"Roll Down Justice - How Long: Renouncing Evil" 3/12/17

Sermon 3-12-17  “How Long: Renouncing Evil” by Rev. Jay Anderson

(The third in our series "Roll Down Justice!")

    “Are we there yet?” we asked as children, usually barely into a journey. As a child, time seems to be interminable. The time to reach a destination, regardless of the distance, is unfathomable. The school day will NEVER end. The school year goes on FOREVER! 

Next Christmas, the next birthday, might as well be in the next century, it’s so far away. “How much longer?” children lament about, well, just about everything. 

   As an adult, on the other hand, it becomes more and more clear that, from our perspective, time is fleeting. Each year, each birthday, each Christmas, comes at us at breakneck speed. And as we get older the idea that “time flies” is proven out every day of our lives as the measure of our time lived greatly outpaces our time left. 

The question, “how long,” takes on a completely different meaning.

   A large number of the songs and poems that make up the Book of Psalms are writings of lament or complaint. The writers lay out their complaints to and against God in the form of song and verse. Our scripture today, Psalm 13, is a short and simple prayer for help and presents a textbook example of an individual lament. The complaint appears in vs 1-2, the petition in vs 3-4, and the expression of trust and praise in vs 5-6. Simple as that.

The complaint: 

How long will you forget me, Lord? Forever?

    How long will you hide your face from me?

How long will I be left to my own wits,

    agony filling my heart? Daily?

How long will my enemy keep defeating me?

The petition:

Look at me!

    Answer me, Lord my God!

Restore sight to my eyes!

    Otherwise, I’ll sleep the sleep of death,

        and my enemy will say, “I won!”

        My foes will rejoice over my downfall.

And the expression of trust or faith:

But I have trusted in your faithful love.

    My heart will rejoice in your salvation.

Yes, I will sing to the Lord

    because the Lord has been good to me.

   As people of faith, we will always find it necessary to pray, “how long, O Lord?” even as we simultaneously profess our praise mantra - God is good…All the time…All the time…God is good!

   All the time, God is good! Even when we don’t get our way. Even when our prayers aren’t answered as we want them to be. God is good, even when we aren’t. Even in those times when, if being a Christian was a crime there wouldn’t be enough evidence to convict us…even then, God is still good.

   But if God is good, we ask, why is there so much bad in the world, why is there so much evil in the world today? Why doesn’t God do something about all of the sin and evil that seems to be everywhere? How long, O Lord, must we put up with this? That’s our modern day lament.

   And that lament is heard from all corners of the globe: 

   How long, O Lord, will people die of starvation when there’s more than enough food to feed everyone many times over? How long?

   How long, O Lord, will children in poorer countries die of preventable diseases like malaria, HIV/Aids and others, when the medicines are plentiful in first world countries?

   How long, O Lord, will people be killed over natural resources so that a few profit from the lives of the many?

   How long, O Lord, will African American citizens have to keep fighting for equal rights legislated decades ago?

   How long, O Lord, in this week in which we celebrated the International Day of the Woman, will women continue to do equal work for lower pay than their male counterparts?

   How long, O Lord, will access to affordable healthcare be a benefit given only to those people who, by worldly standards, are among the wealthiest?

   And our laments could go on and on. These are the same kinds of lament raised from biblical times, throughout the psalms, the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. There’s a story in the Book of Numbers where Moses takes his complaint directly to God. Moses and the people of God were on a journey, both physically and spiritually, just like we are today. They were challenged with crisis. They struggled with transition and change. We know what that’s like; we're right there with Moses and the people. And the passage reads:

Moses said to the Lord, “Why have you treated your servant so badly? And why haven’t I found favor in your eyes, for you have placed the burden of all these people on me? Did I conceive all these people? Did I give birth to them, that you would say to me, ‘Carry them at the breast, as a nurse carries an unweaned child,’ to the fertile land that you promised their ancestors? Where am I to get meat for all these people? They are crying before me and saying, ‘Give us meat, so we can eat.’ I can’t bear this people on my own. They’re too heavy for me. 

If you’re going to treat me like this, please kill me. If I’ve found favor in your eyes, then don’t let me endure this wretched situation.” (Num 11:11-15, CEB)

   “How long,” Moses asks God, “How long must I endure these people, this situation?” If that sounds familiar, it’s because Jesus asked the same question in Luke 9. 

It was the day after his Transfiguration on the mountain, when the passage says, 

A man from the crowd shouted, “Teacher, I beg you to take a look at my son, my only child. Look, a spirit seizes him and, without any warning, he screams. It shakes him and causes him to foam at the mouth. It tortures him and rarely leaves him alone. I begged your disciples to throw it out, but they couldn’t.”  Jesus answered, “You faithless and crooked generation, how long will I be with you and put up with you? (Lk 9:38-41a, CEB)

   Maybe you’ve had a conversation with God, like Moses had; “Just kill me now, Lord! This is too much!” Or like Jesus, born out of frustration with both this people and with his disciples. Maybe you’ve found yourself lamenting a life circumstance. You’re on the edge. From your perspective, God is not solving the problem. You feel like you’re on the verge of a meltdown, or that the world is on the verge of breakdown.

   Whatever the source of your distress, whether it be fear or frustration, sadness and sorrow, or complete life exhaustion, it’s important to identify it. Often, our frustration mounts when we focus too much on our, or worse, what we perceive as the sins (plural) of others, and don’t pay enough attention to the presence of sin (singular) in the world. What’s the difference? It’s huge.

   Our sins are those things that we do - and we all do them - that go against the will of God. The acts for which we bear total responsibility and for which we’re personally called to repent. Our sins are our own, and it’s not our place to judge others’ sins because, as Jesus said, don’t try to remove the speck in your neighbor’s eye when you have a plank in your own. Amen?

   Sin, on the other hand, is different. Sin, in the singular, is that in the world which brings harm. 

It includes what you’ve heard me refer to in many instances as the “isms:” racism, sexism, consumerism, militarism, as well as greed, exploitation of people and resources. All of these are sin. These are things present in our society that have even become systemic or institutionalized. For example, Jim Wallis, evangelical pastor and writer calls racism America’s original sin. Racism is the great sin, he suggests, that has tainted so much of American culture for its entire history. I shared last week the study that was done on racism in rental housing through Airbnb. That we, as a society, discriminate in that way is systemic or institutional sin. That people of color are imprisoned at a higher rate for the same crimes committed by white people, is an example of systemic, institutionalized sin. 

And while racism is institutionalized sin, our individual racist acts or thoughts, are our personal sins. 

   The fact that people in other countries die of starvation while people in developed countries waste over 40% of our food, is sin. The fact that first world nations would rather export weapons and ammunition to third world countries than food and medicine, is sin. Do you see the difference here? Yes, it’s important that we honor our mother and father and don’t take the Lord’s name in vein, but the spiritual forces of sin and evil are much bigger, more insidious issues in the world than how we often think of or portray them. 

   So, our lament might be rooted in something personal, or maybe it’s source is something larger, like the recognition of institutional sin in the world that up until now we’ve been blind to. Whatever the source of the pain that brings our lament, it’s important that we take that lament to God. Only after we’re honest with ourselves about our own complicity can we begin to have the honest conversation with God that leads to conversion in our souls. 

   We see how Moses did that and we can learn from him. Moses expressed his emotions unhindered. He told God what was going on, exactly how he felt about that, and he did what for many would be unthinkable: He questioned God’s motivation and power.

  And you know what? God can “take it.” 

God’s Spirit can shoulder our burdens and our questions. God’s feelings won’t be hurt by our anger. But, we have to name them. Bottling up our doubts and hurts accomplishes nothing. God wants to hear our hearts and to heal our hearts and our world. God may not “fix things” the way we think they should be fixed (as the story of Moses shows), but God will act out of God’s infinite wisdom, love and power. We can trust God, because God is good…all the time…all the time…God is good.

   So to return to the question I asked earlier, why doesn’t God do something about all of the sin and evil that seems to be everywhere? I would suggest to you that God did do something? God named you! And all the saints before you. And here’s what I mean. 

   When you were baptized, or when you witnessed a baptism, or when you professed your faith, you were asked three simple questions - each and every time - and I would bet that you answered them in the affirmative, each and every time. What were those questions?

On behalf of the whole Church, I ask you:

 Do you renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of this world, and repent of your sin? To which you answered, I do.

 Do you accept the freedom and power God gives you to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves? To which you said, I do.

Do you confess Jesus Christ as your Savior,

put your whole trust in his grace,

and promise to serve him as your Lord,

in union with the Church which Christ has opened to people of all ages, nations, and races?

 To which you responded, yet a third time, I do.

   And later in the liturgy, the pastor asks:

Do you, as Christ's body, the Church, reaffirm both your rejection of sin and your commitment to Christ?

To which we all answered, We do.

And then you were asked:

   Will you nurture one another in the Christian faith and life and include these persons now before you in your care?

And you replied, and you can read it along with me:

With God's help we will proclaim the good news and live according to the example of Christ.

We will surround these persons with a community of love and forgiveness,

that they may grow in their trust of God,

and be found faithful in their service to others.

 We will pray for them, that they may be true disciples who walk in the way that leads to life.

   I hope we take these questions, these vows, very seriously. Some though, take them for granted, treating them like those User Agreements or Terms and Conditions pages we encounter when we go to a new website or download a new app on our phone - we just click “I Agree” without reading them. In this case, do we just say “I do,” without really thinking about it? Because these questions are hard. What they ask of us is hard stuff. We’re confronted with this stuff every day, and most of us, maybe even all of us, fail miserably at it - every day!

   And we fail by accepting the presence of this institutional sin in our society when we vowed to renounce it. We fail when we look the other way, or say nothing when we witness sin in action in business, in government, in education, in healthcare, anywhere. 

That’s how we fail, or refuse, to renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, or reject the evil powers of this world. We’re all too busy trying to place the blame for the evil in the word on some scapegoat caricature we call “the devil,” -

when in fact the evil in the world resides within us and our institutions and it thrives and flourishes only because we allow it to.

   For over a hundred generations, Christians, followers of Jesus Christ, have said these words, have claimed this responsibility, have taken these vows before God, in front of each other, and in the name of Jesus Christ. 

Did we do that with a wink, wink, nod, nod?

   By the 4th century, some three hundred years after Christ’s baptism, the church had instituted a powerful symbolic act of the transformation of candidates for baptism, away from evil and toward good. I invite you to stand as you’re able, and join in this symbolic action. 

   Before going into the water, the candidates for baptism would face the direction of the West (the direction of the setting sun) and renounce evil. So turn to the west, and hear and respond to these words:

On behalf of the whole Church, I ask you:

 Do you renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness,

reject the evil powers of this world, and repent of your sin? If so, answer I do.

Do you accept the freedom and power God gives you to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves? If so, answer I do.

   Then they would turn away from that direction to face the East (the direction of the rising sun) as a sign that they were leaving behind or turning their backs on the forces of evil and facing the rising Light of God in their lives. 

   So I invite you to turn and face the East, and hear these words:

Do you confess Jesus Christ as your Savior,

put your whole trust in his grace,

and promise to serve him as your Lord,

in union with the Church which Christ has opened to people of all ages, nations, and races?

 If so, answer I do.

I pray that you were sincere. You may be seated.

   The language of the renunciation of evil has come to us through the ages as our rites of baptism invite us to renounce evil in all its forms - the ones that rise up within us and the systemic oppression inherent in our societies. We affirm that we have both the freedom and the power to do so and that it is God in whom we put our trust.

   The Rev. Dr. Carol Miller, a retired clergy and writer, suggests that this renunciation of sin and profession of faith found in our baptismal liturgy is “rich in meaning and calls [all of us..] to a new way of living.”

   And she goes on, “The first question strips [us] of power; the second replaces that power with new power, and the third throws [us] totally on the power of Christ and makes [us] members of the power-filled community.

   “Every six year old,” she writes, “knows how to wield ‘the evil powers of this world.’ What are they? They’re the things that made us tell our mothers when we were six that we never wanted to go to school again. The evil powers of this world, the spiritual forces of wickedness are the powers of prejudice, exclusion, gossip, mockery, hate, violence, extortion, [self-centeredness,] and the like. Even though children may not know these words, they know the power of these things and how to use them. They’re the powers we use to tear down others.

   As adults, we become more subtle, but no less dependent on these powers. They give us a leg up in competition with others. We feel the power of gossip, the satisfaction of being able to exclude someone, the usefulness of “me first.” But when we get to the church, ready to be included by way of baptism, we’re told that we can’t come in until we “renounce” those ugly and evil powers that had served us, we thought, so well. The liturgy demands that we renounce those powers, drop them, refuse to use them. A-N-D, we must repent of all the times in the past when we did use them.

   So, the first thing the Church does when we come for baptism is strip us of our power. The world may continue to hate and reject, and pre-judge others; but we cannot.”

   “By the second question, Miller says, “things are looking up. “Do you accept the freedom and power God gives you…” Having been stripped of the “evil powers of this world” we’re invited to accept a new kind of power, given to us by God. This, in fact, is the only kind of true power, power that lasts. All power belongs to God. 

If it’s in our hands,” she offers, “we’re to give it to God. At the same time, in baptism we not only agree, we commit to accept the power God gives. 

Never again can we as individuals, or as Christ’s Church say, “I can’t do it. I don’t have time; I don’t have enough money; I don’t have the abilities.” 

Those kinds of answers didn’t work for Moses and they don’t work for us either. To suggest that we or the church don’t have the power to do what God calls us to do denies the presence of the Holy Spirit. Our answer to the second question in our liturgy is our admission that we do have the power from God. The Church is specific about how we’re to use that power: “to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves.” That is, we promise to work against, to resist, those people-crushing things we first fell in love with on the playground as children. 

“Resist” doesn’t mean simply “dislike;” it means to “push back.” It’s not passive, it’s active.”

   “And finally,” she concludes, “if we’re still standing [after all this,] there’s question 3. “Do you confess Jesus Christ as your Savior…” 

It’s Christ who saves us from idolizing the evil powers—bowing down to them, using them to make us powerful and important. We can’t save ourselves by a powerful personality, good looks, money, or racial or gender superiority or anything else we think gives us power.” We’re saved by God’s grace. Period.”

   So, to answer the psalmist’s lament, how long, O Lord, must we endure the evil in the world? 

Only as long as we accept it. 

Only as long as we embrace it rather than reject it. Only as long as it takes for us to live into the vow that we’ve made over and over again, to renounce and reject evil and wickedness in all of its forms - even when we see it in the mirror. Because you see, in these vows, God completes a bold and powerful transfer of power, from God’s hands into ours. 

God gave us dominion over this world, God gave us free will, to make choices, to live our lives, either by embracing God’s desire for us or by rejecting it - either by embracing evil and injustice, or by renouncing it. Evil exists in the world, not because God allows it but because we do. The choice is ours, and ours alone. So our complaint to God must be turned back on us: How long? Because in the end we know that despite all other things we may find in the world, all the sin and evil and injustice we allow to persist in this world, that God is good…all the time…all the time…God is good. Amen. 

"Roll Down Justice - Child of God: Naming Each Other" 3/5/17

3-5-17 Sermon - “Child of God: Naming Each Other”

(This is the second in our series for Lent, "Roll Down Justice.")

   “What’s in a name. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” wrote William Shakespeare in Romeo and Juliet. In that passage, Juliet takes exception to the idea that she should not fall in love with Romeo simply because he is from the house of Montague. 

The name, she insists, doesn’t matter.

   Does naming matter? Does a name define us? 

Is it merely a label that is placed on us at birth 

by hopeful parents or is it more than that? 

What does a name same about us? Well, you know of course, that in this day and age all we have to do is turn to Google to find out. So I did.

   "Jay," often a shortened version of Jason or Jared or some other “J” name, gained popularity as a proper name in its own right in the 18th century in honor of the colonial era statesman, John Jay. Among its American and German meanings, according to the website sheknows.com, is “swift.” In Sanskrit it means “victorious,” while in the Hindu religion there are various deities named “Jay.” The French meaning, though, which is the one most often found in “baby name” books, is “like a Bluejay,” or, “one who talks a lot.” Hmmm. 

Guess I’m going to have to own that last one.

   But to go back to the root of Shakespeare’s original question, what’s in a name? I don’t know about you, but I was the first, and I believe the only person in my family named Jay - there is no historical or family tradition tied to my name. My father’s name was Ralph, and while I loved my father dearly, I’m SO glad my parents didn’t name me after my dad. But even more than that, both, not one but both, of my grandfathers were named Clarence. Need I say more? So it could have been worse?

   Naming is important. In Scripture, in the creation stories in Genesis, one of the first responsibilities that humans are given in their charge to be good stewards of all of creation comes with the responsibility given to Adam, whose name by the way means literally “dirt man,” is to give names to all of the animals. 

So naming, in all of its varied forms, is important in our society, in our culture, in our faith and life journeys. The authority to bestow a name comes with much responsibility and suggests much power.

   Sometimes, such as when a family name is passed down from generation to generation, naming can serve the purpose of uniting, of bringing people together around a shared heritage, journey, or even a common value. The continuity of a name passed down through time adds layer upon layer of meaning. 

   Sometimes, though, naming can be used to separate or discriminate, not unify. I heard a story on the radio Thursday about a research study done about the home rental company, Air BNB. Have you heard of this resource? On Air BNB you can rent a person’s house or condo or apartment for when you travel instead of staying in a hotel. And if you have a space to rent, you can advertised it there, so it matches up people with space to people who have a need. What they found in this research project was interesting, to say the least.  Applications were submitted for potential renters that were identical in every respect except for one. 

In some of them applications they provided stereotypical African-American sounding names, like Lakeisha or Malik, while on others they provided stereotypical Caucasian sounding names, like Emily or Steve. In over 80% of the cases, all other things being equal, the potential renters with the Caucasian sounding names were chosen over those with the African-American sounding names. 

   In the Nazi era names were among the first things used to separate people out for the death camps. People with obviously Jewish or Polish sounding names were separated out, sent off to camps, and eventually 6 million of them would be killed by the Nazi regime. And most people cringe at that thought, at the acknowledgement of that sort of evil and darkness being part and parcel with the human condition. But it continues nonetheless.

   If we’re completely honest with ourselves, we have to admit that when we call Customer Support somewhere for computer, or internet, or cellphone assistance, we are quietly relieved when the person on the other end of the line is named John or Mary instead of Juan or Maria. 

If we’re honest with ourselves, we’ll admit to ourselves at least, that for some, when we’re introduced to a Steve or Susan we’re much more comfortable than when we’re introduced to a Mohammad or a Khalil, or an Osama. That’s when a name oftentimes produces a visceral reaction in us, when an emotional wall goes up. 

   What if it’s not a proper name, but a label of some kind? If the label attached to another person, either by their choice or by our labeling, is something different than the label we attach to ourselves, doesn’t that often create a bit of separation for us, feed into that idea of “us” and “them,” in some way? 

   Lynn and I just saw the film, “Moonlight,” that won the Academy Award for Best Picture, and the opening scene of the film depicts a young black boy running away from a group of older black boys who are chasing after him, calling him names, and threatening to beat up him up. 

Later, when he’s talking to an adult who befriends him he asks the man, “What’s a faggot?” The man, understanding where this question is coming from having witnessed the boy’s encounter with the gang of boys, thoughtfully replies, “It’s a word used to make gay people feel bad.” The young Chiron then asks, “Am I a faggot?” to which the adult responds, “No, you might be gay, but you don’t need to feel bad about that.” Naming matters. And when the power of naming is used to separate, and to bring harm, it’s sin. 

   In Luke’s gospel, which has been our focal gospel this year, there are a couple of powerful naming stories. The first occurs when Elizabeth and Zachariah become parents, and the people ask them what their son’s name will be. Elizabeth tells them that his name will be John, which the community rejects because John has not been a family name. So they turn to Zachariah, who you will remember had been rendered mute ever since he was in the Holy of Holies doing his duty as a priest and was told that Elizabeth was pregnant. Besides the obvious sexism at play here, it is only when Zachariah confirms what Elizabeth has said that the community accept the name John for their son. A little further on, then, we read the story of Jesus’ baptism. And it is in Jesus’ baptism that the power of naming is seen as God names Jesus. 

And what are the names that God bestows on Jesus? Son. Beloved. One in whom God finds happiness. There is power in naming. 

   In our baptismal liturgy, after we have shared in the Thanksgiving over the Water, the baptismal equivalent to the Great Thanksgiving of Holy Communion, and we’re in the heart of the matter, the pastor places their hand in the water, places it on the head of the one being baptized…and speaks their name: 

Jay, Sue, Joe, Carol, I baptize you in the name of the Father,

and of the Son,

and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. So be it.

There is a great and awesome power in naming. What you may not know, is that in the hymnal or the Book of Worship, just prior to those words are these instructions to the pastor:

Each candidate is baptized and receives the laying on of hands individually. The pastor uses the first (Christian) name(s), but not the family name: - 

   Have you ever noticed that before? Why is this, do you suppose? In early Christianity it was the tradition to only give a name at the time of Christening or baptism, or to change a name given previously at the time of one’s baptism. So, that might be part of it. But honestly, I think there’s more to it than than. While our surname distinguishes us a family, it is our first name, our given name, that identifies us as an individual. 

And baptism is the most individual of sacraments, is it not? Even though we don’t do baptisms in private, it’s part of a communal service, it’s still an uniquely spiritual moment for an individual. We do not, for example, have a naming rite in the sacrament of Holy Communion - we come a a group, as a family, to the common, communal table. In baptism, though, in the midst of community, we are named as an individual. One person takes water, and in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, that water is used in the naming, the specification, the welcoming of one person, not into our earthly family, but into the family of God. In the sacrament of baptism, God’s prevenient grace, God’s preexisting love, is proclaimed publicly and permanently in this ritual action of water and the Spirit. The proclamation of the love of God here, is the same proclamation given in Jesus’ baptism, and is the same as in Paul’s letter to the church at Rome, when he says,

So what are we going to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? [God] didn’t spare [God’s] own Son but gave him for us all. Won’t [God] also freely give us all things…?

God’s love, Paul says, is self-sacrificial. In Jesus’ baptism Jesus is named Son, beloved, and one with whom God finds much happiness. Within our naming in our baptism is reflected the fact that God gave so deeply, so completely, as to give God’s Son for us. And that means that if God did that, God will do anything, give anything, to ensure our spiritual flourishing, our inclusion as beloved children of God, 

and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. And Paul goes on to make the case:

Who will bring a charge against God’s elect people? It is God who acquits them. Who is going to convict them? It is Christ Jesus who died, even more, who was raised, and who also is at God’s right side. It is Christ Jesus who also pleads our case for us.

  If God will give the one whom he loved so deeply, that he called Son, beloved, bringer of happiness, then God must love us at least as much, Paul says. So… 

Who will separate us from Christ’s love?, he asks. 

Will we be separated by trouble, or distress, or harassment, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 

  Separation is a real concern in our lives, isn’t it. Every choice we make along the way necessarily separates us from some other option. We cannot do everything, and so, when we do anything, we must exclude something. Every “yes” we make to one thing is a “no” to something else. Such exclusion, such “leaving behind,” can be a source of great pain in human living. Even the most natural thing, like growing up, involves leaving something behind. We can’t become an adult without leaving childhood behind. As much as we try, we can’t stay young forever, and so we leave behind our young adulthood. The choice to be married means leaving behind the life of singleness.

   Separation from things and people we love, at some level and to some degree, is at the very heart of what it means to be human. And that is hard. Life is hard. But hardship or troubles are included in Paul’s list, as is distress. When we can’t finish what we’re doing, can’t get to where we’re going, we become distressed.

   Paul also lists persecution. The violence done to men and women because of their inclusion in one group or another, or because of a name or a label that is attached to them, remains a force with devastating capacity to separate. And Paul goes on to name famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword; forces that cause separation are many. We know these things, we feel these things, they overwhelm us. Paul says of them, 

It’s as if we are being put to death all day long…

     We are treated like sheep for slaughter.

  So with all of this on the table, it’s utterly remarkable to hear Paul proclaim to these powers loudly and firmly, “NO!”

…in all these things we win a sweeping victory through the one who loved us. I’m convinced that nothing can separate us from God’s love in Christ Jesus our Lord: not death or life, not angels or rulers, not present things or future things, not powers or height or depth, or any other thing that is created. (Romans 8:31-39, CEB)

   NOTHING, past, present, future, real, or imagined, done, thought, or said - NOTHING can separate us from God’s love - Paul proclaims. Why? Because we are named as beloved children of God, even before our birth, even before our baptism, as we are knit in the womb, we are named by God. 

   Some have said that these nine verses in Romans are the greatest, the most important thing that Paul wrote in all of his letters. But besides being a loud, bold, and certain proclamation of God’s unfailing love for us as beloved children of God, the text also stands as judgment against our own complicity with the forces that separate and withhold justice. The church itself has far too often been an instrument of the very persecution Paul writes about. Many of those who claim to be believers, to be followers, have either fostered hardship, distress, and famine, or have allowed them to fester undisturbed. Remember, both the Ku Klux Klan and those who protest at the funerals of U.S. service men and women, claim Christianity as their faith. 

   But the grace and mercy of the God who is love, the God who is justice, and who names even us as God’s beloved children, can turn the heart, retune the heart, re-cognize the soul of even those who come to recognize their own complicity with the powers that seek to separate us, one from another.

   The firm no to the powers of separation proclaimed in this text can form a rallying cry for those who, as our baptismal liturgy commands of us, resist the powers of sin and evil. 

It’s like a biblical version of the song “We Shall Overcome,” where we sing first, 

“We Shall Overcome, we shall overcome, we shall overcome someday. Deep in my heart, I do believe, that we shall overcome some day.”

But then, this song, this anthem to the hope of God’s justice, takes us deeper:

“We’ll walk hand in hand,” we sing. “We’ll walk hand in hand.”

“We shall all be free,” we proclaim. “We shall ALL be free.”

“We shall live in peace,” we continue, “We shall live in peace.”

And then in a final statement of certainty built on our relationship with the God who names us beloved child of God, we sing

“The Lord will see us through, the Lord will see us through. The Lord will see us through some day. Deep in my heart, I do believe, The Lord will see us through some day.”

   As followers of Jesus, as heirs with Jesus, we’re called to God’s work of walking hand in hand with others, of living in peace with others, of working for the freedom of others who are imprisoned in one way or another. 

   God’s restorative justice demands that we reach out to the world God so loved, the world outside our church doors, both near and far, the world that may not know the story of Jesus and of God’s unconditional love for all of humanity. And Paul proclaims loudly and boldly that there is nothing, no thing, done or undone, said or unsaid, that can separate us from God’s love. 

That is the love that sets us free, that is the love that brings us peace, that is the love through which we can find abundant life. That is the good news of the gospel, given to each and every child of God, through which God’s justice will roll down like the water of an ever-flowing stream.

So, as we conclude, I invite you to just turn to someone near you, find out their name if you don’t know it and say this to them,

“[Name], you are a child of God.”

Look around you, leave no one out of this - you are a child of God!

Now let us sing together:

Reprise of Song as Response to the Word

(all sing)

No matter what people say,

say or think about you,

you are a child, you are a child of God.

"Roll Down Justice - Make Me An Instrument of Peace: Re-Cognition" 3/1/17 - Ash Wednesday

3-1-17 Ash Wednesday Sermon 

   As a child I remember hearing, primarily from Catholic friends, that during Lent we were supposed to “give something up” as a way of connecting with God, of reminding ourselves of all that God provides for us. 

So, at various times in my youth I’d give up soft drinks, or I’d give up chocolate, or some other thing. 

And while the “giving up” seemed like a good thing, I have to admit it never had its desired effect. 

Giving up chocolate or Pepsi never, not even once, made me feel closer to God. In fact, it made me just a little bit perturbed with God because I couldn’t see how my eating or not eating a Hershey bar and washing it down with a cola was going to have any effect at all on my relationship with God. If God didn’t like Pepsi and chocolate, then why did God create them?

   Later in my spiritual life I was introduced to the idea, not of giving something up during Lent, but of taking on some new thing, like a spiritual discipline, or exercise, or something positive or healthy. And again, I tried several different approaches and honestly, I did find that they worked much better to help me connect with God than did abstaining from the Pepsi and chocolate that had obliterated my complexion as a teenager, but still, they often seemed, like a store-bought chocolate Easter rabbit, a bit hollow. To borrow a phrase from Tony Campolo and Brian McLaren, it seemed to be “an adventure in missing the point.”

   The late theologian Marcus Borg correctly suggested that, “Death is one of the primary themes of Lent. 

Each of us will die. None of us gets out of here alive.” 

Indeed, the liturgy surrounding the imposition of ashes on Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent, reminds us that “from dust we came and to dust we shall return.”  

And of course, these words echo the traditional words found in the funeral liturgy, “ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” So, inherent in thinking about Lent is thinking about death, which may be why so many people, and 

so many non-liturgical churches, ignore Ash Wednesday all together. We don’t want to think about dying. 

There’s too much death in the news every day, we don’t want to come to church and hear about death too. 

We come to church to be comforted, some suggest. 

Boy, have THEY gone to the wrong place, at least if you listen to what the prophet Amos has to say.

   In the verses immediately preceding our passage tonight, Amos is blasting the people of Israel for their desire for the “Day of the Lord” to come as soon as possible. The Day of the Lord, contrary to what they believe awaits them, is supposed to be a day of destruction for all the earth, including the people of Israel who think they’re doing all the right things, 

saying the right words, following the correct rituals. 

This isn’t about form, Amos warns, this is about function. It’s not about what they say, it’s about what they do. They believe that their ritual offerings and sacrifices can save them. “No,” replies the God of Amos, and then turns on the cult with what one commentator calls “ferocious anger.”

   “I hate, I despise your festivals” Amos has God saying. This is one of the best-known and least understood passages in all of the prophetic writings in Scripture. Often misused by Christians to suggest some sort of “works righteousness,” this idea falsely pits the idea of a prophetic faith practice or ethics, against Israel’s legalistic ritual practice that misunderstands God’s call for justice in all of our faith practices.

   The "festivals and solemn assemblies" of Israel's worship describe basic formational truths about who God has been to Israel, and they are commanded by God to observe these in the books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy. The festival of Passover, for example, commemorates God's deliverance of Israel from slavery in Egypt. In the annual retelling of the story, Israel teaches new generations about the joy of God's redemption. The story is a source of blessed memory that offers hope to believers in current troubles. 

The festival of Tabernacles celebrates the communal resilience that Israel showed in its forty-years of wandering through the wilderness to the Promised Land. Having once survived on manna and miraculous water from a rock, Israel is reminded that reliance on God and hospitality to the travelers and aliens in their midst are essential for its ongoing spiritual journey. 

Other festivals celebrate the offering of the first fruits of the harvest and mature grain to God, showing Israel's gratitude for God's abundant gifts. 

Another festival crucially important to the Israelite cultural imagination is the Day of Atonement. 

This annual fast emphasizes awareness of sin in the Israelite community, promoting self-denial as an expression of the community's earnest desire to "be clean before the LORD" (Leviticus 16:30). 

It was through these powerful rituals, they believed, a humbled and renewed Israel could approach God. 

   But the God of Amos thunders that these observances are despicable. Neither does God find acceptable the daily and weekly offerings that sanctify Israel's living as a holy people. Even songs of praise offend God. Why? Because God stands with the poor, and those who do not show compassion to the poor cannot possibly be worshiping God. Put another way, regardless of what they say or what sacrifices they make, if they stand in the way of God’s justice, then their songs and praises are nothing more than useless, meaningless hypocrisy and are despised by God.

   Israel cannot prosper through ritual offerings, feasts, and fasts alone. 

Israel must "seek God and live,” and the God whom they seek is an uncompromising God of justice, not humankind’s idea of a retribution based justice, but God’s restorative justice. The famous line in this passage, "Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream" is not merely a rousing call to believers to do good deeds. It is a roar of outrage. Because of the hypocrisy of the community of faith, God's own justice will roll down like floodwaters, and God's own righteousness like a perpetual torrent! Even "ever-flowing stream" is far too gentle an image for the meaning of the Hebrew here. Amos's point is this: because God's people have not shown justice to the poor, the oppressed, the marginalized, the aliens, the travelers, the refugees, 

God has no choice but to unleash God's own justice and righteousness. 

And for those who offer their hollow excuses and meaningless rituals, God’s justice will feel like punishment.

   Israel has always known that ritual observance and compassion for the powerless should not be separated. The Holiness Code in Leviticus 19 is quite clear about this. God has formed Israel to be both holy and merciful as God is holy and merciful. Many believers though, are quick to latch on to how some other group is not “holy” according to this Code, while ignoring their own lack of mercy which is just as important to God. It’s what Jesus meant when he talked about not trying to remove the speck in our neighbor’s eye while we have a plank in our own. What God condemns, then, is ritualism without heart. 

That is, when the church is all about the church and what we do, and our sacred cows and how we’ve always done things, without opening ourselves to the idea that “how we’ve always done things” has kept an awful lot of God’s children on the outside, looking in. But more personally, God condemns the idea of calling oneself a follower, a believer, when the life one lives testifies to the contrary. That is what we are called to repent from, to turn away from. 

   When a church places a high premium, for example, on the preached word it may be prone to idolize a charismatic preacher. When a congregation is blind to its own affluence, its own privilege, it can develop a sense of entitlement when it comes to how it “does ministry,” such as writing checks instead of getting their hands dirty, or by taking the attitude that they hire people to do ministry for them. 

Some churches revel in how a certain type of worship experience “makes them feel,” or “feeds them,” idolizing appearance over substance or their own selfish desires over the selflessness of the Gospel. 

   So in Lent, we’re called to examine not only our own personal “stuff,” but our institutional “stuff” as well. 

We’re called to consider what are the temptations of our own church that might be offensive to God’s idea of justice. Amos 5 offers us a wonderful opportunity to consider the relationship between worship and justice. How do we connect our hope for the coming future in Christ, our worship practices, and our ministry with the poor? What does it say about us if we’re only “sometime” Christians, “almost” Christians, or Christian-in-name-only? What does it suggest about us if we’re only fair-weather-followers or only serve others when and how it’s convenient for us, regardless of the needs? 

Amos invites us to offer our lives and our ministries, individual and congregational, as radical incarnational testimony both at the altar and in the public square. 

Lent dares us to take that invitation seriously!

   The death imagery of Ash Wednesday is not intended to bury us in morbidity. Rather, it serves as the resurrection call of new life that is symbolized not only in the ritual of the ashes, but also in the sacrament of baptism. In both, we are called to die to our old self and to be born anew as new creatures in body of Christ. The baptismal liturgy calls us to renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness in any and all forms in which we find it, even when we find it in our own personal faith practice. 

   If our faith, if our belief, if our worship is all about trying to get to heaven, and to hell with everyone and everything else, then Amos’ words should worry us to no end. 

That is the subject of God’s righteous anger, that is the empty, hollow, ritualistic hypocrisy that God’s justice, when it rolls down like waters, a flash flood of God’s restorative justice, will crush under the waves of an ever-flowing torrent.

   The waters of baptism serve as our symbol of those crashing waves of justice. When we are washed in those waters, the image is one of death and resurrection, of sinking below the surface into a watery grave, only to be lifted back out to new life, to new love, to new mercy, in the arms of the God who is love, and whose love is justice. Our new life comes, not in saying the right words, praying the right prayer, or going through the right motions. New life, resurrection on the other side of any and all of our deaths, comes in discarding the routine in favor of the just and the righteous.

It comes in repenting of our desire for the safe and comfortable and in turning toward justice for those who cannot stand up to the powers that would deny them justice.

   The season of Lent begins, on Ash Wednesday, with a call to repentance, a call to “turn around.” 

The idea of repentance is more than the oversimplified idea of saying, “I’m sorry,” or asking for forgiveness. 

It is that and so much more. Even more broadly understood than mere “turning around,” it embraces the idea of “turning our mind, changing our mind, to go in a new way, to take our life in a new direction” - most specifically, toward God and God’s call for justice. 

   This year in Lent, we will be challenged to turn from our apathy, turn from our routine, turn from simply “going through the motions” in both our life and our worship. 

Instead, as we journey toward God throughout these forty days, we will pray to be active instruments of God’s peace, emboldened bearers of God’s justice, grace-filled agents of change in the world. We begin the journey toward renewing our baptismal identity as beloved children of God called to be the hands and feet of Christ by “re-cognizing”– that is, turning and tuning our minds and hearts toward the world and its peoples.

   What might God’s justice look like in the world today? Where are the places where God might be calling us to set aside our empty rituals, to turn away from our old way of being, to stand up against those who would profit at the expense of those who have no voice? The song, “Dust and Ashes,” that we sang before has a new verse regarding the oppression of indigenous peoples that was commissioned from the author, Brian Wren, for an Act of Repentance ritual at the UMC General Conference. 

That new verse, which I’ll invite you to sing in few moments, says:

Dust and ashes strew our past  -

trails of torture, tears and plunder.

Holy Spirit, come,

walk with us tomorrow.

Cleanse and knit together

wounds that sin has torn asunder.

Take us by the hand and lead us,

lead us through the desert sands,

bring us living water,

Holy Spirit, come.

   It is Jesus who promises us living water. 

It is Jesus, who reveals to us the true loving nature of God, but who also reveals that God’s justice is for all or for none. What does God’s justice for all look like in the world today? 

Well, in keeping with the theme of water, it might very well look like what’s going on with the Dakota Access Pipeline right now, where indigenous people who have been treated unjustly ever since white Europeans invaded this country, are once again being forced to fight for their right to clean water, and for their own right to protect their ancestral burial grounds, against forces much more powerful and monied than they will ever be. That is just one current, ongoing fight for justice.

   Throughout this series we will examine how we might change systems of oppression, like what is playing out in the Dakotas and in so many other ways and places... but it all begins with a change, a “re-cognition” within each of us. Through the living water of baptism we claim that all are worthy of God’s love and protection, and we cleanse ourselves of the dust of death brought by sin and emerge in new life. 

And in doing this we ask God to, as the song says, “cleanse and knit together wounds that sin has torn asunder. Take us by the hand and lead us, lead us through the desert sands, bring us living water, Holy Spirit, come.” That is our prayer. Amen.

In response to God’s word for us tonight, let us sing together: 

Dust and ashes strew our past  -

trails of torture, tears and plunder.

Holy Spirit, come,

walk with us tomorrow.

Cleanse and knit together

wounds that sin has torn asunder.

Take us by the hand and lead us,

lead us through the desert sands,

bring us living water,

Holy Spirit, come.

“On The Outside, Looking In: Our Neighbors” - 2/26/17

2-26-17 Sermon “On the Outside, Looking In: Our Neighbors”

   On April 18, 2010, Guatemalan immigrant Hugo Alfredo came to the aid of a woman being threatened by a knife-wielding man. Hugo struggled with the attacker, but was eventually stabbed and left to die on a New York street. The woman and the attacker fled in different directions while he lay bleeding. Video surveillance filmed portions of the attack and its disgusting aftermath. 

Cameras showed that one man photographed Hugo with a cell phone, but did nothing to help. Eighteen others saw or walked right past him. All refused to render aid or contact authorities. The closest anyone came to helping was a man who shook the body vigorously, but walked away after seeing the pool of blood. Firefighters arrived fifteen minutes later, but by then it was too late - Hugo had died.

 
 In light of the parable of the Good Samaritan, what do you suppose Jesus would have said about this incident?

   “Who is my neighbor?” is a central question in local congregations, in the larger church, in whole communities, and even in the world at large today. It’s a question that is asked in the conversations around the issue of refugees as well as immigration policy, and around the idea of “sanctuary cities” and “sanctuary churches” in the United States. It’s a question that relates to the way we treat “the other,” whether that “other” is a homeless person who hasn’t had a bath in months or someone of a different social class. The question as to “Who is my neighbor?” often raises issues of race or sexual identity or nationality. It’s a question pondered in inter-religious and ecumenical relationships. In the political sphere, especially around election times, it primarily centers on either political ideology or party affiliation: may a Republican and a Democrat, or a liberal and a conservative, act as neighbors toward each other? All of this begs the question: Is there any category of person who is not neighbor to another, especially in a globalized society?

   The parable of the Good Samaritan is one of those stories found only in Luke’s gospel. Along with Luke’s other famous exclusive, the parable of the Prodigals, the emphasis is on mercy; specifically, that God’s mercy given us is the reason we’re to be merciful to one another.

  
The story begins with a lawyer, that is, a person who is an expert and knowledgable in the Torah - the law of Moses, the law of Israel - asking a question of Jesus.

 He’s attempting, we are told, to “test” Jesus. 

   “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus, knowing that he’s being tested, says to the lawyer, “What does the law say?” The lawyer replies with the expected answer from the Hebrew Bible, “Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.” 

   Ding - ding- ding - Good Answer Lawyer! 

But then he also adds, “and love your neighbor as yourself.” He quotes both Deuteronomy AND Leviticus - Kudos to the lawyer! But wanting to justify himself, Luke tells us, the lawyer then asks, “Who is my neighbor?” 

 
 Now there’s the $64,000 question, right? Who is my neighbor? Why does the lawyer ask this question? 

It seems pretty straight forward, doesn’t it? 

Did he ask because he wanted to be sure he had kept the law, in order to inherit eternal life? Or was this another way of testing Jesus? Was he concerned about whether or not Jesus was a good rabbi, or was he really only concerned about his own salvation? Regardless, Jesus never answers that question anyway. Instead, he tells him what it looks like to be a neighbor.

 
 A man is traveling down from Jerusalem to Jericho, Jesus offers. That road, as Martin Luther King, Jr. liked to point out when preaching on this passage, was very steep, dropping nearly 1500 feet in elevation on the way. It was hard to see around the curves and bends in the road so robbers could by lying in wait around any corner. The man making the trip is attacked by person or persons unknown and left for dead. His nationality is not mentioned, but it’s probably safe to assume he is Jewish. Two prominent religious Jews pass by, but seeing the lifeless man, moving to the other side of the road - not stopping. Jesus doesn’t tell us why they crossed over, only that they did. Was it because of ritual codes about not coming in contact with blood or with a dead body? We don’t know. However, Samaritans, who were considered second-class citizens, also had laws about purity and it didn’t seem to be a concern for this man, so there’s something more at play here.

   The tone of the story that Jesus tells the lawyer and the others listening in takes a decisive turn with Jesus’ words, “But a Samaritan…” Jews despised Samaritans as untrustworthy, half-breed, heretics, and the disdain was mutual, as seen in the story from last week about the Samaritan village that refused hospitality to Jesus and his band. 

But despite this mutual communal hatred, the Samaritan bandages the man’s wounds, brings him to an inn, and makes arrangements for him to be cared for. Jesus then asks the lawyer, “Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell victim to the robbers? Well what’s the lawyer going to say, right? He has little choice but to answer, “The one who showed him mercy.” Notice, in his response, he can’t even bring himself to say the word, “Samaritan.”

   But it’s this despised Samaritan whom Jesus lifts up as the embodiment of the law, who recognizes that the neighbor is anyone in need. In theologian John Calvin’s commentary on this passage he says, “It would have been a clearer command if [Jesus had said], ‘Thou shalt love every [person] as thyself.’ 

However, Calvin says, the story has the virtue of forcing the lawyer to admit ‘that our neighbor is the [one] most foreign to us, for God has bound all [people] together for mutual aid.’”

 
 In telling the story, Jesus doesn’t speak to why the religious leaders didn’t stop, but he does indicate why the Samaritan did; “He was moved to pity.” The Greek word translated as “moved to pity,” is used in the New Testament parables to describe only three characters: the father of the prodigal, the master who forgives a servant a huge debt, and the Samaritan. Every other time it’s used in the New Testament, it’s referring to Jesus himself. And in every case, to feel such great compassion is to be moved to extraordinary action. 

   In asking Jesus “Who is my neighbor?” the lawyer was trying to narrow down the field. Who exactly is my neighbor he wants to know. 

What is the limit of one’s legal responsibility to love another as oneself? Is “neighbor” a geographic term? 

Is it an ethnic or tribal term? For Jesus to answer the question that the lawyer asks, in the way he wants it to be answered, would require Jesus to, in effect, list who doesn’t fit his definition of neighbor. Maybe that’s why Jesus doesn’t answer the lawyer’s question at all. 

In the parable, Jesus defines neighbor not as someone deemed worthy to receive love, but as someone who is able to offer it. Jesus leads the lawyer to the conclusion that neighbors are those who act in love toward others.

   The bottom line for Jesus, is mercy. Mercy does not ask first about skin color or sexual identity or nationality or legal status or political party. Mercy is not concerned with who is deserving, or with purity, or with piety. 

Mercy is what comes from God to the community and to each us. It is a gift freely given. It is grace.

   Originally, the lawyer had asked Jesus about how to inherit eternal life. That question was turned completely on its head. There was nothing the lawyer could do to inherit or earn eternal life. It was not possible. It comes only by grace, by mercy from God. We can almost hear Jesus saying to the lawyer, who was wise and articulate and knew the Torah well, “Quit thinking only about yourself and go show compassion to your neighbor. Who is your neighbor? The person you see in need of human compassion.”

    As biblical commentator Mary Hinkle Shore offers, “The message of the parable is not, “We have to help those poor people in the ditch, even though it is potentially dangerous and costly to us.” The message is not, “Followers of Jesus have to help those poor people in the ditch because Jesus pushes out the lines that define ‘neighbor’ farther than they were before.” Remember, the question that began this encounter between Jesus and the lawyer is, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” The story begins with this question about eternal life, and concludes with Jesus’ command, “Do this, and you will live.”

   So what is the way of life that leads to eternal life? Jesus’ message in the Good Samaritan can only lead to the conclusion that one must help others, be a neighbor to others, because helping is the way of life - not only for the one needing help, but also for those offering it. We are all in this together. “Neighbor” is a communal category. The Samaritan recognized, where the priest and the Levite did not, that life - not just for the needy one but for everyone, and not just in the moment but for eternity - required being and having neighbors.

   Now, I would imagine that everybody here knows a Good Samaritan story - maybe we’ve all been in that story ourselves, as one character or another. Maybe we’ve been the recipient of help from a Good Samaritan. Maybe we’ve been the Samaritan providing the help. Or maybe we’ve been the priest or the Levite who passed by on the other side. We all probably, if we’re honest with ourselves, play that role more than any other. If you on’t believe me, consider this: how many times, when driving down the highway and there’s a car pulled off to the side with their flashers on, do we simply drive by - assuming that either they’ve got a cell phone and can call for help, or that it’s too dangerous for us to stop? Because honestly, if we all stopped every time we encountered that kind of situation, we’d never get anywhere would we? At least that’s how, like the lawyer, we might justify it to ourselves.

   Over the course of our entire lives we may never encounter a situation like the one I described at the beginning, or even like the one in Jesus’ parable. Or maybe we will. The story I shared in the beginning depicted humanity at its worst. Here’s an example of what it might look like at its best.

   Following the teachings of Jesus Christ is not easy - he never said it would be. Doing right by God, doing right by one another, requires looking at and treating our neighbor with a sense, not as “them” or as “other,” but as a sister or as a brother. 

   The gist of this entire episode indicates that rather than being told who his neighbor is, the lawyer, and with him we, are shown how to be a neighbor. 

And Jesus’ question for the lawyer is now ours as well. What will you do to be a neighbor, a Good Samaritan? Will you welcome the stranger, the one who’s not like you, who doesn’t look or act or love or speak or vote like you? Will you come to his or her aid or cross to the other side? Would you offer sanctuary in your home, in your church, in your city, to the marginalized, the persecuted, or the refugee? 

Would you, as an individual or as a congregation, declare openly and publicly that you welcome and accept our lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender brothers and sisters, just as they are? How will you be a neighbor to those on the outside looking in - those deemed unworthy, those who are lonely, those who are humbled and those who are tormented, the homeless and the refugee? Will you build walls or will you build bridges? Will you, like the lawyer, define narrowly who is your neighbor, or will you like Jesus, draw the circle wide?  

   Twenty centuries later, we find ourselves in different circumstances, but where hatreds and barriers still divide people and communities. And Jesus commands us, as he did that lawyer so many years ago, when he lifted up the response of the Samaritan to define what it means to be a neighbor, “Go, and do likewise.” Amen.