Gifts of Advent

 

Jeremiah 29:1, 4-14

John 14:27

               We’ve been reading a lot of difficult passages lately.  Looking intensely at some of the harder and harsher words from the Old Testament.  And I feel that today’s readings are a deep blessing instead.  They are a breath of deep and fresh air.  Today as we begin Advent, we begin with this promise of something beautiful.  We begin with seeing once again the deep love of God. 

While Jeremiah is addressing a people in captivity and in exile, I want to invite you to think for a minute about how these words might apply to you, too.  While we are not literally in captivity or in exile, there are areas within each of us that are in captivity and/or in exile.  Maybe you are in captivity to anger that you are holding against someone else.  Maybe you are in captivity to fear about what is happening to a loved one, to yourself, to the country.  Maybe you are in captivity to an addiction that you just can’t shake, no matter how much you may want to, or something you have to finish, a chore, a promise, a commitment that you simply do not want to fulfill, that is holding you captive in that it prevents you from moving on, from doing what you may want to do.  Maybe you feel your body is holding you in captivity in its limitations, in the ways you may now be limited physically, or prevented by bodily issues from doing the things that you would like to be able to do. 

And exile?  Are there people in your life from whom you are estranged?  Are there relationships that you cannot reconcile?  Are there places where you feel uncomfortable, uneasy, separated, distant?  Are there places that have meant “home” to you that are no longer accessible?  Or people with whom you felt at home that you can no longer be with (because of many things, even death, that keeps us apart)?  Where are the areas within you that you have pushed out or that you cannot face?  Where are your shadow sides that you have exiled away from you?  Are there parts of yourself that you hold off, keep distant, exile?

With those images in mind, I invite you to listen again to these beautiful promises of love, these sweet and awesome promises of the future.  Close your eyes and hear these words for you again:

“I know the plans I have in mind for you, declares the Lord; they are plans for peace, not disaster, to give you a future filled with hope.  When you call me and come and pray to me, I will listen to you.  When you search for me, yes, search for me with all your heart, you will find me.  I will be present for you, declares the Lord, and I will end your captivity. I will gather you …, and I will bring you home after your long exile, declares the Lord.”  

I want you to hear those words in your hearts. These are advent promises, promises of a time to come, a time of unexpected release and comfort, a time of hope, a time of reconciliation and healing, a time of peace. 

In the book The Life of Pi, Pi had been on a boat that sank with all his family and everything that he had.   He was the only human who survived on a lifeboat.  But he was on that lifeboat for a very, very long time.  It was an incredibly difficult time.  As he described it, sometimes there weren’t any fish to catch, to eat.  And sometimes the sun was way too hot and the despair was absolutely overwhelming.  When he was asked how he survived it, if it was all just miserable and awful, he said, “You reach a point where you’re at the bottom of hell, yet you have your arms crossed and a smile on your face, and you feel you’re the luckiest person on earth.  Why?  Because at your feet you have a tiny … fish [to eat].” (217).  

The truth is that we can, almost always, find signs (like a fish meal when we are hungry) of God’s love, of LIFE.  And those gifts, those signs of hope and of life are promises in themselves.  They are reminders that God created you because God loves and that is God’s very nature to love you into being YOU.

In the book, Finding Chika, Mitch Albom wrote about caring for Chika who was a little girl dying of a brain tumor.  He wrote about what he learned, how he grew during that time.  One of his chapters was entitled, “Lesson Three: A sense of wonder” and he wrote, “We took you to Disneyland once, Chika.  Do you remember?  It was after the radiation treatments.  You had been wondering about Sleeping Beauty’s Castle, which they show at the start of every Disney movie.  ‘Is that real?’ you’d ask, and we’d say that it was, and someday we would take you to see it.  One night, after putting you to bed, Miss Janine and I looked at the missing patch of hair above the back of your neck.  Your forehead was perspiring.  And we said to each other, ‘What are we waiting for?’  We made the reservations.  We flew to California.  I bought tickets for a weekday, hoping for smaller crowds, and we arrived before the park even opened.  What I remember most is what you did first.  We entered through Main Street, passing souvenir shops.  The rides were up ahead, and I wondered which would make you scream ‘Can we do that one?’  Instead we passed a small pond, and a gray duck wandered out of the water.  And with Astro Orbitor to your right, Thunder Mountain to your left, and Sleeping Beauty’s Castle straight ahead, you pointed down and yelled, ‘Look!  A duck!’ And you chased after it and giggled wildly, ‘Duck!  Duck!’… With all those amusement park attractions calling, you got low to marvel at another living creature.  … Children wonder at the world.  Parents wonder at their children’s wonder.  In so doing, we are all together young.”

This is the awe of Advent, the wonder of Advent.  Does it mean everything is okay?  Of course not.  Again, that story I read you about Chika was from a child who was dying.  A very young girl (5 -6 years of age) who died of a brain tumor.  An extremely tragic experience full of pain and loss, of painful treatments and hospital stays.  But it was in the midst of that that she found joy, wonder, delight.  God’s promise for us is one of peace: a place of rest, a place of healing for our souls: a freeing from the captivities of our minds, a return from the places of exile within.  Those moments of joy, of sight, of feeling, sensing, resting in God’s presence.  These are the gifts of Advent, the promise of that new life to come, of God’s being with us in person.

But Advent does not just leave us here.  Advent also calls us to be part of the movement, part of the growing, to pass on that hope, that peace, that joy and that love to those we encounter. 

Bishop Michael Curry, in his book, Love is the Way (New York: Penguin Random House, 2020.  P 154), wrote about the ministry his congregation was doing in the “rough” neighborhoods, in the poorest areas.  The congregants made a commitment to make a difference in those neighborhoods.  They started by singing on the street corners, and they preached five minute sermons about God’s love on the street corners.  He wrote, “During the winter holidays, we shifted to Christmas caroling.  One night, as we walked the streets near the church with our flashlights, I could sense that enthusiasm was waning. Caroling on the streets isn’t like singing in church.  In a church, voices bounce off the walls with a resonance that amplifies and improves the sound.  A mouse can belt like Patti LaBelle.  But on the streets, we got no such lift.  Our voices seemed quiet and flat, lost in the air of boarded-up and derelict homes.  Still, we stuck with it, determined to share some spirit that night.  We stopped on one block near an alley and began a quiet rendition of ‘Silent Night’ even though we couldn’t see a soul.  As we neared the finish of the first verse – ‘sleep in heavenly peace’ – we were about to walk on.  And then from the darkness of the alley, we heard a response.  A voice sang out from the darkness finishing the song, ‘Sleep in heavenly pea-ace, sle-eep in heavenly peace.’  I experienced surprised elation, but also sadness. Down that alley someone was listening.  And also down that ally someone was possibly cold, possibly hungry, possibly high.  I would never know, because he didn’t show his face.  And yet, he had responded.  Thanks to that unseen neighbor, we understood that even when it didn’t seem like it, somebody was listening.  That was a beginning, and over the years, a relationship between the community and the churches in the community began to emerge and grow. 

“I came to see that night as symbolic of the same transition we were going through as an entire congregation – a reawakening toward the community outside our walls, which was leading to a reawakening of the reality of God within and without.  It was, I suspect, part of why I was brought to St. James, and it was the hardest work any of us had ever done. 

“This is a hard and necessary work, for all of us.  It’s easy to contribute money and time to ‘do good’ and help others, whether through compassionate acts of service or by joining the movement for social justice and change.  It is far tougher to maintain a humble and dedicated relationship with God and with others, especially others who are not like you.  But that kind of relationship – the I-Thou relationship – is how we create a new dynamic, where there are no saviors, but only people working together for a better future for the good of all.  Without that mutuality our good acts all too easily replicate and reinforce the status quo.  When we draw on the ‘energies of love,’ to use Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s phrase, we reconnect with God and others, and in the end, with the whole world.

“As that happens, even if episodically, I-Thou overcomes I-It, and life becomes less about egoistic ‘me’ and more about altruistic ‘we.’”

MLK said it this way, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.  Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” 

So, during this advent we are invited to rest in the peace God offers, but also to extend that peace in every interaction we have.  To step forward with courage and confidence and to invite those around us to do likewise. 

There is a beautiful Amish proverb that says, “Faith gives us the courage to face the present with confidence and the future with expectancy.”  Those are the promises of Advent.

This first Sunday in Advent we focus on hope, the  hope that comes through trust, through faith.  We are invited to find that hope within, to lean on God to be able to pull that hope to our hearts, to claim it as the promise that it is.  And then to pass it along to those we encounter.  So I want to end our sermon today with the words that Jesus spoke in the scripture we read this morning.  These words are for YOU.  As we enter this Advent season, I invite you to bring them into your heart as the promise, the hope, the Advent of a new day that they are.   As we heard today from Jeremiah:

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope for the future.”  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

All Saint's Day sermon (late)

 

Celebration of the Saints

1 Kings 5:1-5; 8:1-13

John 2:19-21

10/31/21

               In the passage that we read today from 1 Kings, we hear of the amazing plans of Solomon for the building of the temple.  We also hear in that last line the intent of the temple.  “Then Solomon said, ‘The Lord said that he would live in a dark cloud, but I have indeed built you a lofty temple as a place where you can live forever.’”   We don’t tend to think of God as living in a temple, as living in a building, as residing in a specific place at all.  If we do, I think we envision heaven as the place where God lives.  But this is not really a biblical understanding.  And it is certainly not an Old Testament understanding.  The Israelites truly and deeply believed that God resided in the temple, in the Holy of Holies: the innermost part of the temple: in the Ark of the Covenant.  This was where God LIVED and could be found. 

               I invite you to think about that for a moment.  How would our faith, our practice of faith change if we believed God actually lived in the church, for example?  What would you do differently if we believed that this building was God’s HOUSE? 

               And then the next question is, if we believed that God lived here in this building and then the building was destroyed, especially by people we believed to be enemies, how would that impact you?  What would you do?  What would WE do? 

               That is in fact what happened to the Israelites.  For them the temple was sacred, absolutely holy in the highest sense of that word.  It was perfect, it was God’s home.  And then it was destroyed.  Twice it was destroyed.  And both times that destruction was beyond devastating.  It challenged everything they believed, everything they understood.  Did this mean that God was destroyed too?  Did it mean that God had left the “home” they had made for God?  And if so had God left them, too?

               They had come to a very unhealthy place in their understanding.  God had wanted a relationship with the Israelites.  But instead, they had made it into a set of rites, rituals and regulations.  But that became their core value, their core understanding.  And when that was destroyed?

               We all have beliefs, we all have “sacred cows” in our understandings and in our theology, but also in our mind sets.  Things that we cling to absolutely.  Those beliefs that we cling to become our grounding, our base.  They become foundational for us; core beliefs that effect everything else about the way we view the world.  They affect what information we can take in, what information we reject.  They also blind us to other pieces of information.  They blind us, many times to inconsistencies and to flaws in the arguments that support those beliefs.  They blind us to obvious truths that would challenge our way of thinking. 

But the thing is, sacred cows cannot survive in this world.  Anything other than God that we make into an idol is bound to fall, that we declare absolute, that we decide is “truth” cannot survive, ultimately.  Maybe not in our lifetimes, but everything that we make into an idol, or that we decide is unshakeable, or absolute will be challenged.  And when the beliefs or the idols or the sacred cows become challenged, as all sacred cows will, we will have a choice we must make. 

There are four ways people usually respond when their core beliefs are challenged. 

               The first is to continue to deny what has challenged our understanding.  This can only be done up to a certain point, but people do this.  Even when it is obvious to everyone around them that they are doing that, people still do this.  For example, if you were raised to believe that people who are rich have it because they deserve it, and people who are poor don’t have things because they don’t deserve to have good things, then these beliefs might be challenged the first time that you actually get to know a poor person, or someone who grew up in abject poverty.  Even so, I hear people find ways to cling to their old belief systems: “Well, this person is the exception”.  “Well, but MOST people who are poor are different.”  Or they discover how much harm someone who is rich has really done to those under them in order to climb that particular ladder.  Same deal: “Well, that action was the exception.  They don’t normally act that way.” 

               When I was in Ohio there was another clergy couple in our Presbytery who also went through a terrible scandal.  The male pastor was brought up on ecclesiastical charges for sexually abusing a bunch of different boys from three different Presbyteries around the country.  These boys were now all men, the pastor was past the statute of limitations so could not be brought up on criminal charges, but these boys were pressing ecclesiastical charges.  The pastor renounced jurisdiction, which means he gave up his ordination, in order to shut down the process so that no one would hear the charges or be able to confront him.  But the three Presbyteries involved decided this was unfair to the victims.  They hosted “listening” sessions that would simply allow the victims to share their experiences with this pastor.  When the charges were first brought, most people supported the pastor.  They denied the possibility that their beloved, charming, charismatic pastor could ever be found guilty of something like this.  But with the listening sessions man after man came forward to share their story.  And those these men had not previously known each other (some from California, some from Florida and now some in Ohio), their stories all had strong similarities and were all intensely painful.  Once those stories were out, it became much, much harder to deny the charges.  But his wife continued to hold on to her belief in his innocence.  She could not allow her core faith in her husband’s innocence to be shaken, despite the evidence. 

The second response that a person may have in the face of the face of a core belief being challenged is that a person may change lesser beliefs around the core belief in order to hold up their core belief.  I saw this with Martha Stewart.  People believed in her. Many idolized her. So when she was found guilty of insider trading, people changed other ideas they had in order to keep Martha Stewart as the idol she had been for so many.  “Oh, that’s not such a bad thing,” they decided.  Or “Well, she wasn’t really guilty.”  Or, “well, people make mistakes”.  And they forget that if it had been a poor, unknown person making that same “mistake”, they would have wanted them put away for life.

               However, if the situation is too big, too overwhelming, neither of these responses can be upheld.  Such was the case with the destruction of the temple.  It was far too clear and obvious that the temple had been destroyed for any denial to be long lasting.  So then again, they had a bigger choice to make about the cognitive dissonance they were experiencing.  One possible response is to throw out the whole belief system.  Some people decide that because a core understanding has been found to be flawed, the whole thing has to go.  We see this response in many situations.  When I was doing my dissertation on fundamentalism, as you know from a few weeks ago, I interviewed some people who had left fundamentalism to become atheists.  For these folk, they would find something in scripture that contradicted something else in scripture (like, for example, the order of creation in Genesis 1 versus the order of creation in Genesis 2, or Jesus’ constant confrontation and overturning of some of the old biblical laws: like the law of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” which he completely threw out saying “But I say to you, do not return evil for evil. But if someone slaps one cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.”, etc.) then their core belief in a literal and inerrant scripture becomes challenged.  The reaction of some, then, is to throw out the entire faith.  “If this is wrong, the whole thing must be wrong.”

Another example I’ve often encountered is with the core belief that God is in charge of everything, and that everything happens for a reason.  If God is all-powerful and then something too terrible to be dealt with happens, what is a core belief for many is shaken.  If I believe that God can take control or is in control of everything, then I may have been able to say, “everything happens for a reason” when my brother died or when I lost my job.  But when an event such as the Holocaust happens?  Or when I know a child who is raped or tortured?  When I encounter first hand the thousands of people who die from starvation or dehydration?  Then the ability to say “well, God was in charge” and “everything happens for a reason” can be challenged.  The result for many who go through this experience is also one of choosing to reject faith completely.  There can’t be a God at all, certainly not a loving God, if these kinds of terrible things happen and God does not prevent them.

In the secular world, we see this happen when an idol is found to be human. When a politician or movie star or pastor is caught in a scandal that is so horrific that it cannot be denied, people may throw out the person all together.  They will flip from seeing the person as all good to seeing the person as all evil.  There is no in-between.  There is no humanity to be accounted for.  They were perfect.  And now they are the devil. 

Finally, the last, and obviously the most healthy response to that cognitive dissonance, to an irrefutable challenge to our core beliefs is to go through the grief and pain of adjusting them.  Can we make that choice to change how we think, to readjust our beliefs to include the new information?  This is the hardest self-reflective work that we will ever have to do in our lifetimes: to actually be willing to look at foundational beliefs, to accommodate information we did not have before, to change.  I cannot overstate how hard this is for people.  The grief involved in a complete mind-set change is so large that most people simply cannot do it.  It takes amazing strength, courage and wisdom to be able to look at new information and consider that we may have been wrong.

I think about the people who believed with absolute conviction that Hitler was doing a good thing for his people, and what they must have felt after WWII.  Were they able to see that they had in fact been wrong?  Were they able to change?  Where they able to see the evil in their own understandings?  Or did they die declaring he was right, or misunderstood, or that we just were focusing on the wrong thing?   Did they deny the evil he did?  Say it hadn’t really happened at all?  Did they deny the inhumanity of the concentration camps?  Or continue in prejudice, blind thinking?  Were they able to change?

We know that some were.  I think about Corrie Ten Boom’s writing about some of the guards she met when the Holocaust had ended.  I think about their confessions to her with sorrow and deep regret about the parts they played.  But how hard that must have been for them!  How hard for any of us to realize we have participated in something harmful, or destructive.  I’m reminded once again of Professor Dumbledore’s commentary at the end of the Harry Potter series about the evil Voldemort.   He said that even this evil man could heal, he could heal all the horrible, awful things he had done.  He could find “salvation” but only if he were willing to face what he had done and to feel remorse for it.  He also admitted that the pain of that remorse would be worse than he could imagine.  But it would save him.  Being willing to see and understand would save him.  But it would not come without a pain he was unwilling to experience. 

               Today we celebrate the saints.  And we tend to mean two things by this in the Presbyterian Church.  The first is those people who have gone ahead of us whom we honor.  When I think of the saints in my life, the people in my life whom I deeply respect, admire, look up to; they are, consistently, people who are willing to do the hard internal work of really looking at themselves, their core beliefs, and all of their actions throughout their lives that have come out of those core beliefs.  They are willing to turn, or go a different direction, when they have found that their most sacredly held beliefs have led them astray.  They are people, like Jack, who are willing to adjust, change, and go a different way.

               The other thing we in the church mean by “the saints” is all those whom we have cared about and valued who have passed before us.  Because we believe and understand that they are all children of God, all loved by God, all valued by God.  They have added to our lives, not always in a good way, but always they have added something, something we could learn from if not rest in.  They have made us who we are, they have made the church what it is.  They have struggled and suffered as we now struggle at times and suffer at times.  And their legacy informs ours and who we are and who we are becoming.  We remember them in all their humanity, in all their ideas that we now know to have been false, all their core beliefs that we have now come to see were flawed and limited.  Our remembering them can help us to be gentle with our own flawed beliefs.  Our remembering the building of the temple and the hope they placed in this building that was destroyed can help us to have compassion for those who remain stuck in their ideas, but also for ourselves when we are struggling to change.  It can also give us the courage to change: Remembering can give us the courage and strength to be willing to change our ideas when they are challenged. 

               So, on this All Saints Day, I call you to remember.  Remember a temple people thought housed God.  Remember that it fell.  Remember that the people had to choose how to respond when their core beliefs, their sacred cows, were destroyed.  Remember the saints we have known and their core beliefs that were challenged or shattered during their life times or afterwards.  And then remember to be gentle with yourself when you are faced with new information.  You have choices about how to respond.  Will we grow?  Will we learn?  Growing and learning will make our lives easier.  But know this good news: that even when we don’t, when we cannot stretch or cannot grow, God will still love us, hold us, and carry us into tomorrow.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

Christ the King Sunday: The One Who Judges

 Isaiah 9:1-7, Ezek. 34:11-16, 20-24, John 8:12

In my lectionary group about a month ago, our leader for the day showed us a Key and Peele video from YouTube called “God Visits a Prayer Group.”  In this video a prayer group is praying hard.  The leader of the group begins with great earnestness as the group holds hands in a circle, “Father, please hear our prayer for the poor.  We beseech you for the disenfranchised, the less fortunate and those that suffer.  Show us your will so we can continue to do your work.”  All those around him in the prayer group are nodding and “amen”-ing and chiming in with “yes, Father!”  And then suddenly a loud booming voice comes from above and says, “I have come to answer your prayers.  Listen carefully to my instructions.”  At that point, everyone in the prayer group gets on their knees is looking up in great expectation, with hands clasped together, shouting, “Alleluia!” and looking enraptured.  The voice continues, “I want you to sell everything you own and immediately begin service to the poor.”  The members all look around at each other in fear and anxiety.  One member says, “I just want to clarify… everything?”  God continues, “Yes! Rid yourself of all earthly possessions.”  The members of the prayer group exchange looks and then they begin shouting.  “Oh no!  This house is haunted!”  “It’s a ghost!”  “Move!”  “Go, go go!”  “it’s insidious!”  And they all run out of the house.  

Hm.  I’m going to come back to this.

Today is Christ the King Sunday, the day we honor that Christ is our king, the one and only King that we should be following in all ways.  We know from the book of Samuel that the Israelites had asked for a human king repeatedly, against God’s wishes and against God’s will.  They had begged God for a king when God kept telling them the only king they needed was God.  And finally God gave into their demands but God did so with a warning, (from 1 Samuel 8:4-20):  “This is what the king who will reign over you will claim as his rights: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots.  Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots.  He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers.  He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants.  He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants.  Your male and female servants and the best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use. He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, …”

They didn’t want God for a King.  And yet today we celebrate that God, that Christ was, is and still will be our king.  Still, I wonder what we actually mean by that when we say it?  What do we envision when we think of Christ returning as king?  Do we continue to envision the kind of king we think of when we think of earthly kings?  I believe many Christians do, at some level at least.

When the Israelites were asking for a king, they were asking for something very specific.  From the same Samuel passage I quoted above, this is what they asked for, ““We want a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.”

In other words, when they asked for a king, they were mostly looking for someone to defend them against others.  When you think of kings, or government of any kind, what do you think of?

When you think of JESUS, what do you think of?  

No matter how much we may think that when it comes to Jesus we have let go of the images of “king” that we have based on our human leaders, there is evidence all around us that most people, even when they think of God as king, have in fact NOT let go of those very specific, earthly images that scriptures tell us are anything BUT what God the King, Christ the King, is all about.  Jesus came as a baby, as a poor baby.  So already, our images of rich rules, rules with power and money are challenged. Then we see his actions during life.  And what were they?  They were NOT amassing more wealth for himself.  They were NOT the military images we have of kings defending nations.  They were not claiming power for the Israelites at the cost of everyone else.  And they were absolutely not supporting the rich to get richer while the poor got poorer.   Jesus was killed in part because the Jewish people were disappointed at the kind of kingship he brought – he disappointed them by NOT overthrowing the Roman Empire.  He disappointed them by NOT defending Israel against the Romans.  And at the same time he was a threat to the Roman leaders because the leadership he offered: of uplifting the poor and marginalized at the cost to the wealthy was still a threat.  His kingship was recognized by Romans and Jews alike: but they could NOT grasp, could not begin to grasp, that it was completely different from what they thought a king was like or what they thought a king would do, should do, or could do. Our hymns on this day hail Jesus.  But I wonder if even this isn’t a capitulation to our earlthy ideas of what kings should be.  Is what we are doing here what Jesus would be wanting us to do this day?  Is Jesus asking us to sing his praises?  Or is he asking us to feed his hungry people?  Is Jesus asking us to argue theology with each other?  Or is Jesus asking us to welcome the stranger, ALL strangers, ANY stranger?  Is Jesus asking us to sue those who would take from us, exert an “eye for an eye” on people or countries who do us harm, or does he challenge us with the words, “You have heard it said an eye for an eye, but I say to you that you must not oppose those who want to hurt you. If people slap you on your right cheek, you must turn the left cheek to them as well.  When they wish to haul you to court and take your shirt, let them have your coat too.  When they force you to go one mile, go with them two.  Give to those who ask, and don’t refuse those who wish to borrow from you.”  Is this King, Christ, Jesus, one who protects us against those who would steal our wealth?  Or one, like I read to you today in the skit, quoting the New Testament Jesus himself, who asks us to give UP those earthly possessions in order to serve those who would steal it from us?!

Instead of the earthly king who sits on a thrown and protects against enemies, we are given very different images of what and who Christ the King is through scripture.  “I will seek out my flock.  I will search for them when they have scattered.  I will feed them.  I will bind up the wounded and strengthen the week.”  But then also, “the fat and strong I will destroy.”  Notice it isn’t “the enemies” whom he will destroy.  It isn’t “those other people”.  Instead, it is those who are doing well while others are hungry and lost and week and wounded.  Which are we?  Are we really SURE we are prepared for this kind of king?   

This king expects different things from us than our earthly king expects.   Earthly government may indeed take a piece of our money and resources.  Earthly government requires our allegiance.  But God the king expects us to share ALL of our money and resources.  ALL of it.  Like in the video I quoted at the beginning of the sermon.  He expects different things from us than we are want to give.  In today’s passage from Matthew, Jesus is not saying, “Worship me on Sunday mornings and then you will get into heaven.”  That’s NOT what he is asking us to do.  As a matter of fact, scriptures are pretty pointed about this NOT being what is needed.  As you remember from last week, Amos tells us, in Amos 5:21-24: I hate, I reject your festivals; I despise your joyous assemblies. If you bring me your entirely burned offerings and gifts of food—I won’t be pleased; I won’t even look at your offerings of well-fed animals. Take away the noise of your songs; I won’t listen to the melody of your harps.  But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”  No, instead Jesus tells us what we are expected to do…  Feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, care for the sick, visit those in prison.  Those are what we are called to do.  

I want to be clear: I don’t believe we are called to be homeless ourselves or destitute.  But we are called to help, in any way we can, to make sure that others aren’t suffering either.  

Christ is not the kind of king, as Jesus states in today’s passage, who has guards who will fight for him and prevent him from being killed.  Instead he is the kind of king who allows his subjects to kill him and who dies begging for his killers’ forgiveness.  He is the kind of king who then comes back from death to reassure and save the very people who killed him.  He is not the kind of king, as we hear repeatedly, who caters to the wealthy and powerful, but instead is the kind of king who reaches out to the marginalized and powerless.  He is not the kind of king who luxuriates in riches and in being served by others, but instead is the kind of king who serves others continually.  He is the kind of king who IS king simply because he IS.  And he is the kind of king who asks us to follow and do as he did, feeding, caring, loving, one another.  We end the church year with this Sunday.  Next Sunday we begin again with Advent, with the waiting for Jesus to come as that helpless, poor baby.  Next week we begin to prepare for Christmas.  

But we aren’t quite there yet.  Right now we are still in the place of remembering that Christ was different than we expect, and perhaps different than we want.  It is a time to reevaluate what “kingship” means to us and for us.  So for today I invite you into a space of self-reflection, and of critical theological discernment about our vision and understanding of kingship.  Thanks be to God for the kingship of Christ.  May it teach us, guide us, and model for us a way of being in the world that is different.  Amen.

A Deep Dive

           It was suggested to me recently that perhaps I am not self-reflective enough.  Perhaps that is true.  After all, as I say repeatedly, we tend to project out onto others that which is our own issue and then condemn it.  And I can honestly say the thing that bothers me the most in other people is the hypocrisy of those who condemn something in another that is a huge problem in themselves (failing to take the log out of their own eyes as they attack the speck in someone else's).  So, if I am listening to myself here, it would make sense that that which bothers me in others is the thing that I am struggling with most in myself.  So the fact that I condemn an inability to be self-reflective in others may indeed be a sign to myself that this is something I am deeply needing to work on.

    Additionally, I remember very clearly a situation several years ago (one I wrote about here) in which I was on a retreat where we were all asked to put together a "life plan" that looked at what in five areas in our lives we needed to work on (physical, emotional, spiritual, financial, vocational).  Once I had done my piece of this, I told my group that I saw no connection between the five areas for me and the group was able to show me in what ways they all intersected.  I had not seen it.  I had even been using the same phrase to describe each area of needed growth but somehow had failed to hear myself repeating that phrase and had not seen the connections.

    All that being said, I spend a great deal of time in self-reflection.  I do this because I don't want my own "stuff" being dumped on my parishioners or my children.  I don't want to be a person who is unaware or blind to my own issues.  I am more than okay naming, recognizing, and working on those areas in myself where I fall short.  I want to be the most whole I can be and I don't know another way to get there except by being willing to look at, name, confront and work to change my own shortcomings.  From a faith perspective, I deeply want to be the person I believe God is calling me to be and I don't know how to be that person without doing the work.  I also am deeply aware that there are areas within each of us that are frankly very hard to see.  We need the reflection, the mirroring of others to be able to see those areas.  Sometimes the logs in our own eyes truly blind us even to seeing the logs themselves.  We cannot get there on our own.  For that reason I have worked with counselors and spiritual directors over the years, too, as well as meditating, journaling and doing the work on my own.  When people accuse me of being too "intense" I often think what they mean is that I spend too much of my time trying to look, see, do the work, and go deep.  

    Still, the truth remains that each person in our lives will see us differently.  Each person will see things that maybe we can't because each person comes from a slightly different perspective, with different experiences of their own.  It is also true that each person brings their own issues that also will necessarily skew how they see every other person.  That means that the judgments and "insights" of others into anyone else will always be flawed and inaccurate as well.  So for today I am simply sitting with the accusation that I am not self-reflective enough.  I will ask for more understanding of what that person believes they are seeing that they believe I am missing.  And I will take it to God in prayer and meditation to listen for what is truly mine, and what is truly theirs (again, we project our own stuff out, so at least a part of this belongs to that person).  It is part of the journey and commitment to growth to do so, and I will take it for the gift that it is.

BUT Let Justice Roll Down

 

Amos 1:1-2; 5:14-24

 

Woe to you who long for the day of the LORD.  Why do you long for the day of the LORD?  That day will be darkness, not light. It will be as though a man fled from a lion only to meet a bear, as though he entered his house and rested his hand on the wall only to have a snake bite him. Will not the day of the LORD be darkness, not light, pitch-dark, without a ray of brightness? “I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them.  Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!

  

I have preached before on Amos when we did our prophets series, but it has come up again in our narrative lectionary, and Amos is one of the prophets that I appreciate the most, so we are going to look anew at some of these passages from Amos.  I threw in a couple extra verses that show more of Amos than we usually hear.  These are again hard passages, but I didn’t want to simply avoid them because they are difficult.  They show an angry God even more strongly than the original few verses for today.  They show a God who is promising to punish Israel, or the people of Israel for their behavior.  Hard words.  But these are words that call us to pay attention.

        Today’s passage in Amos is saying that God is angry, VERY angry with unjust behavior.  In specific, God is angry with the elite of Israel living in comfort and luxury, while the poor are suffering.  It doesn’t matter to God that these elite go to church, that they offer sacrifices to God, that they PRAISE GOD.  Again, it doesn’t matter that they praise God, serve God, or go to church.  I think this really gets to the heart of what Amos is about. God is saying, through Amos, that going to church, belief, even faith, is NOT what wins points with God.  What God cares about, consistently and fully, is your caring for and taking care of God’s people, in particular the poor and suffering people.  God is angry at the people who are hanging out with other rich people in lofty solemn church services and not caring for the poor.  God is angry at the offerings of wealth lifted up to God.  God wants those things given to God’s people, to the poor, to the disenfranchised, the outcast, the marginalized.  God is also pointing out that these religious, worshiping people are not superior to those around them.  They have become self-satisfied.  They believe they worship the right God, perhaps the ONLY TRUE God and they believe that because of it, they have nothing to fear. 

There are many Christians who take on superior attitudes of self-importance.  WE are the saved, WE are the ones who KNOW THE TRUTH.  WE ARE THE ONES who are God’s true children.  We don’t have to do anything or care about anyone outside of these walls because we are the chosen people of God.  But this passage convicts us.  It confronts this attitude.  To quote Amos, “Are your kingdoms, (your beliefs, your rituals) really better than those around you? .....I abhor the pride of Jacob and hate his strongholds, and I will deliver up these people and all that is theirs.”  God says this to US!!!  To Christians, yes.  And to all who sit in pride and luxury while others are poor and suffering.

This is the clear, repetitive, redundant message of Amos.  It is the clear, repetitive, redundant message of all the prophets. 

But then the question comes up, as it did a few weeks ago when I preached on discernment, does God really punish people?  And I want to start by asking all of you.  Did God really cause the Israelites to be attacked, the elite to be sent into exile, the temple to be demolished?  Did God do this?  What do you think?  The question is not an easy one.  If you say, “no, God doesn’t do that” then you have to own that you are saying this despite all the Biblical prophets who say otherwise.  You are arguing against a large, huge chunk of the Bible.  If you say, “yes, God does do this” then you may have to rethink your image of God.  Is a God who destroys people, any people, all good?  And what about a God who wipes out whole countries of people, including many who are innocent, who themselves are poor, or are children, or are marginalized.  According to the prophets and much of the Bible, this is what God does.  Is this the God you worship? 

Ultimately, you will have to answer this for yourselves.  I can’t tell you what to believe, what is the “right” thing to think.  But you are my church family.  And I will tell you how I answer that question for myself.  As always, I am more than happy to continue this conversation with you after church or at another time as well.

I believe that these passages are descriptive of a reality.  That reality is that we reap what we sow.  I’m not saying the world is fair.  Too many times criminal people continue to get richer while the hard working honest but poorer folk suffer.  But I still believe that we reap what we sow as a people, as a humanity, sometimes in grossly exaggerated, horrible, violent ways.  I think about kids who are bullied, picked on, harmed by bigger, meaner kids at school.  Sometimes those victims get angry enough that they pick up a weapon themselves and we have tragedies like at Columbine.  Did the victims of that violence deserve to be killed?  No, of course not.  But they were part, perhaps of meanness, perhaps of not standing up to meanness, they were part of the spark that ignited something that eventually became distorted and evil.  I think about kids who were abused as children who grow up and abuse others in turn.  Again, not a good thing, but what was reaped was sown as the violence continued. 

I believe this happens at the larger levels as well.  In countries where the poor are pushed down and deeply oppressed, eventually there are bloody revolts and revolutions where the oppressed stand up to their oppressors and overturn things.  While the war happens, things are again, much worse for everyone.  There is death, there is mayhem.  Things are bad.  But the fires didn’t and don’t start without sparks.  So too between countries.  When a country decides to be a bully with a self-satisfied superior attitude, eventually other countries get tired of it, ban together and there are wars.  When people of different faith traditions choose to be self-satisfied and smug about their religion being the “only” way, they may convert a few, but I know they generally turn off and even make enemies of many more people than they convert. 

On the positive side, too, humanity reaps what it sows.  A few years ago as I was waiting at a stop sign, I saw a man in a car up ahead of me roll down his window, try to say something to the car next to him, finally jump out of his own car, going behind and closing the trunk of the car next to him, whose trunk had flown open while we were all driving.  It was a small act of caring for him to shut his neighbor’s trunk.  But I found myself smiling at the small act, cheered by it, even moved by it.  That act of caring touched more than the people in the car next to him, for it touched many of us who watched it as well.  It reminded me of other times when people have stopped for no reason except to be neighborly, have offered a hand to help, have by their caring touched many lives in a positive way. 

I’m reminded of a Chinese Proverb:

Where there is light in the soul, there is beauty in the person.

Where there is beauty in the person there is harmony in the home.

Where there is harmony in the home there is honor in the nation.

Where there is honor in the nation there is peace in the world.

Our faith tells us that we are all connected.  And everything we do matters, affects the world.  Our faith tells us that in serving others we serve ourselves, not the other way around.  And I believe that plays out in our psyche as well as on a tangible level.  When we focus all our efforts on caring for ourselves, or even on caring just for those “like” us - who don’t really need the love or the resources, we may have millions, but it is empty.  The thrills wear thin after awhile and the silence that is left is devoid of meaning or love. In contrast, when we reach out with love and care, we may not have millions of dollars in our pockets, but we have hearts full of meaning, purpose and love.  How could we be richer than that?   We are all connected.  When your life is just, so is mine.  When yours is not, mine is empty and uneasy as well.  I believe the prophets described this reality.  They described a world in which the evils of humanity hurt and harm, and the good in humanity also can spread with grace and love.

That still doesn’t answer the question, though, of where God is in this.  Or rather, where I believe God is in this.  I believe that God is angry at injustice.  I believe God is disappointed in injustice.  God has given us the gifts we need to care for one another, and I believe it saddens, hurts and enrages God to see us serving ourselves rather than others.  I believe that we see the effects of that injustice when we look at Jesus on the cross, crucified because people were threatened by his call to love neighbor as self, threatened by the truth that we are connected and that we are therefore called to love each other in the same way we love ourselves and to give up what we have to actively follow Christ.  I believe the cross shows us where God is in the face of that injustice.  God suffers with the suffering.  God cries with the abandoned.  God calls out for truth and justice with the oppressed.

But I also don’t believe that God stays there.  God raises new life out of that death.  God brings hope and justice out of the unjust situations.  Even for the Israelites.  Just a short time after the book of Amos was written, the Israelites were almost entirely wiped out.  But out of that empty place, God, love, justice was the force that raised them again, returned them again, began their people again in Israel.  God resurrects.  God brings life out of death.

Do I believe that God punishes people?  No.  Even if you take a more literal approach to scripture, we have the story of Noah in which God makes a strong promise never to destroy people again.  But still, I believe punishment or emptiness comes, not from God, but it comes, none the less, to those who serve themselves rather than seeking to love, seeking to care.  Fortunately, even in those times God’s promise of new life and new beginnings is there for all of us, every day, in every way.  Let us try in all that we do to seek out that life, for others, for ourselves, for all creation. 

I want to end by reading you the very last part of the book of Amos. 

Amos: Chapter 9: 11-15

“In that day I will restore David’s fallen tent.  I will repair its broken places, restore its ruins, and build it as it used to be, so that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations that bear my name,” declares the LORD, who will do these things.

 “The days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when the reaper will be overtaken by the plowman

and the planter by the one treading grapes. New wine will drip from the mountains and flow from all the hills. I will bring back my exiled people Israel; they will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit. I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land I have given them,”

says the LORD your God.

AMEN.

What really matters?

     As I was getting dressed this morning, I made the unusual (for me) choice to dress down for work.  I often wear jeans on the days our hiking group walks but otherwise I usually dress up in "business professional" wear.  The reality is, though, that I really prefer what is comfortable to what looks good.  Maybe in part this is because I'm just not a really visual person.  I understand my world primarily kinesthetically and secondarily through hearing.  Vision is somewhere pretty far down the list for me, and so, more than most people, I just don't care about appearance.  Those of you who know me well know this.  I don't wear make-up, I don't spend time on my hair, I don't wear jewelry or paint my nails.  Almost all of my clothing is either gifts or hand-me-downs, and all of it is old.  The dress I wore to church on Sunday I was given when I was ordained 25 years ago.  The boots I'm wearing today were a gift when we moved to Ohio 13 years ago... you get the idea.

    None the less, as I was getting dressed this morning and decided to wear jeans instead of nicer pants, and a t-shirt under a sweater, I had to wrestle with myself a bit about it.  I kept remembering an incident at one of the other churches I served years ago.  That congregation had an evening praise service that was more focused on younger families and children.  It was, intentionally, a very informal service.  So we would all come wearing jeans and whatever clothing was comfortable.  We had a visitor come one evening for this service, but when she walked in and saw that those attending were dressed casually, she was so offended she turned around and left, commenting to the greeter by the door that "it's disrespectful to God when you don't dress up for church!"  It was a flippant remark made by someone I never saw before or since that evening.  None the less it stayed with me and its weight was reinforced for me by other comments other people have since made in my hearing.  I heard someone else say, for example, that he didn't respect another pastor because that pastor didn't dress up for church.  

    From a scriptural perspective, I can't support these attitudes.  1 Samuel 16:7b says: "God doesn’t look at things like humans do. Humans see only what is visible to the eyes, but God sees into the heart.”  In proverbs 31:30 it says "Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain."  And maybe the most clear passage is 1 Peter 3:3-4 which says, "Don’t try to make yourselves beautiful on the outside, with stylish hair or by wearing gold jewelry or fine clothes.  Instead, make yourselves beautiful on the inside, in your hearts, with the enduring quality of a gentle, peaceful spirit. This type of beauty is very precious in God’s eyes."

    From a theological perspective I also struggle to understand this.  Do we really think that God cares about what we wear?  Or how much money or time we put into our clothing?  Amos, among other prophets makes it really clear that what God cares about is our service to one another, our caring for the "least of these" rather than how we adorn ourselves.  

    That being said, I do understand the thinking of those for whom this is important.  Taking the time to put on your best says that the one you are going to see, to worship, to spend time with is important to you, is someone you value.  So the choice to dress up for church is a choice to make a statement that God is worth your best, worth your time, worth the effort it takes to dress up.  

    I understand this.  I also understand that God knows that sometimes the best I can do is to be the best I can be that day in terms of my behavior rather than what I am wearing, and that sometimes wearing what will be comfortable, what will not be distracting and need my constant care to make sure I stay tidy and neat, is the best way for me to be the best I can be.  The bottom line for me, again, is that people come with different values and different things that take priority in their lives on different days.  For me, today, the priority has not been on looking presentable, but on being able to be my best in terms of how I emotionally present on a very hectic and busy day.  

    This may feel like a small and insignificant thing, but my thoughts around all of this led to thinking more deeply about judgment on the whole. We are so quick to judge those around us who make different choices than we make.  Perhaps we are needing their affirmation of the choices we have made in order to feel okay.  Perhaps we need them to think and act and look and make choices that mirror our own so we feel good about our own choices.  Perhaps we need to be critical and then to feel superior about our choices just to feel okay about ourselves.  I don't really know.  But I do know that we don't get very far by focusing on what others are doing or failing to do. We don't grow through our judgments of others.  We grow by focusing on our own choices and actions.  The choices others make can help us to see alternatives and to think through what really matters to us.  But determining that the only way we can make the best choices for ourselves is to judge other people's choices is false.  There is room for diversity, there is room for differences in our thinking, acting, and living.  

    I can't change the judgments that come my way about my clothing choices or anything else.  But I can use my experience of those judgments to remind me that similarly judging others is not what I choose to do.  It is not kind.  It is not loving.  And judging can waste a lot of space in my heart and head.  I'm not saying I won't ever be judging.  Unfortunately it is in the nature of our culture to be critical of those around us.  But I will work harder to put those judgements aside when they do come and to just focus on what I will choose for myself.  Today that's the best I can do.

God in Our Doubts

  1 Kings 19:1-18

John 20:24-29

Mark 12:38-44

 

               In today’s Old Testament story we hear Elijah going through a spiritual crisis.  While in chapter 18 he had no problem standing up to the politics of the time, standing up to Queen Jezebel and her mandates on religion, here in chapter 19, he has fallen out of that place of confidence.  He is terrified, he is running away, he is hiding in a cave.  He is in a spiritual crisis.  He is in a time of doubt, a dark night of the soul.  And as a result he is lost in purpose, in meaning.  He is depressed, saying he’d rather die than face what is coming.  He has lost his sense of self.

               I think this is an almost universal feeling at some point: the feeling of being alone, unsure, scared, out of energy, out of meaning, confused in purpose, and yet still required to go on with your life: a place of having challenges that are overwhelming and don’t seem to be shared by those around us, but still needing to continue.  That feeling of depression and a sense of being lost as a person: wondering what you have done, or failed to do with your life; what you have or have not accomplished. A place of thinking through what has brought you to THIS point and being unsure how to move beyond or through it, a time of deep struggle.  I think about when our family went through its very hardest time and the fact that I often felt completely alone with all the work that was before me: taking care of three children and a congregation on my own in the midst of deep personal loss and grief, stress, humiliation and judgment.  But, unlike Elijah, I didn’t have the option to run away into the wilderness: I could not see any other option than to continue, to keep going.  Those moments can call one into a deep feeling of self-pity, or they can call us into being the best, the strongest, that we can be.  For Elijah this was a time of self-pity.  A cry for help.  A time of despair.  And that blinded Elijah to the truth.  As Paul Tilich once said it, “The opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty.”  But Elijah could not see that, so in his doubt he felt nothing but despair.

               And he believed himself, mistakenly, to be alone.  He was not alone.  There were many others in Israel who still followed, believed and were serving Yhwh.  We are told there were 7000 that were with him in vision, understanding and belief.  And at the end of the passage he anoints Jehu as king and Elisha as a prophet.  It was a temptation of Elijah to feel that he was alone, to believe he had to walk his path in isolation and without support.  It was an illusion to believe that he was being called on, the only one, to alone do this impossible task.  It was a place of self-indulgence to feel that self-pity and to hide in his cave of angst, despair and inaction.

               But what he found when he ran away from the frenetic activity of his life, when he escaped into the wilderness was not judgment or condemnation.  Instead, he was fed there.  How profound is that?  God did not yell at him for running away.  God recognizes that these times of doubt, of struggle and the need for retreat: these are part of being human.  These are necessary times of growth and regrouping in our lives.  And so God did not get angry or abandon Elijah.  Instead, God fed Elijah.  I believe this to be at two levels: physically and spiritually he was fed there.  His sense of inadequacy and his activity were keeping him from his relationship with God, but there in the wilderness, where he was alone with his self-pity and his thoughts, God’s response is first and foremost to FEED him.  We all need those times of reprieve, of break, and he took it and found he was fed.  He then continued on his journey and he came to the cave.  And there, too, God did not leave him alone.  First, he is confronted by his choices, “What are you doing here?” God asked.  It was not an attack, it was a question: why are you here rather than in Israel doing the work I call you do to?  Elijah responded by continuing in his complaint: I’ve done it all, all on my own, all that I was asked to do and now they are going to kill me!

               But even in that time of doubt, of self-pity, of fear, when he feels separated from God and wants to give up on his call, on his ministry, on his work, God is there.  Feeding him, calling him, present with him.  Because God is the one who pulls us out of that doubt.  We are called to be open to God’s presence, but it is God’s strength that enables us to move beyond those times.

               God speaks to Elijah, but not in the way he probably expected.  God does not speak to him in a flash of wondrous awe, God does not speak to him by shaking the ground and flipping the world upside down, God does not take charge and route the enemy for him.  Instead, God came to him in the way he least expected: in the silence.  This passage is not meant to suggest that this is the only way God approaches us or that God is mostly or only present in silence.  Rather this passage tells us that God often, if not always, comes in the ways that are not expected, in the least suspected places and times God shows up.  God is not always obvious.  God’s presence is not always clear.  While we like to know what to expect, while we like to have things outlined and clear, that’s just not how God functions.  There’s no map for us about where and how we will find God.  But God is there if we choose to pay attention. 

When Elijah finally does pay attention, God’s speaking here to Elijah is clear: go out and do what I am calling you to do.  Go and be who I am calling you to be.  Be done with the self-pity.  I want to point out again that God does not chastise or get upset with Elijah’s doubt: for doubt is a part of the journey.  Retreat is part of the journey.  Taking time away, time off is part of the journey.  Sabbath and Sabbatical are necessary parts of our faith.  But God does call him out of staying stuck in that place.  “You’ve been fed, you’ve had your time away, your time apart, your time off.  You’ve had your time of doubt, your time of anxiety, your dark-night of the soul.  But now it is time to live again: to be your full and complete self: the one I created and called you to be.” 

Today is Stewardship Sunday.  And I have to admit, at first I felt that to tie all of this into stewardship was going to be a real stretch.  But the reality is for all of us, our call is multifaceted, as well as a growing, living, active thing.  When we are young, we might be called to build houses for habitat, to earn money so that we have more resources to share, or to be a person who does things like bike for Bike Aid.  As we grow, that call maybe change: we are called to be the wise person serving on session or on deacons, listening, teaching, guiding; the comforter, the person who provides foods.  As we become even older, our call may change even more: we are called to less active pursuits, but still called to be the voice of truth, the voice or reason, the mediator, the bridge, and still generous.  Our calls change throughout our lives.  But in the midst of all of that change, our call to being present with God, loving to one another; and our call to be generous with whatever our times, our talents, and our resources are in that moment does not change.  That is not to say that there won’t be times of scarcity and times of plenty.  These, too, are part of the changing calls in our lives.  But we are universally called to give, not out of our abundance, but out of our scarcity as well.  The passage from Mark that was read today talked about the widow’s giving out of her poverty.  And what that means is that we give, even from the places where we feel “limited”.  This goes for finances, but for other things as well.  For example, we use the phrase, “putting in my two cents worth”.  Do we sometimes feel that we have nothing to contribute to a conversation?  That we are poor in our thoughts, in our ideas?  We are still called to give of them: God has an amazing way of speaking through our own ignorance or poverty of thought.  Do we say we have no talent in a certain way?  God has an amazing way of calling us to give even in areas where we feel we have no skills.  I never would have signed up to spend a summer building houses in Alabama, but when I signed up for a mission year, that is where I was sent.  That area: my lack of ability to do construction, was called upon.  I was called to give out of my poverty: out of my area where I felt I had no skills.  And in terms of finances, this also applies.

I preach this to myself as well.  There will be times for all of us that feel “tight”.  This year as I have two kids in college is one of those.  But the call of those in need, the call of our brothers and sisters who hunger and thirst at so many levels: physically, emotionally, spiritually: their need should be more important that our luxuries.  And what I find, consistently, is that the more I give, the more abundance returns to me.  This is the constant of my life, the consistent presence of God.  This is true at every possible level.  When I give more of my time, I find I have more time to give.  When I give more of my energy, I have more energy to share.  When I listen more fully to others, I find that they listen more fully to me as well.  And when I give more of my resources, such as money, they return to me in amazing, and unexpected ways! 

The truth is that our budgets say more about what we value than any mission statements we may have.  This is true personally as well as institutionally.  Where we put our money, where we put our resources: our time, our talents: this says everything about what we really value.  Do we value our buildings?  Or do we value our service to the poor?  Do we value our personnel?  Or do we value feeding people?  I realize I say this at my own risk, but this is true.  Where do we put our money?  That tells us, without exception, where are hearts really lie.

I want to return to the story of Elijah and point out that, again, as with everything, there are ebbs and flows, always.  Elijah needed that retreat time.  That time of doubt, that time of withdrawing: this is a normal and natural part of the faith journey.  God understands this.  God accepts this reality as part of what it is to be human.  When Jesus was in the garden at Gethsemane, he, too, expressed that doubt, that struggle, that fear and lack of confidence, and God did not criticize, judge or condemn it.  God understood that as well.  Finally in the passage from John we hear of Thomas’ doubt.  And it too was not condemned, critiqued or judged.

In every case, God allows it to be, and then God responds to that pain, that struggle, that choice to withdraw, to doubt, to fear, to be in pain: God responds to it by showing up.  God responds to it by being present.  God responds to it by restoring the trust that was broken, addressing the doubt with presence, calling attention to the relationship that grounds each of them in their faith, their love for God, their connection to God.  Just like with the story of Thomas.  Jesus did not withdraw from Thomas in Thomas’ doubt.  Instead, he came forward, presented himself, showed himself; restored the trust and the relationship.  Jesus understood and accepted where Thomas was.

But then Jesus called him into something new.  And then God calls us, too, into something new.  We can have our time of retreat: those times are necessary.  Sabbaticals, times away that are longer than the weekly Sabbath are deeply important.  We each need them.  But then we are called back into our callings, into our actions, and into our giving. 

On this Stewardship Sunday I want you to think about all the ways in which you give: your time, your talents, your BEING to God and to the service of God’s people.  How do you answer your call?  In what ways are you not answering the call fully?  In what areas are you afraid to answer or give in the way God calls you to answer or give?  In what areas do you feel poor?  In what ways are you avoiding the call you may be feeling?  In what areas have you retreated from your call and in what areas are you needing a break but have failed to claim it?  Where is God calling you in this moment?  With your giving of all that you are?  These are the questions of stewardship.  These are the questions of call.  These are the questions that these three passages, with their themes of retreat and return, doubt and faith, withdrawal and reengagement, fear and hope – these are the questions that they ask of us. 

So, as always, I invite you into a time of self-reflection, of asking and answering the questions for yourself.  Where is God with me today?  Where is God calling me to be today?  What parts of my call need my attention today?  And in what way can I respond to that call, to give of myself back to God and to one another with more honesty, integrity, commitment, generosity and truth? 

Peace be with you this day and on this journey of discernment.