The End Is Our Beginning

“KEEPING OUR EYES OPEN”
Text: Luke 21:25-36
Preached at Faith United (Methodist) Church
December 2, 2006


And so it begins…
For the rest of the world,
it began the day after Thanksgiving,
or even before that-- it gets earlier every year
But for the followers of Christ,
it all begins today, with the lighting of a candle
It’s the first day of the new year in the Christian calendar
the beginning of Advent
in the dictionary, the word advent means
“a coming” or “arrival”
In the Christian church, during Advent
we await the coming of Jesus Christ
we prepare, we anticipate, we look FORWARD
But what a lot of people don’t know
is that we’re not just looking for the coming of Christ
as a baby… he’s already done that
we are actually living between two advents
The advent of his birth, his incarnation into the world
and the advent of his second coming
WHOA!! Hold on…
Second Coming? We believe in that stuff??
The subject of the Second Coming
just throws up all kinds of red flags
we’ve heard enough from the doomsdayers
the novelists, the movie makers
about the end of the world
How Jesus is coming back, and boy is he ticked!
I read the first book of the Left Behind series
that are novels, and I stress the word “NOVELS”
about the end times
I couldn’t get past the first book
it was too disturbing –
and I knew too many people at the time
who forgot it was just a novel
It’s hard for us to imagine Jesus coming again
it’s hard enough to imagine him coming the first time
the way he did
The Second Coming conjures up images
of movies rated R for excessive violence
But Jesus did say that he was coming back
and ever since people have tried to say
they know exactly how it will happen
and they use it to scare the stuff out of people
Jesus tells the disciples that the world will change
that the things they see as indestructible
can be destroyed
He tells them about the destruction of Jerusalem
which happens about 40 years after his death
where the temple is completely leveled
the whole city is in ruins
the Great City of Jerusalem, a city that they believed
could not be taken down
and when Luke is writing this Gospel
it has already happened
the city was destroyed, the temple completely gone
just an empty cavity where the great building once stood
The destruction of the temple is just one of many signs
that the world will not always be the way it is
Things are not the way God intended them to be
and there will come a time, Jesus promised
that the Kingdom will come in all its fullness
and everything will be different
everything as we know it will be changed
When Jesus left his disciples,
he gave them the impression
that he would be right back
that he would be coming again SOON
and so they didn’t make long-term plans
When St. Paul writes his letters,
he writes about Jesus coming again
as if it’s right around the corner
Jesus said, keep your eyes open, be ready
be alert, I’ll be back
Well, as the preacher Will Willimon writes,
it’s hard to stand on your tiptoes for 2,000 years
your feet get a little sore
Do we believe anymore that he’s coming back?
It’s been forever…
All these things have been happening
the nations are rising against nations,
the seas roar and come on land to destroy
There are many Ground Zeros all over the world
where people are fainting from fear
It’s all been happening since the beginning
When Jesus came the first time,
he was born into a time of terror
The Jews were living in lands occupied by Rome
there was excessive violence and fear
Male babies were randomly slaughtered
when Jesus was just a baby himself
there was terror and heartache everywhere
Jesus came quietly into the world in the midst of mayhem
chaos and oppression
So what does all this have to do with us?
It’s been 2,000 years and still we wait
and live between the first and second advent
and we do get weighed down by the worries of this world
We get weighed down by medical bills,
by impossible schedules,
pressures at work, pressures at school,
trying to raise our children to love God
and be good people that love others
in a world so bent on hate and excitement
The most meaningful Advent I remember
is the end of 1993
when I was pregnant
Something about being pregnant during Advent
and Christmas made it all uniquely meaningful to me
It was about December of 1993
that I felt the stirrings of new life within me
when I first felt the movements
It was my first year of ministry out of seminary
and it was a particularly difficult year
in a lot of ways
I was very discouraged
but at the same time, I had new life growing within me
and the stirrings inside reminded me of hope
Twice I went to the hospital with symptoms
that caused the doctor to think I was miscarrying
twice I was faced with the possibility of death
when there was supposed to be birth
I understood just a little more that year
about hoping against hope
about believing, trusting the stirrings within
the very subtle—at that point!—stirrings
reminding me to keep believing
in the midst of a lot of chaos
and our share of fears
I think Advent and Christmas is radical
We’ve toned it down a lot over the years
we’ve domesticated it
we’ve reduced it to a lovely, peaceful scene
on the front of holiday cards
but Jesus coming into the world the first time
was an incredibly radical thing
it scared the bejeebies out of King Herod
the very thought of a baby being born
who could be king instead of him
And Jesus grew up, challenged the way things were and are
and shook up the church
made people want to kill him
in order to save the Church
He stirred things up,
he stirred up the poor people, the have-nots
the people that the Romans were successfully keeping in order
the common people
whom the temple leaders could ignore
he gave power and hope to those who had none
he turned everything upside down
and before he left this earth,
he said, “I’ll be back.”
Sometimes we make him out to be like The Terminator
someone with a bad temper who will wipe out all the bad guys
But Jesus promised things will not always be the way they are
that his life, his first coming
has begun the whole redemption process
the whole transformation of the world
we live in the now and the not yet
we live in the Promise,
and yet we anticipate the promise of his coming again
of the Kingdom of God coming in fullness
‘thy kingdom come,’ we pray, ‘thy will be done…”
that is our Advent prayer, year after year after year
Jesus may not come back in our lifetime
because he hasn’t come back in many lifetimes
but still as Christians we light the candle in the dark
it’s a first step to say, ‘I believe… in the unbelievable’
I believe Jesus keeps his promises
We’re not standing on tiptoe anymore,
waiting for him to return,
but we are still called to keep an eye out for him
we glimpse him here and there along the way
in a moment in worship
in a stranger’s face who stops by for something to eat
who may not smell all the good
we glimpse him in the children’s faces
in their joy and abandonment
even as they run around the aisles
we glimpse him in each other
when love connects us, when peace overcomes us
when for a moment we have hope again
in something better coming
we glimpse again as we light the candles of Advent
that move us closer still to that unimaginable day
when hope comes to fulfillment
Nelson Mandela, who was imprisoned for 27 years
and who emerged to become the president of South Africa
said:
“I have found that one can bear the unbearable
if one can keep spirits strong enough even when the body is being tested.
Strong convictions are the secret of surviving depravation
your spirit can be full even when your stomach is empty
I always knew that someday I would once again
feel the grass under my feet and walk in the sunshine
as a free man
I am fundamentally an optimist
part of being an optimist is keeping one’s head pointed toward the sun
and one’s feet moving forward…”
Advent is about turning our eyes back toward the sun
looking up, when so much around us, forces our heads down
Advent is about beginning again
lighting another candle in the dark and saying “I believe…”
“we believe…” because it’s easier to believe in community with others
Advent, the most hopeful season of the Christian calendar,
begins in darkness
and moves toward the Light that dawns in the world
Advent is about preparing our hearts to love
preparing our eyes to see more clearly
someone said it’s like spiritual cataract surgery
we do what we can, and allow God to clear our vision
to take away those things that keep us from seeing clearly
the signs of hope all around us
The cataracts can build up with all the bad news
all the cynicism of the media
all the pressures to buy and consume
all the pressure to believe that the more we have
the happier we’ll be
Advent is a kind of spiritual cleansing time
starting right where we are
and starting all over again, if we have to
in the simple act of lighting a candle in the dark
Christmas is not all sweet and pretty
it’s the beginning of the radical transformation of the world
in the coming of Jesus Christ
who is still at work, and is far from finished
we don’t know when he’ll be back
but we don’t need to know, if we did, he would have told us
what we’re called to do is simply live with our eyes to the horizon
anticipating the inbreaking of God’s kingdom
and we are to live as if that Kingdom is already here
to keep our eyes open to the presence of the living Christ
who shows himself here and there
in the smallest of miracles
and in the glory of all creation
We are to live with our eyes looking forward
and all around, for the dawning redemption of God’s world
and to be active participants in that redemption
to be a people of radical hope in a world that is all too often dark
and R-rated
It is Advent
It is the start of something new
a new year, full of new possibilities
some things beyond our control
but if we keep our eyes open
we may witness the birth of beautiful things
that can only come from the glory of God…
Light a candle at home,
pray against the dark
make your statement
that you will live as Children of the Light
and that no one can put that light out….

Thoughts From a Small Town

Thoughts From a Small Town

People are astounded often that I, born and raised in southern New Jersey, am not culturally challenged or just plain intellectually offended by living in a small town in rural Nebraska. I find this amusing. Some people are cultural snobs-- others, just don't know what they have right under their nose.
I live in Gibbon, a town of about 1800 people, depending on who all you count. I've only lived here for 17 months, so some may say that I've yet to have my eyes opened. Gibbon, as you know, (and I confess I didn't until recently) is a kind of monkey. I don't know exactly why people feel the need to tell me this, but the town is actually named after a general from the Civil War. Don't test me on that history, however, I am still learning.
Someone from New Jersey-- other than me-- who is used to six lane highways and getting the finger daily on the turnpike, may not understand the appeal of a sleepy little town where everyone knows your name and your business if you've been there any length of time. I am in love. I confess! I've fallen in love with Gibbon.
If I go to the post office at 9 a.m. every morning, I know who I will see. There's Lee, a volunteer fireman who's married to the owner of the local cafe. There's Bill, who goes to the cafe every morning for the latest gossip and unique fellowship, but his internal clock demands that he leave at precisely 9 a.m. on the dot to get the mail and return home. There is the trio of employees of the local bank, the best dressed people in town-- women with meticulously applied make-up and very fashionable clothes that I would only wear if I was going to a fancy restaurant. I like that about Gibbon-- I can be a pastor and wear blue jeans every day, even to the hospital, and no one blinks. But I digress.
The cafe crowd is unique, and changes, depending on what hour you go. Farmers get there pretty early-- around 6 a.m., which I consider nighttime still-- to gather with their buddies for coffee. They usually get their own coffee, and as the morning wears on, they get up and refill everyone else's cup, even if they don't know you. The men gather in the middle, that seems to be their territory, and all others find a place on the outskirts. You don't go to that middle table uninvited, and its not for the faint of heart. Men in cowboy boots and seed corn hats gather and offer their opinions on the latest happenings of the day in town or across the country. Rumors are started at the cafe, and gather momentum when they're carried down to the Pit Stop-- the other coffee-gathering, and the alternate meeting place on Saturdays and Sundays when the cafe is closed.
Nebraska is known for his blustery winters, with bitter winds and blowing snow that lands wherever the wind loses momentum. During one blizzard that shut down everything, Larry and Sarah and I bundled up and ventured out on foot to see if the cafe was open. It was. Farmers who'd driven there at 6 a.m. were still stranded there at 12:30 p.m. And yet they thought WE were nuts for being there! But finally, they ventured out, seeing as though they didn't bring anything to stay overnight, and we were the only ones there except Bob. The owner of the cafe shoved a mop at mop and told him if he was going to stay he might as well help mop up the melting snow all over the floor that the others left behind. Other times, I've seen a farmer discover that he left his wallet at home, when it came time to pay for his lunch. No problem. He just waved at the owner and said, "just put it on my tab." She knew he'd be back, it was ok. Everyone knows where he lives, after all.
I love going to the local library in town-- they have a better selection of DVDs than the big library 13 miles west. Also I like to go, because the librarians are Methodists. It's a social call whenever I go. We discuss the weather, the puzzle one of them is working on, she gives me her opinion of the movies I check out, and she always asks me how I'm doing.
Sometimes I stop at Foster's grocery store for a drink before I head to the office. Usually when I go, the Baptist lady is working the register, but community is ecumenical, so it's important I speak to the Baptists, too, and try to remember their names. At least a third of Gibbon is Hispanic, because of the Turkey Plant and Beef Plant in town. I love that the little grocery store has a whole selection of Mexican foods and candies that I've never heard of. Or that some of the posters in the window are in Spanish. My daughter goes to the local school, of course, that is K-12 (which boggles the minds of my New Jersey friends), and every communication that comes home is in both English and Spanish. Sarah tried out for the Latin Choir at school, but was disappointed that she had to know Spanish in order to participate.
Our neighbors to the north and west of us are Hispanic. I'm not sure who all lives in those two houses, but the yards are teeming with little Hispanic children in warmer weather, and Spanish music usually blares from the windows of the houses. Little diapered hispanic kids waddle by on our front side walk, others ride past on their scooters and skateboards. I even hear Spanish rap music, which is less offensive than the English version, I guess, because I don't know what they're saying!
Last night I was at a Senior Citizen's dinner (by virtue of my occupation, not my age!) and overheard little old ladies discussing the Husker's and how well they're playing this year. They almost turned off the game last Saturday because we were behind, but they stayed to the end, for the miraculous finish. They offered their opinions of our chances of winning the Division game this year. Football is an intergenerational experience here in Nebraska. It's another religion. People don't plan weddings at game time if they want anyone to show up, and if you go out on game day, the majority of people you see will be wearing red. The game is always playing over the system at the mall, in restaurants, on the department store TVs-- otherwise nobody would ever go out on a Saturday!
I love Nebraska. I love the way the sky meets the land with no interruptions, and kind of embraces you as you travel. As my Dad said on his first visit, "the sky surrounds you!" I miss the corn during this post-harvest season, the fields are barren, except for the cattle who are given the job of eating what they can that's left over.
You have to be patient to live in Nebraska. You don't get anywhere fast, because everything is spread out. There are big pauses between towns, where you can get to feeling disoriented, because you are kind of literally nowhere for a time. My father was always concerned about breaking down or running out of gas; what happens to you then? But it's not a problem. If such a thing were to happen, someone would pick you up and take you to town. Of course, by afternoon, the whole town would know that you ran out of gas or broke down, but that's a small price to pay for living in a world where no one is really anonymous.
Everybody knows your business in a little town, this is true. And if you weren't born and raised here, if you just married in or moved in within the last quarter century, you're never really an insider, but if you're not too obnoxious, they'll let you stay. Everyone knows your sins, even if they're long redeemed, but they know they have their own stories that everyone knows, too, so you're ok. The thing is, if your world falls apart, you're not alone. If you land in the hospital with astronomical bills, someone is liable to throw you a benefit pancake feed or chili feed (everything is a "feed" out here, which brings to mind a big trough full of whatever the menu is!) to contribute to your need. People will show up at your door with casseroles and full meals. Food is a very popular solution to any kind of hardship, here in Small Town. Even the grumpiest old man will refill your coffee down at the cafe. It's just what you do.
There's really no place I'd rather be, thankyouverymuch.

Thoughts From a Small Town

“WHEN ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE”
Job 1:1, 13-22, 2:1-10
Faith United
October 8, 2006


Everybody knows Job
Even people who don’t read the Bible
and who aren’t religious people… know Job
Job is the name of suffering
of really horrible, hit-the-bottom, lost everything kind of suffering
We say about people, “she has the patience of Job”
saying that someone has an never ending supply of patience
I’ve never preached on Job
where do you begin?
You can’t preach on a little bit of Job
without preaching on the whole story
And this whole image of God and Satan sitting at a poker table
wagering bets on Job’s endurance and integrity
playing with his life just to prove a point
I don’t know about you, but I’m uncomfortable with that!
Job becomes a character in some tragic novel,
his life at the mercy of the sadistic whims of the writer’s pen
and so I’ve not preached on Job
but now seems to be a good time to preach on Job
with the school shootings in Amish country
the lockdowns of schools,
when I got home this week I heard my friends
son lost his 15 month battle with cancer
Bad news around the community
lost jobs, people in the hospital,
my sister-in-law on the up and down rollercoaster
of dying and rallying, back and forth
it goes on and on and on…
It seems like a good time to preach on Job
Job was the cream of the crop
he was the poster child for integrity
he’d do anything for you,
he was one of those rare individuals
who was just a good guy
Everybody could agree on that,
there was no denying that Job was an exceptional human being
But then it all falls apart….
enemies came and plundered Job’s livestock,
killed his servants,
a fire destroyed sheep and servants
other enemies came and killed
and plundered,
and then a tornado came and destroyed the house
where all of Job’s children were having a party
That would be enough to destroy anyone
but then Job was afflicted with sores all over his body
causing him great physical pain and suffering
and still Job persisted in his faith
MRS. Job came to him and said,
“what is it with you? When will you give up?
Curse God and die!”
Mrs. Job has gotten a terrible reputation in this story
as someone who was trying to tempt Job away from God
It may not surprise you that I want to stick up for the woman…
Consider Mrs. Job…
She has just lost 500 oxen, 70,000 sheep, 3000 camels
all her servants, 7 sons and 3 daughters…
it’s a wonder the woman is still standing upright
and on top of that, her husband is suddenly afflicted
with terrible physical suffering
and ugly boils on his skin
that she can do nothing about
Give her a break
The woman has a right to lose it, I’d say
She can’t stand to see her husband suffering
on top of everything else she’s lost
She says, “Curse God and die.”
It sounds harsh, but in the Hebrew, the word that is translated “curse”
literally means “bless”
so she’s really saying, “bless God and die!”
So maybe she’s tired of the endless suffering
maybe she sees her husband undergoing a slow death
maybe she just wants to end the misery
turn off the machines, you might say
Bless God and die, give it up, Job, just go to sleep and don’t wake up
Have you ever known Mrs. Job?
The person who has suffered an immeasurable amount
and just loses it?
I’ve met her many times
You just can’t blame her for going over the edge
for being weary of the pain
of thinking death would be a welcome blessing
for the one she loves who has suffered so much, too much already
Job is sitting among the ashes
It’s a painful image
a man sitting among the ashes…
Have you ever been there?
After a loss? After some indescribable pain?
All you can do is sit in the ashes and feel the weight of it
for the time being
Yet even in the ashes, Job says, “Shall we receive the good
at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?”
Good question
When life hits us hard in the stomach
our first inclination is to blame God
or say, what have I done to deserve this?
Many people immediately blame God
seek a reason for the pain
there HAS to be a reason
It’s human nature
The story of Job is considered an Old Testament parable
it’s part of the Wisdom literature of the Bible
which includes Proverbs and Ecclesiastes
Literature that examines the nature of the world and life
and the meaning of it all
The story of Job looks at human suffering
and at faith in the midst of suffering
“There once was a man in the land of Uz
whose name was Job…
one who feared God and turned away from evil….”
At first Job seems too good to be true
but after he rebukes Mrs. Job about giving up
Job himself does give up
He curses the day he was born
he starts to really feel sorry for himself
he starts to rail against the universe
and the unfairness of his demise
In the midst of this, comes three friends
and if you read the book of Job
you’ll see that these are friends that
no one wants to have when the chips are down
But they are also very familiar people
we know them in our own time
They start off fine, they simply come and sit with Job
for 7 days and 7 nights,
and they don’t say a word,
because there is nothing to say
they just sit with him
And that’s the last good thing they really did for Job
Then they opened their mouths…
In a way, having to listen to his friend’s speeches
is probably more painful to him
than all the sores on his body
But we understand his friends, too, I think
We need to make sense of everything that happens to us
I heard someone say this week
about the Amish girls who died,
‘well, it must have been their time,
and if it was their time, then what could be done?’
I don’t mind saying that that kind of talk makes me physically sick
The belief that God would will the murder of innocent little girls
who live in a peaceful community
where they believe nothing bad can happen
That is not God’s will
But we have to make sense of the senseless, don’t we?
It was no different in Job’s day
The image of God was one of a God who rewards the faithful
if you’re good, you prosper
you get rich; you have servants, livestock,
many children, you have everything
The belief in Job’s day
was that wealth was a sign of God’s favor
and poverty and suffering were a sign of God’s punishment
Is it so different today?
There are books and DVDs sold,
tickets sold in coliseums to hear so-called Christian speakers
speak about what is known as the Prosperity Gospel
The belief that God wants you to be rich
and that if you are right with God, you will prosper greatly
and avoid unnecessary suffering
Well, as my seminary professor used to say,
that’s just BOVINE EXCREMENT
What about Jesus?
Jesus, the center of our Gospel, our faith?
Jesus was born into a poor family,
lived as a homeless man his short life
and then died an excruciating death
for crimes he did not commit?
Doesn’t sound like Jesus was the epitome of success!
And Jesus preached that things weren’t as important as people
that things weren’t as important as the Kingdom of God
that as Christians we are to serve the poor,
reach out to the least of these wherever they are
and serve the Kingdom on this earth
often at the expense of our reputations,
our success by the world’s standards,
and sometimes even at the risk of our lives…
No where in Jesus’ teachings or in his life and ministry
do I see him leading us to look out for ourselves,
pad our own bank accounts
and pursue wealth for the sake of wealth
But that was the belief in Job’s day, too
If you’re good, you’ll do well
If you suffer, you’ve made God mad
So Job’s so-called friends
spend many, many chapters trying to get him to repent of sins
he hasn’t committed
they are torturing him with words,
trying to get him to acknowledge what a faithless
scumbag he must be
to have suffered this much …
And Job gets mad
Even Job
Job is faithful and upright and resists evil
but when he’s sitting in the ashes
he starts to get bitter, frustrated and hostile
He rails against his suffering
He wants an audience with God
to ask, what are you doing to me??
What have I done to deserve this?
Have you ever been there?
I have
Either for myself or for someone I love
Maybe I’ve told you about Larry’s father’s funeral
Larry’s father died suddenly after a three-month battle
with cancer
At the viewing, one of Larry’s crazy Aunts came through the line
and said to Larry’s Mom, who was devastated at her loss,
“Oh Bea, you should be rejoicing! Jim is dancing in heaven
and it is glorious!
Why, I’ve been to heaven three times, and I tell you it’s beautiful!
You should be rejoicing for Jim, not weeping!”
Not helpful,
and Larry commented later that he wondered why
if she was so faithful, why heaven turned her away three times
that that’s not something to brag about….
The thing we see in Job’s story
is that he suffered for no good reason
his suffering was NOT just at all
He was a good man, a man of incredible integrity
He didn’t deserve such evil and pain
There was no good reason for Job’s suffering
Suffering happens
We live in a world so bent out of shape by evil
No matter how good we are, we will be touched by that evil
It’s everywhere, all around us
The evil that others commit,
the things that have gone wrong with our world
all have an effect on us
the drunk driver, the poisons in the air and water,
the insanity of some people who have gone over the edge
and have access to weapons
the greed for power, the hunger for violence
the disregard for the stranger across the world
All of it adds up
all of it touches us
The story of Job doesn’t ever answer the question
why do bad things happen to good people?
There is no definitive answer
And what would we do if there was?
In her novel, “The Kitchen God’s Wife”,
Amy Tan’s fictional character says,
“my father had died of stomach cancer when I was 14
and for years my mother would search in her mind
for the causes, as if she could still undo the disaster
by finding the reason why it occurred
in the first place.”
Sometimes, we just have to say,
it is what it is.
And it hurts, and we can’t imagine that hell could feel any worse
than what we’ve experienced
Grief is not a simple thing
it’s an ongoing thing, a journey of sorts
You never get rid of grief completely,
when you’ve suffered terrible loss
At first, Job is confident, then he gets really bitter and angry
he curses the day he was born
and begs God to just kill him
rather than let him suffer
But in the end, despite everything, Job finds peace
He never gets an answer as to why he ever had to suffer at all
Suffering happens
especially in this world
In his book, “Farewell to Arms,” Ernest Hemingway writes:
“The world breaks everyone, and then some become strong
in the broken places.”
It’s a tough world to live in
It always has been
So what’s the good news?
Where’s the hope?
In Chapter 38, after all this long-suffering
and really annoying speeches by Job’s so-called friends,
God speaks to Job out of the whirlwind
God speaks to Job of creation
of the complexities of the world
the very mysteries of the universe
that are beyond human comprehension
God asks Job impossible questions
and therefore draws him deeper and deeper
into mystery and awe
and through that, despite everything,
or maybe because of everything,
Job is drawn into a deeper communion with this awesome God
the very author of the universes
Job is not a speck of worthless dust to God
but God cares so much for Job
that he reveals himself personally to Job
and shares with him the great vastness of all creation
God was angry at Job’s pious friends
for saying things about God that are not true
for making God out to be some sadistic force in the heavens
ready to lash out and destroy Job for petty sins
But in the end, Job prayed for God to show mercy on their friends
perhaps he said to God,
“forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
We don’t have all the answers,
and apparently God’s not going to give them to us in this life
as we struggle through this imperfect world
seeking glimpses of God’s eternity
We live in a very painful world
Unfortunately, we know what happens every minute of every day
24 hours a day
and that’s just too much for any human being to take
The truth is, the world has always been painful
life has always been unjust
and I believe God weeps with us
over the lives of those little girls in Lancaster, PA
as God weeps over the lives lost every day in
Iraq, Afghanistan, the Sudan, the United States
those who suffer incredible loss and injustice
What can we possibly do? It’s too much,
there’s always too much
that sometimes we just shut down
for the sake of our hearts
Yet we know our hope is in Jesus
who cares so much that he came here himself
to suffer our pain, to be a victim of our injustice
and to die our death
In the worst of times, when we sit in the ashes ourselves
we can know that Jesus is there with us
and will be with us always
And we can be there for each other
to be God with skin on for others who are sitting in the ashes
and offering the hope that life comes after death
and that joy comes in the morning…
Together we can help each other see that day ahead
when there will be no more tears, no more death
no more senseless suffering
but only the glory of God all around….

Sermon: The Way of Wisdom

“THE WAY OF WISDOM”
Proverbs 1:22-33
Faith United
September 17, 2006


The voice of Wisdom speaks,
in Chapter 8 of Proverbs, verses 22-36:
“The Lord created me at the beginning of his work;
the first of his acts of long ago.
Ages ago I was set up, at the first,
before the beginning
of the earth.
When there were no depths I was brought forth
when there were no springs abounding with water
Before the mountains had been shaped
before the hills, I was brought forth—
When he had not yet made earth and fields
or the world’s first bits of soil.
When he established the heavens
I was there,
when he drew a circle on the face of the deep,
when he made firm the skies above,
when he established the fountains of the deep,
When he assigned to the sea its limit
so that the waters might not transgress his command,
When he marked out the foundations of the earth
then I was beside him, like a master worker
And I was his daily delight
rejoicing before him always,
rejoicing in his inhabited world
and delighting in the human race
And now, my children, listen to me:
Happy are those who keep my ways
hear instruction and be wise,
and do not neglect it,
Happy is the one who listens to me
watching daily at my gates
waiting beside my doors.
For whoever finds me finds life
and obtains favor from the Lord
but those who miss me injure themselves
all who hate me love death.”

Does any of that sound familiar?
It reminded me of the Gospel of John, ch. 1:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God
And the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God.
All things came into being through him
And without him not one thing came into being
What has come into being in him was life,
the life was the light of all people
The light shines in the darkness
and the darkness did not overcome it.”

The Word was in the beginning with God. alll things came into being through that Word . and what came into being was life. Wisdom, according to Proverbs, was also in the beginning with God, there at creation. The creation of Wisdom was the first of God’s acts;
before there were springs of water, before there were depths --no earth, no fields, no soil --
Wisdom was there, when the heavens were made, when the skies were formed and the seas given its boundaries….
There Wisdom was beside God,
like a master worker
daily God’s delight,
dancing and rejoicing….
So, who is Wisdom?
Well, when I decided to preach on this passage, I don’t think I realized what I was getting into.
This is too huge a subject for just one sermon, so consider this only a brief introduction.
Another reason I felt intimidated by this passage is because of its connotations.
Wisdom is the English translation of the Hebrew word, “Chokmah,” or the Greek word, Sophia….
Some of you may remember, back in 1993, there was huge, nasty controversy over a women’s conference in Minnesota that focused a lot on Wisdom, or Sophia. Some national officers of the United Methodist Women were there, some Presbyertians-- many from other mainline churches were there-- and they returned homefrom that conference to a firestorm. I wasn't there, so I don't know the particulars of what happened, but I saw the fallout. The media got ahold of this conference and made it out to be some sort of pagan festival that people were worshipping a goddess named Sophia. It was plastered all over the papers and the news. Churches threatened to pull their support of United Methodist Women and their Presbyterian sisters, just because these women attended this conference.
I was in my first year of full-time ministry out of seminary serving way out in the middle of nowhere in Guide Rock, Nebraska. At the time, I'd only heard about this controversy via the media, and it was far removed from life in a little town of just 200 people…
You know how the media can crucify people and events …
So to many in the Church, the very word “Sophia” is a frightening thing and conjures up only the madness of that time in the mainline church. But Sophia is the Greek word for Wisdom, which if you start looking, is everywhere in the Bible. In Proverbs 1, she is crying out in the streets, at the gates of the city where prophets speak, where prostitutes call to potential customers. In other words, she is where the action is, where all of life is. Wisdom is in the center of life, in the everyday-ness, calling out for people to listen. Nobody can claim that he or she has not heard Wisdom’s voice or that they did not know, for she is everywhere, calling to all God’s people.
Wisdom, or Sophia, is anything but new…but she hasn’t been talked about much for a long time and lately that is changing…Wisdom literature in the Bible began this feminine reference to Sophia between 33 B.C. and 4 A.D. --within the decades leading up to Jesus’ birth. Joyce Rupp, who is a Christian spirituality author writes that there are only 4 other figures who are mentioned more than Sophia in the Old Testament: and those are Yahweh, Moses, David and Job.
That’s all..
So how come we’ve never heard of her?? How come she’s been so well-hidden?
Looking further into the subject, I learned that Sophia was a key figure in the early church --the church during the first two centuries after Jesus’ death and resurrection. At the same time, there were many Greek and Egyptian cults that prayed to pagan goddesses. The early church was afraid that people would get Sophia mixed up with the goddesses of the pagans. Also, there were other religions that were considered heresy at the time, and the church didn’t want to be confused with those heresies.
The Jewish philosopher named Philo, who lived during the first century, wrote a lot about Sophia… he wrote that Yahweh created Sophia first and then God created Logos, The Word, as a balancing companion to Sophia. In other words, God created male and female manifestations
of spirit, of word… and Philo envisioned those two working together in shaping creation:
Sophia, the feminine manifestation of God, and the Logos, or Word, the masculine manifestation of God, whom we believe came into physical incarnation in the person of Jesus
So, essentially, Sophia or Wisdom was hidden, or thrown out because as the Early Church was forming in those first few centuries, it was trying to distinguish itself from the pagan cults around it, and leaders of the Church were afraid that the teachings about Sophia would make them resemble some elements of pagan heresies. As such fears grew through Church history, good things were thrown out, or buried away in the attic of history. It is nothing short of miraculous that the writings in the voice of Wisdom were saved in the books of Proverbs, because much of Proverbs has a negative attitude toward women. But the voice of Wisdom promises true life for all those who seek her and follow her ways. Chapter 3 of Proverbs says:
“My child, do not forget my teaching
but let your heart keep my commandments
for length of days and years of life and abundant welfare
they will give you.”
Verse 15 of chapter 3:
“She is more precious than jewels
and nothing you desire can compare with her.”
Those are words that have been used in reference to Jesus…

Verse 18: “she is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her,
those who hold her fast are called happy.”

In my Bible, the Oxford Study Bible in the New Revised Standard Version, it has books in the middle of the Testaments called the Apocrapha, which means “things that are hidden.”
These books are still a part of the Roman Catholic Bible . Many of them were written during the same time as the books of the Bible that we’re more familiar with. For the first 1500 years, they were a part of the whole Bible, until the Protestant Reformation when these books were taken out of the Protestant bibles. There are still other books that are resurfacing, that were literally buried by monks centuries ago to keep them safe from those who would burn them, and are only in the past few decades coming to our attention. Books like the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, The Gospel of Philip, The Gospel of Thomas ...
But in the Apocrapha, which is still an accepted group of books in the Roman Catholic Church, there is still more about Wisdom or Sophia. In Chapter 10 of the Wisdom of Solomon,
Wisdom is described as being there at the creation; in the beginning, when man and woman was first formed. When the first murder was committed. At the tower of Babel. Wisdom was with all those whom we know about --Abraham, Jacob, the Israelites, Moses, and the people wandering in the wilderness. She gave guidance, it says. She gave life and protection and commandments. She was there with Joseph, She was in the burning bush that spoke to Moses.
She guided the people in a flame by night and a cloud by day….
So who is She?
Who is Wisdom?
Like I said, I can’t possibly do justice to the subject in one sermon, but once you start digging, you find many, many treasures; as is true any time you start digging deeper into the vast abundance of God.
Why does Sophia make people so nervous? Is it because we’re so used to images of God as an old white headed, long bearded man in a tunic? Think of the people in your life that you think of as wise. People whom you trust to guide you in life, give you help in finding your way.
Perhaps it was a grandfather or grandmother, or aunt or uncle or family friend. The people whom I trust the most as wise are people who have been there, been through it, who know what pain and struggle is and yet have come out the other side knowing a whole lot more about hope and God. Some of them are male, and some of them are female. I am a woman, but I am a lot like my father. I share a lot of characteristics with my Dad (and trust me, I didn’t always want to acknowledge that!) I’ve taken the best of both of my parents , male and female, mother and father, and together they made me. They are a huge part of who I am, for better and worse.
Girls need strong women in their lives to help them on their way, and we also benefit from the perspective of men. Boys need strong and good male role models in their lives, but they also need the influence of a strong female presence. We all need both in order to be whole and healthy, and obviously we don’t always get it from our parents, but from the many people God puts in our lives to help shape us into who we are. So why would God be any less?
I am not in any way saying that God is not Father but that God is more than Father. And the introduction of Holy Wisdom or Sophia reveals some of that to us. Jesus-- according to Paul in Corinthians-- Jesus is the Wisdom of God. So many people believe that the Word in John and Wisdom in Proverbs are two parts of the same thing, working together, balancing each other. Because God created us all in God’s image. God created us male and female.
Someone once asked me, if God created us male and female, and God created us in God’s image, how can God just be male? Or, this woman asked, if God is male, how can I be made in God’s image?
And it’s true that for many centuries, people believed that only men were made in the image of God, since God was believed to be male. What we believe about God powerfully impacts what we believe about each other, after all…. and how we see the world.
Some of us know the hard way that talking about God can be a very dangerous thing
Wars are fought over it. Churches can be split over it, the media can destroy people’s lives over the subject. But Wisdom in Proverbs 1 cries out in the midst of life, in the midst of real life, everyday life,
“How long, o simple ones, will you love being simple?
How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing?
And fools hate knowledge?
I will pour out my thoughts to you
I will make my words known to you…”

In Chapter 8, Wisdom calls on the heights, beside the way at the crossroads….
Have you ever been at a crossroads? That place where you know you can’t keep going the way you’ve been going or it’ll kill you, and yet there are still so many possibilities in front of you, how do you know where to go? How do you know which turn to take? How do you keep from making another mistake?
Wisdom, a mouthpiece for God, a voice for God, stands at the crossroads, calling to us, seeking to guide us in the way that God wants us to go; luring, loving, inviting, seeking, and calling.... but if we keep shutting the voice of wisdom out, we’ll only have ourselves to blame. If we choose to not seek knowledge, to not look diligently for God, and trust God to direct our paths, than we will not find life… the life that comes in seeking out Wisdom with everything we’ve got,
like the treasure hidden in a field,
like the pearl of great price.
Wisdom calls us to seek God, to risk everything in that search, to risk being changed and redeemed, to risk growing beyond what we can imagine, to discover the treasures of life that God keeps on revealing to us if only we’ll listen….
If you read much of the literature that speaks of Sophia or Wisdom, you can hear the echoes of Jesus. You can see the influence of this mysterious Wisdom on the one we call the Word of God in the flesh. God is so much more than we can imagine -- it helps to have a poet’s heart when speaking of the things of God. We will never get anywhere near the end of the riches of God and all there is to know and discover of God. Documents written at the same time as the Gospels are still being unearthed, revealing to us simply that there is always so much more … when it comes to God’s wisdom.

The Wisdom of Solomon Chapter 7: 24-30:
“For wisdom is more mobile than any motion
because of her pureness she pervades and penetrates
all things.
For she is a breath of the power of God
and a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty;
therefore nothing defiled gains entrance into her.
For she is a reflection of eternal light
a spotless mirror of the working of God,
and an image of his goodness.
Although she is but one, she can do all things,
and while remaining in herself, she renews all things;
in every generation she passes into holy souls
and makes them friends of God and prophets;
for God loves nothing so much as
the person who lives with wisdom.
She is more beautiful than the sun,
and excels every constellation of the stars.
Compared with the light she is found to be superior
for it is succeeded by the night,
but against wisdom evil does not prevail….”

And I would add… Thanks be to God.

Open Minds, Open Hearts, Open Doors

james 2:1-10, 14-17
September 10, 2006

Don't you hate a smarty-pants? I mean that person who tells it like it is-- doesn't mince words, says what they think? They may even say the things you wish you had the nerve to say, but nobody wants to be known as a big mouth.
Well, James is one of those. He's like that pebble in your shoe. Martin Luther, the leader of the Reformation, thought the book of James was useless, if it were up to him, he would have left James out of the Bible entirely. James calls us to accountability, and that's uncomfortable. Essentially he's saying, "practice what you preach, people!" And we would agree, but we don't like it when somebody points out that we may not be practicing what we preach.
Some of you know, that like any other organization, the United Methodist Church has come up with a slogan. Everybody knows that the mainline church is declining in numbers, and so there's a campaign to try to reverse that. Maybe you've seen the well-done commercials on CNN and other cable stations through the year, advertising the UMC and what we stand for. In the past few years, they've come up with the slogan, "Open Minds, Open Hearts, Open Doors..." to define what we are about as United Methodist Christians.
I wonder what James would say to us about that slogan? We say it, but do we do it?
And I don't mean United Methodists only, I mean any church that professes Jesus Christ, that claims to follow his teachings. Do we live out what we believe? Do we practice what we preach?? Not just the church, but as individual Christians?
I went to a Christian College back in the mid-80s. I went to the first one that sent me a catalog, I didn't really look into it, didn't shop around, I figured all Christian colleges would be the same. I just wanted to be with like-minded people. I hoped it would be like summer camp for 4 years. I was a nerd in high school, a goody-two shoes, and I wanted to go to a college where I fit in better. I assumed I'd find that at a Christian college. I figured we'd all get along, support one another, encourage one another and build one another up.
The very first day I was on campus, I was told, #1 that the United Methodist Church was going to hell, and #2, that God doesn't call women into ministry and it's precisely because they ordain women, that the UMC is destined for hell. Hmm.
College ended up being a difficult experience, to say the least. I was not one to rock the boat or speak up back then, so at that time I gave up on my call to ministry and tried to fit in. However, during the spring semester of my junior year, I had to take a class called Methods of Social Research, in which we were split up into groups and asked to come up with a group research project. I don't remember exactly how my group came up with its idea -- the others insist it was my idea, but I'm highly doubtful. What my group decided to do for our project was to dress up as punk rockers and attend 5 different churches on Sunday mornings. Three of us were the punk rockers and the other three pretended not to know us, and observed the congregations' reactions to us. We wanted to see how people would respond to the way we looked. We didn't act any differently, we carried Bibles, we sang the hymns, said the creeds, said the Lord's Prayer. We tried to behave like regular church members.
But we looked very different.
I wore skin tight, black and pink tiger-striped leggings with black lace stockings and black and gold high-heeled shoes. I had on a ripped T shirt that was splattered with multi-colored paint. Over that I wore a black sequined jacket that I got at a Thrift store, and wore matching black lace gloves and lots of chains around my neck. Hanging from my ears I had huge silver crosses. My hair was shorter then, and I loaded it up with lots of gel to make it stand up straight, highlighting it with blue hair paint. I used lots of dark eyeshadow and eyeliner around my eyes so that I looked a lot like Cat Woman, and finished it off with black lipstick.
I looked horrible.
My friend Bob had spent a lot of time on South Street in Philadelphia, which was a punk rocker's hangout, so Bob was our costume and make-up consultant. None of this was a big stretch for Bob.
It took me two hours every Sunday morning to get my make-up and hair done.
As I said, we only had 5 weeks, so we went to 5 churches. We got a variety of responses, walking into those churches. In one church, we sat down close to the front. People stared. They didn’t even try to hide their reactions. Little kids pointed at us and whispered, mothers tried to shush them. One man walked past me, took one look at me and his face screwed up in horror as he said very loudly, “My God!” and walked on.
During the sermon, the pastor gave an altar call. Nobody came forward, but he kept inviting.
When we talked to him a couple of weeks later and told him who we were, he admitted that he’d given that altar call for us specifically. His wife said she was in the back praying that we would go forward. The pastor said quite honestly that when we walked in, he took one look at my cat-like eyes and said to himself,
“There’s going to be a battle with Satan today!”
At another church, people pointed at stared, but didn’t use the Lord’s name in vain--at least in our hearing, and they didn’t come anywhere near us.
Later, we waited in the pastor’s office to speak with him--because as part of our project, we were to talk to the pastor about ways we could get involved in the church. While we were waiting, the pastor’s little boy--a cute, curly-headed blond boy, came into the office, looked up at me and grinned a toothy grin. He took my hand, placed a stick of gum in my lace gloves and folded my fingers over it, skipping away.
The whole thing became very personal. Even though we knew who we were, we all felt the reactions to us when we went to these churches. We felt the rejection, the disgust, the unwelcome. On top of that, the three of us were all people who felt unwelcome at our Christian college, even as ourselves.
Finally, we went to a United Methodist Church in downtown Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. I was a little nervous about that, being a United Methodist myself-- I wanted the UMs to look good. My hands were really sweating in those gloves that day.
Soon after we settled into our pew and tried to breathe during the announcements, the pastor got up and asked all visitors to stand. Well, there was no way we could pretend we weren’t visitors! So we stood. He asked us to introduce ourselves. The others looked at me, and in the moment I was unanimously appointed the spokesperson for the group.
We hadn’t planned on having to talk…
I gave our first names and we quickly sat down. The pastor said that he was really glad to see us and said we were “welcome.” After the benediction, I bent over to pick up my Bible, anxious to get out before the Methodists incriminated themselves! But when I looked up, I realized we were surrounded. Each end of our pew was blocked by members of the church! They came to us, asking all kinds of questions: Where did we live? Did we have jobs?
Some of them gave us their phone numbers, offering us rides to church, or a home-cooked meal. Others told us about the Young Adult Sunday School classes, and that the Youth Group needed some adult sponsors-- I thought THAT was interesting!
Again, my classmates kept their mouths shut the entire time, and I was forced to make up answers to all the questions about who we were. The pastor himself came to us, and told us that he makes a mean lasagna and that he’d love to have us over to the parsonage sometime. His wife reiterated the quality of his lasagne and said it was worth the trip!
Once we finally broke free and got back to the car we realized we’d stayed after church for an hour talking to people! All of us were moved. We all wanted to be a part of this church. We all felt welcomed and loved. It had become much more than a class project. We felt the presence of Jesus in that congregation in a profound way that changed all of us.
A couple of weeks later, we went back to the church office to speak to the pastor. We went as ourselves this time, and he didn’t recognize us at all. Again, my classmates left it up to me to tell him who we were. When I told him, he didn’t say anything at first. Then he leaned back in his chair…. and laughed!
We told him about our other church experiences, how it got to be personal, how we felt bad going into those other churches and being treated the way we were, just because of how we looked. And we told him how we felt at his church, how all of us were kind of misfits at school, how we didn’t fit in very well at our Christian school, how each of us had a hard time finding a church home while we were away at school. We told him how we all wanted to come to his church.
The pastor, Pastor Frank, stopped laughing and wiped his eyes. He told us that in another month, he was moving. In fact, he said, he was leaving the ministry altogether. He told us the church had been through some rough times during his ministry there. He'd done some unorthodox things himself in the effort to get the message of the Gospel across. One thing he’d done was dress up as a homeless man and visit each of the houses of the members of his Administrative Council. They didn’t recognize him, and every one of them refused to give him something to eat .
They were not too happy to find out later that it was him.
He did other things like that, too, that didn’t go over well. As a result, he said, the church had split. Many families had left in anger, and the ones who remained had lost hope. Some even had said that it felt like Jesus was no longer among them. Then Pastor Frank brightened up. He had an idea. He asked us to come back on a Sunday morning to tell the whole congregation what we told him. That we had experienced the love of Jesus among them
in a way that changed us and encouraged us. He told us that he believed that God had sent us to them to encourage them, to tell them that Christ was still among them, that they still had the Spirit in them….
So a couple of weeks later, we went back on a Sunday morning, dressed as ourselves. Nobody in the congregation recognized us. Nobody knew that anything special was happening that day until Pastor Frank got up and read from Hebrews about entertaining angels unaware.
Then he introduced us as someone who had a story we needed to tell them. Again, shy old me was appointed to be the first to speak; to break the news of who we were and what we’d done.
When I finally told them who we were, I paused and looked around the congregation. Slowly people smiled, then broke out into laughter, like a ripple across the congregation. Some covered their mouths. I went on to tell them how profoundly we had felt Jesus’ love for us through them… Then the others in our group got up and told their stories as well.
After the benediction, we were surrounded once again, there at the front of the church. People came up to us crying. Little old ladies told us they’d been so worried about us, that they had prayed for us after we didn't return.
One woman said, “I can’t wait to go home and tell my husband— He was here that day, and he thought you were disgusting!” And she laughed a somewhat devilish laugh.
The people thanked us, and they, too, said that they believed that God called us together through this school project, to encourage each other in the faith, and to remind each other that God loves us all.
We went to the parsonage after worship and ate some mean lasagna fixed by Pastor Frank, took pictures of him and his family, and enjoyed an afternoon of laughter and visiting.
St. Francis of Assisi once said,
“Preach the Gospel at all times,
and if necessary, use words…”
I think we all know that the most powerful way to preach the Gospel is by living it. We hear lots of words, but they mean nothing if they’re not lived out. That’s what James calls us to--to preach the Gospel with our lives.
Are our hearts, minds and doors really open?
Do we welcome the stranger?
Do we welcome the one who isn’t dressed up?
Do we cater to those who we know can make a generous offering?
Do we want new members so that we can build each other up in the Gospel, do the work of Christ in the world? Or do we want only new members who can give the church lots of money?
We all need love. We all hunger to belong, to be accepted for who we are. And we all hope that here, of all places, in God’s house, in Christ’s body, we all hope that it is HERE where we can find God in each other, and the love of Christ in each other’s embrace.
Jesus said, "when you do it to the least of these, you do it to me."
We never know when Jesus will show up or what he’ll look like when he does. So let’s not turn anyone away from the loving, life-giving arms of Jesus. Let’s live up to the commercial, to the slogans. Let’s live what we believe.... because there are lives and hearts at stake….

Sermon: "What Is There to Lose?"

WHAT IS THERE TO LOSE?
Romans 8:26-39
September 3, 2006


"All things work together for good for those who love God."
That verse reminds me of some of the sayings that we've come to know; little phrases or mantras of wisdom to get us through-- proverbs that others have passed onto us. Maybe you can think of some too:
"God doesn't give us anything we can't handle."
"It must be God's will."
"There's a reason for everything."
"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger."

Or when someone dies, people may say: "They're in a much better place." "God must have needed them more than we do." "They were just too good for this world." And many of these statements are spoken by people who have good intentions, who want to help, who just need to say something. But all too often, these statements don't work, do they? And if they don't, then sometimes we might feel guilty about questioning their truth....
"God doesn't give us anything we can't handle." Have you ever questioned that? I have! What about all those people in psychiatric wards and institutions? What about when someone takes their own life? What about the death of a spouse or a child? What about a fatal car accident?
"It must have been God's will." How is it God's will that a child suffer and die? How is it God's will for someone to get cancer? How it is God's will for anyone, much less a young person, to die in a car accident??
"There is a reason for everything." Is this true? Is there a reason for the senseless suffering and horrors that happen in the world? Do we believe in a God whose will it is to kill a child? A youth? Or to make good people suffer? Is THAT God's will? And if that's God's will, what kind of God are we talking about? Certainly not one who created all that is good and right and holy. Certainly not a God who is Good, who is Love, who is Compassion, who is Mercy. How can any form of evil be God's will?
"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." Well, I've seen plenty of people who aren't physically dead but who are walking around dead inside, traumatized by some event, some loss, some senseless tragedy. It doesn't seem to make them stronger.
The thing is, with all these statements, there are times that they ring true, but there are plenty of exceptions to all of them as well. I'm convinced that we hear the worst blasphemies when someone dies:
"God needed them more than we do." Isn't that pretty selfish of God to give us someone so precious and then snatch them away?
"They're in a much happier place." Well, that's true, but maybe right now I can't be happy for them because I want them HERE, and God knows that.
"They were too good for this world." What does that say about you and me that are still here?? Or the people that get to live long and healthy lives? Does that mean that we're not good enough for heaven?
When my friend died suddenly from cancer at the age of 39, I told God he was mistaken if he thought I could handle this. It was the first time I really doubted that God knew what he was doing, especially if God thought taking Sandie away from her family was ok for any of us. I went through a real faith crisis. People said God wouldn't give me anything that I couldn't handle! I prayed for her, she had young children who needed her. She was a good person, with a lot of good gifts to offer the world, a very loving person. There was no good reason for her to die. At the time, I couldn't handle it. I felt betrayed.
Have you been there? When you realize that all those proverbs that you memorized don't stand up to real life? When you face the exceptions to those words of wisdom?
"We know that all things work together for good for those who love God and who are called according to his purpose." One might think that if they are bombarded with tragedy then maybe they don't love God enough. Maybe they're not good enough. Another difficult passage is the verse following that, verse 29: "For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family. And those whom he predestined he also called."
When I was in college, and most of you know I went to a Christian college, my roommate was from the Christian Reforemd tradition, who believe in predestination. According to my roommate, they believed that God predestined people for heaven and some for hell, that no matter what we do in this life, if we are predestined for hell, we're doomed anyway, and so the best we can do is simply... well, hope for the best. We got into a lot of heated arguments, because as I said, how can God be good and loving and just and create people with the intention of sending them to hell?? Why would God assign heaven or hell to someone ahead of time? So that a murderer or rapist could go to heaven, while a saint goes to hell, just because God predestined it that way?
We never came to an agreement, but in my studies sine then, I've come to realize and be assured that that's not what Paul OR God intended at all. Paul never meant, I don't believe, for those words to be taken as a doctrine that God chose some and didn't choose others as if we're all a part of some cosmic game of chance. In actuality, the verse says that God foreknew us and predestined us to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. When the Bible speaks of God knowing humans, it means that God has a relationship with humans, a purpose for us and a plan. Look at the Old Testament. God had a plan all along, and people kept messing it up, kept throwing it back into God's face-- because we and they have a choice to refuse our destiny. But it is the destiny of us all to be God's children, to live according to the example of Jesus Christ. We have the opportunity to claim that and run with it or to throw it away and do our own thing.
From the beginning, God marks all of us as God's own at our baptisms. We are marked from birth as God's children. What we do with that is up to us. We are free to blow it, or to embrace it. And in time we have the opportunities to choose for ourselves whether we will claim our destiny or choose something else that will always be so much less. The whole context of Paul's letter to the Romans focuses on the struggle between doing God's will in this world and doing our own or somebody elses'. It's about the hell we often go through in order to finally claim our destiny.
"All things work together for good for those who love God and who are called according to his purpose." That doesn't mean that if we behave, we won't face trouble. A few years after pauls' letter to the Romans was written, Christians in Rome would be led into the coliseum, torn apart by wild animals for entertainment. They would huddle in the middle of the arena and pray and sing and maybe even weep as the animals move toward them while the people in the stands cheer and call for their blood. Looking into the jaws of death, those Christians would possess a peace that passed understanding, because they knew who they were, and to whom they belonged and no one can take that away. I bet they were scared! I bet they were scared to death, even in the midst of that peace of knowing God's presence; even in believing that they would soon be with Christ. We can stand firm on faith even while our legs are trembling, when our stomachs are churning and our world seems to have fallen apart. When there are no good answers to our questions.
Why do good people suffer and die? We don't know. But we do know that God understands the horror of that, for God showed up in the flesh of Jesus Christ-- the essence of goodness, holiness and perfection-- the essence of God. And Jesus' reward for staying true to the Gospel he lived and proclaimed seemed to be a vicious death at the hands of his enemies. But God raised him from the dead to say, "death never wins. Evil never wins."
Jesus walked through the fire ahead of us, to show us that life conquers death, and by his spirit, we, too, can triumph over death. If I've learned anything by growing up-- and I'm still working on it!-- it's that life is messy and unpredictable, life doesn't fit a set of easy rules, that if you do this, this will happen, and if you don't do this, that won't happen. It's not that simple, in fact, life is sometimes very hard and disappointing, but that doesn't make the promises any less true. Human proverbs don't stand up to the reality of this world, but God's promises ultimately do.
Verse 35 says, "as it is written, for your sake we are being killed all day long, we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered." It's a quote from Psalm 44, verse 22. It's a psalm of God's people trying to do God's will in a world that seems awfully allergic to it! It's a psalm of unshakeable trust in God no matter what, it's about how trying to do God's will in this world will put us at odds with the rest of the world, but we will go on trusting God nonetheless.
My friend John in Florida once said to me, "The impossible just takes a little longer." And that's one of my new proverbs. The impossible just takes a little bit longer....
because.... "who will separate us from the love of Christ? Hardship, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril or sword? No... in all these things we are more than conquerers through Him who loved us. For I am convinced (and Paul ought to know!) that neither death nor life nor angels nor rulers nor power nor height nor depth nor anything else in all of creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord..."
What have we got to lose?

Small Is Tremendous

A WORD FROM PEGGY

A few weeks ago we went to the Concert at Harmon Park in Kearney, to listen to Zoe Lewis and The Rubber Band. The name itself was worth going for! However, they proved to be a delight, with their music and their stories. It was FUN. One of the songs that has stuck with me is “Small is Tremendous.” Part of this is due to the fact that as Zoe sang out, “It’s the little things!” the audience responded loudly with “that make the biggest sense!” But it’s true, isn’t it? Think about it. It is the little things. As we listened to the music, I noticed two little girls dancing their hearts out in the grass near the stage. They were lost in joy, waving their arms, giggling, their curls bouncing, their feet shoeless, and they just let the music scoop them up and take them somewhere beautiful.
Music is one of those “little things” that keeps me going. It soothes me when I’m anxious, it inspires me when I’m dull, it gives me joy. It connects me to people. It’s easy to forget what’s most important in this life, when there’s so many “big” things coming at us: bills, terrorism, war, taxes, stress at work, stress at home, etc., etc. It’s easy to get consumed by all that and lose our vision. But it’s the little things that make the biggest sense. A new baby, wide-eyed and drooling on their mother’s shoulder in a restaurant. A little kid who catches your eye at a reception and starts playing hide and seek with you behind their father’s leg. The joy of people being together, laughing, teasing, telling stories, loving each other by simply being there with one another. Hearing about one of your own doing mission work in New Orleans, and helping to support him. Having your child get through their first day of junior high and still smiling! Seeing someone come out of their shell a bit and try something new. Realizing you have a friend who would do anything for you, and you for them. Having your 12 year old say, “let’s do something together as a family.”
Larry and I went tent-camping for a few days for our 15th anniversary. Wow. Three whole days, just the two of us! It was delicious. I love camping. Everything takes time, you can’t rush it. You have to work together to get the tent up, or to get food prepared. You need to gather wood and sticks to make a fire, and it’s a wonderful feeling when it finally burns!! You have to slow down to camp. We met a couple from California who were moving to North Carolina in a well-used camper. We met a retired state trooper who told us a story of realizing he was laying on a bull snake when he was doing a stake-out. We met bikers coming back from Sturgis with their brand new T-shirts.
Mustard seeds. Jesus likes the little things too. Because he knows it’s the little things that make the bigger things possible. A kind word. A gentle touch. A friend for life. Having someone love you for who you are. A cup of coffee with your favorite people. A broken friendship mended, the past forgiven. Sitting around a campfire with people you love. Seeing your family in Christ every Sunday and at potlucks and Bible Studies and birthday parties and anniversary celebrations and at the Concert in the Park. There’s a lot of things in this crazy world that don’t make sense. But it is indeed the little things that make the biggest sense!
Peggy

Sermon: "When We Give Up" 8/27/06

“WHEN WE GIVE UP”
John 5:1-9
Faith United
August 27, 2006


My father had a lot of stories from his ministry over the years
but one story in particular was famous in our family
Dad was notorious for being complimentary
to the point of being ridiculous
My oldest brother, as a child, tells how he went along on a visit with my Dad
to the home of a woman who was bed-ridden
She looked terrible, she didn’t eat properly, she was in bad shape
and my father would always say to her,
“Millie, you’re looking great!”
Well, Millie never looked great….
But Dad told us Millie’s tragic story
When Millie was a young woman,
she went out for a ride with her husband
on a Sunday afternoon
Something ran out into the road, perhaps an animal of some sort
and her husband slammed on the brakes
causing Millie to be thrown forward and bump her head
It didn’t even cause a mark on her forehead,
there was no blood,
and after she recovered from the sudden surprise,
she rubbed her head and insisted her husband take her home
When she got home, Millie went to bed… and never got up
Doctors came to the house and examined her
insisting that absolutely nothing was wrong with her physically
She’d get mad and insist on getting yet another doctor
Millie spent her and her husband’s entire savings on doctors
till at the end of her life, they had nothing
Still, doctor after doctor, nurse after nurse, insisted
there was nothing physically wrong with Millie
and yet she refused to get out of bed… for 50 years
until she died of natural causes…
Nobody ever figured out exactly why Millie chose
to spend the rest of her life in bed,
but still my father would visit her faithfully and say
“Millie, you’re looking good these days!”
to which Millie would just shake her head, roll over
and groan….
We don’t know much about the man by the pool
We don’t know his name
but he was one among many that day, there by the pool
It was a holy place
Perhaps a bit like the spring at Lourdes in France
to which thousands make a pilgrimage each year
This was the Pool of Bethzatha, some translations call it Bethsaida
still others call it Bethesda
and I read somewhere that when Franklin D. Roosevelt
was driven through Bethesda, Maryland
upon hearing the name and knowing the story
of the healing pool in Jerusalem
He chose that site to build a hospital
Well, legend had it in Jesus’ time, that at certain seasons of the year,
an angel would descend and stir the waters of the pool
If someone immersed themselves in the pool
as the waters were disturbed,
it was believed they would be healed….
Sounds pretty superstitious to us, now
but they took it very seriously
and beliefs like that were very common back then
and still are in some places…
The ancient peoples also believed in the holiness of water
especially the holiness of rivers and springs
water was very precious
Because it wasn’t as easily accessible as it is for us
now, in the United States…
You can imagine how the congregation looked every day
at the healing pool…
The crippled, the arthritic, the paralyzed, the diseased,
the epileptic, the asthmatic, the weak, the broken
the hopeless, all gathered among the five porticoes
around the pool
day after day after day
To the sensitive soul, it was a miserable place
a massive display of human suffering and pain
Every day, the man came, just like the others,
how, we’re not sure,
but somebody must have carried him on his mat
and left him there to fend for himself
perhaps scoffing at his futile attempts
After 38 years, or even much less than that
you’d think he’d give up
why bother?
On the other hand, what else did he have to do?
If he had no friends, he was paralyzed
he had focused on getting well and that alone
for 38 years,
then what else was there in his life?
Some scholars suggest that the 38 years parallel
the amount of years the Israelites spent wandering in the desert
after having escaped Egypt
Some say the journey took 38 years
because the Moses was a man and wouldn’t ask for directions!
But this man with no name also lived in the wilderness
his life for 38 years
had been so empty, with no direction
day after day, hour after hour
waiting for healing that just didn’t come
I wonder, did Jesus recognize him?
If he’d been there for 38 years,
then perhaps Jesus had seen him before
on his visits to Jerusalem, even as a boy
It says Jesus knew that he’d been there a long time
maybe he did recognize him
But I wonder, why didn’t anyone have pity on him?
Did someone drop him off every day?
And if so, why didn’t they stay and dip him in the waters of healing and grace?
“Do you want to be healed?” Jesus asked
And it sounds like a dumb question, even a bit cruel
Would he be here if he didn’t want healing?
Would he keep coming somehow if he didn’t really
want to be healed?
“Sir,” he said, “I have no one to put me into the pool
when the water is stirred up,
and while I am making my way, someone else
steps down ahead of me.”
It’s painful---‘Sir,’ he says, ‘I have no friends to help me…’
His mat was there, the mat that he used as a bed
the mat that carried him for the last 38 years
but who carried the mat to this place?
And why didn’t anyone else, who brought sick loved ones to the pool,
why didn’t THEY help him get in the water?
Isn’t it true that sometimes we get so used to the way things are
that we no longer see what’s wrong with the picture?
“Do you WANT to be made well?”
The man never answered the question
He simply gave his excuse as to why he wasn’t well
why he still sat by the pool, still paralyzed by some unseen curse
He didn’t say “yes”
He just told Jesus what he had probably told countless others
It wasn’t his fault, it was always somebody else’s fault
that he couldn’t have a life, that he couldn’t be healed
After 38 years, I imagine he was very bitter about his lot in life
and so the question that Jesus asks is an honest one
“Do you WANT to be made well?”
Have you ever been stuck?
Stuck in a bad situation?
With an illness that takes all your strength—
whether physical or emotional,
a bad marriage, a bad friendship, a bad job….
and you see no way out?
It’s easy to just give up
say, well, it is the way it is, I have no choice…
maybe they were told they’d only live a certain amount of time
or maybe they was a family trait that was inevitable
or maybe they were told over and over that they were losers anyway
that they’d never amount to anything
She would always attract men that beat her
he would never be able to give up drinking
he would never get off welfare
never get an education,
never get a decent job
Why bother?
“Do you want to be made well?”
And there’s that voice in our heads sometimes
that says, “I’ll always be this way, I can’t change.”
“Do you want to be made well?”
Jesus asks the poor, paralyzed man laying on his side,
his eyes watery and bloodshot
staring into the pool that was so close,
and yet too far….
Did you notice, though, the man never asked for healing?
He didn’t even ask Jesus to put him in the water
to stay with him until the water was stirred…
Maybe Jesus knew something…
He knew that being healed would not be instantly wonderful
being healed would change everything
The man would have to see himself in a whole new light…
Not as a poor, helpless, invisible, neglected paralyzed man
but someone with the freedom to walk, to stand up and MOVE…
to DO something… to LIVE
Is that what really kept him out of the troubled waters of the pool?
Is that what kept him from asking for help?
What would it mean to his life for him to be healed?
…to stand up and WALK??
To look people in the eye, face to face
instead of always looking up at them from the ground?
It’s a good question for all of us…
“do you want to be made well?”
Is it worth it to you to be healed?
Especially when it will change everything?
The door will be open, the path made clear
No more excuses about why you’re unhappy or broken
or stuck…
If we’re given the freedom to walk, to stand up and move
then suddenly we have to take responsibility for what we do
and what we don’t do
It’s no longer someone else’s fault
“Do you want to be healed?” Jesus says
And the man doesn’t answer… it’s a big question
all he can see are all the reasons why healing isn’t possible for him
But Jesus says, “Stand up, take up your mat, and WALK!”
Jesus looks down at this shriveled man
laying on the hard ground
and tells him to do the impossible
Stand up…. take up your mat, and Walk!
Pick up the mat that has carried you all these years
and YOU carry IT
and get moving…
The man must have looked at him like he was crazy!
Perhaps Jesus was the first one to really look at him
to see him out of the many
to have the audacity and the compassion
to bluntly ask him,
“do you WANT to be made well?”
Immediately, it says, the man was set free
He stood up, something he hadn’t done in 38 years!
He took up the mat that he laid on, and that man… walked
Heads turned.. “isn’t that…?” “No, it can’t be..” “The man, lying by the pool….”
“But… how?”
Well, you’d think there would be an uproar, a cheer
A celebration
The man who was a permanent fixture by the pool
was now walking!
The one who people turned away from
because he was too painful to look at, too pitiful…
How did it happen? Certainly they clapped him on the back,
gave him a hug, lifted him above their shoulders
gave thanks to God for making the impossible possible!!
Well, no…
Actually, he hadn’t walked very far, didn’t even get any blisters
before some church people approached him and
said to this man-- who hadn’t walked for 38 years
who hadn’t carried anything on any day of the week
for 38 years---
The people of the church pointed their self-righteous fingers
and said,
“don’t you know that today is the Sabbath??
It is not lawful for you to carry your mat on the Sabbath!!”
and they waved their Bibles at him…
Being healed, being set free can get us into trouble
Other people don’t like it when somebody else gets a good thing
Well, the poor guy, in his usual form, said, “I didn’t do it!
That man TOLD me to! He told me to stand up
and take my mat and walk!”
Jesus had slipped into the crowd
not wanting to call attention to himself
and now the indignant and legalistic religious people
began to search for Jesus
And thus began the witch hunt for this prophet
who claimed equality with God…
who had the audacity to set people free on the Lord’s day
When someone is set free,
when someone gets new life,
chances are there’s somebody else who isn’t happy
Someone who can’t celebrate someone else’s liberation…
And what did the man do with his new life?
Did he appreciate it?
Did he ever say “thanks”?
Did he have more compassion for the disabled
and the suffering invisible ones in the community?
Did he look at them and remember what it was like
and reach out to help them GET UP?
After 38 years he must have felt pretty useless
and maybe he was…
No where does it say that he was grateful
no where does it even say he wanted to walk…
no where is there evidence that he was a man of faith
or cared to have anything to do with Jesus
after he made him walk…
so, did he DESERVE it?
Did he DESERVE to be healed?
Did he DESERVE new life?
Do any of us DESERVE it?
It’s not about us…
it’s not about who we are, or how faithful we are
it’s all about who Jesus is
And Jesus wants abundant life for everyone
even the person we don’t see anymore
who’s been sitting on his butt for 38 years
Is there something blocking your way?
Is there something keeping you from walking
or even dancing in the footsteps of Jesus?
Keeping you from having the life that Jesus wants you to have?
“Do you want to be made well?” Jesus asks
We may give up
on our world, on our children, on our institutions
we may give up on our own lives
But Jesus never gives up
“Do you want to be made well?” he asks
And before we can even answer
we may just find ourselves doing a dance step
we didn’t think we knew….