Be a Blessing

A Meditation from Southminster Presbyterian Church
Luke 2:22-40

Our reading this morning from Luke’s gospel picks up right after our Christmas Eve story. Mary and Joseph have presumably returned from Bethlehem to Nazareth, and then when the baby was 8 days old, they named him Jesus as they had been instructed by the angel and they had him circumcised. Then when he was only 40 days old, they load up the mini van and head on down to Jerusalem. Like all observant Jewish families of the day, they presented themselves at the Temple for purification., and they offered a sacrifice of 2 turtle doves.
I read this story in Luke and wonder if the 2 turtle doves in the 12 Days of Christmas come from this passage. Surely they must.

But Luke’s original audience would have wondered something else. “Turtle doves? Why didn’t they sacrifice a lamb?”
Here are the directions in Leviticus 12:6-8: “When the days of her purification are completed, she shall bring to the priest at the entrance of the tent of meeting a lamb in its first year for a burnt offering and a pigeon or a turtledove for a sin offering. The priest shall offer it before the Lord and make atonement on her behalf…If she cannot afford a sheep, she shall take two turtledoves or two pigeons, one for a burnt offering and the other for the sin offering…”
So without saying “Mary and Joseph were very poor”, Luke lets the readers know that by offering two turtle doves instead of a lamb and a turtle dove, Mary and Joseph were very poor.
There are preachers who will tell you that if you have faith, you will be financially prosperous. They have found a few verses in Scripture that support this “prosperity gospel” and it appears to be making these preachers prosperous, at least.

Our culture wants this prosperity gospel to be true, because the American dream is not built on finding the blessings in poverty. But you will not hear a prosperity gospel from me. Because if Joseph and Mary had faith enough to listen to the angel, to bring God’s own son into the world, and to be obedient enough to take him to the Temple to obey the Laws of Moses, then they should have been prosperous beyond measure. Yet this couple couldn’t even afford to buy a lamb for the sacrifice. So any claims that faith will make you rich, any “prosperity gospel”, is nonsense. Because if God’s own family was apparently struggling to get by, then we need to reconsider the connection between being blessed and being prosperous.
Americans often use those words as synonyms. We should resist that inclination. Because Joseph and Mary are about as blessed as you can be. Literally.

Simeon, about whom we only know what Luke tells us, has been led by the Spirit to the Temple. He had been waiting for the consolation of Israel.
What an odd scene it must have been at the Temple. This old man standing at the doors, watching people going in and out…. “Is it them? No. What about that baby over there? No. Excuse me, ma’am, can I take a look at your child? Never mind, I mistook you for someone else.”
When Mary and Joseph walk in the doors of the temple, the Spirit helps Simeon know he’s found the right family, despite the two turtle doves in Joseph’s hands, and Simeon takes the baby Jesus and blesses him. “Lord, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your Word. For my eyes have seen your salvation which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples—a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.”

Yes, any connection between being blessed and being prosperous are hard to see in this text.

I wish I had been at the Temple myself that day, or was at least able to ask Luke to give us some more details. Because here’s what I want to know. What did Simeon do after he had spoken his blessing? After he realized that the family of God’s own son was in financial need. Did he do something more for the family than SPEAK a blessing? Did he do anything to BE a blessing for them? Did he take them to a Subway restaurant to make sure they had dinner before they headed back to Nazareth?
I trust that anyone who was led by the Spirit as Simeon was would have done something to alleviate their immediate hardship. But Luke doesn’t give us those details. So we have to figure out how to be blessings on our own. We also have to figure out how to separate blessing from financial prosperity.
Here is an illustration of a Simeon like blessing from a football game
in Grapevine, Texas. It was Grapevine Faith vs. Gainesville State School, as told by Rick Reilly at ESPN.com.

“This all started when Faith's head coach, Kris Hogan, wanted to do something kind for the Gainesville team. Faith had never played Gainesville, but he already knew the score. After all, Faith was 7-2 going into the game, Gainesville 0-8 with 2 TDs all year. Faith has 70 kids, 11 coaches, the latest equipment and involved parents. Gainesville has a lot of kids with convictions for drugs, assault and robbery—many of whose families had disowned them—wearing seven-year-old shoulder pads and ancient helmets. Gainesville State is a maximum-security correctional facility 75 miles north of Dallas. Every game it plays is on the road.
So Hogan had this idea. What if half of our fans—for one night only—cheered for the other team? He sent out an email asking the Faithful to do just that. "Here's the message I want you to send:" Hogan wrote. "You are just as valuable as any other person on planet Earth."
Some people were naturally confused. One Faith player walked into Hogan's office and asked, "Coach, why are we doing this?"
And Hogan said, "Imagine if you didn't have a home life. Imagine if everybody had pretty much given up on you. Now imagine what it would mean for hundreds of people to suddenly believe in you."
Next thing you know, the Gainesville Tornadoes were turning around on their bench to see something they never had before. Hundreds of fans. And actual cheerleaders!
More than 200 Faith fans sat on the Gainesville side and kept cheering the Gainesville players on—by name.
And even though Faith walloped them 33-14, the Gainesville kids were so happy that after the game they gave head coach Mark Williams a sideline squirt-bottle shower like he'd just won state.
It was a strange experience for boys who most people cross the street to avoid. "We can tell people are a little afraid of us when we come to the games," says Gerald, a lineman who will wind up doing more than three years. "You can see it in their eyes. They're lookin' at us like we're criminals. But these people, they were yellin' for us! By our names!"
After the game, both teams gathered in the middle of the field to pray and that's when a kid named Isaiah surprised everybody by asking to lead. "We had no idea what the kid was going to say," remembers Coach Hogan. But Isaiah said this: "Lord, I don't know how this happened, so I don't know how to say thank You, but I never would've known there was so many people in the world that cared about us."
As the Tornadoes walked back to their bus under guard, they each were handed a bag for the ride home—a burger, some fries, a soda, some candy, a Bible and an encouraging letter from a Faith player.
The Gainesville coach saw Hogan, grabbed him hard by the shoulders and said, "You'll never know what your people did for these kids tonight. You'll never, ever know."
And as the bus pulled away, all the Gainesville players crammed to one side and pressed their hands to the window, staring at these people they'd never met before, watching their waves and smiles disappearing into the night.”

That, my friends, is an illustration of being a blessing, of showing that every child you meet is a gift, not just the child who was born in Bethlehem 2,000 years ago. Perhaps if we want our Advent waiting to pay off, we should, like Simeon and like that football coach in Texas, start blessing all of the children that the Spirit puts in our lives.
Amen.

See For Yourself

Christmas Eve Sermon
2008 Southminster Presbyterian Church
Luke 2:1-20

I don’t know about you, but for me, this text from Luke takes me back home—warm, comfortable feelings of love, family and that odd Norwegian dish my mom would occasionally subject us to on Christmas Eve. 40 consecutive Christmas Eves and Handel’s Messiah have done their job and etched these texts from Luke’s across my memory as few other texts are. “In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus….”

But this text is not really about comfortable feelings or going home for the holidays. While Joseph may have been returning to the home of his ancestors, they didn’t seem to know anyone there—or wouldn’t they have had better accommodations?
This text is about going away for the holidays. It is dislocating. It is 8 hours stuck at the Seattle airport. People are leaving their homes and lives, going to uncomfortable and unfamiliar locations. From Mary and Joseph to the Shepherds, people are being sent into unknown futures in this passage.

For Palestinians in the first century, or for Palestinians today—for that matter, decrees from the Emperor were not good news. This census is about taxation and Joseph and Mary have to inconvenience themselves at a rather important moment in their lives so that the occupying Roman authorities will be able to properly tax them. Insult to injury. And the trip from Nazareth to Bethlehem is long and dusty. A change of climate and geography. Not exactly how I would choose to prepare for the birth of my first born.

It does make me wonder, though. As 9 month pregnant Mary was trying to stay comfortable while riding a donkey over the Judean hills, did she wonder about the angel’s pronouncement that heralded the beginning of her pregnancy 9 months earlier? Did it occur to her that it must have been some sort of dream? Because even if you can get your mind around the fact that you, a teenager from Nazareth, are going to become the mother of God, don’t you think you’d start wondering when the perks that came with the job were going to arrive? Certainly the indignity of cross country travel and giving birth in a barn were not what she thought would go along with being the mother of God. This just shows why God never chose me to be the Christ bearer. I would have demanded a limo. None of this donkey nonsense for me.

But I suspect that the dislocation to Bethlehem as I were about to give birth would make me pause and wonder—this is how the mother of God is treated? Really?

And then, after she’s wrapped her baby in cloths she’s pulled out of her suitcase, and tries to make herself as comfortable as you can be in a barn, they receive company! Just what every woman wants right after she’s given birth—shepherds!

So, as much as we try to make Christmas about comfortable traditions and familiar surroundings, Mary and Joseph didn’t know about that tradition. They were dislocated and far away from anything they knew when God came to them.

And I hope that those of you who are feeling dislocated these days, whether because of situations in your personal life or from the general state of our economy and the world, I hope that you will note that God left the realm of the invisible and became flesh in the midst of dislocation. It is when we are not comfortable, when we don’t know where we are, that we see God.

And the poor shepherds. Think how awkward and dislocating it must have been for them. These shepherds had been minding their own business in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night, when they had the wits scared out of them. They weren’t just visited by an angel, but then the glory of the Lord shone around them too. But the angel says what angels always seem to have to say, “Do not fear”. And so these shepherds pull themselves together to listen to the angel’s news. And after the angel makes the pronouncement of what they will find in the city of David, a multitude of the heavenly host shows up singing. Not an average night on the mountain side, we can safely guess.

We should give the shepherds some credit here. Because rather than sitting around the campfire and making a pact that the crazy things they had just seen would never leave the campfire—what happens in Bethlehem stays in Bethlehem, as it were—they decide to go see for themselves.

Sensible plan. You get there and there’s no baby, you consider it a bad dream and go back to tending sheep. But, if you get there to see for yourself, and the angel was right, then you are in possession of some important news.

“I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people. To you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.”

And that is some radical news. Don’t let the radical and shocking nature of this pronouncement get lost in your possible familiarity with the text.

The angel came to shepherds. It isn’t often, it isn’t EVER, that shepherds are the good news bearers in ancient society. The angel could have appeared at the country club. Or at the Temple. Or at the capital building. Or in Hollywood. But the angel and the heavenly host did not go to the halls of power or influence. They went to people with no voice. People who were more comfortable with livestock than with humans become the bearers of the good news.

And this news, the shepherds realized, was too important to remain in Bethlehem.
Because this good news wasn’t just for the people who already had the monopoly on good news. This was good news for all people.

So the shepherds go to see for themselves—because if the angel was right then we no longer need to buy into the culture that tells us that good news is only for those who can buy it or control it or commodify it.

The good news is for all people.


So, Mary’s resting in the stable when in walk the shepherds. These shepherds look like they have just seen a ghost. Or perhaps an entire multitude of them. They silently walk into the barn, as if they’re afraid of what they’ll find there. And then, when they see the new family, gathered around the feeding trough that holds a baby, they all start talking at once.
“The angel was right.”
“Here he is!”
“Wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger—just like the angel said!”
Mary and Joseph can hardly understand them as they try to distinguish which words belong to which voice.

But as “seeing was believing” for the shepherds, I suspect that was true for Mary and Joseph too. Because when they were able to piece together the shepherds’ story—angel, heavenly host, Messiah, Savior, Glory to God in the highest heaven, etc—it must have been a confirmation of their experience for them as well. As Mary treasured their words and pondered them in her heart, was she thinking, “This may not have happened as we would have scripted, but at least we’re not alone in this. These shepherds have seen the angel too. But shepherds? Really?”

Perhaps she looked at her son, asleep in the hay, and began to wonder if he wasn’t someone she was really going to get to know as much as someone she would spend a long time pondering.

So, the angel has come to us this night as well—unlikely bearers of good news as we may be—and we are invited to go see for ourselves. We are invited to leave our hillsides of comfort and routine and go see for ourselves. I don’t know where that might take you, but you are the bearers of good news to a world that is desperately in need of it. “I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people. To you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.” Amen.

Rick Warren and the Inauguration

Many of you have heard that President elect Obama has invited Rick Warren, pastor of the conservative Saddleback Church of California, to pray at the inauguration. Now, I do not agree with Pastor Warren on much, I suspect. We approach our faith from very different places. And I completely disagree with him on his support for Proposition 8 in California.
I think it is unfortunate when Christ's message of radical and inclusive love is co-opted to support narrow minded and bigoted legislation and policies.
But, let me be one of the few (or perhaps only) progressive Christian to speak out in favor of Obama's selection of Warren as a participant in the inauguration.

I have been very unhappy the past 8 years in our political world. At no point have I felt that my views were heard, respected, or in any way important to the president or his appointees. Under Bush, (and Clinton before him, quite frankly), all we have heard from Washington are voices proclaiming the party line. We have turned our political arena into a "winner takes all" place. You can win an election with 50% of the vote, and once you are in office, the other 50% of the population has lost their voice for the next four years.

So, while I don't agree with much that Rick Warren has to say, I do applaud President elect Obama's decision to give him voice. We all, conservative and liberal alike, need to get back into the habit of listening to other voices. We need to drop the "winner takes all" attitude and realize that we only win when we respect and hear each other.

I also recognize that it might be easier for me to make this claim than it might be for any of my GLBT friends. I recognize that there are many people who are hurt because Rev Warren's voice is speaking against them.

I hope the President elect will also invite more progressive Christian voices to join in his inauguration as well.

But we all have to hope that by modeling government that allows voices to be heard, we can live into hope.

How can this be. Indeed.

Luke 1:26-55

A Sermon preached at Southminster Presbyterian Church
December 14, 2008
by Marci Auld Glass

There are times when we can jump into the biblical text without much trouble. We can relate to the characters or we understand their lives. But for most of us, I suspect that, even if we want to, we have a hard time putting ourselves in Mary’s shoes. Artists have tried.


Often when artists paint Mary, she’s serene looking. She’s got it all together. She’s in her 20s or 30s. She’s the kind of “Mother of the Year” to whom you would give the son of God.
Here is a painting by Fra Angelica.








Here is one by El Greco.


And here is one from a 16th century Icon at St Catherine’s Monastery at Mt Sinai in Egypt.



But Mary, in all likelihood, was still a teenager. Girls married very young at a time when the life expectancy was 40.
Unplanned, unwed teenage pregnancies, as difficult as they are today, would have been more than devastating for Mary in her culture. And, quite frankly, it doesn’t matter that the pregnancy is God’s—because while the angel told her that she was blessed and that she shouldn’t be afraid, the angel did not take out an ad in the Jerusalem Times to make sure that everyone else knew that.
“How can this be?”, she asks the angel.
How can this be, indeed.

I can only imagine what was going through her head when the angel showed up. “Greetings, favored one!”
“Who? Me? Favored by whom?” Can’t you just see Mary looking around, trying to figure out to whom the angel would be speaking in this dusty town of Nazareth.
Favored one? I don’t know how many years it has been since you were a teenage girl or might have known many teenage girls, but I suspect that “favored one” is not how they often see themselves. I certainly didn’t. I spent my entire teenage years wishing I were someone else, or had someone else’s car, clothes, hair, social life, personality, you name it. Hindsight is, of course, 20/20, but Mary wasn’t looking back at that moment either. There she was, in all of her adolescent glory, being told that the Lord was with her and that she was going to give birth to God’s own son who was going to reign over the house of Jacob forever.

Look at this painting of Mary, painted by Dante Rosetti in 1850, as she hears the news. She looks young here. And she looks scared.


And I have one last image of Mary for you today. This annunciation is painted by John Collier. It is one of my favorite paintings.

Here she is in front of her suburban home, wearing her saddle shoes, with her hair in a ponytail.
“Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you!”

What are the implications for us if God chose an unwed teenage girl to bear the son of God?
One that occurs to me is that here is our proof that God is willing to be vulnerable. Because Mary was vulnerable. There was a more than decent chance that this pregnancy could have resulted in Mary being stoned to death. God does not just have a preference for the poor and the weak. God became poor and weak. God came to earth and joined a family, entering into the struggles, the fears, the anxieties, the joys, the celebrations, and the gifts that go along with being family.

Another implication is that when we look around for God’s in-breaking into our world, where are we looking? Because I’m fairly confident that nobody in Israel 2,000 years ago was looking for the Messiah to come from a young mother in Nazareth. Many were looking for the Messiah to come in glory on the clouds with the heavenly host. Others were expecting a new King to be raised up from the people, leading a restored Israel to military might. So, if they were looking in the temple, looking at the White House, or looking at West Point, they missed their Messiah.
Where are we looking?

Mary seemed to have realized some of the implications in her own life. “Here am I, the servant of the Lord. Let it be with me according to your word.” She realizes she is a part of something bigger than herself. She realizes that ultimately, our lives are in God’s hands and not ours. “Let it be with me, according to your word.”

Then Mary set off “with haste” to her relative Elizabeth’s home. Elizabeth’s story is earlier in the chapter, but she is one of many women in the scriptures who was barren and who is granted a child by the Lord. She was “getting on in years” and her barrenness had caused her shame, so her pregnancy was a gift. And, apparently, Mary decides that the best way for her to appreciate and put her unplanned pregnancy into perspective is to go spend time with her barren relative. Because sometimes it takes someone else’s situation to put your own troubles in perspective.

As soon as Elizabeth hears Mary’s voice she proclaims, “blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”
I can imagine, at that point, hearing a real, live person give validation to the words of the Angel must have caused Mary to collapse in a heap of relief. “I’m not crazy. I didn’t make it up. Elizabeth knows it too.”

Please note that Mary did not go off by herself when she heard the news from the angel. She went to a woman who’d been there. She found community with another woman affected by society’s tendency to judge women on their fertility, or their lack thereof. When things are tough, that’s what we do. Share our stories with others to help them navigate the difficult paths. And, we share our stories so we can help each other see where we see the Divine at work in each other’s lives.

This is something I would really like to move us all into doing. The more of your stories I learn, the more connections I see. The more of your stories I hear, the more intersections I see between this place and God’s work in the world. And that is the piece for us to work at. When we read scripture (which implies, of course, that we are reading scripture), where do we see our lives in the text? What connections do we make? How do we tell our stories to lead people to God’s stories?
Elizabeth does this. Her story becomes a way for Mary to know that she wasn’t crazy, to know that God was working in her life.

And then we get the Magnificat. This song of Mary reminds us of other songs by other women in scripture. Hannah at the temple after the birth of Samuel. Miriam after the defeat of the Egyptians at the Red Sea. The song begins with praise for blessings received. Even in the midst of an unplanned pregnancy, Mary searches for her blessings.

But then she goes on to make claims about God. And the claims she makes suggests to me that she realizes there are implications for more than her when God comes to earth as the child of a teenage girl from Nazareth. “God has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty.”

We should note that, as far as we can tell in either the text or in our world, Mary is speaking of things that haven’t quite happened yet. Powerful people still seem to be on their thrones. The lowly still seem to be low. The hungry are still going to the foodbanks and, despite the worsening economy, the rich are not quite empty. We are reminded by her words that Advent is a time of preparing both for the birth of Christ and for his return. The blessings of which she speaks are a consequence of God’s New Creation, begun in the life of Jesus. But it is to the return of Jesus that we must look to see their completion.

As Christians, we are a people of hope. Hope that the promises God made to Israel have been fulfilled in Christ’s birth and will be fulfilled in Christ’s return. So, we live in hope that our work together as God’s people will make Mary’s song true for the people in our community.
We live in confidence because God chose to make his home far from the halls of power. If God’s story can intersect in the life of a teenage girl in Nazareth, we live in hope and confidence that God’s story will intersect in our lives too. We continue to wait in Advent in hope, confidence and excitement about how the Divine will enter into our lives. Thanks be to God. Amen

Prepare the Way

A Sermon Preached at Southminster Presbyterian
Dec 7, 2008

Isaiah 40:1-11
Mark 1:1-8


I know that many of you have put up your Christmas tree (or 3) already. For some of you, the lights are hanging from the eaves and your house is ready to go for the holidays. Each day I see more and more houses in my neighborhood getting into the Christmas spirit. Some have giant polar bears or penguins. Others have animatronic reindeer. There are lots of Santa Claus’s too. Occasionally you see manger scenes, backlit with icicle lights—little baby Jesus asleep in the weatherproof plastic hay.
But I have yet to see, and I doubt I ever will, a John the Baptizer Christmas decoration.
What would that look like? A wild man with a camel pelt on his back, cinched together with a leather strap. His beard would be a mess, because there is no way to eat wild honey and locusts neatly.
In other words, he might scare the children.
In paintings, none of which I have the rights to publish on my blog, John the Baptist is portrayed in some standard ways.
In a painting by Matthias Grunewald, John is at the crucifixion of Jesus, even though John had already been beheaded by the time of Jesus’ death. This painting was a favorite of the theologian Karl Barth. He had it hanging in his study. What Barth is said to have liked about it is that John the Baptist is pointing at Jesus. It is a common way for him to be portrayed—long bony finger pointing to Christ. John is also often portrayed with a lamb, because in John’s Gospel, he proclaimed Jesus as the “Lamb of God, come to take away the sins of the world.”
In other images, John is portrayed with his own head alongside him. Herod had beheaded John, and so the theme of martyrdom, of his dying because of his willingness to speak unpopular truth to power, is portrayed here, with his severed head.
And John is often portrayed with angel wings. Because the Greek word for “messenger” is the word from which we get the word “angel”.

In any case, none of the images I found would make attractive lawn ornaments.
And yet, even as we ignore John the Baptist as we decorate our homes at the holidays, we can’t deny the role he plays in this story.
The author of Mark, apparently uninterested in our penchant for decorating our lawns with angels and wise men, does not begin Jesus’ story with any sort of birth narrative. We can’t tell if he doesn’t know the birth stories or if he doesn’t care about them, but Mark begins with John the Baptizer, preparing the way by preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sin.

Interestingly, according to the non-christian historical record of the day, John the Baptizer was a better known figure than Jesus. There were plenty of people at the time who thought Jesus would become a historical footnote and John would be the one we’d be talking about years down the road. Because John had followers. Lots of them in his lifetime. All of the people of Jerusalem were leaving the city and heading to the river bank to be baptized by him. By all accounts, he was charismatic. He was troublesome. He was martyred.
And while each of the gospel writers tell the story of Jesus in their own way, ALL of them connect Jesus with John the Baptist.
Mark cites the Isaiah passage we heard read earlier this morning as we lit the advent candles—prepare ye the way of the Lord. He also throws in a little bit of the prophet Malachi, from 3:1, “See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple.” And if equating John the Baptist with the fulfillment of two prophets wasn’t enough, Mark calls attention to the fact that John dressed just like Elijah.
John the Baptist is not just a charismatic speaker who drew unimaginable crowds out into the wilderness to be baptized, but is also the fulfillment of Isaiah and Malachi’s prophecy and a doppelganger, or twin, for Elijah.

But Mark and the other gospel writers also want to make sure that we know how Jesus and John relate to each other. John tells the crowds—“The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals.” John may have drawn the big crowds, but was just the preparer.

Preparer. Isn’t it interesting that God needs a preparer? John claimed to be there, preparing the way for Jesus. And in Isaiah, the people are told to prepare the way of the Lord. But how often do we consider that God requires someone to prepare the way?
And what is involved in preparing?
If I’m preparing for a dinner party, for example, the task is pretty simple. I buy the groceries, make the dishes, clean the house—crossing things off of a list that I have made. Preparing for an event you have scheduled is easy—you are in control, you make the list, you schedule the event so you know when it will all take place.
Preparing the way when you aren’t in charge is much trickier.
What if I’m preparing for a dinner party that could happen anytime in February? And what if the party could be anywhere from 2 people to 20 people? How do you prepare for that?

Preparing for others is often difficult because you often don’t know how it will turn out. Rosa Parks sat down on a bus because she was tired of being treated as less than human. She intentionally stayed in her seat on that bus to prepare the way. And her act of defiance that was a key moment in the Civil Rights Movement.
But she didn’t know that then. She ended up losing her job as a seamstress because of the publicity around her arrest. Were there times when she wondered if preparing the way was worth the risk? While equal rights for all Americans is a dream not yet realized, I wonder what Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. and all of the other men and women who marched and protested and prayed for equality would have thought last month on election night, when Barack Obama was elected to the Presidency. Could they see that outcome as they prepared the way?
We just finished our Stewardship Campaign—it’s never too late to pledge, by the way—and Stewardship is another illustration of preparing a way when you don’t know the outcome. When you turned in your pledge card, and when you pay your pledge each month, you trust that God will combine your gifts with the gifts of others so that we can go about the work of the church. But you don’t get to specify that you want your money to go to Mission for example, leaving someone else to pay the utility bill. In pledging, you agree to give up some control and hand it over to God, trusting that the Session will be led by the Holy Spirit to make the best decisions about budgeting. Stewardship is preparing the Way for God’s work to be done here in Boise.

And there are times you prepare the way and you don’t even know you’re doing it. I think about the women who came before me in ministry—they certainly didn’t seek ordination 60 years ago so that in 2008 I could become your pastor. When they were fighting for the right to become elders, and then pastors, they were just answering God’s call in their lives. Yet, their struggles, their ministries through the channels that were open to them--Women’s circles, Sunday School, etc— their compromises, their ordination as elder, their ordination as minister of word and sacrament—all of their work prepared the way for me and the other women now being ordained.
And struggles for inclusion in the church and in society are still taking place today. Gay and lesbian Christians are still having to struggle for inclusion in the church—are their struggles today preparing the way for people still to come?

Preparing the way. We’re all called to do it. But not in the easy way. We don’t get to set this schedule or coordinate the details for this preparation. This isn’t our show to run. We don’t know what the outcome will be. And we don’t even know who all will walk down the road we are preparing.
We are called to prepare for God. On God’s timetable. For God’s glory to be revealed.
Open your bibles, if you will, to Isaiah, chapter 40.
From chapters 40 to 55, there is a very different tone than the earlier chapters of Isaiah’s writings. This is the book of consolation—where the people are comforted in the midst of their exile and devastation.
“Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid….”
But a part of the consolation is the preparation. In the wilderness, we are told, prepare the way of the Lord. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God. This work we’re being called to is so that the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and ALL people shall see it TOGETHER.
Isaiah is calling the people to work together for all people. But when the voice says, “cry out!”, the people have no better sense about what they are to do to prepare than we do. “What shall I cry?”, they ask.
We are told to get up to a high mountain and lift up our voices with strength. This is not something for which we should have fear either.
“HERE IS YOUR GOD!”
That is what we are to point out to people. We are to boldly and with confidence stand on the mountain tops and show people where we have seen God. Isn’t that what John the Baptizer does, with that finger pointing to Christ—here is where I see God. Remember when we saw that picture of John with wings and I told you that “angel” and “messenger” come from the same word? The word is “angelos”. Angel. Messenger.
Another word that comes from the same root is euangelion. And it means good message, or more commonly, Good News. The word euangelion comes into English as Evangelism. Evangelism is, literally, the sharing of Good News.

Yesterday was Meet the Neighbors day. I know that many of you were busy with other projects yesterday, but I want to thank those of you who did show up. Bruce Walters, Randy and Cheryl Marshall, Rich and Julie Anderson, Kay Hamilton, Carrie Lillard, and Carolyn Blackhurst. It was fun. We passed out letters in the neighborhood, inviting people to join us. There are copies of the letter in the narthex if you would like to see what it said or if you would like to take a letter to share with a friend.
But what I saw clearly yesterday was that evangelism scares people. I invite you to speak with someone who went door to door yesterday. Some of them were a little hesitant, or perhaps terrified, to knock on a door. Yet they did it. And it was fun. But evangelism didn’t just scare the evangelizers. It scared the people who opened the door. People were often very leery as they opened the door. But when they realized that we weren’t trying to sell them something and we weren’t trying to convert them or judge them, many of them visibly relaxed. Will people show up in worship because of what we did? I don’t know. But that wasn’t our job. Isaiah says that we’re just to get up on the mountain and tell people—“here is your God!”. We’ll leave what happens next to God. We are just the preparers, after all.
But how did sharing the Good News turn into something that scares us?

I’m thankful to hear that voice in Isaiah telling us to lift up our voices without fear. And I hope that as we struggle together to figure out what it means to prepare the way for God, I hope that we’ll be able to go about it with more love and less fear. I hope, like Isaiah, we can say to the cities of Judah (and Boise)—“Here is your God!”. Because if “evangelism” really means pointing out to people when and where we see the Divine at work in our world—then we do, indeed have Good News to share. Prepare the way!

Heaven Torn Open

A Sermon Preached at Southminster Presbyterian
Nov 30, 2008
Mark 13:24-37
Isaiah 64:1-9

For those of you who were hoping for a nice, cozy, and comfortable entrance into Advent, let me apologize right now. Our texts this morning are anything but comfortable. They are unsettling. If we’re listening, we should be both excited and horrified by these prophecies. We heard in the Isaiah passage this morning, as the first first Advent candle was lit, “Oh that you would tear open the heavens and come down!” Isaiah prays that God will leave the heavens and bring God’s very presence to earth. As the heavens torn were apart as God descended, the very mountains would quake and the nations would tremble.

Christians have the somewhat regrettable habit of pulling Isaiah out for the holidays—much like we dig the Christmas decorations out of the attic. We read Isaiah like he’s a fortune teller or Nostradamus, making predictions about Jesus. But we should fight that tendency. Because Isaiah wasn’t writing about Jesus, per se. He was passing on the messages he received from God, intended to provide specific comfort to specific people in the midst of a specific crisis. These people are in exile. The Temple in Jerusalem has been destroyed. The very home of God has been destroyed. He wasn’t writing to predict the future. He was writing to give courage to his people so they could endure.
How do you hear Isaiah’s words when that is your reality? Because you’re little Israel. You don’t have military might. And you are beginning to wonder if your God has also been defeated—where’s God when he’s not in the temple? “Oh that you would tear open the heavens and come down so that the mountains would quake at YOUR presence---to make YOUR name known to your adversaries so that the nations might tremble at your presence!!”

I invite you this week to spend some time with Isaiah. To listen to his words in their own context. To let them speak to you in your context. What is going on in your life where heaven being torn apart and mountains quaking would be a sign of hope?

We, I think, have a hard time reading Isaiah without immediately thinking of Jesus. Because while we are preparing for Jesus’ birth in 4 weeks, we know what happened 2000 years ago. God did tear open the heavens. And good, observant Jews, who had been hearing Isaiah’s prophecies all of their lives, recognized a connection between Jesus and the words of Isaiah. The gospel accounts of Jesus were written down by people who often framed their understanding of who Jesus was through the lens of Isaiah’s writing.
In the first chapter of Mark, as Jesus is being baptized by John in the Jordan River, we are told that the heavens were torn apart and God’s spirit descended like a dove onto Jesus. The NRSV cleans up the Greek a little bit. A more literal translation of that section would read something like, “the heavens were shredded apart and the Spirit of God dive bombed Jesus like a pigeon.” Because Mark knows what Isaiah suggests—once God leaves heaven and comes to earth, things will never be the same. You shouldn’t imagine the curtains of heaven parting neatly, ready to close again. This curtain is demolished.
It should give us pause—you want God to come down? Really? Because once it happens, you can’t go back to business as usual. “Oh that you would tear open the heavens and come down!” And once the curtain is hanging there in shreds, you can’t just send God back up there on your terms and then yell out “Curtain!”
So God did come down. God heard the cries of God’s people and changed the way we relate to the Divine. A baby was born in Bethlehem. In a manger. Away from the halls of power and privilege. And the world was turned upside down by this man, fully human, fully divine.
But none of that “God coming down to earth” business turned out as expected either. By the time Mark and the other Gospels are being written down, the Temple—which had been rebuilt since the time of Isaiah—is laying in ruins again. Jesus predicts that earlier in this chapter of Mark. “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another. All will be thrown down!”
But he doesn’t leave people with destruction. There is more to come. And they are to prepare for it. “In those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.”
Once the Divine enters the world, even the heavens themselves will be shaken. By making reference to sun, moon, and stars, Mark is cluing us in to the truth that God’s reign is a cosmic reign, it isn’t just a change of administration. As different—for good or bad— as we think the Obama administration might be from the Bush administration, for instance, that’s not a fitting metaphor for the Kingdom of Heaven. It isn’t just new people taking over. It is an entirely new creation.
So, all of those systems on earth that enslave people? They’ll be gone.
Cancer? Gone.
War? Gone.
Credit card debt and second mortgages? Gone.
Child abuse? Gone.
Genocide? Gone.
Terrorism? Gone.
Poverty? Gone.
That is an unrecognizable world for us. Stars falling from heaven. Sun darkened.
Then the Son of Man will send his angels to gather his elect from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.
This language from Mark and Isaiah is difficult for us. But for their original audience, it would have been comforting. Because they would have recognized it as apocalyptic literature. Whatever notions you have about the word “apocalypse”, try to let them go. The authors of “Left Behind”, while they may have written compelling fiction, have done a dis-service to a scriptural understanding about apocalypse. Apocalypse is not about getting your individual self right with Jesus so that when he comes back in glory, you’ll be on the right side and will be able to watch the fools who didn’t choose Jesus suffer torments for their sins.
Apocalypse is a Greek word that means, “Revelation”. Apocalyptic books in the Bible are rare—Daniel and Revelation are the only full apocalyptic books we have. But Apocalyptic was a common genre in the biblical world. And Apocalyptic themes run through books—the texts we have this morning are good examples. The Apostle Paul’s writings speak of “revelation” a fair amount too.
What Apocalyptic literature reminds its hearers, or reveals to its hearers, is that until the end, when God wipes away every tear from our eyes, our redemption is not complete. It is not finished as long as anyone on earth is in pain. Our freedom is restricted as long as people are in bondage and suffering. Our longing is not for just ourselves but for everyone. You can hear that in Mark’s revelation here in chapter 13. “Then the Son of Man (language from Daniel) will send his angels to gather his elect from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.”
There is no place, no suffering, so far away that God will not be able to find you to gather you up.
So, as we enter Advent, we begin it with an Apocalypse, with a Revelation, that a change is coming. And we are told to wait for it. To watch for it. But we are also told, very clearly, that the prediction business is not ours. “But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father….” So our waiting and preparing doesn’t involve guessing which horrible events in our world are the sign that Christ’s return is imminent. We are told, simply, to “Keep Awake!”
In the coming weeks, as we light the candles and prepare for Christ’s return and for Christ’s birth, I invite you to consider the community nature of these texts. Whether it is Isaiah’s reminder that we are the clay and God is the potter and we are ALL the works of God’s hand or whether it is Mark’s reminder that God’s angels will leave no corner of the world untouched as they gather God’s elect—these texts, and many others, remind us that God’s Kingdom is Good News for all of creation. So, as we “Keep Awake!”, let us do so for all of God’s children. Whether we’re getting hats and gloves for kids at the school next door or supporting orphanages in Uganda, Christ’s arrival brings hope for all, not just for a few. We “keep awake”, not by sitting there, looking up at the sky, waiting for his return, but by making a difference in the world.
That is why we’re going to meet the neighbors next week and why we invite our friends to join us at church. Not because our church will be better if it is bigger, but because we have this GOOD NEWS to share. Isaiah wondered what it would be like if the heavens were torn open and God came down to earth. Isaiah’s wondering became our Good News. In the birth of a baby, God revealed Godself to us in ways we had never seen before. And it is for that baby that we now watch. It is for Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us, that we actively wait. Welcome to Advent, friends! Let the waiting begin!

Thanksgiving Prayer

I hope that each of you has a day full of gratitude. I pray that gratitude is not just saved for one day a year, but may become the air we breathe.
I just received Walter Brueggemann's new book, "Prayers for a Privileged People". Here is his prayer for Thanksgiving:
Amid football,
family, and
too much food,
we pause quickly and without inconvenience
to remember and to thank.
We remember ancient pilgrims
who followed dreams of alabaster cities
and financial opportunity;
We remember hospitable first nation people
who welcomed them, and then lost their land;
We remember other family times
filled with joy and
filled with anxiety, and
old scars still powerful.
We thank you for this US venue of
justice and freedom,
and are aware of its flawed reality;
We thank you for our wealth and our safety,
and are aware of how close to poverty we are
and how under threat we live.

We gather our impulse for gratitude today,
grateful to you and to our ancestors,
grateful to you for our families,
our health,
our government,
our many possessions.

We gladly affirm that
"All good gifts around us are sent from heaven above",
But we yield to none in a sense of self sufficiency,
our weariness in needing to share,
our resentfulness of those who take and do not give.

Your generosity evokes our gratitude,
but your generosity overmatches our gratitude.
We are ready to thank,
but not overly so;
We remember our achievements,
our accomplishments,
our entitlements,
and our responsibilities
that slice away our yielding of ourselves to you.

Move through our half measure of thanks,
and let us be, all through this day,
more risky in acknowledging
that we have nothing except what you give.

You have given so much--not least your only Son.
Gift us the gift of dazzlement and awe
that we may rejoice in our penultimate lives
and keep you ultimate all the day long,
relishing the wonder of your self-giving love.
Amen

A New Holiday

StoryCorps is declaring November 28, 2008 the first annual National Day of Listening.

This holiday season, ask the people around you about their lives — it could be your grandmother, a teacher, or someone from the neighborhood. By listening to their stories, you will be telling them that they matter and they won’t ever be forgotten. It may be the most meaningful time you spend this year.

"StoryCorps is an independent nonprofit that has helped more than 40,000 Americans record their stories. As one of the largest oral history projects of its kind, it is our mission to help people honor and celebrate one another's lives through listening."

So, if you are looking for a new way to add meaning to a holiday that is quickly being overrun by all of the shopping sales on "Black Friday", I invite you to consider this. The StoryCorps page at www.npr.org has a downloadable kit to help you ask your loved ones to tell their stories.

Southminster's Got Talent!

A Sermon preached November 9, 2008
Southminster Presbyterian Church

Matthew 25:14-30


Before we can really dig into this parable, we need to clear up what the word “talent” means here. It is a Greek word and was a unit of measurement in many middle eastern cultures. One talent was not just one coin. A Talent was what a laborer would earn in 16.5 years. So in ancient terms or in today’s terms, we’re talking about a lot of money. It might have been more helpful had the translators said, “A man, before going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them. To one he gave two and a half million dollars. To another, he gave one million dollars. And to a third he gave five hundred thousand dollars.”

Does that change the story for you at all?

It sure changes it for me.
To start with, it gives me a different appreciation of the Master. Anyone can leave people with $10 or $20 to invest. And while it would be nice to get it back, if you lose $10, you still might have some other options. But this master didn’t hand out $1, 5, and 10. He gave out, conservatively, $4 million.
That’s quite a gift. Staggering, really. It is quite a responsibility. If the investments don’t work out, the master is the one who has lost. His relationship with these servants must be unique. You wouldn’t just hand $4 million dollars over to servants if you didn’t know them well enough to know if they were going to leave town with your money. He clearly trusted these servants with something of great value.

Putting this parable in modern economic terms also gives me a different appreciation of the servants who receive the gifts. If I were entrusted with $1 million to invest, I’d be humbled by the trust that had been placed in me. It would probably make me reconsider my relationship to the master and my appraisal of my own abilities—“I didn’t know he thought I was capable of this. Wow. I wonder what else I might be capable of?”
What could you do if someone placed that kind of trust in you? Could you live into bigger dreams for yourself?

Two of the servants seemed to do just that. They took the talents they’d been given and they immediately went out and invested them. When he returned, they had doubled his money.

I confess that it has been hard for me to read this text while the stock market keeps falling. Because, I’ve been wondering, how do you DOUBLE an investment without doing something very RISKY? I don’t think you can. What did they invest in? The Damascus Stock Exchange? Camel stock futures? Olive oil? Credit Default Swaps? Housing developments on the Dead Sea coast?
Whatever it was, these servants took risks to double their investment.
We have seen these risks playing out rather badly lately. And so when we see the third servant, the one who buried his talent in the ground, we likely have some compassion for him. He may not have taken any risks, but he didn’t lose the money. Right?

I think the parable I’d like to see is the one where the man leaves his servants with the money, goes on his trip, and while he’s gone, the economy goes down the tube. How would he have responded to the servants who had gone out there and made those risky investments had the investments not made money? What if they had taken the gifts they’d been given, gone out on a limb to do something new, and then failed?
Perhaps we can see the answer in the parable we already have. Did you notice the response from the third servant when the man came back? “Master, I knew 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.”
What?
Who’s he talking about? The same “harsh man” who just left him with $500,000?
The other servants didn’t say anything like that. And his responses to the first two servants—“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.”—those responses don’t seem to support the third servant’s claim.
But, for whatever reason, two of the servants seem to have a good relationship with the master, and one of them does not. The first two servants were comfortable enough in their relationship with the master to respond to his gift, to respond to the task he gave them, with confidence. Despite the risks. And, I suspect that had they lost everything when the Jerusalem Stock Market crashed, I think his answer to them might have been the same. “Well done good and trustworthy slave. Enter into the joy of your master.”
Because, of course, this parable isn’t about money. It is about these other staggering gifts we’ve been given. These talents, as it were. Interestingly, because of the usage of this word in this parable, the Greek word talent is carried over almost intact to mean “a natural aptitude or skill”. There may be other examples, but this is the only one I know of where the figurative use of a term by Jesus becomes a new word with new meaning. The word talent moves from a staggering amount of money to become a description of the gifts we’ve been given.

Let’s rephrase the parable again, in non-economic terms.
“For it is as if God summoned God’s servants and entrusted his belongings to them. To one he gave the gift of hospitality. To another, he gave the gift of evangelism, and to a third, he gave the bread of life and the cup of salvation. The one who received the talent of hospitality went out and invested the gift by being welcoming and providing safe space for those she met along the way. The one who received the gift of evangelism went and invested the gift by sharing the good news of the Gospel and invited many others to join him. The third servant took the gift of bread and wine and buried them in a hole.
When God returned, the first servant shared stories of how she had overcome her fear of being rejected and how, as a result, the gift of hospitality had made a difference in the lives of the people with whom she had shared it. The second servant shared stories of how God’s confidence in him had allowed him to overcome his fear of public speaking and how the gift of evangelism had allowed him to share the good news of the gospel with others, that they might also know the love and grace of God. To both of these servants, God said, “well done good and trustworthy servants. Enter into the joy of your master.”
The third servant came to God and said, “I didn’t know you well enough to overcome my fear, so I buried the gifts you’d given me and put them in a hole so nothing would happen to them. They’re a little dirty, but here they are.”
“You wicked and lazy slave,” God replied, “I’d given you gifts of life to share—what good were they going to do in a hole in the ground? If you weren’t going to invest them in other people, you could have at least passed them on to someone who would have.
“For to all those who have, more will be given and they will have an abundance. But from those who have nothing, who have buried their gifts in the ground, even what they have will be taken away.” (Thanks to Anna Carter Florence in Lectionary Homiletics for this rephrase of the parable.)

Friends, the good news is that God has given us all gifts beyond measure. I may not know what your talents are, but I hope you have a sense of them. And I hope you notice the talents in others. Often we don’t recognize how our talents can be invested until others suggest things to us. And I pray that you are cultivating and sharing your gifts for the betterment of the Kingdom of God.
Because, for you to not share your talents is the equivalent of burying them in the dirt.
And we all have reasons when we dig those holes. We’re busy. We’re afraid of failure or rejection. We don’t think our talents are worth sharing. We think other people are more talented. We don’t think it matters—to others or to God.
But this week, I invite you to lay down your shovel. I invite you to consider that your talents do matter—to this community and to God. Where would we be if people hadn’t shared their money and talents with this community? We wouldn’t have this building, or a choir, or Sunday school teachers, or the flower beds weeded, or bulletins typed, or any of this. Where would our community be without churches and individuals to support the homeless shelters, to provide thanksgiving dinners for children, to send shoeboxes to children around the world so that all children will receive a gift on Christmas, to offer assistance to refugees who are trying to resettle, to provide free medical and dental care to those who can’t otherwise afford it? It would be a sad world, indeed. A world full of buried talents.

I’m not, in general, a big fan of “reality” kinds of TV shows. And I don’t watch American Idol or America’s Got Talent, but after reading this parable, I think it is good that those kind of shows are on the air. Because those shows are FULL of people who want to share their talents. And they share their talents with JOY. And not all of them succeed, because in our world, we like to narrow things down to “winners” and “losers”. But I think that if God were the judge of one of those shows, God would be sitting right there next to Simon, Randy, and Paula, and would thank each and every one of those contestants for showing up and for sharing the joy. God would give a thumbs up and a high five to all of them. Because God looks at talents differently than we do. They aren’t commodities with a limited supply and demand. They are gifts. Gifts that are only of value when shared with others. And gifts that only expand once they are shared.

We are wrapping up our stewardship campaign this morning. In a little while, we will all walk forward to place our offerings, our pledge cards, and our Time and Talent forms in the baskets. I realize that many of you have already turned in your pledge cards, and I thank you for doing that. But I still invite you to walk forward. Because, really, it is ourselves we are offering to God.

“For to all those who have, more will be given and they will have an abundance.”
May it be so. Amen.

Why James Dobson does not speak for me

A Brief Political Moment...


James Dobson, of Focus on the Family, would like people to think that when he speaks, he speaks for all people who are Christian. And perhaps he does speak for some. But he does not speak for me.
He recently posted a letter from the United States in 2012 if Obama were elected tomorrow.
I invite all of you to also read Jim Wallis' response in his blog.

I hope people vote tomorrow. I am excited that the electorate seems involved and excited in this election, after years of embarrassing apathy. But I hope that people vote for their candidate because they are excited about how that candidate will lead our nation to be a better place for all of God's children. I am concerned that people like James Dobson feel that fear is the only compelling reason to get out the vote.

And, truthfully, whether one votes for Obama or for McCain, our nation will not change as drastically in 4 years as Dobson or anyone on the left (such as Keith Olbermann at MSNBC) would like to suggest. We have checks. Balances. Different branches of power. Fear is a sad and unhelpful way to lead people. Dr. Dobson (and others) should be ashamed of using such tactics.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ was never about fear. Jesus came into the world because God loved the world. Jesus taught his disciples to share that love, to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, and to speak out against injustice.

Regardless of who wins the election tomorrow, our nation is going to have to learn to speak to each other with civility. I am concerned that people who follow Dr. Dobson will have no positive model that would allow them to interact with our society or in politics should Obama win. Stirring the electorate into a frenzied mob is no way to engage in dialogue or to produce change.

So, whether you are on the Left or the Right, please be in prayer for our nation. Please be in prayer for Senators Obama and McCain. Please be in prayer for each other. Please treat each other with the love that God has shown us in Jesus Christ. Please pray for a future guided by dreams and not by fear.

Who Do You Say That I Am?

A Sermon preached at Southminster Presbyterian Church
November 2, 2008

John 4:4-29, 39-42

I am the woman at the well.
To look at my life today, it might not be so easy for you to connect me with her.
I have not had five husbands. And I can gather my water in the cool of the morning with the other women. Socially and politically, I know I am not a Samaritan.
I am probably more of a Pharisee or something, or at least the wife of a Pharisee, someone on the inside of society’s gifts.
But I haven’t always been defined by being a pastor, or by my marriage to a caring and liberated man, or by my two wonderful children and Siamese cat.
When I was in college, I was defined instead by my sin.
That’s how I saw it then.
To make a ridiculously long story short, I got pregnant my sophomore year of college at Trinity University in San Antonio, TX.
I didn’t wear a scarlet letter on my clothing, but I didn’t need to. I was the “pregnant girl” that year, swelling belly leading me wherever I went.
Luckily for me, I encountered Jesus that year. Not the Jesus of my Sunday school and conventional American moralism. I did not encounter that Jesus, who was lurking in the back of my head, disappointed that I had sinned, ready to judge me.
Instead, thankfully, I encountered the Jesus who knew everything I had ever done, and loved me anyway.
Where did I meet this Jesus?
I met this Jesus at church, of all places. I had been preparing to join University Presbyterian Church when all of this went down. I went to the pastor and told him that perhaps this wasn’t the best time, after all, for me to join. After I wept in his office and told him almost everything I had ever done, the pastor said to me, “when could be a better time to join a church?” This church--which I am sure was scandalized, on some level, by this unwed teenager in their midst—this church was like the disciples in our Bible text. They might have been surprised that Jesus would have been talking to me, but they didn’t say anything about it. They fed me. They gave me maternity clothes. They visited me in the hospital. They had me stand up on Mother’s Day in worship.

I also met this Jesus at my university. While there were people who would have liked me to take my water jar and go to a different well altogether, most people made room for me. Boys offered to type my papers, carried my books, took me out for dinner to make sure I was eating enough. My sorority sisters expected me to remain an active member of the club, even though I was worried that my presence would ruin the reputation of the club. My professors made allowances for me and had the grace to encourage my intellect at a time when most all else was out of my control.
And because I met this Jesus, I now call “blessing” what I used to call “sin”. I placed my son up for adoption. Eric is now 19 years old and a sophomore at TCU in Fort Worth. My boys get to know their brother and it is a gift for me to see them all together. I am blessed to be a part of his life and would love to tell you more about him. Adoption has touched our lives in a beautiful way, allowing blessing to come from pain.

And, because I received the gift of living water from Jesus at the well—the gift that came to me in the form of grace, acceptance, love and support from my family, my community of faith, and my college community—I was able to leave my jar there by the side of the well and have been able to go and tell everyone about the man who knew everything I have ever done.
And who loves me anyway.

Before I met Jesus, I was often to be found at the well of self-reliance. I would go every day and fill my jar with the illusion that I could solve any problem, take care of myself, and didn’t need others to get through life. Truth be told, I don’t think I even thought I needed God. I was a “good girl”. I believed that Jesus was God’s son, but I acted as if the gift of life through the cross event was for others because if I could be good enough to take care of myself, then God would be freed up to take care of the people who really needed help.

But Jesus has this way of shattering illusions. When he quietly makes his statement at the well, it becomes apparent that he isn’t fooled. When he tells the woman to go and bring back her husband, she realizes he knows who she is deep down inside. And not just the person she projects.
I wonder what went through her mind as she realized he truly knew her. Was there a pause as she considered her answer?
Did it occur to her to say, “He’s working late at the office. I’m not expecting him back for a while.”
Did it occur to her to get angry with this stranger who was messing into her personal life? “How dare you ask me for a drink and then insult me?!”
But all John records for us in the text was her answer. “I have no husband.”
Because when you encounter someone who sees you as you really are and then engages your best self, the truth is the only answer to give. We can fool each other, and we do. We can put on our best face when we come to church, and we do. But God is not fooled. God knows who we really are and loves us anyway.

If there is ANY place where you can bring your TRUE self, it is to church.

What jar are you carrying around that you could perhaps set down? Because we do that, we keep taking our jars to the wrong wells, and we keep running out of water. We go to the wells of acceptance or popularity. We go to the wells of compromise, or anxiety, or fear. We go to the wells of self reliance or the well of “everything is just fine”.

Jesus gives the Samaritan woman the gift of living water, and frees her from the daily task of coming to a well that will not satisfy. When I was in college, in the midst of my pain, I encountered him as well. Leaving my jar is what freed me to embark on the path to ministry.
Because, like the other woman at the well, I encountered someone who gave me such grace, I have had no other option but to keep running back to the city, telling everyone I meet all about him.
“Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?”
Yes. He is. A messiah of Grace, and Truth, and Life.
Amen

Oil Crisis

Joshua 24:14-24
Matthew 25:1-13

A sermon preached October 26, 2008
Southminster Presbyterian
Boise, Idaho

Our weddings still have bridesmaids, but other than that, perhaps we feel a little removed from this parable of Jesus’ in Matthew.
When we invite people to our weddings today, we tell people to show up at a particular time. 2:00 pm, let’s say. But in Jesus’ day, time has a different priority. The invitation to this wedding would have said, “please join us on Tuesday. Or maybe Wednesday.” Because the party wasn’t going to start until the bridegroom arrived. And if his camel were stuck in a traffic jam in Tel Aviv or he were delayed on business or if he were standing in line to vote, then the party would be delayed until he got there. So the bridesmaids had arrived at the church early, helped their friend into her wedding finery, put on their own fancy dresses, and then taken their lamps to line the road, so that when the groom arrived, he’d be able to see where he was going.

Because that is another difference from our lives. We don’t spend much time in actual darkness. We are used to streetlights, the glow from the lights of our cities and towns. Even when the lights are off, we are surrounded by the glow of reflected light. But darkness was real and treacherous for the people hearing this tale the first time. So the bridesmaids line the route with their lamps.
And here is another major difference between our lives and theirs. When we need light, we flip a switch. Or grab our flashlight. Or that new hand crank/solar powered emergency radio/flashlight that NPR was giving away in their pledge drive. If the power goes out, we can always grab some matches and light a candle.
But these bridesmaids had to use lamps. Into one of these clay lamps, they would put a wick and then fill it with oil. The closest thing we have to it today are the candles on our communion table. Did you know they were filled with oil? And when the flame grows dim, it means that they need more oil.
Now I know that when I flip a switch, it requires electricity, which often is powered by oil, but we are pretty removed from the actual oil. Unless we’re saying “drill baby, drill” or otherwise talking about our oil supply or alternative energy, we don’t have to get our hands dirty, or oily, as it were.
But these bridesmaids, these friends of the bride and groom who were so excited to help the celebration, needed to think about oil. And the wise ones did. They recognized that the waiting time could be long. The foolish bridesmaids, on the other hand, were perhaps so excited about the party that was to come that they didn’t worry about the details in the meantime. For all we know, they had vats of oil sitting around at home, but a fat lot of good it was going to do them now. So this text is not about hoarding or stockpiling. You can sock away all of the oil in the world, but if you don’t bring it with you when you head to the wedding, it won’t do you any good. You cannot be the light of the world, or the light for the bridegroom, if you leave your oil squirreled away in your closet. Oil is only of value when you are willing to use it.

So, five of the bridesmaids were ready to use it. Five were not. Please notice that this is not an “us vs. them” text. Even though Matthew often does divide people into camps, in this case all 10 of the bridesmaids were invited to the party and were close enough friends of the couple that they were invited to this task. We shouldn’t be looking for the foolish bridesmaids outside those doors. We are them. Wise and foolish all in this room. We are together in this.
And, this particular bridegroom was late. Very late. All of the maids had fallen asleep. But when they heard the shout that he was on the way, they woke up and made preparations, trimming the wick and refilling their lamps. But the foolish, who had left their extra at home, tried to borrow some from the wise. At first glance, it is the wise who look like hoarders here. I can hear them saying, “a lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part”.
“Oh come on!”, we want to say, “just give them a little”.

But, in truth, there are some reserves you have to shore up for yourself.
Let’s say the bridesmaids had all been flying to this wedding, when the plane had trouble and the oxygen masks dropped down. What do the flight attendants always say during those safety talks at the beginning of a flight?
“Please secure your own oxygen mask before assisting others.”
If this parable had taken place on a plane, perhaps the foolish bridesmaids would have not just been asking the wise to help them but would have said, “We didn’t bring oxygen masks. Give us your oxygen masks”.
Because for the wise to share their oil at that point in the evening would have meant that nobody would have had enough oil.
There are some reserves you have to prepare for yourself. Others can’t do it for you. No matter how much they might want to.

I think of friends who wish they could just give their faith to their friends or their children. When you see someone who is hurting, or feels alone, all you want to do is help them. Fix them. Let them know what you know. That God is with them. That they are not alone.
And we do what we can. We teach our children and bring them to worship and Sunday school. We pray for our friends and visit those who are alone. But, ultimately, we can’t give them our faith. We just can’t. We can invite them to join us in the journey. We can be present with them in their journey. But we can’t just pour the faith out of our own lamps and put it in theirs. It just doesn’t work that way.
I think about some of the shut-ins of this church, and other churches, with whom I have visited. It is not uncommon to hear them say something like, “I wish I could keep my pledge to the church as high as it used to be. I care so much about this church and want to build for the future, but my medical expenses have doubled and I have just enough to get by. I will still give what I can, but I can’t give as much as I would like.”
These people, and others, who have built this church, would like nothing more than to fill each one of our lamps, to fund the budget of this church. But it doesn’t work like that. We each need to do our part to keep our own lamps lit.
I don’t know what your part is. I can’t just tell you, “give us x amount of money and we’ll have what we need.” All I can say is that you have to consider the future for yourself, look at the reserves you have, and figure out what you need to bring with you so we’ll all have enough.

This oil crisis is about putting things in the right order. While one lesson in this text is that there are some preparations you have to make for yourself, another lesson is this:
You can help other people after you’ve filled your own lamp. As I am learning how to get done all of the things (or as many of the things) that being your pastor requires, I’m learning that.
If I’m too busy and don’t take the time for my prayer life, I end up wiped out and unable to really be there for you. But if I start my day at the office in prayer, before I tackle the rest of the to-do list, I find that I somehow have the time to get the rest of it done too. So, for me, to keep oil in my lamp involves dedicated time for prayer and scripture reading as well as making sure I get home to be with my family.
What does it take for you to refill your lamp? What are the reserves you need to shore up so that you will be able to light a path for someone else?

Because we are called to light the path. The bridegroom shows up and tells people to “Keep awake! For you know neither the day nor the hour.”
On one level, this story is surely about Jesus’ return. His followers were and had been, expecting his return any day. And you can imagine that if you think Jesus is coming back tomorrow then maybe it isn’t so important that you go do the laundry this afternoon.
But the bridegroom says, “keep awake.”
Matthew is addressing a real concern in his community. What do we do while we wait for Jesus’ return. We are told to keep awake.
That doesn’t mean to just sit there and look down the road so we’ll see the bridegroom when he approaches. This isn’t a passive waiting to which we are being called. We are to keep our lamps trimmed and burning. It is an active waiting. It involves preparing the way. It means we volunteer to teach Sunday school so we can share our light with others. It means we help weed the flower beds at the church or rake the leaves so that our facility will be inviting to others. It means we visit and send cards to people who are alone. It means we sign up to greet people, to usher, to serve on committees. Our understanding of stewardship involves more than money. Yes, we believe that what we do with our money speaks to our priorities. But we also believe the same of our time.
At our house, we spend, conservatively, 8 to 10 hours a week making sure our kids get to soccer practice and soccer games. Do we spend that much on their faith development?
When I was in youth ministry, I heard from families all the time, “Jimmy would love to come to youth group, but he just doesn’t have time.”
On one level, I know that is true. Kids today are often over scheduled and the demands on their time can be great. But, on another level, I wonder—how did we get here? How did we end up at a place where church is something that we fit in at the end, after we’ve done everything else first? How did church slip below soccer, video games and college football on our national priority list?
I haven’t made reference to the Joshua passage we heard this morning, but the two are not unrelated. Joshua, who led the Israelites after Moses’ death, called the Israelites together and makes a statement we still hear today. “Choose this day whom you will serve. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” While some read this as a one time decision, I think it might be an each day decision too. Each day, this day, we choose whom we will serve. And some days are likely going to be better than others. But we do it again, each day.

Many of you, I know, are actively involved here, doing the work of the kingdom. I know that because I wonder if some of you are here more than I am.
But all of us are called to be actively preparing for God’s kingdom.
We are called to be wise bridesmaids. And not out of fear that we won’t get into the party. We don’t choose God out of fear. We choose God in response to the gifts and grace we’ve already received. We are to keep our lamps trimmed and burning so that when the bridegroom shows up, we’ll be ready to join the party. This text is about awaiting the kingdom with a watchful joy. When I hear the bridegroom say, “Truly I tell you, I do NOT know you,” I confess I get a little annoyed. The tone I hear in my head for that line is angry Jesus with his hand up, emphasis on the “NOT”. But as I’ve been thinking about this text, I started hearing another tone in Jesus’ voice. “Truly I tell you, I do not KNOW you.” I hear sad Jesus acknowledging a truth. Perhaps he wants us to keep our lamps trimmed and burning so that we’ll be free and ready to spend some time with him at the celebration. The more time we spend in preparation, the better we’ll know each other when the party starts.

I don’t know the day nor the hour either. But I do know this. It is in the preparations—in the spending time serving alongside you— that the light shines bright enough that I can see a little further down the road.
As we move along in our stewardship campaign, even though it is in the midst of relatively dark economic times, I invite you this week to consider the oil that you have to bring along with you as you prepare for Christ. It is in darkness that we need light the most. Let us bring our oil in watchful joy and pray with anticipation and excitement about what God is dreaming for us here at Southminster. Amen

Anything Worthy of Praise

A sermon preached at Southminster
October 12, 2008

Exodus 32:1-14
Philippians 4:1-9

I don’t know what it was like in your household growing up, or what it is like today, but pronouns can be important things. I’m happy to claim my children most of the time, but when they misbehave (which isn’t often) or start exhibiting behavior that resembles their father—like when they practice soccer in the house—my pronouns switch. Listen to the difference between “my children raked the yard without even being asked” and “your children drank milk out of the carton.”
Do you hear the difference?
Did you notice it in the texts?
Let’s start with Exodus—
The people say to Aaron, “as for this Moses guy, the man who brought us out of Egypt…” They don’t call him our buddy, pal, friend, leader—he’s just “that guy that brought us out of Egypt”. You’d think Aaron would say, “yeah, I know Moses. Remember, he’s my BROTHER?” But he doesn’t. This use of pronouns to distance them from Moses is interesting.
And when Aaron fashions the calf out of their earrings, they say, “THESE are your gods, O Israel. This calf is the god who delivered you from slavery.” They are like politicians who seem to believe that just because they say something, it will be true.
But then God and Moses get into the pronoun game too. God sees what the people are doing and says, “Moses, you better get down there. YOUR people, the ones YOU brought out of Egypt, are really making me mad.”
But Moses implored to the Lord, HIS God—no false idols for Moses—and said, “don’t be angry with YOUR people—remember the ones YOU brought out of Egypt. They were just like this when you chose them, God, so don’t be all surprised by their behavior now!”
Neither God nor Moses wants to claim Israel at this particular moment in history. Or, perhaps in the give and take of the conversation, both partners are calling the other to support the Israelites.
And then Moses, in an argument so well crafted that I wonder if it made God regret God’s choice of a leader for the people, Moses brings up the Patriarchs. Remember, he says to God, remember YOUR servants—Abraham, Isaac and Israel—remember how YOU swore to them by YOUR own SELF…

And here’s the amazing thing to me. In the midst of this pronoun battle over who has to claim the Israelites, Moses calls on God to change God’s own mind.
And it works. Moses is not afraid to argue with God. Moses is not afraid to remind God of the promises. And God turns back to God’s own people.

But I understand why God would want to smite the Israelites right there where they stood with that idol. With that empty piece of Gold. “You want to worship your old earrings!!!?” God must have been pulling his proverbial hair out while watching that scene unfold.
Who would build their own gods? That’s just crazy. Nobody we know would do that, would they?

I suggest that any time we start giving credit to the wrong thing or the wrong person, we’ve made an idol. Like the Israelites claiming that the calf had brought them out of Egypt, how many times have we done something similar?

How many times, for example, have we made an idol out of being an American? While I love my country and am thankful to live here, it is to none of my own credit that I am an American. I didn’t choose to be born here, and I suspect that is true for most of you too. Yet, we often act as if we are somehow better than the people who had the nerve to be born somewhere else. How often do we hear the phrase ‘God bless America’ used to imply that God shouldn’t be blessing everyone else too?

How many times have we made idols out of ourselves? Acting as if we deserve all of the credit for our own delivery out of slavery. Anytime we deny that we need each other, when we deny that we need help, we’re fashioning an idol to our own independence.

Some of you may have heard on the news in the past week that there is a group of pastors who are going to use their pulpits to endorse candidates for political office. They argue that the separation of church and state amounts to censorship and is a violation of their right to Free Speech. While I am willing to share my political convictions, I will not be doing it from the pulpit—and not because of First Amendment issues. To equate the Good News of the Gospel with the political objectives of ANY political party here on earth is to cheapen the gospel. It would be the act of making an idol to my own political leanings and expecting you to hand me your earrings so I can fashion a golden image you can worship. God is not a tool of either the Republican or the Democratic Party and to endorse a candidate for president from this pulpit would be a violation of my call to serve the Living God.

So, what makes us do it? What makes us build empty meaningless idols?

Perhaps we do it when we feel we’re alone. That’s what the Israelites were thinking out there in the wilderness. Moses had been up on top of that mountain a long time. Look back through Exodus this week and see how many directions God gives to Moses—it must have taken days. But the people didn’t know that was what was going on. Did Moses abandon them? Did he die? Is he ever coming back for them or are they going to spend the rest of their lives sitting by the side of this mountain? And this wilderness, below the mountain is barren. You do feel alone in a landscape that vast.
But as much as they felt alone, they weren’t alone. They had each other. And Moses was right where he said he’d be. And God was watching over them.
When have you felt alone and built idols to your independence or self-reliance?

Perhaps we build idols when we are afraid. Fear was likely connected to the Israelites concerns about being alone. Perhaps they were also fearing the future. What was life going to look like, following God into the unknown future? Perhaps they were building an idol to their past, an idol to the good ol’ days, which, of course, were not all that good. Pharaoh was downright awful, in fact. But he was at least predictable. This God is not predictable.

Perhaps we build idols just to keep busy. Perhaps they thought that the act of melting down their earrings and making something they could focus on, sacrifice to, would keep them busy and distracted. Perhaps we build idols to our industriousness. To our productivity. To our economy.

But perhaps we are sometimes called to wait. Just to sit there in the wilderness on the side of a mountain and wait for God. Sometimes we aren’t called upon to solve our own problems. Sometimes, heaven forbid, we aren’t supposed to be multitasking. Sometimes we are called to sit and wait.

I think the story of the golden calf is a low point for all of the characters, except maybe Moses. When it was all over, I suspect that the people were ashamed. I suspect that God was likely thankful that Moses had talked him out of the planned destruction. That Aaron wished he had another chance to try again as leader.

I was so comforted this week by our text from Philippians as I sat in my own wilderness and tried my hardest not to make more than my share of idols. Where the characters in the Exodus text use pronouns to separate, Paul uses pronouns to bring people together.
Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved….I ask you also, my loyal companion, help these women, because they have struggled beside me in the work of the gospel, together with Clement and the rest of my co-workers, whose names are in the book of life. …

Don’t you want to sign up for his team? Do you hear how he brings people together? I want to sign up to work with Paul. I’d much rather end up in the book of life than worshiping my old earrings. I wish Aaron had thought to respond to the Israelites as Paul responded to the Philippians.

Rejoice in the LORD always, again I will say, REJOICE. Let your gentleness be known to everyone.

What would it have been like for the Israelites to be reminded: THE LORD IS NEAR. And DO NOT WORRY about ANYTHING but in EVERYTHING by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Maybe the outcome wouldn’t have been any different had Paul been addressing them instead of Aaron. Maybe they had made up their minds to create their own God before they even went to speak with Aaron. But I wonder.

If Paul came to me in my wilderness and said, “finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and IF THERE IS ANYTHING WORTHY OF PRAISE, think about these things.”—if Paul said that to me when I was anxious, fearful, alone, I just hope that something would click.

Anything. Do I have anything worthy of praise?

Well, I am still in the wilderness and I’m not sure where Moses is and if he’s coming back, but I guess I am not alone. I have my friends and family. And this place does sort of look like a moonscape, but the view is great and I can see for miles. And the stars are so bright in the night sky. And my children came and snuggled with me tonight, even though they think they are too old for such things. And I guess that wandering free in the wilderness is better than being Pharaoh’s slave. And I have my health.
I guess I have some things in my life that are worthy of praise.

If there is anything worthy of praise, Paul tells us, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.

So, this week, as we wait in our wildernesses, let us think about those things in our lives worthy of praise. For health or family or warm houses. For the beauty of autumn leaves. For the community of faith that we have here. For Boise State’s win over Southern Miss. Whatever it is in your life for which you can turn to God and say “thanks”—think about these things. Amen.

I've been memed....

Still not sure quite what it is, but my friend Jill has challenged me. Who can resist?
She "tagged" me to do this thing where I'm supposed to blog about "six uninteresting things about me." It's called a meme. "For those of you who don’t know what a meme is, you can read this site that explains it in detail. Or I’ll just tell you: it’s a bunch of questions someone with a blog answers and then tags some other people with blogs and they answer the same questions and so on and so forth."
1. Despite my current level of extrovertedness, I used to be paralyzingly shy. I once (in 4th grade) hid in my friend Sarah Wolf's hedge because I was afraid to talk to some boys who came down the street.
2. The Shibboleth episode of The West Wing makes me cry. Every time. It is the one where my president gives Charlie the turkey carving knife made by Paul Revere and then handed down in the Bartlett family ever since. It also has the Chinese Christian immigrants and CJ having to lead children in song and babysit turkeys. Best ever.
3. I drove a white 1974 Ford Pinto in high school. It was not very cool, but I could fit my great dane and my cello in the back. I sold it for more money than my parents paid for it.
4. I was on Romper Room when I was 4 years old.
5. At Girls State, in 1986, I was elected to attend Girls' Nation. I think the elected me because I wore suits. I met President Reagan in the White House. He told us to support Star Wars when we were old enough to vote.
6. I really like labyrinths. They are not the same as mazes.