tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-69068078445023267072023-06-20T05:59:53.314-07:00Welcome to Crossroads UMCCrossroads UMChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01395756504990704649noreply@blogger.comBlogger106125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6906807844502326707.post-74860843319337265092019-12-20T13:00:00.000-08:002019-12-20T13:02:30.966-08:002019 Charge Conference Minutes<span style="font-size: large;">2019 Crossroads UM Conference Minutes</span><br />
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Church Name: Crossroads UMC<br />
District: CAS<br />
GCFA Number: 668528<br />
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<b>Minutes of Church or Charge Conference</b><br />
Church Name<br />
<u>Crossroads United Methodist Church</u><br />
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<b>Date of Conference</b><br />
<u>December 10, 2019</u><br />
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Which did you hold? <u>X</u> Charge conference __Church Conference<br />
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Location of Conference: Crossroads United Methodist Church<br />
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Presiding Elder: Rev. Tim Bias<br />
Number Members Present:12<br />
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<b>Record of Ministry Recommendations</b><br />
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<u>Ministry</u> <u>Moved by</u> <u>Seconded by</u> <u>Yes Votes</u> <u>No Votes</u><br />
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Begin or renew<br />
lay speakers Val DeWood Kim Brown 12 0<br />
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Nominated Lay<br />
Officers of the<br />
Church or Charge Rev. Dr. Don Wallick, Jr. Carol Wright 12 0<br />
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<b>Record of the Practical Stewardship of Our Ministry</b><br />
Membership<br />
Report Naomi Cranston Dick Hoffman 12 0<br />
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<b>2019 Compensation</b><br />
Pastor: <u>Rev. Dr. Donald H. Wallick,Jr.</u><br />
Cash Compensation: <u>$57,000</u> Housing Exclusion: <u>$15.000</u><br />
Accountable Reimbursement: <u>$5,000</u><br />
Kim Brown for SPRC 12 0<br />
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<b>Merger Proposal</b><br />
Presented by Rev. Dr. Don Wallick 12 0<br />
Both Pastor Don Wallick and Dr. Tim Bias, district superintendent, expressed their appreciation to the<br />
merger team and both congregrations fo r their work in bringing this merger proposal to swift and<br />
aggreable fruition.<br />
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<b>Motion to Adjourn</b>Crossroads UMChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01395756504990704649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6906807844502326707.post-90439165320120018622019-06-11T04:54:00.002-07:002019-06-11T04:54:50.602-07:006-9-19 "One Last Thing Before I Go..." The final message of Rev. Jay Anderson at Crossroads UMC<iframe allowfullscreen="true" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="315" scrolling="no" src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fjay.anderson.566148%2Fvideos%2F10157018075106539%2F&show_text=0&width=560" style="border: none; overflow: hidden;" width="560"></iframe><br />
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<br />Crossroads UMChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01395756504990704649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6906807844502326707.post-75891532302069629012019-06-11T04:46:00.003-07:002019-06-11T04:46:45.382-07:006-2-19 "Grace That Sustains"<iframe allowfullscreen="true" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="315" scrolling="no" src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fjay.anderson.566148%2Fvideos%2F10157018051826539%2F&show_text=0&width=560" style="border: none; overflow: hidden;" width="560"></iframe><br />
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<br />Crossroads UMChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01395756504990704649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6906807844502326707.post-74858955019697550632019-05-26T09:58:00.000-07:002019-05-26T09:58:06.391-07:005-26-19 “Grace That Bears Fruit”<iframe allowfullscreen="true" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="315" scrolling="no" src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fjay.anderson.566148%2Fvideos%2F10156979144381539%2F&show_text=0&width=560" style="border: none; overflow: hidden;" width="560"></iframe><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">5-26-19 “Grace That Bears Fruit”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> I want to be the first, and I’m pretty sure I will be, but let me be the very first to wish you all a very Merry Christmas! Because if you look at the calendar, Christmas is now less than seven months away! And even more, those Christmas in July sales are literally just around the corner! </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> I know you think I’m kidding with you - and maybe I am just a little bit - and I know I touched on this concept no so long ago, but think about what seasons we’re in right now. It’s still Spring, right? Summer doesn’t officially begin until June, but we often say that Memorial Day Weekend - which for this Indiana-born boy means the Indianapolis 500 - kicks off the Summer Season. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Baseball is in full swing, as is golf - the Memorial Tournament is next week (which means it will rain) -</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">but basketball and hockey, both of which began in October are still going and won’t conclude until some time next month. NFL players are in camp right now, getting ready to begin in August. In the winter they talk about people being depressed because of what is called Seasonal Affective Disorder, SAD, from the reduced amount of daylight. But right now, I’m kind of in Seasonal Overload Disorder, SOD, because it seems like everything is happening all at once.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> And in the United Methodist Church it’s also appointment season, as we well know. The week after next is Annual Conference, so Bob and I will be heading up to Lakeside for most of the week. The big item on the agenda this year is voting for delegates to send to General Conference and Judicial Conference in 2020. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">And I’m sure THAT will go smoothly - in a “Kum Bah Yah” atmosphere of love and cooperation between Traditionalists, Centrists, and Progressives!</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And then Annual Conference will end, as it always does, with what’s called the Fixing of the Appointments. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Here it is announced and read into the Conference Journal, all of the clergy appointment changes within the Conference. During this time, each of the District Superintendents take the stage, along with the Bishop, and read aloud the names of those clergy who are being reappointed and to where, and then those clergy come forward and are given an Episcopal letter from the DS and the Bishop, encouraging them as they go into this next season of ministry. And that’s when the final work of transitioning begins in earnest. And for those of you who are wondering, Kim Brown will announce at the end of worship about who is being appointed to Crossroads.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">But until then, stick with me, okay?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> So feeding into this Seasonal Overload Disorder, is our liturgical calendar within the church. Our opening hymn today was an Eastertide hymn. Eastertide, the period in the church following Easter and leading to Pentecost is the time during which we remember the work and teachings of the risen Christ after he ascended into heaven and before the people received the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. We often confuse, conflate, or compare the season of Lent, which precedes Easter, with the season of Advent that precedes Christmas, believing that once the “big day” has arrived the season is over, which is actually incorrect in both cases. The Christmas season in the church doesn’t begin until Christmas Day and lasts 12 days until Epiphany. The Easter season in the church begins on Easter Sunday and continues for 50 days until Pentecost, which conveniently, means “50 days.” </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">So all throughout Eastertide we are encouraged to remember and celebrate the resurrection of Christ even as we move toward Pentecost.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> In fact, as Fr. Richard Rohr shares, it was Easter and not Christmas that was the big celebration, the big deal for the first twelve centuries of Christianity. Speaking of the followers of St. Francis of Assisi, he writes, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> <i> “It was the Franciscans who popularized (and sentimentalized) Christmas. For Francis, if the Incarnation was true, then Easter took care of itself. He taught us to celebrate Jesus’ birth and probably created the custom of the creche or nativity scene…Incarnation was already redemption for him. Once God became a human being, then nothing human or worldly was abhorrent to God. The problem of distance or separation was resolved forever.”</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> So, he suggests, once God chose to reveal God’s self in flesh in the human Jesus - that is, through Incarnation - once God became human, it was game over. Rohr continues,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> <i> “Resurrection is incarnation coming to its logical conclusion. If God is already </i><b><i>in</i></b><i> everything, then </i><b><i>everything</i></b><i> is from glory and unto glory. We’re all saved by mercy, without exception. We’re all saved by grace, so there’s no point in distinguishing degrees of worthiness because God </i><b><i>alone</i></b><i> is good, and everything else participates in that one, universal goodness to varying degrees. There is no absolute dividing line between worthy and unworthy people in the eyes of God, because all of </i><b><i>our</i></b><i> worthiness is merely participation in God’s.”</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Thought of another way, whatever worthiness we have comes not from our works - that is, our service, our belief, our adherence to custom, rule, or law - but it comes from and through God’s freely given grace. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And it’s because this is how we are redeemed, how we are saved - through the grace of God and not through the Law - that Paul is so upset about what these false teachers are telling the people of Galatia and what compelled him to write this letter in response. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> So this week we move to chapter five, a critical chapter in the overall message of Galatians. Here Paul reiterates what he has said up to this point and then pushes forward to the inescapable implications of what the gospel accomplishes for us and in us. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The chapter begins with Paul’s words that “Christ has set us free for freedom.”</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">And it’s fitting that we talk about freedom on Memorial Day weekend, when we remember those who have fought and died for our country and to preserve our freedoms. And we can think about or understand freedom in different ways. In only days or weeks kids will be out of school for the summer season and in many cases, experience the freedom from responsibility that comes with being a child - a feeling of being carefree, peddling bikes to the playground or to the pool.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Others might think of freedom as a choice to live our life however we choose, unburdened by religious morality or authority figures, or even by the constraints of our civil laws. This portrays freedom as a license to do as we please. And then, of course, there is also the liberty to choose among candidates for political office, some of whom might inspire hope in you while others instill fear, so there is a freedom to establish how we are governed. All of these are ways we often think of freedom in the world, and there are likely more.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> But we should be clear, the freedom Paul is talking about as “Christian freedom,” is freedom from adherence to, or what he calls slavery to, the Law. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">This understanding of liberty is not the same as other conceptions of freedom. Paul provides some qualifications of what Christian freedom is and is not.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Christian freedom is not freedom, he says, for self-indulgence (v. 13), and he goes on to provide a litany of things that we are not free to do as Christians. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">A pastor I had as a youth once told me that we could “love God and do as we please.” That seemed like freedom as license to the thirteen-year-old me, until I realized that if I truly loved God there are things that I should not do.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Christian freedom is not freedom to take advantage of my neighbor (v. 15). In fact, Paul tells us that the whole of the Law is wrapped up in the command that we must love God, and that we show our love for God by loving our neighbor. No, the freedom Paul talks about is the freedom to live our life in the Holy Spirit so that the Spirit works within us, leading us to a life of grace that bears fruit.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> And he talks about three ways that happens:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">First, he encourages us to live in the freedom the Spirit gives us, speaking to the tension between living in the Spirit versus living in the Law. Living in the spirit, we realize that we are all created in the image of God as children of God, and that God so loved us that God became one <b>with</b> us by becoming one <b>of</b> us in Jesus Christ. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">And because God is in all things and all things are in God, in whom we live, and breathe, and have our being, we are no longer held captive to the Law, but have freedom in Christ Jesus.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Writing the statement, “For through the Spirit, by faith, we eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness” (vs. 5) Paul tells us that freedom in the Spirit doesn’t mean a libertine freedom to satisfy our every desire, but rather the freedom to be what and who God created us to be. Freedom in Christ, therefore, is not for our self-indulgence but for the Christ-like self-giving love for others.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Second, he talks about following the path of the Spirit. If we live by the Spirit, in the freedom of the Spirit, then the positive following of the Spirit guides us to refuse those desires foisted upon us by the world. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Following the leadings of the Spirit guides us </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">away</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> from the desires for self-indulgence we talked about earlier. Being led by the Spirit and guided by the Spirit as Paul phrases it, seems to speak of specific choices we face, and taking deliberate steps to keep in step with the Spirit. Our transformation, then, come through the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives - the sanctifying grace we talked about last week. In last week’s message about how Grace forms us, I shared with you Rev. Dr. Lawrence E. Carter’s calling the transforming work of the Holy Spirit an “inside job.” In the same vein, Mahatma Gandhi said this regarding how transformation takes place:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i> “Your beliefs become your thoughts, Your thoughts become your words, Your words become your actions, Your actions become your habits, Your habits become your values, Your values become your destiny.” </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> This IS Carter’s “inside job” becoming reality - we become what we believe, what we think. The only way to have peace in the world is if we each choose to become more peaceful ourselves. The only way to have more love in our lives and in the world is to become more loving ourselves. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> And all of this points to the third thing Paul talks about as a result of and cause for our freedom, and that is to bear the fruits of the Spirit. Paul lists the fruit of the Spirit as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">This, he says, is what Christian love looks like; this is the way it behaves. But note that love is listed first.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Love is the fruit that gives expression to the other fruits listed. That is, the other fruits flow from the presence of the first fruit, which is love.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Many interpreters and commentators on this passage suggest that in fact, there is only one fruit of the Spirit and that is love, and that all the others listed here are not intended to be understood as different fruits, but as the various expressions of the one fruit.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And I can see that. I can see the reasoning behind the idea that love is at the core, the heart of all of those other expressions and that if you do not have love, then you do not truly have joy, or peace, or patience, or kindness, and so forth. One commentator, painting an image from nature or creation to help us think about this idea, suggested that these expressions are like the beautiful petals that surround a flower’s center, thus showing the full-flowering of Christian love.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Paul’s message in this chapter, argued more forcefully here than anywhere else in this letter, is that there is freedom in Christ, given through the Spirit, that is lived out in biblical love for others. Or there is slavery to the flesh that leads to self-indulgent acts or attitudes, and that judges or condemns others. In Christ, there is freedom from condemnation, from slavery to the law, and from slavery to the flesh and the world and its distorted desires; and there is freedom to trust in Christ, live in the Spirit, and love generously.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> The Roman Catholic Church’s </span><span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">Second Vatican Council, in their “Declaration on Religious Freedom” (No. 11) states, Christ “bore witness to the truth, but he refused to <b>impose</b> the truth by force on those who spoke against it.” Christ offers us freedom through his example, which draws us to fulfill the Law not out of obligation but out of love of neighbor and God. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white;">Paul says that the whole of the Law is fulfilled in love, and loving is a choice we are given through the freedom we have in Christ. Our freedom through Christ is an opportunity to go beyond the demands of the Law in order to love others in the same way Christ loves us.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">The contrast, therefore, is not only or simply between freedom and Law, but between the world and the Spirit. It is the license of the “flesh” or the world that Paul warns against, which can only be combated by the Spirit. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Paul says, “If you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the Law.” But if you succumb to part of the Law, rejecting the grace offered in Christ, then you are accountable to <b>all</b> of the Law. If you seek to others accountable to the Law, rather than love them in grace, then you, too, will be held accountable to the Law. How you judge other is how you will be judged. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">In other words, </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">in for a penny, in for a pound.</i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> Yet when we are </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">led</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> by the Spirit—and this is the conundrum here of true freedom—we do not pursue self-indulgence or self-interest, we don’t attempt to skirt the limits of the Law or hold others to a Law that we don’t observe, and we don’t even seek the carefree life of a child, free of responsibility. Instead we attempt to be </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">guided</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> by the Spirit. For when we live in the Spirit, we find freedom in pursuing the good of the neighbor and the truth of God. And it is when we strive for these things, that we bear the fruits of the Spirit found in the Grace of God. Amen.</span></div>
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Crossroads UMChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01395756504990704649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6906807844502326707.post-61457649665806450702019-05-19T10:23:00.003-07:002019-05-19T10:23:33.527-07:005-19-19 “Grace That Forms Us”<iframe allowfullscreen="true" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="315" scrolling="no" src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fjay.anderson.566148%2Fvideos%2F10156961648796539%2F&show_text=0&width=560" style="border: none; overflow: hidden;" width="560"></iframe><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">5-19-19 “Grace That Forms Us”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> I’ve had what I can only call some “DUH” moments in the last couple of weeks. Or, as I suggested to Lynn, they could be “mini-strokes.” I’ve found myself forgetting how to do some very basic things around the house in recent days, or going to do something only to remember that I had already done it. I told Val the other day that I had the thought that I need to remember to invite the new pastor to come to Dinner With Friends in June so he/she can experience it, only to then remember that I will be at Lakeside that week, and only <b>then</b> to realize, duh, that I had led my last Dinner With Friends earlier this month and had not realized it. So, on second thought, I’m not sure if what I’m experiencing are mini-strokes, or many strokes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> In another “duh” moment, I also realized after leaving worship last Sunday on Mother’s Day, that I won’t be here on Father’s Day, a thought that was reaffirmed as I began studying Galatians 4 for this week’s sermon. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">One thing that I began doing earnestly during my renewal time is spending time nearly every day reading and studying scripture. Knowing that I would be doing this series on Galatians, I began reading and studying the book well in advance and have spent time in it nearly every day since the series began. Galatians 4, our chapter for today, invites us into a relationship with God like the one Jesus had, where we feel compelled to think of God as a parent, as a Father, Paul puts it.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And that made me think of Father’s Day and then of my father. And apparently, it did the same for our District Superintendent, Rev. Tim Bias, as well. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Tim shared in the District Newsletter this week that, growing up, his father was his hero and that he wanted to be like him and wanted his father to be proud of him. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">And even though his father put no pressure on him to perform, he wanted to please his dad. His father was an athlete in high school, playing basketball and football, so Tim played basketball and football. His dad was a contractor who built houses, churches, hotels, and libraries, and as a teenager, Tim used to take his friends around town and show off the building his father had built. He was proud of his father and wanted his father to be proud of him.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> When he was 24 years old, Tim’s mother asked him to come to her home - there was something she wanted to talk with him about. When he arrived, his mother shared with him that the man Tim had called Dad, the man he had grown up idolizing and striving to be like, the man who Tim so wanted to be proud of him, had adopted Tim when he was 9 months old. As Tim put it,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>“The reality of God’s grace came rushing into my life. He had </i><b><i>chosen</i></b><i> me to be his son and had given me his name. Dad loved me from the beginning. He didn’t care whether I played football, basketball, or became a contractor. He had already loved me and accepted me. All I could do was accept his love for me.”</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Reading Tim’s story brought tears to my eyes as I thought about how my father had died when I was six years old and wondered how different life might have been had he lived. I thought about all of the men in my life at that time, fathers of my friends, men from church, pastors, who stepped into my life to try to fill some of that void for me, not out of obligation but out of love for my parents, my family, and for me. And that made me think about the man my mom would eventually marry when I was 19 years old and in my sophomore year of college. George Owens was kind and gentle, a Christian man who, like Mom enjoyed painting, and who had raised kids of his own already and now, in marrying my mom, was taking on a new family by choice. And out of love for both Mom and me, and out of respect for my father, prior to marrying Mom, he have me a gift which I still have. It’s a plaque with the name Anderson on it, and these words,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>“You got it from your father, it was all he had to give.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>So it’s yours to use and cherish, for as long as you may live.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>If you lose the watch he gave you, it can always be replaced.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>But a black mark on your name, son, can never be erased.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>It was clean the day you took it, and a worthy name to bear.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>When he got it from his father, there was no dishonor there.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>So make sure you guard it wisely, after all is said and done.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>You’ll be glad the name is spotless, when you give it to your son.”</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> George, while technically and legally my step-father, was more father to me than Dad ever had the chance to be. I had Dad in my life for 6 years, of which I have few memories. George was in my life for about twenty years, dying six months after my mom. And while he was George to me, because I met him as an adult, our relationship was Father-Son. And he was Grandpa to my girls and my siblings kids.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Since Lynn and I married in June of 2004, blending our two families, I’ve come to realize that I don’t like the term “step” when it comes to our family relationships. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">I know it’s a necessary </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">legal</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> term in order to define what are and are not biological relationships, but I try never to refer to Lynn’s daughters, Leah and Jill, as my step-daughters, preferring to think of them as “our” daughters.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">I love them like my own, and consider the three grandchildren that Leah and Jill have given us to be </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">our</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> grandchildren, to be </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">my</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> grandchildren, not Lynn’s grandkids by Lynn’s daughters and certainly not “step” grandchildren. I love each of our six grandkids and have unique relationships with each of them, based on who and how they are, </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">not</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> on who their parents are, and I would be mortified - it would break my heart - to think they loved me less as a grandfather because there wasn’t a biological connection. Likewise, I would feel like a fraud, a failure, or an imposter if I somehow looked on those beautiful boys as “second tier” or “less worthy” of my full love simply because they don’t carry my genes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> In our passage from Galatians today, Paul continues to address the issue he’s tackled from the beginning of this letter, the idea that “false teachers” have come along behind him, trying to convince the people of Galatia that God’s grace is not sufficient, that they must adhere to the Law, or at least the part of the Law <b>they</b> think important, in order to be children of God. And Paul is mortified that the people of Galatia whom he has come to love, who cared for him during an illness, might be turning away from that love, the grace poured out on them through God in order to adhere to a Law that, as we shared last week, he said no longer applies in the light of Christ. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> And in his desire to correct the false teaching they have been given, he lifts up three ways that the grace of God is working to be formational for them, and for us. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">First, Paul says, God is forming the world.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">In Galatians 4:4 Paul states, “But when the fulfillment of time came, God sent God’s Son, born through a woman, and born under the Law” (CEB). In God’s time, God chose to act in Jesus, breaking into the world as a new creation in order to form the world. And this, he says, impacts all people, Jews and Gentiles - EVERYONE - freeing them from all that holds them back, all that keeps them from living as the children of God that they are created to be.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">As children of God, we are formed into the image of God by our relationship with God the Creator, the God of grace, and not by legalities or rules of Law, or by the powers of the world.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Second, God is forming us as children and heirs of the promise that, as we talked about last week, was given directly by God to Abraham and that supersedes the Law given to Moses third-hand. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The Holy Spirit affirms our status as children of God and we are invited into the same close, loving relationship with God that led Jesus to call God “Abba,” or Father.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">God’s grace in our lives means that as children of God we don’t earn our relationship with God by following rules. God’s love for us is given to us freely. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And even more, there is nothing we can do that will ever separate us from God’s love, as Paul writes in his letter to the church in Rome. So, we are totally, completely and eternally loved by God - we can’t earn it and we can’t lose it. It’s the gift that keeps on giving, and we respond to this gift by being formed in the image and likeness of Jesus.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> This “forming” of ourselves is what we call “Sanctifying” grace, and it continues throughout our lives. The word sanctify simply means “to make holy,” but not in a holier-than-thou sort of way. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Instead, God’s sanctifying grace shapes us more and more into the likeness of Christ. As the Holy Spirit fills our lives with love for God and our neighbor, we begin to live differently. The seed or presence of God which is planted within us seeks to move us toward the presence of God in others and in creation. This desire, this seeking, is what we call “Prevenient” grace, or the grace that goes before us, the grace of God planted in us before we even know of God and that seeks to reunite with God throughout our life. When we recognize that seed in our life, when we acknowledge that seed’s presence within ourselves, that is God’s “Justifying” grace at work.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">It starts from within us before we are ever conceived. And when we acknowledge it in </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">others</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">, we know we’ve begun the process of sanctification, of growing in Christ.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Rev. Dr. Lawrence Edward Carter Sr., Dean of the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel at Morehouse College in Atlanta, refers to this whole process “an inside job.” Raised right here on the Hilltop, Carter lived at 26 S. Oakley, and graduated from West High in 1958. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">In his book, </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">A Baptist Preacher’s Buddhist Teacher, </i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">he talks about how he came to adopt a Christian attitude of peace and pacifism through the teachings of Jesus, as modeled by Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and later by the Buddhist teacher Daisaku Ikeda. And one of the things he talks about in his book is that our striving to be more Christlike begins as an “inside job.” It begins within us, by our doing the work to change ourselves, our thinking, our speaking, our actions, before it ever translates into how we live in the world.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">And he suggests that the only way to have peace in the world is first to have peace within ourselves.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">We can never hope for peace in others if we cannot become peaceful ourselves. That peace-making that occurs within us is God’s sanctifying grace at work, changing and forming us into the image of Christ.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> We participate in that forming, that change, that “inside” work, through what we call the “means of grace.” It is here, by putting ourselves in spaces —physically, mentally, and spiritually—through participation in the sacraments, in the community, in prayer and scripture study, that we are opened up to allow God to fill us and form us. We make room for the Holy Spirit to work on our hearts and lives. We do not do these things to earn something from God. Our spiritual growth is a gift, given to us through the sanctifying grace of God. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">As we seek to grow in love for God and neighbor, God works in us to eliminate sin from our lives, because God’s grace is greater than our sin.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> And third, while God is forming us in creation and as children of God, God is also forming us in community. Our faith calls us into relationship with one another as the body of Christ. The same grace that has been given to us as gift of God is given to all people everywhere - there is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female - and this grace freely given compels us to share grace freely with one another. We have an identity <b>together</b> as God’s children that unites us across our differences in practice and experience. As we come to faith through grace, we are formed individually in the image and likeness of Jesus, but we are also formed in his image together as community. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Therefore, we both rejoice together and weep together. We are called to help bring to formation the image and likeness of Christ in others as we seek to help each other live in the freedom of grace rather than the bondage of the law and the world. Paul’s concern for the church in Galatia is that of a parent who grieves over a child who turns from the way they have been taught.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">As a community formed in the image of Christ, we work with God to reveal the in-breaking of God’s new creation in our church and world today.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Paul’s deepest desire is for the people of Galatia to be formed into the image of Christ, not by adherence to a custodial law whose time has passed, but by the freely given grace of God whose time is eternal. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">In Jesus, God showed us what it looks like to be fully formed in God, and through Christ we are invited to recognize the Holy planted within us and to grow more Christlike in our formation. Through the love of Christ given for us all we are beloved children of God - not step-children - born of water and the Spirit, and formed in the image of the God of Grace who is love.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">There is no rule or law or Book of Discipline that can change that. Thanks be to God. Amen.</span></div>
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Crossroads UMChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01395756504990704649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6906807844502326707.post-3847518044255265532019-05-12T11:24:00.003-07:002019-05-12T11:24:50.702-07:005-12- 19 “Grace That Clothes Us”<iframe allowfullscreen="true" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="315" scrolling="no" src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fjay.anderson.566148%2Fvideos%2F10156945400326539%2F&show_text=0&width=560" style="border: none; overflow: hidden;" width="560"></iframe><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">5-12- 19 “Grace That Clothes Us”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> I hate shopping for clothes. Or, I should clarify, I hate trying on clothes. I shop for new clothes only as I need to - when I wear something out, when I out grow something, or when I need something new for an event or activity - but I hate the process of going into a dressing room, undressing, trying something on, taking it off, putting my clothes back on, finding something else if I didn’t have the right size first time, and then starting the entire process all over again. I deplore the entire experience. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> And in part it’s because it’s not easy. I’m not a straightforward size in anything I wear. Shirts are not consistently sized that a size 17 1/2” neck is the same across shirts, it’s the same with sleeve length, all of which becomes a bigger problem when a shirt is sized by M, L, XL, etc rather than by numbers. I don’t wear all my pants the same way, some I wear more on my waist and others more towards my hips, and some, start at one place and end up at the other - so it’s like I need a self-retracting inseam that will adjust the length of the pants as they slide up or down my frame. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> And shoes? Don’t get me started. Suffice it to say, when I am in need of new clothes, and my mood isn’t TOO hostile to the idea of trying things on, then I buy a lot of things at once so I don’t have to repeat the process again. There are some brands that I trust to fit without having to try them on every time I make a purchase, but for most, I’ll take a leap of faith and buy it without trying on and then return it later if it doesn’t fit. I know it’s not logical, but that’s how I roll.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> On the other hand, there are some clothing purchases that are easy for me. I only wear black or white socks. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">I don’t buy socks of different colors because when I get dressed I can’t usually tell the difference between black and blue, or green and gray, so I have black socks that I wear for dress and casual, and white socks that I wear with sneakers, when golfing or doing yard work, or just wearing socks around the house. It’s just easier that way. I rarely wear neckties so the ones I own I’ve had for years. As the amount of ground a tie has to cover (motion over stomach) has increased over the years, the amount of leftover tie that gets tucked in behind has progressively shrunk. I hate wearing ties and only wear them when I absolutely have to.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> So I have a love/hate relationship with clothes, clothes shopping, and fashion. I keep it simple - khaki pants or Dockers with some coordinated button down shirt or mock neck - as often as I can so that I don’t have to think too much about it. And I also prefer to be as casual as I can get away with, so I only own one suit, but have about 6 sport coats that I can mix and match with Dockers or dress slacks, button down or polo shirts, and loafers or tie shoes. And lastly, nearly all of my dress shirts have button down collars, or least the shirts I wear. I have others with spread collars of various types, but I rarely wear them. The consistent look of a button down collar is one I adopted in college and have preferred ever since. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> The clothes we wear can say a lot about who we are. We see a uniformed Police Officer, Fire Fighter, or Military person and know immediately what they do for a living. We see a person in scrubs or a lab coat and know immediately that they likely work in the medical field. You see a clerical collar on a person and know at a glance that they are a pastor or priest - or that it’s Halloween! What we wear, whether a uniform or not, can say a good deal about who we are, what we do, or more.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Jesus talked about how some of the priests and Pharisees liked to be seen in public in their long flowing robes because it made them seem important. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Part of the Mosaic Law, the law of Moses, even dictated how Jewish men and women were to dress, the tassels that were to be on their shawls, how they were to wear their hair, and so on. That was, in part, to define who they were in comparison to those of the other nations who lived around them. It wasn’t to set them above others, but to set them apart.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> In chapter 3 of Galatians, Paul talks about the role of the Law in the life of the Jewish people and in Christian converts. And he does this by also giving his readers a history lesson about how the Law is to be understood on this side of the Christ event. In fact, he makes a very detailed argument about how God’s promise to Abraham in Genesis takes priority over the Law, and how that promise is finally fulfilled in Jesus Christ. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Our reading from verses 23-28 brings his argument to a close, so it’s helpful to us to understand the context of the point he makes in the early parts of the chapter.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> As you hopefully remember, Paul is upset about, and writes a letter to the Galatian church because, people whom he calls “false teachers” have come into the city after he established a church there and moved on. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">And those false teachers are saying that the men there must be circumcised as the Law dictates that Jewish must be in order to be considered Children of God.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">And Paul uses the same word in Greek, </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">nomos,</i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> to mean both Mosaic Law and the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, the Torah. He is speaking of the whole of the Law. And we see from his argument here that Paul reads the whole of the Law as a narrative, leading up to its fulfillment, its culmination in Jesus Christ.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And in doing so, he turns to the Torah to make his case.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> In Genesis 12:3 and again in 22:18, God promised Abraham descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky, and that “all of the Gentiles” would be blessed through Abraham. And because Abraham trusted God’s promise, he was considered to be righteous, or in right relationship with God. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Now remember, the term “Gentile” is an expansive and inclusive term that means </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">everyone</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> who is not Jewish. So all people, from all nations, pagan or not, middle-eastern or not, all people who are not Jewish, are Gentile. So when God’s promise in the opening book of the Law says that “all of the Gentiles would be blessed through Abraham,” well, all means all.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">And Paul takes this to mean that it was God’s intent, God’s plan, from the very beginning to bless all people, to justify all people, by the faith of Abraham, and as he says in other places, through the faith of Jesus Christ.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">And he goes on in Galatians chapter 3 to make several points to show that the Law is only provisional and temporary in its nature and function:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">First, he says, t</span><span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">he Law itself cannot justify us or bring blessing to us, because it declares as cursed everyone who does not observe <b>all</b> that is written in it, which we know that we cannot do. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white;">As we’ve share before, being in compliance with some parts of the law puts us out of compliance with others. So, Paul says, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law by taking its curse upon himself, by bearing the burden of the Law, in his death on the cross because of the Law.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Second, he says, the promise to Abraham has chronological priority, having been given 430 years before the giving of the Law to Moses. Simply said, the Promise came first. The Law cannot and does not alter or annul the original promise, received in faith in Genesis 3.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And third, the Law was given through angels by a mediator (Moses), making it a third-hand revelation from God, while the original promise was first-hand, spoken directly by God to Abraham (3:19-20).</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> So the Law, Paul says, was provisional and temporary. The Law served only as a custodian or disciplinarian for us, as a restraint because of our sins and transgressions, until the descendant of God came - and Paul uses the singular <i>descendant</i> to indicate Jesus - and liberated us from sin. The Law attempted to define sin for us, but it is by the faith of Jesus Christ that we are freed from sin. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">The word translated “custodian” or “disciplinarian" is <i>paidagōgos</i>. In wealthy Greek and Roman families, a <i>paidagōgos</i> was a slave entrusted with the care and discipline of a child when the child was not in school, </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white;">until the child reached the age of adulthood. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white;">The metaphor suggests that the authority of the law is temporary, lasting only until the fruition of the promise -- "until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith.” But now that faith as trust has come in Jesus Christ, we are no longer subject to the disciplinary or custodial role of the Law. In the promise as fulfilled in Christ Jesus we are all Children of God.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> And Paul continues this line of argument saying that now that Christ has come, the symbolic rite of entry as a Christ follower is no longer circumcision (available only to males) but baptism, which is available to all. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">"As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ" (3:27). </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Here Paul uses language from early baptismal liturgy, in which the newly baptized were clothed in a white garment, symbolic of the righteousness of Christ.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> All who have been baptized into Christ are clothed with him, wrapped up in him, and incorporated into him so that Christ becomes the primary identity marker of who we are. All other identifiers fall away, for "there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus" (3:28). Like a uniform we put on that identifies what we do, putting on Christ, being clothed in Christ, identifies who, and whose, we are.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“</span><span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">The Babylonian Talmud [the Tradition of the Jewish people as practiced while in Exile] includes a morning blessing to be recited by every Jewish man, thanking God for not creating him a gentile, a slave, or a woman <i>(Menahoth 43b)</i>…This prayer…demonstrates the power these three categories held in the ancient world. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white;">Paul's declaration that in Christ there is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female, is a radical dismantling of these primary identity and boundary markers. Differences in ethnicity, gender, and socio-economic status do not magically disappear, of course, but Paul declares them to be irrelevant…”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">The categories that divide us today may be different than those three that Paul describes, but divisions persist in congregations, in the church at large, and in the world -- divisions that run along lines of race and ethnicity, socio-economic status, gender, sexual orientation, ideology, political affiliation, and any number of other factors.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Paul reminds us that whatever human categories may describe us, they do not <b>define</b> us, "for all of you are one in Christ Jesus." All human categories are subordinate and ultimately irrelevant to our primary identity as Beloved Children of God. Our attempts to categorize and label one another in the church and in the world and to diminish one another on the basis of those labels are signs of our spiritual immaturity. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Paul reminds us that since Christ has come, we are no longer enslaved to those old divisions, we are no longer accountable to the discipline of the Law.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">All are justified solely by the Grace of God we see in the Promise given to Abraham and modeled for us in Jesus Christ.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">Paul instructs us that the law is only provisional and temporary and can never justify or save us. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white;">In fact, it can only imprison us. It is Christ who frees us from the curse of the law and sin. Now, this doesn’t mean that "anything goes" in terms of how we live.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white;">Paul has plenty to say about how we are to live out our freedom in Christ, as we will see in Galatians 5 and 6. And it doesn’t mean that the Ten Commandments no longer apply. It means that we understand them properly as Jesus taught us.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white;">All of the Law, he said, comes down to this: Love God and love your neighbor. The first four of the Ten Commandments are about how we love God, the final six are about how we love our neighbor.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Paul's message to the Galatians cautions us against allowing or using the law to annul the Promise and destroy the freedom, unity, and mission to which God has called us in Christ. God's mission to bless "all the families of the earth," begun with the promise to Abraham and bequeathed to us as children and heirs, takes priority over all human agendas. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">When we as individuals, or when factions within Christ’s body the church - the United Methodist Church or any church - try to reimpose aspects of the Law that no longer apply on those whom they have labeled as sinners, or as “incompatible with Christian teaching,” then they have, in fact, rejected the Grace of God given to us in the opening book of Scripture and in the promise given to us in Jesus Christ.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Rather than being clothed in Christ, these “false teachers” are clothed in the ill-fitting clothes of judgement. And that, I would offer, is what is </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">truly</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> incompatible with Christian teaching, and with the gift of grace which we have been given. Amen.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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Crossroads UMChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01395756504990704649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6906807844502326707.post-60598888457822439702019-05-05T12:42:00.001-07:002019-05-05T12:42:13.513-07:005-5-19 “Grace That Embraces”<iframe allowfullscreen="true" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="315" scrolling="no" src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fjay.anderson.566148%2Fvideos%2F10156928844691539%2F&show_text=0&width=560" style="border: none; overflow: hidden;" width="560"></iframe><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">5-5-19 “Grace That Embraces”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Bob Goff, a best-selling author, diplomat, and philanthropist, is quoted as saying that “Grace seems unfair, until you need some.” </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Grace, the unearned, unmerited, undeserved love of God is one of those strange gifts that we are given in the moments when we least expect it, in the places where would least expect to see it, and often from the people from whom we would least expect to receive it.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Grace comes like the unexpected hug from a stranger.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Some do liken grace to an embrace. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Our passage today can be seen somewhat in that way. The issue at hand in the larger passage is that Paul is calling out Peter for being a hypocrite.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The word translated as hypocrite, in Paul’s time, meant actor or one who wears a mask.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">It didn’t have the same negative connotation that we give to hypocrite today, but the idea was the same - saying one thing and doing another, or presenting a false front. In the Book of Acts, Peter famously has a vision of various animals that were considered by the Law to be unclean being lowered on something akin to a sheet for Peter to eat, Peter declaring that he </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">had</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> never and </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">would</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> never eat that which is unclean, only to have God call him out for calling unclean what God had said was clean. This event then led to Peter’s entering the home of a Gentile God-follower - another violation of the Law - and declaring to all present that God does not play favorites, that the grace of God and the Spirit of God fall on both Jew and Gentile alike.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> By the time Paul’s letter to the Galatians is written, though, Peter has equivocated on that statement, he is back-sliding under pressure from what Paul calls “false teachers” from outside the group of Jewish leaders and original Apostles, “imposters” Paul labels them - who insist that Gentile converts must first be circumcised, that is - put into compliance with Jewish Law - before the grace of God extends to <b>them</b>. Under this pressure, Peter is folding like a cheap umbrella, and Paul is giving him what for. They had agreed, he said, had shaken hands, had embraced the belief that grace extended to all and that Paul would share this message with Gentiles while Peter, James, and John, would focus on sharing this with the circumcised, the Jews. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> This all comes down to the age old debate about whether we’re saved by faith or trust in the grace of God or by our own works. Is grace a free gift given by God, or is it something we earn by the things we do or don’t do, </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">say or don’t say, believe or don’t believe?</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Does following the Law save us, in this particular case agreeing to be circumcised, or are we saved by faith, by trusting in Jesus Christ?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> And that’s a <b>huge</b> question in this passage. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">If salvation is only offered to the Jews, then the rest of Creation was doomed. The mark of circumcision was not intended to be a status symbol, it was a sign of being set apart from other nations, not set above them.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The Law was given to differentiate the people of Israel from all the other nations that surrounded them, nations that worshiped other and multiple gods.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">When Jesus came, he said he came not to change the Law, but to bring it to fulfillment, to bring it to completion. And he then told his Jewish followers that the covenant of the new Law was simply this - love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbors as your self. And oh, by the way, our neighbors include those we would consider enemies.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The Law was never about excluding people from God’s love or God’s grace, it was about setting apart a people who might grow to be an example to others as to what it looks like to live in and share the grace of God. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> And the dichotomy of Law vs. Faith is also a huge question in the church today, because while we claim in our creeds and our disciplines that we are saved by faith, we often act as though it is our works, our merit, our compliance with the Law brings salvation. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The debate and conflict in the United Methodist Church today, and in other denominations in previous years, is at its core, a debate about Law and grace, as well as about how we understand the nature of Scripture.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Do we believe that the unmerited, unearned, undeserved grace of God extends to all people, or only to those whom a select and self-chosen group of people have deemed deserving because of their compliance with their understanding of Law, both God’s law and church law?</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">And more specifically, do we believe that the God who throughout Scripture called not only poets, prophets, and priests, but also liars, cheats, thieves, murderers, prostitutes, tax-collectors, Gentiles, and other so-called sinners to carry out God’s mission and ministry, might also call LGBTQ people into various forms of ministry, including ordained ministry?</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Or do we really believe that God only calls those who are Law compliant, as a certain small group of self-appointed people choose to understand it?</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">And we should be careful about how quickly we seek to defend the latter, because as Scripture is chock full of stories of God calling those people I mentioned who were thought unworthy, undeserving, and even unChrist-like,</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">God also called Paul, who worked adamantly against those who sought to follow Jesus most closely.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The arms of God’s grace extends wide, and often includes those we might think are beyond God’s reach.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">And in that sense, Bob Goff’s statement hits home for us - God’s grace does seem unfair to some of us, until, of course, </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">we</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> need some of it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> I’m enamored with the idea of grace as an embrace, though. A church in South Africa, where apartheid separated people along racial lines for so long, erected a cross in front of their building that they say models the embrace of Christ. Calvary Methodist Church, in Midrand, South Africa, sits atop a hill, overlooking two different communities. As you approach the church, you are greeted by a large, stone cross towering over all who pass by. In a land that was defined by exclusion and separation, this Embracing Cross of Christ, as it is called, is a sign of hope and healing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> The cross, designed by Hans Wilreker and Alan Storey, was erected in 1999. Alan Storey writes, “This cross is shaped to ex- press God’s loving embrace of the world in the death of Jesus. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The left arm is raised higher and extends further than the right arm because it is the extension of the heart, reminding us that Jesus’ heart was given in obedience to [God] in his work of boundless loving. The left arm is also the arm of the outcast, reminding us that Jesus came to raise the lowly and poor. The shortened right arm symbolizes the powerful who are humbled and brought low, as prophesied by Mary in Luke 1:51-53.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> The ministries of the church reflected this embrace. Their four pillars of mission are spirituality, evangelism and church growth, justice and service, and development and economic empowerment. These four pillars reflected the needs of the community and the grace they experienced in the life transforming work of Jesus.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> To breathe life into the ideas represented in the inanimate Embracing Cross of Christ, we can think of God’s grace as an embrace. And rather than the four pillars that guide this particular church, we might think of the four actions that occur in the act of embracing. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> First, there is the opening of our arms. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">There must be a willingness on our parts to be obedient to Christ’s call to open our arms, to make room for those who need to know the love of Christ in their lives.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Paul, in debating with Peter, is asking “Is there enough room in God’s love for everyone or not?</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Is there enough room in the mission field for both you and I, or not?” </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> And that question confronts us as well. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">How open are our arms to the people who need to know the love of Jesus, whether they’re people we like or not, whether we think they ‘re deserving or not?</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">A determination, I might add, that is not ours to make.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> And more broadly, what signals to the people in our community that our arms are open to them unconditionally, as Christ’s arms are open to us? </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And likewise, how open are our arms to those whom God has called, whom Jesus has empowered, who aren’t in compliance with <b>our</b> limited concept of what it means to be a Christ-follower or a minister? Our denial of the call or worthiness of our LGBTQ sisters and brothers is no different that what the church historically did to people of color and to women, and is no different than Peter’s telling God that what God created is not good, is not clean, is not worthy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> The second action of grace as an embrace, after opening our arms, is waiting - active and prayerful waiting. In opening our arms an invitation is extended, now we wait in anticipation of the acceptance of that invitation. Nobody likes waiting. We get tired of waiting. We get bored with waiting. We grow impatient. Nevertheless, Jesus waits for us every day. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Jesus waits for us to remember that his love is for everyone, not just for those who think, believe, or worship like us. Jesus waits for us every day to remember that we are no more or no less deserving of God’s grace than anyone else, that we have our warts and our flaws. Jesus waits for us every day to remember that he came to serve, not to be served, and that he came to the least, the last, and the lost, not just those who could be found in Temple or synagogue each week. Waiting is hard, but God’s grace is worth the wait.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> The third action, then, is closing our arms in the actual embrace. It’s<b> in</b> the embrace that grace transforms both parties. Standing apart from Christ there is no change, there is no growth. It’s <b>in</b> the embrace of Christ, both given and received, that we become more Christ-like, that we, as John Wesley put it, move towards perfection. We don’t lose our identity in the embrace, but we do begin to experience the embrace of God’s grace as transformation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> It’s in the embrace of Christ that, in Galatians 2, Paul calls out Peter for his backsliding, for going back on his word, on their agreement. It’s not done in anger, but as a sign of their mutual love and respect for one another. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">If we really love someone, we can’t let them do something harmful without at least saying something to them. In Christian love we hold one another accountable - accountable to live and love as Jesus taught.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> As Jesus closes his arms around us, inviting us to encounter him, we join at his table, in table fellowship together because, if we embrace him, he changes us. Title or position doesn’t matter, saint or sinner doesn’t matter, because transformation doesn’t take place in the invitation, it comes in the embrace. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">God has a place for you, for each of us, at Christ’s table. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And as it is Christ’s table, who he invites is not up to us. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> The word translated as grace in Greek is the same word translated as gift. Sometimes, in grace though, we don’t know whether we’re giving or receiving, because as you extend grace, you also receive grace. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">So, as we think about grace, and who we do or don’t extend grace to, consider who do you have a hard time sharing space with at the table, and why is that?</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Or conversely, are there certain people that you ALWAYS share space at the table with to the exclusion of others? </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Sometimes, when we extend grace to another, hoping God will somehow change them, it is actually changing us that God has in mind. We know we’ve created God in our own image if our God only loves the people we love, and hates the people we hate. But that’s not God - that’s us playing God. So as you consider grace God’s grace extended to you, think about what would keep people from being part of your embrace.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> The fourth and final movement of embrace then, is opening our arms again. It is in re-opening our arms that we leave traces of grace upon one another. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">This is grace received in grace extended. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">And the arms reopened are now arms ready to embrace again, to share the grace in the embrace, to leave a trace of grace on yet another - whether with those we encounter in the mission field, around the table, or with those who, for whatever reason, we have avoided embracing.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> God’s grace encounters us where we are, as we are, and encourages us to become more like Jesus. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">God’s grace is given freely to those like us and those unlike us, to those we invite to the table and to those we exclude. God’s grace is overflowing and all-enveloping.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">It knows no beginning and no end.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Grace springs from the love of the God who loved so much that God gave. We, on the other hand, when we say we truly love someone or something, tend to cling, to grasp, to hold on to it for all we’re worth. God’s love, though, is intended to be given away. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">It’s not ours to dole out as we see fit to those we deem worthy. We’re invited by God to be a sent people, a people given to others.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">So how we do transform in God’s love to the point of being able to let go of our biases, judgement, our hatred, and our anger; to let go of our self-centeredness in order to focus on embracing those whom God embraces?</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">What do <b>you</b> need in order to open your arms as an act of Christ-like grace?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Is there a risk in embrace? Sure there is. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">But the greater risk is in not embracing.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Paul tells us in another letter that God, in Christ, is reconciling the world to God’s self.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Reconciling is embracing. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">And God gives us the example in Jesus Christ and the strength in the Holy Spirit to go forth in God’s grace and embrace God’s children, all of God’s children, as God has created them and called them, in such a way that we might become a people transformed by God in order to make a difference for God in the world.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> The young Christian writer, blogger, and speaker Rachel Held Evans, whose words I have quoted many times over the year, died yesterday at age 37 after a short illness. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">And she often wrote about and talked about grace, and today I want to give her the last word.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“Perhaps we are afraid that if we get out of the way, this grace thing might get out of hand. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Well, guess what? It already has. Grace got out of hand the moment the God of the universe hung on a Roman cross and with outstretched hands looked out upon those who had hung him there and declared, ‘Father, forgive them, for know not what they do.’ Grace has been out of hand for more than two thousand years now. We best get used to it.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">May it be so. Amen.</span></div>
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Crossroads UMChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01395756504990704649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6906807844502326707.post-47638864223765403762019-04-29T08:49:00.003-07:002019-04-29T08:49:55.363-07:004-28-19 “Grace That Transforms” - Rev. Danny Dahl<iframe allowfullscreen="true" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="315" scrolling="no" src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fjay.anderson.566148%2Fvideos%2F10156913757551539%2F&show_text=0&width=560" style="border: none; overflow: hidden;" width="560"></iframe><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">4-28-19 </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 28px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> “Grace That Transforms” - Rev. Danny Dahl</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Scripture: Galatians 1:13-24</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Each and every one of us has a story to tell. We are all unique in all the Universe, no two of us are alike, not in our DNA and certainly not in how we view our relationship with Christ.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">When Pastor Jay asked me to come speak this morning, he casually informed me that there was to be a theme, given by the Bishop, from which I would need to work.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">So, as I would normally do, I followed directions….. I looked up what the Bishop had in mind, and found it was something which has always been a part of how I view the ministry….. It was about Grace…Today’s theme is “Grace that Transforms.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Now, several months ago, I preached here for several weeks about Grace, God’s grace. I am certain all of you remember everything I had said…. But, for those of you who might not have been present, I will follow the directive of the Bishop….graciously..</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">As I said a few moments ago, each and every one of us has a story to tell; we are all unique in who we are and in our place within, not only the universe, but also in the Kingdom of God. So, I appreciate where we are starting this series; in Galatians, one of my favorite Books in all scripture.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Here we find a bit of the Story of Paul; what happened to him after the encounter he had with Christ on the Damascus Road; we read how he spent three years trying to understand what had happened to him; we get part of the story of how he spent time and learned about who Christ was and what the ministry was all about. Then, when he had learned what was needed, he began to preach and teach…Folks immediately brought up that this was the man who had persecuted the very church he was now trying to support and expand…. Paul had begun to understand the need for God’s grace in the lives of those around him; he had experienced it first hand and knew of its power in his own life; and yet, folks just wouldn’t forget the horrible things he had done before….funny isn’t it, that our stories usually end up with someone doubting our motives.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Recently, at Livingston Church, we finished an Adam Hamilton study on Simon Peter. We learned how flawed Simon was, how he could never quite get his spirituality right; and because of that, people questioned his motives and he had to really learn about forgiveness, tolerance and especially, Grace.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I believe that this is the story of the New Testament; that, we fail, we falter, but the redeeming Grace of God brings us back into contact with the one who loves us and gave Himself for us.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">As I got to thinking about what the scripture was today, I began to see some parallels between Peter and Paul…they were men who didn’t understand how God was going to use them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Paul abetted the murder of Stephen; Peter denied the Lord. Paul threw Christians into prison; Peter called Jesus a liar when Jesus said he had to die. We do have interesting role models within the Christian faith, don’t we?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I continue to believe that these stories of failure, hate and murder are absolutely necessary for you and me to read about and hear; for you see, our stories are just as problematic as those of the giants of the faith. Sometimes our lives are worse, and yet, if Peter and Paul received the grace of God and were transformed by it, who are we to say it cannot happen to us?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We each have our own stories of the transforming power…of grace.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">If we are to discuss “Grace which Transforms”, we need to understand that the only way we can possibly BE transformed is through the power of Grace. It seems to me that Peter and Paul both understood this. They took lives which had been shattered, lives which had not surrendered to Christ and were transformed by the action of a God who forgave them even when they appeared to be unforgivable. And THAT , my friends, is transforming Grace.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It’s nothing we do for ourselves, it’s nothing we can do by ourselves; this transforming grace has to come from God alone; it has to come from the love, compassion and forgiveness which Christ has to offer; and it is offered without cost to each and every one of us..because the price has already been paid, on the Cross and with the revelation of the empty tomb. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It continues to amaze me that some still believe that we can, somehow, legislate morality; that somehow we can determine whom God accepts or rejects just because we think we KNOW what God wants. It baffles me, because scripture tells us that God chooses the least of us to confound the rest of us. He uses those who are weak to show those who believe they have the ‘right way’ to heaven that they just might be wrong (Pharisees maybe?);</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">When we all know, or should know, that the right way to heaven is to ‘believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and THOU SHALL BE SAVED’, I see no reason to attempt to improve upon that, it makes sense as it is…</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I believe it is as simple and as complicated as that… It is by grace we have been saved though faith, and even that faith isn’t generated by us, it is a gift of God; that way no one can brag that they have done it on their own… As my friend Julia used to say, “It’s all grace”… and that is the story of transformation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I have spoken of my initial encounter with our Master, Jesus on many occasions. But, to be true to the Bishop, let me just put this out there again. I was 18 and heading toward Ohio University to just party and have a good time. My then girlfriend, talked me into going to a service where there was going to be a “gospel band”. Not wanting to miss a good band, I went; it wasn’t what I thought it would be; young folks banded together to speak of the gospel, and in that moment, Jesus called my name. I came forward, and my heart was changed; but, it took years for me to fully begin to understand what that transformation was; it took me years to understand that God had granted me a new life, not by anything I did or deserved, but just because He wanted to share His grace with someone like me; who didn’t deserve the grace, but received it anyway. I am still on the journey of learning about his grace; but I know it is always out there and always is mine, if I want it to be.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">My story is ongoing, and so is yours if you have taken the time to listen to the whispers in your soul; and have said you are willing to receive the free grace of God. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I cannot move away from this today without commenting on where the United Methodist Church is today. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I have heard the rhetoric; I have seen the anger; I have observed how folks are hurting and sad….and it hurts my heart.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I don’t want anyone to think that I do not stand with reconciliation, or reconciling ministries….I am there, it took me years to get there, but here it is…and here I am; I stand with the Grace of God which transforms those who accept it….ALL who accept it..</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">You see, Grace and reconciliation is just that; and it must be for everyone, not just a few. Our brothers and sisters who have hurt, and continue to hurt, others with words and deeds and have put forward a regression, a regression to the thoughts and habits of a bygone time. Yet those who have done this are also hurting and have been hurt. I think, it might be up to us to stand tall, not to relent to the regressive thoughts and actions, but to stand tall with this lesson in Grace. “If Grace isn’t for everyone, then it is for no one.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">John Wesley spoke deeply of grace; he went to places where the Anglican Church would not go. The Anglican Church of Wesley’s time condoned child labor in coal mines which were deadly and murderous; but Wesley’s call was to change this and reform the church so that it would protect these little ones. Wesley’s call was for holiness, but he said there was “no holiness apart from social holiness”. Wesley was a reformer because it was necessary, it was a part of who he was because it was part of who Christ was; but he was also a person of Grace… I have read what he has said, ‘Dost thou believe in Christ? If so, take my hand for we are brothers.’ This is a lesson in Grace which transforms, “whosoever will may come”, the scripture says…and believe me when I say, I hold myself to this scriptural basis. To reject, or to not accept those whom Jesus calls is dangerous; it is deadly.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I cannot reject those whom God has personally called into the grace of His love. And, if Peter can curse and swear, reject and say that he didn’t know who Jesus was; and If Paul can stand by while Stephen is stoned to death AND STILL be forgiven and called back into the fold, who are we to reject anyone who says they have been called by God, and have been saved by His grace? To do so is to put ourselves at risk…at risk of opposing God Himself…this puts us in peril, and it shouldn’t be so, not in the Wesleyan tradition, and especially not in the eyes of Christ.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">To not acknowledge that God has done something in someone’s life is to reject the very call of Grace and love of Christ Himself; it is to reject the core of the Gospel and the very soul of each and every person with whom we may disagree; it is to reject the basis of His ministry; it is to reject the stories, the happenings and the revelation of the Word of God, who John says is Jesus the Christ Himself. We cannot show God’s grace if we do not believe His grace is for everyone; we can only show God’s wrath, anger and punishment…and this I cannot accept; not as a United Methodist, nor as a Christian called to be like Him.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">So, today, with all that is before us, and all that has come from behind us, we need to take a look at what is going on with Paul, and with Peter… Grace is ALWAYS there for us; we have a gracious and loving God who accepts us, warts and all, and is trying to move us from where we are, and take us to where He wants us to be. Grace is for us; Christ is always for us…and for anyone and everyone, who calls on His name and seeks His forgiveness. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">This, my friends, is the Grace which Transforms.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Peace</span></div>
Crossroads UMChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01395756504990704649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6906807844502326707.post-76460837190144228182019-04-22T10:21:00.001-07:002019-04-22T10:21:03.759-07:004-21-19 Easter Sunday “Name Calling”<iframe allowfullscreen="true" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="315" scrolling="no" src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fjay.anderson.566148%2Fvideos%2F10156896363216539%2F&show_text=0&width=560" style="border: none; overflow: hidden;" width="560"></iframe><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">4-21-19 Easter Sunday “Name Calling”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Dale Carnegie once said that there is nothing sweeter to a person’s ear than the sound of their own name on the lips of another. Well, like everything, I think that depends on the context as to how sweet the sound. As a child - and sometimes as an adult - I’ve always known I was in trouble when my middle name was invoked. I’ve always just been “Jay,” or sometimes people would speak my name as a quick, “JD,” like in the initials. But when I heard my name spoken in full, in all of it’s nonsensical glory, J-A-Y D-E-E, JAY DEE! then I knew I’d better either change my tune or head in the other direction as quickly as possible, because what was coming would be anything BUT sweet!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> David Lose tells the story of how he used to sing a song to his young daughter Katie that included her name, and that whenever he sang it to her, whether she was joyful or whether she was sad and crying, the song would always eventually coax her to stop crying, to wipe away her tears, and would elicit what he called a “full blown grin of recognition and delight.” </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">But rather than this simply affirming Carnegie’s idea, Lose goes on to say the he believes that, in </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“hearing her father or mother call her by name, Katie was reconnected to her family, rejoined to those who loved her, and in this way remembered <b>who</b> she was by remembering <b>whose</b> she was – our beloved daughter. So that even when grasped by the seizures of willfulness and insecurity that seemed so frequently to plague a two-year old, when called lovingly by her name Katie was freed from the hold of her confusion and found her way back to the world. And what she came back to was, really, a whole new world, one where, at least for the moment, her old fears and hurts had been banished, replaced by a sense of belonging and contentment and security that showed itself in that grin of delight.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Now, today is Easter Sunday, and for some preachers that’s an invitation to try to pack a year’s worth of teaching, instruction, evangelism and whatever else they can pull from their bag of tricks in order to reach those who are lovingly referred to as the “C and Es,” those who only come to church on Christmas and Easter. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">But I’m not going to do that. I’m not going to present a dissertation of a sermon on the meaning of Easter, the theological significance of the resurrection, the opposing ideas of a physical versus a spiritual resurrection, or what significance any of this has on what we think of as salvation. And I do that because I’d like for you to all stay awake if possible. And if we can accomplish that, I’d like also to keep you engaged.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Our reading today from John is a different telling of the Easter story than that given by the other Gospel writers. While the others talk about the group of women who went to the tomb on Easter morning, in John’s version it’s only Mary Magdalene. She, alone, leaves early to go to the tomb to anoint Jesus’ body - hastily placed in the tomb only two days before. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">This is personal for her - Jesus was personal for her.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> She arrives at the tomb to find the stone rolled away from the entrance. John doesn’t tell us that she looked in or entered the tomb, but we assume she must have because he tells us that she “ran to Simon Peter and the other disciple…and said, ‘They have taken the Lord from the tomb and we don’t know where they’ve put him.’” Interestingly, she says “<b>we</b> don’t know where they’ve put him,” when John records only her presence at the tomb. But I digress. A footrace ensues between Peter and the other disciple - we assume it is John - and when they arrive they alternately look into and then enter the tomb to find the grave clothes neatly folded where Jesus’ body had been placed, but no Jesus. And John writes, perhaps about himself, that the “other disciple ‘saw and believed,’ but that he ‘didn’t yet understand the scripture that Jesus must rise from the dead.’ </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">So, if he didn’t understand the scripture, we’re left wondering, what it was he believed. But again, I digress.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Peter and John say nothing and leave to return to where they were staying. Mary remains outside the tomb, crying. As she cried, she bent down to look into the tomb and she saw two angels dressed in white sitting where Jesus’ body had been. And the angels say to her, “Woman, why are you crying?” And she explains to them that someone has taken the body of Jesus. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">And as she said this to them she turned to find someone standing there, who asks her the same question, “Woman, why are you crying?” and then “Who are you looking for?”</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Ah, now there’s $64,000 question? </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> “Who are you looking for?” She thought she knew, but in the midst of her grief, in the midst of her tears, that which was right in front of her was also lost on her. Distraught and exhausted, still mired in the trauma of all that she had witnessed in just the last week, she was unable to recognize the person she sought, even as he stood before her. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> And then it happened. “Mary,” Jesus says, calling her by name, penetrating the shroud of her grief to grasp hold of her and draw her into a whole <b>new</b> world. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">And as Lose describes this moment,</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“It’s hard to imagine all the emotions that must have coursed through Mary in that moment; and yet, while the text doesn’t give us many clues, I have a feeling that after just a heartbeat she responded, at first with a shy smile, wiping away the tears soaking her cheeks, </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">and then broke into a grin of recognition and delight, breathing ‘my teacher.’” And having been called by name, having been reminded not only of who she is, but whose she is,</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Mary is sent to the other disciples to tell them what she has seen."</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b> </b>And </span><span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">Mary’s message may be the truest sermon ever preached. She doesn’t speak the creedal statement, “Christ is risen, he is risen indeed,” but simply “I have seen the Lord.” You see, resurrection is not some third-person confession, it’s a first person event, a real life experience - <b>I</b> have seen the Lord. People don’t need to hear a debate about the historical accuracy of the event or that resurrection is a creed of the church, we need to know that it’s a truth that we can witness in the here and now, that we can experience on a daily basis, and that if experienced, can be the seed of transformation that we need in our lives and in our world. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Called by name, Mary is invited to a new understanding of who she is, and whose she is.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Each of us received a name tag when we came in. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">If you didn’t do it then, I invite you to write your first name on that tag and put it on. We’ll sing a verse of a song while you do that:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">[“SOFTLY AND TENDERLY JESUS IS CALLING” DURING THIS]</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Softly and Tenderly Jesus is calling, </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>calling for you and for me;</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>see, on the portals he’s waiting and watching, </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>watching for you and for me. </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Come home, come home; you who are weary come home;</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling, calling, O sinner, come home!</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Now, I invite you to take just a moment, and turn to another person, and simply look into their face and say their name out loud. And then repeat that the other way, speaking the name of the one who spoke to you. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">And if you see someone sitting alone, move to them so that every one has the chance to hear their name spoken to them in this time.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> You see, Easter isn’t some broad theological treatise upon which to expound once a year and then store it away with all the plastic eggs. Easter is personal. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We all need the invitation, the encouragement, the promise that we can say, “I have seen the Lord” in our own lives. This doesn’t mean that we have to find the tallest mountain, the busiest street corner, or the </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">jam-packed mall and yell it out for every passer-by to hear.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">It doesn’t mean putting John 3:16 on a poster to hold up and wave during a football game. It doesn’t mean evangelism as coercion, competition, certainty, and beating the other down. To say “I have seen the Lord” is to point out resurrection in the midst of ruin; new life when all that seems visible is death; love in the face of hate; decency and goodness when that which is vitriolic and vile and vicious finds only more and more followers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> For the resurrection to be personal, you and I must love as Jesus loved. E. Stanley Jones, in his book <i>Gandhi: A Portrayal of a Friend</i>, tells the story of his first encounter with Mahatma Gandhi. Jones asked him, “What would you, a Hindu leader, tell me, a Christian, to do in order to make Christianity a normal part of India?” </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Without hesitation, Gandhi responded with clarity and directness.</span></div>
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<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(66, 66, 66); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #424242; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">“First, I would suggest that all of you Christians begin to live more like Jesus Christ. </span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(66, 66, 66); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #424242; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">Second, practice your religion without adulterating it or toning it down. </span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(66, 66, 66); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #424242; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">Third, emphasize love and make it your working force, for love is central in Christianity. </span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(66, 66, 66); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #424242; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">Fourth, study the non-Christian religions more sympathetically to find the good that is within them, in order to have a more sympathetic approach to the people.” </span></li>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The great Hindu leader said, “Your faith doesn’t need to be changed; it doesn’t need to be added to or subtracted from; it needs to be lived as it is.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> It needs to be lived. Our faith needs to be <b>lived</b>. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Because, in the end, resurrection is not only the promise of life after death, which </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">would</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> be enough, but also the assurance that the life-giving love of God will always move the stones away. Tombs are just that -- containers for the dead. And while we seem rather content these days with such spaces -- those dead places that fuel corruption, deception, racism, sexism, suspicion, rejection, marginalization, misogyny, judgment, and fear -- God continues to roll those stones away that keep life at bay. And when the stale air of decay meets God’s breath that breathes into, inspires new life and the possibility of hope and peace, death truly is no more.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> The late Dr. Peter J. Gomes, Professor of Christian Morals at Harvard, extends this message to each one of us today. He wrote,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“…the resurrection is a continuing event which involves everyone who dares be involved in it. Easter is not just about Jesus, it’s about you. Jesus has already claimed his new life. What about you? Easter is not just about the past, it’s about the future. Your best days are ahead of you. The proof of the resurrection is in your hands and in your life.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> So, take a moment and just take a breath. And then speak aloud your own name…</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">NAME, you are a beloved child of God. Again.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">NAME, with you God is well pleased. Again.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">NAME, Jesus invites, “follow me.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> To live the resurrection we must be involved in the resurrection. To be involved with the resurrection, you and I must be “all in” followers of Jesus. That is, we must identify, not only with Jesus but, with the people with whom Jesus identified. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">That means we will have to identify with the poor and oppressed, the marginalized and forgotten, and with the super-religious. Identification and relationships are essential to being “all in”. We have to have personal contact with people who suffer as well as celebrate.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">So that might mean doing something like:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> These actions are ways we can identify with the people with whom Jesus identified. As we do, we can discover the humbling joy of receiving more than we give. Through identification with persons and involvement in their lives, we can become the living proof of the resurrection. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> To be involved with the resurrection, you and I, must not only love like Jesus, be “all in” followers of Jesus, but we must listen to the witness of those who have been with Jesus themselves. Mary’s testimony, “I have seen the Lord,” insists that the ways of love will win over the ways of hate. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">“I have seen the Lord” confirms that the truth of kindness can be heard over the din of ruthless, callous, and vindictive rhetoric.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">“I have seen the Lord” gives witness to the fact that there is another way of being in the world -- a way of being that is shaped by resurrection, that embodies anything and everything that is life-giving, a way of being that is so counter-cultural, so demonstrative of mercy, so exemplary of the truth of Easter that others will listen to you, watch you, wonder about you and say, “Wait a minute. Did I just see the Lord?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">Not that the truth of the resurrection needs our action for verification. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Not that the truth of the resurrection depends on our witness to convince others. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Not that the truth of the resurrection relies on our willingness to speak words of life into conversations intent on destruction or our determination to free those captive to the deaths that our culture, our world, perpetuate. The truth of the resurrection is true regardless of our testimony. But maybe, it will be more true for each and every one of us if we can walk out of church on Easter morning and be willing to say “I have seen the Lord,” be willing to look for where we can say, “I have seen the Lord” in our lives, or imagine those who might need us to say, “I have seen the Lord” because they cannot. And why can’t they? Because they have known the walls of their tombs too long.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">True resurrection is the truth that the transformative resurrection of Jesus indeed matters for our future, but even more so for our present, and for the sake of the present of others.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Maybe the greatest proof of the resurrection is seen in the transformation of our living. We don’t even have to say much when we are loving one another as we have been loved. But we do need to listen for the ones who know Jesus personally, for the ones who have taken the time to listen, in the midst of all that goes on around us to distract us, for Jesus to call their name. Because he calls all of us, you see, but we have to listen. That’s when we’ll hear, see, and experience the power of the resurrection. That’s where we’ll claim the new life. So this Sunday, my prayer for you is this: That you will listen, and that when you do you will hear Jesus, softly and tenderly calling your name, and that it will lead you to an Easter transformation. May it be so! </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Amen.</span></div>
Crossroads UMChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01395756504990704649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6906807844502326707.post-91121464112332225792019-04-16T04:43:00.004-07:002019-04-16T04:43:57.722-07:004-14-19 “Give It a Rest”<iframe allowfullscreen="true" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="315" scrolling="no" src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fjay.anderson.566148%2Fvideos%2F10156883134821539%2F&show_text=0&width=560" style="border: none; overflow: hidden;" width="560"></iframe><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">4-14-19 “Give It a Rest”</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> In preparing this message this week I asked Lynn for her thoughts on the question, “when is it okay to break the law?” </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">And as we first considered it, many of the examples that we came up with were examples of traffic law violations:</span></div>
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<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Is it okay to exceed the speed limit in an emergency while trying to get someone to the hospital? Most would say yes.</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Is it okay to make a “rolling stop” at a stop sign if there are no other cars there? One would think so, but the Reynoldsburg police informed me a few years ago that the answer is NO.</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Is it okay to run that traffic light in the middle of the night when it just won’t change and there’s nobody else in sight? Well….</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">How about parking in a no parking zone, at a yellow-painted curb, or in a handicap spot without the appropriate sticker if you’re “just going to be a minute?” Hmmm…</span></li>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Besides traffic laws, we considered, other questions, such as:</span></div>
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<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Is it okay to share a prescription medication with another person who was not prescribed that medication by their doctor?</span></li>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> What if we put this in the context of the Ten Commandments, what we understand as God’s law. When is it okay to kill? That debate that has gone on in the church since the very beginning. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> What about having other gods - when is that okay? </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">If we’re honest with ourselves, we all do have other gods who compete for our love, affection, and devotion with God. If we want to know who our other gods are, we need look no further than our checkbooks, credit card statements, or sports loyalties.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Is it okay to covet our neighbor’s stuff if we’re just being aspirational, just hoping and dreaming for the future? </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> And then there’s the law that presents itself in our scripture today, about observing the Sabbath and keeping it holy. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">We had a member in a previous church, a developmentally disabled woman, who worried to the point of being frantic and in tears, nearly every week, that she was going to hell because her job required her to work on Sundays.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> All of these questions pose ethical dilemmas for us - </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">or they should - because regardless of their severity or perceived importance, they’re all illegal in some way, shape, or form. They all violate, to one degree or another, a cultural norm or more that has evolved into and been codified as a law in our society or in the church. And violating the law comes with consequences, right?</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">At least it does for some laws, and some people, in some instances, in some places…</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Jesus and his disciples are “busted” in our passage today for eating grain from the field as they were traveling on the Sabbath, both of which the Pharisees considered a violation of Sabbath law. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">In their minds, and according to their interpretation of the law, the disciples should have prepared their food before the Sabbath, and they were not to travel more than a defined, minimal distance during the Sabbath time. Now, before we vilify the Pharisees, which is easy for us to do and is our tendency when we read the Gospels, we should remember that they meant well. These were the folk who cared about the church and the law, who gave their time and energy and talents to their faith. They were entrusted with great responsibility.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">In many ways, they are us, because after all, <b>we</b> are people who care about the church, and our faith, and give our time and energies to the work of the church, to reading daily devotionals, studying scripture and all of those things. So, as we think about this passage, it’s good to remember that it’s partly about the Sabbath, and partly about the Law, and also about us.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> But it’s also good to be reminded that the Torah, the instructions from God - what we know as Law - was given for our good, for “our own well-being,” God tells Moses. They were not given on a whim. God didn’t simply make up a set of rules to see if we would follow them. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">This is loving guidance from a caring God, about how to be in a healthy relationship with God and with one another. This is a loving parent sharing with beloved children the wisdom they need to live full and joyful lives; seeking to do just what we would do with our children and grandchildren. This is not a set of regulations that God has established in order to have an excuse for either exiling us from God’s presence or rewarding us with eternal bliss, and it certainly is not a means of excluding others from the love and grace of God, which is what was happening in Jesus’ day…and perhaps in ours as well.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> One commentator (<a href="http://ministrymatters.com/"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">ministrymatters.com</span></a>), helps us understand the historical context in which this story takes place, saying, </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #222222; font-size: 15px;">“We do not have to assign terrible motives to the religious folks who Jesus was dealing with at the time. For the most part we can assume they were doing the best they could to try to follow the way God had laid out for them. They were occupied by Rome and their religious freedom, although not completely taken away, was very restricted. Although they did not offer allegiance to Caesar as a god, they were forced to pay him tribute in the form of money or crops. Many of their customs and ways of life were put on hold during the occupation. The laws that could be followed, therefore, became more important to them. This would not have been so much a problem if they had not taken the next step. It began to be a situation of those who had the means and were able to follow the laws of the temple and the laws of Rome seeing those who could not do so, as being unfaithful. Those who could afford to pay the tithe to the temple along with the Roman taxes thought themselves more holy than those who were forced to pay the Roman tax under pain of death only to find they had not even enough left to feed themselves and their families. Instead of looking on these people as oppressed and abused, they were seen as sinners.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> So it’s into this context that Jesus begins his ministry with the message that God is best understood, not as being a demanding judge as in being a compassionate and loving Parent. It’s not obedience to the law that’s at the heart of the matter, but living as faithful reflections of the God who created us in the divine image. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">God is not best understood as a stern taskmaster who demands obedience above all, but as a wise teacher who lovingly shows us the best way to live.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> David Lose points out that, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> “Across the Old Testament, the purpose of law is to help us get more out of life by directing us to help our neighbor. It’s important to pay attention to both halves of that sentence. Each one of us gets more out of life by looking out for each other. How does that work,” he asks? Two ways.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> “First, law establishes order, and order makes it easier to flourish in life. Think of the Ten Commandments – it’s really hard to flourish if it’s okay to lie, steal, and murder. But, second, law works best – it achieves its intended purpose – only when it’s directed to the need of our neighbor.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> “There’s something a little counter-intuitive about that for those of us who live in a highly individualistic culture. Law, we think, is something that protects <b>my</b> rights. But the Israelites saw it differently. If I am looking out for my neighbors, then my neighbors are also all looking out for me. So instead of having one person look after my interests – namely, me – I’ve got a whole community looking out for my welfare, just as I am looking out for theirs.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> “But <b>we</b> tend to privilege “order” over “neighbor.” That is, order makes us feel comfortable, safe, and secure, and before long we forget that the law was intended to direct us to help our neighbor and we fall into thinking it’s all about us. And that’s what’s happening here. The appeal of “law-as-order” trumps concern for neighbor. That’s what Jesus gets at with his example of King David and in his summary statement, ‘The Sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the Sabbath.’ </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">That sounds good, of course, but it’s is easy to forget.” </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">And he concludes “Yes, order is good, but if it’s not helping the neighbor, it’s neither lawful nor holy, at least not according to Jesus.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> In all of this, however, Jesus didn’t abandon the law. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">In fact, he directly denied that in how he lived and what he taught. Rather, he observed the law when it brought glory to God and didn’t interfere with his sharing of the good news of God’s grace. He went to temple and to synagogue, observed the holy days, studied scripture, and spent time in prayer. He said that he didn’t come to destroy the law but to bring it to its full completion.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">That is, to be an example of how one lives fully into the law in a loving and non-tyrannical way.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">He understood that the law was given for our well-being, to be good for us, and that we weren’t created to give glory to the law. He understood that the law was created to help point us to God, but that sometimes it could actually get in the way. When he healed people on the sabbath, which occurs several times in scriptures, it was because he understood that the true nature of God was to have compassion on them in their afflictions, not to </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">honor</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> the sabbath. He wasn’t advocating for people to ignore the sabbath, but rather to receive it as the gift it was intended to be rather than as a burden.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Sabbath is part of God’s compassionate gift of inviting us to rest in the trust that God will take care of us rather than being a cold, unbending law about what we can or cannot do.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">So in the Gospels we should be aware of the way in which disagreement about living within the law quickly escalates into hostility, a hostility that will eventually lead some -- but certainly not all -- of the most powerful religious authorities to seek Jesus’ death. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white;">Even as the passage emphasizes a commitment to life and vitality abiding at the heart of God’s reign, it also illustrates how religious commitments and values -- </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white;">any</i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white;"> religious commitments and values -- can become hardened and turn oppressive in the hands of careless stewards. None are immune - then or now.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> So the idea behind our message to “Give it a Rest,” is to help us see, as Steve Harper points out, that </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-size: 15px;">“Sabbath-keeping is a sign we are living a here-and-now life. But to see this, we must not view the Sabbath as one day in seven, separated and isolated from the other six. Jesus pointed to the right view of sabbath when he said, ‘The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath’ (Mark 2:27). He was talking about the flow — the sabbath into </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 15px;">us</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-size: 15px;">, not </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 15px;">us</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-size: 15px;"> into a particular day. Sabbath is a rhythm, not a day – a pattern, not a 24-hour period.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> So, how should sabbath-keeping influence how we live in the present moment? More than anything else, it’s a reminder that every moment is a gift, and is lived by grace. There is sabbath to be found in every day if we are mindful of it. Kimberly Richter notes that when we lose the sabbath, “we become enslaved to <b>our</b> economy and efforts. We come to believe everything depends on what <b>we</b> can provide for <b>ourselves.</b> To keep a rhythm of Sabbath rest is to remember that God is the maker and giver of all good things.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> This is just one piece of what Jesus meant when he said that we don’t pour new wine into old wineskins. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Old wineskins, like old ways of thinking about the sabbath, the Law, or even our faith, become brittle when they’re simply put on a shelf to be worshiped. The message Jesus was giving was new wine - a new way of thinking and being - that would destroy the old thought and belief containers. “You have heard it said,” he often reminded, before concluding, “But I tell you this…”</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The Way of Jesus is not what they were used to, and is not what </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">we</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> always expect either. Jesus’ words speak as much to the Pharisees then as to the Pharisee in us today. Christ is doing a new thing, and if the law proves hurtful rather than helpful, pushing people away rather than drawing us closer to God, then, Jesus would caution, we’re looking at it incorrectly.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Out of this realization we live humbly in every moment, giving thanks to God who is the Source of the here-and-now, and offering ourselves in each moment as living sacrifices, as Paul says, (Romans 12:1) to be instruments of God’s peace. We take on the attitude of Paul, realizing we are the servants of others for Christ’s sake (2 Cor. 4:5).</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> This is precisely why the idea of rest is associated with sabbath. In a literal sense, it is the renewal which occurs as we adopt the work/rest pattern in each day. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">And in the figurative sense, it is the relaxation which comes (as Richter noted above) as we realize we are not the creators of moments, but only the beneficiaries of and servants within them. To be fully present in a moment, to be fully present to our neighbor, to be fully present to God, is to live the sabbath.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> This is not a call to go back to slavishly refraining from all activity one day a week or to bringing back blue laws. Nor is it a call to abandon the law as old-fashioned and irrelevant. And it is certainly not a call to invite the government to impose <b>their</b> interpretation of God’s instructions as legal prohibitions. Rather, it’s a call to hear, with Jesus, the loving voice of a caring parent instructing us in the wisdom of life. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">It’s a call to hear, with Jesus, the invitation </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">not</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> to use God’s gracious instructions as a tool to bar others from the presence of God. It’s an invitation to receive joyously the instruction of God as it was meant to be received, for our well-being. So may you receive it as such and live in the sabbath presence of the loving God. Amen.</span></div>
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Crossroads UMChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01395756504990704649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6906807844502326707.post-78814717843889840312019-04-07T14:42:00.002-07:002019-04-07T14:42:24.171-07:004-7-19 “A Time for Every Matter” <iframe allowfullscreen="true" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="315" scrolling="no" src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fjay.anderson.566148%2Fvideos%2F10156863179791539%2F&show_text=0&width=560" style="border: none; overflow: hidden;" width="560"></iframe><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">4-7-19 “A Time for Every Matter” </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Do you remember how, as a kid, the year from one Christmas to the next, or from one birthday to the next, seemed to pass so slowly? At the same time, while the school year seemed to never end, summer vacation was over in a heartbeat. That was the exception to the rule, though. Every <b>other</b> measure of time we had seemingly lasted forever, simply creeping along. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> One of the downsides of growing up, of becoming an adult and of growing older, is that that is the slow march of time is no longer a a problem. While time continues to march at the same, steady, regular pace at which it has always progressed, our <b>perception</b> of its pace changes as we realize we have fewer years ahead of us than behind us. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Most days go by quickly, each week seems to come and go in a rush, the years just fall off the calendar as rapidly as the hair falls out of our heads - or at the very least turns gray - and the treadmill of life keeps moving us forward.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> For everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven. As a kid I grew up listening to the band The Byrds singing this song, clueless to the fact that they were singing scripture. That song came out when I was five years old, 54 years ago. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">How many seasons have passed in those decades?</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">How many “turn, turn, turns” have we made over those years? </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">In Solomon’s days, when he wrote these words that eventually made their way into a book in the Bible called Ecclesiastes - part of the Wisdom Literature - and that some three thousand years later, become a #1 single on the pop charts, there was a clear delineation of seasons. Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter aligned with rainy season and dry season, with planting season and harvest season. There was little else to be concerned about then. Now, we can never really be sure what season it is. Besides the craziness of the weather we’re seeing because of climate change that brings warmth in Winter and cool in Summer, if you really want to see confusion in the seasons we need look no further than in the world of sports. Right now, baseball season is going on, as are soccer, basketball, and hockey seasons.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Golf season is in full swing too - if you’ll pardon the pun. Auto racing at all levels is driving on and the Kentucky Derby of horse racing season is only four weeks away.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Some seasons <b>seemingly</b> never end. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">When, for example, does Ohio State football season end? I know they play their games between August and December - except for a Spring practice game that draws 100,000 fans and a bowl or playoff game in January - but when does it ever end? Even now, the local paper and TV news are reporting on the ages of the coaches, the newest recruits, how good will the receivers be this year, who will win the ongoing annual Quarterback competition - it never ends. Armageddon could happen, the moon could blow up, and pigs really could learn how to fly, but if OSU signed a 4-star recruit that would be on the front page of the paper! It never ends!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> For many of us in this modern, industrial, tech-savvy world, we have lost touch with the seasonality of life. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">We want what we want when we want it.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We’ve come to believe that no time is off limits and the lines between busy and rest, work and play, have become increasingly blurred. How far are we from the rhythms and "pleasure of our toil,” as the scripture phrased it? What is the cost to ourselves, to our relationships, and to our planet of this frantic pace? How has our denial of the passage of time and seasons of our lives created an anti-aging sentiment as well as the worship of everything “fast” and the sense that immediate gratification is “normal,” or worse, not fast enough?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">No matter what season we’re in now, with the possible exception of the aforementioned OSU Football season, that season will eventually pass. There will be seasons of joy and seasons of suffering, seasons of certainty and seasons of change. That is how the cycle of life was created, it’s how life was intended to be lived. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white;">Our time on this planet, like that of every person who has come before us and likely every person who comes after, is but for a season.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Verse two reminds us that<i> there is a time to be born; a time for giving birth, a time for new life, and there is a time to die.</i> Our time, our season here, is limited. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">No ones lives forever. Whether or how we embrace that fact is a matter of faith, but not embracing it or denying it won’t change it. Life is but a season.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">In reading this verse I’m reminded of the story I read at some point of a set of twins in the womb before they were born. The twins are talking to one another, and in a question that presages a similar question most of us ask much later, the one twin asks the other, “Do you believe in life after birth?” The womb was the only life they had ever known and they feared what might come next. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Just as we all passed from the womb to the world yet have no memory of that time and that transition, so one day we will pass from this world to what’s next. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Our faith tells us that there is something more after this season, but what that looks like is as unknown to us as this life was unknown before we were born, even as we have developed our ideas and our desires about that. Perhaps the coming transition is not unlike moving from the womb into the world.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> <i>There is a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted.</i> Last week I shared with you some thoughts by Father Richard Rohr about what he refers to as the two halves of life, and how in the first half we tend to define our safety, security, and self-worth by our careers, our accumulations, and our family. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">In the second half of life we realize that who we are - our worth or self-worth - </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">can</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> never and </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">has never</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> been defined by those things, but rather have been and always will be defined by our relationship to God as God’s beloved children. In the first half we plant and we plant and we labor and we labor to make a name for ourselves, to accumulate stuff, and we wonder why we’re working so hard, and in the second half we come to realize that the seeds we planted then won’t sustain us now, that it is the seed planted by God within us that carries us forward - and that that has always been the case.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> <i>A time to kill and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up.</i> Like many Christians, I struggle with the idea that there is a time to kill, but I recognize that there are times <b>of</b> killing, and <b>of</b> healing. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Jesus came to show us a time of healing, and was ironically, killed for it. But I think this verse points to the seasonality of relationships as well as life.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The people who are my closest friends now are people I didn’t even know fifteen years ago. Most of the people I was close to as a child are no longer in my life.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">There are times when relationships die, and times when they’re healed, times when they break down, and others when they’re built up. And as resurrection people - a people for whom the central belief of our faith is that resurrection follows death - we know that even a relationship that dies has the potential to be resurrected, if we cultivate a season of healing, of building up - both in our selves and in our world.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"> <i>A</i></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"><i> time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.</i> We can’t, regardless of how hard we try, shield ourselves from the times of weeping and of mourning. Our faith doesn’t promise us that in the seasons of our lives we won’t experience pain, hurt, and loss; it promises that we won’t go through them alone. Just as God is present with us in the times of greatest joy in our lives, God is also present in those seasons of suffering, of sadness, of sickness. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">God, who knows our joys and our celebrations and who, as Lord of the Dance, revels with us in those exuberant times, also embraces us for the slow dance of sorrow that visits each of us at different times.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Death is always followed by resurrection, God always brings a restoration, in its season. That God promises us.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Then Solomon writes that there is <i>a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing</i>. There is much to consider in this verse, when we think of the biblical context. King David, Solomon’s father, wanted to build what would be God’s Temple in Israel, but God wouldn’t allow it. As great a king as David was - the greatest in Israel’s history - David was not allowed to be the one who gathered the stones together that would construct what would be considered the dwelling place of God. That task, that honor, was given to Solomon. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Was that honor denied David because of his sin with Bathsheba? Some have suggested that, but a close look at Solomon’s life reveals that, even as wise as he was considered to be, his sins were no less than those of his father.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Perhaps this verse suggests that there are times for action, and there are times for rest, times for doing and times for contemplation. Stones are important symbolically in scripture - stones were stacked or made into altars throughout scripture to mark places as holy.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">A young David killed the Philistine giant Goliath with a sling and a stone. Jesus faced the temptation of turning a stone into bread for his sustenance while in prayer and meditation in the wilderness and told the people on Palm Sunday that if his followers were quiet even the stones would cry out. Perhaps Solomon is also suggesting that there will be times when we are called into the embrace of friends, and other times that what we need is time in our own wilderness, where the stones cry out and the only embrace we need comes from God.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i> A time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to throw away; a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time of love, and a time of hate; a time of war, and a time of peace - </i>all of these speak to me the idea that in creating our world, in setting our planet to spin upon its off-center axis, God wanted us to know that life is to be lived in the midst of that which we don’t and won’t understand, and that that is okay. As modern science has brought us amazing technological advancements, as modern agricultural science allows us to have whatever food crop we want any time we want it, as modern medicine has extended life to the point that there are more nonagenarians and centenarians (people over 90 or 100 years old) in the world today than ever in the history of our planet, these verses remind us that we do not know the mind of God. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">And that even as we seek, or are tempted, to eat more and more from the tree of good and evil in our own little Edens, the seasons God set in motion in the beginning will go on, with us or without us, and even in spite of us. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> And then our scripture concludes:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>What gain have the workers from their toil? </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with. God has made everything suitable for its time; moreover God has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live; moreover, it is God’s gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Whether we are at a point in our lives where the seasons seem to pass slowly or whether they are seemingly gone as soon as they arrive, it is a good and joyful thing, always and everywhere, for us to remember that our God is the God of life, and that our God is a God of love. And even as we go through seasons of sorrow and sadness, of joy and gladness, God goes with us, giving us the gifts of life after birth, of resurrection after death, and the promise to come alongside and walk the Way with us, that we may take pleasure in our toil. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">May it be so for you. Amen. </span></div>
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Crossroads UMChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01395756504990704649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6906807844502326707.post-22872543854644509972019-03-31T17:07:00.004-07:002019-03-31T17:08:21.383-07:003-31-19 “Living Light”<iframe allowfullscreen="true" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="315" scrolling="no" src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fjay.anderson.566148%2Fvideos%2F10156847537671539%2F&show_text=0&width=560" style="border: none; overflow: hidden;" width="560"></iframe><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">3-31-19 Sermon “Living Light”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> So this past week my older sister came up from Madison to help us out and to be with Lynn while I worked and we had a good visit. At one point I gave her an envelope full of old photos that I had set aside for her as I was cleaning and organizing my basement while I was on leave. In fact, I was so proud of how the basement looked that I took her down there to see it - something that would have struck terror in Lynn before because of the clutter that had overwhelmed that room for so long. As she saw the space, with all of my remaining books neatly shelved by category rather than taking up floor space in boxes, bags, and piles, and as she saw pictures and other things neatly displayed on the walls and shelves, her eyes fell on a shelf containing a long, tall bottle of 15 year-old Scotch that I’ve had for about 25 years. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It’s a unique bottle with a dome in the bottom where at one time, before it was broken during a move, a little figure of a Scotsman in a kilt would dance up and down to the music played by a music box that made up the based of the bottle. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Now, I don’t drink whiskey; I like neither the taste nor the smell. I have this bottle because my mother gave it to me sometime before she died and I’ve kept it as a keepsake, a remembrance of her, and I have a difficult time parting with things that were hers. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Well, my sister saw the bottle and asked me where I got it, and I told her that it had been Mom’s, that Mom had given it to me, and that I believe that Dad had bought it before he died. Dad died in 1966, so if he had bought it, and it was 15 years old then - as the label on the bottle says - then that bottle of Scotch would be nearly 70 years old.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">And while I don’t like or drink Scotch, my understanding is that it gets better, and perhaps more valuable, with age. At least that’s the story I’ve been telling myself.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> My sister smiled, and then told me that the bottle of Scotch had not come from Dad, but that it had actually been hers - she’d won it in a raffle at some bar in our hometown - and that she had given it to Mom. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">All of the sentimental value that I had attached to that keepsake, the belief that it was a direct connection to both my mom and my dad, the sense of loyalty that I had felt for keeping it for a quarter of a century, lay in tatters on the floor. The bottle of Scotch had, in mere seconds, become just another piece of clutter in my house that had, for years, handcuffed me with a sense of guilt or disloyalty to my parents at the idea of parting with it.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">When I expressed my suddenly sunken feelings about the bottle, my sister asked, “What? Because it was mine you don’t want it any more?” And I responded, “Not because it was yours - because it wasn’t Mom’s.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">It had no sentimental value to you, you won it in a raffle and then you gave it away. The sentimental value I had attached to it was based on a myth that wasn’t true. So, no, I really don’t want it.” And now, at least, I guess I have no reason to feel bad about getting rid of it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Maybe you have a story like that as well, about something you sentimentally hold on to - an object or a belief - that may or may not hold true, but that in one way or another binds you through a sense of obligation or guilt. That bottle is representative of many of those types of things I’ve misguidedly clung to in the course of my life. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Having and keeping those kinds of things somehow give us a feeling of security, of family stability, a sense of safety even, which is likely exaggerated and unrealistic, but yet there they are. Sometimes, those things we possess… actually possess us.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Father Richard Rohr speaks and writes about what he calls “the two halves of life.” The first half is that part in which we learn and grow, seek and accumulate, and where, in large part, we define the nature of our lives through our careers, education, homes, families, and the accumulation of wealth and possessions in one form or another. These are the things that help shape our safety, security, accomplishment, success, and ultimately, our self-worth.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> The second half of life, on the other hand, is when we come to realize and accept the idea that our self-worth, success, security and all those other things don’t come by what we do, what we own, where we live, what kind of car we drive or anything like that, but that they come from our identity as the beloved of God. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">And I say realization and acceptance because, for many of us, it’s easy to </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">say</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> that we accept those things in church, in our prayers, in our bible studies, with our church friends or the pastor, while at the same time we hedge our bets. President Reagan once said, when asked how we could know Russia was keeping up its side of a weapons treaty, “we’ll trust and verify.”</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Sometimes, we think about God in much the same way, we trust and we verify, or we trust and we hold out a bit, we hedge our bets.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">We say we trust God with our lips, but our lives, our actions, tell a different story. And that story holds us captive.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> In our reading today, Jesus tells his disciples not to worry about what they’re going to eat, drink, or what they’re going to wear. Worrying about those, and other things, are what people of the world do, he suggests, not people who trust in God. Strive for the kingdom, he says, and those things you need will be given to you as well, because God knows you need them. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">And then he says this, </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">“Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is God’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.</i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">”</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> And as David Lose suggests, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“This long and fairly well known passage hinges on this one verse. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">If you </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">believe this</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">, everything else falls into place.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">If not, then it becomes remarkably challenging to believe <b>any</b> of it.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> So the question this poses to us is simply this: do we believe that God desires to give us the kingdom or don’t we? If we do, then we should have no qualms about giving away those things that possess us, about being generous with those things upon which we rely for our sense of safety, security, and self-worth. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">And if we don’t believe that about God, if we don’t believe that God loves us and that our self-worth comes from our belovedness from God, and that God desires to give us what we need for our safety, security, and self-worth, then what does that say about us and about our faith? And further, why are we here?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> The Lake Institute of Faith and Giving, part of the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at IUPUI, reports that 55% of Christians say that their charitable giving is <b>largely influenced by their faith</b>. While the Bible instructs us to give a tithe, or ten percent of our income to support the work of the church, their research reveals that the average Christian gives only 2.43% of their income to the church or to church-related charities. And when broken down by denomination, United Methodists are even lower than the average, hovering at around 2% over all. So, what does that statistic say about our level of trust, of our faith in God, and of how we hedge our bets? </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">And what does it suggest about how we define or where we obtain our sense of safety, security, and self-worth?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Many of us live with what Marcia McFee calls, “the tyranny of measuring up that keeps us weighed down.” When we allow our self-worth, our self-value, to be determined by outside factors, by our possessions or our wealth, when we allow our self-esteem to be shaped by the “shoulds” that are imposed upon us by others or by the world at large, rather than by our faith in God as God’s beloved children, then we get overloaded with expectations that lead to fear, insecurity, and a sense of scarcity. If our sense of safety, security, and self-worth are based on the accumulation of <b>things</b> then we will <b>never</b> have enough - we <b>always</b> fear running out. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">And when our lives, our homes, and our hearts are cluttered with all of these perceived “security blankets” born of scarcity, we lose sight of the promise of God, as spoken through the life and teachings of Jesus, that what God most desires is to give us the kingdom, and with it, all that we truly need. God’s economy of abundance is lost on us as we hoard the trappings of the false gospels of materialism, consumerism, and exclusivism.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> So how do we create space to flourish in the ways God intends? How can we “minimalize” our possessions so that they don’t possess us? I think it begins with decluttering; decluttering our lives, decluttering our minds, and decluttering our homes. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">I recently watched an episode of the show </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Grantchester </i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">on PBS. Have you seen it? It’s a murder mystery set in 1950s England with an Anglican priest as the main character. And the contrast between life then and life now was striking -</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">there were no cell phones ringing or beeping all the time, no internet or Facebook to spend time on, very little television to watch, and very few possessions.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The simplicity of that life stood in stark contrast to my own, where an app on my phone tells me that, on average, I pick up and look at that same phone 3 times an hour and spend 2 and a half hours a day - 10% of my life -</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">looking at a screen, which is still 1 hour and 46 minutes below the national average; where even after bringing 9 cases of books from home and moving 3 more cases from my office, I still own more books than I can possibly read in my lifetime, and where I own a couple of hundred 33 rpm albums and 45 rpm records, and have for decades, even though I don’t own a working turntable on which to play them. While I spent hours and days trying to develop a healthier relationship to my stuff - and I daresay I’m likely not alone there - the characters </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Grantchester</i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">, on the other hand, focused their time and efforts on building and furthering relationships with others and with their vocations. What a contrast!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> That kind of simplicity is really appealing to me at some level, and it brings home for me our scripture reading for today, where Jesus said, <i>“Where your treasure is, your heart will be also.”</i> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">We live in a world where there are so many things clamoring for our attention that it’s easy to lose track of what’s truly important. In this text from Luke, Jesus is calling us to prioritize activities that give eternal life. Such a call to center (or re-center) our lives on God, to trust in God’s promises, might seem extremely difficult in our world, but they’re essential for our lives as Christians. Because the thing is, there are some people who do </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">not</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> have enough clothing or food or other things they need. And when we see that, we sometimes fall prey to the </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">false narrative</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> of the world; the story that seeks to tell us that there </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">is</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">not</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> enough to go around and so we should toil and worry and scheme and covet and hoard.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> But if we truly believe that God really <b>does</b> want to give us the kingdom and all good things, then a worldview of scarcity evaporates, replaced by a sense of abundance. (or at least, of “enoughness.”) </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Trusting God’s provision, not only do we discover that we have enough for ourselves but also see that we are equipped and able to share with others. Hunger in the world, for example, is not a problem of scarcity - there is more than enough food to feed everyone on the planet - it’s a problem of distribution, of waste, and of some storing up while others go without. Most of us, I would venture, have more food stocked in our cabinets right now than over a billion people on this planet will consume in the next year - maybe even two.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Trusting in God’s provision, we realize that the reason that some do not have their basic needs met is, it turns out, not that there is not enough, but that too many of us, dominated by a sense of scarcity, don’t share what we have.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Trusting God’s provision, we recognize that worry really is a waste of time. Not only does it not add an hour to our life as Jesus correctly points out, but – as recent medical research shows – it actually decreases both the length and quality of our lives. When trust replaces worry, we in turn discover all kinds of time and energy to devote to building relationships and serving others.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Shifting from a scarcity outlook to one of abundance takes time. We’ve been fed, and have believed the lie of scarcity that our culture preaches for so long that we may find it hard to believe that it’s <b>not</b> true. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">At these times, remembering and repeating Jesus’ warning about our hearts and our treasure may help, but so also will practicing abundance by sharing a little more of what we have with others. Generosity and trust are like muscles, and by exercising them we grow in these traits.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">Typically in Scripture, the words "Do not be afraid," are the prelude to an announcement of God's mighty and saving deeds and is the starting point and anchor for everything else in the passage. It is God's good pleasure - God's intention, plan, and delight - to give you the kingdom! If this is true, and I believe it is, then disciples can, indeed, resist the seduction of the pursuit of wealth, not fall prey to constant anxiety about worldly needs, share what they have with others, and wait expectantly, even eagerly, for the coming of the Son of Man.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> The point of charitable giving is not to elevate poverty, but rather to extol generosity as a mark of the Christian life. What Jesus is commending is faith - faith that frees us to be generous; faith that enables us to leave anxiety behind; faith that creates in us confidence about a future secured not by human effort or achievement but by God alone.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Jesus, however, doesn’t simply hold out faith as a model and goal, and certainly not as a standard by which to judge us. Rather, Jesus <i>creates</i> faith by announcing a promise: Like a parent loves her children deeply and desperately and wants all good things for them, so also is it God's good pleasure to give God's children the fruits of the kingdom. Some have put it this way: Think of the most loving person you’ve ever known in your entire life, and know that their love pales in comparison to God’s love for you. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Promises create a shared expectation about the future and binds together the giver and receiver of the promise in that shared anticipation. Promises create relationship. Promises create hope. Promises create faith. All of our instruction about the Christian life - whether about prayer, money, watchfulness, love of neighbor, and more - are anchored in the gospel promise that it is, indeed, God's good pleasure to give us the kingdom.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">And so anchored by the promise that God wants to give us all good things, we can hear Jesus’ commands and injunctions differently. God wants us not to be weighed down by worries, to keep our priorities straight, to not be consumed by greed or love of those things that do not bring real happiness. Rather, God wants us to have and enjoy and share the abundant life that comes from authentic community and right relationship with God and with each other.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> As for being on the lookout, being ready for the coming kingdom, Jesus isn’t trying to scare us, he just doesn't want us to miss when God comes in ways that might <b>surprise</b> us, that are <b>different</b> from what we might have expected -- in generosity instead of in accumulation, in building community instead of looking out for ourselves, in vulnerability and relationship rather than in strength. It's easy to miss the God who comes in love and grace, you see, when the story we tell ourselves or that the world tells us, is to expect law and punishment.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> But even when we recognize that God's gracious motivation changes the way we hear these commands, we have to admit that they're still hard to keep. Why? </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Maybe it's because so much of the rest of our lives are filled by demands both great and small: like the demand to accumulate more and more in order to appease a false sense of security. Or the demand to prove our worth day in and day out. Or the demand to worry about innumerable things because we’ve been convinced that we’re always at risk. In this kind of climate, it's hard to trust God's promises and give over our worries and live more fully and generously.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> The bottom line is, we all choose to trust in something. We can either trust the promises of the God who created us, who knows the number of hairs on our heads, and who loves us enough to come and be one with us, to live our life, to face our fears, and to die our deaths, or we can trust the promises of those of the world who sow fear and death and mistrust as false gods. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">We can let go of the things and the ideas that darken our days, clutter our heads, our hearts, and our homes and scream a story of scarcity at us, or we can live lightly and embrace the God who embraces us in love and generosity and share God’s message of overflowing abundance, love, and hope. If we can have the faith to trust in the promises of the God of Jesus Christ, then we have no need to worry, no need to fear, because that God desires to give us all that we need. What more could we ask? Amen.</span></div>
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Crossroads UMChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01395756504990704649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6906807844502326707.post-5040853798388584222019-03-24T13:33:00.006-07:002019-03-24T13:33:58.293-07:003-24-19 “Tuning In”<iframe allowfullscreen="true" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="315" scrolling="no" src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fjay.anderson.566148%2Fvideos%2F10156831540836539%2F&show_text=0&width=560" style="border: none; overflow: hidden;" width="560"></iframe>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">3-24-19 Sermon “Tuning In”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> I had a small, battery-powered, pocket-sized, gray Radio Shack AM/FM transistor radio when I was kid, </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">and it came with an ear plug - how cool was that?</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">And in those days everything you wanted to listen to was on the AM side of the dial; FM was a dark, broodingly mysterious place that played deep dark cuts of guitar and synthesizer-heavy music called “hard rock” that only hippies listened to. Everybody else listened to AM and its over-caffeinated jabbering DJs who perfectly timed their patter over top of the intros to the latest Top 40 Hits to end just as the song’s vocals began.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Our local radio station in Madison, WORX, was what might be called an adult-contemporary station I guess. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">During the day they broadcast news on the half hour, had a daily farm report, Paul Harvey’s commentary, and music by Dean Martin, Doris Day, Frank Sinatra and the like.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">At night they moved to less news and more contemporary soft rock and pop music.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">My mom listened to WORX - I didn’t.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Like most of the other really “cool,” non-parent types,</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I listened to a station out of Louisville, KY, WAKY - wacky radio - with DJs like Bill Bailey in the Morning, the Weird Beard, and Gary Burbank. They played a mix of Top 40 hits, oldies - which back then were almost exclusively from the 1950s - and did funny comedy bits, keeping listeners glued to the station. I was glued. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Except, that is, at night. At night, when I could find a strong enough signal, I could listen to the New York Yankees broadcast on WABC out of New York - that is, if the weather was good, the cloud cover was just right, and I was in the perfect location or holding the radio in the correct position. Tuning in to the AM signal from New York was only possible at night, when the signal would “bounce” from the far away from the New York metro area. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">There were times I had to sit in my closet, or go outside, or even sit on the roof of my house in order to pick up the game. And even then, I had to hold the radio just right and listen very intently, focused on what the Yankees play-by-play announcer was saying. When I was older and could drive, I would sometimes pull to the side of the road if I was able to tune in to the game on the car radio, because I knew I might lose the signal if I kept driving.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Tuning in to stations from New York or other faraway places was a way of connecting to something bigger than myself, bigger than my world as I knew it then, in community, if you will, with thousands and thousands of people I didn’t know from places I’d never been, but with whom I had something in common. Tuning in meant connecting. And like listening to those bounced radio waves from the roof of my house, it meant focusing very intently. There could be no distractions, nothing else going on, or I might inadvertently move the radio and lose the signal, or I would chance falling off the roof. Paying close attention - being fully present to what I was trying to do - was vital to a successful and clear connection.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> In our story today, Jesus has just begun his journey to Jerusalem when he comes to the town where two sisters, Mary and Martha, live and they invite him into their home. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The writer Luke tells us that Martha was very busy and distracted, but that Mary sat attentively at Jesus’ feet to listen to him teach. Now, I don’t know about you, but as I shared at Dinner with Friends last week, I used to struggle to keep Mary and Martha straight - which was the busy one and which the mindful one.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">At some point it, though, it dawned on me: Martha was busy in the kitchen, like Martha Stewart would be, and Mary paid close attention to Jesus, just like his mother Mary would do. From then on I never got them confused again.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> There’s more to this simple five verse story than meets the eye. Luke provides a narrative here that is reflective of ancient Mediterranean customs around hospitality and inhospitality. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">At the same time he challenges some stereotypes about the “proper” role of women, and also suggests that Jesus is not </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">always</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> a very polite or kind houseguest.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">So let’s look at each of these ideas a little more closely.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> The travel narratives in Luke begin late in chapter 9, following Jesus’ transfiguration and the feeding of the five thousand. It is then that Jesus sets his sights on Jerusalem, displaying a sense of urgency that he pushes onto his disciples and other followers as well. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Sending out seventy to do ministry, he instructs them to take nothing with them and to not waste time in a city or home that isn’t receptive. When two other people engage with Jesus and he invites them to follow him, they agree but say they have other things they need to take care of first, including burying a recently deceased father.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Jesus rebukes them for these distractions, for putting earthly things - like burying the dead and family - ahead of kingdom priorities. Jesus has a laser-like focus on the work ahead and expects the same of those around him.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> And then immediately before today’s passage is the well-known story of the Good Samaritan, in which Jesus presents to his followers the expectation of a level of hospitality and love that greatly exceeds what many were willing to provide. The radical hospitality provided by the hated Samaritan for a man beaten, robbed, and left for dead along the road - who was previously ignored by two religious people - is lifted up by Jesus as the model of love of neighbor expected within God’s reign. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">It is in this context, in the midst of Jesus’ strong-willed, laser-focused, expectation-busting determination that our story unfolds.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> When Jesus’ entourage arrives at Martha and Mary’s house, Martha extends the customary hospitality to a stranger that their society and culture calls for and expects. She does what one does when encountering a stranger or a traveler; she invites them in and provides for their needs. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">Hosts were expected to give food, shelter, amenities, and protection to traveling strangers, who, as the story of Abraham in Genesis reminds us, sometimes turned out to be gods or angels in disguise. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> So to look at this section of Luke more broadly, this series of stories portrays a broader Christian social ethic of hospitality and care for others, both those who are like us and those unlike us. For those within our community, Luke says, our responsibilities for care and hospitality are limitless - there is <b>nothing</b> that we are not called to do or provide, if possible, for the believer in need. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">For those unlike us in faith, nationality, ethnicity, or any other differentiating characteristic, or those in immediate crisis, we are called to provide Christian hospitality to the greatest degree that we are able. So Christians, as followers of Jesus, are called to extend hospitality both as hosts and guests, and to believers and non-believer alike. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">And this hospitality calls us to a level of personal and intimate engagement that a mere </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"><i>tolerance</i></b><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">for the “other” does not. We are </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">not </i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">called to simply “tolerate” or “endure” those not like us; rather the ancient “Christian virtue” of hospitality demands that we engage and interact with the Other, whether we are guest or host.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">So in our story today, Martha, we come to understand, is between the proverbial rock and a hard place - finding it difficult to both serve and provide hospitality AND engage directly with her guest.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Mary, on the other hand, is credited with having “chosen the better part,” by sitting at Jesus’ feet and listening to him teach. While Martha has assumed the expected role of host when Jesus arrives, Mary asserts herself into a role not normally given to or shared by women in this period: that of disciple. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Mary is seated at the feet of Jesus, tuned in and having assumed a position of learning and devotion, on par with Peter, John, James and the Twelve. So, the key to understanding this passage comes down to what Jesus means by </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white;">the “one thing.” The “one thing” in Jesus’ logic is the “best part” which Mary has chosen. And what is that? </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white;">According to Jesus, </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">hearing</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white;"> the word of God’s messenger is the one thing needed, </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"><i>not</i></b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white;"> providing for his physical needs.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white;">However important hospitality is in Luke as a broad social context for the spread of the Christian message, he says it’s even more important for followers to </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white;">tune in </b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white;">to, be present to, be mindful of Jesus’ </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white;">message and messengers</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white;">.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> So, Jesus’ response to Martha, while seemingly harsh to us, is less a condemnation of her frenzied activity and more a <b>commendation</b> of Mary’s posture as a disciple. Jesus’ repetition of her name, “Martha, Martha,” is a rhetorical device used to indicate compassion or pity, making it difficult to imagine that Luke’s audience understood Jesus’ praise of Mary to be an<b> implicit</b> criticism of Martha’s hospitality, even as we know that Jesus had the <b>capacity</b> to level such criticism. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">We see this in the story of Simon the Pharisee, who, when he fails to follow proper hospitality protocols (Lk. 7:36-50), is called out and publicly rebuked by Jesus. That suggests that another approach to this text would be to focus on the presence of Jesus as both guest and host. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Jesus is frequently a guest in someone’s home - the recipient of hospitality. And sometimes even he doesn’t always exhibit good manners. As a dinner guest, he criticizes his host and other guests in three other places in Luke’s gospel. (5:29ff; 7:36ff; 14:1,7ff). </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">When his host is a Pharisee, we don’t notice his criticism so much, or if we do, we justify it because, well, he’s Jesus and they’re Pharisees. His criticism of Martha, though, gets our attention, it makes us a little bit uncomfortable, even offends us. She’s trying to fix him a meal, after all, she’s trying to be a good host.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The narrative doesn’t distinguish between hosts, though.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Whether Jesus is the guest of a Pharisee or Martha, he has dual roles as both a guest as well as host to those who have come to be with </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">him</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">, to be in </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">his</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> presence. Jesus' presence points to the coming of God's realm and the </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">reordering</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> of what is customary and expected. Martha does the right thing, she does what is customary and expected of her as a host, yet misses the presence of Jesus and the good news he represents.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Mary risks the contempt of her sister, and perhaps that of the gathered disciples, in order to be fully in the presence of the guest, to tune in to what he is saying to all of those gathered. This brief encounter within Luke’s gospel purposely disrupts expectations and disturbs our sense of propriety. But as is sometimes the case, we get too comfortable with our ideas of a Jesus “meek and mild,” forgetting that Jesus is said to have come to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Theologian and scholar Elisabeth Johnson suggests,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> “The problem with Martha is not that she is busy serving and providing hospitality…but rather that she is worried and distracted. The word translated “distracted” in verse 40, <i>periespato,</i> has the connotation of being pulled or dragged in different directions.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> “Martha’s distraction and worry leave no room for the most important aspect of hospitality -- <b>gracious attention to the guest.</b> In fact, she breaks all the rules of hospitality by trying to embarrass her sister in front of her guest, and by asking her guest to intervene in a family dispute. She even goes so far as to <b>accuse Jesus</b> of not caring about <b>her</b>. Martha’s worry and distraction prevent her from being truly present with Jesus, and cause her to drive a wedge between her sister and herself, and between Jesus and herself. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">She has missed out on the “one thing needed” for true hospitality. There is no greater hospitality than listening to your guest. How much more so when the guest is Jesus! So Jesus says that Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> “Jesus’ words to Martha may be seen as an invitation rather than a rebuke. <i>Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing.</i> </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> "The one thing needed is for Martha to receive the gracious presence of Jesus, to listen to his words, to know that she is valued not for what she does or how well she does it, but for who she is as a child of God.”</span><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> It is in Christ’s gentle reminder to Martha (and to us), that Mary’s is the better part that we are both invited and encouraged to set aside regular time to “tune in” to God and to “tune out” the worries and distractions. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Actions, even acts of Christian charity and hospitality, if they are to be sincere, if they are to be sustainable, if they are to bear “withness” to our faith in the ever-present God through Jesus Christ - always, always follow being; that is, what we do flows naturally from who we are. Who we are has already been decided for us: we are beloved children of God.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">How</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> we are as the beloved of God is determined by how “tuned in” we are to God and God’s presence in our lives.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> In the 1960s, psychologist Timothy Leary and LSD advocate is famously quoted as saying we should all, “Turn On, Tune In, and Drop Out.” That is actually a ridiculously abbreviated and out of context representation of what he really said. And understanding that he was advocating for the large-scale use of LSD - something that I would never support - what <b>he</b> saw as the benefit of that is, ironically, in tune with what we’re talking about today. So here’s what Leary actually said, and I invite you, if you can, to set aside the drug context in which this was first heard, and listen, if you will, through the lens of what our message suggests today. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Timothy Leary actually said:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>“TURN ON to contact the ancient energies and wisdoms that are built into your nervous system. They provide unspeakable pleasure and revelation.”</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> My take on that is that in our context we might think of those “ancient energies and wisdoms built into our nervous system” as that seed of God that is planted within each of us, that make us one with God in Creation. We should turn on to, be aware of the fact that we are one with God as beloved children of God.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Then Leary said, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“<i>TUNE IN to harness and communicate these new perspectives in a harmonious dance with the external world.”</i> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> To me this suggests that once we’re aware of <b>who</b> we are in God, we can tune in to what that means for <b>how</b> we live together in unity with others in the world, whether they’re like us or not.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And finally, Leary suggested we should: </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>DROP OUT. Detach yourself from the tribal game. Current models of social adjustment - mechanized, computerized, socialized, intellectualized, televised, sanforized - make no sense to the new… generation who see[s] clearly that…society is becoming an air-conditioned anthill.” </i>(i.e. on-going busyness)</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i> </i>This sounds similar to Jesus’ admonition to be “in the world, but not OF the world.” We’re to detach ourselves from how the <b>world</b> tells us to be, what the world tells us is important, so that we can attach ourselves to God’s reign, God’s vision for the world, which is love.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Henri Nouwen, the late Roman Catholic theologian and psychologist, reminds us that an apple seed grows into a tree and produces apples. Likewise, a pear seed grows and begets pear. The seed of God planted within us, if fed and watered, if connected to a source of light and nutrition, grows to produce within us something of the fruit of God. It is because of that of God which is planted within us, that we are called to strive to cultivate a deep connection with Jesus, to both tune in to and to live out his teachings about love of God and love of neighbor; because that is who we are in God. We actively work to feed and care for our neighbors as a sign of our love for God, and because God’s seed of radical hospitality grows within us and within this place. Tuning in to that, cultivating that, living into that, Jesus tells us, is the “one thing,” the better part. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Amen.</span></div>
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Crossroads UMChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01395756504990704649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6906807844502326707.post-85416291092427982132019-03-17T11:42:00.003-07:002019-03-17T11:42:45.586-07:003-17-19 “Preparing A Table”<iframe allowfullscreen="true" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="315" scrolling="no" src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fjay.anderson.566148%2Fvideos%2F10156816758771539%2F&show_text=0&width=560" style="border: none; overflow: hidden;" width="560"></iframe><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">3-17-19 Sermon “Preparing A Table”</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> One of my earliest memories of the kitchen in the house I grew up in was that it included a large, round, dark-stained oak table on a wood pedestal. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I don’t remember how many chairs were around it, but I remember that it could expand with a leaf, but that the only time that was ever used was when we had guests. Otherwise, it was a circle. And I remember that so well because the first time I sprained my ankle as a kid was while chasing my sister - or was she chasing me? - around that table, round and round, when I tripped - I blame it on her - and I fell and sprained my ankle. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I said it was an early memory - not necessarily a pleasant one.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> As a kid it was common for one of us to have a friend over for dinner, or to be invited to a friend’s house for dinner. At least once a week I would be invited for dinner to either my friend Mike’s or my friend Steve’s house. And likewise, one of them was at my house for dinner about as often. It was the same with my younger sister and her friends - although she didn’t eat away nearly as often as I hoped she would!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> And there were other guests as well. Friends of my parents, friends from church, the pastor and his wife and kids - it was not uncommon for some combination of those folks to be at dinner with us at least once a week. And often, we had fried chicken. That was one of Mom’s go-to meals. I had a lot of fried chicken as a kid. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">So much in fact, that after I left home, I went years without eating it because I needed a break.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> And with Mom’s fried chicken there had to mashed potatoes too, and while Mom made pretty good fried chicken, her mashed potatoes were, well…</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">They used to be really good, but at some point she stopped making them from real potatoes and starting using those flakes in the box stuff. From then on her potatoes were either the consistency of spackle or runny enough they could be consumed through a straw. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">There really was no middle ground with them.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">So, if I was going to invite a friend for dinner, it was always good to find out what was on the menu first.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> So, all of that dinner talk aside, while it would be easy to preach an entire series on the 23rd Psalm, spending one week on each phrase, our focus today is primarily on the one line:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i> You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Now, this is not a Holy Communion reference, although it could be used that way, even if it is a pre-Jesus, </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">pre-Last Supper Old Testament passage.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And it’s not an invitation to the potluck next Sunday, although it could be that as well. No, the Psalmist - presumably David in this case - makes a larger point that is less about us and more about who and how God is. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> The structure of the psalm is interesting as well. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">David begins by speaking about God in the third person. “The Lord..” does this, “he” does that, and so forth.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">But then in the middle, in the line at the very center of the psalm, “Even though I walk through the darkest valley,” (or the “valley of the shadow of death” if you prefer the King James version) the voice changes as David transitions to second person, saying, “</span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">you</i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> are with me,” “You” do this and “You” do that.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">David moves from talking about God in the first part to talking to God in the second. One commentator points out that in the original Hebrew, the word “with” is exactly in the middle of this psalm, the same number of words before as after the word “with.” God is </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">with</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> David.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">God is </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">with</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> us. God’s </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">“withness,”</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> this suggests, is not only at the center of the psalm, but is at the center of who and how God is with us. For David, it’s as though in the middle of this song, God moves from holding a place in David’s head to a dwelling place in his heart.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> In the midst of our often self-imposed busyness, as we face the myriad things we feel compelled to get done - all the things to do, places to go, people to see - this psalm reminds us that the unhurried God is with us whether we realize it or not, in the good times and in the bad, at the very heart or center of our lives. And that that has <b>always</b> been the case, from the beginning.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> God first revealed God’s self to be present with us, to be immanent, in the Creation. The <b>Spirit</b> of God, Genesis tells us, hovered over the waters even before God spoke creation into being. God created everything out of nothing; nothing, that is, except for God’s presence in that hovering Spirit. The God who was present in the primordial waters before Creation is the same God who is present at all times and in all things, all places and all peoples now; the panentheistic God who God is present everywhere and in everything, including in each and every one of us. God <b>is</b> present; God has never<b> NOT</b> been present with us. But because, in part, we either lost track of that, forgot about it, don’t trust it, or don’t want to believe that God is present in people who are different from us, God came to be one with us in Jesus Christ, </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">called </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Emmanuel</i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> in the scripture passages that foretold this human incarnation.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">We remember that Emmanuel literally means “God with us.” God couldn’t have made the Holy presence any clearer if God had tattooed it on our body.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">But, do we experience God’s presence primarily in our head, or in our hearts? That’s the question, isn’t it?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> This “withness” of God doesn’t mean, though, that our lives will not have their problems, that there won’t be dark valleys that we must journey through. What it means though, is that whether as individuals, as a church, as a community, nation, or world, we don’t travel life’s hills and valleys alone. We do face challenges - every day. For some the challenges are existential; how will I get by today, where will I find food or medicine or shelter today, how will I live through this day. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">For others, while perhaps not as dramatic, the challenges are nevertheless just as real:</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">How will I get to this doctor’s appointment?</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Where will I get the money for my rent, or utilities, or medicine? How will I get my addiction under control, or that of my child? The challenges are real, even as they vary from person to person, from day to day.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> And then we encounter this <i>“You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies”</i> line and wonder what we’re to make of that. The Twenty-third Psalm can provide great comfort as we imagine those green pastures and still waters, as we consider a life in which God restores our soul and in which we no longer want for anything. But it also recalls those dark valleys that we’d just as soon avoid or forget, and that maybe even make us doubt or deny the existence of those promised green pastures. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">And on top of that, and even more challenging, it calls us to the not-so-easy practice of sitting down at the table with our enemies.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Now, when I hear the word “enemies” my first thought is usually tied to Batman and his arch-enemy “The Joker,” or some other comic book superhero, who almost always has an “arch enemy” of some kind. I guess, in the midst of a sea of enemies, the archenemy is the principle enemy, the main foe. What kind of challenges must one face, existential or otherwise, what kind of world-view, that makes one think of other beloved children of God as “the enemy.” I can’t think of a single person I would consider an enemy. Now, there are people I don’t agree with. And there are people I don’t really like so much, but enemies?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Nevertheless, regardless of the labels we attach to those who look, speak, pray, love, or vote differently than us - our “thems,” our enemies if you will - the unhurried God of Creation who is present with US in the good times AND in the difficult times, is just as present with THEM, and not inly invites us, but challenges us to be radically present to each other in the same way God is present with us. As much as we might like, we simply can’t just gloss over this line of the psalm. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">“You prepare a table for me in the presence of my enemies” deserves some thought. From a Christian perspective, Christ’s table is the place where reconciliation begins and ends. It is where we are invited to share in the body of Christ which <b>is</b> all of Creation. The gospel writer Luke quotes Jesus as saying that when you have a dinner party, don’t invite those who can invite you in return (Luke 14) - invite those who can’t, or won’t. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #222222;">When all that he has worked for seems on the brink of falling apart during his final night, Jesus breaks bread with his disciples - the faithful, the denier, and the betrayer. He models for us that we, too, are to make peace at the table, not just with our friends and pals, but with those with whom relationships are broken or even nonexistent.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> You see, it’s when we’re willing to break bread at Christ’s table, or any table, with our enemies - those we would consider as “them” or “those people;” and we all know who that is for us - that we truly experience the “withness” of God’s love that is offered to us and the Kingdom of Heaven that Jesus invites us into, will be more than a mere hope, it will be an overflowing cup.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Let’s conclude by reciting together the Psalm - it’s printed in your worship folders:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for his name's sake. Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long. (Ps 23, CEB)</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Amen.</span></div>
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Crossroads UMChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01395756504990704649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6906807844502326707.post-4505461070099760292019-03-10T13:40:00.004-07:002019-03-10T13:40:38.497-07:003-10-19 - “The Right Tempo”<iframe allowfullscreen="true" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="315" scrolling="no" src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fjay.anderson.566148%2Fvideos%2F10156803468076539%2F&show_text=0&width=560" style="border: none; overflow: hidden;" width="560"></iframe><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">3-10-19 Sermon - “The Right Tempo”</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> I think we all have times when we feel, as Jesus describes in this passage, that we are “weary and carrying heavy burdens.” Sometimes that comes from being busy and just having a lot of things to do or to deal with in a certain space of time, and other times it comes more from the nature of what we have to do, the heaviness of our task, more than the quantity of tasks. This week, coming off of renewal leave, was a <b>busy</b> week in the sense that there were many calls to make, several people to visit, lots of things on my desk to catch up on, a few appointments, and two worship services and messages to prepare. So there was a quantity of things to be done, but nothing that I would call “heavy” or “burdensome.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Now, had someone died this week, within our church family or among my family or friends, had there been some kind of tragedy that occurred like a disaster, a terror attack, a car that drove through our church building, that likely would have made this week “heavy.” Something like that not only brings with it worry, pain, and grief, it comes bearing an added weight, a heaviness that is simply laid over the top of <b>everything else</b> that is already going on. We feel that weight in our bodies, in our minds, and in our souls. And we need support, we need help to bear that kind of burden, or it can break us.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> In the passages leading up to our reading today, Matthew is attempting to help us understand Jesus within the larger Wisdom tradition of Judaism. And God’s Wisdom, in scripture, is almost always referred to as feminine, <i>her</i> or <i>she</i> - to which the women present knowingly nod, thinking, well <i>of course she is. </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">In fact, the words Jesus speaks in our reading is taken from the Wisdom Writings of Sirach, that we find, not in our Hebrew Bible or Old Testament texts, but in the section called the Apocrypha, which most Protestant Bibles don’t include unless it’s a study bible. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">In Sirach 51:26, also sometimes called </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Ecclesiasticus, </i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">not to be confused with the Old Testament book </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Ecclesiastes, </i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">the writer says,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i> “Put your neck under her (Wisdom’s) yoke, and let your souls receive instruction; it is to be found close by.”</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> So Jesus is speaking to his listeners here, quoting from a Wisdom tradition that is largely lost on modern readers, while using an agricultural metaphor that, in this age of industrialized farming with multi-million dollar equipment harvesting more in a day than a farmer in Jesus’ time would have reaped in their entire life, is also largely lost on us. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">It’s easy for us to gloss over this passage as so many nice thoughts, or to respond cynically, “yeah, right!” and move on.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> But before we write this passage off as another pretty little saying to embroider onto a throw pillow or wall hanging, let’s explore what Jesus is trying to tell us here. And to do that it helps to understand exactly what the purpose of a yoke is. We often think of a yoke as something that confines us, a tool for labor that restricts us in our movement, our direction. But the purpose of the yoke was actually to train, to teach an inexperienced animal how to do the work of the farm by pairing it, yoking it, to a more experienced beast. By teaming the inexperienced, neophyte beast of burden with the more seasoned partner, the younger could learn how best to bear the weight of the plow together rather than trying to do the work alone - they would bear the burden alongside one another.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Now, let’s make one thing clear in this image - the use of the word “easy” is a mistranslation. The passage talks about burdens, and by definition burdens are not “easy.” The better translation of that word here, as corrected in various commentaries, is “kind,” “good,” “useful,” or “well-fitting.” As Karoline Lewis offers,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> “To believe in Jesus is not escapism from burdens or struggles or the events in our lives that cause the kind of weariness that might strip us of our very souls. To be a disciple is to be yoked to Jesus.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> “We are yoked to Jesus, whose yoke is kind, good, useful [or well-fitting]. Yes, it is still a symbol of burden, oppression, and hardship. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">But we can’t forget <b>who</b> is pulling the burden with us, with his head through the other oxbow.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">With that truth in mind, I think this text says more than: you are not alone in your suffering.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Although that is also true about this passage, nevertheless I think there is a promise that the load really will feel lighter. True, you are not alone.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">And therefore whatever burden you bear, you do not </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"><i>bear</i></b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> it alone. There’s the difference.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">There’s the good news -- realistic, good news we might actually experience."</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> (Karoline Lewis, <a href="http://workingpreacher.org/"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">workingpreacher.org</span></a><i>)</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i> </i>So as we consider this passage in our <i>Busy </i>series, we find that each of us has a tempo that fits well for us, that energizes us, and other tempos that are burdensome. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">We want to explore what tempo gives us life and energy? What tempo feels toxic to us? And what is the cost of not living at a healthy, energizing, and life-giving tempo?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> When Matthew has Jesus quoting Sirach about being yoked to God’s Wisdom, he is yoking the ancient Judaic Wisdom tradition to Matthew’s concept of the Kingdom of Heaven; being in the Kingdom of Heaven is living in, yoking ourselves to the Wisdom of God, which we see in the person of Jesus. The Gospel writer John attempts the same thing but comes at it from a different angle, when he writes, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.”</i> And later, <i>“The Word became flesh.”</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> To John, the Word, the <i>logos </i>of God, is the Wisdom of God yoked to, as Richard Rohr translates it, the “blueprint” of God - God’s “plan,” if you will. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Matthew approaches this from the perspective of traditional Judaism while John’s approach is from what would later become known as a “trinitarian” point of view. Either way, I think we can see that they are suggesting the same idea.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> As followers of Jesus, we willingly “yoke” ourselves to Jesus as Wisdom, as God’s incarnate/enfleshed blueprint for the world - the Kingdom of Heaven, as Matthew refers to it. So what does that mean? It’s not a yoke of simple mental agreement with ideas or doctrines “about” Jesus - it’s not THAT easy. It’s a yoke of cohabitation, if you will. It’s a yoke of partnership, of going in the same direction or the same way, doing the things Jesus explicitly instructs because that’s where the “more experienced” one with which we are yoked in the team is leading us. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Theologian Lois Malcolm puts it this way,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“As we take on Jesus’ yoke, we not only become more fully united with Jesus, God’s tangible Wisdom in and for our lives; we also enter more fully in to the intimacy Jesus had with the one he called Father. In this way, Jesus truly is God’s Wisdom for all of us, whose yoke embodies a new way of being in the world, not as a set of standards [or rules] we need to live up to, [or a new set of ideals], but rather as God’s incarnate… presence within our lives.” (FOTG - Matthew I, page 300)</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> In the season of Lent we often think of “giving up” something that we enjoy - chocolate, desserts or the like - in order to “deny ourselves” and somehow let that denial move us closer to God. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">And that’s not a bad thing, IF that giving up us does in fact, bring us closer to or more in alignment with God, or helps us live life at a more life-giving tempo. Sometimes, as counter-intuitive as it might seem - in order to get the right tempo, we have to take on something that was missing in our life. Not in order to add more busyness, not so as to burden ourselves in a heavy and cumbersome kind of way, but so that we might share the yoke of that burden with the one who knows our life, who knows our pain, and who willingly comes alongside to bear our burdens with us.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Shelley Best reminds us that,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“Jesus knows our yoke. Through him, we learn how to do our own work - and of the rest that comes when we work with him. Through faith, we are partnered with Jesus and taught how to balance and maneuver what is at hand, with the help of one who is more seasoned in the tasks associated with living. At first, the appeal to take on something more (like spending time in prayer or Bible study or other spiritual disciplines) in order to walk closer to Jesus seems impossible - or at least a step in the wrong direction. Jesus promises that by walking closer to him, our encumbrances will be lessened and we will find repose in the midst of what would otherwise be an onerous and lonely journey.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> So perhaps the most restful, the most life-giving and burden-sharing thing we can do is to yoke ourselves more closely with Jesus. That is the invitation of this series, that is the hope of spending time daily in our “prayer chair.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">That is the relief offered by physically writing down the things we can no longer control - the things that bring us stress, and anger, and pain, and literally handing them over to God by placing them in your own “God box.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> In this brief passage that we explored today, “Jesus pairs ‘yoke’ and ‘rest’ - one conjures an image of oxen bound for work and the other invites us into a state of peace for one’s soul. Perhaps we are being challenged to consider that the most fruitful and productive of all labors is precisely that which brings our souls closest to God.” (Erick Olsen, FOTG, page 300)</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>“Come to me all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens and I will give you rest,” </i>Jesus invites.<i> “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is [well-fitting,] and my burden is light.” </i>Amen.</span></div>
Crossroads UMChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01395756504990704649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6906807844502326707.post-77705110075661581062019-03-10T13:37:00.004-07:002019-03-10T13:37:29.468-07:003-6-19 Ash Wednesday - "Busy"<iframe allowfullscreen="true" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="315" scrolling="no" src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fjay.anderson.566148%2Fvideos%2F10156795218171539%2F&show_text=0&width=560" style="border: none; overflow: hidden;" width="560"></iframe>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">3-6-19 Ash Wednesday Sermon</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><span style="font-kerning: none;">So in hearing this passage from Matthew, we should be clear that Matthew is NOT being critical of public worship or public displays of faith. There are times when public prayers, public worship, public acts of faith are not only acceptable, but expected. No, what Matthew is talking about here is not the act, but the intent. He’s not talking about what we do so much as for whom do we do it - who’s our intended audience.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> I heard and shared a story some time ago, and at this point I forget who it was who told me the story except that it was a clergy colleague and it had happened in his church, about a man who made a great show each week about making his offering. When it came time to receive the offering, the man - who sat near the front of the sanctuary each week - waited until the offering plate was coming down his row before he very deliberately removed his checkbook from his jacket pocket, opened the checkbook, took a pen from his pocket, wrote out a check, put the pen back in his pocket, carefully removed the check from the checkbook, replaced the checkbook in his pocket, removed an envelope from the pew, neatly folded the check in half, slipped it into the envelope, licked and sealed the enveloped, and then placed it into the offering plate that the person next to him had been holding for nearly a minute at this point. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> And, according to my colleague, it wasn’t like the guy was writing particularly large checks to the church, he was not a BIG giver in the church. But he made a big show ABOUT his giving and the frequency of his giving. Now I ask you, do you think this display was about his relationship to God or about how he wanted to be seen by those in the church?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Matthew’s point here is not a criticism of public displays of faith - if that football player is sincerely thanking God for his athletic gifts when he scores that touchdown and points skyward in the end zone, then good for him - it’s about what is our intent in the display, and is this really who and how we are, or are we trying to portray ourselves in such a way that presents a false image or makes a false impression.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>“Be especially careful when you are trying to be good so that you don’t make a performance out of it. It might be good theater, but the God who made you won’t be applauding”</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Jesus was often critical of the Pharisees because he considered them hypocrites. The Greek root of the word “hypocrite” means “stage actor.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">So, when Jesus criticized the Pharisees for “liking to be seen in their long robes, and for taking the best seats in the synagogue,” he was neither criticizing their wearing of robes nor of their being present in worship - he was criticizing their intent, their reason for doing what they were doing. He’s not critical of worship, or prayer, or giving - he’s challenging us to make sure that our heart is in the right place when we say we’re serving God, and that we are, in fact, serving God and not our own ego.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>“Here’s what I want you to do:” Matthew says, “Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense God’s grace.”</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Sometimes in our lives, though, we just go through the motions don’t we? Sometimes we don’t always give our best effort - we, as the saying goes - “phone it in.” Sometimes that comes as a result of apathy, sometimes it’s a response born out of anger, or humiliation, or embarrassment. Sometimes the “less-than-our-best” comes from tiredness, exhaustion - physical, emotional, or even spiritual exhaustion. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> My golf game is terrible if I don’t practice or play regularly. My singing voice is uneven, scratchy, and pitchy if I don’t both warm up properly and care for my throat, watching what I eat or drink before I sing. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">My faith gets perfunctory, routine, even tired, if I don’t make the time to develop it and grow it and care for it. That’s kind of where I had gotten before I went on leave.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">My prayer had become automatic - I could recite the words of my go-to “daily prayer” while thinking about something else entirely. My scripture reading, as I shared with you, had been reduced to the purpose of sermon writing only, and not in order to grow in my faith.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">All other spiritual disciplines I had tried were done in a half-hearted way. Some weeks, if I’m totally honest, I think I was here more because I had to be than because I wanted to be. The voice of God’s calling in my life had become so drowned out, in some ways, that I could barely hear it anymore. My faith had become as tired as both my spirit and my body.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> By taking renewal leave I was able to, as Matthew wrote, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>“Find a quiet, secluded place so [I wouldn’t] be tempted to role-play before God.” </i>Or before <b>you</b> for that matter.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> That secluded place was in my home - in my bedroom or the couch when vertigo hit me on day one, and then in my basement as I literally put my hands on every book I owned there, sorting what I thought appropriate for the church library and what I needed to keep for myself. Eventually that space expanded to the newly cleared and created nook that I had made for myself there. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">There, in a comfortable chair, surrounded by my books and my music, where pictures of family and friends adorn the shelves, and where reminders of my youth, my college days, and my love of both history and golf, invite and encourage me to just be me before God. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> But the basement wasn’t the only space that I needed to clear in order to be real before God. There was some headspace that needed a purging as well. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">When I was flat on my back, or when I could only walk while holding on to something or someone, reminders of my dependency on God and on others, especially Lynn, came roaring back in the most humbling of ways. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I couldn’t read for long or everything began spinning. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I couldn’t watch TV for long for the same reason. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">If I turned my head too quickly, everything spun. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">If I moved my body too quickly, I risked falling. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">All I could do was exist for a while, and sleep, and as Matthew suggested, I could just </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">“be there as simply and honestly as [I could] manage.” </i></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And as he said, in time,<i> “The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense God’s grace.”</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> And that is what began to happen for me. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">So in this series my hope is that you will accept God’s invitation to simply be there, with God, “as simply and honestly as you can manage.” Each week we’ll look at different passages of scripture that invite or encourage us to slow down, to let go of something, to ease into a daily time of allowing ourselves to be aware of the presence of God’s grace in our lives. We have to lose the idea that our busyness somehow makes us worthy of God’s respect, or anyone’s respect for that matter. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">If you give up anything for Lent, give up that idea that God’s love, or your worth before God can be earned.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Your worth to God was established well before you were born. Regardless of how you identify yourself - father, mother, spouse, brother, sister, pastor, retiree, whatever - first and foremost you are a beloved child of God, and nobody anywhere can ever take that away from you.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Ash Wednesday begins the “40 Day” season of Lent. Lent is a period in which we are called to focus on reconnecting with the God who, while we are sometimes too busy for God, is never too busy for us. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">There are different ways to do that, but sometimes the best way is simply to sit in our prayer chair and think about it. Some people feel uncomfortable with prayer because they think there is a right way or a wrong way to do it, that if we don’t do it just right, say just the perfect words, God won’t hear us. Rest assured, if you plant your butt in the seat with the intent to talk to God, God WILL be all ears. More than anything, God wants relationship. It’s not about what you say - or even if you SAY anything at all - it’s about making yourself available, being present to God.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Whether that time is spent trying to put words to a prayer, or whether it’s just reading a brief or favorite scripture and thinking about it, whether it’s reading a poem or psalm or hymn or other inspirational writing and reflecting on how you sense God in that - you’re praying! You’re connecting! And if on the first day you only last five minutes, well great! That’s five minutes more than you spent with God the day before, right?</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Oftentimes, we get so busy doing the urgent things that we forego the important things. The urgent things are like the ringing phone, the boiling pot, or the clanging of the doorbell - they require immediate attention, even though the phone call is likely just a telemarketer and the doorbell is probably someone trying to sell you new windows for your house! They’re urgent - they scream for your attention - but they’re not important. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The time you spend reconnecting - with God, with your faith, with your family - that’s important.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Ash Wednesday reminds us, very graphically so, that our time on this earth is short - from dust we came and to dust we will return. The mark of the cross, as rough and uneven as it is when placed on our foreheads and made from the ashes of burned palm leaves, is a sign for all to see, but more importantly a sign for us to see when we look at ourselves, our true selves, in the mirror.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">This, this image, this is who we really are.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">It’s not a call to repentance in order to gain salvation for the next life - it’s a call to repent, to turn around THIS life, to go in a new direction and to live the wholehearted life that God so desires for you to live, if you’ll just spend time with God in order to figure out what that looks like for YOU at this stage in your life.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">And before you say it, or even think it, NO, you’re not too old to begin to live a new and newly connected life in God’s grace. You’re never too old, it’s never too late.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> What we have to do is described so succinctly in our scripture today.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>“Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense God’s grace.”</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> It’s not a one time event, rather, it’s a process. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Give it the time it takes, grow the time you give, open yourself to the love and grace of God in your life, and you will be the love and grace of God in the lives of others. Amen. </span></div>
Crossroads UMChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01395756504990704649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6906807844502326707.post-58970582109059753442019-03-03T11:37:00.001-08:002019-03-03T11:37:38.310-08:003-3-19 "We Are Not THAT Church!" - A Response to General Conference 2019<iframe allowfullscreen="true" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="315" scrolling="no" src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fjay.anderson.566148%2Fvideos%2F10156787695571539%2F&show_text=0&width=560" style="border: none; overflow: hidden;" width="560"></iframe><br />
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(Note - some of the content in the text version of this sermon is not found in the audio recording, as that content was shared separately in our worship service on 3-3-19. )<br /><br /><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">3-3-19 "We Are Not THAT Church!" - A Response to General Conference 2019</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">This story is told in the three synoptics gospels - Matthew, Mark, and Luke - nearly word for word, but not in exactly the same way. As I read and contemplated this passage in a lectio divina kind of way, there were some phrases and images that stood out for me. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The first was the phrase “a very high mountain.” </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">In several places in the Gospels we read that Jesus “went up a mountain,” but in Mathew the point is made that this is a “very high mountain.” So, this is not your run-of-the-mill mountain - this mountain is special. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">It’s very high. Mountains were thought to be, by the various religions commonly found in the middle east at this time, the homes of the gods - plural. So, the idea that <b>this</b> mountain was a very high mountain would have made it home to a very great god. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">I Googled, as I do, mountains in Israel, and found that the highest mountain in modern Israel’s controlled territories is Mt. Hermon, which is technically in southwestern Syria but descends into the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. Mt. Hermon peaks at a bit over 7,000 ft above sea level.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Within the boundaries of Israel, the highest peaks, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">and there are a few, are in the 3,000-4,000 ft elevation levels. Now that’s tall, but that’s not Rocky Mountain tall. Mt. Ranier, in Washington state comes in at a stately 14,410 feet tall, and Mt. Everest, arguably the highest mountain in the world tops out at 29,035 feet. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> But in learning this, I also found that mountain elevation measurements are subject to variables. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Mt. Everest is the </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">highest</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> mountain, but is not the tallest.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">For example, if the measurement is taken as an elevation above sea level, then Mt. Everest is the highest. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The height of a mountain is taken from sea level.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> But if the measurement is taken from the base of the mountain to the peak, regardless of sea level, then we’re talking about the <b>tallest mountain</b>, and that honor belongs to Mauna Kea, an inactive volcano on the island of Hawaii. Measured from it’s base under the Pacific Ocean, it extends 33,465 feet. So, if they were standing side by side, Mauna Kea would be 4,436 feet taller. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> But wait, there’s more in this theological geology lesson. The other way that mountains are measured is the distance from the mountain’s peak to the center of the earth - all the way to the core. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">And that matters because, while the earth looks like </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">a perfectly round ball or sphere, it isn’t. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The planet flattens out at the poles and bulges near the equator. So with that in mind, when measured from the center of the earth, Mount Chimborazo, a volcano in Ecuador, almost directly on the equator, actually extends two miles farther from the center of the earth than does Everest, even as Everest is over 8,500 feet higher when measured from sea level.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And all of this just goes to show that truth depends on your perspective, and there are different ways to look at things. However you look at it, though, those are some very high mountains.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> But as the saying goes, “It’s not the size of the mountain that counts…it’s what happens on the mountain.” That’s a saying, right? </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">All of the scripture passages telling this story agree that up on this very high mountain, Jesus was transformed. He was transfigured, his appearance changed, at least for a moment. How long? We don’t know - it doesn’t say. Whether it was seconds, minutes, or hours we don’t know, but we do know it was long enough for the three disciples to take notice, and at least according to Mark’s gospel, for them to become frightened. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Matthew and Luke don’t record the disciples’ fear, but Mark does. And they all say that this transformation took place in such a way that Jesus’ face “shone like the sun,” and his clothing became “bright white.”</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Now, the passage doesn’t say what caused this shining, this brightness, this light that was emanating from Jesus, but I suspect, being on this <b>very high mountain</b> and knowing that, at least according to the Exodus narrative, God liked mountains, </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">that Jesus was experiencing and reflecting the Glory of God. Remember, back in our Advent series about Silent Night, we talked about “Glories streaming from heaven afar” and made note that that passage was indicating a shining light? I think that’s what Jesus is experiencing here, what the three disciples are witnessing here - the Glory of God reflected in and emanating from Jesus!</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> And the passage tells us that in this light, in this brightness, in this illumination, the disciples could see Jesus talking with Moses and Elijah - symbolic, representatives of the Law and the Prophets, right? </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">In this light, they can see this. They didn’t see it before Jesus was transformed - Jesus didn’t tell them on the way up the mountain that they were going to meet somebody or see something special - it happens in the brightness of the light that emanates from Jesus. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">And Peter responds to this vision that they share by proclaiming, “Lord, it’s good that we’re here!”</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Say that with me, will you? </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>“Lord, it’s good that we’re here!”</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> I’ve shared with you before that at night, when I’m ready to sleep, I like it to be completely dark - totally black or as close to that as I can get. Well, at the other end of that spectrum, when I want to read I wants lots of light. Lynn can read in less than ordinary light levels, but not me. I recently replaced the 3-way bulb in the lamp next to my favorite reading spot, from a 50-100-150 watt bulb, to a 150-300-350 watt bulb! And wow! </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Can I see to read now! </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">In fact, I feel like I ought to turn every 15-20 minutes in order to avoid sunburn from this reading lamp. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">I like the bright light because it makes it easier to see the words on the page, it makes the colors in pictures pop more, it makes it easier to find things I drop on the floor. The brighter light just makes it easier to see what I otherwise might miss. The heavenly light shining on this mountain enables the disciples to see, not only the presence of Moses and Elijah, but it also allows them to see Jesus in a whole new way. It’s no wonder Peter exclaimed, “Lord, it’s good that we’re here!”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> And it’s as Peter is making this confession, that Matthew tells us that a “bright cloud overshadowed them.” Now, the other gospel writers just call it a cloud, Matthew alone describes it as a “bright” cloud. And truly, what other kind of cloud would we expect God to be in, certainly not a dark cloud. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">And a voice comes from within this cloud that surrounds and envelopes them says, “This is my son, whom I dearly love. I am very pleased with him. Listen to him!” And if those words sound familiar to you, it’s because God spoke nearly the same words at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, when he was baptized, rose up out of the water as the Holy Spirit descended on him like a dove, and a voice was heard from above saying, “This is my son whom I dearly love; I find happiness with him.” </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">And upon hearing this admonition from God for the three disciples to listen to Jesus, it says they fell on their faces to the ground in awe. The God who sent angels to announce the coming birth of the Son - saying to Mary and Joseph, to Zechariah, and to the shepherds, “Do not be afraid” - the God who was present at Jesus’ baptism and claimed him as God’s own, now returns in a bright cloud and reaffirms him. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">In front of his three most trusted disciples and again, God confirms Jesus’ worth and worthiness as a child of God and tells these most dedicated of followers to “Listen to him!”</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> “Lord, it’s good that we’re here!”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> And it is then that Jesus reaches out and touches them, his appearance having returned to normal, and he says to them, “Get up,” and “Do not be afraid.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> So my personal reflection on this scripture, my own personal lectio divina approach to this scripture lifted up these things, these images and ideas to me:</span></div>
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<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">it was a very high mountain</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">transformation took place</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">Jesus shone like the sun</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">Peter’s proclamation, “Lord, it’s good that we’re here”</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">a “bright” cloud overshadowed them</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">and Jesus told them to “Get up,” and “do not be afraid.”</span></li>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> And as I thought about these things, in the afterglow, if you want to call it that, of our United Methodist General Conference this week, there were some <b>other</b> thoughts that came to me, many of which were not fit for a sermon, but many that were. I didn’t attend conference in person, as April did, I watched a good deal of the live stream and followed along on some social media sites that tried to help explain what was going on and described some of the things that were happening in </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">the arena that were not seen on camera. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">And what we witnessed was, to say the least, not what I would call an enlightened or transformative mountain top experience.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Now, for those of you who don’t know, who haven’t been United Methodist for very long, or who just don’t get the politics or structure of the church, here’s a quick primer. The General Conference is the main body of the United Methodist Church. The UMC has no president or executive that oversees or runs the church. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">While we have Bishops - the Episcopacy - who oversee geographic areas called Annual Conferences or Central Conferences and head our various agencies - they do not make church law or church policy, that is done by the General Conference which meets every four years. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The General Conference that was held in St. Louis this last week was a <b>special</b> general conference, called specifically to deal with the single issue of human sexuality as it pertains to life in the United Methodist Church. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">It is this body of delegates, elected from the various annual conferences and central conferences around the world, who gather to write church law and polity - what we call our Book of Discipline.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Now, lest you think that the “UNITED” in United Methodist Church means that we are of one mind on everything, or anything for that matter, you should know that “United” is part of our name as a result of the merger, in 1968, of the two separate denominations that formed the UMC, the then Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren, or EUB church. But what’s in a name, right? Human sexuality has been a divisive issue in the United Methodist Church ever since 1972, four years after the church was formed, when language was inserted into the Book of Discipline by conservative delegates, stating that “Homosexuality is not compatible with Christian teaching.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> And every year in Annual Conferences around the country, and every four years in General Conferences, </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">the conservative delegates and the progressive delegates have fought over this language and its ramifications for life in the individual churches and for our clergy. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">And as we have struggled, the divide between the two sides has only grown deeper and wider. By the 2016 General Conference in Portland, OR, the chasm had grown so deep and so wide, that it threatened the survival of the entire denomination. So, in order to avoid a schism, the 2016 General Conference asked the Council of Bishops, who have no power to make church law and who do not even have a vote in General Conference, to step in and help us find a way forward as a church. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">And so they did.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> They formed what became known as the Commission on the Way Forward, made up of conservatives and liberals, men and women, gays and straights, clergy and laity, black, white and brown, from around the world, to come up with a plan to present to a specially called General Conference in 2019 - one year before the next regularly scheduled General Conference in 2020. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">That is what took place this past week.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> The Commission on the Way Forward took two years to listen, to learn, and to explore how we can move forward as a denomination with very diverse and disparate viewpoints on the subject of human sexuality in general, and the role of LGBTQ folks in ministry and the life of the church in particular. The Commission on the Way Forward brought plans to the Council of Bishops for review, and as is our polity, other groups were allowed to put forward plans to General Conference as well. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> The most progressive of the plans considered, what was called the Simple Plan, simply removed all of the language about homosexuality that had been inserted over the years since 1972. Another plan, the Connectional Conference Plan, would have kept the church together as a loose confederation of connected churches and conferences who believed different things and that would have required churches, clergy, annual conferences, and other groups to vote as to how they wanted to be connected. The most conservative plan, called the Traditional Plan, actually went the other way and doubled down on penalties for churches and clergy who allowed same-sex marriages, who performed same sex marriages, who were in fact LGBTQ, or who would not sign what amounted to “loyalty oaths.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> The plan that the Council of Bishops ultimately endorsed was called the “One Church Plan,” named as such because it allowed churches, clergy, and annual conferences to decide for themselves how they wanted to deal with issues of same sex marriage etc., while not forcing any one way of thinking or acting on anyone and maintaining our current connectional structure that makes us uniquely, the United Methodist Church. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">It allowed us to stay connected as one church, while recognizing and honoring the cultural differences that exist between not only countries, but also within regions, areas, states, and even within annual conferences and districts.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> And while the Commission on the Way Forward was doing its work in good faith, the Wesley Covenant Association, a group of ultra conservative UMC churches supporting the Traditional Plan, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">was working behind the scenes to prepare to leave the denomination if they didn’t get their way on this vote at General Conference. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">And perhaps, even if they did.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> In the end, as you have no doubt heard or read in the news, it was the conservative Traditional Plan, that was passed by the General Conference, of which 43% of the delegates come from Africa, the Philippines, and other conservative countries where homosexuality is often illegal and punishable by death. The final votes was approximately 53% in favor and 47% against. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Even with those results, however, news of the death of the United Methodist Church is, I believe, premature. Why do I say that? Well for a couple of reasons:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> First - much of the Traditional Plan, as it passed, had already been ruled as unconstitutional by the standards of our own United Methodist Constitution by our Judicial Council, the denomination’s equivalent of the Supreme Court. While some unconstitutional parts of the plan were amended during General Conference after that ruling was received, the vast majority of it was not changed. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The Judicial Council will meet in April and will review everything that was passed by General Conference, and anything that they deem to be unconstitutional will simply be cast aside and not become church law. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">We’ll know more of what that will look like in April, </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">but the expectation among many is that much of what is contained in the Traditional Plan as it passed will not, in the end, become church law, at least night right now.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Second - One of the pieces of legislation that did pass the conference was an exit plan for churches that desire to leave the denomination. As our Book of Discipline currently stands, if a church decides to leave the UMC, they’re free to go but they cannot take their building and property - those are owned in trust with the annual conferences. The exit plan that was passed would provide for a temporary lifting of this “trust clause” so that churches that no longer desired to be part of the denomination could leave and take their buildings, on the condition of payment of a certain amount of reparations, past due apportionments, and things like that. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">It is believed that that is really what the Wesley Covenant Association was after - a way to leave, either soon or after the 2020 General Conference - rather than a way to stay together as one church. We’ll see how that plays out, likely beginning after the rulings by the Judicial Council.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> So, while some things have changed, and the UMC is currently a top story in the news cycle, the story isn’t over yet. What hasn’t changed is OUR call as Crossroads United Methodist, to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world, by feeding ALL God’s children - body, mind, and soul. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">That is who WE are as the United Methodist Church. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">We are not THAT United Methodist Church, which seeks to judge others, as though our poo doesn’t stink. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">We are not the church that climbs a very high mountain, supposedly to draw closer to God, only to cast stones on those we perceive to be beneath us.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">We are a church who loves God, who loves one another, who loves our neighbors - ALL of our neighbors - because we know that ALL are beloved children of God.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“Lord, it’s good that we’re HERE!” Amen?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> We are NOT the church that seeks transformation in everyone else, seeing the speck in their eye, while blindly ignoring the log of self-denial planted firmly in our own! No, this is the church that loves its neighbors, that feeds its neighbors, that welcomes its neighbors - ALL of its neighbors, because that’s the only kind of church that reflects the body of the transformed Christ, the resurrected Christ, the living Christ!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“Lord, it’s good that we’re HERE!”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> No, it is NOT our call, our mission, our vision, to allow ourselves to be overshadowed by the dark cloud of hate, judgment, and fear that settled over St. Louis this past week. The God we worship comes as a bright cloud, a light in the darkness that emanates from the face of Jesus and lights the path of love for all Christ’s followers. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">That’s who WE are!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“Lord, it’s good that we’re HERE!”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> And when we hear the stories that will be reported in the coming month, when inevitably change occurs - all things change; this isn’t the first time for our denomination and it won’t be the last - remember the words of Jesus to his disciples in the aftermath of this mountain top experience of transformation - “Get up! Do not be afraid!”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> We must get up, we cannot allow ourselves to be knocked down by the forces of evil and fear who deny God’s children’s right to exist, while grasping for power, money, and property for themselves, all the while claiming to embrace a “biblical Christianity” that they seek to hold others to but not themselves. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Get up! Do NOT be afraid! The Christian Bible I read, the words of Christ I see, says to “judge not, lest YE be judged!” It says, “let the one who is without sin cast the first stone.” It says “love your neighbor as yourself.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It says “God is love, and those who do not love do not know God.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> So, while the denominational powers that be work out how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, and who is the better Christian, and who gets custody of what in the divorce that is surely coming, and while the WCA plots to pack up and leave town in the middle of the night, more closely modeling former Cleveland Browns owner Art Modell than Jesus Christ, let us remember that OUR call as beloved children of God in THIS place is simply this: </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">to love ALL our neighbors, to feed our hungry neighbors, to clothe our naked neighbors, to visit our sick and imprisoned neighbors, and to follow Jesus Christ where he leads us - to the margins and to the marginalized. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> And finally, know this - a General Conference can legislate many things, but regardless of how they read scripture, regardless of where they call home, regardless of how many votes they cast, they cannot legislate against God’s love for all God’s children!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“Lord, it’s good that we are HERE!” Amen? Amen. </span></div>
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Crossroads UMChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01395756504990704649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6906807844502326707.post-34122938719387742452018-12-31T05:32:00.002-08:002018-12-31T05:32:44.513-08:0012-30-18 “Is Born”<iframe allowfullscreen="true" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="315" scrolling="no" src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fjay.anderson.566148%2Fvideos%2F10156651670761539%2F&show_text=0&width=560" style="border: none; overflow: hidden;" width="560"></iframe><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">12-30-18 “Is Born”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">(This message is adapted from the work of Marcia McFee and the Worship Design Studio) </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> The scripture reading for today implores us to understand that the overarching story continues beyond the nativity. Even though we feel as if the Christmas "season" is over (it actually has only just begun) and the tree is quick to come down, the real story begins again in the renewal of our very souls as God nudges us toward new life and new possibilities in a new year. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">What is being born within us?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> In reading this passage from Revelation for this last Sunday in our series, I wanted to connect our journey into the birth of peace, joy, love, and hope in the presence of Jesus Christ with the vision of the new heaven and new earth being birthed in us for the new year.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> All along in our series, the children’s worship scripts focused on a crying baby and how we are called to be those who soothe and calm that baby. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Now we jump right into that metaphor to understand that our own birthing, or rebirthing, might come with some crying. In one of my favorite movies, <i>Under the Tuscan Sun</i>, we hear this line:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> “In Italian, ‘to give birth,’ ‘dare a la luce,’ (pronounced DAH-ray ah lah LOO-chay), means ‘to give way to the light.” </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Indeed, those Italians are incredibly poetic to describe the baby bursting into the world as “giving way to the light.” The baby comes out of the dark warmth of the womb into the light of the world and what does it do?</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">It cries!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Jesus tells his disciples that they must be born again... they must be made new. This, like the Revelation text is in alignment with ancient wisdom and teachings. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The prophet Isaiah (where we started this Advent/Christmas journey) proclaims a new heaven and earth in chapter 65.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Paul says to the Corinthians in the fifth chapter of his second letter to them that “everything has become new.” It is in John’s Gospel that Jesus tells Nicodemus that </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">he</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> must be born anew. But what does it mean to be born anew? While many mainline denominations steer away from the stereotypical translations of being “born </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">again</i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">,” we can find some powerful insight as we consider what happens as we hit the light of a new day.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">What will <b>we</b> do when, like a child first emerging from the darkness of the womb, we encounter the light of new life in Christ?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Some babies have to be encouraged to cry. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">They need to fill their lungs with air to survive and so they need, “encouragement,” if you will, in the form of a swat on their behind. Sometimes life gives us a swat, or a “wake up call,” and we realize that we are barely breathing. </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">New</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> life invites us to new gulps of breath. “Spirare,”</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">the Greek root of the words “spirit,” “breath,” and “inspire,” is essential if we are to live to full capacity.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Some babies need to have their eyes cleared so they can open them and see. What might <b>we</b> be hiding from, needing to “take the wool out from over our eyes” and face the things we need to change in order to grow into what and who God created us to be? </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">How are we insulated from the light through denial or dread, by fear, by anger, by hate? God’s presence and strength are with us; it is time to step into that “glorious” light-filled existence with confidence.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> And perhaps if we come through the present darkness, take a big breath, open our eyes to see, have a good cry to find our voice in this world, the silence that follows is not just calm and settled silence, it is anticipatory silence like breath held in expectation. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">What will the next sound be?</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">How will we fill the silence?</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">What will we say?</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">How will we now be the ones, made in the image of the Light of Life and following in the footsteps of the One whose Star shone on humankind, how will we bring “peace on earth, goodwill to ALL creation,” so that a new heaven comes to this new earth?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> It is no coincidence that the new year in the Christian calendar begins, not on January 1st, but with the first Sunday in Advent. Advent, in a way, becomes the gestation period for our own rebirth. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It is in that season that we are invited to shed those things which hold us in darkness and begin to renew and refresh our lives in the anticipation and the light of the birth of Jesus Christ. It is only when we’ve had the chance to step back, reconsider Christ’s birth in light of our own rebirth, renewal, and rejuvenation, that we are ready to move from Christmas to the Epiphany - the celebration of Christ’s light in the world. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> So today as the Chancel Choir brings the music of the season, let it flow through you, over you, and around you, that these songs might shine a light for you, not only on the reason of the season, but for the gift of birth and rebirth that is given to us in this season. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“Silent Night, Holy Night,” ends with the words, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“Christ the Savior is Born.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">May he born in you, and may you be born anew in him. That, my friends, is the Glory of Christmas! Amen. </span></div>
Crossroads UMChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01395756504990704649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6906807844502326707.post-47993059626950050042018-12-26T05:19:00.000-08:002018-12-26T05:19:24.790-08:0012-24-18 Christmas Eve Message - “Calm and Bright”<iframe allowfullscreen="true" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="315" scrolling="no" src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fjay.anderson.566148%2Fvideos%2F10156640305996539%2F&show_text=0&width=560" style="border: none; overflow: hidden;" width="560"></iframe><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">12-24-18 Christmas Eve Message - “Calm and Bright”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Throughout this Advent season, this season of waiting, of anticipating, we have explored the reason for the season through the lens of the song, “Silent Night, Holy Night.” Each week, we looked at one verse of the song and how that verse shared the Christmas Gospel, the Christmas Good News, for those who would hear it. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">On week one, it was an exploration of peace, through verse one:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Silent night, holy night</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">All is calm, all is bright</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Round yon Virgin, Mother and Child</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Holy Infant so tender and mild</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Sleep in heavenly peace</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Sleep in heavenly peace</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Peace is the way of God, we discovered through the words of the prophet Isaiah, who warned that the way of war is the way of darkness, saying,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>The people who walked in darkness</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i> have seen a great light;</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>those who lived in a land of deep darkness—</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i> on them light has shined…</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>For a child has been born for us,</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i> a son given to us;</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And Isaiah prophesied that those who walk in the light, rather that in the darkness, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>they shall beat their swords into plowshares,</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i> and their spears into pruning hooks;</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>nation shall not lift up sword against nation,</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i> neither shall they learn war any more.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> We remembered the Christmas truce that occurred on Christmas Eve, 1914, when, in the midst of World War I, German and British troops, hunkered down in their trenches in opposing battle lines, heard the other side singing, in their own language, “Silent Night, Holy Night, all is calm, all is bright…” and joined in the singing. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">For a day, they put down their weapons, set aside their hostilities, came out of the darkness and exchanged greetings and gifts. Trading swords for plowshares, they shared in God’s great light, if for only a day.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">And with them, we learned that humanity is the holy infant for whom God so desires a heavenly peace, and that it IS possible to bring calm and bright to our own corners of this world.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Verse 2</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Silent night, holy night!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Shepherds quake at the sight, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Glories stream from heaven afar, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Heavenly hosts sing “Alleluia"! </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Christ, the Savior is born, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Christ, the Savior is born</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> In week two our journey was towards JOY. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And while that word, JOY, is not found in the second verse of the song, we shared how, when the “Glories stream from heaven afar,” and “heavenly hosts sing “Alleluia!” that that response IS the response of Joy to the light of God streaming with the Good News that “Christ the Savior is born.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> The passage from the gospel that week was of the angels proclaiming to the shepherds, “Look! I bring good news to you - wonderful, joyous news for all people.” That good news was that God had been born in flesh, in human flesh. And the good news didn’t stop there. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">That God chose to become one of us, even as God is one with us, is God’s good news message to us that our humanity is important, that our humanity matters - it matters in general and it matters specifically to God. More than just a birth announcement, this proclamation is a life announcement to those who hear it.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">When we know that God is present with us AND in us, then we can see glories streaming every day, if we have eyes to see. And when we live our lives through that lens of wonder and joy, we wonder how our lives might be renewed? How might our joy be made full? </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The incarnation, God in the flesh in Jesus Christ, says as much about who WE are as it does about who God is. Which leads us to verse 3.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Verse 3 LOVE</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Silent night, holy night, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Son of God, love's pure light, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Radiant beams from Thy holy face, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">With the dawn of redeeming grace, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Jesus, Lord, at Thy birth, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Jesus, Lord, at Thy birth</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(255, 38, 0); color: #ff2600;"> </span><span style="font-kerning: none;">The presence of God in human form is the "dawn" of redeeming grace, says the hymn's third verse. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Grace is God’s love for us and for all of creation. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">God IS love, and God is light. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">God so desired to be "up close and personal" that God came to live, breathe, feel, teach, touch, and love. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Made in the image of God, we are called to nurture relationships that birth, multiply and radiate grace, God’s love, in the world.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> And how do we do that, we asked in week 3? </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">By following the teachings of Jesus. It’s not enough to simply “believe in” God, to “believe in” Jesus - even the demons did that, Jesus said. No, we are called to be followers, to be Christ’s light in the world, to be God’s hands and feet. God became one of us that we might know that God is with us, and has been with us since before Creation…In the beginning. On this night, the star, the songs, the lights, all invite us to ask, even to dream, what would the world be like if “love’s pure light” was at the center. Before it can be at the center of the world, it must become the center of </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">our</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> hearts and </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">our</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> lives.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Verse 4</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Silent night! Holy night!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Wondrous star, lend thy light; </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">with the angels let us sing, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">"Alleluia" to our King: </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“Christ the Savior is born! </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Christ the Savior is born.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> The last verse of the hymn is what we would have shared in worship yesterday. This verse invites us to lift our voices in singing <i>alleluias</i> to the one who is "King." </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">This descriptor was more radical for the people of Jesus' time than it seems in our own, as it resisted the powers of empire that threatened "the least of these" that Jesus came to serve. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Kings are largely meaningless to us today, in our western democracies, but to declare a non-royal as “king,” was to name them as a rival, an enemy.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">To declare Jesus as king, meant that Caesar was not. That was treasonous. To declare Jesus as Lord, another title used for Caesar, was again to proclaim an alternative loyalty, another act of treason.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> So as we follow the star, the wondrous light as it’s called in the song, that led magi to this new king, we’re challenged to proclaim whether Christ as king, Christ as Lord, is just something we say when we’re in church, or if it’s how we live our lives. Are those words just something sprayed in glitter across the Christmas cards we mail to one another, or are they words that shape our life in such a way that our response is to sing with the angels, “Alleluia!” ?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> That challenge is something we are directly confronted with in the aftermath of yesterday’s accident. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Grace, love, living Christ-like lives are easy things to lift up in church, easy to proclaim in song, but much harder to carry out in real life when made more specific by events that cause injury, harm, and destruction.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Our first response in situations like the one we find ourselves in now can easily be one of anger, of finger-pointing and blaming. It requires no self-discipline, no self-restraint on our parts to begin casting “shouldas” all over the place. But we should be careful, lest we “shoulda” all over ourselves. I know that the bruises are still fresh, the abrasions still tender, the shock of the trauma still raw, but it was when his body hurt the most, when his emotions had been stripped to their last nerve, that Jesus the adult modeled grace and forgiveness for us. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">He never cast blame on his betrayer, he never pointed fingers at his betrayer - on the contrary, he offered grace to them and to those who would hammer the nails into his hands and feet and forgiveness to the bearer of the spear that pierced his side. In the moments of his death, Christ modeled for us the love of God in human form. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Is it possible for us, in the moment of his birth, to do the same?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> We are reminded by this seemingly benign and sweet song that whenever there is injustice in this world, we are to look to the one whose power is love. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">How might this increase our hope for the future? </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">So, in our reading tonight, the Gospel writer Luke wants, I think, to make sure we realize that it is not just human flesh ‘in general’ that God takes on in Christ; it is our flesh - yours and mine. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">And it is not simply history ‘in general’ that God enters via this birth, it is </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">our</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> history and </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">our</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> very lives to which God is committed, not in some distant, hoped for future or afterlife, but here and now.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> So if there is only one thing that we hear this Christmas Eve, perhaps it should be that this story of long ago is not only about angels and shepherds, a mother and her newborn. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">It’s also about us, all of us gathered amid the candles and readings, carols and prayers.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">It’s about us, gathered in the fellowship hall on metal folding chairs rather in the comfort of the sanctuary and our pews.</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">As the crash occurred yesterday we were about to sing “Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus.” </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Now, I’m not suggesting that Jesus was behind the wheel of that Toyota yesterday, or that Jesus makes himself known in that way. But I do believe Jesus was present yesterday. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">That situation was bad, there’s no doubt about that, but it could have been so much worse. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">God was with us - all of us - as together we faced a situation that was unexpected and shocking to us. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">I will never doubt that God kept this ordeal from becoming a tragedy. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Two thousand years ago, God came at Christmas for us, that we might have hope and courage amid the dark and dangerous times and places of our lives. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">This, in the end, regardless of the location, is why we gather, so that as God entered into time and history so long ago through the Word made flesh, God might also enter our lives here and now through the Word proclaimed in Scripture, song, and sermon.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">No wonder we grow quiet! We need a silent night in here.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Well it is a Silent Night, and most certainly a Holy Night. Thank God it is so. Amen.</span></div>
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Crossroads UMChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01395756504990704649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6906807844502326707.post-12896102886538364532018-12-16T10:24:00.000-08:002018-12-16T10:24:01.987-08:0012-16-18 “Redeeming Grace” (LOVE)<iframe allowfullscreen="true" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="315" scrolling="no" src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fjay.anderson.566148%2Fvideos%2F10156618266841539%2F&show_text=0&width=560" style="border: none; overflow: hidden;" width="560"></iframe><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> It was Christmas Eve in the Austrian Alps. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">At the Church of St. Nicholas in Oberndorf, a village near Salzburg, Father Joseph Mohr prepared for the midnight service. He was distraught because the church organ was broken, ruining prospects for that evening’s carefully planned music. Without the organ it would indeed be a silent night. But Father Joseph was about to learn that scripture’s lesson - that all things work together for good for those who love God - was in fact true.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Suddenly inspired, Father Joseph wrote a new song,</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">one that needed no organ. Hastily, he wrote the words, “Silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright…” </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Taking the text to his organist, Franz Gruber, he asked Franz to compose a simple tune.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> That night, December 24, 1818, “Silent Night” was sung for the first time as a duet accompanied by a guitar at the aptly named Church of St. Nicholas in Oberndorf, a model of which we have on the altar thanks to Roberta and Dick Driscoll. Were it not for a broken organ, we would not have “Silent Night.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> So as we continue our celebration and exploration of the song, we find beautiful symbolism in this third verse that we spoke in hushed tones earlier. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We’ve talked before in this series about light being symbolic of God and God’s presence. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">We talked last week about the incarnation and that God’s becoming flesh means not only that God is with us, but that in becoming one of us - one with us - God is saying that being human, being flesh, is an important thing, a blessed and holy thing.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Verse three of the hymn then, after the opening “Silent night, holy night,” builds on that theme, completing the couplet with the line, “Son of God, love’s pure light.”</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Scripture tells us that Jesus is both Son of God and Son of Man - fully human and fully divine; God in the flesh. Emmanuel, God with us. Scripture also reminds us that not only is God light, but that God is love. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">So in this verse, in that single line, all of that language, all of that imagery, is brought together succinctly -</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">“Son of God, love’s pure light.” The image is made more real as we picture this baby in a manger - swaddled, innocent, vulnerable, helpless, yet the full revelation of the God of Creation, with “radiant beams” that come forth, streaming like the “glories” of the previous verse, from the “holy face.” If you try, you can see that image, Hallmark cards and Gerber baby food images aside.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We know the face of a newborn baby; we know the glow, the radiance of new life, of new birth. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Our reading today comes from John’s gospel, the fourth accounting of the good news. And each of the four tells the Jesus story differently; each account beginning in different ways. Mark introduces Jesus as an adult - no birth story provided. Whether those stories hadn’t circulated yet when Mark’s gospel was written, or whether Mark just thought them unimportant to the message he sought to convey, we don’t know. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Matthew and Luke tell similar - but not identical - stories, each shaping their renderings to the audiences to which they wrote. John, on the other hand, goes full on symbolic.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The last of the gospels written, the one we call “John” takes all that was written before, all of the historical accounts, and seeks to help us understand what they mean, what they point towards.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b> </b> So when we consider these two together, the lyrics of “Silent Night” and the wording of this first chapter of John, we get an intermingling of words, phrases, images, and ideas that are a sign for us of what Christmas is all about.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Silent Night, holy night</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In the beginning was the Word, and the Word <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> was with God, and the Word was God… And the <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> word became flesh and lived among us…</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Son of God, love’s pure light</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>What has come into being<b> </b>in him was life, and <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>the life was the light of all people</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Radiant beams from Thy holy face…</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>And the Word became flesh and lived among us, <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> and we have seen his glory… full of grace and truth</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>With the dawn of redeeming grace…</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>From his fullness we have all received, grace <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Jesus, Lord, at Thy birth; Jesus, Lord, at Thy birth</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Love and grace go hand-in-hand, and the Gospel of John begins with four mentions of that word, grace, and then doesn’t mention it again the entire rest of the book. As one commentator put it, “the entirety of the Gospel will show what grace looks like, tastes like, smells like, sounds like, and feels like…For John, God in becoming flesh in Jesus has committed God’s self not only to revealing what God’s grace looks like, but that God wants to know it and feel it as well.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Marcia McFee points out that, “God’s face in Jesus Christ has entered the world where it will be kissed by mother Mary, cradled in Joseph’s rough carpenter-hands, and washed after the feeding and burping. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">This is real human life, full humanity wrapped around love’s pure light that will shine in a way remembered ever since. It is a love that “redeems” us– that makes good on God’s promise to be with us always.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> And she goes on, “The beauty of the hymn’s poetry in this verse speaks of light as a ‘dawning’ as well. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Dawn rises up, dawn pierces the dark night, transforming it. From the earliest human ancestors, dawn has been a source of reassurance once again that life continues, that the forces of life have gifted us and we have arisen to see another day. In John’s opening lines, we hear of the presence of Christ from the beginning of time when ‘let there be light’ constituted the first dawn in our faith story. Coupled with the idea of Jesus as a human baby, this is the most poignant melding of [the] birth of the cosmos and birth from a womb. Divinity and humanity as one.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> This is enfleshed love, embodied love, the embodied love of God incarnate for all of creation. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">And we are created in the image of that same God;</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">made in the likeness of this very same God.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The seed of God’s love is planted within us so that we too, might be like and love like God. And so we ask again the question that was posed in our synopsis earlier: “what would the world be like if ‘love’s pure light’ was at the center” of all we do, of all we create.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Made in the image of this one who is grace upon grace, how are we to nurture relationships that birth, multiply and radiate grace in the world? A grace-full existence. What would that look like?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> It would look like the Jesus of the gospels. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Not so much the Jesus who walks on water, although if you can do that that would be pretty cool, but the Jesus who cleanses and restores and loves none the less.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">It would look like the Jesus who feeds and forgives, who heals and gives hope. Even as John presents Jesus as this transcendent, almost other-worldly being, we see Jesus as well in a very earthy way in the fourth gospel. Jaime Clark Soles points out “</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white;">that the stuff of earth is the stuff of God. Not a single thing that has been created was created apart from God. It all came from God, it all belongs to God, and it all testifies to and reveals God. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white;">In that way, creation itself is a sacrament, a means of grace.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b> </b>And Soles goes on to make this point further, saying, </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">“For John, with the Incarnation, God becoming flesh, bread is no longer just bread (ch 6); flesh is no longer just flesh, water is no longer just water (chs 3, 4, 7, 19); vines, branches, sheep, shepherds -- all of them reveal the nature of God and identity of Christ.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">No wonder, then, that in healing the blind man (ch 9), Jesus takes the dirt and mixes it with saliva and puts it on the man's eyes. Surely Jesus could have skipped all the messy, dirty parts and just healed the guy, as he does elsewhere (ch 5).</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">But the use of the earth and the spit should remind us of the creation as told by Genesis, where God creates the first person using [a clump of] earth.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> We have a lot of people in our community whom some would describe as “earthy,” don’t we. I read a book this week titled “Having Nothing, Possessing Everything,” written by Mike Mather, a UMC pastor in Indianapolis. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The church he serves, much like ours, is situated in a community in which there is much need, economic decline, drugs, and violence. In a Bible study one week, they were studying Acts 2, where Peter is preaching from the prophet Joel, who relays God’s message that God will pour out God’s Spirit on ALL flesh. One of the students in the class, who also volunteered at their food pantry, asked, “if that’s the case, why do we treat people like that’s not true?”</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Mather asked her what she meant, and she said, “When people come to the food pantry, we ask [them] how poor they are, rather than how rich they are. Peter is saying all people have God’s Spirit poured into them.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> That realization caused the church to begin rethinking some of the ways they attempted to “love” their community. Rather than focusing on needs, that is, what was missing within the community, they began to explore what gifts were present. One day, a woman named Adele came to their pantry. Three generations of her family were living in her home and she worked part time as a cook. She told them she was a good cook, and they challenged her to “prove it.” When she asked what they meant, they invited her to prepare lunch one day for the custodian, the secretary, and the pastor. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Mather describes the lunch she prepared as fabulous.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Shortly after that, the church secretary learned that some community leaders were planning to have a large meeting at a restaurant, and she urged them instead to have the meeting at the church and have Adele cook for them. They did, paying her for the meal. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Over the next several months Adele catered more and more events in the neighborhood.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Then the Chamber of Commerce reached out to the church to have an all-day meeting in their building, along with use of the kitchen. The church that was fine, but that they preferred that the Chamber use their caterer, Adele. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">They agreed. The church took twenty dollars (their only investment) and had a thousand business cards printed for Adele, which she made good use of by distributing them to the seventy business leaders who had gathered at the church that day. A year and half later, Adele opened her own Tex-Mex restaurant. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> If they had asked Adele how poor she was, what she didn’t have, instead of what gifts she did possess, “everyone would have been poorer for it,” Mather writes. The story of Adele teaches us that if we ask different questions, we might discover a world of God-given gifts in other people that might never have become known otherwise. If we begin looking for peoples’ gifts rather than their needs, we discover love’s pure light that God has planted there, waiting to radiantly beam into the world. You see, you can’t build anything with what you don’t have. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> When we practice real love, not the emotionally squishy love of Valentine’s poems and Harlequin Romances, but the actionable love of God in the world, we begin to see the face of God in all of those around us. When we come alongside the child who struggles with reading as a friend, rather than as a grownup who wants to “do good for the disadvantaged,” we can see love’s pure light sparkle like radiant beams in their eyes when, between stories, they tell you about their new puppy, their family nick-names for one another, or the joy they had in picking out a Christmas gift for their mom or dad.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Love and grace go hand-in-hand. It’s easy to make Christ’s love transactional. We can do our part and serve people in the food pantry or the free store, we can provide gas cards to people or pay utility bills for them through Helping Hands, and never see them for who they are; never see them as anything beyond being what we might consider a “needy” client of one of our programs - never see them as a child of God, with gifts as well as needs, with dreams as well as nightmares. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">In the light of pure love, love and grace go hand-in-hand.</span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> This passage from John’s Gospel is as much about who God is, what God is about, and to what and whom God is committed as it is a declaration about the Word itself. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The prophet Joel, remember, said that God’s Spirit was poured out on ALL flesh. The fourth evangelist understands that God’s promise to be with God’s people wherever they go has taken on an all new meaning in Jesus. The incarnation of God in Christ is deeply intimate and personal and assumes God’s commitment to and presence in all of God’s children. Moreover, in the Word made flesh and dwelling among us, now God not only goes where God’s people go, but is who they are.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">That is, God dwells with us and in us by taking on our form, our humanity. This “different” dwelling of God is God being where we are, and being </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">who</i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> we are.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: transparent;"> The presence of God in human form </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: transparent;">is</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: transparent;"> the "dawn" of redeeming grace. God so desired to be one with us that God came to live, breathe, feel, teach, touch, and love. Made in the image of God, we are called to nurture relationships that birth, multiply and radiate grace and love’s pure light in the world. What a difference it would make in the world if we held “love’s pure light” at the center. Amen.</span><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></div>
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Crossroads UMChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01395756504990704649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6906807844502326707.post-89207466502131183942018-12-09T12:47:00.002-08:002018-12-09T12:47:15.026-08:0012-9-18 “Glories Stream”<iframe allowfullscreen="true" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="315" scrolling="no" src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fjay.anderson.566148%2Fvideos%2F10156602863481539%2F&show_text=0&width=560" style="border: none; overflow: hidden;" width="560"></iframe><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> We celebrated some special birthdays this morning with Ruth and JoAnn. And I know there are many more of you who have birthdays this month as well. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">December is a big birthday month in our extended family too. We had a nephew’s birthday on December 1st, a niece on the 10th, Lynn’s brother’s birthday would have been the 13th, mine is the 15th, my daughter’s is the 16th, our brother-in-law’s is on 17th, and we have yet another niece celebrating on the 27th. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">And at our house, when we celebrate a birthday, regardless of the month, we usually have a cake or an ice cream cake or something on which we place candles for the birthday girl or boy to blow out.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">We have a lot of birthday candles, both regular candles and those wax number candles. However, we only have two number candles - the numbers #2 and #3.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">So regardless of your age, you get a #2 and/or a #3, along with some individual candles to light the way to making your birthday wish.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> December birthdays, though, are…special, and I’ve always found that having a December birthday was a mixed bag. In fact, for years I jokingly referred to being born in December as planned parenthood - your parents plan you for Christmas time so that they didn’t have to buy you as much! I mean, if you’re born in other months, you’ve probably never received a combined “birthday/Christmas” present - you’ve gotten two separate gifts, right? </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">December is almost always too cold - at least in Ohio - for an outdoor birthday party unless you like skiing or sledding or something, so there are likely no ponies, no picnics, no trip to the zoo or the waterpark, no Cedar Point or King’s Island fun. In fact, the Christmas season is so busy for most families that there’s likely not much of a birthday party at all. When I was in college, my friends threw a “Half-birthday” party for me in June just so I could have a real party with them there instead of it occurring while we were all away on Christmas break. December birthdays are just, as I said…special.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> I always enjoy seeing who else I share a birthday with, and besides sharing the 15th with JoAnn, we also share that date with comedian Tim Conway, actor Don Johnson, singer Dave Clark of the Dave Clark Five, and billionaire philanthropist J. Paul Getty. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">That’s a pretty diverse group of fellow "1-5ers" I guess.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">But I don’t share this calendar info to make this about me, or about my fellow December birthday sisters and brothers, but rather to help us think about the meaning of Christmas from a different perspective than how we might usually approach it.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Our scripture from Luke’s gospel today is basically a birth announcement, but rather than arriving in the mail or via email with a link to a gift registry at Babies-R-Us, </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">it comes from angels - first one angel then a multitude - enough angels to make the Mormon Tabernacle Choir look like rag-tag group of carolers.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> “Don’t be afraid!” the angel proclaims. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">What a strange way to begin a birth announcement. “Don’t be afraid! Look! I bring good news to you - wonderful, joyous news for all people.”</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Nearly every angel-human encounter in the bible begins with some variation of “Don’t be afraid.”</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Real life angels apparently don’t physically look like Clarence from “It’s a Wonderful Life,” Della Reese from “Touched By An Angel,” or those cute little Valentines cherubs if the first thing out of their mouth every time is “Don’t be afraid.” But I digress.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> “I bring good news to you!” Good news, from the Greek <i>euangelion, </i>from which we get “evangel,” “evangelical,” “evangelism,” “angel,” and the word “gospel.” </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The gospel is good news. The </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">word</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> “gospel” </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">means</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> good news. The angel announces good news, joyous news for all people.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> “Your savior is born today in David’s city.” </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Not just “a” savior, “your” savior, the savior of “all people,” the angel proclaims. “He is Christ the Lord.”</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The angel doesn’t give the baby’s name - Christ is not Jesus’ last name, it’s his title. The Christ is the anointed one, the messiah of God, the savior from God. John’s gospel calls it the Word of God. Richard Rohr helps us understand what is meant here by suggesting we think of it as the “blueprint” or “plan” of God.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">primary</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> meaning found in this announcement is NOT the birth of a baby named Jesus from Nazareth, the primary focus of the announcement is the revelation of God and God’s plan for salvation in the flesh.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">God embodied. Good news!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> So, in thinking about this Christmas miracle - told as a birth story - in a more personal, intimate way, through the lens of births and birthdays that we <b>all</b> can relate to, </span><span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">the meaning of Christmas has to be lodged somewhere, someplace deep inside who <b>we</b> are. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white;">And through this lens, </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">we</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white;"> might actually have an </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">embodied</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white;"> experience of what can be a rather baffling and bewildering doctrine in which we believe, but at the end of the day, if we are honest, we hardly know what to do with.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"> As Karoline Lewis so eloquently reminds us:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“…t</span><span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">hat confusing and confounding [doctrine] is the incarnation itself. What does the incarnation really mean? Yes, of course, always, it means that God chose to enter into our humanity, in all of its fullness and foibles, its power and pain, its joys and sorrows. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white;">Yes, of course it means that God would even experience death itself, only to defeat its determined grip on our lives and turn it into eternal life.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">But what does it really mean for us, here and now and today, beyond the truth of Jesus of Nazareth and the promise of an empty tomb?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> “The incarnation means that at the same time the incarnation is a revelation of God, it is also a revelation of who <b>we are</b>. We begin to realize that in God’s decision to become human that <b>our humanity</b> matters. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">We begin to recognize that in God’s commitment to bodies that </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">our bodies</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> matter. We begin to remember that God’s determination to be known in the flesh means that </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">doing ministry in the flesh</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> matters.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> So these angels declare more than just a simple birth to these lowly shepherds who live in the fields. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">They declare great joy! </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Births are joyful occasions, even without choirs of angels! But this one, this one is even more special.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The passage tells us that in this announcement, “glories stream.” Our song says “Glories stream from heaven afar.” But what does that mean?</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> I shared with you last week that in scripture light is often representative of God’s presence, and of the symbolism we use in the Advent and Christmas season around light. “The glory of the Lord shone around them…” the passage said. A search for “glory” at biblegateway.com gets you multitudes of examples of the Hebrew texts’ use of the word when it comes to God, which continues into the Gospel depictions of the presence of God. Throughout the scriptures, “glory” often has to do with “shining,” with light. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">God is light and the light surrounds us.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">God’s presence, God’s deliverance, God’s strength is with us like that pillar of fire, the burning bush, and now the star and accompanying theatrics of angels bringing their singing to the shining. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The Isaiah passage from last week said that </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">the people who have walked in darkness have seen a great light.</i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> The angels show us the appropriate response to this shining light... “Glory to God!”</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Praise is the <b>only</b> thing we can do in the face of such power and promise that we are not, ever, alone, that God is with us.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> This Sunday is about Joy. And as we consider this text in the context of our celebration of the song “Silent Night, Holy Night,” how can we not connect joy with “glories” and “alleluias?” Typically, we wouldn’t get to this scripture reading until Christmas Eve, working our way through all of the Advent passages about waiting and anticipating both the coming and second coming of Christ. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">But this year we’re jumping the gun a little early as we consider that silent and holy night that is often lost in the confusion of Advent and the Twelve Days of Christmas, which actually <b>start</b> on Christmas Day rather than leading up to it, as many believe. So like a nice piece of Christmas chocolate, let’s let this idea of joy and glory streaming roll around on our tongue for a bit, let’s savor it’s flavor before we bite into it and finish it off. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> The angels come with JOY - the shepherds respond in fear. There may have been plenty to fear for these folks. One commentator suggests that these were possibly not only the “lowly” in terms of job importance, but these may have been the lowliest of shepherds... the hired hands, not the owners of the land or the sheep but the indentured slaves or lowest-wage earners working the night shift and literally “living in the fields.” </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">It is the darkest part of the night when suddenly something that felt absolutely apocalyptic shook the earth where they stood.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Fear can make us feel like we are on the edge. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">If we’re jumpy already, anything that reeks at all of difference or change can feel like a threat.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We get hyper-aware and on the look-out for the bad stuff we hear about every day, on the news, on our phones, seemingly everywhere.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> “When people are frightened, intelligent parts of the brain cease to dominate”, Dr. Bruce Perry explains in an article published on the Time magazine website. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">When faced with a threat, the part of our brain responsible for risk assessment and actions cease to function. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">In other words, logical thinking is replaced by overwhelming emotions, favoring short-term solutions and sudden reactions.” That is, our limbic brain kicks in and we revert to “fight or flight” reactions.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">And for most of us, when we become overwhelmed (and who doesn’t in this fast-paced, expectations-out- of-control world), we tend to struggle to find joy and to see the good that is all around us.</span><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Enter the angel’s message: “We’ve got Good News!” “Good news” is another term often used in scripture for God’s presence and strength. “Hey, over here! Don’t forget you aren’t alone.” In fact, what the angels were about to tell the shepherds was that God’s presence, God’s glory, God’s light was streaming all over them. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">This</span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> IS </b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Good News for ALL.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b> </b>So... what’s joy got to do with it? </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">What Good News are we missing, what don’t we see all around us that is worthy of joy, because we’re distracted, too jumpy with fear? This story is one of transformation from fear to joy, from panic to praise.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The “glory” (code for “light”) streams upon us. God’s goodness, presence and strength are all around us and </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">IN</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> us. To use a pop culture reference that has made a reappearance at theaters recently, “A Star is Born” every time we let ourselves embrace joy and let that star shine its light from within us to the world.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">We’re called to be a star and let our joy spill out, streaming all over the place. We’re called to be a star!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Say it with me - <b>“I Am a Star!</b>” Say it again! Louder, like you mean it - like you believe it! <b>“I Am a Star!”</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b> </b>Sometimes we get embarrassed by expressing joy, don’t we? Especially the “higher” we get on the totem pole or the more concerned we are about “appearances.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Author Marianne Williamson wrote in her book, “Return to Love,”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Our </i><b><i>deepest</i></b><i> fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Your playing small does not serve the world.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. </i></span></div>
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<i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">And as we let our own light shine,</i></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>As we are liberated from our own fear,</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Our presence automatically liberates others.”</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">(from Return to Love by Marianne Williamson, Harper Collins, 1992)</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> We need to be a people and a church that isn’t afraid to belly-laugh, to gasp in delight, to seek out beauty, and to see the world through the lens of wonder and respond with joy. For we believe in a God who is “awesome and a wonder-worker,” as the Psalmist reminds us, a God who, as Jesus told us, made us to be light for the world! </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Perhaps the “silence” we speak of this week is the need to silence the onslaught of messages of fear and open ourselves to see and experience the beauty that sustains our joy of life - the life that God embraced and embodied in a child, born in a manger, 2000 years ago.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> So, here is what we need to take away from this story, from this idea of joy, and of God’s glory streaming in and around us: That </span><span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">God was born and was human, means that <b>you</b> matter, that <b>I</b> matter -- that <b>we</b> are special in the eyes of God. Not just some of us, but all of us. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white;">And not in some sort of narcissistic, egocentric, kind of way but because to be human can never be a generalized claim. To be human is to be you, as God created you to be. So be you.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> And no, it’s not <b>all</b> about you, but it is <b>everything</b> about you. The incarnation is this radically reciprocal reality. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">God’s commitment to being human in Jesus is God also saying, “I am committed to you being you and being fully you.” It is God saying “I love the true you.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Richard Rohr writes, “The True Self -- where you and God are one -- does not <b>choose</b> to love as much as it <b><i>is</i> <i>love</i></b> itself already. (see Colossians 3:3-4). </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The True Self does not <b>teach</b> us compassion as much as it <b><i>is compassion</i></b>. Loving from this core of your being as you were created is experienced as a river within you that flows of its own accord. (see John 7:38-39). </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">From this more spacious and grounded place, one naturally connects, empathizes, forgives, and loves everything. We were made in love, for love, and unto love. This deep inner ‘yes,’ that is God <b>IN</b> us, is already loving God through us. The false self doesn’t really know how to love in a very deep or broad way. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">It is too opportunistic. It is too small.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">It is too self-referential to be compassionate.”</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It is too fearful, to be joyful.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Christmas is the gift from God of God’s very self for the sake of <b>you</b> being <b>your</b> very self so that the world might know God’s love -- in, through, and <b>because</b> of you. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Amen.</span></div>
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Crossroads UMChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01395756504990704649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6906807844502326707.post-26858491544713524772018-12-03T10:17:00.003-08:002018-12-03T10:17:31.545-08:0012-2-18 “Sleep in Heavenly Peace”<iframe allowfullscreen="true" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="315" scrolling="no" src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fjay.anderson.566148%2Fvideos%2F10156588163946539%2F&show_text=0&width=560" style="border: none; overflow: hidden;" width="560"></iframe><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> As a student of history, I’ve read many stories of war, multiple tales of battles won and lost, seemingly endless sagas of both tragedy and triumph on battlefields across the nation and around the globe. I’ve studied the political maneuverings that have both begun and ended wars in our country and abroad. From the American Revolution that precipitated the founding of our nation to the ongoing War in Afghanistan - the longest war in U.S. history - and every conflict in between, there have been both horror and heroics, terror and triumph, faith and failure. And those are just the wars that have involved our country. When we look elsewhere, in other times and other places, there is little doubt that the same holds true.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Ancient Israel was no stranger to war. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">They had battled for their very survival from almost the moment they were founded. Situated in a strategic crossroads of the Mediterranean, between Europe, Egypt, and the far East, Israel was prime real estate and everybody wanted to occupy it. In 722 BCE it was the Assyrian Empire who came rumbling through and took control. In 586 BCE it was the invading Babylonian Empire. After that came the Persian Empire, and shortly before Jesus’ time it was the Roman Empire who came calling. Israel knew war. They knew hardship.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">They knew strife. They knew hopelessness.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">They had a long <b>history</b> of hopelessness. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> They also had a long history of promised hope. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Isaiah the prophet of God offered hope in the midst of exile, and loss, and famine, and death, and war. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">He wrote:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>In days to come</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i> the mountain of the Lord’s house</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>shall be established as the highest of the mountains,</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i> and shall be raised above the hills;</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b><i>all the nations shall stream to it.</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> God’s house on the mountain - Zion - is an image that comes from the Exodus from Egypt, where God led the people to the mountain and made covenant, made promise with them to be their God. And Isaiah says that when God’s house is again established on the highest of the mountains, ALL the nations shall stream to it. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">ALL of the nations - friend and foe alike.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> The word translated as “stream,” or “flow,” as in “stream like water” or “flow like a river,” the Hebrew <i>naharu, </i>also means “to shine in joyful radiance.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Those who come to the mountain of God, those who will flow or stream to the home of God, will shine in God’s radiance, this suggests. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Isaiah continues,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> <i> Many peoples shall come and say,</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i> to the house of the God of Jacob;</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>that God may teach us God’s ways</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i> and that we may walk in God’s paths.”</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> What are God’s ways? What is God’s path? </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">We have to go way back for that. Way back to…the last three weeks and our series on the Beatitudes, and that passage from the other prophet, Micah, who told us that the way of God, what God desires is for us to “do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God.”</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Funny how this all fits together when you look at it broadly and in context, isn’t it?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Isaiah continues, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>For out of Zion shall go forth instruction,</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i> and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>God shall judge </i><b><i>between</i></b><i> the nations,</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i> and shall arbitrate for many peoples;</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Hear that word - it says God will judge BETWEEN the nations, not JUDGE the nations, God will arbitrate, God will settle disputes between nations. Why? To what end? </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">To that Isaiah says,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>they shall beat their swords into plowshares,</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i> and their spears into pruning hooks;</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>nation shall not lift up sword against nation,</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i> neither shall they learn war any more.</i></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(255, 38, 0); color: #ff2600;"> </span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Isaiah 2:1-4</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> The way of God is the way of peace - <i>blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.</i> The way of war is the way of darkness - deep darkness. God desires peace. Isaiah is a prophet. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">More than predictors of future events, prophets act as the voice of God to the world. Isaiah is telling Israel that God desires peace, God desires for them to learn, not war, but God’s ways of peace.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> The prophet continues later in chapter 9:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>The people who walked in darkness</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i> have seen a great light;</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>those who lived in a land of deep darkness—</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i> on them light has shined…</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>For a child has been born for us,</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i> a son given to us;</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>authority rests upon his shoulders;</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i> and he is named</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i> Everlasting Parent, Prince of Peace.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>His authority shall grow continually,</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i> and there shall be endless peace</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>for the throne of David and his kingdom.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i> He will establish and uphold it</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>with justice and with righteousness</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i> from this time onward and forevermore.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Now, Isaiah isn’t predicting the future here - or at least he doesn’t intend to. He’s pointing to a light that God is shining then and there, not 700 years later. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">He’s talking about a person, a king. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">He’s likely talking about the boy King Josiah.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Little did he know that Josiah, although he would be</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">great king - perhaps the greatest since David - would not be the greatest light. It is only later, looking through the lens of Jesus Christ, that we can see that the child born for us, the son given to us, is not the boy king Josiah, but Jesus.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> This is a prophetic vision of peace, and this would have been exactly what the Israel of Jesus’ time was looking for as well. In fact, Isaiah’s descriptions of a king who would bring them out from under oppression would be repeated by Luke and Matthew centuries later for much the same reason. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> So while Isaiah was referring to a king of the southern kingdom of Judah in this reference, what this sets up is the people’s understanding that peace depended on just and compassionate rulers. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">In the so-called pax Romana, Caesar had created “peace” by suppressing human rights and violently throwing down protests, so the Jews had a great yearning for freedom, for light. How poignant would be the vision from Isaiah, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> God’s presence is associated with light throughout scripture, as we shall see every week in Advent. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">So, when we think about this passage, when we think about the passage I shared a moment ago including the word </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">naharu, </i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">meaning both to stream or flow and to glow in radiance, an image or idea is created that as we move closer to God, as we grow more intimate with the Creator, God’s radiance shines on us, in us, and through us. As Jesus said, we are the light of the world.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">That is the symbolism in this series of the images of stars as the light of God, and in the lighting of Advent Candles in this season. Light represents God’s presence in and with us.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> The other important image we find in these readings from Isaiah today is the iconic message of turning weapons of war into tools of gardening, of growing, and cultivating and nurturing. We are invited to use our ingenuity, our creativity, our energy for good and for building up, as opposed to tearing down or destroying. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> The point here is not to begin a debate about war, but rather to acknowledge the effects of war and our human capacity to reach across divides and find our common humanity. This is the work of building up community that we are called to do. And this is poignantly expressed in the story of the WWI “Christmas truce” of 1914. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> It’s a remarkable story that emerged from the front line trenches of WWI. Though accounts vary, it seems that in the week leading up to Christmas 1914, groups of German and British soldiers began to exchange seasonal greetings, cigarettes and songs between their trenches. The unofficial ceasefires allowed soldiers on both sides, up to 100,000 by some accounts, to venture out into No Man’s land - the stretch of land between the German and British trenches – to collect and bury the bodies of dead soldiers. One version of events has it that the Germans began singing “Stille Nacht”, “Silent Night” on Christmas Eve. British soldiers, recognizing the tune, joined in. Some groups of soldiers even finished up with a game of soccer together.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Actual letters from British soldiers who witnessed the truce give us a glimpse of that Christmas Eve on the Western Front 100 years ago. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Here is what some of them said about what happened:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Reader 1</b>: “The Germans started singing and lighting candles about 7:30 on Christmas Eve, and one of them challenged anyone of us to go across for a bottle of wine. One of our fellows accepted the challenge and took a big cake to exchange.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Reader 2</b>: “We came from our mouseholes and saw the English advancing towards us and waving cigarette boxes, handkerchiefs and towels. They had no rifles with them and there we know it could only be a greeting and that it was alright.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Reader 3:</b> “We had a church service and sang hymns, we met the Germans midway between the trenches and wished each other a ‘Merry Christmas’. We exchanged buttons, badges, caps, etc, and we all sang songs.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Reader 4:</b> “They gave us cigars and cigarettes and toffee and they told us they didn’t want to fight, but had to. Some could speak English as well as we could and some had worked in Manchester. The Germans seem very nice chaps who were awfully sick of the war.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Reader 5</b>: “We were able to move about the whole of Christmas Day with absolute freedom. It was a day of peace in war.... It is only a pity that it was not a decisive peace.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Another soldier writes about how the truce came to an end at 3pm on Christmas day when a German officer called his men in:”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Reader 6</b>: “A German soldier said to me ‘today (Christmas Day) nice; tomorrow, shoot.’ As he left me he held out his hand, which I accepted, and said: ‘Farewell, comrade.’ With that we parted....”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> A truce is an attractive idea isn’t it? </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“Truce” is an interesting word. In writing about it, Marcia McFee offers, “I love to discover the origins of words, and when I looked up ‘truce,’ I found that it comes from the root word for ‘faith, faithfulness, assurance of faith, covenant, truth, fidelity, promise.’ Now, all this is complex because we don’t advocate for a truce, or ‘silence,’ in order to sweep the concerns of tyranny and oppression aside, but that in the pursuit of justice, our covenant and promise is to the thriving of all humankind. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">In the silencing of war, if only for a day, we can hear the cries of the suffering of humanity and ask, ‘Is </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">this</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> the way out of the dark night or is there another way?’”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>The people who walked in darkness</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i> have seen a great light;</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>those who lived in a land of deep darkness—</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i> on them light has shined…</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Our exploration of the hymn “Silent Night” for this Advent/Christmas season is a way of “shining a light” on the power of reaching across divides and getting silent enough to listen to the “hopes and fears of all the years” of those we tend to cast as the enemy (or simply “different”) for one reason or another. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">This story offers a powerful reminder that, like that one person who issued the initial invitation to come out of the “mouseholes” and connect face to face, we each have the ability to reach across divides and connect because we are humans with common human needs and, deep down, we all have the desire for peace for ourselves and our children. It might just change the course of history, if only for a day.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Remembering this truce more than a century later isn’t just about what happened then. It’s about what we as God’s children - followers of the Prince of Peace - can do now, in the midst of conflict and fear in the 21st century. What we can do today, right now - this Christmas, to help our families, our communities, our world hang on to our humanity in the face of brutality? </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">What can we do to continue to love one another and to care about those we don’t even know, while so much around us shouts at us to hate and fear and give up on the real possibilities for peace and reconciliation? </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">How can we meaningfully pray for those we call enemies today as well as those who were enemies in 1914?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> In the same way that British and German soldiers made a human to human connection with each other by sharing Christmas greetings and singing, we’re called to connect with those around us who are strangers, who don’t know the love of Christ, and to share a bit about who we are, to maybe sing the carol, ‘Silent Night’ together, and celebrate the Good News of God’s saving love coming to us as a baby on Christmas Day.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> As children of God and disciples of Jesus Christ, we are called to say ‘yes’ to the possibility of peace in a world of conflict by sharing the light and love of Christ with those we once called “enemy,” or might call “stranger.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">There is a saying that suggests “there are no atheists in foxholes,” that in the middle of a battle, in the midst of conflict, everyone is looking to God for salvation, regardless of their religious or non-religious beliefs. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Gareth Higgins, a peacemaker and theologian from Northern Ireland, who knows of war and conflict from all that has gone on in his country writes this, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> “There are lots of ways to prevent violence, lots of ways to repair its consequences, lots of ways to build beloved community. In a polarized society there may be no more effective violence prevention measure than building bridges, or at least none more accessible. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Get to know at least one person who votes differently. It’s not necessarily easy. But it is necessary.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">And the history of conflict transformation proves it works. Start with the person of different political views with whom you feel most comfortable. Just get to know each other. This is the work.” </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> As you leave worship today you will be given a resource on the little things that each of us can do to help build community.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Our scripture today, this song that we celebrate, this unlikely truce from a century ago, all remind us that our congregation, our community, our world is full of people who love life, long for peace, dream about a better future for their families, and struggle with the challenge of how to walk faithfully with God, and “sleep in heavenly peace.” May you shine the light of God on their path as well as your own in this most holy of seasons. Amen. </span></div>
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Crossroads UMChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01395756504990704649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6906807844502326707.post-42631960635439312002018-11-25T14:28:00.002-08:002018-11-25T14:28:15.893-08:0011-25-18 The Sermon on the Mount: The Beatitudes Pt. 3<iframe allowfullscreen="true" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="315" scrolling="no" src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fjay.anderson.566148%2Fvideos%2F10156570707471539%2F&show_text=0&width=560" style="border: none; overflow: hidden;" width="560"></iframe><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">11-25-18 The Sermon on the Mount: The Beatitudes Pt. 3</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> I begin today by sharing with you what for many is a familiar and beloved poem. Hopefully its relevance will become clear in today’s message.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>The Road Not Taken - By Robert Frost</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>And sorry I could not travel both</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>And be one traveler, long I stood</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>And looked down one as far as I could</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>To where it bent in the undergrowth;</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Then took the other, as just as fair,</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>And having perhaps the better claim,</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Because it was grassy and wanted wear;</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Though as for that the passing there</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Had worn them really about the same,</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>And both that morning equally lay</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>In leaves no step had trodden black.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Oh, I kept the first for another day!</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Yet knowing how way leads on to way,</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>I doubted if I should ever come back.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>I shall be telling this with a sigh</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Somewhere ages and ages hence:</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>I took the one less traveled by,</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>And that has made all the difference.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b> </b> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> I’ve shared with you before that Mark’s Gospel is my favorite book of the Bible. I like it for it’s simplicity of structure, for its basic “just the facts” approach to the stories of Jesus without a lot of theological or doctrinal embellishment, and I like it because, in its original version, Mark had the guts to allow the story to end with the women at the empty tomb frightened by the implications of what lay before them instead of tying it all up in a nice Easter bonnet bow for us. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">He allowed for the uncertainty that must have been present in the women at that time. And I appreciate the dangling questions and growth that come with a process-oriented theology more than I do the seemingly pat answers of a systematic approach. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">I can relate more to the simple humanity evidenced in Mark more than I resonate with the piety of John. Although, as with Robert Frost, I do appreciate the poetry in John. That’s just how I roll.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> At the same time, if I had to offer my favorite <i>passage</i> of scripture within the Bible, it would be the Sermon on the Mount, and more specifically the Beatitudes, at or near the top of the list. I have preached this passage multiple times in ten years of ministry, each time gleaning something new from a fresh reading, a new context, and access to different sources that either challenge or build upon my previous thinking. And the Beatitudes certainly will challenge many of our staid ways of thinking.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> A few weeks ago Lynn and I drove up to Delaware to visit the recently widowed wife of a United Methodist Pastor who had served in Lynn’s parents’ church in Sandusky years ago. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Ned had just recently died after a long battle with cancer and Shirley asked if I would be interested in any of his books. Salivating like Pavlov’s dog at the ringing of a bell, we drove to Delaware and I quickly began a deep dive into yet another literary candy store from which to feed my book addiction. Many of the titles were familiar, already having a place on my many shelves. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Others were new to me so I grabbed them up and placed them in boxes that I would bring home and allow to acclimate to their new environment before finding homes for them in whatever bookshelf was most appropriate -</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">or had space.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> One of those new books was a gem written by Glen Stassen, a professor of Christian Ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary, titled “Living the Sermon on the Mount.” </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">I knew it would be good both by the number of things that Ned had underlined in the text, as well as the fact that the endorsements on the back cover of the dust jacket were from people who represent both theologically progressive and conservative lenses. That kind of “bi-partisanship” is as rare in the church as it is in politics, so when you see it you grab it and hold tight - which I did.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> And one of the things that I loved when I got to the section about the Beatitudes themselves, is that Stassen, after extensive study of not only the original language, but how that language is used throughout scripture, retranslates the verses to what he believes Jesus was actually saying. Rather than “blessed” or “happy” he translates the Greek <i>makarios</i> as “joyful,” because that same word is used 50 other times in the New Testament as “joyful” rather than either “blessed” or “happy.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">So Stassen’s translation says:</span></div>
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<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 19.2px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Joyful are those who are poor and humble before God, for theirs is the reign of God.</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 19.2px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Joyful are those who are deeply saddened to the point of action, for they will be comforted.</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 19.2px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Joyful are those whose wills are surrendered to God, for they will inherit the earth.</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 19.2px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Joyful are those who hunger and thirst for restorative justice, for they will be filled.</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 19.2px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Joyful are those who practice compassion in action, for they will receive God’s compassion.</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 19.2px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Joyful are those who seek God’s will in all that they are and do, for they will be called children of God. </span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 19.2px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Joyful are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 19.2px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Joyful are those of you who suffer because of restorative justice, for theirs is the reign of God.</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 19.2px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Joyful are you when they criticize, persecute, and slander you because of me.</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 19.2px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in God. For in the same way they persecuted the prophets before you.</span></li>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> This, according to Stassen, would be the best understanding of what Jesus intended in this message. And he points out that Jesus is saying that these “joys” are not a to-do list to get into heaven, but rather they are signs of the present and future reign of God - that which is present in Jesus Christ and that which is to come when God’s reign is fully in place. The beatitudes, he says, are an experience that is already beginning in Jesus.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Contrary to how we tend to interpret them, these are not high ideals that Jesus is urging us to live up to. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">That is an ethics of </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">idealism, </i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">focusing attention on our own good works and hard effort rather than on participation in God’s grace. It urges us to make a superhuman effort to live up to ideals that are difficult if not impossible for us to reach. And he says, “It often leads people to praise Jesus for teaching wonderfully high ideals, but then to say that in real life we have to live by some other, more realistic, ethic.”</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> He goes on, “When seen as a type of idealism, Jesus’ teachings are about imposing [a set of principles, moral values, or ideals] on us from above that do not fit our real struggle. They seem to be foreign to our nature, like a pair of pants too tight for our body, or a job that does not fit our gifts and interests. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We try to make our reality fit the ideals, but it simply does not fit. Idealistic thinking is wishful, not realistic. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">It does not point out the way to deal with problems.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> “The more we emphasize these teachings as ideals to live up to, the guiltier and less worthy we feel. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Some of us even avoid Jesus’ teachings. Or, if we think we </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">do</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> live up to these ideals, we become self-righteous. [Like Jesus’ story of the Pharisee and the Publican,] we thank God that we are not like other people, who are not so virtuous as we are. Our moralistic arrogance makes us hard to live with.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b> </b>Stassen reminds the reader that “the gospel is about God coming to deliver us, not our building ourselves up to attempt to reach God’s heights by living out impossibly high ideals.” </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Now this might be a little confusing to us. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">“Aren’t we supposed to act in these ways?” we ask. Aren’t we supposed to be humble, merciful, and make peace? Of course we are. The point is why.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Are we doing it because we think it will punch our ticket to heaven, or because doing so reflects God’s presence in our lives? Is Jesus saying, “Joyful are those who are poor and humble before God” </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">because </i><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"><i>being poor and humble</i></b><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> makes them virtuous </i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">so they will get the reward that virtuous people deserve?</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Or is he saying, “Joyful are those who are poor and humble before God” </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">because </i><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"><i>God is gracious</i></b><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> and </i><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"><i>God is acting to deliver</i></b><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> the poor and humble? </i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">There is a huge difference in those two readings of this one beatitude - and it leads to an entirely different understanding of what God is doing in our lives.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> The beatitudes are not some theological performance improvement plan or <i>Salvation for Dummies </i>checklist. The beatitudes, given primarily to the disciples but also to others who had begun to follow Jesus at a distance, are geared towards people who have already begun to experience being saddened, criticized, or persecuted for choosing to follow him, or who have begun the counter cultural task of making peace. Jesus is talking to insiders about the grace of God that is both present and coming to help ease the difficult journey they’d already begun. Their basis is not on the perfection of the disciples’ activity or actions, but on the coming grace of God.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> One way we can see how Jesus is using these teachings is in his use of Isaiah 61. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Jesus quoted Isaiah more than any other book. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">In Luke’s gospel, when Jesus read from the scroll in the synagogue announcing his mission, it was from Isaiah 61:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>The Sprit of the Lord is upon me</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Because he has anointed me;</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>He sent me to bring good news to the poor,</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>to proclaim release for the prisoners</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>and recovery of sight to the blind;</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>to let the broken victims go free,</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> So, is this a passage about human effort to live up to high ideals? Is it urging us to become poor, prisoners, blind, and victims so that God will reward us? </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">No. It’s a passage celebrating that God is acting graciously to deliver us from our poverty and captivity into God’s reign of deliverance, justice, joy, and salvation. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> The beatitudes are not about high ideals, but God’s gracious deliverance and our joyous participation in and response to God’s grace. Here in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says we are blessed, we are joyful, because God is NOT distant or absent; we experience God’s reign and presence in our midst and will experience it even more in the future. Therefore each beatitude begins and ends with the joy, the happiness, the blessedness, of the good news of participation in God’s deliverance. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The beatitudes say what Isaiah 35 tells us: “Strengthen the tired hands and revive the stumbling knees. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Say to the despairing hearts: Be of good cheer! </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Do not be afraid! See, your God is coming!”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> When we understand the beatitudes prophetically as God’s gracious deliverance, they match up well with Jesus’ teachings of the parables of the reign of God. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">And that’s what Reign of Christ Sunday calls us to celebrate as well. It is with that understanding then, that we approach our final three beatitudes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Joyful are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i></i></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Remember the quote for G.K. Chesterton that I shared with you last week, that “the Christian ideal had not been tried and found wanting. It had been found difficult and never tried?” If there is any Christian ideal that we have never tried, it’s being peacemakers. Our understanding of peace today is often the same as that of the Roman Empire’s Pax Romani - a peace that is aggressively and brutally enforced, with military might if necessary. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">True peace is more than the absence of violence or war, but that’s all we know of peace. And we know little of that.</span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </b></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> General Omar Bradley, the great military leader of D-Day and World War II, once said, “We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. . . . Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living.” —General Omar Bradley.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> President Dwight Eisenhower warned against the rise of what he called “the military industrial complex,” - that blending of interests that profit handsomely by an ever-growing and ever more engaged military, whether it’s needed for actual security or not. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">We see the truth in Eisenhower’s warning in the way in which production of nearly every component of every military system is distributed into each and every congressional district in the U.S. With that kind of broad-based manufacturing strategy, even when the military decides it no longer needs a certain weapon or weapon system, they have to fight Congress to get rid of it because it might cost jobs in each member’s district. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">So when we read Jesus’ words “blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God,” we smile knowingly, understanding that Jesus’ ideas of peace face an uphill battle in our world.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> As Fr. Richard Rohr writes about it, “The peace of Christ waits and works for true peace by sacrificing the false self of power, prestige, and possessions. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Such peacemaking will never be popular. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The follower of Jesus is doomed to minority status. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Jesus, [in the next beatitude] warns us that we will be hated from all sides. When you’re working </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">outside</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> the system, when you work for peace, you will not be admired </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">inside</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> the system. In fact, you will [either look naive and foolish, or you will] look dangerous, subversive, and unpatriotic. One thing you cannot call Jesus was a patriot. He was serving a far bigger realm.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> And Rohr goes on to say, “One of the most distressing qualities of many Christians today is that they retain the right to decide when, where, and with whom they will be pro-life peacemakers. If the other can be determined to be wrong, guilty, unworthy, or sinful, the death penalty is somehow supposed to serve justice. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">That entirely misses the ethical point Jesus makes: </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">We are <i>never</i> the sole arbiters of life or death, because life is created by God and carries the divine image. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">It is a </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">spiritual seeing</i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">, far beyond any ideology of left or right.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> John Dear writes even more matter-of-factly: “With this Beatitude, Jesus announces that God is a peacemaker. Everyone who becomes a peacemaker is therefore a son or daughter of the God of peace.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And the assumption then, that follows, is that the opposite is also true - those who do not become peacemakers are not sons or daughters of God.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Dear continues, “With this teaching, Jesus describes the nature of God as nonviolent and peaceful. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">This one verse,” he says, “throws out thousands of years of belief in a violent god and every reference to a war-making god in the Hebrew Scriptures. It does away with any spiritual justification for warfare . .</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Instead, it opens vast new vistas in our imaginations about what the living God is actually like, and what God’s reign might be like. With this beatitude, we glimpse the nonviolence of [God’s reign] and join the global struggle to abolish war and pursue a new world of nonviolence here on earth. . . .</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> “As peacemakers,” he continues, “we are nonviolent to ourselves, nonviolent to all others, all creatures, and all creation, and we work publicly for a new world of nonviolence. . . .[We are called to] speak out against every aspect of violence—poverty, war, racism, [sexism], police brutality, gun violence, nuclear weapons, and environmental destruction—and at the same time call for a new culture of peace.” </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Truly, peacemaking is the Christian ideal that has been found difficult and left untried.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Joyful are those of you who suffer because of restorative justice, for theirs is the reign of God.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> We shouldn’t be surprised that this Beatitude follows the previous ones. We talked last week about the difference between our thinking about justice as retribution, while God’s view of justice is solely about restoration. The first and last Beatitudes are present tense: Theirs <i>is </i>the kingdom of Heaven. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Until this statement, Jesus has said “joyful are <i>the </i>. . .,” speaking generally. Now he says joyful are “those of you. . . .” Very likely Matthew is suggesting that this </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">scene is happening directly in front of Jesus. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">His small community of disciples and followers is being persecuted for pursing justice, and Jesus tells them to “rejoice and be glad!” Persecution for the cause of justice is inevitable. Instead of seeking to blame someone for their well-earned scars, he is telling them two clear things: You can be joyful</span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">—</i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">and you can be joyful </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">now</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> - for the Reign of God is at hand!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> And finally, Matthew 5:11-12 could really be called the ninth Beatitude, although it more likely is an explanation of the eighth:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> <i>Joyful are you when they criticize, persecute, and slander you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in God. For in the same way they persecuted the prophets before you.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> The disciples’ response is a<i> prophetic </i>action itself. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">To live joyfully amid misunderstanding and slander points to the Reign of God. Goodness can never be attacked directly; the messengers or the motivation must be discredited.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Luke’s Gospel presents the same message in the opposite form: “Alas for you when the world speaks <i>well</i> of you! This was the way their ancestors treated the <i>false </i>prophets” (Luke 6:26). </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Too much praise is probably an indication that it is </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">not </i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">the full Gospel. In either case, Jesus himself clearly knew that his teaching would turn conventional values on their head.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Jesus taught an alternative wisdom rather than the maintenance of social order - a wisdom that got him killed. Yet most of Christian history tried to understand Jesus inside the earlier stage of law and order. Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount is anything but about maintaining the status quo!</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Theologian Marcus Borg wrote:</span><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white;">“</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The gospel of Jesus—the good news of Jesus’ own message—is that there is a way of being that moves beyond both secular and religious conventional wisdom. The path of transformation of which Jesus spoke leads from a life of requirements and measuring up (whether to culture or to God) to a life of relationship with God. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">It leads from a life of anxiety to a life of peace and trust. It leads from the bondage of self-preoccupation to the freedom of self-forgetfulness. It leads from life centered in culture to life centered in God.”</span><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Jesus says that the people who live these blessings, these joys, these Beatitudes, will be “the salt of the earth” (Mt. 5:13). For ancient people, salt was an important preservative, seasoning, and symbol of healing. What does Jesus mean by this image? </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">First, to repeat, he’s </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">not</i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> saying that those who live this way are going to heaven. He is saying that they will be a gift for the </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">earth.</i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> Conventional thinking is that Jesus’ teaching are </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">prescriptions</i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> for</span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">getting to heaven (even though we haven’t followed them), not accepting or grasping that salvation is a gift from God and not something we can earn. Instead, the Sermon on the Mount is a set of </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">descriptions</i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> of a free life - here and now - centered in God.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Jesus’ moral teaching is very often a description of the final product rather than a detailed process for getting there. When you can weep, when you can identify with the little ones, when you can make peace, when you can be persecuted and still be joyful . . . <b>then</b> you’re doing it right. He is saying, as it were, this is what holiness looks like. When you act this way, “The Reign of God is among you” (Luke 17:21). </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Jesus doesn’t seem to be concerned about control, enforcement, or uniformity. His priority is proclamation, naming, and revealing. Then he trusts that good-willed people and a reliable and patient God will take it from there.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> “If salt becomes tasteless, how can we salt the world with it?” asks Jesus (Mt. 5:13). That message seems especially true today. If Christians—Jesus’ self-proclaimed followers—no longer believe the Gospel, if we no longer believe in nonviolence and powerlessness, mercy and grace, then who’s going to convert<i> us</i>? </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">We’re supposed to be the leaven of the world, yet if we no longer believe in the Gospel, if we’re unwilling to follow Jesus’ teachings, what hope do we have of offering anything new to anyone else?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Finally, Jesus says, “You are light for the world; a city built on a hilltop cannot be hidden” (Mt. 5:14-15). </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Our job is to be a shining truth, to live the truth as best we can, and let it fall where it may. As Richard Rohr put it, “The best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better.”</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Jesus is telling his disciples, then and now, “I’ve given you a great truth. I want you to hold the light and the leaven in the middle of the world. As light or leaven it will do its work, and God’s purposes will be achieved.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">What a relaxed and patient trust Jesus has in God!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Jesus is quite content, it seems, with such a humble position. He enters the Jerusalem on what we now call Palm Sunday from a place of utter powerlessness, mounted, not on a war horse but a humble donkey. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">His Sermon on the Mount has to do with an alternative understanding and strategy of power. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Jesus is leading us to participate in God’s power, which to us feels like powerlessness, but when embraced surrounds us with joy. It is a way that has been left untried, a road that has not been taken.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> The road that Jesus offers may not initially look as appealing, but the farther down the road of faith one travels, the more truth one finds. We discover that humility, unlike power, needs no defense. We realize that doing justice is its own reward. We find that a pure heart is much easier to live with than one filled with jealousy, resentment, and cynicism. Step by step, we learn that following Jesus - even if we are persecuted for it - leads to a joy that nothing can take away. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">As Frost’s poem concludes:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>I shall be telling this with a sigh</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Somewhere ages and ages hence:</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>I took the one less traveled by,</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>And that has made all the difference.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">May you choose the road, the way of Jesus, that has been left untried. And may it make all the difference for you. Amen.</span></div>
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Crossroads UMChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01395756504990704649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6906807844502326707.post-34183997199139588772018-11-18T14:40:00.000-08:002018-11-18T14:40:01.236-08:0011-18-18 Sermon on the Mount Series: The Beatitudes Pt 2<iframe allowfullscreen="true" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="315" scrolling="no" src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fjay.anderson.566148%2Fvideos%2F10156555463651539%2F&show_text=0&width=560" style="border: none; overflow: hidden;" width="560"></iframe><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">11-18-18 Sermon on the Mount Series: The Beatitudes Pt 2</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> The artwork of M.C. Escher has amazed, fascinated, and bewildered people for decades due to the seemingly impossible nature of what he depicts. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Escher had no mathematical training, but his drawings have been used by and promoted in mathematical circles and periodicals for years. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">A close look at some of his work only further enhances the bewilderment we experience when we see something we know to be impossible depicted in such a straightforward and seemingly logical way.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Similarly, when we consider the vastness of the universe, the distance between planets or galaxies can test our ability to even begin to comprehend. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">For example, the distance from the Earth to the Sun, </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">as we learn in elementary school, is 93 million miles. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">So consider this - if we could drive from the Earth to the Sun in our car, at a constant 75 miles per hour, non-stop 24 hours a day, it would take over 141 years to arrive.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Intergalactic travel requires that we think, not in miles, but in light-years. A light year is the distance that light, going at 186,000 miles per second, can travel in one year. One light year equals roughly 5.88 trillion miles. The nearest star to our galaxy is Alpha Centauri, which is 4.3 light years away, or something over 25 trillion miles. At 25,000 mph - the speed of the Space Shuttle - it would take over 114,000 years to travel that distance. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">So, until we somehow manage to build a spaceship that can travel at the speed of light, we’re not venturing too far from planet Earth any time soon.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> These images, numbers, and distances are nearly incomprehensible to us - so far outside the limits of what we can understand that they almost seem nonsensical to us. Rev. Matthew Kelley, in thinking about things like these, wrote, </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">“I wonder if hearing Jesus speak had a similar effect on people. In first century Palestine, everybody understood how the world worked. Might made right.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">They were living under the Roman Empire, after all. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The Romans got to rule most of the known world because they had the biggest military, the most money, and were willing to do whatever it took to secure their power base. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The amount of resources in the world was finite, so you did whatever you had to do to make sure you got as big a share as you could. But here’s this preacher from Nazareth telling an entirely different story…Here’s Jesus saying that things like meekness, being persecuted, and being merciful in a merciless world are actually blessings from God!”</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> And Kelley is correct. Jesus, in his first teaching in Matthew’s gospel, is saying things that seem impossible for us to understand, or for some, even to agree with. The poor are blessed? Those who mourn are blessed? The meek, the humble, <i>they</i> are blessed? </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">That seems like logic turned on its head to many people, including many devoted followers of Christ. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">But it is with this message that Jesus sets the tone for all of his ministry to follow. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">He’s telling them and us that everything we thought we knew about the world, about wealth, about society, about God - is wrong. Like so many people who would come with earth-shaking ideas after him - that the Earth was round, that the Sun was at the center of our solar system and not the Earth, that human flight was possible - Jesus was pushing back and pushing back hard against the status quo in the world and in the church.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> As Kelley put it, “Jesus is forcing us to radically rethink the priorities and value systems around which we orient our lives. On the one hand there’s the story told by the empire (the ruling powers of the world) that says that the material realities of this life are the entirety of all creation, so material gain and success are the stick by which we measure individual worth. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">On the other hand, there’s the story that Jesus is telling, which tells us there is a higher reality than what we can perceive with our five senses, and that this higher reality and the priorities that flow out of its being are to dictate how we live our lives in the world.” </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">It is through that understanding of what Jesus is trying to do here that we approach our three beatitudes for today.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>“Happy are those whose greatest desire is to do what God requires; God will satisfy them fully!</i> - Mt. 5:6 (GNT)</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> I chose the Good News Translation today specifically for the wording it used in this beatitude. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Not the “happy” part - as I said last week, “blessed” is the better translation to get the idea that we’re talking, not about a feel-good emotion but a state of blessedness that comes from God. No, I chose it because it </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">doesn’t</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> use the word “righteousness.”</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> As Richard Rohr tells us, “This Beatitude is…both spiritual <i>and</i> social. Most Bibles…soften this Beatitude: “hunger and thirst for what is right” or “for righteousness” are the more common <b>faulty</b> translations. But the word in Greek clearly means “justice.” </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Notice that the concept of justice is used halfway through the Beatitudes and again at the very end. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">[This repetition] emphasizes an important point: </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">To live a just life in this world is to identify with the longings and hungers of the poor, the meek, and those who weep. This identification and solidarity is in itself a profound form of social justice.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> When we hear the word “righteousness” we tend to think of “right thinking,” “right acting,” or “right belief,” or even a notion of piety. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">And that’s not necessarily wrong as it’s just not enough; it’s only a partial understanding of what the word translated as “righteousness” is saying to us.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The word definitely is about “justice,” so while “right thinking, acting, and believing,” may also include ideas of justice, it isn’t as explicit as the original language would have us understand. The Good News translation, while not specifically using the word “justice,” </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">does</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> say “Blessed are those whose greatest desire is to do what God requires.” And if we go back to the passage from the prophet Micah that we read earlier - what does the Lord require? </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">To do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God. </i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">So this beatitude might be better understood as, </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Blessed are those who do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God, for God will satisfy them fully.</i></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i> </i>John Dear, who spent his life in the struggle against the injustice of violence, writes about this Beatitude: “Righteousness [as justice] is not just the private practice of doing good; it sums up the global responsibility of the human community to make sure every human being has what they need, that everyone pursues a fair sense of justice for every other human being, and that everyone lives in right relationship with one another, creation, and God.. . . Jesus instructs us to be passionate for social, economic, and racial justice. That’s the real meaning of the Hebrew word for justice and the Jewish insistence on it. Resist systemic, structured, institutionalized injustice with every bone in your body, with all your might, with your very soul,” he teaches. “Seek justice as if it were your food and drink, your bread and water, as if it were a matter of life and death, which it is. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">In our relationship to the God of justice and peace, those who give their lives to that struggle, Jesus promises, will be satisfied.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> So how is it that we hunger and thirst for justice, for the things that God requires of us? We do it by making justice a priority in our lives. Not our idea of retribution as justice, but God’s sacred and global justice of restoration, so that everyone has enough. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">There is no justice in this world when there is more than enough food to eat, but people die of starvation. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">There is no justice in this world when people continue to die of preventible and curable diseases because access to or the cost of medicines or medical care is out of reach to the poor. There is no justice in the world when people sleep on the streets while homes sit boarded up and empty in neighborhoods around the world.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> “This Beatitude,” Rohr says, “requires us to join a grassroots movement that fights one or two issues of injustice and to get deeply involved in the struggle. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Since all issues of injustice are connected, fighting one injustice puts us squarely in the struggle against every injustice. As Martin Luther King Jr. said over and over again, ‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.’ Befriend the victims of systemic injustice, side with them, listen to their stories, let their pain break your heart, [weep with them], join the movements to end injustice, tithe your money to the cause, and commit yourself to the struggle. . . While [it] may take a long time, our nonviolent persistence and truth-telling will eventually win out and bear the good fruit of justice. Truth is on our side; God is on the side of justice. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">‘The arc of the moral universe is long,’ King famously said, ‘but it bends toward justice.’”</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Blessed are those who are merciful to others; God will be merciful to them!</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> We need to understand that the Beatitudes are not a to-do list on how to get <b>into</b> heaven. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Rather, they represent most fully the nature of people who have heaven </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">in</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> them. The beatitudes build upon one another, linking in some way to the ones that came before and that follow. </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Blessed are those who are merciful </i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">follows immediately after Jesus’ blessing of those who seek justice. The linking of justice and mercy in this teaching tells us that if our idea of justice is something less than merciful, we’ve gotten it wrong.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> The word mercy shows up in the Old and New Testaments approximately 150 times, depending on the translation, with clear differences in how it is used. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">For example, in the book of Joshua, where the people of Israel are moving into the Promised Land, the word is used most often to describe the killing and devastation that Israel visited upon various nations, showing them <b>no mercy</b>. In the Psalms, on the other hand, with only a few exceptions, it is used in pleas to God by David or some other writer for God to have mercy on them. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Mercy is an exercise, a tool, of power. In fact, the dictionary definition of mercy is: compassion or forgiveness shown toward someone whom it is within one's power to punish or harm.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Writer, and researcher Brene’ Brown observes that sometimes we fall, or are pushed, into a state of guilt or shame. This is often how we respond to Sin as well. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">And she offers a clear and easily understood way of thinking about the difference between guilt and shame. Guilt suggests “I’ve done something bad.” Shame insists that “I AM bad, I’m a bad person.”</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Guilt is usually something that we bring upon ourselves, shame is often heaped on us to the point that we begin to believe it. And I know you’re going to find this hard to believe, but over the centuries the church has been really good at piling on both guilt <b>and</b> shame to people. And one of the shovels it uses to pile on is the idea of our sinful nature - original sin. Now, I’m not going down that rabbit hole of today. Suffice it to say, I don’t ascribe to the school of “original sin,” I’m a disciple of the school of “original blessing.” God created everything, including us. God created us in God’s image and called it good and very good, and I believe it. Do we commit sins? Yes, without a doubt. But do our sins define who we are in the eyes of God? Absolutely not! Why? Because our God is a God of mercy and our sins have been forgiven.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> The angry, judgmental, fire and brimstone, condemning God we read about in the Old Testament does not in any way reflect the God revealed to us in Jesus Christ. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The Hebrew Bible gives us a record of how ancient peoples thought of gods in general, and how that thinking influenced how they considered the God of Israel in particular. The lenses through which they viewed God were based on ancient polytheistic understandings. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The lens through which we view God is Jesus Christ.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> That Jesus is the fullest revelation of God is at the core of our beliefs as Christians. Whereas in the Hebrew Bible many people believed that they could earn God’s mercy by following rules, laws, Commandments, or by making sacrifices, Jesus tells us that God’s mercy is there for the taking because mercy is who God is.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> For example, in Matthew 9, Jesus is confronted by some legal experts - i.e. people who insisted that the way to God’s mercy was by following the law - because his disciples didn’t fast like John’s did. Jesus tells them, borrowing from Hosea 6:6, <i>“Go and learn what this means: I want </i><b><i>mercy</i></b><i> and not sacrifice. </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Now after this, Jesus does more teaching, preaching, and healing, and three chapters later, it is the Sabbath and Jesus and his disciples are walking through a field and some of his disciples are eating grains from the field as they walk. Jesus is again confronted, this time by some Pharisees, questioning why they’re breaking the Sabbath law by picking grain. Jesus responds, referring to what he had said to them earlier, <i>“If you had known what this means, I want mercy and not sacrifice, you wouldn’t have condemned the innocent.”</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> The Pharisees are attempting to use shame and guilt in order to force compliance to a system of practice and belief that Jesus flatly rejects. And unfortunately, we continue to see that same thing happening today. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">But that’s NOT what Jesus did - it’s not how Jesus was.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Another example: Remember the story of the woman who was caught in adultery? Mind you, there was a man involved too but his male privilege and the patriarchal nature of the society spared him the shaming that was piled onto the woman. When addressing her, what did Jesus say? Did he shame her? Did he agree that she should be stoned to death for her sin? No, he told her accusers that any among them who was without sin could cast the first stone, and he told the woman simply to “sin no more.” He showed her mercy. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The Pharisees weren’t going to show her mercy - the woman is brought into this thinking she was about to die. When Jesus entered the story, he brought with him God’s </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">hesed, </i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">God’s steadfast, covenant love, God’s unrequited mercy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Like Father Richard Rohr, </span><span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">I believe with all my heart that mercy and forgiveness are the whole Gospel. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white;">He writes, “The experience of forgiveness or mercy is the experience of a magnanimous God who loves out of total gratuitousness. There’s no tit for tat. Grace isn’t for sale. That is the symbolism [behind Jesus kicking over the tables in the temple. One cannot buy God by worthiness, by achievement, or by obeying commandments.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">Salvation is God’s <i>hesed, </i>God’s loving-kindness, a loving-kindness that is ‘forever.’ </span><span style="font-kerning: none;">More than something God does now and then, mercy is <i>who-God-is.”</i> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> So when Jesus says “Mercy is what pleases me, not sacrifice” (Matthew 9:13; 12:7) we should understand that he is speaking for and as God, and that God has made a covenant with creation that God will never break. As Rohr reminds us, “The covenant is only broken from our side. <i>God’s love is steadfast. It is written in the divine image within us</i>. We are the ones who instead clutch at our sins and beat ourselves [up] instead of surrendering to the divine mercy. Refusing to [accept forgiveness] is a form of pride. It’s saying, ‘I’m better than mercy. I’m only going to accept it when I’m worthy and can preserve my so-called self-esteem.’ Only the humble person, [the meek,] the little one, can live <i>in</i> and <i>after </i>mercy.” </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">As Jesus said earlier; </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Blessed are the meek, the humble, for they shall inherit the earth.</i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Forgiveness is God’s ultimate entry into powerlessness. Withholding forgiveness is a form of power over another person, a way to manipulate, shame, control, and diminish another. God in Jesus never does this; God in Jesus refuses all such power. If Jesus is the revelation of the true nature of God then we are forced to conclude that God is very humble. This God never seems to hold rightful claims against us. Denying what we often think or have been taught was the proper role or nature of God, this God, as Isaiah tells us, “has thrust all our sins behind his back” (Isa. 38:17)</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> When asked by his disciples how often they should forgive someone, suggesting seven times should be sufficient, Jesus replies “seventy times seven.” </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Seven representing wholeness or completeness, Jesus says forgive completely, fully, wholey, as often as it takes, with no limit, just as you are forgiven.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Rohr concludes, “We do not attain anything by our own holiness but by ten thousand surrenders to mercy.<b> </b></span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">A lifetime of received forgiveness allows us to </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"><i>become</i></b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> mercy: That’s the Beatitude. We become what we receive, what we allow into our hearts. Mercy becomes our energy and purpose. Perhaps we’re finally enlightened and free when we can both receive it and give it away—without payment or punishment.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> When we move further into the Sermon on the Mount we find Jesus giving example after example of what he was talking about in the Beatitudes. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">He makes the point several times that what is on our hearts, more than anything else, decides how we are with other people, that our inner attitudes and states of mind are the real source of our problems with people.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> And Jesus is trying in these verses to get us to understand that we need to root out the heart of the problem at our deepest interior levels, rather than just going through the motions of doing the right things on the surface. As Rohr points out, “Jesus says not only that we must not kill, but that we must not even harbor hateful anger. He clearly <i>begins </i>with the necessity of a ‘pure heart’ (Matthew 5:8) and knows that the outer behavior will follow. Too often we force the outward response, while the inward intent remains like a cancer. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">If we walk around with hatred all day, morally we’re just as much killers as the one who pulls the trigger. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">We can’t live that way and not be destroyed from within. Yet, for some reason, many Christians have thought it acceptable to think and feel hatred, negativity, and fear. The evil and genocide of both [World Wars] were the result of decades of negative, resentful, and paranoid </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">thinking and feeling</i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> among even good Christian people.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> In considering this beatitude, I’m reminded of the old adage, “you are what you eat.” I guess I’m more pizza and french fries than I am kale salad and roasted fish. But we get what this means to our life and health. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> Jesus is telling us we are what we think. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">He warns against harboring hateful anger against others, or calling people names like “fool” or “idiot,” because if we spend our days thinking of other people in that way, we’re living out of death, not life. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">If that’s what we think and feel, that’s what we will be - a death energy instead of the life force of salt and light that Jesus calls us to be as his disciples. Jesus warns us that we must stay connected to the love of God, the love that IS God, that we cannot afford even an inner disconnection from God’s love, because how we live in our hearts is the real and deepest truth about who and how we are in our lives. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> James Howell equates “purity in heart” to remaining focused on the “one true thing.” So many times, he suggests, we allow ourselves to become scattered and distracted by so many different things - feelings, ideas, notions, emotions - and that we lose our focus on the one true things that matters and that will keep us moving in the right direction - the love of God. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">If we can remain focused on the “one true thing” - God’s love and how we are to live into that -</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">“we would have our hearts purified, for we are a mess of misunderstandings about God, and therefore we are a mess of misunderstandings about ourselves [and others.]”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> In the aftermath of being confronted by Nathan about his relationship with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband, King David, writes what would become known as Psalm 51 - a psalm of lament, and confession, and grief, in which, in the midst of his brokenness, shame, guilt, he asks God to <i>Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.</i>(Psalm 51)</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> We can’t risk walking around with a negative, resentful, gossipy, angry, judgmental, critical mind, because when we do we aren’t being true to who and how God created us to be. We won’t be usable instruments for God. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">That’s why Jesus <i>commanded </i> us to love. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It’s that urgent. It’s that critical.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Now, this is hard stuff. While we tend to make the Beatitudes sing-songy and trite, these are radically difficult teachings from Jesus and he hits us with them right out of the gate. Like thinking about the vastness of space, or considering the artwork of M.C. Escher, they go far beyond what we’re used to, they transcend the norms of what culture and society tell us is acceptable. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">They truly challenge us. In fact, they’re so hard that many people, including many who call themselves Christians, reject them. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The great theologian G.K. Chesterton famously said of this phenomena, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.” Take a moment to consider that: “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.”</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> You know, Escher’s art work is great because you can’t just glance at it for a moment and get it. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">You have to stare at it for a long time, wondering if your eyes are playing tricks on you, and marveling at the imagination it must take to even think of things like this, which are impossible in real life. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">His art forces us to stretch the bounds of our understanding and reconsider what really is possible.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> And when we stare into the night sky, our perspective from this single blue dot in our galaxy, fools us into thinking that all of those lights in the sky are as close the freckles on a child’s nose, when in fact the distances between them are, at this point at least, incomprehensible and insurmountable.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> The teachings of Jesus are much the same for us. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">They strike us as so different than what our society and culture have taught for so many years, that we’re compelled to stare at them, wondering if our eyes, our ears, even our mind is playing a trick on us. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">But unlike Escher’s artwork, Jesus’ teachings are not impossible. They’ve just been found difficult, and left untried. What kind of world </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">could</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> we have if those who claimed to follow this teacher, this Son of God, actually tried to live out what he taught? Hmm. Jesus called that world the “Reign of God.” May it be so. Amen.</span></div>
Crossroads UMChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01395756504990704649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6906807844502326707.post-61907870705216891192018-11-11T11:37:00.004-08:002018-11-11T11:37:53.233-08:0011-11-18 Sermon on the Mount Series: The Beatitudes - Part 1<iframe allowfullscreen="true" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="315" scrolling="no" src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fjay.anderson.566148%2Fvideos%2F10156539899791539%2F&show_text=0&width=560" style="border: none; overflow: hidden;" width="560"></iframe><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">11-11-18 Sermon on the Mount Series: The Beatitudes - Part 1</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> The Sermon on the Mount is found in Matthew’s Gospel. The similarly named but theologically different “Sermon on the Plain” is found in the Gospel of Luke. Both are believed by scholars to reflect not so much a specific event in the ministry of Jesus, although that is certainly possible, but a representation or composite rendering of the type and style of teaching that Jesus most often used. We’ll be looking at Matthew’s account over the next three Sundays. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> And in the way of a reminder and to put this passage into the proper context, Matthew’s Gospel opens with a genealogy of Jesus that traces Jesus’ lineage back to Abraham, the patriarch of Israel, in the book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Following that segment is the beloved story of Jesus’ birth that includes the magi (it is Luke that includes the shepherds), followed by the family’s harrowing escape to and return from Egypt, the story of the ministry of John the Baptist and Jesus’ subsequent baptism by John, Jesus’ 40 days of temptation in the wilderness, and finally the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. It is then that Jesus calls his disciples and immediately begins healing people.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">All of what I just laid out for you takes place in the first four chapters of the gospel. The very next thing that occurs, then, is what is called the Sermon on the Mount. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Because Matthew wants us to think of Jesus as the new Moses, he frames his telling of this and other stories in such a way that they reflect images of the Exodus stories of Moses and the Israelites. Just as the Israelites had spent forty years in the wilderness, Jesus has just come from forty days there. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">As Moses went up Mount Sinai to learn <b>from</b> God, so Jesus is goes up a mountain to teach people <b>about</b> God. The Sermon on the Mount is found in chapters 5-7 of Matthew’s gospel, and includes some of Jesus’ most well-known teachings, including what are known as the Beatitudes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> One of the first things we notice about the Beatitudes (the blessings) when we read or hear them read, is that some translations begin with the word “blessed,” while others use the word “happy.” While <b>we</b> typically use the Common English Bible, which uses “happy,” in our worship scriptures for this message I chose the NRSV <b>because</b> it uses the word “blessed,” and here’s why. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The word translated as either “happy” or “blessed,” is in Latin, <i>beati, </i>or from the Greek in which the New Testament was written, <i>makarios. </i></span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">In our modern society we think of the word “happy” as being an emotion, perhaps similar to joy, and thought of as being opposite to “sad.” We sing “Happy Birthday,” not “Blessed Birthday” to someone celebrating another trip around the sun. Things or events make us happy: receiving good news, seeing someone we haven’t seen in a while, grandkids, a favorite meal, getting out of church early! But “blessed” suggests a meaning that goes beyond mere emotion. It’s about God’s favor towards certain types of people that is better expressed, I believe, by the word “blessed” rather than “happy.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Now, every culture has its own definition or idea of what success is or what it means to be successful. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">In Jesus’ time, it would probably include freedom from domineering rulers, oppressive tax collectors, and capricious soldiers. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">It might well include the respect that comes from savvy negotiating skills in the marketplace. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">It would also probably, then and now, include the ability to provide for one’s family, their health and prosperity.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Likewise, every culture promotes some vision of what happiness looks like that would look very similar to how we described success. In addition, our society has long promoted the goals of accumulating wealth and amassing power. Individual freedom is high on the list, as is the respect of one’s friends, neighbors and colleagues. Popularity, recognition, and prestige are also considered worthwhile pursuits. And we find this across our culture. The political debates and commercials that have, thankfully, ended for a brief time, assume that disparagement, insult, and condescension are appropriate tools to use in the pursuit of happiness -</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">especially if happiness is defined as acquiring power, prestige, or position. Reality television runs on the premise that everyone wants to have his or her fifteen minutes of fame, as Andy Warhol famousle put it.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Men’s magazines promote virility, ambition, and the need for rock-hard abs; women’s magazines promote an idea of perfect beauty and ideal relationships - and rock-hard abs; trade magazines promote financial success; sports magazines - strategies to win.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> And because that is what we see and hear 24/7 in the world today, the Beatitudes, Jesus’ list of things that either bring happiness or represent the signs of God’s blessedness, is jarring to us. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">There are eight beatitudes given in Matthew and today we’ll look at the first three:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>3 </b>“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>4 </b>“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>5 </b>“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Theologian Christine Chakoian points out the contrast we find between what our culture tells us and what Jesus tells us, writing,</span></div>
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<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 19.2px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">“Our culture says, Happy are those with great prospects for marriage, and work, [and make money, and save for retirement,] because they will be successful.</span></li>
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<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 19.2px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> Jesus says, Happy, or blessed, are the destitute, the poor, because the kingdom of heaven is theirs.</span></li>
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<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 19.2px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">“Our culture says, Happy are those whose loved ones enjoy good health, because they will not worry.</span></li>
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<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 19.2px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">But Jesus says, Happy or blessed are people who grieve, because they will be made glad.</span></li>
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<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 19.2px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">“And our culture says, Happy are those who enjoy power, because they will be in charge.</span></li>
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<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 19.2px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">“But Jesus says, Happy, or blessed, are people who are humble, the meek, because they will inherit the earth.</span></li>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> So we see that in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus proposes a definition of happiness, or blessedness, that is wildly different from anything we’re accustomed to hearing. Our culture, and cultures the world over to be frank, hold that happiness, true happiness, is found in things, in material goods, or in the acquisition of power, prestige and popularity. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">To be happy, they suggest, you must own this device, wear these clothes, drink this soft drink, drive that make of car, live in this up and coming neighborhood, be on that social media platform, have X number of friends, likes, retweets, or whatever. And it’s all so flighty, so conditional, so temporary, so artificial.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Is it any wonder that so many people are so unhappy?</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"> Is it any wonder that more and more people are in debt up to their eyeballs? </span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Is it any wonder that so many people turn to opioids, alcohol, sex, gambling, or something else to escape? </span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Is it any wonder that so many people are dying at the hands of men with guns suffering from PTSD or mental illness, or have otherwise come to feel like social outcasts? </span></li>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> In saying that, <i>Blessed are the Poor in spirit (or just the poor),</i> Jesus isn’t glamorizing poverty. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">“But,” as James Howell points out, “the spiritual advantage, the humility, the empty, available space, the lack of stuff to cling to, the absence of false buttresses to your self-worth” are worth being explored.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Similarly, Jim Forest said, “Being poor in spirit means letting go of the myth that the more I possess, the happier I’ll be.” And Gustavo Gutiérrez suggests that “knowing our impoverishment, our brokenness, is the opening to life from God,” what he calls a “spiritual childhood.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Father Richard Rohr calls the Sermon on the Mount “the very blueprint for Christian lifestyle,” and most scholars see it as the best summary of Jesus’ teaching. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">But Rohr says “we can’t understand this wisdom with the rational, dualistic mind; in fact, we will largely misunderstand it while thinking that we got it on the first try. …Jesus taught an <b>alternative</b> wisdom—the Reign of God—which overturns the conventional and common trust in power, possessions, and personal prestige. To understand the Sermon on the Mount, we must approach it with an open heart and a beginner’s mind, ready to have these normal cultural beliefs and preferences changed. Most people were never told this and tried to fit the Gospel into their existing cultural agenda or point of view.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And Rohr points out that Jesus’ opening line… is [the] key to everything that follows: <i>How blessed (or “happy”) are the poor in spirit; the kingdom of Heaven is theirs. —Matthew 5:3</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i> </i>“Poor in spirit,” he writes, “means an inner emptiness and humility, a beginner’s mind, and to live without a need for personal righteousness or reputation. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">It is the ‘powerlessness’ suggested in Alcoholics Anonymous’ First Step. The Greek word Matthew uses for ‘poor’ is </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">ptochoi</i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">, which literally means, ‘the very empty ones, those who are crouching.’ They are the bent-over beggars, the little nobodies of this world who have nothing left, who aren’t self-preoccupied or full of themselves in any way. Jesus is saying: ‘Happy are you, [you are blessed, because] you are the freest of all.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> And in making this point Rohr is suggesting that “the higher and more visible you are in any system, the more trapped you are inside it. The freest position is the one [he] call[s] ‘on the edge of the inside’—neither a ‘company man’ nor a rebel…. The price of both holding power and speaking truth to power can be very great. You ricochet between being offensive and being defensive, neither of which is a…solid position. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Further, you’re forced to either defend and maintain the status quo to protect yourself and the group or to waste time reacting against it.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> “The ‘poor in spirit’ don’t have to play these competitive games; they’re not preoccupied with <i>winning</i>, which is the primary philosophy in the U.S. today. Jesus is recommending a [radical] social reordering, quite different from common practice. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Notice also how he uses present tense: ‘the Kingdom of God <i>is</i> theirs.’ He doesn’t say ‘<i>will</i> be theirs.’ </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">That tells us that God’s Reign isn’t later; it’s now. It’s not something we have to wait for in some “sweet by and by,” but can experience now if we open ourselves to it. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">You are only free,” Rohr suggests, “when you have nothing to protect and nothing you need to prove or defend. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">But as Eknath Easwaran suggests, “the joy we experience in these moments of [freedom], or self-forgetting is our true nature, our native state. To regain it, we have simply to empty ourselves of what hides this joy: that is, to stop dwelling on ourselves, [our image, our possessions, our pride, our power, our position].” As we forget [this] false, floating self, we rediscover our [true] and anchored self—which is not very needy at all.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> In Nicholas Wolterstorff’s book, <i>Lament for a Son, </i>he reflects on the death of his 23-year-old son with immense heart and wisdom. Over time, his grief lightened a little, but he writes, <i>“…it has not disappeared”</i> (and never will).</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> <i>That is as it should be. If he was worth loving, he is worth grieving over. Grief is existential testimony to the worth of the one loved… Every lament is a love-song.”</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> In writing about this second Beatitude, Richard Rohr says, “Jesus praises the weeping class, those who can enter into solidarity with the pain of the world and not try to extract themselves from it. That is why Jesus says the rich man can’t see the Kingdom. The rich one spends life trying to make tears unnecessary and, ultimately, impossible…” But he goes on, “Tears are therapeutic and healing, both emotionally and physically. Crying helps the body shed stress hormones and stimulates endorphins. Weeping is a natural and essential part of being human. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> The Early Church diverged on this idea though. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The Western Church tended to filter the Gospel through the head; the theology of the Eastern Church was much more localized in the body. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">They actually proposed that tears be a sacrament in the Church, one saint going so far as to say until you’ve cried you don’t know God.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Rohr writes, “Most of us think we know God—and ourselves—through ideas. Yet [physical], embodied theology acknowledges that perhaps weeping will allow us to know God much better than ideas. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">In this Beatitude, Jesus praises those who can enter </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">into solidarity with the pain of the world and not try to remove or isolate themselves from its suffering. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Jesus describes those who grieve as feeling the pain of the world. Weeping over our sin and the sin of the world is an entirely different response than self-hatred or the judgment or hatred of others. Grief allows one to carry the dark side, to bear the pain of the world without looking for perpetrators or victims, but instead recognizing the tragic reality that both sides are caught up in.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Tears from God are always </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">for everyone, </i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">for our universal exile from home. ‘It is Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted’ as Jeremiah 31:15 evokes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Yet in our society tears seem insufficient, even a sign of weakness, and certainly present a stumbling block to some men; crying will make us look vulnerable. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">So many men hold back tears. Is it [any] wonder men don’t live as long as women, on average? </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Perhaps we need to teach and remind ourselves how to cry well, because in our culture today, we’ve banished tears and heartfelt grief to the trash bin, and replaced it with the cry emoji.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Try putting “meekness” on you resume and see how far that gets you in the world today. We hear “meek” and equate it with “weak,” or we think “mild,” or “mousey,” or “shy.” Meekness is rarely, if ever, considered a compliment or an asset is it? It’s not something we typically are encouraged to strive for. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> What Jesus means, though, is humility, or being humble. Now, these, too, are not qualities that are promoted broadly in our culture which is all about standing out, making our place, and getting our fair share, because humbleness or humility, is about powerlessness. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">It is the powerless, the humble, the teachable, the small and unlikely who are blessed by Jesus, because with God blessedness is not about skills and strengths, but vulnerability and brokenness. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> And Jesus did more than just tell this story, he lived it out. The Gospels recount story after story of how Jesus spent his time primarily with those who were considered outcasts by the world, and even by the religious system. He taught, ate with, and healed all people, regardless of where they fell in the societal class structure. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Jesus forced the people of his day—and us as well—to consider a different story, a different understanding of what was really possible, and to consider that all they had ever known, or could know, might not be all there is. He shocks those who listen to him when he tells them that it is they, the powerless, downcast, outcast, the rejects of the world who will inherit the earth, not the rich and powerful, or the bold and beautiful. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The meek, the humble, he declares, are the heirs of all there is.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> So in these opening verses of the most famous sermon ever preached, Jesus is saying, for all intents and purposes, forget everything you thought you knew. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">He’s saying that black is white, up is down, and in is out. THAT, he says, is what the Reign of God is like. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Those things that are routinely taken for granted, the deep logic by which we often assume the world works is not, in fact, the way of God. Thinking ahead to when Jesus says, “You have heard it said…but I tell you this…” Jesus is in effect saying here, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> <i> “No. This is not how the world actually works, no matter how things may seem. On the contrary, as God has ordained the deep, emerging order of creation, the truly blessed are ultimately and actually the gentle, the merciful, the poor, the grieving, and those at the bottom of society’s ladder. </i></span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"><i>It appears to be otherwise - I understand - and that is precisely why I am beginning this way, the better to dispel the commonplace illusions, to clarify reality, to declare the dawning Reign of God, and to help us find our bearings as we live into God’s future.”</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> So, as we continue to explore this earth-shaking first teaching of Jesus, may his words shape our lives, our thoughts, and our actions as we take them into the world with us this week - in practice and in thought. And may Jesus’ words help us to find freedom from those things - the ideologies, the images that hold us captive - that we might find companionship and freedom with God in the humble smallness of a life of embodied faith. Amen.</span></div>
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Crossroads UMChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01395756504990704649noreply@blogger.com0