted in holiness.
Karl Barth says it really well: “God made us for
freedom. God made us for life. God made us for himself. But we have chosen the
prison of sin, of death, to be our own and no one else's…By the power of his
resurrection, Jesus Christ has broken our prison bars. He stands outside and he
calls us, he summons us to come out and follow him. To abandon our prison cell
of hate and self and death, and to walk his way of love and fellowship and
life.
And so we must make the
only possible choice. To live as we were made to live. To know God as ours and
to know ourselves as his. To forsake our misery and to experience his life or
joy in the way of Jesus Christ by the power of his Spirit. Or to make the impossible choice: to stay
as we are.”
What if we thought about the law as a blueprint for loving
our neighbor in a way that reflects God’s love for us? What if we thought about the law not as
a list of do’s and don’ts, but a way to experience life in the fullness that
God intended for us? What if we
decided to not stay as we are, but instead experience a joyful life in
the way of Jesus Christ by the power of his Spirit? How might we hear these commandments in a different way if
we read them through the lens of God’s love, not judgment?
I am the Lord your
God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an
idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on
the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
Putting the love of God first means we have to sort out what
is life-giving and what is not.
Don’t we all have idols that just suck the life out of us? A job or a new car or, of course,
everybody’s favorite golden idol – money. Maybe your idol is a political point of view or a
long-held grudge or even a desire to be someone other than who God intends you
to be. I realized on my birthday
this week that I idolize my formerly wrinkle-free face, and have forgotten to
be grateful for the 53 interesting years of life those wrinkles represent.
Implicit in this first commandment is God’s worry, I think, that we are only
too willing to allow ourselves to become Pharaoh’s slaves again, when God’s
love offers us freedom.
You shall not make
wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit
anyone who misuses his name.
Reading this commandment through the lens of God’s love
first means carefully handling how we use God’s name -- quite a different
exercise that just avoiding R-rated language. We are often quite guilty of dragging God’s name into
arguments over things that have less to do with God and more to do with our
need to appear righteous. We
probably should try not to say things like “God has put this on my heart,”
because what we are usually saying is,
“This is what I want.” God
speaks in God’s own way, in God’s own time. But if we absolutely must call on God’s name, we should
speak with respect and gentleness, and most of all humility. The ancient Israelites understood the
power of God’s name far more deeply than we do. When it comes to the Creator of the Universe, for them and
for us, we hardly ever really know what we’re talking about. We should use God’s name with great
fear and trembling.
Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy.
God loves God’s people so much that God has made what looks
like wasting time a holy and necessary activity. Whether we do it on a Sunday or a Saturday, or any other day
of the week, God knows we need at least one day out of seven to remember who we
really are. Not a worker bee, not
a consumer, not a productive member of society, but a beloved child of
God. We need one day every week to
make space for art and music and books and bubble baths and long walks and
conversations with our family and friends. We need one day a week to make praise and worship of God a
priority -- worship being the most divine waste of time there is. We need a day to completely ignore the
voices that tell us that our worth is only measured by what we produce or
accomplish. Our worth is measured
only by God’s love and that is beyond measurement.
Honor your father and
your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God
is giving you.
We learn about the love of God first through the love of our
family – the people we do not choose, but whom God has chosen for us. So it’s important to honor our family,
their quirks and their charms.
Even care for them in their old age as tenderly as we are able, because the
people who will someday care for us are probably watching. But also remember, honoring your
parents or your family may also mean walking away if they are unable to honor
you. God does not condone
emotional or physical abuse or neglect.
You shall not murder.
If we truly know God’s love, it shouldn’t be as difficult as
it seems to be to resist the need for violence. If we believe we are loved, why is it so difficult to find
ways to reconcile that do not involve hurt and pain? Every life is precious to God, even the lives of our
enemies. Although the Old
Testament is filled with war and violence, God’s intention for creation has
always been abundant life. This is
a hard one for us in an age of terrorism.
But I will leave you with these words from Paul, “Do not repay anyone
evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it possible, so far as it depends on
you, live peaceably with all…Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with
good.” (Romans 12:17-18, 21)
You shall not commit
adultery.
Honor the promises we’ve made to people who love us. If we can’t honor our promises, we
should not make them.
You shall not steal.
It’s been a very long time since I swiped a Charms pop at
the neighborhood candy store, but that doesn’t make me any less of a
thief. I am always acutely aware
that lower prices at the store almost inevitably mean that someone, somewhere,
probably in a very distant third world country didn’t receive a fair wage to
produce the widget I am about to buy.
Which means for me that loving my neighbor as God loves my neighbor
might mean I should take the time to spend my money thoughtfully and maybe do
without the low priced widget.
You shall not bear
false witness against your neighbor
Loving my neighbor means I should assume the best about my
neighbor, and try to understand what’s beneath the surface of someone acting
hurtfully.
You shall not covet
your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or male or
female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
Love what God has given to you, and don’t waste time being
jealous of what someone else has.
Odds are, your neighbor is as miserable as you are, even if he or she
has a nicer house, a better looking spouse or an expensive car. Do not be fooled by appearances of
material well-being as a mark of blessedness. In fact, we should celebrate everything good that happens
for our neighbors if we love them as God loves them.
When viewed through the lens of God’s love for us, it
becomes clear that the law isn’t about us. God does not give you and me the law in order to perfect us
or even to make us a better “you” or a better “me.” The law is not about us — it is about our neighbors. God
gives us the law, not so that we can get more spiritual or have our best life
now, but so that our neighbors can their best life now. We are connected by the law through our
common language of love, which knows no boundaries.
On this World Communion Sunday, we are reminded to think of
our neighbors as the many we do not see and do not know, but are connected to
us by the power of Holy Spirit. We
share one planet. We breathe the
same air and walk on the same holy ground that has been blessed by God for our
mutual well-being. Although it’s
been a dreadful and horrifying lesson for us to learn, the news this week about
the Ebola patient winding up in a Dallas hospital reminds us that there is no
longer such a thing as “far away.”
The world is becoming smaller by the moment and we are irrevocably
connected to one another. We
share a common language that is the love of God and God’s vision of our life in
community where we can uplift and embrace one another.
As we learn what it is to walk in the freedom that God gives to each
one of us,
I’m reminded of the words of 5th century theologian, Augustine, who famously said:
"Love God, and do what you like" -- meaning that if we deeply love God
and believe that God loves us, then what we like will tend to be that
which pleases God. For we are God’s, and God is ours, and we live within the immense bounds
of God’s love.
Thanks be to God.
Trip The Light
If all the days that come to pass are behind these walls
I’ll be left at the end of things in a world kept small
Travel far from what i know, I’ll be swept away
I need to know I can be lost and not afraid
We’re gonna trip the light ,we’re gonna break the night
And we’ll see with new eyes, when we trip the light
Remember we’re lost together, remember we’re the same
We hold the burning rhythm in our hearts, we hold the flame
I’ll find my way home on the Western wind
to a place that was once my world, back from where I’ve been
We’re gonna trip the light ,we’re gonna break the night
And we’ll see with new eyes, when we trip the light
And in the morning light I’ll remember as the sun will rise
We are all the glowing embers of a distant fire
We’re gonna trip the light ,we’re gonna break the night
And we’ll see with new eyes, when we trip the light
Sunday, September 28, 2014
Ordinary 26A -- September 28, 2014
At The Water’s Edge
For Alvin Ailey "Wade in the Water": http://youtu.be/H49lzTf6-mE
Exodus 14:10-14, 21-29
10As Pharaoh drew near, the Israelites
looked back, and there were the Egyptians advancing on them. In great fear the
Israelites cried out to the Lord. 11They said to Moses, “Was it
because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the
wilderness? What have you done to us, bringing us out of Egypt? 12Is
this not the very thing we told you in Egypt, ‘Let us alone and let us serve
the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians
than to die in the wilderness.”
13But Moses said to the people, “Do not be
afraid, stand firm, and see the deliverance that the Lord will accomplish for
you today; for the Egyptians whom you see today you shall never see again. 14The
Lord will fight for you, and you have only to keep still.
21Then Moses stretched out his hand over
the sea. The Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night, and
turned the sea into dry land; and the waters were divided. 22The
Israelites went into the sea on dry ground, the waters forming a wall for them
on their right and on their left. 23The Egyptians pursued, and went
into the sea after them, all of Pharaoh’s horses, chariots, and chariot
drivers. 24At the morning watch the Lord in the pillar of fire and
cloud looked down upon the Egyptian army, and threw the Egyptian army into
panic. 25He clogged their chariot wheels so that they turned with
difficulty. The Egyptians said, “Let us flee from the Israelites, for the Lord
is fighting for them against Egypt.”
26Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch
out your hand over the sea, so that the water may come back upon the Egyptians,
upon their chariots and chariot drivers.” 27So Moses stretched out
his hand over the sea, and at dawn the sea returned to its normal depth. As the
Egyptians fled before it, the Lord tossed the Egyptians into the sea. 28The
waters returned and covered the chariots and the chariot drivers, the entire
army of Pharaoh that had followed them into the sea; not one of them remained. 29But
the Israelites walked on dry ground through the sea, the waters forming a wall
for them on their right and on their left.
In 1933, Martin Nieimoller, a German pastor, was a
part of delegation of religious leaders who met with Adolph Hitler. Nieimoller stood at the back of the
room and observed Hitler closely.
He didn’t say anything during the meeting. Later, when his wife asked what he had learned about the
Nazi leader, Nieimoller said, “I discovered that Herr Hitler is a terribly
frightened man.”
We observe another terribly frightened man in today’s
text. Pharaoh is also a very
frightened man, and history has taught us that frightened leaders are apt to
become ruthless. Especially when they believe there aren’t enough good things
to go around. They decide they
must try to have them all.[1]
Last week, we heard about Joseph and his imprisonment
in Egypt. While in prison, Joseph
becomes useful to Pharaoh thanks to his gift for interpreting dreams. After Joseph interprets Pharaoh’s
dreams as a prediction of a coming famine, Pharaoh puts Joseph in charge of
managing the monopoly on food that Egypt has amassed.
The famine is long and severe, and the peasants run
out of food. On behalf of Pharaoh,
Joseph says to people looking for food, “What’s your collateral?” The peasants give up their land for
food, and then the next year, they give up their cattle. By the third year of the famine, the
peasants have run out of collateral except for themselves. And that is how the children of Israel
become slaves – through an economic transaction with the government of
Egypt. The only option to slavery
is for the peasants to starve. By
the end of Genesis 47, Pharaoh owns all the land except that which belongs to
the priests. And like the shrewd
politician he is, Pharaoh only leaves the priests alone because he needs
somebody to bless him (Gen. 47.13-26).
God created the world as good. The Bible begins with a liturgy of
God’s abundant provision for all of creation. But by the end of Genesis, the fear of “not enough” has set
in with Pharaoh’s hoarding of food, land and, ultimately, Abraham’s
descendents. Pharaoh’s ruthlessness is born of out dreams of scarcity. For the first time in the Bible,
someone says, “There’s not enough.
Let’s get everything.”
By the time we get to our text today in Exodus, the
Israelites had been enslaved for more than 400 years. I think the fact is worth thinking about for a moment. 400 years is longer than our country
has been in existence, longer than any of us could probably trace our own
family’s ancestry, long enough that the Hebrews likely had no memory of
freedom. They had learned how to cope by this time, but generations of
experience had pretty much stomped out any dreams among God’s people of living
any other way.
There’s nothing sadder than a situation in which
people have not only pretty much given up on the idea that anything good can
happen to them, but have also forgotten what goodness looks like. When people are oppressed or imprisoned
for a very, very long time, they slowly, bit by bit, lose the ability to hope
for something beyond the small life to which they’ve become accustomed. Hope requires the creativity and
imagination to envision something better beyond what we can see. Slaves and prisoners eventually lose
the ability to imagine that they deserve any other sort of life, and that lack
of imagination suffocates all hope.
But slavery didn’t become normative only for the
Israelites. Slavery had become a
way of life for Pharaoh as well.
Both the Egyptians and the Israelites have become bound up by fear. Pharaoh is fearful of losing control
what he perceives as limited resources, and the Israelites are fearful of their
master. All of the later chapters
of Genesis and the first 13 chapters of Exodus are set against a backdrop of
cultural anxiety and fear.
It is in
this hopelessness that God decides to act. God remembers the promise God made to Abraham. God sees the suffering of the people --
not only the suffering of the Israelites, but also the crippling anxiety of
Pharaoh. And we can see in this
story that liberation is entirely God’s idea. God’s imagination is larger than human dreams. And we see God’s creative redemption at
work in Exodus. First, God
captures the imagination of Moses.
Once Moses captures God’s vision of freedom and abundance, Moses
continue to hold that vision in front of those who have completely forgotten
how to dream, including Pharaoh.
Which isn’t the easiest job in the world to do. But Pharaoh finally relents and that is
where our story begins today, with the Israelites on the banks of the Red or
Reed Sea.
In front of them is nothing but water with endless
wilderness beyond, and coming up behind them is the entire Egyptian military
led by Pharaoh. And in their
panic, it occurs to the Israelites that they didn’t ask for this. As far as they are concerned, this trip
was all Moses’ idea, so they throw all their anger and sarcasm at him: “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us
away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us, bringing us out of
Egypt? 12Is this not the very thing we told you in Egypt, ‘Let us
alone and let us serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to
serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.”
Freedom wasn’t the Israelites’ idea, but it wasn’t up
to Moses either. God imagined more for God’s people then they could imagine for
themselves. None of them were
operating from a place of faith.
All they had was fear and a growing desire to go back to something that
wasn’t good, but a life they understood.
Slavery seems better to the Israelites than to die on
the banks of the Red Sea – either by drowning or at the hands of the Egyptian
army fast approaching. This
is not the first time they have been unable to see a future beyond their
immediate fear. And it won’t be
the last. The Israelites will keep
murmuring and doubting and falling into despair all the way through the wilderness
and into the Promised Land. Moses
will keep holding God’s vision before them. And over time, the memories of slavery in Egypt will be held
together with memories of God’s liberation.
And so it is for us. Sometimes we prefer the misery we know to the mystery we
can’t begin to imagine. We are
like the Israelites, standing at the water’s edge, wondering if it’s too late
to turn back around and make a deal with Pharaoh. We depend upon our excellent coping skills to deal with
anxiety as best we can. But God
hasn’t created God’s people to cope, but to flourish. So out of grace and love, God will part the sea for us if we
muster up enough gumption to push on through the mud. And sometimes, maybe most of the time, God doesn’t even wait
for us to get a grip. We’ll be
pushed out into the wilderness despite ourselves.
But we have to experience liberation for ourselves to
believe God’s freedom is real.
Nobody can convince you that everything will be ok, anymore than the
people believed Moses. The children
of Israel had to experience God’s grace for themselves, over and over again, in
crossing the sea, in seeing Pharaoh defeated, in seeing manna every morning and
water springing forth from a rock.
They had to live through their loss of certainty about knowing to
expect. Grace came to them as loss
and bewilderment, and sometimes that’s how we experience grace, too. We have to live through loss and then
learn to see it as the deliverance it often is. The longer we live, the easier it becomes to see God’s
grace, but it is never, ever easy to receive it.
Pharaoh could not see that having control of everything
would never save him. After the
plagues, he told Moses just to go and take his people out of Egypt. But the scarcity narrative of Pharaoh’s
empire could only be defeated by the power and goodness of God. When the Israelites make their escape,
instead of turning back to Egypt to rebuild a new society based on freedom and
justice, Pharaoh and his army foolishly follow into the water. The chariots’
wheels become clogged in the sea bottom and Egyptian drivers cry out, “Let us
flee from the Israelites for YHWH is fighting for them.” Pharaoh had been given the opportunity
to escape too. But it’s too
late. Pharaoh lost his
chance.
Deliverance had come, but it came with a tremendous cost for
everyone involved. There is a famous Jewish Midrash in which the rabbi says
that God prevented the angels from celebrating the deaths of the
Egyptians. God’s heart was filled
with pity for Pharaoh and the Egyptians, as well as pity for the anguish of the
Israelites and their terror at the water’s edge.[2]
So there is a stark choice in this story. Who are we to be? Will we stand with Pharaoh’s ethic of
fear, greed and anxiety? Or will
we trust the God of abundance and believe we will be cared for? Where will we
put our trust? In our own ability
to defeat our enemies and secure our own future? Or with Jesus whose vision for all people is peace and the
wholeness of God’s shalom?
Next week, we will receive one of the special offerings of
our denomination, the Peace and Global Witness offering. This is an offering specifically
designed to witness to the Shalom of Jesus and the love of God for people who
are suffering from violence, oppression and exploitation. One of the places Presbyterian mission
co-workers have been doing this kind of important work is in Columbia. At the heart of
Columbia’s struggle is a modern day version of Pharaoh’s land-grabbing. As soon as someone with power wants a piece
of land in Columbia, whether it is the government, wealthy land owners, or the
cocaine industry, the campesinos (peasant farmers) are run off, harassed or
even murdered.
The Presbyterian Church in Columbia is speaking out against
this kind of oppression and violence, and has asked American Presbyterians to
stand with their communities.
Presbyterian missionaries partner with Columbian Presbyterians to
accompany people who have been displaced or have lost family members. An American missionary wrote in a
journal she kept during her time in Columbia about a young man named Yeison,
“He wanted Americans to know how he felt.
He told me, ‘Not everything here is drugs and violence. There are lots of us simply striving to
live a good life. Columbians like
their life, they just want it to be more peaceful.”
Another mission worker writes, “We sent to the town of El
Tamarindo after a young man was murdered.
There was a spokesperson for the man who claims he is the ‘real owner”
of the land, the paramilitary thugs who ran the farmer off by destroying his
crop and his home, the military that was called in as back-up, a cluster of
campesinos who have all worked the land for years, and the grief-stricken
father of the murdered young man.
We had nothing to offer the father except our presence, love and
compassion, but in that moment of personal connection, it felt important, it
felt like it helped. It was what
accompaniment is all about, and it was a moment we will never forget.”
It seems like such a small gesture, doesn’t it? Such a small moment of peace in the
face of almost overwhelming violence and injustice. But when we are standing on the side of those who are vulnerable
or oppressed, we know that we are on God’s side, not Pharaoh’s.
This week, I spent Tuesday night helping my sister in
Christ, Jennifer Frayer Griggs and many others at Hot Metal Bridge serve what
we called “The Fancy Table” to the folks who come for a meal at their ministry
“The Table.” Instead of Sloppy
Joes or spaghetti served cafeteria style with paper plates, the people who came
on Tuesday night sat down at tables covered with white tablecloths, set with
real china and glasses, and were served a three course meal including steak and
shrimp, prepared by local chefs and students. As our staff of volunteers moved among the tables clearing
plates and pouring refills of iced tea and coffee, the guests kept asking, “Why
are you doing this? What’s the
special occasion?” And the truth is, there wasn’t really a reason or an
occasion. The whole idea was
basically to love people who don’t experience whole-hearted love very often.
Jenn said that as one man was leaving, he said to her: “That was wonderful. For a few minutes there, I completely forgot I was homeless.”
Such a small insignificant thing, right? A couple minutes of forgetfulness. A
steak dinner served by a bunch of earnest volunteers and high school kids. Such a brief interlude in the on-going
issues of homelessness and poverty and lack of mental health resources. But when we stand on the side of people
who are hungry and insist that God’s abundance is for everyone, we know we are
on God’s side, not Pharaoh’s.
Truth is, most days it is almost impossible for me to know
whether I am the oppressed or the oppressor. Truth be told, most of us stand much more closely to the
powers we can see with our eyes because we do not trust our hearts to be
reliable. Some days we are as
fearful as Pharaoh and other days we are as faithless as the Israelites, but
through all of it, God’s peace is held up to us as a new script, a better
narrative for our lives. God and
God’s angels are rooting for us, guiding us, through deep seas and high
mountains and too many days in the wilderness. Let us wade into deep water together, trusting God will make
a way out of no way.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
Monday, September 22, 2014
Everyone is Hungry For Something
As I mentioned yesterday during our prayers, The Table ministry, headed up by Jennifer Frayer-Griggs and Hot Metal Bridge Faith Community will be holding a special "Fancy Table" event on Tuesday night, September 23. Here's Jenn talking about the event on KDKA-TV last week:
http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/video/10592966-hot-metal-faith-community-church-helping-to-feed-the-hungry/
As Jenn mentions, Hot Metal is sponsoring a kick-starter campaign to support this ministry. If you feel called to help out, here is a link for you to donate:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-table-ministry-and-outreach-coordinator/x/975968#pledges
Ordinary 25A-- September 21, 2014
What Dreams May Come
I don’t know how many of you are old enough to remember the
Smothers Brothers Show from the 1960’s, but if you do, you probably also
remember the line that Tom Smothers uttered to his brother, Dick on
nearly every show: “Mom
always liked you best.” It always
got a big laugh. All of us have
had the nagging suspicion at some point that one of our brothers or sisters
was, indeed, mom or dad’s favorite.
We are dear friends with a family who has four accomplished
and beautiful adult daughters, but the dad has a habit of saying out loud that
the third daughter, Iris, is his favorite. Every time Iris comes home to visit, and we are with the
whole family, dad points to his daughter and says, “That’s Baby Iris. Did you know that she’s my
favorite?” The other daughters are
so used to dad’s routine that they just roll their eyes. In fact, it has become a family
joke. Our friend dearly loves all
of his daughters. But I sometimes
wonder how it affects the other three sisters to hear their father’s preference
for Baby Iris.
If you know anything about Joseph, you know that the
problems with his brothers began even before he was born. Joseph’s father, Jacob, loved Rachel
more any of his wives, and Joseph was one of two sons that Joseph had with
Rachel. As a result of his great
love for Rachel, Jacob doted on Joseph, and unfortunately for everyone –
particularly for Joseph – Jacob didn’t keep his family favorite a secret. If nothing else, you may recall that
Jacob loved Joseph so much that he gave him a really beautiful coat, which
annoyed his older brothers to no end.
Maybe as a result of all that spoiling by his dad, Joseph thought quite
highly of himself and made sure everybody knew it. Joseph even had dreams about how awesome he was, and
freely shared his visions with the family.
Eventually, his brothers from another mother decided they had enough of their annoying younger brother. They had had enough of Joseph and his coat and his boasting and most especially his dreams. So they got rid of Joseph about as completely as they could without actually murdering him. They beat Joseph up, threw him into a deep pit, left him for dead, and ultimately sold him into slavery.
Eventually, his brothers from another mother decided they had enough of their annoying younger brother. They had had enough of Joseph and his coat and his boasting and most especially his dreams. So they got rid of Joseph about as completely as they could without actually murdering him. They beat Joseph up, threw him into a deep pit, left him for dead, and ultimately sold him into slavery.
And that is where our story begins today. Joseph has been sold by his brothers to
the Ishmaelites for 20 pieces of silver and is taken to Egypt.
Genesis 39:1-23
Now Joseph was handsome and good-looking. 7And
after a time his master’s wife cast her eyes on Joseph and said, ‘Lie with me.’
8But he refused and said to his master’s wife, ‘Look, with me here,
my master has no concern about anything in the house, and he has put everything
that he has in my hand. 9He is not greater in this house than I am,
nor has he kept back anything from me except yourself, because you are his
wife. How then could I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?’ 10And
although she spoke to Joseph day after day, he would not consent to lie beside
her or to be with her. 11One day, however, when he went into the
house to do his work, and while no one else was in the house, 12she
caught hold of his garment, saying, ‘Lie with me!’ But he left his garment in her
hand, and fled and ran outside. 13When she saw that he had left his
garment in her hand and had fled outside, 14she called out to the
members of her household and said to them, ‘See, my husband* has brought among us a Hebrew to
insult us! He came in to me to lie with me, and I cried out with a loud voice; 15and
when he heard me raise my voice and cry out, he left his garment beside me, and
fled outside.’ 16Then she kept his garment by her until his master
came home, 17and she told him the same story, saying, ‘The Hebrew
servant, whom you have brought among us, came in to me to insult me; 18but
as soon as I raised my voice and cried out, he left his garment beside me, and
fled outside.’
19 When his master heard the words that his wife spoke
to him, saying, ‘This is the way your servant treated me’, he became enraged. 20And
Joseph’s master took him and put him into the prison, the place where the
king’s prisoners were confined; he remained there in prison. 21But
the Lord was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love; he gave him favour in
the sight of the chief jailer. 22The chief jailer committed to
Joseph’s care all the prisoners who were in the prison, and whatever was done
there, he was the one who did it. 23The chief jailer paid no heed to
anything that was in Joseph’s care, because the Lord was with him; and whatever
he did, the Lord made it prosper.
Last week we heard God’s promise to Abram, that he would be
the father of many generations, and that his descendents would become a
blessing to all the families of the earth. In this text today, we see how God’s blessing is working out
for one of the Abraham’s descendents.
And the answer is – not so well.
While Abraham had plenty of intimate conversations with God, by the time
we reach Joseph’s generation in the book of Genesis, God has gone quite silent
and maybe even gone missing, at least from Joseph’s perspective
After being literally ditched by his jealous brothers,
Joseph is sold as a slave to one of Pharaoh’s guards. Although Jacob’s favorite kid is soon promoted to head of
household operations, things go from bad to worse for Joseph. Pretty soon, Joseph finds himself sitting
in prison, unjustly accused for doing the right thing by resisting the advances
of his master’s double-crossing wife.
Joseph’s situation is the perfect illustration of the old saying, “No
good deed goes unpunished.” Thanks to his master’s scheming wife, Joseph finds
himself back in another kind of pit.
“We know that in everything God works for good with those
who love him, who are called to his purpose.” It may be that Paul was thinking of Joseph’s story when he
wrote these words in Romans 8.
Because the story of Joseph’s life tells us something of the hidden ways
in which God works. The story
begins with Joseph’s childhood dreams of glory, which gets him into trouble
with his brothers. Joseph
experiences a completely unearned ascent to become the favorite son of his
father, only to find himself abandoned down in the depths of a dark pit. Although he is rescued and becomes
Potiphar’s most valuable household employee, even that momentary recovery of
status leads to Joseph ending up in prison.
But Joseph keeps dreaming through the ups and downs of his
life. It is his ability to dream that fuels his ascent to become the second
most powerful man in Egypt. Still, it takes Joseph a very long time to finally
put together the pieces and see that God’s hand was in all of life, the good,
the bad and the ugly. After his father has died and he faces his brothers many
years after their cruelty to him, Joseph is able to finally look at his life in
the eye and say, Even though
you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a
numerous people, as he is doing today (Gen. 45:20).
The narrative about Joseph is the complete story of a
complete human life, lived sometimes fearfully, often foolishly, but
faithfully. In the fullness of
time and maturity, Joseph lives fully into God’s purpose to make the
descendents of Abraham a blessing for all the families of the world. God takes this dysfunctional family and
this deeply flawed son of Jacob, and puts all the fractured pieces together to
turn it into something good. Joseph survives terrible parenting, sibling
rivalry, blatant betrayal and political scheming to make it through. Joseph becomes a blessing, despite it
all and despite himself.
Even when he didn’t recognize it, Joseph experienced something more real
than any dream could be – the steadfast love of God.
Yet, I still wonder…how did Joseph cope?
What would it feel like to have my brother decide I was the
worst person ever – so bad, in fact, that he decided he wanted nothing to do
with me? For reasons I couldn’t
control? I can’t imagine he’d do
sell me into slavery, but my brother could certainly cut me off or walk away
from me. Wouldn’t I seethe with
anger? Wouldn’t I want
revenge? The prospect of losing my
brother is something I can barely imagine without feeling hurt beyond
description.
How did Joseph cope?
What if someone accused you of something that was completely
untrue, and that accusation cost you your job, your family, your freedom? How would you deal with that
anger? How could you ever trust
another human being? How did
Joseph manage to stay sane while he was in prison for a crime he did not
commit?
Think about the prophets like Jeremiah. How would it feel to be beaten, dragged
to the center of town and placed in the stocks to be humiliated in front of
everyone simply because you were doing exactly what YHWH called you to do? No wonder Jeremiah is called the
weeping prophet. You would be
weeping too if you saw Jerusalem burning to the ground, all of your hard work
going up in flames.
How did Jeremiah cope?
How do any of us cope when we are laid so low by life that we feel like
we can never get back up again?
One of the reasons these Old Testament stories are so
valuable for us is the very fact that they are not portraits of perfect people
or perfect families. And for that
we should be grateful, because if you imagine your family is somehow immune
from the sorts of crazy that infected Joseph’s clan, I have a bridge I’d be
happy to sell you.
In fact, the sons and daughters of Abraham throughout
history and right up until this day have been flawed and sinful and yet, God
has continued God’s work in us, regardless of human attitudes or actions. Walter Brueggemann says that the
primary theme of Joseph’s story concerns God’s hidden and decisive power, which
works in and through and also sometimes against human forms of power. God is working out God’s purpose
through and sometimes in spite of Egypt, through and sometimes in spite of
Joseph and his brothers.
The purpose of God is established early in the narrative of
Joseph’s life when he announces to his brothers that he had a dream about them
bowing down to him – in other words, Joseph dream suggested that he would
become a leader of people. And
that is exactly what Joseph becomes – a leader who winds up preventing the
starvation of thousands of people.
His brothers could not have known, nor could Joseph, the significance of
the dream in announcing God’s purpose for Joseph. It is only in hindsight, when Joseph meets his brothers many
years later that Joseph can see what it all meant: Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it
for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today.
If someone standing on the edge of the pit had whispered down to
Joseph that God had a plan for his life and everything would turn out fine, it
would not have helped Joseph one bit, at least not at that point in his
life. Joseph had to move through
the pain, a pain that mattered very much to him when he was in the middle of
it. And the promise of this story
for us is that Joseph’s pain mattered to God, too. God hung in there with Joseph, proving yet again that God’s
blessing is not a bubble which protects us from pain or even death, but a
promise that neither pain nor death will have the final word. Someone has said that, “God is like one
of those genius sculptors who can make art out of anything. Give him a tire
rim, a wrecked bicycle, a brass bedpost, and some old duct tape and he will
weld it all into an eagle. Nothing
is too bent to be used – not even tragedies, not even bad decisions, not even
plain human meanness.”[1]
We have been talking together as a congregation, looking at
where we are as a community of faith, and trying to see where it is that God is
calling us. As Jon Stellfox and
many of you said over these past six weeks, “This is so hard.” And it
really is hard. It is hard to
imagine what kind of changes God may be calling us to make and what those
changes will mean for us. How
painful will they be? How much do
we have to lose? It is even harder to think that a decisions we make might be
the wrong. It is hard to avoid the
deep fear that we might totally mess this up and end up in a dark pit. It is hard to imagine that despite
every good intention, we could very well fail.
Here’s the thing.
The church is not called to be successful. The church is called to be faithful. A preacher wrote, “You are never going
to be of great use to God until you get the illusions of greatness knocked out
of you so that there is some room for the Spirit of God to dwell.”[2] In other words, this is God’s work to
do, not ours. God is the one who
make sure that God’s promise always has a future in the human history. God may work through us, sometimes
even against us, but God will never leave us. There is nothing we can mess up so thoroughly that it cannot
be redeemed by God. Not the
church. Not our families. Not even our own lives. It was true for Joseph. True for Joseph’s family. True for us too.
Sometimes God’s work is obvious, and sometimes it is
not. Sometimes our awareness of God
washes over us like an ocean wave, and sometimes it is only a distant blip
somewhere in the dry desert of faith, when we are just holding on for dear
life. Sometimes God seems to speak to us in a joyful shout from the center of
our being, and sometimes we have to strain to hear God through the voices of
our families, our friends and sometimes even our enemies. God will surely come to us, too. In whatever dreams may come to us, we
can trust we are a part of the great story of God’s goodness, which is everlasting.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
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