Year: 2016

 Matthew 1:18-23    

Fourth Sunday in Advent

 

Joseph dreamed of a house with a white picket fence and two camels parked in his garage. Mary was his dream come true, and Joseph asked her to marry him.  He was, as they said in those days, betrothed to her.  To be betrothed was somewhere between an engagement and marriage. People didn’t live together before marriage back then. More binding than an engagement, it could only be broken with an act of divorce.  A betrothed woman who became pregnant was seen as an adulteress.  And that is what happened to Joseph’s love of his life.  She got pregnant.  What was he to do?  He did not want to shame Mary.  If he made her condition public, her family might disown her, and she could be stoned to death.  Being a righteous man, Joseph decided to do the righteous thing.  He would quietly divorce her.  Yes, that would be the right thing to do, he thought.

Having made the decision he thought God would want, Joseph climbed into bed, pulled his covers up, and fell asleep. That night, in his dreams, an angel showed up and said to him, Joseph!  Don’t be afraid.  Go ahead and get married.  Mary’s baby is from the Holy Spirit.  She will give birth to a son, and when she does, you, Joseph, are to name him Jesus, meaning God saves.  Because that is what this baby will do. 

I’ve tried to put myself in Joseph’s shoes. The Gospel of Luke tells us that Mary pondered these things in her heart, and the same must have been true for Joseph.  Did he ever have doubts?  When Mary’s baby bump became obvious, did Joseph hear people’s whispers? What a position to be in!  But Joseph believed that God was present in all of it. What appeared to be a position of shame was, through God, a place of honor.  What looked like the edge of scandal was centrally a place of holiness. Joseph was not sure exactly where God would take him and Mary, but he knew something wonderful had been promised.

“Jesus” means God saves, “Emmanuel” translates God is with us. That the Word became flesh and lived among us is beyond anything we humans could imagine in our wildest dreams.  How is this even possible? Not only does God take on our dreams, God give us God’s dreams in the flesh.  Our God does impossible things! That’s how the Cubs won the World Series this year—for the first time since 1908.  The Washington Nationals will have to wait for Christ’s second coming.

Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way, Matthew tells us.  Translations of the word “birth” obscure Matthew’s description of what is happening in Jesus as a “genesis,” a new beginning.  We are brought back to the story of creation, when God spoke the world into being.  God does new things and creates new beginnings, things that we would never think possible.

That impossibility is why wrinkled old Abraham and Sarah laughed when God told them they would have a son.  Pharaoh let his primary source of cheap labor, the Israelites, leave for a new land and new beginnings only because of God’s impossible intervention. Through Jesus, Bartimaeus regained his sight and a paralyzed man walked.  Jesus kissed the leper clean, and evicted unclean spirits out of the Gerasene demoniac. He healed a woman who had been bleeding to death for half of her life.  Water was changed into wine, and over 5,000 were fed with just five loaves of bread and two fish.  Like Father like Son; Jesus made the impossible possible.

God is still doing impossible things with impossible people. I know that because I am one of them. My husband will tell you the evidence is in my agreeing to marry him.  That I am in good health, after one serious cancer and ten years later a difficult to discover, aggressive cancer, is nothing short of a miracle.  That I became a pastor is in itself a miracle. That I am serving here, at this church in which I was ordained, can only be because God creates new beginnings.

What has God done in your life that you never thought possible?  People have told me that after failed relationships they thought they would be alone for the rest of their lives, and then they found love so deep they didn’t know it could exist.  One of my friends spent over 100 days in the hospital because her placenta had ruptured.  The baby that never should have survived is named Olivia.  She is now six years old, loves the color pink, and is learning to be a cheerleader. Then there’s the person who would have bet she could not do it, but she did.  She was able to take care of her mother while she was dying. If you have forgiven someone, or been forgiven yourself, then God has been working miracles in your life.  If you have had a broken family relationship that has been restored, God has turned hearts. What inconceivable thing has God done in your life?

Advent is a time of God’s impossible possibilities.  It is the time in which we wait for the coming of Jesus as a baby, and for Christ’s coming again. Advent highlights our living in both the now and the not-yet.  The not-yet that includes mothers and sons and sisters and grandmothers in Syria fleeing their homes, and others who died in the fighting.  Suicide bombers killed people in Turkey yesterday.  Our local shelters are overcrowded and people struggle to find relief from the bitter cold.  Cancer still ravages bodies and families.  The world is exhausted.  So we wait with longing for Christ’s return.  We light a candle and we pray, your kingdom come.  We look for the time when God will wipe every tear from our eyes, and when death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.[1]  We wait for Christ’s coming again.

Even as we wait, we are witness to the in-breaking of God’s kingdom.  Advent is the time of sure and certain hope that God makes the impossible possible.  Our hope comes, and can only come, from a God who has over and over again created new beginnings.  We wait with hope that comes from a God who is born as a baby who cries and needs his diaper changed.  Emmanuel, God with us, lived with a family and friends and love.  Our hope comes from a God who was betrayed, and suffered, and died.  This is the God who brings us hope of impossible possibilities through his resurrection. There is no darkness so dark that God’s light cannot shine in it. There is nothing so terrible from which God cannot bring good, and there is no one so sinful that God cannot redeem them.

~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin

[1] See Revelation 21:4.

Isaiah 11:1-10, Matthew 3:1-12

Advent 2

Our theme on this second Sunday of Advent is peace. What has disturbed your peace?   For many, if not all, our culture of fear and recent acts of hatred impact peace. Peace is broken by our experience of violence, not only against ourselves, but also against neighbor. The peace of shalom means more than just the absence of war or hostility or fear.  The peace of shalom means wholeness, harmony and well-being.  What disrupts your peace?

Gerald Holtom’s peace was disturbed by nuclear armament. In 1958, he designed his peace sign from a personal perspective. “I was in despair. Deep despair,” he wrote. “I drew myself: the representative of an individual in despair, with hands palm outstretched outwards and downwards in the manner of Goya’s peasant before the firing squad. I formalized the drawing into a line and put a circle round it. It was ridiculous at first and such a puny thing.”  Gerald later realized that if you turned the symbol upside down, [quote] “it could be seen as representing the tree of life, the tree on which Christ had been crucified…which [is] a symbol of hope and resurrection.”[1]

Our reading this morning begins with this hope. Isaiah tells us, A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.  Isaiah is speaking to a weary people, a people beleaguered and threatened by war and destruction.  Jesse is the name of David’s father, and this family tree will see a hoped-for new stem. From the Davidic line, a king of peace will emerge whose reign will be one of both peace and righteousness.  God’s whole creation will participate.   The future holds the promise of a kingdom in which the wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together.  These are the images depicted in Quaker Edward Hicks painting from 1833, The Peaceable Kingdom.  Today’s images of the peaceable kingdom come in the form of video clips posted on FaceBook– Bubbles the African elephant plays with Bella the Labrador, Kate the Great Dane grooms Pippin the deer, and Anja the chimpanzee helps feed tiger cubs. In human form, the pictures are Muslims standing with Jews and Christians and Hindus and athiests.

We value peace so much that since 1901, a prize has been awarded to those who work for it.  In 2016, the president of Columbia, Juan Manuel Santos, won it because of his efforts to end more than 50 years of conflict in his country.  The youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner is Malala, a Pakistani young woman who not only survived but triumphed after an assassination attempt by the Taliban.  Malala continues to campaign for universal access to education.  Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, the Dalai Lama, Gandhi are notable people who have devoted themselves to peace.  Despite their efforts, universal world peace eludes us.  As a people, we are not very good at maintaining peace. Humans have been at peace only 268 out of the past 3,400 years.[2]

Reflecting on peace, Frederick Buechner writes:

One of the titles by which Jesus is known is Prince of Peace, and he used the world himself in what seems at first glance to be two                     radically contradictory utterances.  On one occasion, he said to the disciples, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Matthew 10:34).  And later on, the last time they ate together, he said to them, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you” (John 14:27).

The contradiction is resolved when you realize that for Jesus, peace seems to have meant not the absence of struggle, but the presence of love.[3]

As some of the 20^th century greatest poets sang, “All you need is love.  Love is all you need.”[4]  Love is what drove Martin Luther King, Malala, the Dalai Lama, and others.  In light of their accomplishments, we may not see ourselves as influential, but peace begins with us, right here, right now.  Peace is passed from one person to another, and then to another, and another.  We embody and enact that in our worship service.  After the prayers, we will share God’s peace with each other.  Our sharing is itself both a prayer and an announcement of grace. In our sharing, we are the risen Christ to each other.[5]  We are signs of peace.

Jesus’ peace, as Buechner implies, is about love shown through relationship, which is always ultimately about justice.  It is about overturning tables in the temple, and finding value in those society would call the least. It is about changing social systems that oppress others. It is about people on the other side of the world having access to education and clean drinking water. Peace is about having medical care and shelter.  Peace is about gender equality. Peace in our world depends upon the well-being of everyone.

Peace is not about what we accept as normal, which explains and gives credence to John the Baptizer!  In announcing Jesus’ coming, he calls people to repent, which means to turn around.  Turn around, look at your neighbor, and look at your relationship with your neighbor.  In order for the world to be different, things need to change.  Forgive someone, maybe even yourself.  Help cook a meal for someone without a permanent home. Speak up when people are cruel.  Visit someone who lives alone.  Hug a person who is grieving.  One act of forgiveness, one act of kindness, one act of advocacy begins the healing of humanity.  Be a sign of peace.

Even as we pray your kingdom come, we are called to participate in its coming. This is our summons in and through the waters of baptism, as we are joined together with Christ in his life of confrontation, of healing, and forgiveness; as we are joined together in his agony on the cross; as we are joined together in his glorious resurrection. It is through Christ that we receive life and salvation, and through whom the fullness of the peace of shalom will come.

Hope for peace gets its start from a dead, sawed-off tree,–a stump from which an unlikely tender green shoot sprouts.  It is announced by a wild looking man in the middle of nowhere.  Hope for peace is born in a barn from a young girl of low socio-economic status. May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you ay abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit (Romans 15:13). This Advent season, we wait in hope for Christ to come again.

~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin

[1] https://www.fastcodesign.com/3036540/the-untold-story-of-the-peace-sign

[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/06/books/chapters/what-every-person-should-know-about-war.html

[3] Frederick Buechner.  Beyond Words.  New York:  HarperCollins, 2004.  307.

[4] All You Need is Love. Written by John Lennon and attributed to Lennon-McCartney, 1967.

[5] Brugh, Lorraine and Lathrop, Gordon.  The Sunday Assembly. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2008. 172-174.

Luke 23:33-43

Christ the King Sunday

 

Police in Portland declared a riot after demonstrators were seen attacking drivers and committing acts of vandalism.  A swastika was carved into the metal of a towel dispenser in a bathroom at the College of William and Mary.   Police in Ann Arbor were investigating reports that a man approached a Muslim student and threatened to set her on fire with a lighter.

Are you weary?  I am.  My reserves are exhausted from the multitude of reports of hateful behavior.  I cannot imagine how those who are marginalized feel.   I was born into privilege, and so I am not the target of the anger and the hate.

God has told me to love my neighbor.  That’s been a struggle recently, but I am trying to understand the underlying causes of destructive behaviors and the perpetrators’ various perspectives. My heart is breaking.  Murray Bowen, who developed a theory of relationships and behavior, posited that societal stress will negatively impact people’s functioning.[1]  How are you functioning lately?

I think Krista Tippett is a modern-day prophet.  Her book, Becoming Wise, was published early in 2016, before harsh words became every day public speech covered by the media.  In it, she writes:

…we are struggling, collectively, with division of race and income and class that are not new but are freshly anguishing.  Here’s what is new:  a surfacing of grief.  It’s not a universal reckoning, but it’s a widespread awareness that the healing stories we’ve told ourselves collectively are far less than complete.  There’s a bewilderment in the American air—both frustrating and refreshing for its lack of answers.  We don’t know where to begin to change our relationship with the strangers who are our neighbors—to address the ways in which our well-being may be oblivious to theirs or harming theirs.  We don’t know how to reach out or what to say if we did.  But we don’t want to live this way.[2]

This past Wednesday, my long-time friend posted the following on FaceBook:

You may have noticed (or not) that I have refrained from making political posts on this site. I like seeing pictures of my friends’ kids growing up. I have desperately been trying to just scroll through and filter the bitterness between.

That changed today. For the first time in 15 years in this country, someone said to my husband (an American citizen, doctoral candidate in mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, primary caretaker of our 4 year- old mixed race son, supporter of my own ambitious career as a woman surgeon, who incidentally happens to have been born in Ecuador), “Go back to where you came from.”

No. This has to stop. NOW….

I am shaking with rage. I am overwhelmed by grief....[3]

Today is Christ the King Sunday.  Today is the day I want Christ to be king! I want Jesus to act like a king! I want Jesus to smite those people who are filled with hate and evil. Not really; if I actually wanted to God to smite people then I would be the one full of hate, and so I would be asking God to smite me. J And then I remember Jesus’ words as Luke reported them, “’But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.  If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also…’” [Luke 6:27-29a].

But I do want him to exert his power and maybe throw in some retributive justice.  Instead of retribution, today, on Christ the King Sunday, what we get is Jesus, at a place called the Skull, nailed to a cross, his broken body hanging between two thieves.

Jesus prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing!”  Forgive who?  The chief priests? Pilate, Herod, Judas? The ones who yell “Go back where you came from” and the ones who carve out swastikas?  Jesus insisted that the worst people have done would not define him. He saw both the horror and the holiness in people and forgave them anyway.

On the cross, this man who gave his life to healing those who were suffering now suffered himself, too. The people stood and watched as the life drained out of Jesus’ body. “He saved others!  Let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, the chosen one,” they scoffed.  Yes, Jesus, why do you not save yourself?  The soldiers mocked him, “If you are king of the Jews, save yourself.”  Yes, Jesus there is still time! And one of the criminals hanging beside him, scorned him, saying, “Are you not the Messiah?  Save yourself and us!”  Yes, Jesus, save us!

But Jesus just hung there, vulnerable and silent.  He hung there with two criminals.  He hung there with those who others have forgotten, with the vulnerable, and the unlovable. With deep humility, he surrendered.  Jesus died because he refused to participate in a system of winners and losers, or a culture of “we” and “them.” He did not buy into measuring worth based on accomplishments or skin color.  Jesus refused to participate in the marginalization of people. His justice was restorative, not retributive.

Jesus knew that it was love that would change us.  As Martin Luther King said, “Hate cannot drive out hate.  Only love can do that.”  We gather in Christ’s name, and something of Jesus’ love and truth breaks through.  Christ the King show us that the kingdom of God comes in the form of relationship through forgiveness and healing.  We help bring in God’s kingdom every time we show kindness and compassion, and when we advocate for those who society would throw away.

In the moment of Jesus’ surrender to death, in that absolutely hopeless moment, God’s salvation came to us.  “Are you not the Messiah?  Save yourself and us!”  Through his death and resurrection, that’s just what Jesus did.

~ Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin

[1] Murray Bowen developed “Bowen Family Systems Theory.”  In addition to Bowen’s writings, you can learn more about this theory from the works of both Edwin Friedman and Roberta Gilbert.

[2] Tippett, Krista.  Becoming Wise:  An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living.  New York: Penguin Press, 2016. 108.

[3] Used with the author’s permission.

 Luke 18:9-14

Lectionary 30  in Ordinary Time ~ 23^rd Sunday after Pentecost

Who are you in our story, the Pharisee or the tax collector?  Pharisees were a sect of Jews who held strictly to both written and oral law.  We tend to think of Pharisees as being hypocrites.  The reality is that most of them were righteous and respected Jews who followed the law.[1]  First century listeners would have been surprised by the behavior of this Pharisee.

The second person in our story is a tax collector.  Tax collectors were agents of the oppressive Roman government.  He was probably dishonest, and, showing no mercy, collected more money than was owed to the Roman empire.  He was most likely rich.  That this tax collector was in the Temple would have been shocking.[2]

That’s where we find this tax collector, in the same temple, “standing far off”.  The Pharisee was there, too, “standing by himself”.  Both were Jews.  Both were praying.   The Pharisee prayed a prayer of thanksgiving.  “’Thank you, Lord, that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.  I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.’”  His prayer, even though addressed to God, was really about himself.

Although all that the Pharisee said was true, we laugh at giving God thanks for not being like other people.  But I know that in various ways I have done the same thing.  In fact, just this weekend I said, “Thank you, God that I am a VA Tech Hokies fan and not a Miami Hurricanes fan.” Maybe you’ve heard people look at someone begging for food and whispered, “Thank you, God, that I am not poor.” “Thank you, God, that I am not disabled.” “Thank you God that I am not” –fill in the blank.  “Thank you, God, that I am not like that person.”

 

Maybe you have had a conversation with someone who has dementia, or witnessed a co-worker getting fired, or listened to a parent talk about the trouble their child has gotten into.  Suddenly, out of your mouth pops this cliché, “There but for the grace of God go I.”  I’ve said it before. While this is meant as an expression and recognition of God’s grace in our lives, it is done by comparing ourselves with someone else.  In other words, “Thank you God, that I am not like this person.”  In other words, “God you have blessed me, but not blessed this other person.”  In other words, I deserve God’s blessing, and this person must not. By comparing ourselves with others, we create a hierarchy of good and bad.  We, of course, land on the side of deserving God-given superiority.

“There but for the grace of God go I” places the other person the side devoid God’s grace.  Which is to say that they must have done something to offend God.  The person with no permanent home, the addict, the unemployed, and the tax collector deserve what they got.  God does not love them enough to offer grace, forgiveness and mercy.  As the Pharisee said, “Thank you God, that I am not like other people.”

We know this is not God’s truth!  God’s grace is unconditional.  We cannot earn it.  The Pharisee did not think he needed it.  The tax collector, on the other hand, prayed, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”  While God would have us be generous with our money, stay faithful to our partners, and teach faith formation, the truth of it is that our justification is not achieved.  We are set right with God through God’s actions.  We are utterly dependent on God for our salvation.

The Pharisee trusted in himself; the tax collector trusted in God.  So which are you, the Pharisee or the tax collector? Are you grateful that you are not like the Pharisee?  Are you grateful you don’t live a life like the tax collector?  This is the trap Jesus has set for us in this story!  Just when we think we are glad we are not like the Pharisee, we are like the Pharisee.  For me, I am both.  There are times when I am proud of myself and think that I am responsible for all my blessings.  Then there are times when I am convicted by my sins.  In both cases, my only salvation is God.  God, be merciful to me, a sinner.

Jesus presents us with one more set-up.  This story is not so much about us as it is about God.  It’s about our God who values relationship with us, we who are arrogant and we who are humble.  It’s about God turning our human systems of success and failure upside down. Our relationship with God is not determined by our knowledge or attending committee meetings.  Our relationship with God does not rest in our reciting the Ten Commandments, the size of our house, or the number of friends we have on FaceBook.  God’s love is pure grace, given to us through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  There is no place God won’t go to be in relationship with us, even death on a cross.

Through Jesus we learn that our God is like the father who gives his son his inheritance, and after the son spends it wastefully on himself, welcomes him back.  Not only welcomes him back, but throws a party, too!  Our God is like the shepherd who looks for the one out of a hundred sheep that strays.   Through Jesus we learn that God loves disciples who can’t seem to get it right, lepers whom no one else will touch, and women who make their living in shameful ways.  Even Judas had his feet washed tenderly.

Thank you God, that we are like those people, the ones whom the world deems not worthy, the ones who take what you give them and run away, and the ones don’t always tell the truth.  Thank you, God, for your mercy on us, sinners all.

[1] For more information about Pharisees, tax collectors and the Temple, see Amy Jill Levine’s chapter on this parable.  Short Stories by Jesus.  New York:  HarperCollins, 2014.  169-196.

[2] Ibid.

 

Luke 17:11-19    

Lectionary 28 in Ordinary Time;  21^st Sunday After Pentecost

 

What difference does it make?  What difference does St. Stephen Lutheran Church make in the world, and in this community?  What difference does it make for you to be part of our church community?  What difference do you make in the lives of others because you are part of this church community?  What difference does Jesus Christ make?

In various ways, I’ve asked you these questions, and you have told me stories.  Unlike rooster sightings, I welcome your stories, and invite you to come and share them with me.  What difference does St. Stephen make in your life?  What difference do our ministries make?  What difference do you make?

One of the blessings of our Lutheran Student Association is the relationships that are fostered.  We get to know them when students serve as faith formation teachers and lectors.  We engage with them when they help with our Health Ministry and our Youth Ministry.  For our part, we cook dinner on Sunday evenings and then join them to eat.  Our adopt-a-student program forms deep and lasting relationships.

One of our students told me about the adoptive parents he had a few years ago.  He didn’t use the word “adoptive.”  They were just his “parents.”  Now he sees them as his “church grandparents.”  This student’s first year at William and Mary was one of challenges.  He along with all the freshman were meeting new people, and making new friends.  One of the people he met disappeared part way through the semester.  After some time, information came trickling down that this student was in a rehab center.

Our student had never been in this situation before, but knew that he didn’t want his classmate to feel alone.  (We have the best students!)  He wanted to go see him, to show that people care and to support his classmate, but he didn’t have a car.  He talked with his adoptive parents, and they drove both him and his friend.  It turned out that the person had changed rehab facilities and visiting hours were different.  The adoptive parents made another trip, and this time the LSA Student and his friend were able to visit.

The student in rehab had not had any visitors, and his parents were out of the country.  The visit from his classmates touched him, and encouraged him.  This is Jesus’ love shown through our people.

One member of our congregation recounted being new to Virginia. She discovered that some part of her life was missing, and she found that missing piece here, at St. Stephen.  Your hospitality drew her back. Our worship service helped her feel at home.  The fact that she did not feel judged was important.  Soon her husband noticed the difference St. Stephen made in her life, and he began coming, too.  They formed relationships. Because of their love for the church, they both found this a place to use their gifts and are serving in multiple ways.  This is Jesus’ love shown through our people.

On the way to the cross, Jesus was going through an area that bordered peoples at odds with each other.  Entering a town, ten lepers came to him begging for mercy.  Jesus healed their leprosy and sent them on their way.  One, the minority in the group, turned around, laid himself at Jesus’ feet and said, “Thank you.”  “Thank you, Jesus, for looking past my skin.  Thank you for loving me.  Thank you for curing my disease.”  Jesus said to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”  To practice gratitude is to practice faith.

I wonder what this healed person did when he got back home.  Did he make meals for those with no permanent home?  Did visit those who are sick and unable to go out?  Maybe he took up quilting, and his quilts given to Lutheran World Relief.  Lutheran World Relief will send them to places like North Korea, where orphans will wrap themselves in their warmth, and to Haiti, where people who lost everything in Hurricane Matthew will use them as blankets and carrying bags.  These quilts don’t just bless the people who receive them.  They bless the people who make them.

This is how faith works.  Jesus loves us, and brings us healing and forgiveness.  When we turn to give thanks, like the tenth leper, we are made whole and sent on our way.  To intentionally practice gratitude for what God has given us changes our lives, which in turn change others’ lives.

Our mission is not to simply our ethical duty; it is the work of our grateful hearts. We are gathered together to worship, not just to get something out of it, but to give thanks and to give back. The giving of your time and talents are the difference that we make in people’s lives.

So is your money. The building in which we worship, the music that we sing, the staff who oversee, lead, and keep us on track, faith formation materials, and even bread and wine cost money.  We are blessed by a generous God so that we may respond generously.

In our preparation to gather around the table together, to eat of the bread and the wine, we say, “It is right to give our thanks and praise.”  How will you do that?  What difference will you make in response to Jesus’ love for you?

~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin

 

Luke 16:19-31

Lectionary 26 in Ordinary Time  19^th Sunday after Pentecost September 25, 2016

I have a friend named Jane who collects prints and figurines of roosters.  When she told me she does this, I thought how hard they would be to find.  I had not seen any anywhere.  Well, maybe one or two.  But once they were brought to my attention, I started noticing roosters.  Do you know how many there are once you can see them?  (This is going to be like a song stuck in your head.  Now you, too, will start seeing them everywhere!  Please don’t report back to me where you have seen them.  I do not collect roosters.  I don’t collect anything.  Except cookies.  And chocolate.)

We are like that, aren’t we?  We tend not to see things that are right in front of us—roosters, car keys, eyeglasses, people. Have you ever brushed by a person who is obviously poor, maybe even someone holding a cardboard sign that says something like “Looking for work?”  Maybe you’ve barely glanced at someone with a disability or a person with an obvious mental illness.

Have you yourself ever felt invisible?  Do you remember a time when you were not heard?  I will always remember an incident from when I was working at a manufacturing company in rural Alabama in the accounting department.  One of the shop supervisors was not giving me information that I needed.  I explained to him the purpose and requirements for the report I was compiling, and asked him to provide me with the figures I needed.  He turned to me and said, “Don’t worry your pretty little head about it.”  I suppose I could have felt flattered by being called pretty, but I didn’t.  I felt dismissed.  This supervisor did not see me as a competent professional.

In a recent article, Lori Lakin Hutcherson, the founder and editor-in-chief of Good Black News, responded to a question about white privilege.[1]  She explains that the racial tensions we are seeing today come from, and I quote, “the lifetime of pretty much every black or brown person living in America today regardless of wealth or opportunity.”[2]

Some of the incidents that Hutcherson describes are subtle, like her recounting her college acceptance to Harvard.  When she told people that’s where she was going, they look at her in disbelief, and asked, “You mean the one in Massachusetts?” It was a different response than the white male friend of hers got when he said he was going to Princeton.  You may have seen a video of an incident in which a white woman in a grocery store paid for her food with a check, no questions asked.  When the next-in-line black woman paid with a check, she was asked to show identification.

Do we notice these kinds of things?  Maybe we even do them without recognizing we are?  Every time things like this happen, every time that we fail to see people as mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, and neighbors, every time we do not recognize the value in people, the chasm between us broadens and deepens.

The chasm between Lazarus and the rich man had begun long before our story begins.  The rich man never saw Lazarus as a person with needs and wants.  He certainly did not see him as deserving any human dignity.  There was Lazarus, covered in sores, and the rich man covered in the finest clothes.  Lazarus ate scraps from the table.  The rich man “feasted sumptuously every day.”  The rich man probably died of a heart attack.  When Lazarus died first, it was only time he was first at anything. Even in death, the rich man, not even speaking directly to Lazarus, wanted him to serve him.  He maintained his attitude of privilege, and failed to see Lazarus as his equal.  The rich man failed to see the injustice.

This reminds me of Senator Elizabeth Warren grilling the CEO of Wells Fargo about allegations that Wells Fargo established quotas for new accounts, and then opened accounts without customers’ permission.  The CEO, who I will not name, as the rich man in our parable was not named, earned a salary of 19.3 million dollars and increased the value of his stock in the company by 200 million dollars.

Warren pushed the CEO for accountability.  She charged, “’OK, so you haven’t resigned. You haven’t returned a single nickel of your personal earnings. You haven’t fired a single senior executive. Instead, evidently, your definition of accountable is to push the blame to your low-level employees who don’t have the money for a fancy P.R. firm to defend themselves.’”[3]  This CEO plummeted into his chasm without an ounce of remorse, just like the rich man in our parable.

The problem with the rich man in our story was not that he was rich.  Money isn’t the problem.  It is, as Timothy says, the love of money.  It is valuing something so much that you step over people to get it.  It is not always money.  It may be our ego, our intellect, our reputation, or something else, that causes us to mis-order our relationships.

There have been times in each of our lives where we have been the object of someone’s impaired vision, and times when we are the ones who have failed to see.  God brought his friend Lazarus back to life, changed the heart of a tax collector, and blessed a young peasant girl to be the mother of our Messiah.  God has promises us that the blind will see, and the last will be first.  Jesus gave his life for those promises.

We, the blind and the broken, gather around the Lord’s table where we will feast on bread and wine, the body and blood of Christ.  There we are forgiven and loved, that we may go out into the world to see others as Jesus does.  When we go, we will see people, poor, lonely, and grieving.  We will see the underdogs.  And the roosters.

~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin

[i]

[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/what-i-said-when-my-white-friend-asked-for-my-black_us_578c0770e4b0b107a2415b89? Accessed September 15, 2016.

[2] Ibid.

[3] http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/elizabeth-warren-laid-the-smackdown-on-wells-fargo-ceo/ar-BBwpZ1t accessed September 16, 2016.

[i] This is a parable that follows the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the Prodigal, and immediately after the parable of the dishonest manager. This parable is introduced by Luke saying, “The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all this, (the previous parables), and they ridiculed [Jesus].  So he said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of others; but God knows your hearts; for what is prized by human beings is an abomination in the sight of God.”  [Luke 16:14-15].

The idea of the dead returning to visit the living was common in the ancient world.   This parable is not intended to be a systematic theology or teaching about the afterlife.

 

 

Deuteronomy 30:15-20   Luke 14:25-33 

Lectionary 22   15^th Sunday after Pentecost

 

They had gathered to study God’s word and to discern the Holy Spirit’s working in their lives. This group of African-Americans welcomed into the holy space of their lives a young white man.  Before the night was out, nine of them would be shot by this stranger to whom they had shown hospitality.  It was a little over a year ago that this mass shooting took place at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal church, the oldest black church in the south.

At the accused gunman’s first court appearance, relatives of those who were killed were able to speak directly to him.  Even as they spoke of their pain, they offered prayers for him. ‘”I forgive you,” Nadine Collier, the daughter of 70 year-old Ethel Lance, said at the hearing, her voice breaking with emotion. ”You took something very precious from me.  I will never talk to her again.  I will never, ever hold her again.  But I forgive you.  And have mercy on your soul.”’[1]  Please do not confuse forgiveness with justice.  People need to be accountable and responsible for their behavior.

On this one year anniversary, the church issued a call to action.  You can find this statement on their web site:

[On June 21], everyone is encouraged to perform their own personal Act of Amazing Grace. With thousands of acts of grace being performed around the world, we will surely make the world a better place. No act of kindness or grace, no matter how small, is ever wasted. This can be any activity that you choose. For example, visiting a nursing home, reading to children at school, mowing the lawn for someone, giving another person a compliment. The possibilities here are limitless.  We can think of no better way than a day of ACTS OF AMAZING GRACE to honor those persons who lost their lives, and the families, friends, and a church continuing to Move Forward.[2] 

Quoting 1 Corinthians, [16:19], the church posts, “Let all that you do be done in love.” 

The Israelites had first been slaves, and then wanderers in the wilderness for forty years.  When they finally arrived at the Jordan River, they were more than ready to enter the land of promise.  Moses would not be going there with them, but before he dies, he teaches the people about their life in this new place. If the Israelites do not keep steadfast in their identity as God’s people, they will be seduced by Canaanite practices. “See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity….  I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses.  Choose life so that you may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him; for that means life to you….”  Enabled by God’s grace, the Israelites need to choose to receive what God has already promised.

The gunman who killed those in the Bible study chose prejudice, hatred, and violence.  He chose death.  The members of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal church choose life.  They choose forgiveness.  They choose to inspire and encourage.  They choose to be kind.  By doing for others, they choose to honor the lives of their mothers, their brothers, and their friends who died.

We are called to choose life in response to our God who asks us to be God’s hands and feet in this world.  We are called to choose life so that the people God created in God’s image, whether white or black, short or tall, male or female, are seen as equal without prejudice.  We are called to choose life in order that God’s peace prevails instead of our violence and war.  We are called to choose life so that God’s light can be seen through the darkness in our world.  We are called to choose life so that people can hear God whisper, “I love you.”

Sometimes choosing life is not a popular thing to do. The forgiveness shown by the people of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church was counter-cultural.  Being Jesus’ disciple won’t always make you popular.  Even Jesus tells us that! “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.”  As disciples, our relationships will be reordered.  Our family will include the poor and the lame, the person with no permanent home, and the one who cannot advance our future.  There is a cost to following Jesus!  Dietrich Bonhoeffer defines cheap grace as grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.[3]

“Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple,” Jesus says.  Jesus invites us to give away our lives.  Just as love grows when we give it away, so we live when we give our lives.  “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, will save it.”[4]  Choose life!

That is what Jesus does when he himself is sacrificed on the cross.  Jesus chooses to give his very life for us to know God’s love and God’s forgiveness.  Because Jesus gave his life for us, because of God’s unconditional love for us, we are free to choose life.  That’s God’s promise to us.  That’s what the cross is about, not just sacrifice, but about abundant life found in radical inclusion and in giving ourselves to others.

. “See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity….  I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses.  Choose life so that you may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him; for that means life to you….”

~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/06/19/i-forgive-you-relatives-of-charleston-church-victims-address-dylann-roof/?utm_term=.cdaa2e25312d accessed 9/2/2016.

[2] http://www.emanuelamechurch.org/acts-of-grace/index.html accessed 9/2/2016.

[3]http://www.worldcat.org/wcpa/servlet/DCARead?standardNo=0684815001&standardNoType=1&excerpt=true  accessed 9-2-2016.

[4] Luke 9:24

Jeremiah 23:23-29     Luke 12:49-56

Lectionary 20 in Ordinary Time;  13^th Sunday after Pentecost

People lie.  When we talk about lies, what first comes to my mind, and I would guess yours, too, is politicians.  But we all lie. I do.  You do.  We tell ourselves things like, “I have to be perfect.”  “My worth is determined by my work, by my finances, by my friends.”  “I don’t judge people.”[1]  We might not recognize these as untruths, but they are.  Don’t believe everything you think.

Some lies are more dangerous than others.  Some lies have enough truth that they are believable.  Some lies are meant to be comforting, like the answer to the question, “Does this make me look fat?”  My husband would tell you that the mirror in our bathroom lies every time he looks in it.

There are mistruths that people tell about the Bible and Jesus. Over the course of time, people have used, or misused the Bible to justify slavery and hatred of same-sex love. Using Jesus’ words to exclude and judge others is a part of the lies we humans tell.

You may have heard the expression, “God won’t give you more than you can handle.”  That is not in the Bible.  It is an inaccurate interpretation or a misquotation from 1 Corinthians.[2]  The passage refers to temptation, not to suffering. While people intend for this to be comforting, to say God won’t give you more than you can handle to someone whose child just died or to someone who is suicidal is cruel.

Some of the more popular prophets and preachers of today love to tell false prophesies.  If you work hard, God will reward you with more money.  If you pray enough, or say just the right words, God will heal you.  Of course, God’s ultimate healing is death, but that is not what these contemporary prophets mean.  Listen to Joel Osteen or Benny Hinn and you would believe that all health and prosperity is yours simply for the asking.  These are lies. Our illnesses and our finances cannot be equated to or measured by our faith.[3]  God’s promise through Jesus Christ is to be present with us in our suffering.

The priest and prophet, Jeremiah, was a truth teller.  He lived through the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, and the beginning of the Babylonian exile. God called Jeremiah to prophesy the destruction as God’s divine judgement for the people’s unfaithfulness to God. He spoke God’s truth to the people.  It was hard for them to hear that God would bring punishment for their sin.  Speaking his personal truth, Jeremiah expressed his outrage to God for having him speak words of judgment against his own nation.

People didn’t react well to Jeremiah’s bad news.  For telling God’s truth, he was imprisoned, received death threats, he was beaten, left in the bottom of a water tank, and was confined in stocks, among other things.  People did not want to hear God’s truth.  False prophets told them what they wanted to hear, that everything would be just fine. The whole situation crushed Jeremiah’s heart and made all his bones shake.[4]  The lies that these prophets told caused God to lament, “How long?  How long will I have to listen to the things they dream up?  How long will I have to listen to their lies?…Is not my word like fire…?”

“Jesus said, ‘I came to bring fire to the earth….’”  God’s fire, and Jesus’ fire are purifying.  David Lose writes, “Across the Old Testament, the purifying fire Jesus seems to reference here is most often associated with the fire that burns away impure religious practices. Not impure as in “not liturgically correct,” but rather impure in that they tended to make religion a source of false comfort.”[5]

Maybe easy lies make for easy comfort.  God’s words of fire, and the fire Jesus came to bring, is an invitation for us to live differently.  God calls us to be truth-tellers, to our community, to the world, and maybe most importantly to ourselves.  God calls us to see all people, including ourselves, as God’s beloved.  God’s desire is for relationship, with each other and with God through Christ.

We have done a lot to mess that up, but the fire of which we read this morning is evidence of the promise that God does not give up on us. God’s fire brings hope and possibility for healing and redemption.   It is a promise that when we don’t get it right, when the church doesn’t get it right, Jesus is still present in our midst.  When we vilify our neighbor, when we ignore our poor, when we neglect those who are sick, we miss out on participating in bringing in God’s kingdom. We miss out on relationships.

But God through Jesus does not give up on us! The power of Jesus’ life, suffering, death and resurrection will not be diminished by our gossip, our failure love our neighbor, or our failure to give back to the church or give to those in need.  Jesus is here in the bread and the wine, for us, for we who do not deserve it.  Jesus promises to be here with us despite our denials and our mistruths.

I love the prayer of St. Augustine. “Lord Jesus, don’t let me lie when I say that I love you…and protect me, for today I could betray you.”[6]

~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin

[1] http://www.inc.com/lolly-daskal/the-9-most-damaging-lies-we-tell-ourselves-daily.html accessed August 16, 2016.

[2] See 1 Corinthians 10:13.

[3] Nadia Bolz-Weber refers to this kind of thinking as “spiritual narcissism.”

[4] Jeremiah 23:9

[5] http://www.davidlose.net/2016/08/pentecost-13-c-pursuing-a-faith-that-matters/

[6] http://topfamousquotes.com/augustine-of-hippo-quotes-on-hen/

 

Luke 12:13-21

Lectionary 18 in Ordinary Time; 11^th Sunday after Pentecost

What do you have more of in your home than perhaps you should?  Perchance you have reading glasses lying around in various places because they tend to walk off in the dark of night.  I tend to stock up on some things, including paper products.  They don’t walk off, but I don’t want to run out at an inopportune time.  Costco and Sam’s Club can be dangerous places for people like me.

At the heart of my problem is fear.  I have a fear of running out of particular things.  It may stem from the time in my life when I was a single mother with two children.  We had no child support, no medical insurance and no retirement plan.  In the United States, approximately 80% of single parents are mothers, and the number of single fathers has been rising.  Some of these people are divorced, some widowed, and some have never been married.  Half of the children in a single parent household are living in poverty, and these children are likely to remain there.[1]  Statistics for all families show that 22% of children in the United States live in poverty.[2]  22%!

One day during my single years, my three-year old son told me he was hungry and asked for a snack.  I opened the refrigerator and found only milk, condiments, an open package of hot dogs and some cheese slices. [3]   I unwrapped the cheese, put it on a plate, and using mustard, drew a happy face on it.  Michael still remembers that.

Fear of not having enough is a reality for many people, not just single parents.  Fear can make us do crazy things.[4]  Fear can keep us from caring for our neighbor and from nourishing a community.  Fear can keep us focused on ourselves.  Maybe that’s why the angels in the Bible frequently are heard to say, “Do not fear!”

The rich land owner in our gospel today was afraid. He didn’t hoard things because he was afraid he would not have enough. He was afraid of losing the extra that he had. This rich man’s land produced more crops than he needed and more crops than he had room to keep.  But, this rich man had a solution!  He would tear down his existing storage spaces, and build bigger storage spaces.[5] Delighting in his resolution, he said, “I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample good laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink be merry.”

The rich landowner makes no mention of giving back to God because he does not recognize that all he has is a gift from God.  At no time does this person think about sharing his food with those who do not have enough, or selling abundant crops and giving the money to those in need.  As the rich man’s need for control grips his heart, his fists grip his assets tighter.

Jesus continues his story.  “God said to him, you fool!  This very night your life is being demanded of you.  And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?  So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves, but are not rich toward God.”

How does one get past fear and become rich toward God? Scripture tells us the answer lies in our gratitude.  “This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it,” the Psalmist writes.[6]  The Jewish teachings in the Talmud ask the question “Who is rich?”  They answer, “The one who rejoices in what he has.”[7]   As one author has said, “gratitude goes beyond our own ‘feeling good.’…It elicits feelings of generosity, and generosity allow us to connect with others.”[8]  A lack of thankfulness to God for what he had kept the rich man focused only on himself.[9]

Gratitude is a spiritual discipline.  You may have heard me recommend keeping a “gratitude journal.”  At the end of every day, write down three things for which you are grateful.  Let’s practice that now.  You will find a blank sheet of paper in your bulletin.  When I say go, you will have 20 seconds to write down as many things for which you are grateful as you can.  If you want to challenge yourself, think about someone or something in your life that is difficult for you, and find something in the person or the situation for which you can give thanks.  There is a Yiddish saying.  If you break your leg, give thanks for God you didn’t break both legs.  If you break both legs, give thanks to God that you didn’t break your neck.[10]  So, are you ready?  One, two, GO!  [20 second pause].

Can gratitude change how we see each other and how we view the world?  \\\In her book Becoming Wise, Krista Tippett tells the 14^th century story behind the Jewish teaching to “repair the world.” In Hebrew, this task is called tikkun olam.

 In the course of history, at a moment in time, this world, the world of a thousand things, emerged from the heart of the holy darkness                       as a great ray of light.  And then, perhaps because this is a Jewish story, there was an accident, and the vessels containing the light of the world, the wholeness of the world, broke.  The wholeness of the world, the light of the world, was scattered into a thousand thousand fragments of light.  And they fell into all events and all people, where they remain deeply hidden until this very day….  We are here because we are born with the capacity to find the hidden light in all events and all people, to lift it up and make it visible once again. [11]

If you want to be rich, find the light. Count your blessings.  If you want to be rich toward God, give God thanks for them!

~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin

[1] http://www.ibtimes.com/national-single-parent-day-2016-facts-quotes-about-14-million-moms-dads-without-2338631accessed July 27, 2016.

[2] http://www.nccp.org/topics/childpoverty.html accessed July 27, 2016.

[3] I now consider feeding children hot dogs close to child abuse.  They are full of chemicals, salt, saturated fat, and mysterious things.  Once I bit into one and found a whole pig’s tooth.  Sadly, nutritious and wholesome food is more expensive.

[4] This may explain our current political situation.

[5] Notice there is more than one storage space.

[6] Psalm 118:24. See also Psalm 107:1 and 136:1.

[7] Pies, Ronald.  “The Gift of Gratitude.” Tufts Magazine.  Summer 2015.

[8] Ibid.

[9] It is interesting to note that generosity celebrates present realities, while fear is based on future possibilities.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Tippett, Krista.  Becoming Wise. New York:  Penguin Press, 2016.  24-25.