21 July 2013 “Choose the Better Part” Luke 10:38-42

 I suppose we have the summer to thank for the heavy emphasis on travel in Luke’s gospel so far. Certainly gas prices tell us more folk are on the road going and coming. Jesus has been on the move too.

 This summer he set out for Jerusalem, sent 70 in pairs to every town and place he intended to go, and then we traveled with him along the road where the Samaritan showed mercy to his neighbor.

 With him we have taken the road less traveled. We have been on the road of the Holy Other. The road that has made all the difference for Jesus and for us. Because Jesus’ road follows along the way of God’s Kingdom.

 We learn a lot traveling with Jesus on summer break. He has shown us that it is God alone who has chosen us to be on God’s road where our savior, Jesus Christ, has topped to be our good Samaritan. Where again and again Jesus has stopped along our road of life to lovingly and graciously attend to us and love us as his children.

 Along this way we have also learned there is a particular way we are to live. We are to live a new life grounded in Christ’s love. We now know this new life will form us to become a disciple of Jesus Christ.

 Being so formed, ours is to be a life seeking God’s will. A life doing love. A life accepting God’s grace and doing service to all whom God places along our way.

 This morning, with Jesus, we take a rest from our traveling. With him we enter a certain village where a woman named Martha welcomes us. As Jesus settles into the house Martha is busy attending to her work. It is obvious she takes her work seriously.

 While her work is important we quickly learn the many things she is doing distracted her from attending to Jesus. Obviously duty and obligation requires workers and Martha was such a worker. Just as obviously, to attend solely to some work results in our neglecting others.

 Mary, her sister, was not a worker. No, Mary was a listener. She sat at Jesus’ feet and listened to what he was saying. Mary was attracted to attend to Jesus. She was not distracted to the many tasks or the many things as was Martha.

 This did not sit well with Martha. She was after all a task driven woman and what Mary was doing made her angry. Angry enough to go to Jesus and complain that Mary was leaving all the work for her. Angry enough to even be upset with Jesus.

 She says to him “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself?” I can just see her with both hands on her hips as she burns her gaze into Jesus’ eyes.

 We should not be surprised to then hear Mary say, “Martha, you are upset with me because you are distracted from spending quality time with Jesus. I am not distracted. I show my faithfulness by attending to his presence. I am not angry with anyone because I have chosen the better way in life, the one thing that really matters, fully attending to Jesus. So do not be angry with me or with Jesus because of what you are feeling guilty about! Own you own decision!

 Jesus may have added, “Martha, do not try and force Mary to follow your path. There are many ways to be faithful. She has chosen the better part.”

 Mary is not being lazy. Mary is doing something, she is active. Her activity is just different than Martha’s. Mary is showing us that her life with Jesus has become relational, and as such, it has become her passion.

Mary is being faithful to Jesus. She is living the active life style of a faithful Christian. She is living a life of worship and service.

 “In his book, “The Life of God in the Soul of Man,” Henry Scougal laments that so few people seem to understand what true Christianity is. Some imagine that all God wants is for us to have the correct mental understanding of Christianity. Others think it is a matter of external duties – obeying the laws of the bible, keeping busy doing the right things. Still others believe that real Christianity is having the right affections and feelings toward God.

 Each  of these misses the point, according to Scougal. The  essence of Christianity lies not in the realm of thought, performance, or feelings. Real Christianity is a union of the soul with God. The apostle Paul describes it as Christ “formed in” us. (Gal. 4:19)

  “A union of the soul with God.” We have heard it said that Jesus is in our midst. That Jesus is here, in our heart and soul. There are classically two ways for Jesus to be set in our soul, and both ways involve prayer. They are taken from Paul’s advice to the Thessalonians that they should “Pray without ceasing”

 We may have the best example of the practical nature of Paul’s advice in Brother Lawrence’s little book, “Practicing the Presence of God.”

 Brother Lawrence assures us, “We do not have to be constantly in church to be with God. We can make our heart a prayer room into which we can retire from time to time to speak with God gently, humbly, and lovingly. Everyone is capable of these familiar conversations with God – some more, some less. God knows what our capabilities are. Let us begin, for perhaps God is only awaiting a generous resolve on our part.”

 Practicing the presence of God is as easy as keeping an ongoing conversation with God throughout the day. I know how ironic that sounds. Nothing with God is easy. But God knows what is in our hearts and God knows our intentions even when we slip from them from time to time.

 The other way to bring the practice of prayer closer to our hearts and minds comes from the Quaker writer Thomas Kelly who says we are to prayerfully let the presence of Christ flow through us.

 He writes, “Deep within us all there is an amazing inner sanctuary of the soul. A holy place, a Divine Center, a speaking Voice, to which we may continuously return. Eternity is at our hearts, pressing upon our time-torn lives, warming us with intimations of an astounding destiny, calling us home unto Itself.

 Yielding to these persuasions, gladly committing ourselves in body and soul, utterly and completely, to the Light Within, is the beginning of true life. It is a dynamic center, a creative Life that presses to birth within us. It is a Light Within which illumines the face of God and casts new shadows and new glories upon the face of men (and women). It is a seed stirring to life if we do not choke it. Here is the Slumbering Christ, stirring to be awakened, to become the soul we clothe in earthly form and action. And God is within us all.”

 The good news from Paul, Brother Lawrence, and Kelly is Christ is already a living presence within us. Jesus’ is a presence we can awaken and Jesus’ presence is such that Jesus can live and act through us. Once we accept Jesus’ invitation to come and follow him our life in Christ becomes the sole basis for our life in the world.

James Torrance, Scottish theologian and professor, taught his students this powerful truth, “Our life in Christ is a matter of, moment-by-moment, living our lives out of who we are in Christ.”

 He was fond of quoting Galatians 2:19-20: “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.”

 But, we cannot help ourselves from being distracted by many tasks and by many things, as was Martha. We naturally flow back into our Godless selves, quickly losing sight of who we are in Christ.

 Our task this morning, as it is many mornings, is to discover how we may flow back to the Christ who is alive and waiting patiently for us to return. Our flowing back to God is certainly Jesus’ preference. Jesus prefers we accept the better part of life, listening to his word and, receiving his wisdom and being in relationship with him. And that is probably our preference too.

 As scripture tells us, many things will be taken away from those who are distracted by many things. We will worry and Jesus will eventually be taken from us.

 On the other hand, Jesus will not take himself away from those grounded in him. Grounding ourselves in Jesus, we will soon discover that our holy union with Christ does not lie dormant.

 For God reveals time and time again God’s holy union within us. Such revelation is revealed in the life of Jesus. It is known to us in the stories of our lives and loved ones. We did not design this revelation. It was God’s predetermined design grounded in love.

 In order for God’s design on our life to triumph we must strive to be in conformity with Jesus. Our conformity happens when we become more  and more like him. When we are obedient to God’s call. When we are faithful to God’s design. When we follow God’s commandments and laws and spend time in prayer and study. When we adopt the very characteristics of Jesus and practice his presence,

We conform when we love God, and our neighbor. We conform when we set our dreams and desires aside and seek instead the life Christ has for us.

 Only them might we have a chance to stop our aimless, self- perpetuating worry. For then we will be attracted to a better life. We will be attracted to a better person. We will be attracted to Jesus Christ.

 Thomas Merton, the Trappist Monk, has assured us, “We know God in and through ourselves in so far as God’s truth is the source of our being and his merciful love is the very heart of our life and existence.”

 As God’s truth becomes the source of our being we will become more and more like Jesus. As God’s merciful love is the very heart of our life and existence, Jesus will draw us deeper into holy communion, into holy union, with himself.

 This is how we are to achieve our chief end, which is to glorify God.

  This is how we choose the better life.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever, Amen.             072113.gpc

14 July 2013 “Why Did He Stop?” Luke 10:25-37

One evening, a long, long time ago, neighbors from across the street were visiting. We were young in those days, newly married with kids, living in the suburbs. There was an older couple who lived next door with their teenage son. He was sort of a geek and his mother, Eunice, complained non-stop that her son, Randy, was not accepted or appreciated by the other kids in high school.

 So later that evening, wanting to be good neighbors, we decided we needed to help Randy’s mom feel better about her son. That’s what neighbor’s do, right? Help their neighbor feel better. So, we wrapped their house! We really did.

 Well, actually, Janet just watched. We wrapped Randy’s house that night when a couple from across the street came over. And it seemed to work. Eunice complained and bragged at the same time about Randy’s “friends” wrapping their house. We never told her it was us. We felt pretty good about helping our neighbor that night.

 That was our take on being neighborly. God, on the other hand, probably thought otherwise. God, you see, has never wrapped anyone’s house I’m   aware of. No, God has a very different idea about being a neighbor. Especially about being a good neighbor.

  God’s idea is told this morning in the familiar tale of the Good Samaritan.

 The lawyer in the story tests Jesus with his question. “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus, being the better lawyer, answers his question with a question, “What is the law?”

 Jesus knows this lawyer well. He is of the establishment, the land of the gifted and talented gentry. He is a man aligned with the Priestly and Levite classes in society. Those who feel chosen by God.

 Predictably, the lawyer ticks off the correct answer, “To love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.”

 Yes, that is the law, Jesus says. Inheriting eternal life is about others, being in relationship and love with others. Loving God and loving your neighbor and the stranger as you love yourself. That is the law.

 Then Jesus gives his command, “do this,” and his promise, “and you will live eternally.” But the lawyer could not leave it alone. “Who is my neighbor?” he asks. So Jesus tells his story.

 A man was on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. Robbers attacked him, stripped him, beat him and left him for dead on the side of the road. A priest came along, saw him lying there, and passed him by moving to the far side of the road. Priests, you know, are the people of God.

 A Levite came along next, saw the man there on the road, and he too moved to the far side. Levites are also the people of God.

 Then a Samaritan came along the road, saw the man lying there half dead, and was moved with pity. He did not move to the far side. He stopped.

Everyone at the time knew this is not the way it should be. Samaritans were anything but the people of God.

 He went to him, bandaged him, poured oil and wine on his wounds, put him on his animal, brought him to an inn and took care of him. He even left extra money with the inn keeper to care for the man with the promise of more if necessary when he returned.

 Then Jesus asks the lawyer, “which of these three do you think was a good neighbor?” The lawyer knows, we all know, “The one who showed him mercy.” Then Jesus commanded once more, “Go and do likewise.”

  In the Old Testament book of Amos the Lord said, “See, I am setting a plumb-line in the midst of my people Israel . . . .” A plumb-line, as many of you know, is a carpenters tool used to make a straight line or to find the shortest way between two points or to know a level drop from point A to point B. The plumb-line is the straight and narrow, the true path to the right way between divergent places.

 The plumb-line in Amos is like the road in Luke. It is the way traveled by the man, the priest, the Levite and the Samaritan. We know it was not straight and we know it was the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. It was a treacherous road with plenty of places for robbers to hide. But there is a message there that is the true way, the right path for all Christians.

 In his story Jesus is setting a plumb-line before us. He is saying, this road will represent the defining moment, the straight and true way, to inheriting my Kingdom. Follow this way, for I will never pass you by on the other side if you will but follow me. The road alone is not the way to eternal life.  It is what happens on the road that counts. That is where our defining moment comes.

 Moving to the other side of the road is what the priest and Levite did. For it is simply what a sensible person does, right? Right, so let’s be honest. There is a bit of the priest and Levite in us all. We know better than to stop and pick up a hitchhiker, we move to the other side of the road. If an animal is injured in the road, we move to the other side. If we are on the street and someone dirty and different comes our way, we move to the other side. If it would not be safe, or sanitary, or prudent, or wise, or healthy, we should move to the other side of the road.

 This Samaritan, you see, did a very crazy thing. He did not move to the other side. He followed this dangerous path walking straight into the crime scene where he found this unidentified man lying near death.

 Jesus tells us, follow the crazy behavior of this Samaritan. Our place, the disciple of Christ’s place, is on the least desirable side of the road. The crazy side. The side that does not make sense. The side of the other, the stranger, our neighbor as it turns out. For it is on this side we find we are called to reach out to that neighbor in mercy and love. Love in practice. Jesus moves us, each of us, to the side of the road of the other, our neighbor, and ultimately to himself. This is the defining moment for us.

 Through the crazy behavior of this Samaritan God is telling us we need to be just like Jesus. We must live like the “Holy Other” who calls us not just to show mercy to our neighbor but to give them everything we have.

 After all, isn’t that what Jesus did for us? Did he not give his life to care for and love you and me? Has he not stopped by your side of the road?

 Our call, from this divine Jesus, is our call to faithful discipleship. It is a call to live in spiritual union with Christ and follow this one who is the Holy Other. Our response is to let him teach us his ways and not to be stuck forever in our own.

 When we show the side of the Other in ourselves, we know God is alive and in us. For God is present in the fallen man on that road between Jerusalem and Jericho and when we tend to him, we tend also to God.

 To follow Jesus, the most radical Holy Other known to humanity, living as he has shown us to live, becomes the defining moment in our neighborly behavior. For in his radical nature, in his gift of self-giving love, forgiveness and mercy, Jesus has great expectations. For his life Jesus expects nothing in return and he expects the same from us. We are to love, forgive, and show mercy with the same expectation of nothing in return. No thank you, no personal gain, no returned favor, nadda, nothing.

 For we are to be grounded by the call to neighborly God like behavior. What is written in the law? To love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all you mind; and your neighbor as yourself.

 There it is. The great commandment.  Live love! Be “neighbor” to those around you. Welcome and cherish God’s presence, whether in the stranger, the enemy, or the friend. Be comforted so that your heart shall rejoice and your work of discipleship shall flourish. Just do love!

 The call to this spiritual union of love with Jesus requires we live a holy life, that we take an active part in his ministry, that we tithe, that we live a life style where it matters that our salvation has arrived in this person we know as Jesus, where scripture is the authoritative Word of God and the creeds of the church, our church, are the accurate reflections of the gospel, where we recognize the vital Christianity of our Reformed tradition, where we are so grounded in scripture and informed by the history of the church we long for community with all of God’s people. Then our work of discipleship shall flourish.

Early in Dostoevsky’s novel, “The Brothers Karamazov,” a wealthy woman asks the elderly monk Staretz Zosima how she can really know that God exists. He tells her that no explanation or argument can achieve this, only the practice of “active love.”

 The woman then confesses that sometimes she dreams about a life of loving service to others – she thinks perhaps she will become a sister of mercy, live in holy poverty, and serve the poor in the humblest way. But then it crosses her mind how ungrateful some of the people she would serve are likely to be. They would probably complain that the soup she served was not hot enough or that the bread was not fresh enough or the bed was too hard. She confesses that she could not bear such ingratitude – and so her dreams about serving others vanish and once again she finds herself wondering if there really is a God. To this Startez responds, “Love in practice is a dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.”

 We glorify God when we set aside our dreams of sanitized neighborly care. Love in practice is a dreadful thing. We do not get to pick and choose those whom God brings us for our neighborly response.

 Thomas Merton, the monk from the abbey at Gethsemane said, “Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. That is not our business. What we are asked to do is to love and this love will render both ourselves and our neighbors worthy, if anything can.”

 This life on the other side is a healing life, a saving life. Not because we are cleaver or are often found in religious buildings, but because of our response to the “least of these.”

 Our world is filled with the chance to respond to those whom we perceive to be the least. Be they neighbor, or stranger. Be they folk on our side of the road or on the other side.

 God prays our response with be one of love.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen

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30 June 2013 “He Sets His Face” Luke 9:51-62

I have often thought of preaching a series of sermons on “personal moments of inspiration.” The series would begin by retelling our stories about the ways inspiration has crept into our lives and what we were motivated to change.   

 It would be familiar turf for everyone. We all have moments when we were inspired for one reason or another.  It might come from a person, a point in time, or from rather unassuming places. But it helps to find that certain time or place where life slows enough for us to hear a deeper voice, a voice that may speak in ways unexpected.

  That place on a mountaintop where the world seems small, the forest trail early in the morning where we come alive, our first cup of coffee there on the back deck overlooking the lake feeling the quiet, a powerful book helping us see a world of possibility, listening to that favorite music that moves our soul to deeper understanding, a good movie that moves us in a unique way and we are lost in the story.

  One particular movie for me is, “The Remains of the Day,” starring Anthony Hopkins. While the story has no happy ending for the main character, played by Hopkins, it is a sobering and inspirational story of life lived for noble reasons that unwittingly takes away the possibilities for meaningful love and happiness.

  Not all inspiration comes from happy endings. Just as often it may be a shocking reminder of how quickly a life of goodness and joy may be lost that inspires. Through such inspiration we may be moved to discover the need to live a life of lasting value, short term and long term.

 You may remember the story. Hopkins plays the part of a butler named Stevens who has dedicated his life to his craft. He is so devoted to serving his master he makes no place for any distraction.  He takes no time for himself. He allows for no relationship that would draw his energy and effort from his master.  Every whim, every desire, every moment of his life was given to his master.

  Stephens is so focused he intentionally avoided the distraction and attention of a deserving woman who loved him, which eventually caused him to lose her forever and to lose any meaningful chance for true happiness.

 The tragic point comes when Stephens realizes how trapped his life had been. Like a slave, he was never been free and he realizes too late the price he has paid. His life has been a life forever lost.

 This morning in the gospel we read about would-be followers of Jesus. Jesus reached out to one and said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” Another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.”   Clearly they were not inspired by Jesus’ invitation.

  To these Jesus answered, “Let the dead bury their own dead…” and “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

  We too have received Jesus’ invitation to accept him into our lives. That invitation, that most important decision, has inspired us to live a very different way. At some point we realize our acceptance is rooted in God’s desire we follow God’s will and not our own. Accepting God’s invitation will cost us everything that we hold to be solely important and ours. Not accepting the invitation may be worse.

  But, surely Jesus does not mean what we have heard this morning and in other places in scripture. Surely we are not to leave or hate our mother, our father, our family, and our careers. Why would Jesus use such strong words to push us out of the family nest, away from our life long personal and professional identity?

  Jesus knows it takes a huge push, much self-doubt, and some degree of separation for people to find their own soul and their own destiny apart from what others and society want them to be and do.  To move beyond family-of-origin stuff, cultural stuff, even local church stuff, is a path that few of us follow positively and with integrity.

  So Jesus pulls no punches, saying you must “let the dead bury their own dead” you must “hate” your home base in some way and make choices beyond it.

As strange as this may seem we really should be happy Jesus spoke this way, or we would never have the courage to believe how it might be true. This may not be so inspiring, but the truth is we must leave home to find the real and larger home.

 Read the biographies of Abraham, Joseph, Moses, and Jesus. The spiritual greats’ motto seems to be, “Leave home to find it!” And of course they were never primarily talking just about physical home. But about all the validations, securities, illusions, prejudices, smallness, and hurt too, that home and family always imply.

  This is painful to hear and impossible to accept. But we are not alone. There is a necessary suffering that cannot be avoided, which Jesus calls “losing our very life.”  But remember, we are not alone.

 Accepting Jesus’ invitation will free us to let God make God’s plans for our lives. It will free us to allow our living Lord God to be grounded in our lives where God will free us for faith filled turning points, turning points from desperation and loss and loneliness and regret, to points of grace, life, blessings, love, and ultimately, real freedom.

  Isn’t that what Jesus did? Jesus reached a turning point in his life. Earlier in chapter 9 of Luke’s gospel Jesus foretells his death. Not once, but twice Jesus said to his apostles, “Let these words sink into your ears: The Son of man is going to be betrayed into human hands . . . he must undergo great suffering . . .  be rejected by the elders . . . and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”

  The turning point comes when Jesus realizes it is time to live out that decision. Faced with divergent paths, Jesus turns his face to Jerusalem, not to Galilee, where it is safe, but to Jerusalem, where he would suffer and die.

  All too often we have discovered making the toughest decisions in life does not guarantee an end to our life struggles. But, we cannot just sit on the sidelines with our head buried in the sand.  God’s will, lived through us, requires that we act. God calls us to a Christian life of action knowing full well the short term and long term costs.

  How then do we faithfully act in this secular world?

 In “The Remains of the Day,” Stevens acted and insulated himself from his authentic self in the process. His devotion was in the wrong place.

  You may recall a story the author, Anne Lamott, tells about her son wanting to go hang gliding.  At first Lamott was frozen in her inability to act because of her fear for the potential outcome.  If she said yes, her son might be killed in some tragic accident.  If she said no, he might sneak out and hang glide anyway.  Either way, she was convinced he would be hurt. What is a mother to do?

She eventually turned to friends for advice. But, they did not help. “Let him go,” they said, “let him have a good time, let him grow up.” But, she replied, “What about my worry?” “Snap out of it,” they said. “You are babying him.” Like I said, they were no help. She listened to her heart but was frozen in her indecision.

 Jesus listened to his heart too. Unlike Lamott, Jesus was not frozen in indecision.    No, on the contrary, and critically for us, Jesus was inspired to act knowing that, “The greatest sacrifices, the largest risks, the greatest ventures are undertaken only in the name of love.”   Only with love in his heart could Jesus set his face on Jerusalem and not Galilee, only with love.

  How easy would it be for us to separate ourselves from life and suffering and struggle by insulating ourselves living as the butler Stevens lived? Always staying on the narrow road of life may seem prudent, but our prudence may cost us our very lives in the end.

 You may remember a story George Buttrick, the famous theologian, tells of the way a faithful Christian acts.  He recalls how some years ago there was a newspaper account of two men coming down a factory staircase and of one of them flipping the lighted end of a cigarette into what he thought was a fire bucket filled with water. The bucket held gasoline instead.

There was a sudden burst of flame. One man instinctively ran downstairs to save his own skin. The other, just as instinctively, ran upstairs to warn the people working in the factory floor above.

 Which of our selves takes over in such a time, the downstairs self or the upstairs self, the Galilean self or the Jerusalem self? Are these times our own turning point perhaps?

  At its deepest level, love becomes sacrificial and beneficial to the beloved. Stevens, the butler, certainly sacrificed, but he lost any hope of loving and being loved.  Anne Lemott made a sacrifice, she chose the love in her heart for her son and told him no and endured her son’s disappointment, much longer than he did, of course.

  Jesus did not take the path home to Galilee. He set his face to Jerusalem. He took the road less traveled out of love for us in order to free us from sin and a life of eternal damnation. For Jesus, there was no cost too high for eternal freedom for those he loved.

 Our challenge this day and possibly for many days to come is to realize we will always be faced with divergent roads, turning points, where we will be challenged and asking ourselves, my will or God’s.  It is just a fact of life.

 Yet as children of God, there is a singular freedom we may gain, freedom in our holy union with God.  A freedom that will lead us to a life filled with God’s love and God’s grace giving us the courage and the strength, and the faith, beyond our singular abilities, to walk with God wherever God may lead, to obey Christ Jesus in whatever he commands.

Even when he says, “follow me.” Even if we must put our life in God’s hand and walk Jesus’ path.  Even if we must set our life on the way to Jerusalem.

 For it is only there God’s love ultimately sets us free.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever, Amen.  

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16 June 2013 “Stepping Out Of Place” Luke 7:36-8:3

   Last Sunday we learned of Jesus’ intention that we have life. He was coming into the city when a man who had died was being carried out. This man was his widowed mother’s only son. When Jesus saw her he was moved with compassion and love for the woman.

  What we may have missed is no one asked Jesus to intervene. No one asked Jesus to perform another miracle for this grieving widow. Instead, Jesus acts on his own.

 With a desire in his heart that this life lost be now restored, Jesus acts. He stops the procession, touches the bier and says to the dead son, “Young man, I say to you rise.” And he does. His life is restored. The young man sat up and began to speak and Jesus gave him back to his mother.

  Without being asked, Jesus acted.

  In this morning’s Gospel a woman wanders in off the street where Jesus is dining with one of the Pharisees. She comes into the dining room, uninvited, speaks to no one, and without being asked, she acts too.

  She learned Jesus was eating there and she walked right in to do one thing. She came that she might serve Jesus. She showed him compassion and she brought her tears. She brought her kisses and the one thing of value in her life, a fancy jar of costly ointment.

 Instead of asking for something from Jesus, she was determined to do something for Jesus to show her love. She stepped out of her place in her community and for her efforts she was roundly criticized.

 You may remember a story I have told of Anne Marbury. She was born in England in 1591. Anne was the daughter of an Anglican minister. She was surrounded at home, at school, and at church by scriptural teachings and theological thinking. At the age of 21, Anne married a neighbor, William Hutchinson.

  Eventually Anne left the Anglican Church and with her husband became a Puritan. She was not a casual church goer. Anne studied scripture and nurtured a vibrant inner spiritual life.

  The Puritans were soon harassed and persecuted for their faith during this period of history in England. The Anglican Church dominated life during that time.

 So at age 43, William and Anne and their children sailed for New England in search of religious freedom. They settled in the Puritan Colony of Massachusetts Bay. Anne began holding a weekly Bible study for women in their home. Soon another meeting was added that included men.

 The leaders of the colony became afraid of Anne’s influence with the people. They accused her of heresy. One leader said this of Anne, “She is a woman of ready wit and bold spirit who brought over with her two dangerous errors.”

 The first error the leader described was her notion that the Holy Spirit resides within us. Her second error was the notion that we are justified by faith and not by works.

  As heirs of the Protestant Reformation we believe with Anne that we are justified, not by works, but by grace through faith for Christ’s sake. We also believe that the Holy Spirit does live within us. To the leaders of the Puritan Colony these ideas from Anne were blasphemy and a heresy. She was eventually excommunicated from the church.   The charge that led to Anne’s excommunication from the Puritans reads in part, “You have stepped out of your place...”

 Anne stepped out of her place! She stepped out of her place because of her convictions. For many years historians described her as an American Jezebel. In the modern word Anne would be the patron saint of those with the bumper sticker that reads, “Well behaved woman seldom make history!”

 It is clear that she was not a jezebel of any sort. Anne was a woman passionate about her religious convictions. But in the eyes of the status quo, she had stepped out of her place.

 Our woman of the city, the one who attends to Jesus while he is dining, is a story of another woman stepping out of her usual place.

 Luke gives us the details. Jesus is dining with this fellow whose name is Simon. When our woman of the city steps out of her appointed place, Simon loses it. He challenges Jesus wondering how he can allow this woman to behave this way. He begins to doubt that Jesus is a prophet. His thinking is that Jesus should have known what sort of woman this was and stopped her from washing and anointing his feet. Simon cannot imagine what Jesus must have been thinking.

 Or perhaps Simon understood all too well. Perhaps he wanted to prove all along when he invited Jesus to dine with him Jesus was no prophet. Perhaps this was unfolding exactly as Simon hoped so he could discredit what people were saying about Jesus.

 For his part, Jesus knows what Simon is up to. He knows what is in Simon’s heart. His action proves who he has become. Simon is out of touch, a non-believer, and obviously not in love with Jesus. He need not tell Jesus who this woman is. Jesus knows this woman and he knows the true Simon for what he is. Jesus knows what is in their hearts.

  He then fully exposes Simon’s weakness in a parable about a creditor who has two folks who owe him money. One owed the creditor a large sum of money and the other much less. Neither could repay their debt. The creditor, filled with compassion, forgave the debt for both men.

  Jesus asks Simon, which of these two men will have the greatest love for the creditor? Simon answers correctly, “I suppose the one for whom he forgave the greater debt.” Jesus agrees.

 Then he exposes Simon and makes his point. The woman who had entered Simon’s house had shown Jesus greater love than Simon. Simon gave Jesus no water for his feet, no kiss, and he did not anoint his head with oil.  “Therefore, I tell you,” Jesus says, “her sins, which are many, have been forgiven; she has shown great love.”  

 This woman’s faith comes from her trust in Jesus and she lived that faith when she stepped out of her place by committing herself and everything she has entirely to Jesus.

 The lesson Simon missed is that those of us who invite Jesus into our lives should also be prepared to step out of our usual place and to give to Jesus from our heart, from our love, everything we have. When we invite Jesus into our lives we should be prepared to step out and show compassion and love to all people, in all circumstances, in the entire world. We should be prepared to live and love as Jesus did.

 Timothy George, Dean of Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham Alabama has said, “Love is the one thing we can experience in time that will remain in eternity.”

 What then is Christ calling us to do? To be forgiving, yes. To be loving, yes. To be faithful and step out of our comfort to follow Jesus, again we must say, yes.

 Who then is Christ calling us to be? Why, disciples, disciples whose love will remain in eternity. Like this woman, out of love and compassion, our call is to step out of our usual place and to self-initiate a life of love.

 Often, it seems, we recognize an opportunity to self-initiate, to step out of our usual place, only in retrospect. Time passes and our mind does that “mess with us” thing. We hear ourselves thinking, I could have been friendlier to that person who seems dirty and disheveled and unworthy. I could have shared my money with those in greater need. I could have spoken up for my friend. I could have reminded my friend, my spouse, my partner, my child, my parent, that we are all children of God, and that God loves us and is present to us no matter what.

 Perhaps the real test is to discover beforehand what we love, who we love, and what our life reveals about what is in our heart. Are we more like Simon or that brave woman?

I know many of you have already stepped out and away from the usual. It is obvious you help others and one another. You work to promote justice for all people. You perform acts of kindness. You share the love of this gospel. You love as God loved you, filled with the Holy Spirit, offering to God with compassion your lives before you ask for anything in return.

  Have you therefore stepped so far from the face of the earth and our worldly ways that you have fallen right into the Kingdom of God? Have you stepped out with Jesus to that same rare air of devotion to the greater good, to commitment to faithful service, to a love in which your faith in Jesus Christ saves both us and the world?

  In so many ways we have. We have stepped out because God’s love calls us to do the right thing, even when it may cost us personally. We are called, not to sainthood, but to step out for the sake of love, knowing that God steps out with us, guarding, guiding, protecting, encouraging us every step of the way...and forgiving us when we fail.

  Dearest sisters and brother’s in Christ accept again this morning God’s invitation. Come again to God’s banquet. Step out of your place. Bring all that you have. Give all that you have. Show greater love.

  For when we do, when we step out with God’s love in our hearts, Jesus says of us: “Daughter, son, your sins are forgiven, your faith has saved you. Go in peace.”

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen

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09 June 2013 “God Looks Favorably” Luke 7:11-17

Today is the 3^rd Sunday after Pentecost. It is also the 10^th Sunday in Ordinary Time. We took a big break from ordinary time on the church calendar during the Easter Cycle which began, as you know, with Lent. This second period of Ordinary Time began following Pentecost and continues until Advent.

 When we left off before the Easter Cycle the gospel reading was Luke 5 and Jesus had just called the first disciples. We were asked in that passage to pay close attention to the response of those first men; Simon, James, and John. They had fished all night and caught nothing. Jesus had begun to use their boat as a place from which he could teach the crowds. Out of the blue, Jesus tells them to put out into deep waters and “Let down your nets for a catch.”

 Their response gives us a sense of what we might correctly call, the “nature of (an) authentic response,” that Jesus expects from each of us when he calls. Their authentic response was to obey Jesus. Simon tells him they had fished all night and caught nothing, but, “if you say so, I will let down the nets.”

  The result is staggering. Their nets are overfilled with fish. They are flooded with feelings of amazement at the miracle and fearful at the same time. From where had all these fish come? Who has the power to make this sort of thing happen?

  Realizing the potential danger their life would be in if they continued to follow someone with such power, Simon asks Jesus to leave him alone, to go away. Jesus replies, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.”

 These frightened men left their former lives to follow Jesus. Their authentic response was immediate and it completely and totally changing them forever. They left it all to follow Jesus.

  Here we realize the cost of an authentic response to God’s call. How it can be both fearful and amazing at the same time. Why, following Jesus may even take us all the way to Livingston, Alabama.

 We return this morning to Luke 7. Jesus is teaching in the northern Galilee area beginning in Capernaum and ending up in Nain. In verses 1-10 Jesus heals a centurion’s servant.

 In that healing we learn again of the power of Jesus’ ministry and we are given another lesson in what our authentic response to Jesus’ presence in our life should be. By telling Jesus he need not go to the place where his slave lay ill, that he need only speak his healing words, the centurion is repeating the lesson of having faith and trusting in our Lord.

 This morning, Luke’s story is of Jesus raising a widow’s son from the grip of death. From the first disciples obedience to Jesus’ call to follow him, to the deep and abiding faith and trust in Jesus’ presence to heal the sick, Jesus now takes us where no one has ever gone before, raising the dead.

 This new story in Luke is filled with bad news. It is that dreaded call in the middle of the night. Someone has died. Once we are shaken awake we realize it is the death of a young man. To heap more bad news onto bad, he was the only son of his poor mother. Just when we thought that was enough, we learn this woman was also a widow.

 Towards this woman Jesus shows the compassion of someone in love. In love with the vulnerability of human life, in love with all of God’s creation, in love with the love that God has for each and every person in each and every generation in each and every circumstance.

 For love is at the core of the essential nature of God, Christ Jesus and our Holy Spirit. Jesus’ human side as well as Jesus’ divine side are driven by his holy love. Love, especially when bad things happen, and they do happen to us all.

 Especially then do we feel God’s true nature. It is a nature in favor of life. It is a nature that protects and sustains and nourishes all life.

 I was reminded of the depth of God’s love for us when I thought of a story I have told many times of the Reverend William Sloan Coffin’s son who was killed in a tragic auto accident. If you can imagine it, the next Sunday the Reverend Coffin preached to his church about his grief and God’s grief.

  Here is some of what he said: “The one thing that should never be said when someone dies is, “It is the will of God.” Never do we know enough to say that.  My consolation lies in knowing that it was not the will of God that Alex die; that when the waves closed over the sinking car God’s was the first of all our hearts to break.”  God’s was the first of all our hearts to break.

When we learn about tragic events like this our first response may be to scream, No! God can do all things! Why did God not intervene, call 911 or do that God thing that saves folks. God knows how much Alex was loved. Why did God not do something?

 Our only authentic answer must be, we do not know. As people of faith, we know there are times when we just do not know why God does what God does. God is God after all and we are not.  But that does not lesson the pain. Saying we do not know does not give us comfort and rest. It may actually add to our anguish.

 But there are truths about God we do know. Our God is a God of the resurrection, resurrection to restoration, restoration to all eternity.  Our God has the power to resurrect life, to restore life and our God always will.

 Jesus’ words to the young man who had died, “I say to you, rise” reverberate with our Gospel hope in the presence of death.

 The angel at Jesus’ tomb was the first to pronounce such hope as Jesus himself had risen. The disciples later announced, “This Jesus, God raised up, and of that all of us are witnesses.”

 Paul will connect Jesus’ resurrection with our own hope for life beyond death. He proclaimed, “Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who died.”

 The resurrection of Jesus, the one who had compassion on a widow in her grief, provides the basis for the apostle’s confident vision of the end.  “For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable.”

 The hope of being raised imperishable, therefore, is not grounded in the fact that the widow’s son came back to life but in the fact that the one who had the compassion in the first place has himself triumphed over death.

  God’s covenant power of restoration to eternal life, that also raised the widow’s son from death, is even available for each of us. It is the same power that will also raise those whom we love, those who are no longer with us. Yet, it is even more than this.

 The truth of the power of God’s restoration to eternal life fills us with an eternal hope. For the widow’s son, for Jesus, and for our loved ones, and ourselves, we have unbridled hope.

 We who know the power of God’s love have a lasting hope that will comfort us in our sorrow. We who know Jesus’ love live with a hope that is with us day and night as we struggle with our own grief and despair.

 It is the power of God’s restoration to life eternal that helps those of us who are left behind to pick up the pieces of our broken lives and feel God’s loving arms wrapping us up to help us rise to the new life ahead. It is the power of God’s restoration love that keeps us alive in the midst of death.

 Running through these thoughts, we see most clearly in Luke’s gospel that Jesus is living the example for us. He speaks of his own life. He shows us the faithful way through his destiny with the cross, his triumphant restoration to life, and his glorious ascension to heaven.

 Our hope is mirrored in our understanding of our own future with death and the miracle of our own restoration to eternal life, our own ascension to be with God in heaven.

 About that time, Jesus says, we are to rise.

 But there is more, our hope lives for something more. We are to rise from what seems like death even today, though we are alive. We are to rise from our feelings of death when we find our lives dry, lost, and without faith.  Be it from work, or addiction, or recklessness, or the sheer weight of life’s unfolding, we will be reunited again and again to Christ Jesus, because of his love.

 To be risen in Christ is to be risen to life itself. Void of worldly trappings and shackles, we are called to be risen to God’s Kingdom that has come. Isn’t this what we pray for. “Thy Kingdom come.”  We do not have to wait for heaven. Jesus has answered our call. The Kingdom of God is with us now, in our place, right next to us, all around us.

  This is God’s authentic response to our human condition. God’s kingdom is present this moment, for God is ultimately not interested in death. God is interested in bringing life, and new life to God’s people. Giving life is the first, mort important work that God does. It is, as Martin Luther put it, God’s “proper work.” Our God brings life.

 Still searching for an authentic response to the obvious in life?

 As ironic as it may sound, praise death. Praise the death of our old unworkable ways, praise the death of unrepentant numbness, praise the death of unforgiving pain and lost hope.

 For with death comes God’s grace and Christ’s call, restoring us to an eternal life to come.  “I say to you, rise.”

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever, Amen.                                                  

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02 June 2013 “Such Faith” Luke 7:1-10

We who have faith in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior should never take our faith for granted.

 It was during a particularly challenging discussion in a longer than usual session meeting we first heard the truth. Some of us were tired of hearing about “perceptions.”  We were discussing, yet again, what sounded like the same problems, the same complaints.

 In the midst of it all Session was doing a really good job of being faithful. They had long ago embraced the notion that God has called us to serve those whom God sends our way. We have embraced the vision that we are to take those who knock and ask for a crumb of bread and give them a safe place. We are to let them be here with us for comfort and nurture.

It is the desire of this Session to be faithful. It is the desire of this Session to take what God sends us and tend to it. Be it our poor, aging facilities infrastructure or these whom God has sent us who have these “perceptions” we do not understand. No matter. We trust God knows what God is doing.

 In the midst of it all we were complaining, just a little, about how hard being faithful can be. We do try to glorify God as we tend to the challenges God brings but why must this be so hard? Must every air conditioner on our campus break? What will leak next? Who is to blame? Is it the ubiquitous “they.”

 In exasperation Janette spoke for us all when she said, with a hint of playfulness, “God is the problem.”  God is the problem. Of course! She was right. God is the problem.  If God would just give us what we want and stop giving us these troubles things would be so much better.

 Indeed, dear ones, Janette hit on something.  God expects too much from us and we are weary.  God wants too much from us and we struggle to be faithful.  God demands too much from us and we are just one person.  How on earth can we do what God is asking us to do?

 Some days.  Some days we scream at God and throw in the towel. We want to be left alone.  God. You are our problem.

 It began God when we realized you were not finished with us after all.  Your churches, Trinity, Wilshire, and now Genesis.  We found ourselves on the brink and you grabbed hold of us and pulled us back, dusted us off, and set us on a new path.

 Community bound.  A worship center.  Serving those you have brought to our campus even as we have on occasion disagreed in the strongest of terms.  Yet,  here we are.  Still facing difficult questions.  Still gathering to worship and pray and overcome ourselves to at least the point where we can move forward.  Where we can gather the energy and faith we have to silence our resistance enough to humbly and patiently realize the joy that has returned, the bounty we have as we have sought to honor you by our acceptance and our giving away.

 Our acceptance of those whom you have brought us.   With their demands and their challenges and perspectives.  Our acceptance of what we are to give away.  Yes, our sacred spaces.  Yes, our privacy too.  And perhaps the greatest of all, a little bit of our selves.

 When I taught stress management I would first state the obvious.

We all have stress.   How we manage our stress is what makes the difference for our health and well-being.  We can choose health or unhealthy ways to do this.  Unhealthy ways are the easiest to follow.  We simply do what we enjoy in excess to drown out the pain.  Healthy ways on the other hand require work, change, and a life-long commitment.

 I also reminded folks that in a relationship,  be it family or work, we must adopt a position of selflessness.  To be as healthy as we best can be we must adopt a position of giving to the others in our lives all that we have. And it is best to remember,  we give to others on their terms.  We ask those others what their needs are, what their passions are, what their sacred spaces are.

 The hardest  part in this dynamic,   we cannot expect anything in return for our effort.  To do so puts us in the unhealthy position of expecting a payoff. We then feel we are owed something in return for our labor.

 To love, to have faith, to serve is to chip away at that self that holds us back from modeling Jesus’ life.   God gave us his son freely.  God did not set up an if/then relationship.  No, God’s gift is freely ours without our earning it.

 But God has told us what God wants from us. God’s expects us to follow Jesus’ model.  Jesus gave his all and God expects our all.

 See how problematic God is.  We have this great desire for God.  We love God.  We even try making our life in God’s image.  We try to live in a way that pleases God,  that glorifies God.  It just seems that God resists our efforts.  God does not cooperate with our desires.  God places more on our plate than we can carry.

 Yet, we cannot abandon God.  We yell it to ourselves more often than we admit.  God is the problem in our lives but God’s resistance attracts us. God’s demands attract us.  God’s resistance to our best efforts,  our sincere desires,  our careful planning attracts us even more to desire God.

 This seems counter to everything logical in our lives doesn’t it?

 

The twentieth century Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas said that as we seek a God who is radically “Other,”  our training in the exercise of longing and loss prepares us for accepting the “desired” as something we never fully realize.  Yet, in the process, our attraction is only deepened.

 Desire for what he calls the “Most-High” is keenly aroused by the joining of beauty with absence,  by that which is inherently most desirable and yet at the same time most elusive.  “Desire nourishes itself,  one might say with its hunger,” says Levinas.  He insists that the desire for the “Other” is necessarily “a desire without satisfaction.”

Yet our desire is not diminished by such insight.  Our desire and our delight in knowing God leads to a delight in God’s own matchless beauty and to the covenant responsibility of safeguarding God’s reflected beauty in all of life and in all of God’s created world.

 A reformed and thoroughly Calvinist aesthetic or beauty remains restless in us until it expresses itself in moral action,  In how we do church,  In how we serve others,  In how we love.

Yet desire will always be the starting point.  We desire God.  We desire God’s attention and God’s love.  We are attracted to God and all that God has created.  Our enchantment with God and the world is prerequisite to the task of faithful discipleship.  To a life served restoring and protecting all of life.   As evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould has argued, “We will not fight to save what we do not love.”

So we hear ourselves saying at session, “God is the problem.”  We realize at session we are fighting to save what we love.  Our relationship with God and our desire to restore and protect our life on this campus as God’s church.  Even on God’s terms.

John Calvin gives us a unique perspective of how we might love and fight for what we desire.  He speaks first of the importance of respecting all the creatures involved in the drama of the world as a theater of God’s glory.  He then goes on to see the simple act of giving praise, of worship, as generating the life it celebrates.

 As we struggle with desire being unfulfilled this gives us hope.  By giving praise to God solely for the reason of giving praise and seeking nothing else in return, we will come closer to generating the very object of our affection.  We will come closer to God.

 Giving praise, for Calvin, requires performance.  It springs from an inner disposition of intense desire, influenced by its longing for the object of its love.  Hence, the act of praise has a double effect:  It subjectively stirs desire in the one who celebrates and objectively makes present and real that which is celebrated.

 There is a subjective aspect of our faithful living that relates to what the person absorbed in praise is experiencing – what happens over time in the process of  “becoming”  what one desires.  Subjectively, Calvin sees the worshipper as being stirred to desire through the act of prayer.

 The most important reason for praying, he says, is “that our hearts may be fired with a zealous and burning desire ever to seek, love, and serve God.”

 But there is also an objective aspect of religious devotion, located in its projection of a final reality onto the object toward which it is directed.  To God.

Faithful living,  as worship,  for Calvin is a celebration to the extent that its chief end is the praise of God’s glory.  Yet, Calvin’s conception of worship is also, as he has said, magical to the extent that the act of praise also contributes to the maintenance of our real life world.

  In the objective dimension of worship, Calvin declared that our reverence generates a powerful transaction of honor.  Our facing again and again the mundane,  repeated ups and downs of life honor God.  Praise is able to authenticate and sustain that toward which it is directed:  God.

In the act of praise,  the liturgy, our tending to the brokenness in our life, our living faithfully for God alone,  changes the very world it calls into being.  

As theologian Jürgen Moltmann says, “It opens creation for its true future. It is for this that human beings are created – for the feast of creation, which praises the eternal, inexhaustible God . . . This song of praise was sung before the appearance of human beings, is sung outside the sphere of human beings,  and will be sung even after human beings have –perhaps-disappeared from this planet .”

 We, dear ones, are created to create.  In our desire to faithfully serve others on this campus we praise God and we bring God here to be with us.

  As Belden Lane says, “Day after day, God brings the world to its feet in ecstatic applause as the curtain falls once again on God’s dramatic performance of desire.  Smitten by longing,  we stand alongside the others in speechless awe,  clapping our hands in hope of another encore, determined-if we can help it-that the performance  never ends.

We cannot imagine a God as eager to perform as we are to enjoy.  Held in strange and awesome embrace,  in the joyous meeting of God’s desire and our own,  we and the whole world with us are sustained by praise.”

This God, who is our problem, we praise.  Our God, who is so eager to perform, celebrates us.  God celebrates Genesis Church for we desire God be known in our midst.  We desire God’s encore.  That God’s love never end.

 God, dear ones, is more than the problem. God is also the answer.

 In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen                                 060213.Gpc