Wednesday, March 21, 2007

"A Story That's Not About Us"

This morning’s scripture reading is Luke, chapter 15, verses 1-3 and 11b through 32. It can be found on page 740 in your pew Bibles.
I invite you to listen for the word of God.

Now the tax collectors and “sinners” were all gathering around to hear him. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
Then Jesus told them this parable:
“There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.
Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.
When he came to his senses, he said ‘How many of my father’s hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.’ So he got up and went to his father.
But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.
The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’
But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.
Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’
The other brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’
‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’”
This is the word of the Lord
Thanks be to God.
Sermon
This scripture passage is a parable, a story used to explain a historical truth, that captures our attention, though it is devoid of miracles and not originally intended for us at all.
The parable is told to explain the relationship between Jesus, the sinners and tax collectors, and the scribes and Pharisees. Like the wayward or prodigal son, the sinners and tax collectors have strayed from God, have lived un-pure lives that the righteous son, or Pharisees and scribes are disgusted by. They, the Pharisees and Scribes stand in judgment of Jesus who associates with such low lives saying, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
This Jesus shocks the Scribes and Pharisees. Jesus listens to them, as God always hears us when we are angry, even if for the wrong reason, but he still corrects them as the God they expected would never associate with such low lives but would judge them, condemn them, and punish them for their disobedience.
Like the son who stayed home in the parable, the Scribes and Pharisees are enraged.
In the parable, Jesus describes a father who embraces a wayward son who squandered his inheritance on prostitutes. Of course, the father who embraces the wayward son is meant to represent God, especially in the person of Jesus. While the image of father is a traditional role for God, we must be careful not to box God in. Of course for our God will not be type cast, and as the story continues we must be careful that our images of God do not limit our relationship with God and each other.
For though this parable explains a historical struggle, the struggle between God’s faithful sons and daughters and God’s returning sons and daughters, the story points to a timeless truth. We just have to be careful to realize that it’s not a story about us.
Because the scribes and Pharisees thought it was about them, and who they understood God to be. They assumed that God was on their side, and that God operated according to their rules. That disobedience under the Law was not something that could just be erased and forgotten about. They assumed that this son who had squandered his inheritance on prostitutes should be forgotten. That this son who out of desperation had been hired as a servant got what he deserved, that he should pay for his recklessness, for his loose living.
And the wayward son, like his brother who stayed to till his father’s fields, was also limited in his understanding of his father. The sinners and tax collectors believed what the Scribes and Pharisees said about them. They believed that God had left them behind, that they were not good enough, that they had strayed too far and deserved to lose their place at the table, deserved to lose their inheritance, deserved to be forgotten. They were not good enough to be the father’s son any more and could only hope to be a servant.
But this is not a story about them, just as this is not a story about us.
If it were left to us, if we were the main players in this parable than God would be confined to a box, a box of our limited understanding. God would be limited by our feelings of self-righteousness or self-loathing, God would be held down just as we hold ourselves down, so thank God this is not a story about us.
This is a story about God. And in this story we hear about a God who defies explanation, a God who defies our graven images, a God who will not be confined to masculine imagery, a God who is more than a “he” in the sky, more than a father or a mother, though we should feel to call our God either, a God who cannot be pictured as a grumpy old man in a golden chair. For in the parable of the prodigal son and his brother we come to know a God who will not abide by our claims of whom God would and would not hang out with, our claims of whom God would and would not like.
Too often we see ourselves in our God, forgetting that God is not limited by our sins which so define the way we see the world.
The Bible speaks of a God who cannot be nailed down to the cross for God rose from the dead. Yes, our God cannot be confined by death, will not be held down by the fires of hell much less our own conceptions.
In this parable we see how we confine God, how we think God can’t forgive us, that God wouldn’t do that that God wouldn't love me or that God wouldn’t love him or her.
Because we constantly forget that it’s not about us, it’s not about what we think about God, because God is bigger than we are and what we think and want; God is bigger than we with a love so great and so pure, a God who waits for us offering us an invitation that we don’t deserve.
And yet, this God who is beyond us, who we can’t comprehend, is right here with us. Like the father in the parable our God is present in our lives. Our God waits for us to embrace us with open arms.
This God is present today, as we remember Jesus who gave up his life for us. Today in the bread and the wine we remember an inheritance that we threw away, that we don’t deserve, as what we deserve is punishment, but what we are given is new life.
In bread and wine we are given a gift, just as the father offered his sons an inheritance, not because they earned it, in fact it didn’t have anything to do with them at all. The son who stayed thought he had worked hard to deserve the father’s love and the son who strayed thought his sins lost him his place in the father’s house. But the parable is not a story about us. Not a story about us but the story of a God who loves us, who offers this sacrament, not because we are good, but because God is good. In the breaking of the bread and the drinking of the cup we may remember the God who refuses to give up, the God who will never give up on us.
You who are here know, I hope that you know you are welcome, that you are forgiven, and that you are loved. There are so many things that we have to earn, but here is something freely given that we could never earn. God’s love is free to you, and we are called to respond to such love in thanksgiving, sharing God’s love freely to everyone we meet.
-Amen

"Totally Easter Barbie"

This morning’s scripture reading is Luke 13, verses 31-35, and can be found on page 739 in your pew Bibles.
I invite you to listen for the word of God
At that time some Pharisees came to Jesus and said to him, “Leave this place and go somewhere else. Herod wants to kill you.”
He replied, “Go tell that fox, ‘I will drive out daemons and heal people today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will reach my goal.’ In any case, I must keep going today and tomorrow and the next day – for surely no prophet can die outside Jerusalem!
“Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often have I longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! Look, your house is left to you desolate. I will tell you you will not see me again until you say, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”
-The word of the Lord
-Thanks be to God.
Sermon
We all know that Herod was a bad guy; it should come as no surprise that he was out to kill Jesus as he had been trying to get Jesus since the beginning. Matthew’s gospel tells the story of Herod’s attempt to kill Jesus just after he was born as one of the wise men told Herod that a king was born who would threaten Herod’s power; for Herod in Matthew’s gospel Jesus was a political threat that had to be stopped. The author of Luke does not compare Herod to the Pharaoh of the Exodus using the slaughter of the innocents as Matthew’s author does, but still in Luke’s gospel Herod has already beheaded John the Baptist and now, by chapter 13, Herod is going after Jesus for he knew that Jesus was a person that people could believe in – and when people start to believe in something – hope in something, that can be dangerous, threatening for people who are happy with things as they are.
It is good though, that here in this passage some Pharisees warn Jesus and tell him to “leave this place and go somewhere else” as “Herod wants to kill you.” It makes sense that teachers of the law would see Jesus as the fulfillment of that Law, that the people who have been taught the most about God would recognize God in front of their eyes. We assume that these kinds of people would know that God can change things; these kinds of people would recognize the hope in a miracle worker.
But we also know that the Pharisees turn against Jesus too. That they, the educated, religious elite, who should have recognized him for who he was, missed him. If anyone should have recognized the Son of God who fulfills the prophecies, the long expected redeemer who is the fulfillment of the Law, it should have been the people who knew the Law the best.
But they missed him, and though in this passage some Pharisees are warning Jesus to get out of town, in some passages it is the Pharisees who attack him, accusing him of breaking the Law, disobeying the Sabbath and giving people who had given up on things the hope to believe that life can be different, maybe even better.
We might assume that with all their efforts towards purity and righteousness under the Law they would have recognized and celebrated Jesus’ efforts to make society more just.
I don’t know if all of you gave up anything for Lent, I am still debating between red meat and desert. I have already cheated twice so I am trying to think of something else; but I assure you, these Pharisees would have had all of us beat. Last week I heard that someone gave up snacks out of the snack machine, someone else gave up procrastination, and another person has given up bacon, but those Pharisees could teach us all something about giving things up for Lent. They were fasting all the time, staying physically clean and ritually pure; but still, they were the ones who didn’t recognize him. Though in this passage some Pharisees are warning Jesus, by the end of Luke we know that they wanted him gone just as Herod did.
It can be exciting to think that we are different today, that Georgia is different from ancient Israel and that we are very different from the Pharisees; that if Jesus were walking with me through the Kroger last week people would have embraced him, celebrated him as he walked through the rows and rows of cereal, hugged him before the huge variety of cheese-its, stopped and stared at him rather than the ice cream, the eggs, or the bread; and think of what would have happened before Kroger’s display of Totally Easter Barbie there on the shelf.
All that food and yet Kroger’s Totally Easter Barbie doll is still as skinny as a rail, I think Jesus would have been amazed.
How would people react if Jesus were to walk through the Kroger, would he be celebrated or would security be called to calm things down in much the same way that the Pharisees were offended by the Jesus who ate with sinners, tax collectors, and prostitutes, upsetting the traditional barriers of society. Would order be restored so the isles could be cleared and people wouldn’t have to fight to make their way to their cheese-its, their Totally Easter Barbie, or to the money changers who set up shop at the entrance of the Temple in ancient Jerusalem.
Things seem a lot different from the perspective of the Kroger. Modern Georgia is a lot different from Ancient Israel, and we must be a lot different from Herod and the Pharisees because we know who Jesus is, we recognize him, we listen to him.
Or maybe things aren’t so different.
Maybe we are more like the Jerusalem that Jesus calls to than we think.
Maybe we are more like the Pharisees who don’t want order disrupted, who just want to go to their temple and abide by the Law.
There were people in need of miracles then, and there still are today. There are those who are blind, who would love for Jesus to give them their sight, there are those who are sick in need of Jesus to heal them, the mourning who want their dead brought back to life. There are people today who have given up on the future, who don’t believe that things could be different, who are waiting for a miracle but not expecting one, and there are those who are perfectly happy with things as they are.
Yes the food is different in our grocery stores than it was in the marketplace a long time ago in ancient Jerusalem, but wouldn’t we be able to see beyond all our modern contraptions to see the King of Kings?
Sure there are still those who have plenty, maybe too much, and those who don’t have enough; but aren’t things more equal today than they were long ago?
And maybe there are still those in need of a medical miracle, but isn’t modern medical technology much more advanced today than it was in ancient Jerusalem?
Maybe we don’t demand strict Sabbath observance, but are we not offended or at least made uncomfortable by the homeless men and women on the street – a living sign that everything is not just right.
Maybe we would never find Totally Easter Barbie at the Jerusalem bazaar, but might we be blind to our fallenness as so many still think they have to look like Barbie to be good enough, to be beautiful.
In our passage for today from Luke, Jesus was calling to Jerusalem like a mother hen to her chicks.
But many had trouble hearing the call.
Herod and the Pharisees had trouble hearing the call.
Many today have trouble hearing that call.
But do we have trouble hearing the call?
That is what lent is all about, examining ourselves, recognizing our sin, seeing in our lives the ways that we don’t listen to Jesus calling us in like a mother hen to her chicks.
But we don’t like to spend much time in Lent, as I said before I have not been successful giving up red meat or desert, two small things.
And there is a reason Totally Easter Barbie is on the shelf of the Kroger rather than Totally Lenten Barbie.
Can you imagine what she would look like, Totally Lenten Barbie? Dolls are supposed to beautiful and clean, without outward signs of their inward sin. Totally Lenten Barbie would have to wear sack cloth and ashes, the mark of the cross on her forehead, she wouldn’t be very fun to dress up I am sure. Maybe Totally Lenten Barbie would have a shaven head – a traditional symbol of repentance and mourning – an outward sign of something inside that needs to change.
But maybe we don’t have to imagine what Totally Lenten Barbie would look like; maybe she would look something like Brittany Spears, with a shaved head and dark circles under her eyes, or maybe like Anna Nicole Smith as she mourned the loss of her son, over dosing on drugs to kill all the feelings of regret in her life. Maybe Totally Lenten Barbie would be well represented by a judge more interested in self promotion than doing justice, or boyfriends more interested in inheriting money than a daughter as we have all see in the Anna Nicole Smith court proceedings.
Our society has focused on Brittany Spears and the Anna Nicole Smith case in recent weeks and I’m not sure why. But maybe they reflect something about our society that things like Totally Easter Barbie try to ignore. Maybe they reflect the sins of our society the same way that Jesus did – bringing attention to societies brokenness rather than ignoring it by focusing on the shiny ritualized purity or the flowing golden locks atop a body supported by two tiny little feet – washing away societies make-up, getting down to the tears.
Jerusalem, Jesus said, was desolate and yet the people of Jerusalem would kill prophets and stone those sent to her.
As we watch the downward spiral of Brittany Spears or the trial involving Anna Nicole Smith’s body, money, and daughter, can’t we see that something is very wrong?
In such people we can see our culture’s obsession with celebrity, with outward looks, with attention, with fame, and with money. Do we really believe that these things can make us happy? Do we really believe that being an American Idol, being rich, and being a star will solve our problems?
That if we can isolate ourselves from the rest of the world to mansions with clean tile and shampooed carpet – places where the homeless and destitute are rounded up and sent away – that if we can just separate ourselves from things that we regret, things we don’t like to look at, that we will be happy.
We look for happiness in all the wrong places. Like the Pharisees we look for purity by separating ourselves from things and people who we think are dirty though Jesus reminds us that we are not to call dirty what God has made clean. We run the rat race looking for fulfillment, abiding by the clock as the Pharisees abided to the Law.
So we must ask: do we really believe that earning more and more money is worth it?
Do we really believe that a bigger house will fill some emptiness or void in our lives.
Do we really believe that all our searching will find its way to happiness?
In all the sadness that surrounds Brittany Spears and Anna Nicole Smith, the underside of our celebrity culture, we can see that the wages of doing things by human standards, that searching for happiness in money and objects will lead to sadness, loneliness, frustration, and death.
Lent is the time when we are called to see the brokenness under the forced smiles and make up to the humanness that lies below. But will we be bold enough to realize that our ways are broken; will we trust and hear the voice of new life calling us to change? Or will we, like the Pharisees before us hold onto tradition, to ways that preserve order, that maintain the smile of Totally Easter Barbie despite the brokenness within?
Jesus is calling us, Jesus is still calling us, and Jesus will never stop calling us saying, “How often have I longed to gather you together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings.”
Amen.

"The Resurrection and a Maximum Security Prison"

Scripture, 1 Corinthians 15: 12-20

But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?
If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.
More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that God raised Christ from the dead. But God did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all people.
But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.
Sermon

I first memorized the Apostles’ Creed in Confirmation class when I was in 7th grade. However, it can be easy to forget things when you are standing in front of people, so I always look down at my hymnal to read it, trying not to forget any part of it when we say it all together. At that time I just memorized it though, didn’t think much about any of it. I enjoyed being able to say it when everyone else was saying it, but didn’t’ really internalize any of it. That was a time when some things just made since. I didn’t’ have any reason to question what I was saying. The church said to say it so I said it. The resurrection, sure it happened, my teacher has already said so. There was no need to take it any farther than that.
And really, life in Marietta didn’t stir up too many debates in me with God. Things seemed to happen for a reason. If something bad happened, well, there has to be an explanation. If someone goes to jail, they must deserve it, if someone goes to detention, well, they must have acted up in class. And if my teacher says that Jesus had to be raised from the dead to forgive my sins, well, it must be true. If my teacher said that now new life has come, now death has been conquered, well, I could believe it because it made since. And part of Paul’s congregation at Corinth seemed to be thinking along the same lines that I was in 7th grade. We are living in a world that has been made different by Jesus’ death and resurrection. We are living in a new world, the new has come and the old has gone away, in baptism we become citizens of the Kingdom of God, a Kingdom where the weak are made strong, the sick are made well, and death and dying are a thing of the past. People lived a different way before Jesus died and was raised; it was nothing like life is today. Jesus came and conquered sin, now the world is a different place.
That is what I believed in 7th grade.
For some people, there are certain parts of the creed that are harder to say at certain times in your life. For some people, at one time or another, the hardest part of the Apostles Creed is the part about the “holy Catholic Church.” A couple weeks ago Maynard answered a question referring to this part of the Creed, and we now know it is the universal church that we confess to believe in.
But when I finally really started thinking about what the creed meant the hard part became the part that says: “on the third day he rose again from the dead; he ascended into heaven.” I have heard of some good church going people who skip this part. The birth and crucifixion of Jesus, people can say with no problem, but the resurrection. That goes beyond the comfort level of some rational thinkers. That part really takes some faith, or at least a willingness to say it rather than question it.
There have been archeological digs searching for an empty tomb, but even an empty tomb might not explain away people’s doubts.
There were two groups that Paul wanted to correct as he wrote to the Corinthian Christian community. There were those who believed the resurrection of Jesus Christ had put the world in order, that the new age had come right that instant, that now things were lined up the way they were supposed to be, now we are living in the Kingdom of God, a place where things work out as they should.
But there was another group too, a group of cynics to oppose these serial optimists. This cynical group decided not to believe in the resurrection as nothing had really changed, they looked out on the world and nothing seemed different, nothing seemed new, yes, Christ had died but the Kingdom had not come.
They were still Christians, I guess. It was easy for them to say that this Jesus was a great teacher. They could say, I respect him as I respect all great philosophers and scholars. I admire his teachings, and trust that by living them I will find happiness. I even look to the cross and see that here, an innocent man was crucified, what better illustration for our societies sin than an innocent man being tortured and killed for no good reason. Yes, in the life of Jesus I have found truth, and in the death of Jesus I see our sin, but the resurrection, that sounds like just another pretty story.
And I don’t need another pretty story.
I don’t need another pretty story when my daughter became sick and was diagnosed with cancer and we prayed and we prayed but she still died. I don’t need another pretty story because I lost my job, and I did the best I could. I don’t need another pretty story because bad things do happen to good people, still.
I speak for myself in saying that I don’t need another pretty story either.
A few summers ago I was a chaplain intern at Metro State Women’s Prison. It’s a maximum-security prison. I didn’t think of it as a maximum-security prison until the woman on death row walked down the sidewalk. Everyone had to step 10 feet away from her as she walked, escorted by two officers with her hands cuffed behind her back.
Walking into that place was like walking into another world. The women there would want me to pray, but sometimes I was too afraid to close my eyes, and prayed with my eyes opened.
I had to listen to some hard stories.
One woman told me about a lifetime of abuse at the hand of her father and various boyfriends through a slit in an iron door. I had to hunch over to hear her ask me if I thought she was going to hell. I said, no mam, I don’t think God is going to send you to hell. I think you have already been there, and I don’t understand why.
There were so many stories, so many accounts of abuse and violence that these women had undergone. It was never their crimes that stuck out to me. I could never understand how using drugs or stealing from convenience stores got them in prison while the husbands and mothers and boyfriends and brothers who had abused them, had violated them, walked free.
Somebody would tell me that everyone gets what they deserve, but it doesn’t always seem that way even at a maximum-security prison they don’t.
Here was a place where things don’t work out in the end. Here was a place where sin and death and pain and sadness are such a reality. Here was a place where, if the resurrection had happened, well, they forgot to tell the prison about it.
The worst was when I was asked to help start a choir for the mentally disabled inmates. I walked up the stairs to their floor to a room with thick glass and 15 chairs for 20 people. They were less cleaned up than most of the other inmates because they didn’t have families on the outside to send them things like shampoo and lotion. They had been abused in many ways on the outside, and sometimes they were abused by other inmates too. Their stories were the saddest, and I hated to hear about their prospects for getting out. There was no one to take them in, and they couldn’t live alone. To leave prison meant for an end to the prescription drugs, and without them they could expect to end up in prison again.
I was supposed to start a choir for them, but I couldn’t imagine what these women had to sing about. For a kid from the suburbs the prison was a sharp taste of what reality is for so many people, it was a look into the worst of what life can be like, it was a real proof text for those who wanted to believe that the resurrection had ended suffering for all people, that now everything is going to work out in the end, because here in this place, nothing seemed to work out in the end, life just got worse.
This was a place where it was easier to believe that Jesus was just a great teacher, this was a place where it was easier to believe that Jesus was just another great hero of the faith, whose crucifixion on the cross shows society for how hurtful it can be, shows us our sin, shows us the brokenness of our society.
And I sat in that room thinking: what do these women have to sing about?
What am I supposed to tell them, who am I, a middle class kid from the suburbs who has never missed a meal in his life, how am I supposed to start a choir for this group of women who know that everything does not always work out in the end?
One of them stood up to sing.
And I sat there, listening to beautiful music coming from the most unlikely source. I sat there as one woman sang, then another would volunteer, and then one stood up and sang a song we just sang together in this service. She stood up and sang, “His eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches me.”
Those words didn’t seem to make any sense in that place.
As a 7th grader in Marietta they had made plenty of sense, but as a young man whose eyes had been opened to the world it seemed as though Jesus had forgotten to watch these women, because the words of the song didn’t make sense in a building surrounded by walls and barbed wire. A place isolated, for people who have been pushed aside, people whom society has deemed in need of reconciliation.
But there it was.
It may seem like nothing, the song ended and the only thing in the whole world that I know changed was my perspective.
Her hope could not lie in getting out of prison, for there was not much hope for her on the out side, but nor could she hope for life inside those walls.
Her hope lay in the only place it could lay.
You know some expected Jesus ride a steed, to charge into Jerusalem, to be a great military leader.
But that wouldn’t have done her any good.
If Jesus came to break down the walls of that prison to set her free, well, where would she go? Even if Jesus came as a great teacher to teach her all the wisdom in the world, how much would she understand?
For the world had given her a name, names like druggy, names like stupid, names like worthless, and the prison had even given her a number to go across her chest.
But Jesus, she knew Jesus knew her name, Jesus knew her name to be glorious daughter, heiress to the highest Kingdom of Heaven, child of God.
And that is why the Resurrection matters.
Because one day, that maximum-security prison will be torn down. One day we will all grow old, there may even come a day when there is no more church, no more world, and then what will there be anymore?
There will only be one thing, and it is the only thing in the whole world that matters.
When everything falls away, we will know that we are the children of God.
Though Jesus’ resurrection has not fully ushered in the Kingdom of God, that day at a maximum-security prison, I could hear it coming.
Even though the Kingdom of God is not here yet, we know that the first fruits of a new day have conquered death, and we may rejoice knowing that because of the victory of Jesus over death we need not be afraid.
For a new day is coming, when there will be no more hate, no more fear, no more sickness, no more death,
And we will look at each other, face to face, as brothers and sisters, no walls will separate our society anymore, and you will hear the most beautiful music from the most unlikely of sources.
Because on the third day he rose again from the dead; he ascended into heaven.
-Amen.

"So I failed Spanish"

Scripture reading, Nehemiah 8:1-10

When the seventh month came and the Israelites had settled in their towns, all the people assembled as one man in the square before the Water Gate. They told Ezra the scribe to bring out the Book of the Law of Moses, which the Lord had commanded for Israel.
So on the first day of the seventh month Ezra the priest brought the Law before the assembly, which was made up of men and women and all who were able to understand. He read aloud from daybreak till noon as he faced the square before the Water Gate in the presence of men, women, and others who could understand. And all the people listened attentively to the Book of the Law.
Ezra the scribe stood on a high wooden platform built for the occasion. Beside him on his right stood Mattithiah, Shema, Anaiah, Uriah, Hilkiah and Maaseiah; and on his left were Pedaiah, Mishael, Malkijah, Hshum, Hashbaddanah, Zechariah and Meshullam.
Ezra opened the book. All the people could see him because he was standing above them; and as he opened it, the people all stood up. Ezra praised the Lord, the great God; and all the people lifted their hands and responded, “Amen! Amen!” Then they bowed down and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground.
The Levites- Jeshua, Bani, Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodiah, Maaseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Josabad, Hanan and Pelaiah- instructed the people in the Law while the people were standing there. They read from the book of the Law of God, making it clear and giving the meaning so that the people could understand what was being read.
Then Nehemiah the governor, Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who were instructing the people said to them all, “This day is sacred to the Lord your God. Do not mourn or weep.”
For all the people had been weeping as they listened to the words of the Law.
Nehemiah said, “Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is sacred to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.
Sermon
I failed a class once. It was in high school, my sophomore year. Spanish. It was weird because I ended up being pretty good at Spanish, but you know what, if you don’t do your homework or pay attention in class you can be pretty sure of the outcome. Of course, during the semester when my parents asked me about the class I told them the same thing I was telling myself, that I was doing fine; but that was a lie.
I hope that this first sermon goes better than that first Spanish class.
If anyone cried because of my first sermon I would be pretty disappointed. I would. I want my first sermon to be good; I want all of you to think, man, I sure am glad we gave that young guy a chance. I sure am glad our search committee found him, I sure am glad he is here.
But crying is exactly what Ezra’s congregation did.
Maybe he just preached for too long…I will have to make a note not to do that.
Maybe his scripture passage was boring…I will have to make a note not to do that also.
But maybe it was something else.
I know that the longer this service lasts the longer it takes to get the rest of your day started, or the longer the line at the Red Lobster is going to be. I know that if this service goes over than somebody is going to be late for either soccer practice or football or dance or something. We are so busy these days; our Sabbath is rarely a day of rest. So maybe Ezra shouldn’t have gone on from early morning until midday. Or maybe he should have added some great story or good joke so he wouldn’t be so boring.
But maybe it was something else that made the people cry.
Maybe it wasn’t his fault at all…not his fault, but the fault of the book that he read from. In our scripture this morning Ezra read from the book of the Law of Moses. Maybe it would have been better if he had Psalm 23: “For the Lord is my Shepherd… (and) when I walk through the valley of the Shadow of Death I shall fear no evil.” I like that one. It can be so comforting.
But the Bible often does something different, something more than comfort us. Not only does the Bible show us who God is, but it also shows us who we truly are. Sometimes it can be like a mirror up to our faces, like a photograph where the light is all wrong and the angle is misguided and we end up looking older, balder, and 10 pounds heavier than we look when we suck in, comb forward, and smile.
For Nehemiah’s community, there were many who had just returned from Exile, who had lived among the heathen Babylonians, living lives of captivity yes, but also lives among the un-pure, the un-Biblical, the un-Kosher. They had picked up bad habits, a new language, a new culture, and extra wives.
They stood condemned by the Law of Moses.
And maybe we don’t have extra wives or husbands but we do stand here in this church, this place of holiness, purity, in God’s house…condemned by the law as well. This place, where we stand in awe of a perfect God and so become aware of our imperfections. Our imperfections, our heathenness, our selfishness, our impurities.
Here we worship the God who commands us to be the salt of the earth, and we must see ourselves and how we have settled to “just fit in.” Our busyness today and on other days at the cost of Sabbath observance and self-care is only one example.
As here we worship the God who created the world and here we are reminded how we have polluted the world. Polluted the world that God has trusted us to take care of.
Here we worship a God who renewed and freed the Hebrew people from slavery and captivity, and we are reminded of how many are still limited by poverty, homelessness, those who are slaves to their jobs, slaves to the rat race; living by the law of every man and woman for him/her self rather than the law of love your neighbor as yourself.
Here we worship a God who urged us not to judge each other, while we often stand in condemnation of friends, family, and others.
This book, this book reveals our brokenness so we should cry and weep as the Israelites did at the Water Gate.
Because this book calls us out, this book calls us sinners.
Our reading from Nehemiah presents a group of people so convicted of their brokenness that on hearing God’s word they wept, but do you ever weep, do I ever weep?
The newly returned Israelites did not rejoice as they heard the Law and did not find comfort but conviction. They did not rejoice as they gathered by the Water Gates, no they mourned as their sins were read aloud, while their short comings were revealed at the Water Gates, they mourned.
And we should mourn too.
The thing is, while the Bible is not just like Chicken Soup for the Soul, while it sometimes is a book that we would rather keep to the drawer in our Hotels, leave it dusty on the shelf, this Bible of ours is the Good News.
It is the Good News because seeing our brokenness means that we stop ignoring the fact that we mess up sometimes. Maybe then we can start making some real changes.
I am here to say that we believe in a God who can see our sins whether they appear on the front page, are read aloud at the Water Gates, or show up on a report card…but this God who created us, who knows our sin, offers not condemnation, but repentance, redemption, and reconciliation.
Repentance, because our brokenness is just that…brokenness.
Redemption, because life in brokenness cannot bring the happiness that new life can bring.
And reconciliation, because the God who created us wants to be in relationship with us. The life of Jesus Christ is a testimony to that truth.
Happiness lies in living life as the God who created us asks us to live.
It’s really hard, I know. It doesn’t really ever get very easy, but we have to trust in God’s forgiveness, we have to be honest about it or nothing will ever get better.
It’s natural to hide our brokenness I think. I certainly hid my failing grade in Spanish. I didn’t want to face the facts and I know I didn’t want my parents to see. I walked through the door that afternoon with my report card in my hand and I was so scared. When they saw it they didn’t know what to do. They didn’t say anything for a while, I knew they hadn’t forgotten, believe me, I knew they hadn’t forgotten about it, but I had to wait until after supper to hear the verdict. It was a long talk. I acted just as you would expect a future minister to act…just as it happened in the book of Nehemiah… I blamed someone else.
“I know, but Mom and Dad, you’ve got to believe me, it’s not my fault. This teacher, she hates me, and she doesn’t do anything. And then there’s Andrew who sits next to me, he’s always distracting me. It’s not my fault Mom, Dad, get mad at them, maybe you should go talk to my teacher.”
Fortunately, though it seemed unfortunate at the time, my parents didn’t buy it.
If you want to hear more about it you can ask my sister, she eavesdropped on the whole thing from the balcony.
But the book of Nehemiah shows a time when they did buy it. In an effort to cleanse the sins of the Israelite community Ezra the priest and scribe, and Nehemiah the governor blame the foreigners. At one point in Chapter 13 Nehemiah beats and pulls out the hair of some of the men who had married foreign women.
Rather than look inward, rather than blame themselves, Nehemiah chronicles a classic example of scapegoating, a popular practice throughout history: don’t blame me, blame them.
As Germany struggled through economic hardship, deflated morale, and harsh restrictions imposed by foreign nations they found a ready scapegoat in the Jews, the Gypsies, and others.
As the United States was overcome by the fear of Japanese military force we forced innocent Japanese Americans into camps against their will.
And today, in Kennesaw GA legislation may be enforced to prevent apartment owners from renting to illegal immigrants.
As we are filled by fear of terrorists' threats, we too often point fingers at easy targets rather than look inward.
Yes, I should have studied Spanish, but don’t blame me.
Don’t blame me, blame them.
Here in the figures of Nehemiah and Ezra, in this chosen community of Israelites we can see ourselves. Rather than face ourselves in the mirror, we look for someone to point at.
Rather than see ourselves, see our brokenness, we strive to place blame on someone else’s shoulders.
Rather than confront our brokenness, lets pick on the easiest target.
We don’t seem to trust in forgiveness that much. Do we.
We don’t really believe that God will love us anyway. Do we.
That Good News is just a little too good.
But here it is in Nehemiah, here our sins are pointed out and revealed. Here our condition is diagnosed, and here again, God invites us to see ourselves because in confronting our sin dead on, forgiveness and new life will be found.
God invites us once again to look ourselves in the eye, and trust that on the other side of sin, on the other side of brokenness, on the other side of our shortcomings, we will find forgiveness. God loves us that much, just as we are, and God invites us to change, to point our finger of judgment at ourselves; and to be freed.
Do not be grieved for the joy of the Lord is your strength.
-Amen.

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

A Story That's Not About Us, March 18, 2007

This morning’s scripture reading is Luke, chapter 15, verses 1-3 and 11b through 32. It can be found on page 740 in your pew Bibles.
I invite you to listen for the word of God.

Now the tax collectors and “sinners” were all gathering around to hear him. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
Then Jesus told them this parable:
“There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.
Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.
When he came to his senses, he said ‘How many of my father’s hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.’ So he got up and went to his father.
But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.
The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’
But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.
Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’
The other brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’
‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’”
This is the word of the Lord
Thanks be to God.
Sermon
This is scripture passage is a parable, a story used to explain a historical truth, that captures our attention, though it is devoid of miracles and not originally intended for us at all.
The parable is told to explain the relationship between Jesus, the sinners and tax collectors, and the scribes and Pharisees. Like the wayward or prodigal son, the sinners and tax collectors have strayed from God, have lived un-pure lives that the righteous son, or Pharisees and scribes are disgusted by. They, the Pharisees and Scribes stand in judgment of Jesus who associates with such low lives saying, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
This Jesus shocks the Scribes and Pharisees. Jesus listens to them, as God always hears us when we are angry, even if for the wrong reason, but he still corrects them as the God they expected would never associate with such low lives but would judge them, condemn them, and punish them for their disobedience.
Like the son who stayed home in the parable, the Scribes and Pharisees are enraged.
In the parable, Jesus describes a father who embraces a wayward son who squandered his inheritance on prostitutes. Of course, the father who embraces the wayward son is meant to represent God, especially in the person of Jesus. While the image of father is a traditional role for God, we must be careful not to box God in. Of course for our God will not be type cast, and as the story continues we must be careful that our images of God do not limit our relationship with God and each other.
For though this parable explains a historical struggle, the struggle between God’s faithful sons and daughters and God’s returning sons and daughters, the story points to a timeless truth. We just have to be careful to realize that it’s not a story about us.
Because the scribes and Pharisees thought it was about them, and who they understood God to be. They assumed that God was on their side, and that God operated according to their rules. That disobedience under the Law was not something that could just be erased and forgotten about. They assumed that this son who had squandered his inheritance on prostitutes should be forgotten. That this son who out of desperation had been hired as a servant got what he deserved, that he should pay for his recklessness, for his loose living.
And the wayward son, like his brother who stayed to till his father’s fields, was also limited in his understanding of his father. The sinners and tax collectors believed what the Scribes and Pharisees said about them. They believed that God had left them behind, that they were not good enough, that they had strayed too far and deserved to lose their place at the table, deserved to lose their inheritance, deserved to be forgotten. They were not good enough to be the father’s son any more and could only hope to be a servant.
But this is not a story about them, just as this is not a story about us.
If it were left to us, if we were the main players in this parable than God would be confined to a box, a box of our limited understanding. God would be limited by our feelings of self-righteousness or self-loathing, God would be held down just as we hold ourselves down, so thank God this is not a story about us.
This is a story about God. And in this story we hear about a God who defies explanation, a God who defies our graven images, a God who will not be confined to masculine imagery, a God who is more than a “he” in the sky, more than a father or a mother, though we should feel to call our God either, a God who cannot be pictured as a grumpy old man in a golden chair. For in the parable of the prodigal son and his brother we come to know a God who will not abide by our claims of whom God would and would not hang out with, our claims of whom God would and would not like.
Too often we see ourselves in our God, forgetting that God is not limited by our sins which so define the way we see the world.
The Bible speaks of a God who cannot be nailed down to the cross for God rose from the dead. Yes, our God cannot be confined by death, will not be held down by the fires of hell much less our own conceptions.
In this parable we see how we confine God, how we think God can’t forgive us, that God wouldn’t do that that God wouldn't love me or that God wouldn’t love him or her.
Because we constantly forget that it’s not about us, it’s not about what we think about God, because God is bigger than we are and what we think and want; God is bigger than we with a love so great and so pure, a God who waits for us offering us an invitation that we don’t deserve.
And yet, this God who is beyond us, who we can’t comprehend, is right here with us. Like the father in the parable our God is present in our lives. Our God waits for us to embrace us with open arms.
This God is present today, as we remember Jesus who gave up his life for us. Today in the bread and the wine we remember an inheritance that we threw away, that we don’t deserve, as what we deserve is punishment, but what we are given is new life.
In bread and wine we are given a gift, just as the father offered his sons an inheritance, not because they earned it, in fact it didn’t have anything to do with them at all. The son who stayed thought he had worked hard to deserve the father’s love and the son who strayed thought his sins lost him his place in the father’s house. But the parable is not a story about us. Not a story about us but the story of a God who loves us, who offers this sacrament, not because we are good, but because God is good. In the breaking of the bread and the drinking of the cup we may remember the God who refuses to give up, the God who will never give up on us.
You who are here know, I hope that you know you are welcome, that you are forgiven, and that you are loved. There are so many things that we have to earn, but here is something freely given that we could never earn. God’s love is free to you, and we are called to respond to such love in thanksgiving, sharing God’s love freely to everyone we meet.
-Amen