Angels of Faith: Joy

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Luke 1:26-38
December 14, 2008

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, "Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you." But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end." Mary said to the angel, "How can this be, since I am a virgin?" The angel said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God." Then Mary said, "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word." Then the angel departed from her.

Have you ever wanted to travel for the holidays, to spend Christmas somewhere exotic? The Lederer family did. Years ago they decided that it would be great to spend Christmas in France. What could be better than spending Christmas in France? The lights, the tradition, the cathedrals, the wine? So they planned a trip that would start in Paris, and end in Nice on Christmas Eve. What could be nicer than Christmas in Nice? Unfortunately, the trip pretty much turned into a disaster. As they traveled from Paris to Nice, they found that all the hotels were cheap tourist traps, the weather dripped and rained the whole time, and the car kept breaking down. When the family finally made it to Nice on Christmas Eve they looked for a nice restaurant to have dinner together. Unfortunately, most of the restaurants in Nice were closed, and all they were able to find was a small, greasy restaurant. There were very few others in the restaurant as they ate: two German couples, two French families, and an American sailor sitting in the corner writing a letter, and smiling as he did. Near the bar the piano player listlessly plunked out Christmas tunes.

Other than the sailor, it seemed as though everyone had been hit by a scrooge bug. At the table of one of the French families, the father was scolding one of the children. At the table of one of the German couples, the wife was berating the husband. At the Lederer table, an argument erupted between Bill Lederer and his wife. She had ordered their meal in French, and when the wrong food came to their table, Bill figured it must be her fault for ordering wrong. Everyone was miserable.

To make matters worse, suddenly the door opened, bringing a rush of cold, wet air into the restaurant. In stepped an old French woman selling flowers. She went up to each table, asking, “Flowers, monsieur? Only one franc.” Each time she was shooed away by the people at the tables. She then sat down at the bar and ordered a bowl of soup. She looked at the piano player and said dejectedly, “Can you imagine, Joseph, soup on Christmas Eve?’ He only pointed to his empty tipping plate. Then, something special began to happen. Let me share with you what Bill Lederer says about these events:

The young sailor finished his meal and got up to leave. Putting on his coat, he walked over to the flower woman’s table. “Happy Christmas!” he said, smiling, an picking out two corsages, asked, “How much are they?”

Two francs, monsieur.” Pressing one of the small corsages flat, he put it into the letter he had written, then handed the woman a 20-franc note.

“I don’t have change, monsieur,” she said, “I’ll get some from the waiter.”

“No, ma’am” he said, leaning over and kissing the ancient cheek. “This is my Christmas present to you.” Straightening up, he came to our table holding the other corsage in front of him. “Sir,” he said to me, “may I have permission to present these flowers to your beautiful wife?” In one quick motion, he gave my wife the corsage, wished us a Merry Christmas, and departed.

Everyone had stopped eating. Everyone was watching the sailor. Everyone was silent. A few seconds later, Christmas exploded throughout the restaurant like a bomb.

The old flower woman jumped up, waving the 20-franc note. Hobbling to the middle of the floor, she did a merry jig and shouted to the piano player, “Joseph, my Christmas present, and you shall have half so you can have a feast too.” The piano player began to beat out “Good King Wenceslaus,” hitting the keys with magic hands, nodding his head in rhythm.

My wife waved her corsage in time with the rhythm. She was radiant and appeared 20 years younger… She began to sing, and our three sons joined her, bellowing the song with uninhibited enthusiasm.

“Gut, gut,” shouted the Germans. They jumped on their chairs and began singing in German…. The Germans ordered wine for everyone. They delivered it themselves, hugging the other customers, bawling Christmas greetings. One of the French families ordered champagne and made the rounds, kissing each one of us on each cheek. The owner of the restaurant started singing “The First Noel,” and we all joined in, half of us crying. (from “A Sailor’s Christmas Gift,” Chicken Soup for the Christian Soul, 1997).

This story reminds us that what really makes the difference at Christmas isn’t the decorations, the presents, the cookies, or the celebrations. What makes the difference is the sense of joy people either do or don’t have. As you can see, just because it’s the Christmas season doesn’t mean that there’s joy in people. Why is that? Why is it so hard for everyone to have joy at Christmas?

One of the problems with Christmas is that we’ve cheapened it. We’ve made it so much about the surface stuff that I’m not sure what kind of spiritual meaning Christmas has to us anymore. It’s typical for pastors and other Christians to complain that we’ve cheapened Christmas nowadays by making it all about retail and parties. But that’s not even what I’m talking about. That cheapening is a given. What I’m talking about is that even we diehard Christians have cheapened it. Some of the most joyless people at Christmas are those who complain that Christmas has lost its spirit. Let me show you what I mean.

Last week I received the following e-mail. It’s one of those e-mails that circulate periodically so that Christians can proclaim their outrage. The e-mail goes,

For years I've been bothered by the politically correct attitude. Lately I have become alarmed that Christmas is no longer a Christian holiday. It's become just a generic holiday. Why is it OK for other religions to celebrate their holidays of Ramadan, Kwanza or Hanukkah, and we have to have a "Holiday tree:, or even a "Celebrate the Season Parade". This is ridiculous, as you'll see by the verse below. So I say either celebrate the Christmas holiday or don't bother. Enjoy it and pass it on...and Oh yeah, Merry Christmas.

*Twas the month before Christmas*
*When all through our land,*
*Not a Christian was praying*
*Nor taking a stand.*
*See the PC Police had taken away,*
*The reason for Christmas - no one could say.*
*The children were told by their schools not to sing,*
*About Shepherds and Wise Men and Angels and things.*
*It might hurt people's feelings, the teachers would say*
* December 25th is just a 'Holiday'.*
*Yet the shoppers were ready with cash, checks and credit*
*Pushing folks down to the floor just to get it!*
*CDs from Madonna, an X BOX, an I-pod*
*Something was changing, something quite odd! *
*Retailers promoted Ramadan and Kwanzaa*
*In hopes to sell books by Franken & Fonda.*
*As Targets were hanging their trees upside down*
* At Lowe's the word Christmas - was no where to be found.*
*At K-Mart and Staples and Penny's and Sears*
*You won't hear the word Christmas; it won't touch your ears.*
*Inclusive, sensitive, Di-ver-si-ty*
*Are words that were used to intimidate me.*
*Now Daschle, Now Darden, Now Sharpton, Wolf Blitzen*
*On Boxer, on Rather, on Kerry, on Clinton!*
*At the top of the Senate, there arose such a clatter*
*To eliminate Jesus, in all public matter.*
*And we spoke not a word, as they took away our faith*
* Forbidden to speak of salvation and grace*
*The true Gift of Christmas was exchanged and discarded*
*The reason for the season, stopped before it started.*
*So as you celebrate 'Winter Break' under your 'Dream Tree'*
*Sipping your Starbucks, listen to me.*
*Choose your words carefully, choose what you say*
*Shout MERRY CHRISTMAS ,
not Happy Holiday!*
Please, all Christians join together and
wish everyone you meet
MERRY CHRISTMAS
Christ is The Reason for the Christ-mas Season!

So what’s the problem with this e-mail? Makes sense, doesn’t it? Shouldn’t we be upset that people have taken Christ out of Christmas? The problem is that even this person misses the point of Christmas. So what if someone says “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas?” So what if people are so respectful of others that they don’t say “Merry Christmas?”

The problem is that these Christians put their halos on so tight that they have no joy, but instead can only see reasons for complaining. The writer of this e-mail has cheapened Christmas by thinking its’ all about saying “Merry Christmas.” Joy isn’t found in saying “Merry Christmas” rather than “Happy Holidays.” Joy is found in how we live out the Christmas spirit. We can put just as much spiritual joy in “Happy Holidays” as we can in “Merry Christmas.” But if we are upset about people not saying “Merry Christmas,” then I suspect there’s little joy in us. When we are like this, our focus isn’t on God. It’s on propriety and decorum. People who obsess about things like this aren’t really open to the Christmas spirit. Instead, they are just as bad as those who insist on the politically correct “Happy Holidays.” They’ve lost sight of Christ, and have become like Sadducees or Pharisees who are more concerned for law than for God.

If we have joy that comes from God, we can share it with others regardless of what words we use. You see, the real point of Christmas is the formation of Joy in our souls. Actually, that’s the whole point of the Advent and Christmas season. Advent is meant to be much like Lent. It’s meant to be a time of prayer and preparation for Christ’s coming into our lives. The whole point is that if we spend the month before Christmas in prayer and reflection, as well as doing all that other stuff, then by the time Christmas is here we’re ready for Christ.

Unfortunately, too many of us either let the world around us determine our level of joy, or we let our past determine it. We let the world around us determine our joy whenever we demand that everything around us be perfect for Christmas. We want everyone to be happy. We want our kids to be on their best behavior. We want everyone to be so thankful for what we do. And when that doesn’t happen, we become upset. We let the world around us determine our level of joy. Also, we let the past determine our level of joy whenever we let the pain of our past determine how we’ll approach life in the present. So many of us have had difficult lives. And we’ve learned from that to look at life in skeptical ways, not trusting that good things can happen. We expect bad, and we distrust others, suspecting that they have bad motives. So this colors our lives.

We are called to live appreciative lives. Adrian van Kaam was the one who taught me about appreciation. He said that when we live with appreciation, we look around us and see value in everything—people, situations, sunsets, events, and so much more. We see life as bursting with God’s presence, and that’s what brings us joy. Even if we are in bad situations, we are able to recognize God’s presence and sense God’s hand. This takes us deeper than happiness. Happiness comes from things being good around us and affecting us inside. Joy comes from spirit being good in us and radiating outward. We have joy because our spirit sees the good in everything, even the bad.

On the other hand, we can look at life with a sense of depreciation. When we look at life depreciatively, we not only don’t see value in everything, but we diminish the value of even that which is good. We look at life suspiciously, wondering when the next shoe will fall or who the next person will be who will betray us. Being depreciative brings cynicism and despair to life. It causes us to lack joy, and to be unhappy in happy situations. You know people like this. Even when they are happy, they try not to smile, and when they do smile it looks painful.

The kind of joy that we are called to nurture and let grow in us is the kind of joy that Mary had already formed when the angel appeared to her. It was the kind of joy she expressed to Elizabeth about her pregnancy with Jesus. If you really understand the situation Mary was in, you would wonder why she had any joy at all. She was pregnant, and not pregnant by her husband-to-be, Joseph. Even if she had been pregnant by Joseph, she was pregnant before marriage. Either way, she was facing a life with a stigma. People could do the math and figure out that Mary was pregnant before marriage. Mary knew that she was facing a future in which, at the very least, people would look at her and say, “That’s the woman who go pregnant before marriage.” She knew she was to bear a stigma her whole life, as would Jesus. How did she react?

When she met with her cousin Elizabeth, already pregnant with John the Baptist, she talked about her pregnancy and said, "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.” This is the response of someone with joy. This is the response of someone who faces a bad situation and sees it bursting with God’s grace. This is the response of someone who understands how God wants us to live.

During this time of year we are called to form joy in our souls. It’s the kind of joy that transcends our situation, that transcends our circumstances, that transcends our condition. It’s the kind of joy that comes from the Spirit dwelling in our souls, and that looks for the good in all situations. And it’s the kind of joy that only comes when we make a decision to let God live in our souls so that we can find God’s grace in everything.

Amen.

Angels of Faith: Acceptance and Love

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Matthew 1:18-25
December 7, 2008

Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: "Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel," which means, "God is with us." When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.

Twenty years ago I read a story that had a huge impact on me spiritually. It was a story that taught me the lesson of Joseph in a way I had never considered before. It taught me that sometimes the right way is the way of acceptance, even when everything screams that we should change everything.

The story takes place many years ago in a small village. There was a young teen who became pregnant, yet she wasn’t married. Her father was outraged. How could his daughter dishonor him so? How could she have done this to her family? He and her uncles confronted her one evening, saying, “Who did this to you? Who has brought this shame on our family? Tell us so that we can punish him!”

The young girl didn’t know what to do. She didn’t want to reveal that it was the neighbor boy because she knew how he would be treated. So she said to them, “The father is the old hermit who lives on the other side of the village.” The man she implicated was considered to be a great spiritual guide and sage. Many had gone to him for guidance because they knew that he was a deeply prayerful and spiritual man. She thought that they would do nothing about it out of respect for the man. They did not react as she hoped. They were stunned, but then became outraged: “How could this man have betrayed us so? We trusted him! He must be held accountable!” With that they rushed en masse across the village, where they found him sitting in his cottage, praying.

Rousting him from his prayer, they yelled at him, telling him that he had dishonored them and the village. They told him that he must care for the child and make amends. The hermit looked at them, and with a sad face simply said, “Very well. Very well.”

The hermit found a woman in the village who would care for the child and his mother. He ensured that they had food and a healthy place to live. He made sure that the child would grow in a safe and loving environment.

A year passed, and with each passing day the young girl felt guiltier and guiltier. Finally, she told her family that the hermit really wasn’t the father, but that the neighbor boy, whom she loved, was the father. The family was shocked, and embarrassed. They felt guilty. How could they have treated that great spiritual sage in such a dishonorable way? How could they not have believed in him? So they rushed over to his cottage. They found him again in prayer. They apologized to him, asked if he could ever forgive them, told him that they would care for the girl’s young child. The hermit gave a small smile and simply said, “Very well. Very well.”

Why did I find this story so compelling? It’s an odd story—one that goes so much against our natural understanding of right and wrong. How could the hermit have been so accepting? If it were we in his situation, we would stand up for our rights. We would have proclaimed our innocence and have forced them to take a paternity test. We would have been outraged at their accusations. But the hermit, he accepted it. He accepted that perhaps God was calling him to provide care for a young child who otherwise might be abandoned or ostracized. He accepted that God wanted to protect the young girl. He accepted that there was a plan in all this. Is this how we react to difficult situations?

The truth is that we are a people who stand up for justice. And the hermit didn’t stand up for justice—he prayed. How unrealistic is that? Is that your normal response to trouble: prayer? Is that your normal response to anything, good or bad? What the story taught me was that there was another way of life that begins not with a need for justice, but with a desire for centeredness. Justice is important, and I certainly don’t want to diminish its importance, but it seems to me that as Christians everything else has to start with centeredness. Are we centered? Being centered is a way of life that accepts how life is, but at its core trusts even more in whatever God is doing. It’s a way of life that asks a fundamental question: Do I really trust that God is in the world, making everything okay?

When I look at our culture, it seems to me that most Americans have an attitude that one of our members expressed very well to me. He once told me that before joining Calvin Church his personal motto was, “If it is to be, it is up to me.” I believe that this is the unofficial motto for so many people. So many of us believe that we have to make a name or a way for ourselves. I don’t want to diminish the importance of that idea, but when we become consumed by it we can end up losing sight of what really matters. Joseph, in our passage, reflects another, deeper way of life. His motto very easily could have been, “It will be okay, if I trust in God’s way.”

Trusting in God’s way means relinquishing ultimate control of life and trusting in God. It means having hope for the future, even when there are no tangible signs that the future will work out. It means keeping an eternal perspective in mind always, even as we live an earthly life.

Unfortunately, when I say things like this, many people hear me saying something different. They hear me saying that we should do nothing and leave it all up to God. They hear me saying that we should just relax, eat bonbons, and let God take care of everything. That’s not what I am saying. What I am saying is what’s reflected in the Serenity Prayer. This is a prayer that I’m sure you know. It is the central prayer of the twelve-step movement, for so many who suffer from addictions. The prayer goes,

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; 

courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference. 

Living one day at a time;

Enjoying one moment at a time; 

Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; 

Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; 

Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will; 

That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him 
Forever in the next. Amen.

There’s a balance to be kept in life. It’s a balance of wisdom. It’s the balance between accepting what we cannot change, and the courage to change the things we can. Too many of us try to change what we have no power to change. Others of us are fearful, keeping quiet when bad things happen, hoping to avoid hurt and pain.

All of this brings me back to the example of Joseph, for he was the balance between acceptance and courage. Joseph accepted God’s will. When the angel appeared to him in a dream, he very easily could have disbelieved. How many of us have had dreams that we’ve dismissed? Yet he didn’t, which was amazing. Think about him. He finds out that his bride-to-be is pregnant, and not by him. He would have felt dishonored by Mary. Normally, he would have broken the marriage contract and dismissed her and the baby. He would not have been able to live with the shame of her pregnancy by another man. Yet he listened to his dream, accepting God’s way.

I’m inviting you to take time during this Advent season to ask how you are living. Are you accepting? Are you able to accept what God is doing in your life and in life in general? How do you live your life?

Amen.

Angels of Faith: Overcoming Doubt

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Luke 1:5-20
November 30, 2008
First Sunday of Advent

In the days of King Herod of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly order of Abijah. His wife was a descendant of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. 6 Both of them were righteous before God, living blamelessly according to all the commandments and regulations of the Lord. 7 But they had no children, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were getting on in years. 8 Once when he was serving as priest before God and his section was on duty, 9 he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to enter the sanctuary of the Lord and offer incense. 10 Now at the time of the incense offering, the whole assembly of the people was praying outside. 11 Then there appeared to him an angel of the Lord, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. 12 When Zechariah saw him, he was terrified; and fear overwhelmed him. 13 But the angel said to him, "Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will name him John. 14 You will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, 15 for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He must never drink wine or strong drink; even before his birth he will be filled with the Holy Spirit. 16 He will turn many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. 17 With the spirit and power of Elijah he will go before him, to turn the hearts of parents to their children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord." 18 Zechariah said to the angel, "How will I know that this is so? For I am an old man, and my wife is getting on in years." 19 The angel replied, "I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news.

Have you ever been visited by an angel? If you have been, did the angel have a message for you, and did you believe? If an angel were to visit you today with a message, would you believe? I think that most of us think we would believe, but I wonder if that’s true? How many of us would still doubt? I wonder how many of us would be like Zechariah?

Most people don’t appreciate the subtleties of the story about Zechariah in the passage above. When you understand the story more, you understand the depths of Zechariah’s doubt and what it says about our doubts. Zechariah was a priest serving the great temple in Jerusalem. When we think of priests today, we tend to think of Roman Catholic priests or pastors. Zechariah was not that kind of priest. Temple priests in Jesus’ day presided over sacrifices in the temple, or did other various duties surrounding those sacrifices. Everyday, thousands of the Jewish faithful flocked to the temple to offer up their sacrifices. To be a temple priest, a man had to be a direct descendent of Aaron, Moses’ right-hand man. In Jesus’ day, there were so many descendents of Aaron that few priests were permanent. Instead, most priests worked regular jobs and served in the temple twice a year. There were approximately 24,000 priests, with about 1000 serving the temple each week. Thus, each priest served in the temple for two weeks per year, and it was the high point of his or her year.

Zechariah was serving his two weeks in the temple, and he had a special duty on this particular day. He was to light the incense in the inner part of the temple. The incense was believed to have the power to lift the sacrifice to God, so it was a special and powerful duty, and would have served as the highpoint of his life. He entered the inner sanctum to light the incense, his hand shaking in nervous awe as he put the flame to the incense. Suddenly, the angel Gabriel stood before him. Gabriel told Zechariah that his wife, Elizabeth, was to bear a child (John the Baptist), who would have the spirit of Elijah in him. John would prepare the way for the coming of the messiah. Zechariah doubted. I’m not sure how you would have been in that situation, but Zechariah had a common affliction. He couldn’t get rid of his logical self. Logic said that there was no way his wife could bear a child. She was in menopause. Physically, logic says, it was impossible for Elizabeth to bear a child. So Zechariah asked Gabriel how he could be sure that what Gabriel said was true. Gabriel responded that because Zechariah doubted, he would be struck mute until John was born.

Put yourself in Zechariah’s shoes (or sandals). Would you have believed? Belief, even in the face of a visit by an angel, is harder than you think. I remember years ago talking with a professor at a local university who was an agnostic leaning toward atheism. He told me that back when he was a teenager or a child, while he was going through some very difficult times, he woke up to find Jesus sitting on the end of his bed. I asked him if it was really Jesus or just a dream. He said it was really Jesus, that he could have reached out and touched him. I asked him what Jesus was doing. He said that he was just looking in a caring way. Was there a message? “Not really,” he said. I then asked if, looking back at that experience, he was still an agnostic leaning toward atheism, and he said yes. I asked him in several different forms how he could have been visited by Jesus and not believe. He told me that he didn’t know, but that he just didn’t believe. Doubt, sometimes, is easier to come by than belief.

When angels, the Spirit, Jesus, or some other manifestation of God visits you, what do you do with your natural doubts? There are ways to prepare yourself to have an open heart and soul to them, ways to be open and ready whenever God comes to you. I believe that God speaks all around us all the time, but we aren’t always receptive. How do we become receptive? Well, I’ve asked an expert on receptivity to talk with us about an experience she had. So I’m turning my sermon over to Connie Frierson, our program director, to talk about her experience of being visited by God:

As many of you know I am a widow. I was with my husband Allen for twenty-two years, when he very suddenly died of a heart attack in July of 2006. Allen and I met in the Air Force in Las Vegas, Nevada. He was a hotshot fighter pilot and I was a JAG otherwise known as an Air Force lawyer. And we were really happy. So the time after Allen’s death was one of the darkest times in my life. But God was present with me in my grief and God helped me put my loss in perspective. One of the ways God spoke is through this necklace I am wearing today.

About three months after Allen’s death, my dear sister Beverly was in Lake Mills, Wisconsin visiting with her daughter, Julie and Julie’s husband, Mike. Lake Mills is a charming little town and has a farmers market every Saturday. Bev, Julie and Mike went to the market in the park and were wandering about looking for pumpkins and squash and vegetables. All the things we enjoy in the fall. But the market also includes some crafters. In one end of the park was a woman with two tables full of beads and jewelry. Bev was idly looking over everything when she was struck with one necklace and earring set. She knew that that necklace was for me and she had this idea that the necklace was somehow from Allen. Now Bev and I are bargain hunters to the core and we just don’t buy each other jewelry. So Bev dismissed this notion of the necklace and moved on. But she couldn’t seem to get this idea out of her head. She asked my niece, Julie, to come back and look at these tables of jewelry. Bev asked Julie, “Is there anything here for Connie?” Julie immediately went right to this necklace. So Bev decided to buy the necklace for me. As the woman was wrapping the necklace and earrings up, Bev asked her if she knew anything about the beads in the necklace. Bev was just making conversation. But the woman lit up and she said, “Oh yes, I know all about these beads. The brown bead is a brown agate from Tibet, said to heighten spiritual awareness and the turquoise is a special order from a little family mine somewhere out west, called Pilot Mountain.” At that point both Bev and Julie started to cry because this necklace really was a gift to me from my pilot husband.

But the deeper I looked into these beads the more I found. The Pilot Mountain Mine isn’t just somewhere out west. Pilot Mountain is in Tonopah, Nevada. Tonopah Nevada is a very, very small town closest to the Tonopah Test Range. Allen was one of probably less than 100 pilots in the 1980’s that were part of a group flying and training in the then Top Secret stealth fighter, the F-117 on the Tonopah Test Range. This was the group Allen was flying with when we met. This is the group that I became the attorney for in my time in the Air Force. As Allen flew into the Air Field at Tonopah, Pilot Mountain was one of the checkpoints into the field. He flew over it nightly. This necklace was tied to an incredible time in my life and Allen’s life. No kidding, this was a gift from Allen.

But something even more interesting was happening here. The week that I received the necklace, I was in the beginning of a Christian Education Class at Seminary. The book we were reading by Craig Dystrika, Dystrika used a certain phrase over and over again. It was his primary metaphor for Christian Education. The phrase was, “What do these stones mean?” The phrase is taken from the book of Joshua, chapter 4. That phrase was the title of a chapter in Dystrika’s book. He mentions it in his introduction and his dedication of the book. It was the main topic of my professor’s lecture for three classes. In my small group or section, I had to listen to four students reflection papers on that one phrase, “What do these stones mean.” At the end of about two weeks of this I realized that God wanted me to think about WHAT DO THESE STONES MEAN! What do the stones in this necklace mean?

As I looked at the necklace you see that the Pilot Mountain Turquoise is cut into little hearts. The veining of the turquoise are like little cracks and fissures. The hearts look like they are broken. That certainly matched my experience of a great love and a great loss. But the characteristic of Pilot Mountain Turquoise is that the crackling and fissures range from deep, dark black to golden. As I looked at these broken and fractured hearts I realized that God was speaking to me in a very real symbolic way. Grief is black and heart breaking, yet in time and God’s grace our greatest sorrows can be transformed, that darkness can be changed to gold. This necklace was a very real reassurance that my grief would be transformed.

What do these stones mean? I then turned to Joshua Chapters 3 and 4. This is the story of the people of Israel crossing into the Promised Land. After forty years in the wilderness the people are going into the land of milk and honey. God tells Joshua to pick men of each tribe. And when the priests cross the River Jordan carrying the Ark of the Covenant. When the Jordan River is held back so that the priest cross on dry ground. The men are to pick up the stones that the priest’s feet touched. And these stones will remind everyone that God has held back the waters and that God was present in the Ark of the Covenant when the people of Israel crossed into the Promised Land. What does it mean when we say or sing of crossing the River Jordan and entering the Promised Land? Most often it means that we are looking forward to life with God beyond the life on this earth. The Pilot Mountain necklace, the hearts broken and transformed, the assurance of God of a Promised Land, all of these have come together in understanding what these stones mean to me. God has used a language unique to me, to comfort and reassure. If you listen and are open God speaks to you as well.

Connie’s story teaches us a lot about being receptive to God. First, it teaches us that it takes a willingness to believe. Are we willing to believe when what we experience goes against human logic, against our logic? Second, it teaches us that if we are willing to look, listen, and sense beyond our normal human senses, we can hear God. Are we willing to listen with our hearts, spirits, and souls?

God speaks, but are we ready to hear?

Amen.

What Is Our Calling?

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Matthew 25:31-46

"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. Then the king will say to those at his right hand, "Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.' Then the righteous will answer him, "Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?' 40 And the king will answer them, "Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.' Then he will say to those at his left hand, "You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.' Then they also will answer, "Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?' Then he will answer them, "Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.' And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."

So what’s going to happen to you when the great division comes? What’s going to happen when Jesus separates us from one another, putting some on the right and some on the left? Which side will you be placed on? Will you be with the sheep or the goats?

The truth is that I’d be hard-pressed to find many Christians who would say, “Me? I’ll be among the goats.” Most of us believe we’ll be running with the sheep, but is that true? Looking at Jesus’ criterion for grazing with the sheep, how do you match up?

Now, I need to tell you that I’m not much of a “rapture” guy. What I mean is that I’m not a big believer in the theology of the rapture. You know the belief. It’s an idea based on one small passage of scripture, Matthew 24, in which Jesus says to be watchful for the coming of Christ because “two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left.” It’s a confusing passage because it’s hard to tell if he is using poetic language typical of the Middle East, or predicting something. Still, for the first 1800 years of Christianity, no one thought that this passage was literal. It was understood to be figurative, telling people to always be aware that Christ can return at any moment. It wasn’t until an Irish evangelical preacher, John Nelson Darby, preached about it in the mid-1800s that anyone believed in the rapture. At any rate, I’m not a big believer in the rapture because I believe it’s a theology that’s built on speculation.

Still, I often wonder what people who believe in the rapture, who read books like the Left Behind series, think of this passage. I wonder because most of them seem to believe that getting to heaven has to do with having the right beliefs. They believe that if we proclaim Christ as Lord and believe in Jesus’ saving power, then they will be taken up in the rapture. But what do they make of this passage, which says that judgment doesn’t have to do with having the right belief? This passage seems to say that it’s not so much a matter of what we believe as it is of how we love. Reading our passage for this morning, what seems to determine our entry into the kingdom of heaven is how we treat the people who struggle in life. What matters seems to be how we treat the poor, the hungry, the sick, and the imprisoned.

With this in mind, my question for you is simple: to what extent do you care about people who are poor, hungry, lack proper clothing, or are in prison? Do you think about them at all? A little? A lot?

I find that in our culture there are many people who have a very damaging, un-Christian attitude toward the poor and the imprisoned. They tend to split them into two categories: the deserving and undeserving. For instance, there are those who believe that most poor people are poor because they haven’t worked hard enough to overcome their poverty. These are the folks whom I’ve heard at cocktail parties and elsewhere say things like, “I’ve worked for everything I have. Those people are lazy. They do nothing, but they still get a handout. If it were up to me, they’d all be forced to do roadwork or something like that. I shouldn’t have to support their laziness. Don’t get me wrong. There are some people who are poor because they have a mental problem, but most of them are just lazy.” These folks believe in helping only those who deserve to be poor, whatever that means. The problem is that Jesus doesn’t distinguish the deserving and undeserving poor. He just tells us to care about the poor.

People also similarly talk about those in prison in the same way. They say things like, “Those people did something wrong. They should be punished. We shouldn’t be having country clubs for prisoners. Prisons should be harsh places that cause people pain for all the pain they’ve caused.” Again, the problem is that Jesus calls us to care for prisoners, to love them, not abuse them. What do we do with teachings like that?

No matter what causes people to be poor, hungry, homeless, sick, thirsty, imprisoned, or strange, Jesus calls us to care for them. This whole passage gets so much to the heart of Christian faith and what we do with it. There are a lot of Christians who are good at playing the role of Christian—at proclaiming themselves good, seeming sinless, proclaiming others as sinful, knowing the Bible, and things like that. But that doesn’t make them truly Christian in the sense of our passage.

Let me give you an example. Several years ago a woman was referred to me because she had some questions about faith. She was disturbed by an experience she had had, and wanted to talk about it with a pastor who wasn’t part of her church. What disturbed her was her experience on a mission trip to Thailand to help victims of the 2004 tsunami.

When the tsunami hit Southeast Asia in 2004, her heart went out to all the people who had lost their homes and were now struggling just to find food, water, and shelter. Her church set up this mission trip to go to Thailand to help the victims. It was her impression that the mission trip would be to help them rebuild, to bring food and supplies, and otherwise help them recover. When she got there, she was a bit dumbfounded to discover that the mission was to stand in front of a large Buddhist temple and hand out Christian tracts (tracts written in English) to the people living there (most of whom could not speak or read English). The tracts essentially said that Jesus was the only way to salvation, and that they had to give up their faith and become Christian if they were to be saved.

She was shocked at this because she saw that what these people needed was food, clothing, housing, medicine, and so much more. Her church’s mission was ignoring those needs in order to talk about salvation in a language the people didn’t understand. She spoke with the leaders of the mission, and she was told that if these people turned their lives over the Christ, they would be helped, and so what they were doing was to help them find help.

Another interesting thing happened. The members of the mission trip were warned to stay out of the Buddhist temple because the devil was there. She was warned that the devil might hurt their faith if they went inside. This piqued her curiosity. She wanted to go inside and see what a Buddhist temple looked like, especially since the people were so devoted to it.

Struggling with what to do, she finally decided that it was just too compelling. She had to see what was inside this temple. And so she walked up the steps. Walking in, she was overcome with the beauty inside. It was transcendent. It was inspiring. And she had a deep spiritual experience. It wasn’t an experience that led her to become Buddhist. It was an experience that actually deepened her Christian faith. She had an overwhelming sense of Christ’s presence in that place. Unfortunately, she was left with a problem: “How do I tell others about this? They’ll brand me as a heretic, even though I’ve had an experience of Christ.” And that’s what they did when she told a few of them.

Here’s the real crux of the situation, though. These folks had a chance to be sheep and help the poor, but instead they handed out tracts. They were more concerned about whether the poor believed the right things than they were that the poor had adequate food and shelter. They were Christian, but they didn’t follow Christ’s message of our passage for today.

What do you do to help the poor everyday? Do you think about this? There’s no judgment from me if you don’t, but we are called to help the poor. That’s one of the reasons we constantly try to offer opportunities here in the church. For instance, we periodically do meals for the Ladle and Hearth ministry in Ambridge. We encourage you to contribute to the local food bank. We are presently doing a coat and sweater drive. We have a special mission fund as part of our church to financially help people in trouble. It’s why we do a backpack drive and other activities for the Pittsburgh Project. There’s a lot we do in the church, which is great. And we hope to do more. Still, do you look for other opportunities on your own? How do you help the poor?

How you vote makes a difference. To me this is a huge aspect of helping the poor, and I’m glad that I now get to talk about it after the election so that it doesn’t sound like I’m endorsing one party or another. Simply put, to be Christian means to vote for people who care about the poor. There are a lot of theories about how to do this. There’s the trickle down theory, which says that we should invest in the investors, and that they will create new wealth and jobs. There’s the bubble up theory, which is that we invest in the poor, giving them more buying power, and thus helping the economy from the ground up. Why is it that we have to have one or the other? Why can’t we have both, which makes more ecological sense? If you understand weather patterns, water both trickles down and evaporates back up. Why is it that we have to vote for the poor against the economy, or for the wealthy against the poor? Either way, whatever economic theory we have, we should be putting the welfare of the poor at the center of our vote because that’s a reflection of what scripture says. Why not vote for politicians and policies who want to bring better housing, food, quality of life, education and opportunity to the poor?

The question is also central to our giving habits. Do we give to charities that help the poor beyond the church? One of the people I really admire in this way is former Steelers player, and present radio analyst, Tunch Ilkin. Ilkin was an all-pro offensive lineman. He now analyzes games, and I love to watch him on Mondays on Savran on Sports, as he uses a telestrater to break down games. He doesn’t just say things like, “The coaches stink,” like most of us do. Instead, he shows in slow motion why critical plays either worked or didn’t, how someone did or didn’t execute well, and how someone either made or missed an assignment. But the thing that I really admire about him is not his football knowledge. I like it, but I don’t admire it. What I admire is his work over the past twenty years for the Light of Life Ministry on the northside of Pittsburgh. This is a ministry that cares for the hungry and the homeless. He isn’t just a football guy. He’s a Matthew 25 guy, and that’s what is really defining about his life.

Getting back to our scripture, the passage is basically asking a simple question: how much do we care about those whom few care about? How we answer is what defines us as Christians

Amen.

How Are We Using Our Talents

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"For it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. The one who had received the five talents went off at once and traded with them, and made five more talents. In the same way, the one who had the two talents made two more talents. But the one who had received the one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master's money. After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. Then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying, "Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made five more talents.' His master said to him, "Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.' And the one with the two talents also came forward, saying, "Master, you handed over to me two talents; see, I have made two more talents.' His master said to him, "Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.' Then the one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying, "Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.' But his master replied, "You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him, and give it to the one with the ten talents. For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'- Matthew 25:14-30

So, what do you do with your talents? Do you invest them? Do you bury them in the ground? If you invest them, how do you invest them? Do you invest your talents in a way that’s supposed to make you money, or in a way that serves God?

The last question is the key question for us, isn’t it? When we think of investing, we pretty much always think of it in financial terms. We don’t think of it in spiritual terms. Why is that? Why don’t we think of our service to God as an investment? I’m pretty sure Dan Barker sees what he does as an investment.

Dan Barker has lived a tough life, but that never stopped him from investing in life. Barker grew up as a troubled child in Sacramento, California. His father left home when he was four, and he never saw him again. His mother remarried soon after, but it was never a happy marriage. What Dan remembers most of his childhood was the overwhelming sense of sadness in his home. It just seemed that everyone was continually melancholy. His half-brother and half-sister manifested the sadness more in their lives than Dan. The brother ended up in prison and died of a drug overdose. His sister struggled her whole life with anorexia. To get out of the home, Dan enlisted in the Marines as a 17 year-old.

It was 1964, and he served in Vietnam as a medic. It was a terrible time for him, and he saw things that have haunted him throughout his whole life. As he says, he doesn’t know if he has ever had a good night sleep since he left Vietnam.

Returning from Vietnam, Dan went to college on the G.I. bill, studying history, English, and philosophy. Upon graduation he really didn’t know what to do with his life. He bounced around from job to job, eventually working for Garland Nursery in Albany, Oregon. It was there that he found his calling. He loved to grow plants. It became a passion. His favorite time of year was when the seed catalogues came out. He would pour over them from cover to cover, delighting in their descriptions of the plants that would grow, such as the “rich flesh” of the cantaloupes. They touched him on a spiritual level.

He continued working in the nursery, but had to get other jobs to supplement his income. It was in one of these other jobs that he made a decision to invest his talents. He was working at the Hoot Owl Grocery, a convenience store, when three men came into the store and robbed it at gunpoint. Pointing the gun at Dan’s head, the leader said, “You can identify me, can’t you?” Dan replied, “No, not really.” The man then turned and fled, taking with him $117. At that moment Dan knew two things: First, he knew that he never wanted to work in a convenience store again. Second, he knew he had to share his passion for growing with those in need. He had already been thinking of an idea of what to do, but now he knew that he needed to pursue it.

Here was his idea. He would build gardens in the inner city for poor people to grow vegetables so that they could improve their health and supplement their income. So in the spring of 1984, supported by a $5000 government grant, as well as 15,000 packets of year-old seeds donated from a local firm, he loaded up a truck full of dirt and wood, and went to the inner city of Portland, Oregon to build a vegetable garden in the back yard of a man named Al Honeyman. Honeyman had muscular dystrophy, and was on disability. Dan built the frame for the garden and filled it with dirt. He then taught Honeyman and his neighbors how to care for the garden. That spring he built 21 gardens in the city. The next spring he built 56. The following spring he built 117. In 1989 he went national, expanding his talent to other cities. To date, over 50,000 of these gardens have been built across the nation, and more are coming. Barker himself has built well over 1400 of them, but because of his arthritis he mostly supervises now (taken from Biography Magazine, 2003). Dan Barker was given a very small talent, and he multiplied it a thousand-fold. The spiritual irony about Dan Barker’s talent is that he actually invested his talents in the ground, and it multiplied them a thousand-fold.

Where do you invest your talents? Everyday, God gives everyone some sort of gift and calls us to use it to make the world better. And every day millions of people ignore that call. They don’t mean to ignore it. They just don’t listen for God much, and when they do, they don’t think creatively about what they hear. They don’t connect what small skills they have with the possibility of sharing them beyond themselves in a way that makes the world just a little better. They bury their talents in the ground by doing nothing. I’m not saying that we have to do everything with every talent God gives us. That would leave us with no balance in life. I’m simply saying that too often we hear God’s calling to invest our talents, and we do nothing.

For example, we are in our annual stewardship period when we receive pledges for the next year. Do you consider your pledge to be just what you give to support the church, or do you think beyond that by recognizing it as an investment in what God is doing? Too few Christians recognize their giving to the church and to charity as an investment, mostly because when they think of investments they think only in terms of investments that come back to them. They worry about whether they will make or lose money, whether their investment will be good for them or a waste of time. When God calls us to invest our talents, God doesn’t think the way we do. God calls us to make investments that come back to God, so that through God they can make the world better for everyone, including us.

Do you look at your giving that way? Do you consider your giving be an investment in God in which you are investing back into God part of what God has given you? I want you to consider it this way. Everything you have is from God. Everything. What are you willing to give back to God to invest in life? 1%? 2%? 5%? 10%? I know that for myself, I am very committed to giving back to God at least 10%, which is why each year I give back to Calvin Church almost ¼ of my salary. I don’t do it to be seen as good or to get into heaven. I do it to thank God and to invest what God has given me back into God.

Our Forward in Faith campaign, the one responsible for our renovation and new building, is exactly that kind of investment. We invested money into this church to create a facility that would multiply our talents for God. This building was never about the building. It has always been about investing in God. Nobody thought, “wouldn’t it be nice if we had a bigger, nicer church?” The whole focus was on the fact that the small, cramped, falling apart building that we had was causing us to start burying our investments in the ground. The building was impeding our ministry. Our classrooms were too small. Only a few on our staff had offices or workspaces. Our downstairs was chronically moldy, musty, and unsafe. What we did was to invest in God by creating a place where God could do more through us. And this is why we will be embarking on a new campaign in the spring. We will be embarking on a campaign to invest more in God so that we can retire our debt and be able to grow our ministry into the future. In the end, the question is always, “Are you investing your talents in God, or burying them in the ground?”

Throughout our lives God is constantly calling, saying, “Do something with what I’ve given you.” We don’t have to change the world. We only have to invest in a way that changes the small part of the world we live in. The question is, where are you investing your talents?

Amen.

To Pray Without Ceasing

Therefore encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing. But we appeal to you, brothers and sisters, to respect those who labor among you, and have charge of you in the Lord and admonish you; esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. And we urge you, beloved, to admonish the idlers, encourage the faint hearted, help the weak, be patient with all of them. See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all.
Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise the words of prophets, but test everything; hold fast to what is good;
- 1 Thessalonians 5:12-21

You know, one of the problems of being Protestants in American is that often we act like Christianity started in America, and that the only true Christian faith is an American Protestant faith. The tragedy of thinking this way is that we often miss amazing movements of faith that take place in other Christian sects, movements that can draw us closer to God if we’re willing to pay attention and to follow.

One such movement took place in Russia around 1888. Out of nowhere a book was published by an anonymous author, and this little book revolutionized the way people thought about prayer. The book was titled The Way of a Pilgrim. It is the autobiography of an Eastern Orthodox pilgrim on a circuitous route to the Holy Lands. No one knows who wrote it, or even if it was a true autobiography or simply a profound work of fiction. What was powerful about the book was that its made our little passage for this morning come alive for millions of Christians by teaching them a way to pray without ceasing.

After the book was published it spread throughout Russia, and then throughout Europe, eventually making it’s way to America. Along the way it has influenced millions of Christians.

The book begins with the pilgrim telling of how he once had a wife and child who died during a smallpox outbreak, or something like that. In despair he wandered, not knowing where to turn. So he sought out a staret, which, in the Orthodox tradition, is the title given to a great spiritual master and guide. The staret teaches the pilgrim the secret of praying without ceasing. He teaches him to practice a form of prayer called hesychastic prayer, which is a Greek word meaning “Jesus Christ.” The prayer is based on breathing. As the person breathes in, he prays in his mind, “Lord Jesus Christ.” As he breathes out he prays, “Have mercy on me.” It’s a constant cycle of prayer, breathing in, “Lord Jesus Christ;” breathing out, “have mercy on me.” Breathing in, “Lord Jesus Christ;” breathing out, “have mercy on me.

The staret tells him to practice this prayer several hundred times a day. Then he increases the number of times he prays it. The pilgrim begins to journey around Russia, hoping to eventually reach Jerusalem, increasing his prayer as he walks: 1000 times a day, 3000 times a day, 6000 times a day, 12,000 times a day. As he increases his prayer, he finds that he is slowly becoming transformed. He becomes more patient, wiser, more understanding of life, and more courageous in simply following wherever God leads. The prayer centers him, allowing him to overcome anything in life. As his prayer moves from his mind to his heart, his focus becomes more and more simply on pleasing God. Toward the end he says that the prayer moves from his conscious mind to his heart as his heart prays it no matter what he is doing—talking, working, or eating. The book is remarkable in its simplicity, but also in teaching a form of prayer that is so simple, and so powerful.

As a way of introducing you to this prayer, I want to give you an opportunity to practice it. I want you to stop right now and try it. We’re going to change the prayer a bit. As you breathe in, pray in your mind, “Bless the Lord,” and as you breathe out, “O, my soul.” Try it for two minutes of silence. Your mind will wander a bit, but don’t worry about that. Just stay with your breathing, and see what effect it has on you.

Bless the Lord,
O my soul.

What did you experience? This way of praying is very much centered in the guidance of Psalm 46, where we hear, “Be still and know that I am God.” It’s meant to center and still us.

A hundred years before The Way of a Pilgrim was published, another little known book was published that also revolutionized Christian faith. The book was a compilation of writings about an unknown French monk named Brother Lawrence. After he died, his eulogy was shared with others, and copies spread around Europe among Roman Catholics and even Protestants. Then reflections on the life of Brother Lawrence were shared. Finally, letters that he had written to others were spread about Europe. Eventually all were compiled in a book that has influenced generations of Christians for centuries. The book is titled, The Practice of the Presence of God. The book describes another approach to praying without ceasing.

Brother Lawrence was a latecomer to monastic life. He joined the monastery at age 41 or so. He was not considered a great man of prayer. In fact, he often wrote about how poor he was at staying awake during worship, and at keeping regular times for prayer. So he created a different way of praying. He kept a conversation with God going on throughout his day. His job in the monastery was to keep the kitchen clean. So as he swept he talked with God, both sharing his heart and listening to God’s soft, still voice. As he washed dishes he talked with God. When doing errands for the monastery, he spoke with and listened to God. He worked at becoming fully aware of God throughout his day, looking for God’s presence everywhere. He also prayed without ceasing

So, how do you pray? Do you pray? I don’t know about you, but I find prayer to be both the most important, and the most difficult, part of the Christian life. It’s hard to find the time to pray. It’s hard to know what the right way to pray is. It’s hard to tell if God is listening because silence always accompanies prayer. We pray, but we don’t always get tangible evidence that God has listened or is responding.

Another problem with prayer is that if we’re actually going to become people of prayer, we have to begin to care about what God wants, but that’s not always our focus in prayer. Think about how most of us pray. When are we most likely to go to God in prayer? Isn’t it when we need something? Usually our prayers are filled with requests for God to do this or that. We aren’t usually focused on what God wants. Really, what happens is that we treat prayer much like Aladdin’s lamp, hoping that we can find the secret to rub God just the right way. We focus on holding our hands just the right way, trying to use just the right words, sitting in the right position, praying in the right place. We have a hard time just praying and trusting that God’s listened.

To really pray in the depths of our souls we have to care about what God wants. How much do we really want to know what God wants? When I came to Calvin Church that was my central question: How much do we care about what God wants? I learned to care about that question when I was an associate pastor prior to coming to Calvin. Specifically, I learned it while helping to lead a retreat for our session. I did an exercise in which we looked at Moses’ life and how he desperately did not want to lead the Israelites. He asked God to send another. He asked God why he was chosen. God told Moses to serve anyway. The question I asked the elders was what Moses’ life tells us about what we are to seek as elders. We talked about how we were to make decisions based on what God wants, not on what we want.

During the discussions one of the elders said, “I don’t like this at all. I don’t like asking what God wants. I know what I want, and I like voting based on what I want.” I was taken by surprise a bit, but then I asked, “Are you saying that we shouldn’t seek what God wants?” He said, “Oh no! We should always seek what God wants. I’m just telling you that I don’t like it.” That stuck with me. Coming here I was determined that we would be a church that prays as a session, as leaders, and as a congregation, seeking what God wanted rather than what we wanted. That needed to be our focus: “God, what do you want? God, how do you want me to be?”

Seeking what God wants is the calling of our passage. It’s not only to pray, but to pray without ceasing. We’re called to talk with God constantly. We’re called to listen for God constantly, and to let God lead us constantly, even to where we don’t want to follow.

Do you have any idea why God wants us to pray without ceasing? It’s simple: God wants a union of mind, heart, and soul with you and me. God wants a relationship with us, but God wants more. God wants to penetrate our hearts, minds, and souls. God wants to be part of everything we are. God wants to share a life with us. The question, in the end, is whether we are willing to share our lives with God?

Amen.

Loving God, Loving Others

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When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?" He said to him, " "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."- Matthew 22: 34-40

I love this passage. To me, it explains Christian faith in a nutshell. What's Christian faith about? Loving God with everything we have, and then others as ourselves. In fact, I think this passage is ground zero for the whole Bible, the place out of which everything else in the Bible flows. It is not only the central teaching of Jesus in the gospels, it emanates from the first commandment in the Old Testament.

So if love is so central to the Bible, why do we have such a hard time making love central our lives? We're not necessarily bad at love, but we're sure biased in our love. Think about this for a moment. We generally love the most those who like us and are the most like us, and we love the least those who dislike us and are the most unlike us. Ponder what I just said for a moment.

I'll show you what I mean. There was a woman who met a friend from long ago in the checkout line of a supermarket. They hadn't seen each other for years. Her friend asked her, “So how your children? Are they married?” “Yes,” the woman replied. “One has a great marriage, the other a bad one. My son, he is in a bad marriage. He is married to the laziest woman on earth. She expects him to do everything. She won't cook, she won't clean, she doesn't pay the bills. All she does is lie in bed all day reading, and expects my son to even bring her breakfast in bed.”

“What about your daughter,” the friend asked. “Oh, my daughter is in the most wonderful marriage. She is married to a prince. He does everything. He cooks for her. He cleans. He tells her just to take it easy, sit in bed or lie on a couch all day and read. And get this. He is so thoughtful that most mornings he brings her breakfast in bed.”

We are so biased when it comes to our love. Why do we have such a hard time loving everyone? Truth? It all comes down to the conflict between biology and spirituality. I'm not sure why this is, but most of us somehow think that because we are spiritual, or because humans are a sophisticated and higher form of creature, that we aren't influenced much by biology. We are. In fact, our biological wiring influences most of everything we do. Let me give you a basic introduction to psychology 101. Psychology understands that biology plays a huge part in our everyday behavior, and it is a discipline devoted to understanding the role biology plays. It understands that our minds are often controlled, or at least heavily influenced, by our endocrine systems, hormones, frontal lobes, pituitary glands, amygdalas, reticular activating systems, rigt and left hemispheres, and so much more. Our thoughts and actions have a heavy biological basis.

One of the ways our biology is influences us the most is through our survival instinct. Most of us don't even come close to realizing how much this survival instinct plays in everyday life, and how it influences our ability to love. We not only have a strong survival instinct when it comes to protecting our food sources, our families, and our homes. We also have a strong survival instinct that protects our beliefs and values. I don't just mean our religious or political beliefs. I mean our beliefs about others and ourselves. We humans are a very self-protective species.

We sense threats all the time, whether in the workplace or at home. For instance, are you married? If so, do you ever fight with your spouse? And if you do, what do you fight about? We may think we are fighting over the dishes, finances, and intimacy, but the truth is that we are generally fighting because we feel threatened in one way or another by our spouses. They say things to us in ways that cause us to be defensive. Defensiveness is a survival reaction. It is a reaction to a threat, whether it is the threat of someone telling us that we're slobs, which we hear as them telling us that we are bad, or the threat of someone telling us that we aren't a good husband or wife. These feelings of being threatened extend to the workplace, among friends, or even listening to the radio. Most of us feel threatened in one small way or another throughout our days. It's all part of our animal nature.

When we defend ourselves by criticizing them, we are acting out of our survival instinct, trying to protect ourselves and diminish others who may be a threat. You see this same biology playing out in our elections. Have you noticed that as the election campaigns get closer to the wire, the attacks on each other become more aggressive? Why? Because the candidates are getting closer to the end, and they see their opponents more and more as threats. So they do what anyone does when threatened: they attack as a way of defending themselves and diminishing the threat. We may not like it, but it happens. In fact, the more we identify with a candidate, the more we tend to feel threatened not only by his or her opponent, but by his or her supporters. This is why politics is so hard to talk about. People get incredibly defensive about their candidates and their own political opinions. They see others as threats to their beliefs and values, and act aggressively to protect themselves.

We cannot escape the fact that we are biological and act too often out of our survival instincts. We may be biological beings, but we're also spiritual, and it is the spiritual part of us that connects us with love. C. S. Lewis points out our double nature when he says that we are amphibians. And just as amphibians inhabit both watery world and an earthy world, we inhabit both an earthly world and spiritual world. The problem is that love is really of the spiritual world, not the earthly.

You can see the spiritual nature of love in John's writings. In 1 John 4, John writes, “ God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.” That is a radical statement. What he is saying is that love not only comes from God, but that it is the essence of God. God is love. The two are indistinguishable from each other. Not only that, but anytime we truly love another, we are letting God love through us. We become spiritual in that moment. Anytime we lock love out, we lock God out and we become merely biological.

John also says, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.” What is he saying here? Among other things he is saying that love casts out fear, which is our biological survival instinct. He is saying that when we fear, we cast out God because we are living purely according to our biological instincts. When we love, we are living in the spiritual, and if not overriding the biological, we are at least allowing the spiritual to guide the biological. In effect, love means being rooted in God. When we love, we are living more in the spiritual than the biological, and it enables us to be more than just our biological wiring.

The whole point of our passage is that we have a choice: will biology control us, or will we choose to let the spiritual guide us? There's a very simple way to tell whether biology and protectiveness, or love and spirituality, reigns in our lives: to what extent do we tend to get irritated with others, feel threatened by others, need to be approved by others, need to put others in their place, criticize others, or defend ourselves from others? If the answer is that these feelings are strong in our lives, then biology determines a lot in our lives. On the other hand, to what extent do we tend to like others, want to help others, offer to do things for others without expecting a reward, like to compliment others, find the good in others? The stronger these are, the more we live in the spiritual.

Our passage teaches us to live in the spiritual by loving God with everything we have, and then making that the basis for our love of others. And Jesus gives a great example of this. In Luke's gospel, a parable is added to Jesus' command to love God first, then others as ourselves. He tells the story of the Good Samaritan. This is a story of spirituality overriding the survival instinct.

You know the story. A man lies beaten by the side of the road, and three people come upon him. The first, a Levite, will not help the man because the man threatens his survival. He knows that there may be bandits lurking behind the rocks who have beaten the man and are now using him to a lure, beat, and rob others. Also, he knows that if he touches the man, and he is dead, he'll be unclean for 7 days. He is afraid. So he keeps going. The priest also sees the man, but similarly fearing touching a dead body, he passes by. You see, as a priest in the Temple of Jerusalem , he serves only two weeks a year. He is probably in the midst of his two-week service. He doesn't want contamination and defilement to interfere with his service to God in the Temple. So he keeps going.

The Samaritan, in contrast, is the one who has the most to fear. The Jews hated Samaritans. Why? Because they were syncretists. This means that they had been Jewish centuries before, but as they had been attacked and overcome by enemies, they had allowed other religious beliefs and practice to change their Jewish faith. They still saw themselves as Jewish, but now had their own Temple and their own practices. The Jews considered them to be among the most sinful of all, more sinful than Gentiles, because they had defiled the Jewish faith. The Samaritan was at the most risk by helping the man. He not only could be beaten by other bandits and be declared unclean, but he if he was falsely accused by the Jews of beating the man, who would believe him? Who would take the word of a Samaritan? Yet, amidst all his fears, he is the one who lets go of fear, acts out of love, and helps the man by binding his wounds, taking him to an inn, paying for his stay, and offering to pay for longer if need be. He put aside his animal anxiety to live out of his spirituality—to live according to God's love and to let God love through him. This parable shows us the way of love.

We are called to live according to love. We are called to let go of our animal natures to be able to love more and more out of our spiritual natures. Our passage is basically a call to rise above our animal natures to take on God's nature . The question is to what extent are we willing to put our biology aside for God?

Amen.

Do Religion and Poltics Mix?

Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap him in what he said. So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, "Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?" But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, "Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the coin used for the tax." And they brought him a denarius. Then he said to them, "Whose head is this, and whose title?" They answered, "The emperor's." Then he said to them, "Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor's, and to God the things that are God's." When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away.- Matthew 22:15-22

About a month ago I saw an interview on television that irked me. A reporter was interviewing different people about their thoughts on Barack Obama, and one woman said, “I don’t like Obama. He’s a Muslim, and this is a Christian nation.” Can you tell which part of that statement irked me? It wasn’t the part about Obama being a Muslim, although I am tired of people saying that. When people say that, it’s an ignorant statement on so many levels. First, because it’s not true. Second, because it’s a statement that’s prejudiced against Muslims, and I find that destructive. I’m also not saying that you should vote for Obama. I’m just pointing out the ignorance of saying he is a Muslim. Despite my disagreement with that part of her comment, it is her saying we are a Christian nation that bothers me.

Now, why would it bother me to hear someone say we’re a Christian nation? Shouldn’t I agree with her? After all, I am a pastor. The truth is that a lot of Christians would agree that we’re a Christian nation, and a quick look at American history seems to support this belief. The only problem is that you’d have to look at American history very quickly and very narrowly to support this belief. The truth is that the Founding Fathers never saw us as a Christian nation. In fact, they didn’t even think in categories of Christian/non-Christian at all. They thought in terms of denominations and whose version of Christianity was right. The people of the time saw their own denominations as being truly Christian, and all others as being false to one degree or another. To say that they saw us as a Christian nation is misleading because they didn’t see Christianity the same way we do now, as one religion with many difference expressions.

To understand the differences, you have to go back to understanding the colonization of North America. Most of those who migrated to the colonies, especially those who established the colonies, did so as a way of establishing a state where they would be free to pursue their own religion. For instance, the Puritans who settled in Massachusetts came from the east of England. These were Calvinists who believed that to truly be Christian meant to seek a way of purification during this life. They strove to overcome sin, and to create God’s kingdom on earth. They also saw all other Christians, and especially the Anglicans (whom today we call Episcopalians), as misguided and unchristian. They were especially against the Anglicans because it was officially the Church of England, and thus the state religion. What made it worse was that they had been persecuted at the hands of English Anglicans.

Meanwhile, those who settled in Virginia were mostly Anglicans. They saw the Church of England as the only true church, and all others as heretics. These folks came from the south of England and were part of the landed gentry class. They believed in a hierarchy in which God came first, then the king (or queen—Virginia was named after Elizabeth, the “virgin queen”), then the Lords, then everyone else. They believed that the bottom of this hierarchy, religiously, were the Roman Catholics because they were followers of the pope, whom they suspected of being the antichrist.

The Quakers settled into Pennsylvania as part of a great experiment by William Penn. Penn wanted to create a colony of tolerance, love, and peace (hence they name Philadelphia, or city of brotherly love). Pennsylvania was later settled by the Scots-Irish, the Lutherans, the Mennonites, and the Amish precisely because they were welcomed by the Quakers, even if they were somewhat distrusted.

The Scots-Irish originally came from the borderlands between Scotland and England, where they developed a fiercely independent brand of Christianity. It was a brand rooted in scripture, but only to the extent that scripture agreed with what they agreed with. They did not see people of any other denomination as Christians. These folks saw themselves as the only Christians, and they weren’t always convinced that each other were Christians.

Maryland was settled by Roman Catholics (hence the name Maryland, which venerated both the virgin Mary and Mary the Roman Catholic sister of Elizabeth). The Roman Catholics were universally disliked by all the other denominations. They were considered to be papists and followers of the fallen faith. Remember that the Reformation had taken place only 50 to 100 years before. Distrust and denigration of Roman Catholics was high among all the other colonies.

As the colonies matured, there may have been a tentative willingness to come together as colonies economically, but there was still as distrust of each others’ faith. Again, they did not see themselves as Christian. They saw themselves as whatever denomination they were.

By the time of the Founding Fathers, the different denominations still looked down at each other—a condition that really wasn’t overcome until the 20th century. Even when it came to signing the declaration, there was reluctance to join each other because of distrust until one particular Anglican clergyman stated that despite his distrust of Presbyterians and Congregationalists, he would sign the declaration for the benefit of the all. Again, they didn’t see themselves as Christians in the way we see ourselves as Christian. They saw themselves as Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Baptists, Congregationalists, and even Methodists.

In addition, while many of the Founding Fathers were religious, they saw themselves more as learned men. Not all saw themselves as Christians, and some never even went to church. While basic Protestant theology influenced their beliefs, they were just as heavily influenced by the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle, the tradition of Roman democracy, and the English parliamentary system since the signing of the Magna Carter. To say that they were Christians trying to found a Christian nation simply isn’t true. Christian ideals under girded part of their beliefs, but they would have been reluctant to identify themselves as Christians.

So, would Jesus promote any nation being a Christian nation? Not if you believe our passage for this morning. Our passage is one in which a trap is set for Jesus. The Pharisees and the Herodians (those charged with maintaining peace on behalf of the Romans) wanted to find a way to arrest Jesus. So they ask him a cleverly designed question: is it lawful to pay taxes. Here’s the trap. If Jesus said yes, then the Jews, who hated the Romans and saw paying taxes as a form of Caesar worship, would have rejected Jesus. Remember that in the Temple of Jerusalem, the whole problem of the money-changers existed because the Jews demanded that temple tax be paid in Jewish shekels, not Roman denarii. If Jesus supported paying taxes, he would have been seen as being in collusion with the Romans. The people would have rejected him and his message. If he had said that it wasn’t right to pay taxes, the Herodians, the government of the province, would have had him arrested for sedition. It was a pretty good trap. How did Jesus answer? He said that we should give to God what is God’s and to the Romans what is the Romans.

In essence, what he was saying is that there is a separation between the spiritual and the material realms, and that to confuse them meant giving to the world that which is due God. In other words, it’s okay to wrap yourself in the American flag, but don’t get confused in thinking that God is wrapped in an American flag. If we do, that becomes a problem because it assumes that God is God of this nation and no others. And Jesus already was telling the Jews, the “chosen people,” that God was ready to expand to all people as chosen people. This ideal of Jesus influenced the Founding Fathers, who recognized that there was an inherent separation between church and state.

So, does that mean that politics and religion shouldn’t mix? Not at all. The Founding Fathers all recognized the importance of religion. They believed that it should mix, but not in a state sanctioned way. What the Founding Fathers absolutely did not want was the institution of a European understanding of state and religion. At the time of the Revolution, the nations of Europe believed that the state should establish a state religion, and that religion should get preference above all others. So, in England the state religion has been the Anglican Church, or the Church of England, ever since Henry VIII. In Scotland the state religion is the Church of Scotland, or the Presbyterian Church. In Sweden and Norway it is the Lutheran Church. In France and Italy it is the Roman Catholic Church. Even today, in Italy there are roadblocks put up for Protestant churches because they are violating the state church. The Founding Fathers wanted our nation to be a place of religious freedom, not necessarily to be a place just for Christianity. In fact, the Founding Fathers were much more receptive to Muslims and Jews than they were to Roman Catholics. So for those promoting our country as a Christian nation to lump Romans Catholics in with other Christians today takes liberties with what the Founding Fathers believed.

I think that one of the basic issues that causes us to think that the Founding Fathers were all Christian is that so few understand their faith. People believe that they were Christian, but that’s not quite true. I saw fully how easy it is for people to misrepresent the Founding Fathers’ faith during a one-month sabbatical I took in 2003 to finish writing my book, Becoming a Blessed Church. During that month I visited several area churches on Sunday morning to see what they do. I visited one local church, a large, nondenominational church. on the 4th of July weekend. They started the service with a rousing version of “American the Beautiful” as power point screens on either side of the stage displayed an American flag flapping in the breeze. After each verse, they stopped the music, and someone dressed up as a founding father (or mother) in colonial garb walked forward to address the congregation. The message of each person—Thomas Jefferson, Abigail Adams, and Ben Franklin—was pretty much the same: “We founded this country on Christianity. We founded it on the words of scripture. This is the word that we trusted in, this is the word I believe in, and this is the word we follow!” There was only one problem. Two out of those three were not really Christians in the strict sense of the word.

I have no idea what Abigail Adams believed, but I do know what Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin believed. Thomas Jefferson was a deist, meaning that he believed in a remote, impersonal God. He did not believe that Jesus was anything more than a great teacher or prophet. In fact, the Bible bothered him so much that he created his own Bible by cutting out anything in the gospels he disagreed with (Jefferson didn’t have much use for any part of the Bible other than the gospels). He cut out the virgin birth, the resurrection, and any miracles. He kept Jesus’ teachings and parables. You can actually go out and buy a copy of Jefferson’s Bible. While Jefferson was technically an Episcopalian, he rarely went to church. Ben Franklin was a deist who bordered on atheist or agnostic. He didn’t believe much in God. He rarely went to church. And he lived a life that often ignored Christian principles or morality. He believed in human reason, rationality, philosophy, and science. For that particular church to have portrayed Jefferson and Franklin as bible-thumping Christians was just untrue. But people believed what the church said because they want this to be a Christian nation.

So in the face of all this, what should we believe? What do I believe? I believe that I follow the beliefs of the Founding Fathers, including Thomas Jefferson. who was the one who coined the term “separation of church and state.” I believe as they did, which is that the state should not establish a religion. That being said, is there a role for religion in politics? Absolutely. The Founding Fathers believed that religion should mix, but in us. The church shouldn’t establish religion, but religion should influence politics. In essence, we should bring our faith into our voting. And our government officials should bring their faith into their decision-making, but not to the point of establishing one religion over another.

So what’s wrong with the state encouraging religion, say, in areas such as teaching a biblical view of creation? The problem is that if you bring creationism, or even intelligent design, into teaching, the state either has to choose one faith over another, or teach all faiths. Which version would we teach? I’ll be honest. I don’t want schools teaching about creation because invariably they won’t teach what we Presbyterians believe. We believe that God created everything, but that God has used evolution. When you are teaching creation in a school, what version do you use? The fundamentalist one? The Catholic one? The Muslim one? The Wiccan one? The Native American one? Do you teach all of them, and if so, how? And if you teach all of them, do you have time for teaching science? I would rather have schools stick to teaching science, and let us teach about creation, which is partly what we are doing right now in our adult education class, Science and Theology Shake Hands.

I also don’t want the state determining what faith to teach or encourage because invariably they won’t pick mine. Right now the evangelicals have more political power than we in the mainline churches do, and I’m not an evangelical. When people say we are a Christian nation, what they usually mean is that we are a nation founded upon evangelical Christian beliefs. That’s only not true, but if flies in the face of my beliefs because I’m not an evangelical. I don’t want to impose my beliefs on them, and I certainly don’t want them imposing their beliefs on me. I want the state to stay out of this.

So, again, how do politics and religion mix? Ultimately they mix in each one of us. I wrote about this in the Calvin Newsletter in August. I wrote then that I believe that we should bring our faith, and especially our prayer, into our voting. We should be asking questions such as, “which candidate is the one who seems most open to God’s will? Who will care about Christian issues, not only about abortion, but about the poor, the hungry, the hurting, the marginalized, and the struggling? Who will treat others in the most Christian way?” This is where religion and politics mix. This should be part of our voting.

I believe that the Founding Fathers wanted us to mix religion and politics in this way. That’s why the first amendment is so sacrosanct in our country. I defend the right of anyone to say that we are a Christian nation, even if they’re wrong. I defend it because even though I disagree with it, I recognize that even saying that brings faith into our politics. What I don’t want is for the state to agree with them and establish their religion as our state religion to the point at which we become so intolerant of other faith that my and our faith becomes diminished by the very people who are sworn to protect my rights to pursue my faith. And I believe that this is the faith that the Founding Fathers had.

Amen.

Can We Reject God So Easily?

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Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they treated them in the same way. Finally he sent his son to them, saying, "They will respect my son.' But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, "This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.' So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?" They said to him, "He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time." Jesus said to them, "Have you never read in the scriptures: "The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord's doing, and it is amazing in our eyes'? Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom. The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls." When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them. They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet.- Matthew 21: 33-46

This was a very dangerous parable for Jesus to tell? Did you hear the danger in it? It would be a safe bet to say that this parable probably had a lot to do with getting Jesus killed . Did you hear the danger in it?

You probably didn't hear the danger because you were listening to it from Jesus' point of view, but take some time thinking about it from the perspective of the Sadducees and the Pharisees. Jesus had a very special talent. He had the ability to bring conservatives and liberals together. Of course he did it by doing things that caused them to hate him. The Sadducees were the conservatives of the day. They were trying to conserve the old traditions, especially the traditions of the Temple . They believed that holy scripture should be treated literally with no room for interpretation. The Pharisees were the liberals. They believed that scripture could be interpreted and applied in new ways to life. They took liberties with scripture, and added their own beliefs, including the idea of resurrection. Yet Jesus managed to threaten both groups.

This parable was about them. What Jesus was saying in this parable was that Israel was like the vineyard, and the Pharisees and Sadducees were like the tenants on the vineyard. God is the owner of the vineyard. Basically, Jesus was saying this: “Look, God sent prophets to you, and you beat them up. God sent more prophets, and you killed them. God sent more, and you stoned them. And here I am, the son of God, coming to you, and you are going to kill me. In the end, God's kingdom is going to be taken away from you and given to the Gentiles!” Imagine you are the Sadducees or Pharisees. If you are them, how do you take this parable? He's accusing them of leading people to ignore God, and on top of that he is calling himself the son of God. How blasphemous!

Why would Jesus provoke the Pharisees and Sadducees so? Did he want to be killed? Actually, my guess is that he just expected to be killed. He figured that leading people back to God, and teaching them truth, was enough on its own to get him killed. So he told this parable to explain his death before it happened. He wasn't trying to provoke the Pharisees and Sadducees. He was simply trying to prepare his followers for what was to happen.

Listen to the parable from Jesus' point of view. He is telling the people, “Look, way back in the past God kept trying to bring prophets to you to show you the way to God. And your leaders kept misleading you. They led your ancestors to beat some of the prophets, kill others, and stone others. And now the Father has sent me to you. I am the son of God. I am the incarnation of God right here and now. You know this because of my teachings and my miracles. I'm teaching you the truth: the Pharisees and Sadducees can't stand me speaking the truth, so they are going to kill me, too. But don't worry. God is going to take the kingdom of heaven away from ones such as these and give it to ones such as you. So have faith.”

This passage not only tells why Jesus was going to die, but it was telling us about the kind of relationship God wants with us, and how we reject it. Jesus was telling the people about themselves, and what to be careful about. Again, listen to the parables from a human point of view. Jesus was saying, “Look, you know that even though God is trying to constantly teach you, you struggle to listen. No one wants to hear truth. We only want to hear what we want to hear. But God is speaking to you. God sent you prophets and now me. Your natural sinful nature will cause many of you to want to kill me and to reject God. That may happen. The reason it happens is that you want to be the master and not serve God. But trust me on this. If you decide to serve God, it's amazing how much fruit your life will bear. If you decide not to serve God, then all of this will be taken away from you. You will no longer be the chosen people. Choose who you want to serve—yourself or God.”

Jesus is speaking truth in all three perspectives. Ultimately he is saying that this relationship we have with God is a difficult one . It's based on our loving and trusting a God who we often experience as an absentee landowner . We live in a world created by God, blessed by God, endowed by God with amazing wonders, but because we don't see God's hand in it all, it's so easy to ignore and reject God. And we all reject God at one point or another. Often we end up rejecting God by becoming enamored with our own thoughts, beliefs, and prowess that we only see what we do, not what God does. Let me show you what I mean.

A number of years ago a brilliant scientist unlocked the secret of creation. He figured out how to create life out of dirt, and to create new animals, plants, and even humans. He was celebrated far and wide for his brilliance, his ingenuity, his prowess. Eventually God heard about this man, and about his claims that we no longer need God because we can create like God.

God wasn't offended, but God did want to see whether or not this scientist could do as he said. So he visited him. The man showed God what he could do in his lab, and after looking at it all God presented the man with a challenge: God would create a human, the man would create a human, and anyone in attendance could judge whose creation was better. The winner would be master of all creation.

The day of the challenge came, and the scientist was surrounded by curious onlookers, all waiting to see whether God could be beaten by this scientist. The scientist stood in front of his laboratory, while God stood barefoot in the grass. God explained the rules: “We will both grab dirt from below our feet, and we'll begin to create. The crowd can judge the results. On your mark! Get set! Go!” At that, both bent over to grab a handful of dirt. As the scientist reached into the dirt, God looked up and said, “No, no, no. If you want to be master of creation, you first have to create your own dirt!”

See the point? We can become so enamored with our own intelligence, our own beliefs, our own insights, our own abilities that we ignore or diminish God in the process. We think that we are more powerful than we really are. We think this as individuals and we think this as a people.

This pride of ours, which leads us to reject God, gets right to the heart of the parable, which is this. God created us and has given us life. Everything we have, everything we are, comes from God . God is all around us and wants to be part of every experience we have, everything we do, and every event in the world . But it is up to us to let God into the world. God is a polite God. That's what scripture says. It says that God only rarely barges into our lives uninvited. For instance, in Revelation it says, “ Listen! I am standing at the door , knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door , I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me.” Also, the story of the Prodigal Son teaches us something similar. You remember the story. The son wants his inheritance from his father, and then goes out and squanders it, ending up living among pigs. He returns home, hoping to be a slave in his father's household, but is surprised to find that the Father runs to embrace him, gives him the ring off his finger, and has a feast to celebrate his return. This is a metaphor for the way God is. God, like the father, gives us to freedom to reject God. And if that happens, God will wait patiently for our return. God won't follow us, intervene in our lives, or try to convince us to return. Instead, God will wait patiently. But when we return, God will immediately bless us. The point is that it is up to us either to embrace or reject God, embrace or reject faith.

Here's the point. The economy is bad, and we're all nervous about it . Will we let God in to help us with our anxiety? Will we trust God to help us and take care of us? Do we trust that God, ultimately, is in charge?

Some of us have troubled relationships at home, work, the neighborhood . Are we letting God in to make things better? Are we willing to let God show us what to change to make it better? Are we willing to seek God's way to love and peace?

Some of us are struggling in life . We don't have a sense of direction. We aren't sure what are the right decisions for our lives. Are we willing to let God guide us to a better life, even if it means changing our thinking and living?

We are surrounded by God's love, beauty, grace, and possibility . Are we doing enough to recognize God's hand in it all, and letting that hand bless us?

Amen.