Peace Community Church

Mark 1:21-28
January 29, 2012
Mary Hammond

The demon exorcism texts in the Gospels are not among my favorite stories. And there are many such accounts. Somewhere during the last couple years, I recorded these undated comments in my bible on this particular text: “For centuries, the mentally ill were treated as demon-possessed and/or were shut away. What does this healing mean? Do we change it to metaphor when it is not? But so many people have only limited earthly healing.”

Surely I was thinking of our daughter Sarah when I wrote this comment. Surely I was also thinking of countless other folks I know, love, pastor, and befriend, who face their own private demons.

A clear image from my teen years has reappeared in my memory during the past couple months. In high school, I accompanied the Choraliers, a 16-person singing ensemble which performed extensively throughout the wider community. Our most memorable yearly singing gig was our trip to the State Mental Hospital in Elgin, Illinois.

During the 1960′s, the mentally ill were “shut up” in places like this, removed from society. The room in which we performed was expansive, probably about the size of the First Church sanctuary minus the pews on the sides. Every few feet, there were metal beds with thin mattresses, covered with white sheets, and patients wearing white hospital gowns. Some lay on their beds, curled up in fetal balls. Some rocked back and forth in chairs. Some constantly mumbled, or erratically jerked. Some sporadically cried out. Each person seemed shut up in his or her own world.

We’ve come a long way dealing with the mentally ill in this country since the 1960′s. But we have not, by any stretch of the imagination, come far enough. Our prisons and city streets have replaced our mental hospitals far too often. The lingering, age-old stigma and label of “demon possessed” or “crazy” still lives on in many places throughout the world and even in the United States. The psychologically vulnerable are still frequently one loving family away from homelessness. When our daughter, Sarah, moved back home in November, 2010, that couldn’t have become more clear to Steve and me.

Gaining insight about my own faith journey as it interacted with the instantaneous healings recorded throughout the Gospels took a long time coming. My understanding was, in part, propelled by the day when one thin, white curtain separated the lives of ex-convict Louis Messina and adolescent Sarah Hammond–one thin curtain in the Emergency Room of Allen Memorial Hospital, as it was called in 1991. Louie was admitted for severe alcohol poisoning. Sarah was taken by ambulance from Wilder Hall, where she began having seizures from a severe electrolyte imbalance caused by acute anorexia. Two people I loved lay in those hospital beds, one thin curtain apart. A company of saints—many from this church–fought for their lives when neither could fight their own demons themselves.

In 1994-95, after I was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma and began treatments, I could not read the Gospels at all for a whole year. It’s a good thing the church had two pastors, with Steve preaching in the Gospels every other week and me preaching in Job. The healing stories of the Gospels were simply too painful for me to bear—so quick, so instant, so clean, so clear-cut.

Jesus’ touch, word, or command was all that was needed. Was my life like that? Was Sarah’s? Was Louie’s? Was anyone’s I knew? Nice bible stories, I felt, but NOT MY STORY.

Until I wrote the “Slow Miracles Sermon” in 1995, chronicling the insights gained from these two beloved lives which collided in that one ER room separated by a thin, white curtain. Louie was back in prison by the time I got around to writing that sermon, but Virginia told him about it, and he wrote a song on it. I still remember the chorus–”Look at me, I’m a slow miracle, living proof of what God can do. Look at her, she’s a slow miracle, living proof of a living truth.”

Sarah’s untimely death on Thanksgiving Day does not change the past 21 years of that confession and fact, my friends. And Louie has been out of prison, ever since the prison stay during which he wrote that song.

You see, my life is characterized by ‘Job kinds of miracles’ more than ‘Jesus kinds of miracles.’ The ancient saint of the Hebrew scriptures named Job faces multiple losses in rapid succession. Through lament and protest, he stubbornly remains in dialogue with a seemingly silent God. Over the long haul, his vision–clouded by grief–is restored. His perseverance and faith are vindicated. Job’s story, my friends, is a slow miracle–the kind that comes through struggle and heartache; through stubborn authenticity, constant vigilance, and audacious prayer.

We face Jesus once again in this Gospel story of Mark. An interrupting spirit has hold of a man in the meeting place. It speaks to Jesus, not the man. And this is the way with such realities. The torment becomes so thick and omnipresent that it has its own personality and voice. Yet, there is a yearning heart and soul beneath that interrupting torment. It is to that heart and soul that the heart of God speaks in this story and continues to speak today.

Call that interrupting voice a demon, mental illness, an unclean spirit, a tormented presence, the darkness, depression–call it whatever you will–Jesus shuts it up and sends it packing. He instantly heals this man after, most likely, years of torment. Jesus heals him publicly—in time and space, in this life, not the next. The man is given a new chance to experience an integrated earthly life, profoundly different from the tormented life he had known for so long. We all know that this never happened here for Sarah, despite innumerable prayers, beloved community, and persevering love.

But there’s more to ponder than these two different endings to the stories of the man in this text and my first-born child. There’s a brazen claim by the Gospel writer that Jesus is in the habit of facing down the darkness and not letting it stand—in an ultimate way.

Hope is vaster than what we see with our human eyes. Baptist Peace Fellowship staff member, LeDayne Polaski, reminded me that God dwells outside our finite constructs of ‘chronos’ time and space, outside our sense of hours and days marking yesterday, today, and tomorrow. And our family marks the days so intensely in this period of fresh grief.

In God’s time which is beyond our sense of time, the Gospel confession of Jesus’ exorcism is this: the light will not be confined by the darkness.

Slow miracles, fast miracles, mysteries, paradoxes, and gaps between text and experience…All these are part of the journey we are called to as followers of Jesus. May God find us both faithful and tenacious of heart. Amen.

Mark 1:14-20
January 22, 2012
Steve Hammond

Some of you may well have heard me say that this is probably my favorite story in the Bible. It’s got, at least, two things going for it that are real important to me. The first is that it reminds us that Jesus’ primary concern, what his whole life and ministry hung on was this thing that most Bible translators call the Kingdom of God. It was the most important thing to Jesus, even though in many church circles it remains unheard of. And where it does get mentioned it often seems to be reduced to or confused with heaven. But that’s not what the Kingdom of God is about at all.

Part of the problem is that word kingdom. Not only are there the inclusive language issues, but there’s the fact that kingdoms meant something to people, lets say in England in the 1600′s, but not hardly anything to us now. We need a better word. That’s why I like what the folk who appreciate the work of Renee Girard have come up with, The Culture of God, or even my own much simpler take, The Stuff of God, the way God wants this world to be.

So Mark’s gospel tells us that Jesus began proclaiming; not just talking about, not just mentioning, not just saying, but proclaiming the Culture of God, the Stuff of God. And he walked right up to two pairs of fishermen and said “Come follow me.” And they did. That’s the second part of this story that I like.

Jesus didn’t preach to them. He didn’t go over a religious tract with them. He didn’t make them sign a statement of faith or say anything about getting themselves saved and into heaven. He didn’t tell them anything. All he said was “Follow me.”

Simon and Andrew dropped their nets, and James and John looked at their Dad, the hired hands, and the boat, and went with Jesus. It’s an amazing story. And it’s not hard to kind of wonder how you would do if Jesus came along while you were at work or school or sitting on the front porch with family and friends and said, “Hey, come with me.” Or maybe it’s not hard to figure out at all. Probably stay just where you were. How the disciples were able to do that, I just don’t know.

Rev. Kate Huey, who writes for the United Church of Christ’s Sermon Seeds blog says that comparing and contrasting ourselves with those first disciples may not be the best way to look at this story. She points us to a sermon “Home Another Way” where Barbara Brown Taylor for an alternative viewpoint.

“Taylor,” Huey writes, “says that this is not a story about the disciples, but a story about God.” And Huey writes,“to focus on what the disciples gave up (and whether we could do the same), is for Taylor ‘to put the accent on the wrong syllable’. This ‘miracle story,’ as Taylor calls it, is really about ‘the power of God – to walk right up to a quartet of fishermen and work a miracle, creating faith where there was no faith, creating disciples where there were none just a moment before.”

Taylor also writes “What we may have lost along the way is a full sense of the power of God – to recruit people who have made terrible choices; to invade the most hapless lives and fill them with light; to sneak up on people who are thinking about lunch, not God, and smack them upside the head with glory.”

I agree this is a better way of looking at this story. The focus is not what would we do in such a situation, but what God might do with us if we just up and followed Jesus.

Jesus never told those first disciples where they were going. But we know it’s going to have something to do with the Culture of God, or the Stuff of God. And we also know if the disciples, as inept as they were, can go on that journey with Jesus, we can too.

When I think about the Culture of God I go right back to the creation story in Genesis. When God was creating the world we read that by the sixth day, God was really getting into it. God looks at everything and says, “It’s good.” And then after creating humankind in God’s own image, and finishing up with the details of creating the world, the narrator says God was right, “it was very good.”

Jesus knew that the world that God created was very good. Obviously, we have managed to bring some things into this world that are not so good. But I think Jesus’ invitation to follow him is to discover the world that God made, to discover that Culture of God. That’s not an easy thing to do. Jesus, and almost all of those first 12 disciples, plus many other folk along the way, were killed for seeking the Culture of God. But Jesus knew that as chancy as the whole enterprise was, they could trust God to be with them on that journey to wherever they were going, because Jesus trusted that God is a God of life.

If we are going to discover that world that God sees as good, even very good, there are some words we need to keep in mind. These really are, I think, words to live by as we follow Jesus and seek the Culture of God. They come up in the Gospel and all through the Bible; words like kindness, gentleness, mercy, forgiveness, love, peace, compassion, hope, faith, trust, goodness.

Have you all heard about the Kansas legislator who is telling people he is praying for Barack Obama’s death and wants others to join him? I may not know everything the Culture of God is, but I know some of what it is not, no matter how well such rants are received in some churches. That is not the proclamation, the good words of the Culture of God. It’s the ugliness that Jesus wants his followers to counter.

When those guys went fishing, they didn’t take their fishing rods and pluck a fish here and there out of the water. They threw their nets in and went for a lot of fish. Much of what is seen as evangelism is the fishing rod method, plucking people here and there out of the muck of the world and landing them in heaven. But Jesus was calling those first disciples to cast the nets and start a movement, the God Movement, which isn’t simply about saving a person here and there, but discovering the goodness of this world that God made. That movement is the path to salvation.

This is an amazing story, those guys dropping their nets and following Jesus, especially when you read the rest of the story and see how clueless they were so much of the time. Jesus, obviously, didn’t invite them to follow him because they got it, because they were so spiritual.

Like us, like our own stories, they were, though, the raw material that Jesus knew God could work with. This actual first miracle Jesus performed by the lake that day still continues in us, even if Jesus has to smack us upside the head.

Who knows where this journey with Jesus is going to take us? But it will be the pathway of life. And even if things get hard there is going to be kindness, gentleness, mercy, forgiveness, love, peace, compassion, hope, faith, trust, and goodness; the things of the Culture of God along the way. And God is going to look at what we who have been smacked upside the head are creating with Jesus and say, “Yes, that’s very, very good.”

Matthew 2
January 8, 2012
Steve Hammond

The baby crying in the silence of the night of Bethlehem. The babies and their parents crying as the soldiers batter down the doors of their homes and run their swords through every baby who looks like a boy under the age of 3. Jesus and his family escape Herod’s carnage to become illegal aliens in Egypt. There, perhaps, they got a warmer welcome than if they had come across those from our own country who would have sent them back to Herod in the name of protecting our borders.

This is where the Christmas story gets ugly. And it helps me to understand the appeal of a theology that is primarily concerned about getting ourselves saved and into heaven, rather than deal with the mess of this earth. And I think it is fair to say that the story of Herod’s slaughter of all those babies seems more like the world we know than the wonder of Bethlehem.

You don’t have to look very far to see how hard things can be for so many in this world. I was watching TV the other night and saw this story about the consequences of the eradication of the poppy plants in Afghanistan. Raising poppies is about the only avenue that many people have in Afghanistan to make a living that will support their families.

Those poppies are, of course, are turned into opium, and end up driving the illegal drug trade throughout the world, including North America.

When those crops are destroyed, the farmers have no way to pay back the money they have borrowed from the Taliban, so they are required to give their young daughters to the Taliban as repayment. That is one of the ways we continue to slaughter the innocents in our world today. And to make the story even worse, the funds that are supposed to go to the farmers to help them replace poppies with other agricultural products never get to them. They end up funding the new homes and cars and jewelry and travels of the governmental officials who are supposed to be distributing those funds. Herods are everywhere.

The Herod on the throne when Jesus was born was a piece of work, as they say. This was not the first time he had children killed. He ordered the death of two of his own sons because he thought they were plotting against him. Then there was the wife he had killed. He also ordered the deaths of 300 public servants who he suspected of plotting some conspiracy against him. Who knows how many babies he had killed in his hunt for Jesus? He was willing to do awful things just to hold on to power and bleed the people of whatever money he could in this tiny little nation of no real importance in the geopolitics of his day. It sounds all to familiar to our own day and time.

We could go on and on this morning telling stories about the hard and horrible things that are happening in our world and our own lives. The wars, the famines, the corrupt governments, the greed that is destroying the environment with the help of our political leaders. The children who are being slaughtered today through a variety of means and Herods. Mary and I just buried our daughter Sarah, Karl his farther, and Jeannie her brother. It’s enough to make you throw up you hands and join the Left Behinders and others who have no hope for this world, and say that the sooner God destroys it the better.

Thankfully, we have people like Howard Thurman, the late theologian, pastor, (including a stint at Mt. Zion Baptist Church here in Oberlin), and one of Martin Luther King Jr.’s most trusted advisors to help us get some perspective on all of this. This is one of his poems, it’s called “I Will Light Candles This Christmas.”

Candles of joy, despite all the sadness,
Candles of hope, where despair keeps watch,
Candles of peace for tempest-tossed days,
Candles of grace to ease heavy burdens,
Candles of love to inspire all my living,
Candles that will burn all the year long.

An in one place he wrote this “The true meaning of Christmas is expressed in the sharing of one’s graces in a world in which it is so easy to become callous, insensitive, and hard. Once this spirit, this true meaning of Christmas, becomes part of a person’s life, every day is Christmas, and every night is freighted with anticipation of fresh, and perhaps, holy, adventure.”

And there were lots of holy adventures in the Christmas story itself. Mary and Joseph, the Shepherds, the Wisemen, and the holy adventure Jesus himself had by coming into this world in the first place.

If we take incarnation seriously, Word becoming flesh, we realize that God entered into this world knowing exactly how things can be. God knows that it’s not all Silent Night, Holy Night, All is calm, all is bright. There are too many Herods, there is plenty of darkness that is trying to overcome the light. The Holy adventure Jesus invited us to take is to become ourselves light that shines in the darkness, healers that bring hope and life into this land of shadows.

There is plenty of darkness, there are still plenty of Herods afoot. But there are plenty of people making peace, feeding hungry people, plenty of people offering love, help, and support. There are plenty of people who trust what Jesus said and are busy building a new world. Incarnation not only honestly confronts the darkness, but proclaims the light. Mary and I, like so many others know how dark it can get, but we also have learned in a very real way that the darkness can never overcome the light. The light has come into the world and it has lit up people like you.

The Wisemen weren’t as smart as we might think. But they were willing to learn. It just seemed obvious to them that if you are going to greet the new born king of Israel, you go to Jerusalem. They nearly ruined everything by doing so. But they were able to see that this king wasn’t like any king ever before. He wasn’t found in a palace in Jerusalem, but in a home or maybe more like a shack, in Bethlehem. They realized this story was no longer simply about Israel, but everybody. And they were willing to risk their own lives by defying Herod and going home another way, so Herod couldn’t get his hands on the baby. Talk about a holy adventure.

Like with the Wisemen, who could have taken the easy way out and gone back to Herod we can surrender to the darkness and just give up on this world. Or we can go home another way, a more risky way. It’s the way of Jesus who is not looking so much to get us into heaven, but get heaven into us, and heaven into this world.

I’m going to close with the more well known poem by Howard Thurman. We manage somehow to get it in nearly every year, but it is something we need to remember every year.

The Work of Christmas.

When the songs of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with the flock,
The work of Christmas begins:

To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among the brothers and sisters,
To make music in the heart.

Rev. John Dixon Elder
Fourth Sunday of Advent – December 18, 2011
Text: “The light shines in the darkness, for the darkness has never mastered it.” John 1:5

Those of you who are fans of Garrison Keillor and his tales of Lake Woebegone will perhaps
remember his Advent story about “The Real Meaning of Christmas.” Pastor Ingkvist has decided
to preach on just one theme, and it is not a very surprising one: the real meaning of Christmas is
spiritual, not material. Unfortunately Pastor Ingkvist has already succumbed to the campaign his
children have been waging for weeks, even months, and on the Friday before this Advent Sunday
he has secretly driven to the “big box” store 30 miles away in St. Cloud and bought armloads of
presents, including a game for his 9-year-old son – a video game called “Annihilation.” Pastor
Ingkvist leaves the store very angry – angry at his children for having trapped him into buying so
much plastic-packaged junk, angry at the store owners for installing special fluorescent lights he
is convinced have the demonic effect of making people buy things they don’t really want, angry
at himself for having succumbed.

So on Sunday Pastor Ingkvist preaches with a special fervor. But when he finishes the first
page of his sermon, attacking the commercialism and materialism of Christmas – “Christmas
cannot be bought! Christmas is not for sale! Christmas is not material things!” – he sees his son
in the fifth pew, chin quivering, eyes filling with tears, as the little boy who has been yearning so
long for the Annihilation video game begins to suspect what this “real meaning of Christmas” is
going to mean for him. No video game under the Christmas tree! So Pastor Ingkvist realizes he
had better discard the rest of his sermon and just wing it. Abruptly he begins to preach about the
Three Wise Men and the importance of gifts – physical, tangible gifts! The real meaning of
Christmas is not just spiritual. No, indeed – the real meaning of Christmas is also – material!

I suppose for each of us Christmas has multiple meanings, even more than the two Pastor
Ingkvist recognized mid-sermon on that Advent Sunday. Christmas means the hustle and bustle,
the carol-singing and card-writing, the bright lights and glistening decorations, the pageants and
concerts, the angel message and the manger scene, the promise of peace and the assurance of
God’s favor, the birth of the Messiah and the coming of the Wise Men, and, yes, the exchanging
of gifts – but above all, maybe, the meaning of Christmas is the gathering of family and friends.
But Christmas can also mean the pain of failed relationships and aching emptiness of missing
loved ones. And for all too many folks, the panoply of holiday ads for luxury goods contrasts
with their struggle for the necessities of life: food, clothes, shelter, work, medicine, a doctor to
prescribe it. Indeed, the very commercialism of Christmas Pastor Ingkvist began condemning
provides for many working people the pay to purchase those necessities. It has always bothered
me that some pastors use the occasion of Christmas – or Easter – to chastise people who come to
church on only those two holidays, without recognizing that many people must work on Sundays
to support themselves and their families, much less acknowledging those for whom Christmas
means a day they must go to work in order to keep the wheels of our whole society turning.

So then, for all of us gathered here and all those who might wish to be here, Christmas surely
has many meanings: material, spiritual, emotional, theological – far more than any preacher could
sum up in a single sermon. How could there be only one “real” or “right” meaning of Christmas?
Therefore let me try this morning to share just part of the meaning Christmas has for me. To
put it most simply, Christmas means “wonder.” Take the carol we just sang – written by a
folklorist after he heard a young Appalachian girl in the North Carolina mountains sing those
first lines, “I wonder as I wander out under the sky, how Jesus the Savior did come for to die for
poor ordinary people like you and like I.” Doesn’t the haunting mood as much as the simple text
point to profound mystery? The evening before last the residents of Kendal gathered for a
Winter Solstice program of music and readings. One of our neighbors, Meg Gold, spoke of the
season as “an occasion to wonder at the mysteries beyond our comprehension.” As much as
anything, that is the real meaning of Christmas for me: “An occasion to wonder at the mysteries
beyond our comprehension.” And that, I believe, is what the author of the Gospel of John was
doing in our Scripture reading today – wondering at the mysteries beyond our comprehension.

We see that sense of Christmas wonder most clearly in children. How many of you know
Barbara Robinson’s little book, first published 40 years ago, about the Herdman family of
juvenile delinquents who take over the annual Christmas pageant and turn it into, as the title says,
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever? It ends with Mrs. Wendleken commenting, “‘Well, Mary the
mother of Jesus had a black eye; that was something special. But only what you might expect’…
She meant that it was the most natural thing in the world for a Herdman to have a black eye. But
actually nobody hit Imogene and she didn’t hit anyone else. Her eye wasn’t really black either,
just all puffy and swollen. She had walked into the corner of the choir-robe cabinet, in a kind of
daze – as if she had just caught onto the idea of God and the wonder of Christmas… When
Imogene asked what the pageant was about, I told her it was about Jesus, but that was just part of
it. It was about a new baby, and his mother and father were in a lot of trouble – no money, no
place to go, no doctor, nobody they knew. And then, arriving from the East (like my uncle from
New Jersey) some rich friends. But Imogene, I guess, didn’t see it that way. Christmas just came
over her all at once, like a case of chills and fever. And so she was crying, and walking into
furniture.” (The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, Harper & Row, 1972, p. 78)

I saw this kind of childhood wonder displayed a couple of years before Anne and I moved to
Kendal from Maryland. We worshiped in a small Church of the Brethren congregation, where,
as it happened, most of the children were adopted – and, like the Herdman kids, pretty wild, even,
maybe especially, when they all got together in church. So when two of the five-year-olds were
chosen to portray Mary and Joseph in the traditional pageant, we were prepared for the worst.
But to our astonishment, something came over Isobel and Kyle, just like Imogene, and as they
processed slowly down the aisle to the Bethlehem manger, they radiated awe and deep wonder.
One meaning of Christmas, then, for us grown-ups, is that it refreshes our childhood sense of
wonder – a sense of wonder that has become sadly dulled. When I watch a children’s Christmas
pageant now I am sometimes transported back in time to a corridor in Park Central Presbyterian
Church in Syracuse, NY. I am in an itchy burlap shepherd’s garb, a long crook in my hand, about
to take my place in a scene where I can only “wonder at mysteries beyond my comprehension.”

But does that wonder stop at childhood? Surely not for our Gospel writer. The Prologue to
John’s Gospel is a very sophisticated and intellectually challenging blend of poetry and prose that
grapples with the most fundamental of questions: How does everything that is hang together?
What is the coherence that unites all being? What links creation to compassion? How is light
related to life and life to love?” Yes, how does everything that is hang together? We have been
hearing the past few days that scientists at the CERN Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland are
close to identifying the Higgs boson – popularly called “the God particle.” That term was coined
by physicist Leon Lederman twenty years ago, in part because Lederman’s publisher refused to
use his proposed title, “The Goddamn Particle” – indicating both the villainous way this
wraithlike presence eludes discovery and the immense expense the search is costing. But there is
another reason for calling this mysterious cause of all mass “the God particle.” Lederman
reflects on the search for knowledge and concludes with a re-telling of the Tower of Babylon
story: “And the Lord came down to see the accelerator, which the children of men builded. And
the Lord said, Behold, the people are unconfounding my confounding. And the Lord sighed and
said, Go to, let us go down, and there give them the God Particle so that they may see how
beautiful is the universe I have made.” (The God Particle, Houghton Mifflin, 1993, p. 22)

There is innocent childhood wonder. But there is also mature, adult, intellectually questing
wonder. Indeed, I suspect the sense of wonder and awe may be greater today in the scientific
community than in the church. One serious student of the relationship between science and
religion is Elaine Ecklund, who teaches at Rice University. In her study of what scientists really
think of religion, she identifies one group of scientists she calls “spiritual entrepreneurs.”

Although these scientists do not look to religious communities as sources of truth, they do share
a spiritual experience that, in her words, “connects them to something outside of themselves
through awe at the intricate complexity and vastness of the universe of which they are a part and
through concern for other human beings.” “Awe” and “concern.” Or we could say, wonder and
love. As the great astronomer and mathematician Fred Hoyle commented, “I have always
thought it curious that, while most scientists eschew religion, it actually dominates their thoughts
more than it does the clergy.” What I think Hoyle meant was that in some profound sense, more
profound than for most ministers, scientists are aware of the ultimate wonder of Being, with a
capital B. Whatever dimension of Being they probe, scientists cannot escape the fact that, in
preacher Ralph Sockman’s phrase, “the larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline
of wonder.” Why else would Albert Einstein, who contributed to much to our understanding of
“what is,” of Being itself, have written these famous words, “The most beautiful and most
profound experience is the sense of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom
this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead.”
If only we church people could find better ways to connect with this mature wonder at the
mystery of Being! We claim – John’s Gospel claims – an ultimate coherence of us human beings
with all Being that can neither be fully understood – comprehended – or totally destroyed – overcome.

The Greek can be translated either “comprehended” or “overcome,” so I follow the New
Testament scholar James Moffatt in translating it “mastered,” which can convey both “comprehend” and “overcome.” “The light shines on in the darkness, for the darkness has never mastered it.” The meaning of Christmas in John’s Gospel is that this light from the loving source of life enlightens us, no matter how much “in the dark” we may seem be. And Jesus makes this love visible.

——-

John Elder’s translation of John 1:1-18

Gospel Lesson: John 1:1-18
(1) In the beginning was the Word;
and the Word was with God;
and the Word was God -
(2) this Word was in the beginning with God.
(3) All things came into being through the Word,
and apart from the Word not one thing came to be.
(4) That which had come into being in the Word was life,
and this life was light of humankind.
(5) The light shines on in the darkness,
for the darkness has never mastered it.
(6) There was a person sent from God, named John, (7) who came as a witness to
testify concerning the light, so that everyone might believe through him – (8) but only to
testify concerning the light, for he himself was not that light.
(9) The true light that enlightens every person was coming into the world]
(10) The Word was in the world;
and through the Word the world was made,
yet the world did not recognize the Word.
(11) The Word came to his own home,
yet his own people did not accept him -
(12) But all those who did accept him -
those believing in his name -
he empowered to become God’s children,
(13) who were born not of natural descent nor of physical urge nor of a husband’s will,
but of God.
(14) And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,
and we have seen the honor given him -
honor like that given an only child by a parent -
filled with steadfast love and loyalty.
(15) John testified to him by proclaiming, “This is he of whom I said, ‘The one who
comes after me ranks ahead of me, because he existed before me.’”
(16) For from his fulness we have all received, blessing after blessing.
(17) For while the Law was given through Moses, this steadfast love and fidelity came
through Jesus Christ.
(18) No one has ever seen God;
it is the only divine child,
closest to the parent’s heart,
who has revealed God.

Matthew 22:15-22
October 16, 2011
Steve Hammond

Those people were always trying to find ways to trap Jesus, and the one we read about this morning was pretty serious. If Jesus said they should pay their taxes to the Roman occupiers he was going to lose a lot of credibility with his followers. If he said they shouldn’t pay their taxes, they had the charge against him they needed to get Rome to arrest and kill him. That’s why the Pharisees brought some Herodians, or supporters of Herod along with them, in case Jesus said something they could report back to Herod.

The trap, though, never sprung. Jesus managed to grab their bait and walk away unscathed. The Pharisees and Herodians left shaking their heads and more determined than ever to find a way to get Jesus, which they finally did a few days later, sort of.

It would be easy to turn this confrontation into some kind of contest, with Jesus as the winner. Ralph Milton on the blog Rumors writes, though, “I’m always a little uncomfortable with these stories of how the Pharisees tried to trap Jesus, and he turns the tables and makes them look silly. “Look! See how our guy beat your guys!” One-up-man-ship. It seems inconsistent with the personality of Jesus I find in the rest of the gospel stories. You don’t show God’s love and justice by putting other people down, even (especially) when they deserve it.”

I agree with him. I don’t think Jesus was trying to demonstrate how clever he was in getting out of their traps. Rather, he seems to be trying to show them the trap they were already in. So he asked them to pull out that now famous coin with Caesar’s image on it. And they did. And that’s the trap they were already in before they tried to spring theirs on Jesus. They confronted Jesus in the Temple. Remember? But they weren’t supposed to have such coins with them. That’s the whole reason behind the money changers that you read so much about in the Gospels. They were there to exchange the coins with Caesar’s image on them, and thus regarded as an idol, for coins that were acceptable for the Temple’s treasury.

So it could be that Jesus was simply pointing out their hypocrisy. But it could also be he was trying to show them, and us, how pervasive the empire was. You couldn’t get away from Rome even on Temple grounds. It’s influence was everywhere, even when you were trying your best to avoid it. And besides, even if no Roman coins managed to get onto Temple grounds, they would still be spending them once they left.

Jesus tells them to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s. That is one of Jesus’ tougher statements. Love your enemies may be hard, but it’s pretty straight forward. This statement leaves you with all kinds of questions like what is God’s and what is Caesar’s. Should I pay taxes as a Christian, or should I not pay taxes as a Christian? Where does civil disobedience fit in? Can a Christian fight in Ceasar’s wars?

You hope that we will, at least, be trying to figure out what is Caesar’s, if anything, after we have figured out what’s God’s, and not the other was around. But as William Willimon writes, “Un- comfortability, a sense of dis-ease engendered in us when it comes to conflicting allegiances, is not a bad place to begin any Christian reflection about relations between God and government.”

That seems true to me. But I’ve also been thinking there is an additional empire we could be thinking about as we read what Jesus said. And it overlaps, it appears, quite easily with the more traditional notion of a political empire.

Anybody here have a credit card with them? Whose image is on it? Or whose logo? MasterCard? Visa? American Express? Discover? Those are really the gold coins of our day. And they may well point us to what the real empire is. Give to Caesar’s what’s Caesar’s and God’s what’s God’s. But what about Wall Street? What are they expecting from us. The American Empire may expect a lot of us, but the economic empire even more, not only from individuals like us, but the political empires of this world.

The Occupy Wall Street movement is starting to make some noise. People are finally asking why the economic imperatives of Wall Street have become the focus of our legislative bodies rather than the needs of people. And it would be to the church’s shame if we sat this one out, not to mention if the Church sided with Wall Street.

Most of you have probably seen that iconic statue of a bull on Wall Street. As the Occupy Wall Street movement has spent more time on Wall Street, people are beginning to remember their Bible stories. Do you remember the story of what happened when Moses went to the top of Mt. Sinai to receive the ten commandments and didn’t come down for a long time? The people gathered all their gold, melted it down, and made it into an idol. Do you remember what that idol looked like? A bull. Hmm…

I’m not suggesting the children of Israel picked a golden calf because there was going to be one on Wall Street someday. But to me, it is a vivid reminder of how linked idolatry and empire are.

I think a big part of the Bible, including the overarching theme of the Book of Revelation is that question of how do you live as God’s people in the empire. How do we follow Jesus when we live in the American and Wall Street empires?

This is not easy stuff, that thing about exchanging Caesar’s coins for coins acceptable to the Temple treasury. Once those coins without Caesar’s image on them had been procured and placed in the offering, they would have to be taken from the Temple and re-exchanged for more coins with Caesar’s image. That’s how hard this stuff gets. And in cleansing the Temple, which one person noted on Facebook this week was the original Wall Street Occupation, Jesus reminded us quite vividly that it’s usually the poor who suffer the most from empire’s machinations.
How do we get out of this trap of empire ourselves, both political and economic empires and their unholy alliances? First of all, we need to realize we are trapped. It’s so easy to make this whole thing about following Jesus simply about heaven. But Jesus was so much about earth and empire. That’s why he taught us to pray about God’s realm, God’s empire coming to this earth. It was a challenge to the Caesar’s of this world.

Another thing we need to remember is that we don’t get out of this trap alone. This is what the Church is to be about, helping each other follow Jesus while we live in the Empire. Look at the empire he lived in. All churches are called to be alternative Christian communities, people who are learning the alternative of the realm of God to the realms of this world.

I got a call from John Bergen, our Peace and Justice Intern, on Friday morning. He said that he couldn’t meet with Mary that afternoon because there was “kind of an emergency.” His cell phone was breaking up and he said he would call later or we could call him. So I began to speculate on exactly what “kind of an emergency” exactly is. It’s obviously not an emergency. My first thought was he forgot about a paper that was due on
Friday afternoon. But there was this brief thought that went through my head wondering if he was on his way to New York City. That’s kind of an emergency.

He did call back a little later and, indeed, he was in New York. After the Occupy Wall Street Gathering Mary organized in town on Thursday, John and some of his friends took off on an all night drive to Wall Street. Mayor Bloomberg had announced that the Wall Street Occupiers were going to have to vacate the park they were in by 7:00 on Friday morning. So it was kind of an emergency. Fortunately before John and his friends got there, the Mayor backed off.

I think that was what Jesus was trying to tell the Pharisees and all of us. This is kind of an emergency. There is so much that comes into our lives everyday that we don’t take the time to notice what a grip empire has on us. But we have those coins and credit cards in our pockets. These empires demand our allegiance at every turn, but our allegiance is to God’s realm. How do we do that?

Give to the empire what’s the Empire’s. Give to God what’s God’s. Again, if I read the Book of Revelation correctly, that’s always been a primary challenge to the church and will be until the end of all things, or new beginning of all things, when the Empires are gone, the nations are healed and the Lamb sits on the Throne. But in the meantime, we are in this struggle together and we get to follow Jesus, seek God’s realm, in this empire.

Matthew 26:6-13
October 9, 2011
Mary Hammond

It may seem counter-intuitive to take an extended Silent Retreat during the busiest month of the year. One voice complains, “What a waste! Look at everything you are going to miss! You’ve got to be crazy!” But another voice replies, “Why do you call this a waste? She is doing a beautiful thing for me.”

People often ask me if it is hard to be in silence for many days. There are always difficult, lonely, and slow moments. But there are also amazing, insightful, and life-altering experiences. The whole package is the gift and discipline of silence. A quiet directed retreat is not 100% silence, because I see a Spiritual Director once a day and I also sing and pray out loud when alone at times.

The work of the first 24 hours of a long retreat is to release all that I bring with me: the events of the day and previous days, as well as the tasks that await me on my return. I also need to let go of familiar routines: pre-bedtime rituals at home, talking to Steve daily, checking e-mail, walking the dog, seeing people I know, attending meetings. When life has been moving 150 miles per hour in Oberlin, Silent Retreat abruptly disrupts that rhythm. External life slows down to 0 miles per hour as soon as I turn right into the driveway of River’s Edge in Lakewood. It takes a lot longer than the turn of a car to put the brakes on my thoughts, cares, concerns, and relationships.

I usually do this with artwork. I grab a big piece of paper from the art closet and draw an enormous heart, symbolizing the heart of God. Then I start putting names and situations into that big heart until there is nothing left in my head to add. After this, I pray slowly and individually for each one. Last week, I wrote at the top of my initial drawing, “Breathe in mercy, breathe out surrender.” Doing this became part of each prayer for every person and situation.

Silent Retreat isn’t silent when Oberlin life continually crowds into my consciousness. Sometimes there are additional releasing exercises that come to me. I draw and pray them, as well. Drawing and more drawing. I ended those exercises by drawing a tree I named “Emergence,” after an art piece in the downstairs hallway that captivated my attention. I scribbled words on the trunk and branches, personal hopes for these days of silence. This was Monday’s work.

Seeing with the eyes of Jesus became the theme for this retreat, early on. I was drawn to just a few scriptures, as is often the case. Viewing the hints of autumn around me and knowing I would be spending hours outdoors each day communing with God through nature, I was drawn to the Creation Story in Genesis 1-2 and the God Monologue about Creation in Job, particularly Chapter 38. In the Gospels, I was drawn to the story we read today about the anointing of Jesus shortly before his betrayal and crucifixion.

I have loved this Gospel story for years. A woman sees Jesus’ deep need when no one else around him notices it. She ministers to him in his place of profound vulnerability. When others view her act as sheer waste, Jesus recognizes it as supreme gift. Her act is both blessing and symbol for him: she anoints Jesus for his burial.

The image of seeing and not seeing is perhaps the greatest juxtaposition of life at 0 mph verses 150 mph. At slow speed, the senses are heightened, the mind is quieted, and the heart is awakened. There are other times, though, when the heart is agitated, the mind is restless, and the senses are overtaken by preoccupation or struggle. These, too, are opportunities to face head-on the work of the heart. This is part of contemplation as well.

On Tuesday morning, I awoke with a simple prayer already on my lips, “Lord, I want to see with your eyes.”

My Spiritual Director often says that Steve and I “carry a lot of people.” Most pastors do. But we are not unique that way. All of us “carry people.” We could spend some serious congregational prayer time just naming before God and one another people we carry or have carried over the years.

While walking the grounds on Tuesday, I was thinking about those times when that load gets heavy and overwhelming. “How do you do it, Lord?” I asked as I prayed aloud. “How do you carry the whole human race and all the groanings of Creation? To carry just one tortured prisoner, or one abused child seems so overwhelming–but you, you carry the whole world! How do you bear it?”

Sometimes the questions have to just lay out there and sit. If I’m looking for an instruction manual on Silent Retreat, that won’t ever happen. But if I’m looking for metaphor, sign, and symbol, I’ll see it everywhere–in the chipmunk’s song, in the whirling leaves as they descend to the earth, in the stormy sky punctuated by a tiny patch of blue, in the golden hues of the sunlight streaming through the leafy green trees before dusk.

As I walked and prayed, I concluded, “You’ll just have to shore me up, Jesus, to see with your eyes. I can’t do it by myself.”

A song arose out of my heart. I had to go write it down, lest I forgot the tune and text. The next morning, I shared the song with my Spiritual Director. Since it was given to me spontaneously, she suggested that I “sit with” the text throughout the day and see what additional insights it might yield.

Wednesday turned out to be my hardest day of retreat. Concerns that I had released on Monday were re-surfacing, and they did not dissipate with either prayer or effort. So, I had to sit with them, too. I began doing this before sunset on the third floor porch, in the quiet. The trees are four stories high there, and it is a magnificent view.

“Shore me up, Jesus; shore me up, Jesus. Shore me up, Jesus, to see with your eyes.” As I began singing, bible stories started popping into my head. Some people saw a bent-over woman, unfit for service and hampered in worship. Jesus saw a Daughter of Abraham, standing up straight. Some saw a thief on the cross, undeserving and reprobate. Jesus saw a man who would meet him that day in paradise. Throughout the centuries, some labeled and condemned those they branded as “Christ killers,” unleashing horrific acts of Anti-Semitism, even when it was the Romans who gave the execution orders. Praying, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34), Jesus saw human beings acting out of ignorance. He extended mercy and forgiveness to his own murderers.

To see with the eyes of Jesus is to hold with him the sorrows, tragedies, and horrors of the world. It is also to recognize a gift where others see waste, anticipate transformation where others expect nothing, believe in possibility where others imagine a continuation of the status quo. To see with the eyes of Jesus is to hold all of this at once and together—the suffering and the beauty, the heartbreak and the promise, the darkness and the light.

I took one short Silent Retreat this past year at the start of Easter week, not a time I would recommended for a pastor. As usual, I missed Steve, so I called him the minute I got into the car to return home. Bad plan. He filled me in on a hard situation that had gotten more complicated while I was gone. In two minutes, all my inner quiet went out the window. I came home anxious and disturbed. My re-entry was by no stretch of the imagination among my finest hours. Dripping with sarcasm, that not-so-pleasant voice in my head, said, “And, you were on Silent Retreat for two days? That sure did a lot of good!”

So this time I determined to do better, to make the retreat-to-home transition centered and seamless, no matter what had transpired in my absence. I spent Thursday night organizing my “to-do” list for the following week, but also looking contemplatively at the broad view of my week to come, something I had never quite done that way before. It was illuminating, both then and in the middle of the night, as I kept waking up and grabbing my calendar to jot down new insights about our ministry here in Oberlin. The first fruits of those moments have appeared in the church Facebook page Steve began on Friday. Already, Heather KirkConnell posted from Paris, “I miss you all so much!”

Last Friday morning, I was contemplating my embarrassing re-entry to civilian life after my last retreat. I prayed, “God, these insights I’ve had here, I have to carry on home.” Out popped another song. It’s a versatile, centering song which can be tailored to any experiences. It’s a “fill-in-the-blank” prayer song! I’ve sung it many times this past week.

The disciples complained to Jesus, “Why this waste? For this ointment might have been sold for a large sum, and given to the poor.” Jesus replied, “Why do you trouble this woman? For she has done a beautiful thing to me.” Amen.

Philippians 3:2-14
October 2, 2011
Steve Hammond

The first we hear of the Apostle Paul, he was holding the cloaks of those who stoned Stephen, the first Christian martyr. The last we hear from him, he is in a prison cell awaiting where he is likely facing his execution for being a follower the same faith that he had one hoped would be wiped out with Stephen’s death.

It had been quite a journey for the Apostle Paul, and in that cell he had time and reason to reflect on that journey. And when he summed it up he said, “All I wanted to do was grab hold of what ever it is that Christ grabbed hold of me for in the first place. Whether I’ve done that or not, I don’t know. But I’m going to keep running the race until I get to the finish line.”

The stuff that had defined the Apostle Paul for most of his life, the things he had been so proud of, his ancestry, his religious zeal and purity as a Pharisee were, as he stood in the prison cell, no more significant to him than a pile of manure (that’s the PG way the translators have worded it).

This is tough stuff coming from the Apostle. And it has provided much fodder for any number of antisemitic movements and actions. That is a sad legacy, some of it is his fault, but much of it not. Paul really believed that Jesus was the logical outcome of Judaism and, at the beginning, never imagined he would help found another religion.

For Paul, all that the law and prophets talked about was fulfilled in Jesus. What he couldn’t deal with was a Judaism that had petrified into a religion that had substituted the power of a living God who could be known in Jesus for a reliance on customs, traditions, rites, and regulations like he had himself so devoutly observed.

And it’s not like Christianity had not had nor does not have it’s own equivalent to those knife wielding circumcisers that set Paul off. (That is a very arresting vision, for some of us, anyway). I don’t think the church can get off by criticizing another religion for not embracing Jesus when we mostly refuse to embrace him ourselves. It is plenty easy for us to make Christianity about the rules, laws, customs, traditions, rites, and regulations and completely miss the power of God at work in this world. The Apostle would be no happier with that kind of Christianity than he was with his native religion.

Until he ran into Jesus on the road to Damascus, or Jesus ran into him, Paul was known for being as religiously devout as anybody could be. But at the end of his life, being devout didn’t mean a thing to Paul.

I get this a lot from people who say they aren’t very devout Christians, or that somebody else is really devout. What do we usually mean by that? Usually we mean somebody prays a lot, reads their Bible, goes to church, knows the traditions, customs, and rites. They are people who are really pious.

The Apostle Paul would say, I think, that’s great, but not the point. The point is rather, are we spending our lives trying to grab hold of whatever it was that Jesus grabbed hold of us for, why he yanked us off the horse in the first place?

What we regard as devout, as necessary to the faith, is fine as long as we don’t confuse the ends with the means. The devout life is a means to an end, not the end itself. Maybe that’s what frustrated Paul about the Judaism he had lived, anyway. It confused the means with the ends. The law, Paul would say, is not there for itself, but it carries us somewhere. And for Paul, that was straight to Jesus. In the same way, we don’t need a Christianity that doesn’t lead us to Jesus. That belongs in the same manure pile as the other.

At the end of his life, more than anything else, Paul wanted to grab hold of whatever it was that had caused Jesus to grab hold of him. In the study group that just started meeting we are reading about what Brian McLaren calls the big questions. Why is there so much war and so little peace? Why aren’t we treasuring the environment instead of destroying it? Why are so many people alienated from God and each other? Why all the racism, sexism, and violence? If we’ve got such a great message why isn’t the church doing any better?

Jesus has grabbed hold of us because of those big questions. Then the next step is seeing what was going on in Jesus’ life that helps us address those big questions. That is what devotion is about. How you do communion and who wrote the book of Matthew are not among the big questions. But we spend so much time on all of that kind of stuff and confuse it with devotion.

At the end of his life, the Apostle Paul also wanted to know Christ and experience his resurrection. That makes a lot of sense for someone facing one of the many varieties of execution Rome offered its prisoners. Crucifixion. Beheading. Burnt at the stake. Or being tossed to the wild animals in the Coliseum.

The last time I preached, I mentioned Mary and I had seen the prison cell where Paul may well have written this letter and spent the last days of his life. That cell, and the very simple little chapel that was built on top of it were amongst my favorite sites in all the places we saw in Rome.

What was my least favorite was the Coliseum. Ugly things happened there. All kinds of people, Christians and others, were fed to the wild animals there as thousands watched like we would watch a baseball game. They would release these nearly starved lions, and bears and wild boars to feed on the men and women and children huddled in the floor of the Coliseum. Who knows, the Apostle Paul may have been one of them. And while they were dying such horrible deaths, the people in the seats would cheer and laugh and taunt Rome’s victims. The Coliseum is not a testimony to the amazing architecture of ancient Rome. It’s a testimony as to why Jesus grabbed hold of us in the first place.

Paul may or may not have ended up in the Coliseum. But when he writes about knowing the power of the resurrection of Jesus, you have to remember he expected to leave Rome alive. He knew he might meet his end there but, as you read the letter to the Phillipians, you realize he was thinking maybe not this time.

So when Paul says he wants to know the power of the resurrection of Christ, he’s not thinking solely about the other side of the grave. He wanted to know that power for the rest of the days of his life no matter how few or many. And he knew he would experience the power of the resurrection by grabbing hold of whatever it was that Jesus grabbed hold of him to do.

Paul did, indeed, have a strange journey. He went from being a devout follower of the law, to just trying to grab hold of what Jesus wanted him to reach for. And we have a journey too. It may not be exactly like Paul’s, but there will be plenty of us to leave behind on the manure pile. Some of it we know about already, some of it we don’t. And some of it will surprise us. But what’s important is that we move into the future ready to latch on to whatever Jesus grabbled hold of us to do, and find the power of his resurrection.

Matthew 21:23-32
September 25, 2011
Mary Hammond

There were two daughters. Their mother said to them, “Please call your grandmother. She is all alone in Iowa and not very healthy these days. A phone call would mean so much to her.”

The first daughter complained, “Oh, mom, you are always badgering me!” She ignored the request, while continuing to text her friends as they figured out a game plan for that evening. Meanwhile, the second daughter said, “Sure, mom, I can do that!”

Before supper, the first daughter was cold. She wrapped up in her colorful quilt and remembered that her grandmother had made it for her. Recalling her grandma’s devotion, she realized what a small request her mother had made. So, she dropped everything and made that phone call. Boy, was she glad she did! Her grandma was thrilled to hear from her, and the girl could tell that it made her grandma’s day!

The second daughter, on the other hand, got distracted by many things. “I’ll do it later,” she promised herself. A friend stopped by, and off she went to have some fun. She forgot about her mother’s request.

One day, the grandma got sick and was in a coma before the girls knew it.

Now, which one of these daughters did what the mother asked?

Saying “no,” but relenting and eventually doing “yes. Saying “yes,” but ultimately doing “no.” We all know what that looks like.

Jesus engages this universal human tendency in today’s parable from Matthew’s Gospel. The context of the scripture is significant. At the beginning of Chapter 21, Jesus enters Jerusalem on a donkey like a commoner rather than a stallion like a king. He is welcomed by crowds of struggling people, yearning for deliverance in many ways. The religious authorities in Jerusalem feel increasingly threatened by Jesus’ popularity. For a long time, they have been trying–unsuccessfully, I might add–to trap Jesus in his own words.

Once Jesus arrives in Jerusalem, his first stop is the Temple, the center of religious authority and practice. Instead of giving deference to those in power and quietly worshiping Yahweh, Jesus startles everyone by launching a protest against the abuses of religion that he witnesses there. He creates quite a ruckus, overturning the tables of the moneychangers, scattering the stalls of birds!

If Jesus wasn’t in trouble with the authorities before (which he was), he has now sealed his fate. They are bent on destroying him. In the first passage we read today, the Pharisees, elders, and chief priests interrogate Jesus about his authority. “By whose authority do you act?” they demand to know. Jesus recognizes their hidden agenda. So, in typical Jesus’ style, he answers their question with another question.

“About the baptism of John–who authorized it: heaven or humans?” Jesus asks. The religious leaders are cornered. To answer “humans” is to inflame the crowds; to answer “heaven” is to contradict their own views. They refuse to answer, and Jesus has bested them–for the time being.

Then Jesus tells them a simple story about a father, two sons, and a job in the family vineyard. In biblical times, the vineyard serves as standard imagery for the nation of Israel. The father’s request to go “work in the vineyard” has an underlying meaning. It reflects God’s yearning for the religious leaders to truly labor in God’s name among the people of God with the heart of God. No sweat. The religious leaders have that down–or so they think!

Both sons are asked to work in the vineyard. One refuses, later relenting and complying. The second agrees to labor in the vineyard, but never fulfills his word. ‘Which does the father’s bidding?’ Jesus inquires.

The answer is clear to the religious leaders. “The first,” they respond. Jesus agrees. Good enough! This conversation isn’t going too badly!

But, then comes the zinger. Jesus goes on, “Crooks and whores are going to precede you into God’s kingdom. John came showing you the right road. You turned up your noses at him, but the crooks and whores believed him. Even when you saw their changed lives, you didn’t care enough to change and believe him” (Matthew 21:31-32).

Matthew’s Gospel rejects claims of authority based purely on status or succession. A maverick leader like John is followed by a maverick leader named Jesus. Maverick followers like crooks, whores, and tax collectors prove themselves more open to God’s Realm than the religious elite.

The father invites both siblings to tend the vineyard. God calls the one who follows the rules and goes by the book and seems, at first glance, to do all the right things. God also calls the one who breaks the rules and throws out the rule book and seems, at first glance, to do all the wrong things.

Neither sibling has clean hands. In ancient culture, one is expected to obey the request of one’s father, the family patriarch. To do otherwise is a profound act of disrespect. Initially, it is the second son who honors his father. But in the long run, the tables are reversed. The second son ultimately dishonors his father by his lack of compliance, while his disobedient sibling changes course.

This is no gambler’s call to procrastination and ultimate compliance. This parable is a serious call to turn around, to recognize the work of God where we might not be looking for it, and get on board.

We began the service with a video from the Youth Sunday School Program, focusing on the theme of creation. As we approach the years ahead, voices around the globe are pleading with us as a nation to use, conserve, and consume energy in radically different ways and amounts. Meanwhile, big oil has its partners, even in religious communities.

“Come, work with–not against–my earth,” the Holy One pleads. One sibling says, “Sure, I’ll do that” but never does. The second one protests, but then starts listening to the groans of creation and begins experiencing a change of heart. A little movement here, a little there…pretty soon, that person, that town, that nation is toiling away in this 2011 vineyard that is a Planet in peril.

I have been thinking this week about Jesus’ command in Matthew 28:19-20 to “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all I have commanded you.” Progressives like to quote the beatitudes a lot and often bristle at this command in Matthew 28, rightly recalling the marriage of colonialism and evangelistic fervor, the terror of the crusades, and even the pushy Christian with the tract witnessing to them who won’t believe that they could already be a Christian. Yet conservatives like to quote Matthew 28 and often bristle at the beatitudes. We all need to start seeing these two teachings of Jesus as wedded to one another.

In his State of the Region address at the Annual ABC/RGR Meeting yesterday, Executive Minister Alan Newton asked the participants how many of them recommended movies to friends. Raise your hands if you do this. How many recommend favorite books? Favorite places to visit?

Alan then asked the gathered assembly, “How many recommend Jesus Christ to your friends? Do you recommend your favorite movies and your hairdresser to others more than you recommend Jesus Christ to them?”

We heard about the impact of the recession on the Region’s churches as well as trends away from Christian faith in Wales and in the United States. Alan told us that a recent study completed in Wales showed that 90% of self-identified Christians do not attend church. “We are one generation away from that phenomenon here,” he said. “The future of the church is not about more people on the pews or more money in the offering plate,” he continued, “The future of the church is about making more disciples of Jesus Christ.”

Alan went on, “These are challenging and exciting times, full of many threats and amazing possibilities. We need to remember, though, that the future never lies in the past. The past informs us, helping us venture forth into the unpredictable future. This requires faith, going out, and depending the Holy Spirit.”

Saying “yes” and doing “no.” Saying “no” and doing “yes.” Where are we today? Amen.

Philippians 1
September 18, 2011

Have you ever wondered if you could die for your faith? We read today about the Apostle Paul staring down death in his prison cell, and you do have to wonder. Could I do that?

I read what the Apostle Paul wrote, though, and it seems to me, he doesn’t really care what we would do if we were sitting in prison, with the execution grounds nearby. Not that such a thing would probably happen to any of us anyway. I’m thinking that the Apostle Paul is much more concerned about how we live as Christians than how we die. Because that’s what this letter is about.

When Mary and I were in Rome a couple of years back, one of the more memorable sites we visited was the prison that is claimed to be the one the Apostle Paul was held in before he was martyred. It’s right at the top of the Forum which contains the ruins that are so often featured on Rome travel posters.

As far as these things go, this claim seems to have some merit to it, though it could never be proven. It was a long time ago, after all, and there is no smoking gun, so to speak. But scholars are pretty much in agreement that Paul was, indeed, executed in Rome, and this letter to the Philippians was the last one he wrote.

Eugene Petersen calls Philippians Paul’s happiest letter. That seems kind of odd since things were pretty grim for Paul. But even though Rome put him in that prison, Paul had the empire right where he wanted it. He didn’t believe that Rome could last against the non-violent assault of the Gospel. That was far more important for Paul than issues of mortality and the the afterlife, or whether he went to be with the Lord or hung around for awhile. He was in chains, but as free as any person could ever be.

And one of the unintended consequences of his imprisonment, it turns out, was that instead of the message of Christ being silenced with Paul’s arrest, the message was getting out all the more. And instead of intimidating other followers of Jesus in Rome and Philippi and elsewhere, it only emboldened them.

For Paul, that was worth the price of his imprisonment and even death. Even the guards at the prison were listening because they realized that the only reason he was put in jail was because of his faith.

So that was one of the reasons this was such a happy letter, in spite of the circumstances. Another was that he wasn’t in this all alone. His friends in Philippi were living their faith well. Jesus was being made know because of them.

Eugene Petersen also says this about why this was such a happy letter for Paul. For Paul “circumstances are incidental compared to the life of Jesus, the Messiah, that Paul experiences from the inside. For it is a life that not only happened at a certain point in history, but continues to happen, spilling out into the lives of those who receive him, and then continues to spill out all over the place. Christ is, among much else, the revelation of God that cannot be contained or hoarded. It is this spilling out quality of Christ’s life that accounts for the happiness of Christians, for joy is life in excess…”

The more important issue for us then is not how we would handle some hypothetical situation where we might die for our faith, but how we will handle those very real situations that call us to live for our faith. What if the real joy of our lives was Jesus Christ being made known? I mean really known, coming alive in us? That was happening with the church in Philippi even though they were having a rough time of it themselves. And so Paul could rejoice even from a prison cell.

And like Paul, the followers of Jesus in Philippi were a work in progress. They were all learning along the way what it meant to follow Jesus, sometimes getting it right, sometimes getting it wrong. But they were becoming the Body of Christ that Paul wrote about in other places; the eyes, the ears, the hands, the feet, the brain, the heart of Christ. And Paul knew that would continue to happen even if he did not survive this prison stay. And that made him happy.

Even though Paul could go on and on about some hard to understand theological issues about Jesus, at it’s essence he wanted us to “live deeply in Christ…and let the glistening purity of Jesus’s life be our model,” as the author of 1 John puts it. To me, that’s the courage we need these days, to live deeply in Christ, let him be our model, and leave the dying and all the rest to him.

We can’t let the current of any other empire intimidate or seduce us into silence. The empire knows much more than we do the danger that the gospel represents to the goals and purposes of empire. Dying well, dying as Christians is not much of a threat to the empire, but living as Christians sure is. Loving enemies, tearing down the walls that divide us from each other, trusting in the power of God rather than the power of the military, giving our allegiance to God rather than the nation; the empire does not want to encourage any of that. The more deeply we live in Christ, the more he becomes our model, the more the empire’s hold on us is broken. They can kill us, but they can’t stop us from living.

It takes a lot of courage to live deeply in Christ, to let him be our model. It may not get us thrown in prison, but there are other kinds of chains that can be wrapped around us. Some of them, pretty tightly. But when we are alive in Jesus and he is alive in us, the message goes forth. There’s nothing the chains can do about that.

Paul was ready to die for his faith, but evidently he thought that prison, whether it was the one Mary and I stood in or not, wasn’t going to be his last one. But it may well have been. The message, though, is still alive. We are alive in Christ no matter how many martyrs along the way. The goal, though, is not to be martyrs, but those who come alive in Christ, whose lives make him known, people who in living deeply in Christ bring down empires.

We may never inhabit the martyr’s cell. So who knows how we would respond? But every day we will have the chance to come alive, to live deeply in Christ. And, as we read in 1 John, we will become like him. And it couldn’t make the Apostle Paul any happier.

September 11, 2011
Romans 14:1-12
Mary Hammond

I really appreciate the two signature statements of the United Church of Christ, which are quoted regularly by First Church pastor, David Hill. The first is this: “God is still speaking.” The second follows with the admonition, “Never put a period where God is placing a comma.” Both statements remind us that divine revelation is not static, but open to the realities of place and time, moving us forward into ever greater experience of God’s realm.

As we consider the Apostle Paul’s words to the Church in Rome today, I’m struck by how the themes may change, but the struggles the Church faces to embrace diversity remain. What people ate and didn’t eat, how they celebrated holy days or didn’t…these were “hot button” issues in Paul’s ministry context. ‘If it is God’s Table we are all sitting at, not our own,’ Paul argues, ‘who are we to judge one another? Isn’t that God’s job, not ours?’

Ever yearning for the unity of the Church, Paul seeks to refocus the believers on what really matters, and remind them to “single-mindedly serve Christ” (Romans 14:18). The first century church had to work hard to build bridges among people from diverse cultures, races, backgrounds, and social classes. So do we.

If Paul was addressing the American Church in 2011, what might he say to us about the Table of Christ? Who might we be sitting with, that God has invited, and we have not? What issues does the Church debate that become a smokescreen, obscuring the most urgent concerns of our faith?

9/11/01 laid bare realities that had been with humanity for a long time, but struck American vulnerabilities in a new way. There have been countless mass tragedies in the world: wars, famines, genocides, and natural disasters. Before 9/11/01, 9/11 was an infamous day in Latin America. September 11, 1973 marked a coup by the Chilean military, endorsed by the Nixon Administration in the United States. The government of democratically elected President Salvador Allende was overthrown. Military General, Augusto Pinochet, was installed. To this day, Pinochet is remembered for his brutal 16-year dictatorship and the endless heartbreak of the families of the disappeared.

9/11/01 brought home to us in the United States what so many others around the world have faced and continue to face. The utter tragedy of 9/11/01 is uncontested. The loss of innocent life is uncontested. Yet, the uniqueness of our loss in the context of the global story betrays the insularity of our national understanding.

The main point of Steve’s 9/11/01 sermon was simple and easy to remember, even after 10 years: How we respond to the events of 9/11 will show us who we are.

As much as we would wish it was otherwise, there is no way to sanitize the amount and levels of violence our nation has unleashed the past 10 years in the name of 9/11. It is staggering, and I don’t even think it is quantifiable by human means. In addition to the loss and injury of human life, the damage depleted uranium causes to human DNA and the environment will be present for generation upon generation to come. We have to live with the reality of this story, along with the tragedies of families who lost loved ones here in 9/11 and its aftermath.

I often think about the issues college students and their peers face, coming of age in a post-9/11 world. With the capacity for instant mass communication, we can’t keep our light under a bushel, but neither can we hide the underbelly of religious extremism. Violence perpetrated “in the name of God”, regardless of how that God is named, is pervasive around the globe. How would I view the meaning of faith if I grew up witnessing the devastating effects of violence “in the name of God” on the peoples of the world? This is a serious question the Church has to face now and in the years to come.

Yet, thankfully, there is a counter-witness to all this violence. Many Christian churches and individuals have used this decade to take the Apostle Paul seriously about crossing the many divides that we put up between others and ourselves. PCC youth collected over $500 for the Pennies for Peace Project, to help build schools for girls in rural Afghanistan. Folks in this congregation helped launch Oberlin College’s Peace & Conflict Studies Concentration.

New interest has arisen in the United States to understand more about Islam and our Muslim neighbors around the globe. Eboo Patel of the Interfaith Youth Core has helped a whole generation of young people learn from both each another’s similarities and differences. Peaceful Tomorrows has developed linkages between victims’ families of 9/11 and victims’ families of the War in Afghanistan. Blessed voices of shalom throughout the world are swimming against the vast tide of returning violence for violence.

Amid the tragedies we have witnessed the past ten years, the beauty and miracle of the story being written in our day and time is this: God is still speaking. God is still calling the Church to be the Church. Let’s shine some light into the darkness. Let’s make some peace amid the poisonous discourse that infects our body politic. Let’s bring some gentleness where compassion is absent. Let’s build relationships where the human fabric is torn asunder. Let’s tread gently on this earth we call home. Let’s open our hands and hearts to those Jesus welcomed.

God is still speaking…may we listen slowly and deeply, not to the facile chatter of superficial conversation, but to the cries and groans of a planet in peril, a people vulnerable and unsure, longing to know that there truly is Life, there truly is Good News, there truly is that which we in the Church understand as Redemption and Reconciliation to be found in Jesus Christ. Amen.