Singing Christmas

We were singing the Christmas carols from memory. Someone would call out a name, and we would all sing the first verse together (the first verse seems to be the most we can manage from memory).

Stock photo for dramatization (not me)

The First Noel

O Come, All Ye Faithful

Hark! The Herald Angels Sing

Away in a Manger

Then someone said “Go Tell it on the Mountain” and we all started to sing the refrain:

“Go tell it on the Mountain, over the hills and everywhere;

Go tell in on the mountain…” but there was confusion at the end.

“…that Jesus Christ was born” sang some.

“…that Jesus Christ is born” sang others.

The first one makes sense. We are the carol singers, and we are singing with joy because of the day long ago when Jesus Christ was born. Past tense. It is the day we remember every year, the day when the word of God became flesh and dwelt among us.

But that isn’t how the lyrics go. We sing in present tense: “Go tell it on the mountain, that Jesus Christ is born!”

If we think about Christmas in the past tense, we miss the message. Christ comes to be among us in our own time. Christ is born in whatever place will make room for God -actually, Christ is born even if we don’t make room. Jesus said that the kingdom of God is within you. Jesus said that by reaching out to others we are reaching out to him.

Sermon - What Time It Is

Preached on December 1, 2013, the first Sunday of Advent, at First Congregational Church of Tallmadge, UCC.

Scripture: Romans 13:11-14

¹¹Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; ¹²the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; ¹³let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarrelling and jealousy. ¹⁴Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

Sermon

Living by darkness or living by daylight. Living as one asleep or waking up. The apostle Paul asks us to think about our by these stark contrasts. “The night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.” For all of the complexity of life, for all the shades of gray that we live in, sometimes it’s helpful to put life into stark terms.

Do you remember the parable of the two wolves that comes to us from the people of the First Nations? A grandparent says to the grandchild, “there are two wolves inside of you. One wolf is good, kind, patient, loving. The other wolf is evil, mean, selfish, full of hate. They are locked in a great struggle.”

The grandchild asks “which wolf will win?”

And the wise grandparent answers, “the one you feed.”

What kind of lives are we living? And what lives will we begin today? “You know what time it is,” writes Paul. “Now is the time for you to wake up.” And here is where I think that Paul’s metaphor is really helpful, because Paul recognizes that it isn’t just up to us. We are awake when the sun is out and we sleep in the darkness. We are affected by what’s going on around us, sometimes by light and sometimes by darkness.

Sermon - Mission:Impossible?

Preached on November 17, 2013 at First Congregational Church of Tallmadge, Ohio, UCC

Scripture: Isaiah 65:17-25

For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight. 

I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress. No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime; for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth, and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed. 

They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labor in vain, or bear children for calamity; for they shall be offspring blessed by the Lord— and their descendants as well. Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox; but the serpent—its food shall be dust! They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord.

Sermon

The prophet tells of God’s promise to make new heavens and a new earth on which there will be no more weeping or suffering or violence of any kind, and I wonder if it seemed to those who heard it an impossible mission. The people to whom this vision was first shared were the Israelites who had survived two generations of captivity after the empire of Babylon conquered Jerusalem, destroyed the Temple, laid waste to their fields and vineyards, and took the people away into Babylon where they handed down their grief from generation to generation. And now they returned to the words of this impossible vision given by the prophet from God. God is about to create Jerusalem as a joy and its people as a delight, and no more will there be weeping. No more will people die before old age. No more will the homes they build or the vineyards they keep be taken by someone else. No more will they cry out to God and wonder whether God has even heard their cry because God will hear before they cry and answer while they are yet speaking.

And what’s more (as if all of this weren't enough already) God’s peace will be so complete that even the wolf will stop preying on the lambs, even the lion will change to a diet of straw, and eat side by side with the ox, and the serpent always biting at our heels, the very symbol of evil, will no longer be a threat to any breathing creature. It will get by eating the dirt as it crawls.

Can we believe this? Is someone putting us on?

"What no one else knew"

A mild-mannered, retired accountant with a pristine lawn in the south of England receives a letter one day which sparks an unusual desire to walk to a town in north England. So begins a novel called The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, by Rachel Joyce. His walk becomes a journey of weeks. Along the way his character and his unusual quest invite the trust of strangers he meets. One day, while eating in a crowded city café, he shares his table and his teacake with a well-dressed man who opens up to him in a surprising way.

The silver-haired gentleman was in truth nothing like the man Harold had first imagined him to be. He was a chap like himself, with a unique pain; and yet there would be no way of knowing that if you passed him on the street, or sat opposite him in a café and did not share his teacake....  It must be the same all over England. People were buying milk, or filling their cars with petrol, or even posting letters. And what no one else knew was the appalling weight of the thing they were carrying inside. The inhuman effort it took sometimes to be normal, and a part of things that appeared both easy and everyday. The loneliness of that.   (pages 88-89)

I wonder, how life would be different if everyone wore a sign that told of the unique pain that each person carries, whether the pain is fresh or old, intense or almost forgotten. Might we be a bit more patient? More forgiving? More likely to show kindness?

When Jesus met a rich young man who was anxious about obtaining eternal life, there is a beautiful short line in the gospel: “Jesus, looking at him, loved him” (Mark 10:21). May God give us the vision to look at people in the same way.

Sermon - Lost and Found

Preached on September 15 2013 at First Congregational Church of Tallmadge, Ohio, UCC.

Scripture: Luke 15:1-10

Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. ²And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” ³So he told them this parable: ⁴“Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? ⁵When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. ⁶And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ ⁷Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. 

⁸“Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? ⁹When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ ¹⁰Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

Sermon

 

We're talking about sinners today. If you've been waiting for a sermon on sinners, this is it. We need to talk about sinners because they are...we are...sinners are the topic of these parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin and the parable that Jesus will tell next about the lost prodigal son. Sinners are the reason he told them. Or, more specifically, the grumbling of the religious leaders about Jesus welcoming sinners is the reason he told these parables.

Sinners. Jesus welcomed them; Jesus ate with them; and this upset the religious leaders of his day. Now, given that this is what Jesus does, you would think that the religion of Jesus, the religion of Christians would not have the reputation of being petty and judgmental about sins. And yet that's just what people think of the Christian church. You who are here know better. You know that the church is not petty and judgmental, not holier-than-thou or self-righteous. Well, maybe we are those things sometimes, but that's our sin, and I pray that God is saving us from that sin more and more. In general, I don't think that we deserve the reputation we have. But there it is. Polls of people who do not have a religious affiliation show that many of them perceive the Christian church as petty, judgmental, prejudiced, and unwelcoming. Just exactly the opposite of what Jesus was doing when he was criticized by the religious leaders.

They thought that he should be more judgmental - that he should have some higher standards. How will people known right from wrong if there are no consequences for sin?  Sinners must be held responsible.

But how do you hold someone responsible for being lost? And what good does it do to complain that the lost shouldn't be found?

Robert Farrar Capon

This past month, the Episcopalian priest and author Robert Farrar Capon died after a long, passionate, and good-humored life. I got to meet him once, during a weekend retreat when I was in seminary. He gave a series of lectures on the parables of Jesus in which he showed how the theme of the parables is the overwhelming grace of God. He said that God’s work to forgive and redeem the world is already done, even if it is not yet complete. I remember how he smiled as he addressed the view that we needed to do something to receive God’s grace. Don’t we need to ask forgiveness, or to believe, or to turn our lives around? “No,” he said. “God’s work of salvation is done. It’s Done. IT’S DONE!”

Here’s an excerpt from his book The Parables of the Kingdom, in which he expands on his short answer to the question of what the Bible is about:

If scripture has a single subject at all, I said, it is the mystery of the kingdom of God.

…I can think of no better way of reformulating my answer than to lean heavily on the imagery of the Revelation of St. John the Divine. Accordingly, my new version of what the Bible is about reads as follows: it is about the mystery by which the power of God works to form this world into the Holy City, the New Jerusalem that comes down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

Note, if you will, how much distance that puts between us and certain customary notions of the main subject of Scripture. It means that it is not about someplace else called heaven, nor about somebody at a distance called God. Rather, it is about, in all its thisness and placiness, and about the intimate and immediate Holy One who, at no distance from us at all, moves mysteriously to make creation both true to itself and to God.

Capon spent a life reminding people to give up the idea that it all depends on us. It depends on God, and God can be trusted.

Sermon - Everyday Encounters

Preached on September 1, 2013 at First Congregational Church of Tallmadge, Ohio, UCC.

Scripture: Hebrews 13:1-2

Let mutual love continue. ²Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.

Sermon

Is it possible to be in the presence of God and not know it?

You'd think that you would know, right? You'd think that to be directly in God's presence would be an overpowering, majestic, unmistakable experience. You'd think that it would be impossible to encounter God directly and have there be a chance of missing it, or misinterpreting it, or confusing it with something very ordinary.

But that's not necessarily the case. And the mistaken idea that encounters with God are always mind-blowing has, sadly, left too many people thinking that only other people have experienced God, or even that no one has experienced God because God doesn't exist.

But what if you could meet God and possibly not know that you had?

An anonymous writer of the very early church sent a letter to a group of Jews who had become followers of Christ. We call it the book of Hebrews, and at the end of this letter, after writing about how to understand Christ in relation to the history of the Hebrew people, the writer starts to review the kind of practices that shape a life of following Jesus. Here is the reminder to remember and visit with those who are in prison or being tortured, as happened a lot to followers of Jesus. And there are these words: “let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.”

It's actually a reference to what often happened Abraham and Sarah, the founders of the Hebrew people. They were at home in their tent when Abraham saw three men approach on foot. Now, living in the Middle East has never been easy, and travelers depended on others for hospitality. Abraham and Sarah had depended on others along the way, so they welcome these strangers, give them drinks to rehydrate, make up some food, give them a place to rest. And then, as any Hebrew child knew, the strangers told them that Sarah would become pregnant even though she and Abraham were by now quite old. And that’s what happened. It turned out that the three men were messengers of God, or angels, or God's way of meeting with people (those all mean about the same thing in the Bible, by the way. Angels were a way of God appearing to people, so the presence of an angel is the presence of God). Abraham and Sarah encountered God when they showed hospitality to those strangers, and they had no idea until they learned something that put their own lives in a new perspective. They had entertained angels without knowing it.

The Biblical scholar James Kugel writes that there are many of these instances in the scripture in which people are temporarily unaware that the stranger they have met is God (from Kugel’s The God of Old, 2003, chapter one). When they realize the truth, what they are surprised by is the message that God gives (“Sarah's going to be pregnant?”) or they are surprised that they didn't realize it sooner, as when Jacob says “surely God was in this place and I, I did not know.” But what they are not surprised by is the fact that they would encounter God in a way so ordinary, so everyday, that they might not even have noticed. They are not surprised that a God encounter could seem like an everyday encounter because they expected to encounter God in everyday life. They are not surprised, Kugel writes, because there was once a time when people did not think that there was such a strong border between the regular world and the world of divinity. Today we think of the natural world and the supernatural world as very separate (if there is one). For them, there was one world which was both natural and divine at every moment. In such a world, a person can encounter God and later say “it was just an ordinary, everyday thing that was happened, except for what I now know.”

You can encounter God in a way that seems perfectly ordinary, everyday, except that you will learn, as Sarah and Abraham did, something that puts your life in a new perspective.

Storms

Driving into the entrance of a park among the hills and gorges around Ithaca, New York, I was astounded by what the water had done. This was the morning after a heavy summer rain and the road was covered in mud, sticks, brush, debris of all kinds from the surrounding forest. A work crew with several heavy trucks and machines had already cleared most of the road and were now working to unclog pipes that run under the road to accommodate the many narrow mountain streams that had backed up and washed over the roadway during the night. Although the rain had stopped, the water continued to run down the mountains at high volume.
It was early August, and Betsy and I and our son James were in Ithaca to visit our younger son, Sam. Sam was spending the summer with the Finger Lakes Land Trust, and he had discovered many new hikes that he wanted us to see.  Sadly, most of the park’s hiking trails were closed until the damaged paths could be repaired. But first, the crew was busy clearing the way for the water to flow safely under the roads, joining with larger streams and flowing eventually into the Cayuga Lake.The water needs a place to go.It got me thinking about the storms of our lives. When our lives meet with sadness, pain, loss and anger, we can be overwhelmed by the deluge. These painful emotions wash over our lives, and, like the flood water, they have the power to do great damage to us. Our storms need a place to go. We need a safe place to direct and take the hardship that threatens to hurt us, to upend and distort our lives. We are in danger of taking out our emotions on others, or deadening our emotions with distraction and addictive consumption, or steeling ourselves away in bitterness.When storms hit, we have a clear path to take them to God. The storms are too big for us alone. We need the safety of God who can bear to know and hear all that we share in anger and confusion. The God who was there for Job, the God who wrestled with Jacob, the God who heard the cries of the Hebrew slaves in Egypt is a God who can receive our sorrow and our anger and our grief. When storms hit, we have the memory of the cross and the empty tomb. Our suffering is shared by God. Our pain is understood by God. With God, we can unleash the torrent of our misery and know that it will be safely received. And then, somehow, it will be redeemed. 

Sermon - Peace and Division

Preached on August 18, 2013 at First Congregational Church of Tallmadge, UCC.

Scripture: Luke 12:49-56

“I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided: father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”

He also said to the crowds, “When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, ‘It is going to rain’; and so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, ‘There will be scorching heat’; and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?

Sermon

When Jesus was born, the gospel of Luke tells us that the angelic host proclaimed “Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth.” When Jesus rose from the dead, he came to the room where the disciples had hidden away and greeted them with the words “Peace be with you.” Jesus is “the prince of peace” we proclaim in scripture and hymns. And yet, what peace followed in his wake? The disciples faced persecution and often violence, and Jesus himself saw conflict and cruelty rise up against him leading finally to his arrest and his execution. What gives? Is the way of Jesus a way of peace or is it a source of division? Even Jesus seems to contradict that he is the prince of peace when he says “do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No I tell you, but rather division.” And the division will go down even to the most basic of relational ties: households will be divided, parents against children and children against parents.

To get behind this question of peace and division I want to look more widely at the teaching of Jesus, and in particular one of the parables he told which is remembered in the gospel according to Luke. It is the well known parable of the prodigal son, and it’s a story we can't tell often enough. A wealthy landowner has two sons and the younger one comes to him and says “give me my share of the inheritance.” He takes his share and he leaves. Well, usually the inheritance is distributed upon the parent's death, so not only has the young son forced the family to sell off a portion of land and assets in order to give him cash to leave, he has also treated his parents as if they are already dead. This son goes off to a foreign country where he wastes all of his life's inheritance while still a young man.

He hires himself out on a farm to care for, of all things, pigs, an unclean animal among his own people. Could he fall any further than this? He’s a poor man in a foreign land caring for unclean animals, and he’s so hungry that the food they eat looks good to him. Even the most menial workers on the old family farm ate and lived better than this.  So he decides to go home, knowing he has given up rights to be the son, to at least be a hired hand. He composes a speech: “father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be your son, but take me on as one of the hired hands.” Have you ever practiced a speech? Can't you picture him walking the long way home, practicing... “father, I have sinned. Father, I'm no longer worthy. Hire me on.”

But you remember what happens. While still a long way off, the father sees him (has the father been looking for him all this time?) and he runs off down the road (running down the road is not what respectable landowners do – but he runs) and he throws his arms around his son. The son begins his speech “father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be your son, but...but...” but that's all he gets out before the father is telling his people to get a robe and shoes for this haggard son, and to put the family ring on his finger, because he was lost and is now found, and he will be restored as a son!  Not because he deserves it, but because the grace of God, the justice of God, does not work according to what we deserve but according to what will restore us as people, whatever we have done.

This kind of grace, this kind of welcome, this kind of love is what the peace of Jesus looks like. Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth. Indeed.

Except: do you remember what it does to the older brother - the brother who has stayed with his parents on what's left of the land, all of which should one day be his portion of the inheritance? The grace and peace of God which we celebrate in the father's restoration of the prodigal son is the very act that brings division between father and elder son, between son and father, brother and brother. And Jesus leaves the story unfinished. Will the elder son come in and join the party to welcome his brother home, or will he continue to act as if his brother is dead? Will there be peace in the house or will it remain in division?

Sermon - The Practice of Being Present

Preached on July 21, 2013 at First Congregational Church of Tallmadge, Ohio, UCC.

Scripture: Luke 10:38-42

Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”

Sermon

In the gospel according to John, Jesus says to his disciples “you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

I wonder if there is a truth embedded in today’s passage from Luke that we need to hear, a truth that has the power to set us free. It is the truth Jesus tells to Martha: “You are worried and distracted by many things.” Is that true of us? And might the telling of that truth set us free?

Jesus is welcomed into the home of two sisters, Mary and Martha, and Martha goes to work doing…well, doing who knows what: preparing food to share with their guest, making the home more presentable for company. The text doesn’t say, so maybe she’s returning calls from the office or catching up on email. At any rate, she’s distracted by many tasks, probably to do with hospitality because she thinks her sister should be helping. So there’s Martha, making preparations, banging things around louder than necessary to get Mary’s attention.

But Mary is sitting at the feet of Jesus, listening to his words. And let’s take a little side trip here to notice that Mary has taken the position of a disciple, a reminder to us that Jesus taught men and women, and didn’t care much for customs or traditions that excluded some people in favor of others. He approves of Mary adopting the role of a disciple. We do well to remember this.

Martha can’t stand it anymore. She has waited for Mary to get up and help, and she has finally become convinced that Jesus, at least, should not tolerate the obvious unfairness. “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself?”

And Jesus says “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things.”

Is that a truth that is needed by our culture today?

Is that a truth that we need to hear?

Practice, Practice, Practice

Faith is a practice. No one is perfect at it. That’s why we keep practicing.

I was reminded of this truth last week when I went to a Yoga class for the first time in several years. Our instructor told us that yoga is a practice, and this freed me to do as much as I could and not worry about what I couldn’t do or didn’t know. It freed me to trust that each time I came back, my practice would be fuller.

The Christian faith is a set of practices, including prayer, music, study of scripture and theology (all the things we do in worship), and also community relationships, service, forgiveness, and compassion for our neighbors. That’s just a partial list, but you get the idea. As we practice our faith, we are drawn more and more into the life of God, the eternal and abundant life that Jesus promised. It doesn’t happen all at once.

Have you heard about the “Couch to 5k” program?  It is a plan to help non-runners work up to a five kilometers. I love the name, because it recognizes the simple truth that you can’t just get up one day with no practice and run a 5k race. Couch to 5k takes nine weeks, three workouts per week. Start slow, and practice. Keep it going, and you’ll run a marathon.

Christian practice takes time. The attentiveness of prayer, the joy of celebration, the strength of our compassion, our willingness to be generous and to forgive: all of these abilities grow over time as we practice them. Often, we are already well practiced at distraction, resentment and fear, but the qualities of faith are already sown in us. To practice the faith is to uncover our real selves and let them flourish.

The Dalai Lama says that the practices of faith will make us like a strong tree with deep roots. Such a tree can well withstand even a terrible storm, but the time to grow roots is not when we see a storm on the horizon. Faith practices take time, and when we are battered by storms, we will find that our spirits are strengthened by a well-practiced attention to God, good relationships with a community, and a depth of compassion for ourselves and for others.

We are blessed by a community in which to practice our faith together.

We aren’t perfect. We practice.

Sermon - Changing the Question

Preached on July 14, 2013 at First Congregational Church of Tallmadge, Ohio, UCC.

Scripture: Luke 10:25-37

  ²⁵Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” ²⁶He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” ²⁷He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” ²⁸And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.” ²⁹But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 

³⁰Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. ³¹Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. ³²So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. ³³But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. ³⁴He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. ³⁵The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’ ³⁶Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” ³⁷He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

Sermon

It is a Jewish tradition to hold great discussions – spirited, questioning, testing, even arguing discussions -  about the scriptures, also called the law. These are discussions about how to interpret the scripture for our lives today, and we in the Christian faith continue this tradition in our own ways. In survey after survey of churchgoers about what they want from a sermon, the top answer is not history or information, not encouragement or inspiration, but simply this: apply it to our lives today.

That's what the lawyer asked of Jesus. The lawyer here is a student of the law – the scriptures – and was probably eager for any chance to discuss the law with a rabbi.  In this case it is the traveling rabbi called Jesus.  “Teacher,” he says, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Eternal life: a good place to begin the discussion. How do we inherit eternal life? Who must we be to receive eternal life? And maybe we should start with “what is eternal life?” because it is not only about life after our death, but is really about life right now.  Eternal life is a life lived in tune with the eternal God here and now. How do we receive that kind of life? How do we live that way?

And Jesus answers this question with his own question: “what is written in the law? What do you read there?”  It's typical for Jesus, in the tradition of good rabbis, to answer a question with a question.

There's an old joke about a rabbi whose disciple became so frustrated he finally burst out: “Teacher, why do you answer every question with another question?” The rabbi thought for a moment, and then answered, “why not?”

Jesus answers with a question: “what is written in the law? What do you read there?”

And the lawyer, who is a good student of the law, gives a good answer. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all of your soul, and all of your strength, and all of your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”

But that's kind of abstract, isn't it? Love your neighbor: what does that look like? And just how big a neighborhood are we talking about? Do I need to love the people next door, or do I need to go as far as my whole street, or is it bigger than that?

Sermon - Not As Expected

Preached on July 7, 2013 at First Congregational Church of Tallmadge, Ohio, UCC.

Scripture: 2 Kings 5:1-14

Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man and in high favor with his master, because by him the Lord had given victory to Aram. The man, though a mighty warrior, suffered from leprosy. Now the Arameans on one of their raids had taken a young girl captive from the land of Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife. She said to her mistress, “If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.” So Naaman went in and told his lord just what the girl from the land of Israel had said. And the king of Aram said, “Go then, and I will send along a letter to the king of Israel.” He went, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten sets of garments. He brought the letter to the king of Israel, which read, “When this letter reaches you, know that I have sent to you my servant Naaman, that you may cure him of his leprosy.” When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, “Am I God, to give death or life, that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his leprosy? Just look and see how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me.” But when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, he sent a message to the king, “Why have you torn your clothes? Let him come to me, that he may learn that there is a prophet in Israel.”

So Naaman came with his horses and chariots, and halted at the entrance of Elisha’s house. Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean.” But Naaman became angry and went away, saying, “I thought that for me he would surely come out, and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and would wave his hand over the spot, and cure the leprosy! Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them, and be clean?” He turned and went away in a rage. But his servants approached and said to him, “Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said to you was, ‘Wash, and be clean’?”So he went down and immersed himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God; his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy, and he was clean.

Sermon

In 2006, Smith Magazine invited people to a creative challenge with the question: “can you tell your life story in six words?”  Since then, they have collected thousands of these six-word memoirs, which tend to be little clues about a person’s life. 

“Made a mess. Cleaned it up.” Reads one.

From a Journalist: “I asked. They answered. I wrote.”

From a veteran: “Two tours, no injuries, thank God.”

One of my favorites, from a 13 year old: “Who says weird isn't a compliment?"

One of the best entries, which became the title of a whole book of memoirs, is this one: Not Quite What I Was Planning. Could that be the story of your life?  My guess is that it applies to a lot of us.  Not Quite What I Was Planning.

When we think back on the lives of our ancestors, we know that life was never what they planned, never what they expected. Our lives are not what we planned, and not as expected, especially when God is at work. If the Bible had a subtitle, I think it should be just that: The Bible: Not Quite What I Was Expecting.

Take today’s story from 2 Kings about Elisha the prophet healing the foreign army general called Naaman. We heard the way the healing went, but let’s step back and imagine how Naaman expected it to go. Naaman is the celebrated general of the army of Aram. He’s a war hero, a respected man in his community, with a nice home and diversified investments. Everything is going well, except that he has this terrible skin disease: leprosy.

Sermon - Freedom

Preached on June 30, 2013, at First Congregational Church of Tallmadge, Ohio, UCC.

Scripture: Galatians 5:1, 13-26

For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another. Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh.For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law. Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, competing against one another, envying one another.

Sermon

“For freedom, Christ has set us free,” Paul writes to the church of Galatians. And so Christ sets us free, just as God set the earth free in its creation, and God set the Hebrew slaves free from Egypt, and God set the nation of Israel free from exile in a foreign land, “for freedom, Christ has set you free” from anything that enslaves people; free from that which oppresses people, and free from that which keeps us in the sins of hatred, jealousy, resentment, selfishness, mistreatment of others and mistreatment of ourselves.

Christ sets us free from all of that, and Christ sets us free to live with the fruits that God’s Spirit gives.  Freedom is freedom from, and freedom to: freedom from brokenness; freedom to live full and abundant lives in the love of our neighbors.

Which version of the Bible should I read?

This was the question recently given to me, and I took it as an opportunity to produce this little response.

Devotional reading of the Bible has been a practice for individual Christians since the Protestant reformation in the 1500’s, when the Bible scriptures were translated from the Latin translation into the native languages of the people. With the developments of increased literacy and the printing press, the Bible began to be read individually by many Christians for the first time. In the past century, scholarship has learned much about the ancient Hebrew and Greek languages in which the original manuscripts were written, and this study has produced a number of good translations of the Bible into modern English. But the choices can be daunting. To the question of “which version should be read?” there isn’t one correct answer, but I will offer a short introduction and some recommendations. However, if you have a Bible that you read and which contributes to your faith practice, then keep it. That is the right one.

I recommend the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV). This translation is published by several companies with good notes to aid in understanding the meaning and context, such as the Harper-Collins Study Bible. The NRSV uses modern English language and the best of Biblical scholarship to produce an accurate, readable text.  One of the ways that this version updates to contemporary English language is to use inclusive language when referring to people (whereas the word “men” once referred to all people, it is now used to refer specifically to a group of males). The NRSV makes references to men and women clear.  I can also recommend the New Jerusalem Bibl (NJB) and the Common English Version (CEV). The NJB tends to use more creative language and the CEV tends toward simple words.

I also recommend The Message, which is a paraphrase of the Bible by Eugene Peterson. He intentionally lets go of a strict translation of words and phrases in order to put the meaning of scripture in contemporary, creative language. Sometimes his rendering gives new light to familiar passages, and sometimes I miss the original, but it is well done.

I know that many people love the King James Version (KJV). I also love much of the language of the KJV, but I must warn that the Elizabethan English in which it was composed in 1611 is often confusingly different than the English that we use. Psalm 23 is beautifully put in the KJV (as long as you understand that the phrase “I shall not want” means something like “I shall not lack for anything”), but other sections are much more confusing.

Please remember that the footnotes, introductions to the books, and other study guides in any given Bible do not necessarily reflect what all Christians believe. Some versions come with very specific theological points of view, which may represent a small minority of Christian opinion.

Private devotional reading of the scriptures should be both comforting and challenging. It should help us to see our lives and the world through the lens of the Scriptures, so that we live from our spiritual center where God’s Holy Spirit comes to reside. But Christianity is really a community life, and it is good to bring the insights of our devotional reading into conversation with the church. Ask questions, share what you have found, and we will all be blessed.

Sermon - What We Don't Know

Preached on June 16, 2013 at First Congregational Church of Tallmadge, Ohio, UCC.

Scripture: 1 Kings 21:1-21

Later the following events took place: Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard in Jezreel, beside the palace of King Ahab of Samaria.²And Ahab said to Naboth, “Give me your vineyard, so that I may have it for a vegetable garden, because it is near my house; I will give you a better vineyard for it; or, if it seems good to you, I will give you its value in money.” ³But Naboth said to Ahab, “The Lord forbid that I should give you my ancestral inheritance.” ⁴Ahab went home resentful and sullen because of what Naboth the Jezreelite had said to him; for he had said, “I will not give you my ancestral inheritance.” He lay down on his bed, turned away his face, and would not eat.

⁵His wife Jezebel came to him and said, “Why are you so depressed that you will not eat?” ⁶He said to her, “Because I spoke to Naboth the Jezreelite and said to him, ‘Give me your vineyard for money; or else, if you prefer, I will give you another vineyard for it’; but he answered, ‘I will not give you my vineyard.’” ⁷His wife Jezebel said to him, “Do you now govern Israel? Get up, eat some food, and be cheerful; I will give you the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite.” ⁸So she wrote letters in Ahab’s name and sealed them with his seal; she sent the letters to the elders and the nobles who lived with Naboth in his city. ⁹She wrote in the letters, “Proclaim a fast, and seat Naboth at the head of the assembly; ¹⁰seat two scoundrels opposite him, and have them bring a charge against him, saying, ‘You have cursed God and the king.’ Then take him out, and stone him to death.” ¹¹The men of his city, the elders and the nobles who lived in his city, did as Jezebel had sent word to them. Just as it was written in the letters that she had sent to them,¹²they proclaimed a fast and seated Naboth at the head of the assembly. ¹³The two scoundrels came in and sat opposite him; and the scoundrels brought a charge against Naboth, in the presence of the people, saying, “Naboth cursed God and the king.” So they took him outside the city, and stoned him to death. ¹⁴Then they sent to Jezebel, saying, “Naboth has been stoned; he is dead.” ¹⁵As soon as Jezebel heard that Naboth had been stoned and was dead, Jezebel said to Ahab, “Go, take possession of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, which he refused to give you for money; for Naboth is not alive, but dead.” ¹⁶As soon as Ahab heard that Naboth was dead, Ahab set out to go down to the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, to take possession of it.

¹⁷Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying: ¹⁸Go down to meet King Ahab of Israel, who rules in Samaria; he is now in the vineyard of Naboth, where he has gone to take possession. ¹⁹You shall say to him, “Thus says the Lord: Have you killed, and also taken possession?” You shall say to him, “Thus says the Lord: In the place where dogs licked up the blood of Naboth, dogs will also lick up your blood.” ²⁰Ahab said to Elijah, “Have you found me, O my enemy?” He answered, “I have found you. Because you have sold yourself to do what is evil in the sight of the Lord, ²¹I will bring disaster on you.

Sermon

Reading in the book of Kings about King Ahab and Queen Jezebel, we find ourselves joining a history of God’s people reflecting on how we live, what we value, and the ways that we lose sight of God and are restored by God.

Ahab was king of Israel nine centuries before Christ, and he was just one of many kings who were corrupted by power instead of ruling justly by their covenant with God. But it was three centuries later that his story and other stories were written as the book of Kings at a time when the Hebrew people were in exile in Babylon. The empire of Babylon had destroyed their cities and the great Temple of Jerusalem, and had taken much of the nation into captivity away in Babylon, an exile that lasted for two generations. It was during this exile that the Hebrew people realized the price of their history. Because they had slid away from being a land of justice for all people, including the orphans and foreigners, and had become unjust, with leaders who were corrupted by power.  The trust of the people was damaged, and the leaders sought and broke alliances with other empires with greed instead of honor.  In exile, the people looked back and said “we must live differently.”

They told the story of King Ahab as a metaphor for what had gone wrong.

Sermon - Just Because

Preached on June 2 2013 at First Congregational Church of Tallmadge, Ohio, UCC

Scripture: Luke 7:1-10

After Jesus had finished all his sayings in the hearing of the people, he entered Capernaum. 2A centurion there had a slave whom he valued highly, and who was ill and close to death. 3When he heard about Jesus, he sent some Jewish elders to him, asking him to come and heal his slave. 4When they came to Jesus, they appealed to him earnestly, saying, “He is worthy of having you do this for him, 5for he loves our people, and it is he who built our synagogue for us.” 6And Jesus went with them, but when he was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to say to him, “Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; 7therefore I did not presume to come to you. But only speak the word, and let my servant be healed. 8For I also am a man set under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this,’ and the slave does it.” 9When Jesus heard this he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd that followed him, he said, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.” 10When those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the slave in good health.

Sermon

For several days I struggled with what Jesus means when he says: “not even in Israel have I found such faith.” I agonized about how to understand and preach on this, read all kinds of commentary and scholarship, went back and forth, and then I realized something, and my debate ended, and I had a good night’s sleep.

What I had debated is whether or not Jesus is being ironic. The consensus view is that the words are straightforward. Jesus is praising the Centurion's faith as greater than any he has seen. Here is a man who, even though he is a gentile and leader in the army of the Roman Empire, is a great friend and benefactor to the Jewish people, having built their synagogue. And, he is respectful of Jewish rituals. When he asks Jesus to heal the dying slave in his household, he respects the law that prohibits Jews from visiting gentile houses, and he sends word with his friends for Jesus not to enter the home, trusting that Jesus can heal from a distance.

When Jesus receives the message, he is amazed and says “not even in Israel have I found such faith.”  The centurion’s faith is great, and Jesus heals the slave. And perhaps it is so well remembered in the gospels because this is what the church would look like after the resurrection. Jews and Gentiles of faith together in each other’s homes and each other’s care, and Jesus affirms these relationships in Capernaum by his healing.

Except... What if Jesus is amazed not at the greatness of faith but at the tragic misunderstanding of faith? The centurion’s message says “I also am a man of authority. I tell people to go and they go.” Does Jesus really appreciate being compared to a military officer giving orders? Is the centurion one of these stuck up people of privilege who’s calling in favors? “Hey, we’re both important people here, I’m sure you can help me out. You know, I built that Jewish synagogue.” Is that any kind of faith? “Give me a break,” Jesus must think, “nowhere in Israel have I seen such faith as this!  I’ll heal the slave, but don’t anyone take notes on this guy.”

This was my debate: should we adopt the centurion’s faith or renounce it? But then I realized something. The centurion is not the point of this story. Read it one way or read it the other, but Jesus doesn’t heal because of his great faith or in spite of his ridiculous faith. Jesus heals, just because that poor man was sick. Healing was a part of what Jesus did. He healed, he taught, he restored outcasts to community and he resisted the violence of oppression with love, and each of these was a part of the kingdom of God breaking into the world before their eyes.  That’s what Jesus was about.