Covenant Relationships

 

1 Samuel 17:55-18:9

Matthew 5:33-37

10/9/22

 

               Both of the passages that we read today have to do with commitments, with promises, or with, as I would say Covenants.  So to start, what exactly ARE covenants?

               Well, what is a contract?  A contract is generally between equals, or is about offering one thing in exchange for something else that is considered of equal value.  I exchange my house for this amount of money in a sale: that’s a contract.  We agree that the house is worth this much and we exchange it.  I contract to hire you to build something: we agree that your work is worth this amount of money.  Those are contracts.  And they are usually created based on what is generally considered fair.

               Covenants, as we saw in the Samuel passage are very different.  For example, the covenant relationship that is entered into between David and Jonathan is anything but equal.  Jonathan was the son of a king: a prince.  David was the son of one of the king’s servants.  As such, he had nothing to give that could possibly be of the same worth to what was being offered.  Jonathan gave to David his robe, tunic, sword, bow and belt and in “exchange” David stayed with him.  It was a covenant that in many ways mirrors the covenant relationship that God has with us:  God as the creator has everything.  Everything and all things belong to God, were brought into being by God.  We are called to be God’s  people, in our covenant.  And God’s part in the covenant is everything that we are given from God: life, family, friends, food, a beautiful planet on which to live, bodies that can eat, sing, dance, play, stretch.  We are given everything in this covenant and asked, for our part, to simply love God and one another in return.  It, too, is an extremely unequal, uneven, some might say ‘unfair’ CONTRACT.  So much so that it is no longer a contract, but a covenant. 

               And then we come to the Matthew passage.  And it says that we must not pledge or promise or swear to do something.  As Jesus says “Let your yes mean yes and your no mean no.”  Be true to your commitments without needing to make promises or oaths that say that you will keep them.  Why would this be important?  First of all, if you need to promise something or swear something in order to keep the covenant, it cheapens all the rest of your words when you don’t.  It implies that without that promise, without that solemn oath, you are somehow less likely to keep to your commitments and your agreements.  Secondly, sometimes things happen, sometimes things do pop up that make our promises impossible.  And there is no room in an oath for life to interfere, for life to happen, for the unexpected to be taken into account when we judge someone else’s actions.  But once again, this comes down to relationships.  We trust those closest to us, without their needing to “promise” or “swear” things because of the relationships, the covenant relationships with have with them.  And so this, passage, too, is calling us to go deeper in our relationships, to not need those promises, or oaths, but instead to live in trust and understanding. 

               You all have heard the story of the beheading of John the Baptist.  Herod valued John very much.  But when his daughter pleased him he made an oath to her to give her whatever she wanted.  And when she said she wanted John the Baptist’s head on a platter, he gave it to her because he had made an oath.  It was the wrong thing to do, but he felt bound to the oath he had made to do it.  If he had just asked, “what do you want?  I would like to give you something you desire,” there probably would have been more room to talk through what that should look like.  They would have been more closely connected because they would have had to discuss and connect to reach an agreement. 

               But what I want us to do today is to look at several modern situations that occur in the church in which we seem to ignore this mandate not to make oaths, not to make pledges, and discuss with you how this mandate might apply.

               The first situation is the constitutional questions we ask of people when they become ordained in various capacities in the church.  We ask similar questions when people become members.  Here are the constitutional questions:

1.      Do you trust in Jesus Christ your Savior, acknowledge him Lord of all and Head of the Church and through him believe in one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit?

2.      Do you accept the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be, by the Holy Spirit, the unique and authoritative witness to Jesus Christ in the Church universal and God’s Word to you?

3.      Do you sincerely receive and adopt the essential tenets of the Reformed faith as expressed in the confessions of our church as authentic and reliable expositions of what Scripture leads us to believe and do, and will you be instructed and led by those confessions as you lead the people of God!

4.      Will you fulfill your ministry in obedience to Jesus Christ, under the authority of Scripture, and be continually guided by our confessions?

5.      Will you be governed by our church’s polity, and will you abide by its discipline?  Will you be a friend among your colleagues in ministry, working with them, subject to the ordering of God’s Word and Spirit?

6.      Will you in your own life seek to follow the Lord Jesus Christ, love your neighbors, and work for the reconciliation of the world?

7.      Do you promise to further the peace, unity and purity of the church?

8.      Will you pray for and seek to serve the people with energy, intelligence, imagination and love? 

And then there is always a specific question for those being ordained to the different areas of ministry: deacon, elder, pastor, commissioned lay pastor, certified Christian educator.

               In addition there are questions asked of the congregation:

Do we, the members of the church, accept whomever as our pastor, chosen by God through the voice of this congregation to guide us in the way of Jesus Christ? Do we agree to pray for them, to encourage them, to respect their decisions and to follow as they guide us, serving Jesus Christ, who alone is Head of the Church? Do we promise to pay them fairly, and provide for their welfare as they work among us: to stand by them in trouble and share their joys?  Will we listen to the Word they preach, welcome, their pastoral care and honor their authority as they seek to honor and obey Jesus Christ our Lord?

               Most of these, one could argue, are not oaths made.  Most are just statements of commitment.  But this isn’t true of all of them.  There are a couple in each that are “do you promise…?”  Additionally, if we are taking seriously the “let your yes be yes and your no be no” do we really need to make these statements?  After all, we would not have signed up to do take these jobs or positions if we were not people of faith committing to care for and serve God’s people in these ways.  And finally, perhaps most importantly, I know that some of you have said you have a hard time making some of these promises, and yet we as a church have traditionally insisted that they be made anyway.  We are setting people up to make statements that lack integrity.  For example, the question I have the most trouble with: “Do you promise to further the peace, unity and purity of the church?”  Because while I am all for peace and unity, I know what those who wrote these words meant when they originally put into these promises that we need to work for the “purity” of the church and I struggle deeply with that.  Originally it was a statement of exclusion: making sure that those who did not fit into the writer’s ideas of “purity” were not allowed to be equal participants of the family of faith without changing, conforming, or denying themselves.  But while that has changed, I still struggle with this.  We are not “pure” people: we are children of God with all of our flaws, all of our concerns, all of our doubts and issues.  And to me, the church has to be a place that embraces and accepts all of us with all our parts and pieces.  It has to be a place where the “unrighteous”, to use Jesus’ word, are still at home.  How can we be a place of healing if we only have room for the pure?  If we only have space for those who are reflections of someone’s ideas of what is “right” and good and decent?  I hate this question every time it is asked, every time it is answered.  And yet, how do we stand with integrity and say, “well, actually, I’m all for the peace and unity, but not such a fan of the purity part of that!”  So I find I have to reinterpret what that question is asking every time I promise to “further” that purity.  In my mind I have changed it to “health” or “well-being”.  I want this to be a place of health, wholeness and wellbeing, so I can work for that.  I want us to help each other become more whole, healthy and well.  But, that “twisting” is uncomfortable.

               And then to go deeper into another situation: our marriage vows are exactly that: oaths that we take, promises that we make in front of the church and one another and God.  When we consider the fact that over 50% of all marriages end in divorce in this country, what do these vows mean?  How can we make these promises to one another to love, cherish and honor ‘til death do we part, knowing that over half of those marriages will not last until death?  Are we confident that we can beat the odds?  Is good intention enough? 

               I also think that it causes problems for those whose marriages become abusive.  There is the discomfort with breaking a vow, even when the other has broken theirs in unjust and unfair behavior.  But sometimes, the healthiest thing we can do for ALL involved is to step out.  Do our vows prevent some from doing that?  Yes.  And then with marriages that do end there are problems too.  Just like when Herod felt he had to go through with his promise to Herodias just because it had been a promise, when people’s marriages end, there is an unusual amount of folk who feel they have failed.  I actually don’t see that.  I’ve seen too many marriages where people feel they are living up to their vows by staying married when this is the worst choice that could be made by either partner.  We end up with people saying “yes” and then being resentful and angry about those commitments.  I’ve also seen many divorces that are not failures at all, but are a step into life for both persons in the relationship.  But they often carry a feeling of guilt for those who make that decision because they represent these broken promises, broken “vows”, broken oaths. 

               In contrast to all of this, then, we have covenants.  And Covenants are not promises, or oaths.  Instead, they are commitments to God, to life, and to love.  They are intentional bonds of caring, of love, and of grace.  By love here, I am using Scott Peck’s definition of “working towards the highest good for the other”.  Covenants are the commitments that we make as people of God to being people of God: to loving our neighbors as ourselves and to caring for each person as the child of God that they are. 

I think about Tolstoy’s three questions.  Those questions are: who is the most important one, what is the most important thing to do, and when is the most important time to do it.  And the answers are always: the most important one is the one right in front of you.  The most important thing to do is what needs to be done for that person right in front of you.  And the most important time to do it is now.  When we can honor and act on these things, we are living our covenant life.  We are living THE covenant life. 

               In covenants, then, there is room for change.  There is a recognition that the most loving thing we can do for the other, and the highest good for the other sometimes, and might I say through the course of our lives, often, change.  That means that the covenant might look different from one day to another.  In a covenant, what you need today may be more of our attention and care, and what I need tomorrow may be more of our attention and care.  There is movement, flexibility, and a recognition of our call, our movements towards growth.  In covenants, we can make commitments that recognize the true diversity and differences between us that therefore call for each commitment to be made in a slightly different way for each person.  Are covenants more complex then?  Of course.  They are much more nuanced, and they require really knowing each other and each part of the covenant in order to be genuine.  But that is our call.  To see one another, hear one another, love one another and care for one another.  I invite you to let your yes be yes and your no be no, and to celebrate the changes, movements, and diversities that we share, without legalizing or concretizing them into unmoving, unchanging contracts.  We are a covenant people, called into relationship with God and each other through those covenants.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

 

The Final Commandment

Exodus 20:17

Matthew 22:34-40

Today we hear what according to the Catholics are the last two commandments, and according to the Protestants is the last one.  Do not covet.  Do not covet your neighbor’s spouse, or house or objects, or anything else that you feel you do not have but that others do.  Do not be overtaken by a desire to have what you don’t have, avoid allowing that jealousy, that anger, that longing, that sense of injustice for what you see others have that is not your own to affect your behavior.  And under all of this, remember that ultimately what exists in the world that others may or may not have, that you may or may not have, that ultimately none of that truly belongs either to yourself or to your neighbor.  All that you covet, all that you long for, all that you have or do not have, ultimately is not ours to be had, because it all belongs to God.  

This commandment has been separated out by the narrative lectionary folk.  And it is separated out because those who wrote the narrative lectionary felt that ultimately this one “sin” of coveting, is the cause of every other sin or error or need for commandment that exists.  Those theological collaborators believe that all of our killing, all of our stealing, all of our lying and all of our idolatry comes down, ultimately to the sin of coveting, or, to use another word: greed. 

We see this in our Biblical stories in abundance.  David’s sins began with his coveting of Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba.   As king, he was already married, and he had access to many, many women in the palace.  But he wanted Bathsheba.  So he took her, even though she was married to Uriah who was away in battle.  And when she then became pregnant, he basically had Uriah (and as a result all of Uriah’s men) killed in battle.  Great sins: murder, betrayal, adultery, and probably rape (though Bathsheba’s perspective is not given in this story).  And all of it began with this greed, this coveting.  

Another example comes from King Ahab and Queen Jezebel.  The two of them desperately wanted Naboth’s vineyard.  Again, they had plenty of land.  They could buy more from anyone who would sell it.  But they wanted this particular piece of land.  And when Naboth would not sell it to them, they paid people to lie about Naboth, they then had Naboth killed as a “punishment” for those things they had paid others to say falsely about him, and they were able, then, to take the vineyard.  Again, many broken commandments: falsely testifying against a neighbor, murder, and theft being at the top of that list: but it all began with coveting a vineyard that someone else had.  

As the Sunday following the 4th of July, we also have to think about this, not just in terms of individuals but in terms of communities.  What do we covet for ourselves that we cannot stand other people having in the big picture?  And again, I’m not just talking about individuals here, but communities: and as countries.  For example, Oil?  

To quote Rolf Jacobson, one last time, “A friend of mine jokes about his own coveting heart, “If they make it, I want it.” I quoted that sentence one time while teaching about the coveting commandment at a church on a Sunday morning. One forgiven-sinner said, “Only one?”  The desires of our hearts will lead us astray. We are to love God. We are to love neighbor. We are not to desire our neighbor’s spouse or house.  And we cannot do it. Yes, we can develop all sorts of spiritual discipline and practices — prayer, meditation, service, fasting, accountability groups, and so on. These practices can help us curb the worst effects of our fallen nature. But we cannot do it.”

He continues, “… be aware of the incredible power of the heart’s desires. When you feel yourself desiring the wrong thing, pray. Call a friend and ask for help. Go see your pastor.”

But I also think that the things we struggle with go even deeper than greed.  I think our greed has an even deeper sin under it and that is our fear.  Our fear of not having enough, of not being enough.  Our fear of the end of our lives, or of suffering, or of meaninglessness.  And while “do not be afraid” is not one of the ten commandments, I would argue that perhaps the fact that that phrase alone shows up in scripture 365 times: once for every day of the year, is an indication of how important, how vital it is to our spiritual health.  

Each of the weeks that we have been discussing the ten commandments, we have also heard today’s passage from Matthew.  It’s because the ten commandments are summarized so well by these words in Matthew.  To remind you of what I told our Bible study when we began to look at the ten commandments, the ten commandments are found in two places in the Old Testament.  But they simply do not exist in the New Testament.  The closest we have is Jesus’ summation of those commandments here.  Ultimately the ten commandments can be summed up by the two: love the lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind.  And love your neighbor as yourself.  And these can truly be summarized in one word.  Love.  That’s it.  Just Love.  If you aren’t sure what to do in a situation, always ask yourself, what is most loving.  If you aren’t sure which path to take in a decision, always ask yourself, what is most loving.  If you are torn between what you want and what the world needs, again, always ask yourself, what is most loving.

I think about the book, “Grasshopper on the Road” and in particular the story that I shared with the children this morning.  The grasshopper encounters a mosquito who is stuck in the rules.  He is so stuck in the rules, that he cannot see the absurdity of them at times.  In this particular case, his rule is that everyone must use his ferry boat to get across the “lake”.  It doesn’t matter to the mosquito that the grasshopper can easily step over the puddle.  The mosquito has a rule and that rule must be obeyed.  The grasshopper is too big for the boat, and yet still, the mosquito has his rule. Sometimes we, too, can get caught up in the rules and fail to see the deeper messages. 

What do we do, then, with this list of commandments.  How do we live faithfully with a list of things that are almost impossible, when we dig into them deeply, to uphold?  As we’ve seen, none of these ten commandments, as we’ve discussed them, are easy.  Not one.  For a myriad of reasons, not one of these is really simple.  Simply said, but multifaceted in execution.  Compelling, and apparently demanding, these are hard and the burden they hold feels tight.  But as always, the call is always to go deep.  To hear the message underneath.  And that message, always, is one of love.  It begins with God’s love for you, for me, for us.  And it is the nature of love to return to those who send it out.  

Going back to the story from Grasshopper on the Road: I think the message in this story is much less obvious than what we first read.  Because the hero in this story is not the mosquito.  The hero in the story is the grasshopper.  And he does not simply say, “That is ridiculous” and step over the puddle on his merry way.  He does not make fun of the mosquito’s limited vision or stuck thinking, as tempting as it might have been.  He doesn’t discount the mosquito, and he doesn’t avoid or ignore the mosquito.  Instead, he finds a way to support the mosquito, regardless of the mosquito’s great limitations of vision, insight and understanding.  Throughout the little book, in the other stories as well, we see that grasshopper has integrity, but also compassion.  He engages the others throughout the stories in the book, despite their limitations and inflexibilities, and he finds ways to be in relationship and to offer grace to them where they are.  He does not insist that they change. Neither does he give up who he is or what his call is in the world.  He approaches each as the individual they are, and he works within their world view still keeping his own integrity.  He acts with love.  He acts with the caring that is love.

That is our ultimate call: to return God’s love to the world, to the universe, in the best and fullest way that we can.  I’m reminded of the simple song I learned at Ygnacio Valley as a kid: Love is something if you give it away, give it away, give it away.  Love is something if you give it away.  You end up having more.  Love is like a magic penny, hold it tight and you won’t have any.  Lend it, spend it and you’ll have so many, they’ll roll all over the floor.  Oh, …

So I return in the end to where I started in the beginning of this series: all of these commandments begin with God’s relationship to us.  We are called to strive to follow them, not because they are an onerous burden God has placed around our neck, but because we are called to respond to God’s faithfulness with faithfulness of our own, lived out from gratitude and joy.  The good news in the commandments is that they are gifts to us, teaching us how to love with more fulness, with more purpose.  They are gifts to us as they help us to more to greater wholeness, and greater connection both with one another and with God.  Ultimately, the commandments begin with God’s relationship to us and they are a call for us to deepen in our relationships with God, self and others.  And that can only be a good thing.  Thanks be to God for God’s great love.  Amen.

The Next Five

 Exodus 20:12-16

Matthew 22:34-40

A person shared that she was traveling in Kenya and met a refugee from Zimbabwe. The refugee said he hadn't eaten anything in over 3 days and looked extremely skinny and unhealthy. The traveler offered him the rest of the sandwich she was eating. The first thing the refugee said was, "We can share it."

In the days when an ice cream sundae cost much less, A 10-year-old boy entered a hotel coffee shop and sat at a table.  A waitress put a glass of water in Front of him. "How much is an ice cream sundae?" he asked. "Fifty cents," replied the waitress. The little boy pulled his hand out of his pocket and Studied the coins in it. "Well, how much is a plain dish of ice cream?" he inquired. By now more people were waiting for a table and the Waitress was growing impatient.. "Thirty-five cents," she brusquely replied. The little boy again counted his coins. "I'll have the plain ice cream," he said. The waitress brought the ice cream, put the bill on The table and walked away The boy finished the ice Cream, paid the cashier and left..  When the waitress came back, she began to cry as she wiped down the table.  There, placed neatly beside the empty dish, Were two nickels and five pennies.. You see,  he couldn't  have the sundae, because he had to have enough left to leave her a tip.

In ancient times, a King had a boulder placed on a Roadway.  Then he hid himself and watched to see if anyone would remove the huge rock.  Some of the King's' wealthiest merchants and courtiers came by and simply walked around it.  Many loudly blamed the King for not keeping the roads clear, but no one did anything about getting the stone out of the way. Then a peasant came along carrying a load of vegetables.  Upon approaching the boulder, the peasant laid down his burden and tried to move the stone to the side of the road  After much pushing and straining, he finally succeeded. After the peasant picked up his load of vegetables, he noticed a purse lying in the road where the boulder had been. The purse contained many gold coins and a note from the King indicating that the gold was for the person who removed the boulder from the roadway.  

Today we hear the next five commandments, all of which focus on the call for us to love our neighbor.  To name them again.  Those are:

5. Honor father & mother 

6. Do not murder

7. Do not commit adultery

8. Do not steal

9. Do not bear false witness against a neighbor.

As with last week when we looked at the first four commandments and saw that each of them are much more deep and comprehensive than they may appear on the surface, the same is true of all of these next five commandments.  

To honor one’s mother and father, for example, is not just about avoiding sassing or backtalking one’s parents.  It is about remembering our parents’ journey, giving them credit for the challenges that they have walked, the struggles they have had.  It is about honoring their efforts, even when they were unsuccessful or did not do the job that we might have wanted them to do.  It is about learning from their journeys, taking the time to be grateful that they gave you life, even if and when they made mistakes as our parents.  It is about practicing kindness, even with those who drive us crazy at times and striving to do a better job of caring for them perhaps, than they did to care for us.  It also means remembering the parentage of the earth and honoring that as well by not using, abusing and pillaging her resources.  The earth, too, deserves our honor and our respect.

Similarly with avoiding murder.  Sounds so straight-forward doesn’t it?  But to avoid murdering is not just about not killing the good or innocent people.  It also extends to not killing those we would label as “bad” or even “guilty”.  It also extends beyond avoiding killing physical bodies.  It also extends to not killing the souls, and the spirits of those we encounter.  To not murder therefore calls us to strive always to be kind, and intentionally thoughtful about how we interact with other people. 

Similarly, to refrain from committing adultery is not just about not sleeping with someone when it is going against the commitments you have made to your spouses/partners.  It is not just about sex.  It is about being honest, faithful, and intentional about keeping your promises and commitments in all of your relationships.

Do not steal is not just about avoiding taking things from those around you.  There are so many ways in which we steal.  When we do not pay people fairly for their time, we are stealing from them.  When we deprive people of privileges we keep for ourselves and our loved ones, we are stealing from them.  When we rob people of their dignity, their humanity, their sense of self, we use that word “rob” for a reason.  It is stealing, and it is against the ten commandments.  When we waste people’s time, we are stealing time from them.  When we toy with people’s affections, we are stealing love from them.  When we falsely use someone or lie to someone, we are stealing away their trust.  This, too, requires from us so much more intentionality than we may think.  It means being aware of where you buy things so that you are not part of a system that is stealing from people by not paying them what their efforts are worth.  It means being aware of how what you do supports those who steal more and more for themselves at the expense of the poor.  It means being kind in all our interactions as well.  And to take this a step further, it also means being aware, and working to avoid, stealing from the earth as well. The earth is not here for us to rape and pillage.  It is our mother, someone to be in relationship with, someone to avoid stealing from.

And finally, for today, we hear “Do not bear false witness against your neighbor.”  This, too, is more than it appears on the surface.  This is not just about avoiding intentionally lying about other people.  This is about avoiding gossip all together.  Because whatever we share about another person is false.  I want to say that again, everything that we share about another person is false.  It is incomplete at the least, and false at the most.  I want you to think about this from the perspective of someone other people have talked about for a minute.  I want you to think back on what you’ve heard other people say about you.  Has it ever been accurate?  Has it ever fully captured what you actually said, what you actually meant, what you actually thought, felt, intended?  No, it never has and it never will.  So to “avoid bearing false witness against your neighbor” means, at the basest level, the most complete level, it means avoiding talking about your neighbors at all.

Whew!  So are these any easier than the ones we discussed last week?  

These are HARD.  And we haven’t even finished the list.  There is one more commandment out there that we will discuss next week.  It gets its own special place as the last commandment and as the summary piece.  But for today, let us just note, once more, than not one of these is simple.  Not one of these is single faceted or just straightforward.  And not one of them is easy to do.

Breathe.

To quote Rolf Jacobson once more, “The purpose of the law is not “your best life now,” but rather “your neighbor’s best life now.” Because we are stuck in this fallen condition called sin, and because we are going to remain stuck in this condition until God unweaves all the fibers of creation and then reknits them in the new creation, God says to us, “For as long as you’re here in this condition, love your neighbor.” We respond, “OK, God, we’re down with love. But, how do I love my neighbor?” God says, “OK, let me be a little more explicit here. Make sure everyone gets one day off each week, take care of the elderly, don’t kill, don’t steal, don’t have sex with someone else’s spouse, don’t hurt your neighbor with your words, don’t desire your neighbor’s stuff. That’s how you love your neighbor.”  Because the law isn’t about you. It’s about your neighbor. And God loves your neighbor so much that God gives you the law. And God loves you so much, that God gives your neighbor the exact same law.  In other words, in the second table of the Decalogue we find good news. Good news for free people. Good news for those we need help from a neighbor.” 

And let me just say, that is all of us.  We all need help from our neighbors.  We all need connection and relationship and value from and for our neighbors.  And we all struggle to find the best way to be the best neighbors to one another.  So, we’ve been given this handy guide, this “how to” for caring for one another that God has given us.  All that easy.  All that hard.  There is more good news here too: we are all on this journey together, all striving and working to do better, be better, connect better.  We have this chance to walk it together and to grow and learn more fully.  It is never too late to grow, we are never too old to strive harder to love more fully.  And in that loving we will encounter God more fully.  Because God is in the relationships and God is in the loving.  God is in the growing and God is in the connecting.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

The First Four

 Exodus 20:3-11

Matthew 22:34-40

Today we hear the first four commandments.  As I mentioned last week, the first four of these relate to our relationship with God. 

To name them again: 

1.  Put God first (ie don’t have other god’s before God).

2. Do not make an idol for yourself. Or “no graven images”.

3.  Do not misuse God’s name.

4.  Honor the Sabbath and keep it holy.

The truth is that we could spend a week or more, easily, on each one of these.  When we had our series on spiritual disciplines we spent one week, for example, on the discipline of Sabbath, or the importance of rest, as well as the importance of intentional time with God. None the less, today we will be looking at these first four commandments together.

All of these have to do with our relationship with God.  And they all call us to move in our attention, concern and obsessions with earthly things into a full and complete attention to God.  The first two of these commandments in many ways are the same thing, said differently.  First, we need to put God above all else, and second, we need to avoid making idols of things other than God.  What does it mean to you that you should avoid making idols, or graven images, for yourself?

When we think of idols, we often think of other gods.  When we think of “graven images” we often think of icons, which, as you may notice, are absent in the Presbyterian church.  This was one of the changes that Calvin and Zwingly brought in the Protestant reformation for Presbyterians: they had a strong belief that any image, or icon, would be distracting from the reality of the divinity because they would set before humans an image, an incomplete and distorted image, of what God really is.  I think they probably took this too far, but I do understand that we often mix up a concept with a limited or specific thing.  We often do this, right?  On this Juneteenth Sunday, we can see this..  people might have one encounter with a person who is different from themselves and then they categorize every person who is similar in one way as the same in every way.  Very dangerous thinking which Calvin and Zwingly were trying to avoid.  If you have an image of Jesus and he is white, you assume Jesus is white, which, by the way, he was NOT.  So to avoid this, they banned and prohibited any image of Jesus, in particular, from being present in the church.  

   But what I want to say to you today is that the reality is that we have many, many idols in this country, AND many graven images: things that we put before God all the time, images that we uphold an believe to be truth, much more than God.  Wealth, power, fame are some of the idols.  Appearance is another.  Nationalism.  And there are so very many graven images that go with along with those things.  But there are other things, things we don’t want to see as idols, but none the less these are things that we often, if not always, put before God: our comfort, our safety, our families, our families’ safety and comfort.  I want you to think about this for a minute.  When we are willing to defend our own lives at the cost of others’ lives, that is putting the idol of safety above the call of God to not kill.  We have failed to live up to Jesus’ call in those moments to love even our enemies as ourselves.  We have failed to remember that even that other, even that person we would like to label as a “bad guy” is also a child of God.  When we forget this, when we put our own safety above the rules of God, when we make idols of our very LIVES, we are being idolatrous, we are breaking these first two commandments.  We are called to love God more; more than all these, more even than our families, more even than ourselves.  We are called to love God so much that we are willing, like Jesus, to risk our very lives to love God, serve God, and care for ALL of God’s people.  We are called to honor God by not putting our desires, our fears, our hopes, our sorrows even, above God.  

I think of the movie “A Few Good Men” in which the marines were told to repeat their loyalty mantra.  They did so and it was:  “Unit, Core, God, Country”.  In this case they’ve put two things above God: their unit and their core.  But also, again, they did so in the name of bigger idols: safety, nationalism, the idolatry of certain political systems.  All of these are ways of breaking the first two commandments.  We are called to put God first.  Above it all.  

So, is it hard then to follow these two commandments?  Yes.  Very.  This commandment calls from us all that we are, all that we have, in the service of love towards those we fear, those we hate, those we call “enemies.”  A very, very difficult commandment.

Then we come to the third commandment.  And on the surface, it sounds so easy.  It tells us that when we call on God’s name, it should be in reverence and with intentionality.  We should NEVER use God’s name to hurt or curse others.  But while that begins by not swearing or “taking God’s name in vain” in the traditional sense of damning another, it extends far beyond that.  Not taking God’s name in vain ultimately means not using the name of God to further the actions that satisfy, build up and support only ourselves and those who look like us, believe like us, are “haves” like we are.  It means not using the name of God to justify violence, oppression, injustice, or greed.  It means not using the name of God to take from others for our own gain.  It means not using the name of God to justify anything that harms even one of God’s children. Not “taking the name of God in vain” sounds like such a simple thing, but in fact it is not.  It, too, is actually extremely difficult.  

And then we come to the Sabbath law.  I actually think the call to Sabbath is probably the easiest of the ten commandments.  All it asks of us is that we take a day, each week, to rest, to remember God, to honor God.  And yet, even this, we usually find impossible to do.  And perhaps it is because we don’t take it very seriously.  I mean, why should we take a sabbath when others are working so hard all the time?  Here, where we really deeply value the “protestant work ethic”, the idea of REST is daunting.  I know it is for me.  I feel like I’m failing my world, my family, if I take time to rest.  I feel like I’m lazy if I rest.  There is so rarely a day that someone does not ask me to do something for them.  If no-one in the church is asking for work from me, then my parents, or my kids are.  And how can I say “no” on those days?  How can I say to them, “this is my day of rest.  I am not doing that work for you today.  I am resting.”  I also feel like I’m WASTING my time if I am not actively contributing to the world.  One whole day a week?  Sounds ludicrous to me.  And yet, it is a commandment, and probably the easiest one of all of these to follow.  

So then the greater question perhaps is, what does that have to do with our relationships with God?  It is to be a day of rest, yes.  But it is also a day to remember then the God who gave us rest, to worship.  And the call for Sabbath is a call to make sure that all people also have these days of rest to honor, remember, celebrate and give thanks for the gifts of life that God has given us. Remember that the Sabbath was not just for heads of households but also the poor, slaves and even animals were to take the day as rest.  It is an act of justice as well as an act of praise to honor the Sabbath.  Again, as Rolf Jacobson said it, “The reason we keep the Sabbath, according to Deuteronomy, is that our people used to know what life was like when we had a lord named Pharaoh who did not allow days off. Put yourselves in the feet of the Exodus generation. For years they served Pharaoh, a burdensome master who gave no days off and when complaints arose, who said, “Now make bricks without straw.” God graciously intruded into that reality and said to the people, “You will no longer serve Pharaoh, you will serve me. And to serve me means that once every seven days, you, your kids, your workers, even your animals get the day off.” Why? Because God’s gracious intrusion into human existence was not a one-time event, but a regular, ritualized reality.”  

This law actually extends far beyond the one day a week as well.  In Old Testament law, once every seven years the land is to be given a rest.  Once every seven years all debts are to be forgiven.  Think about that for a moment.  Whether you are someone who is owed money or someone who owes, that is huge.  That is huge.  All debts erased.  All people beginning again.  That house mortgage?  Gone in seven years!  That car loan?  Your student loans?  All erased in seven years!  Also every seven years all who “sold themselves to you as slaves” were to go free.  Leviticus 25:40 says about slaves, “They are to be treated as hired workers or temporary residents among you”.  And every seven times seven years, all land was to return to its original family.  As Leviticus 25 said it, “The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you reside in my land as foreigners and strangers.  Throughout the land that you hold as a possession, you must provide for the redemption of the land.”  All of these laws were to make sure that the rich did not grow richer at the expense of the poor, that all truly had equal opportunities, and that everyone had the chance to begin again.  Every seven years, everything was to be reset.  The true equalizer.  And Sabbath, then, was not just about a day a week.  It was about a way of life: a way of being in relationship to God and to one another.  I believe, truly, that Sabbath, at least the one day a week part of Sabbath is the easiest of the commandments.  It is a call for taking time off, it is a call for rest.  And yet, as I’ve just pointed out, we don’t even follow this commandment.  We don’t EVEN follow this, the easiest of the commandments we are given.

I want to point out the obvious here.  Although we separate the commandments into “those that talk about our relationship to God” and “Those that address our relationships with others” and perhaps the Sabbath commandment might be seen as “the one that addresses our relationships with ourselves: calling us to act in a way that is caring and healthy for our very selves, that these separations: God, ourselves, others: these are, in so many ways, false divisions.  What serves God the most, what expresses the most love to God is caring for God’s people (including ourselves), and I would add, is caring for God’s creation.  And, if we really, truly and deeply love God and are in a true and deep relationship WITH God, we will also find ourselves automatically acting with greater and greater kindness, openness and care for ourselves and for one another.  The deeper into our faith we go, the deeper we connect with God, the more we will find ourselves acting with grace, compassion and love towards all creation.  It will be automatic.  Out of love for God, I will see God in you, I will see God in me, and I will do everything I can to serve God through my care for you and for myself.

So where is the good news in this?  The Good News is the same as what I mentioned last week.  These commandments, and I have to say, I really hate that word, are not meant to be burdens.  They are not a YOKE around your neck.  They are an invitation to respond out of gratitude to the God who loved you into being, and loves you into each and every day.  We are not asked to do all of this as a punishment, or as a weight of slavery around our necks.  We are called to respond out of joy and gratitude to the God who loves us by caring for God’s creation, God’s people in the most loving ways we can.  The good news then is that even when we mess up, we are still loved into our relationships with God and one another.  Even when we don’t follow these commandments, we are still loved into each day.  The Good News is that it all STARTS with God, it starts with God calling us into relationship, it starts with God creating and connecting with us.  And God does not tire of offering us opportunities to connect in return through our love for God and for one another.  I want to say that again.  God does not tire of offering us opportunities to connect in return through our love for God and love for one another.  

The invitation then is to return to these guidelines and these calls for us to love God, self and one another.  And to trust in God’s deep love for us, no matter what we do or fail to do, how we err or how we succeed in love.

Thanks be to God!

Amen.  

Discrediting What We Fear

 

Psalm 147:1-11

John 7:37-52

 

               Last week we talked about Jesus as the Bread of Life.  And this week we come to another metaphor for Jesus: Jesus as living water.  But this time, rather than seeing a ritual created out of it by the followers of Jesus, we see how those who don’t understand, don’t agree, don’t want the changes and vision that he brings, we see how they react.  And it’s the same as any people react to things that are new and that they don’t understand: they react with fear.  They wanted him seized, they wanted him cast out, they wanted him arrested.  And this was especially true when people around Jesus began to see him as prophet, as messiah.  This was an incredible threat to those in charge.  Remember that the vision and hope for a Messiah was one who would, in a military way, overthrow the oppressors, lift up the poor, bring down the rich and mighty.  So those in charge, who would have recognized themselves as the rich, powerful and mighty had every reason to feel threatened by someone others were calling Messiah.  They were afraid for the wrong reasons, since Jesus was not a military leader, was not going to create change through violence, but through love.  Jesus was about freeing both sides of the coin: and that meant healing and redemption for the rich as well as the poor.  But they did not understand.  And so they were afraid.

               Their response?  Well, their response was to discount what they heard.  They grabbed onto something that they could use to discredit the thing they feared and they wielded it with all the strength they could muster. “A prophet does not come from Galilee” they declared.  “The messiah does not come from Galilee”.  They declared this and held fast to it.  They held on to it because it helped them to feel safe: they could discount what they were hearing, what they were even experiencing, by hanging on to a thin, flimsy and inaccurate statement and making it the center of their belief system.  “a prophet does not come from Galilee” they declared as if this was the most important statement in scripture.  They stood on it as the proof they needed to hang onto their beliefs that Jesus was not a threat and could not change their world. 

               Those in charge, those in politics, have used fear and the discrediting that which they don’t want to accept, that which scares them, forever.  Bryan Stevenson who wrote, “Just Mercy” gave a wonderful speech in which he said that our NARRATIVES have to change.  As he said, the people in power preach “fear and anger” and use those to justify policies.  He went on to say that almost every policy decision at this point in time is based on fear and anger.  None are based on hope, or love, or joy.  It is all fear and anger.  And the thing is, fear and anger are the essential components of injustice.  I want to say that again, fear and anger are the essential components of injustice.  We use it, and always have used it, to justify extreme cruelty, to “forget” that all those people whom we label and discredit, those are our brothers, sisters and siblings.  All of them belong to us.  And rather than fear them, harm them, hurt them, we need to work with them, love them, and care for them.  But until we change the fear and anger narratives, we will never succeed in becoming the world united, the world as one, the world God calls us to create.  Bryan Stevenson talked about the ways we discredit that which we fear.  We discredit people struggling with addictions who need our help: we relabel drug addicts as “criminals”.  We relabel people who are struggling to find work and call them “lazy”.  We relabel people of color as “stupid” or “inferior”.  And we do this because we are afraid.  We are afraid of that which we don’t know so we discredit it.  We are afraid of losing our wealth, so we discredit and label the other.  We are afraid of losing our power, so we discredit and label. 

               When the news started coming out about the sexual abuse that had taken place at Cameron house in San Francisco, our Presbytery reacted with fear.  They tried to muzzle the information, they tried to discredit what people were saying.  They were afraid that the truth and that information would destroy the church in this area, would discredit the church.  So out of our great fear, we tried hard to discredit the voices sharing their vulnerable and horrible experiences.  As we know this doesn’t work.  It didn’t work then and it doesn’t work now.  In the process, they revictimized the victims by proclaiming their words as “lies”.  They revictimized the victims by shutting them down and shutting them out.  The church did not behave as a church, it did not act with love.  And as a result of THAT choice, we lost so many of our members.   

               I want to say this, fear is a feeling.  And as a feeling, it is a natural part of the human experience.  It can help us to see where there is danger, and it can help us to make good choices.  But it can also cause us to move into anger, hatred, violence towards others.  And while the feeling of fear is just that, a feeling, the reactions to fear are things we choose and have to choose with great care.  Do we run away, try to discount and discredit what scares us?  Or do we look at it full-on, try to understand and move through the fear into something better?  I remember a quote from the movie, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel: “We came here and we tried, all of us, in our different ways. Can we be blamed for feeling we are too old to change? Too scared of disappointment to start it all again? We get up in the morning, we do our best. Nothing else matters…But it’s also true that the person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing. All we know about the future is that it will be different. But perhaps what we fear is that it will be the same. So we must celebrate the changes. Because, as someone once said, everything will be all right in the end. And if it’s not all right, then trust me, it’s not yet the end."

               While it is deeply true that fear is a normal feeling, a part of being human, we have to choose what we will do with it.  Will we remain stuck in it?  Will we live it out by separating ourselves into “us” and “them?” Because when we do, we do great damage.  That’s when it can cause injustice, when we are reactionary to the fear and act it out.  And the deep truth is that Fear doesn’t leave room for anything else like purpose or beauty.  Or LIVING. 

I look at our playgrounds that no longer have the merry-go-rounds because they were too dangerous and are now beginning to remove even the swing sets as “too dangerous.”  And I feel sad for our children who cannot experience these things.  I remember reading an article when I was living in Ohio about an experiment some reporters had done.  They had gotten together and to see if someone could use the ice cream trucks to poison children.  So they got a truck, they never got a business license and they just went around seeing how long it would take for someone to report them as suspicious after they started selling ice cream to kids.  No one did.  No one even checked to make sure they were legitimate.  No one asked to see their business license, but if they had, the reporters had printed up a false one to show folk.  And they published this article, “Ice cream trucks could be poisoning your kids!”  The thing is, it hadn’t happened.  It had never happened.  They just made this up as a story they thought would sell.  Fear sells.  But it also prevents us from living.

               So, what is the opposite of fear?  The opposite of fear is, of course, love.  And love invites us to understand, to listen, to hear, to stay with the other in relationship, in connection.  It is what Nicodemus said today in this passage: “Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus earlier and who was one of their own number, asked, “Does our law condemn a man without first hearing him to find out what he has been doing?”  It invites us to look, to have curiosity, to explore.  It does not cut off or make fear-based assessments formed off of one side of the truth, one side of any story.  And it never makes decisions based on fear that limit, condemn, judge or harm others. 

               In today’s gospel story, fear was still ruling the day.  And so, the pharisees not only tried to discredit Jesus, but when Nicodemus was being rational about the situation, they responded by then accusing him, too, of being from Galilee and therefore to be discredited, discounted, ignored, unheard. 

               Fear invites us, in our wiser moments, not to run, but to listen more deeply.  Fear invites us to explore what it is we value that is feeling threatened.  And then fear invites us to look deeper, to open to other possibilities, and to act in love instead.  James Baldwin, “Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.”

               What do you most fear?  And who does your fear have the potential to harm?  What are you discrediting and discounting out of that fear?  And what limitations does that, then, put on YOU? 

               More importantly, what would it look like for you to let go of those fears and instead put yourself in the position of considering the possibility of ideas that you have discredited and rejected out of that fear?  What would it look like for you to put aside that which you fear most to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, with someone else’s view points and beliefs?  What would it look like to stop discrediting those we don’t understand?  Maybe that fast driver on the freeway is not a maniac but is someone with a loved one in the hospital.  Maybe that person who was mean and angry with you in the grocery story was just fired from their job or had a loved one die.  What would it mean to reframe our fears and choose to listen instead, without judgment or condemnation?  What would it mean to recognize that there is always more to be learned, always others to understand, always new ways of living and being in the world?

               I want to end by sharing with you a story.  Once there were two brothers who shared a farm. The older brother had several children and the younger brother had none, but each year they would gather the grain and divide it evenly, each taking half to his own granary.

After a while, though, the younger brother got to thinking that it wasn’t exactly fair that they divided the grain evenly. After all, his brother had all of those children to feed while he had no one but himself. So each night he took to going to his own granary with a sack, filling it full of grain, and carrying it to the granary of his brother.

At about the same time, the older brother also got to thinking that it wasn’t exactly fair that they divided the grain evenly. After all, he had all of those children – to look after him in his old age – while his brother had no one but himself. So each night he took to going to his own granary with a sack, filling it full of grain, and carrying it to the granary of his brother.

Eventually, of course, what had to happen happened. The two of them met there in the middle of the night – and what could they do but fall upon each other, and embrace, and count their blessings for the love in the family?

 

This story shows the opposite of fear: this is a choosing not to live in the fear of not having enough for one self, but the love of seeing the other’s point of view, embracing it, and seeking to care for the other, despite cost to oneself, despite fear. 

It is not easy to let go of fear, especially when the powers that be are constantly using it to their own advantage.  But I invite you to move deeper, to embrace love.  I invite you to remember that fear caused the pharisees to try to discredit even Jesus, even God.  And that fear as a weapon is powerful, but dishonest.  I invite you to remember that LOVE is the opposite of fear, and it is love we are called to embrace and to live out.  I invite you to remember that Jesus overcame fear not with more fear, but with love.  For that we have been created.  And for that we are called.  Amen.

Discerning God's Messages

 

1 Samuel 3:1-21

John 20:21-23

Mark 10:35-45

               We have a hard time understanding the messages we receive from God.  We really do.  We have a hard time understanding scripture, for example.  Here in today’s passages we hear something in each one that is hard to understand.  In the Samuel passage we hear God promising to harm an entire family of people “forever” for something that the sons of Eli said.  In the John passage it sounds like Jesus is saying that if his disciples don’t forgive someone, neither will God forgive them.  And the passage from Mark might be read as saying that God chose from the beginning who would be included or put next to Jesus and that there is no influence from the choices people make in this lifetime: how people act or what they believe or anything that has to do with what a person is or does themself.  These are all hard to understand, at least for me.  And you will get many different responses or understandings when you read about them. 

               Starting with the Samuel passage, some commentators talk about God’s judgment and wrath, seeming to accept this declaration of Eli’s family’s destruction at face value.  Other commentators talk about how easy it is for Samuel to misunderstand God and what God might be trying to communicate here.  And still others say that the point of this story is just that the prophetic torch has passed from Eli to Samuel.  And from this perspective, Eli is amazing in that he doesn’t fight this, doesn’t deny it, but just accepts that this is God’s will and God’s will is what is paramount in every situation.  

               Even the biblical scholars, then, disagree about what is being communicated here.  And the same is true of the other passages.   For example, this passage from John that declares that if a disciple doesn’t forgive someone they won’t be forgiven.  Some say this means that God has given them the ability to decide who is ultimately forgivable.  Some have pointed out that this passage has been abused by pastors and priests to claim that they have the right of absolution from sins (and equally the right of withholding that absolution).  But others say that this was spoken not just to the disciples but to all those following Jesus.  And that John’s understanding of sin was not moral or behavioral transgression but “being blind to the revelation of God in Jesus”.  According to this understanding then, it is the community that has failed if people are still blind to this understanding.  In other words, this story is simply meant to communicate that they still have work to do.

The point here is that even those who study scripture for a living, spend all of their time doing nothing but reading, praying, discerning – they still disagree with one another, which means they are still struggling to really understand the message that God is sending.  Similarly with the disciples to Jesus’ words.  Some want to sit next to him, others think this is an unfair request.  They all misunderstand him by even having this debate.  They also misunderstand him when he talks about his upcoming death: they try to reason him out of that prediction and try to dissuade him from acting.  We know that Judas in particular disagreed with the way Jesus was doing things and what Jesus was saying.  He betrayed Jesus as a way to spur Jesus into action: into rising up against the tyranny of the Roman empire and when Jesus instead was killed, this was so devastating to him that his response was to commit suicide.  They didn’t understand.  Not one of them understood.  This is a consistent theme throughout the gospels: the lack of understanding of those closest to Jesus.  If those closest to Jesus did not understand, how are we supposed to understand?  How are we supposed to read the messages from God with accuracy?  How are we to understand scripture?  But even beyond that, how are we to understand God, human relationships to God, human relationships to each other and even our very selves?

               I think about the story we read about a month ago about Abraham believing he was called by God to sacrifice Isaac.  While God stopped him, there is an Islamic midrash on that story that says that Abraham was just crazy: was hearing voices that he decided were God’s.  According to this midrash Sarah saw what was happening and she is the one who brought the ram out for Abraham to find, saving HER only son from being sacrificed.  According to this midrash then, God was working through Sarah to stop crazy behavior.  We read these stories in different ways.  We understand them in different ways, and as a result we also hear God’s voice in different ways and we interpret what is God’s voice is VERY different ways. 

               I saw something recently that said in effect, “Fundamentalists understand Love through the laws of scripture.  Other Christians understand scripture through the eyes of Love.”  Or, as Arun Gandhi said it, “People of the book risk putting the book above people.”  But this too, mirrors my understanding.  As Jesus said it, “Sabbath was made for humans, not humans for the Sabbath.”  When we put the law above real people, their needs, their souls, we miss the whole point of all of this.

               For me, in the end, I believe everything must be measured against the great commandments.  The great commandments are two: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind.  And, Love your neighbor as yourself.  Jesus told us that it is on these two laws that all the prophets and all the writings stand.  That this is a summary of all that is in scripture.  So for me, personally, if I don’t understand it, I go back to these two rules.  How, in light of these two laws, does this passage make sense?  What does it mean in light of these two great commandments?  Love.  It is the guidepost by which I weigh and understand everything else. 

               But what about when it comes to understanding God?  Well, if those are the laws of God, they reflect God.  So for me, they, too, describe God: wholeness, fullness, holiness.  Love.  That’s the bottom line of who God is, just as it was the bottom line of what we are called to do and be. 

               But am I right?  All these Christians understanding God differently.  The disciples all understanding Jesus differently.  And none of the disciples had it right.  But they were all on the journey.  They all sought to be with Jesus, they all wanted to be his disciples, they all chose to follow in the way.  And they did this, despite the fact that Jesus kept telling them “you don’t understand!” And kept correcting them and kept challenging them. 

               As I sat with this, I found myself thinking about the Kansas song, song “Carry On My Wayward Son” line: “And if I claim to be a wise man, well it surely means that I don't know.”  In the end, we are called to have humility in our understandings.  Those I fear the most are those who claim with absolute conviction that God told them to do something, or that God put them in charge of something, or that they know without a doubt – anything, really. 

               We are all on this journey.  All of us.  I come here and I tell you what I learned, and what I think and what I believe.  But that is my journey.  And I recognize that yours is different.  Your needs and your experiences, your lessons and your mentors, your relationships: both with others and with God.  They are your own. 

               There is a reason that one of the key phrases for me in the Presbyterian Book of Order is “God alone is Lord of the Conscience.”  We recognize that discernment is a challenge and NOT ONE PERSON in this whole world and in this whole life will always be right about anything, and that includes about faith issues.  Discernment is hard.

               So why is that? Why would God create a world in which discernment is not easy?  Why would God create a world with so many, many different ways of understanding the exact same book, the exact same words, the exact same scenario?  I love what God in Joan of Arcadia said to Joan in one episode when she asks God why there are so many religions, “It's because various people need various ways of relating to the divine.” I think that there are deep reasons why Jesus spoke mostly in parables.  Parables all have multiple interpretations, multiple points, multiple understandings.  And in that, they are gifts to different people in different ways.   No two of us will ever agree on everything.  It isn’t realistic.  It isn’t honest.  And that’s a beautiful part of our world and our life.  That diversity of thought is a gift to us if we can choose to be open to it, listen through our differences, learn from them.

               How, then, do we relate this back to our faith?  A final quote from Joan of Arcadia that I want to share with you: “People manage to believe in me, even though they have no idea what I am; they trust me even in the silence.”

               God’s presence is there as a gift to us.  God’s love is there to hold us, sustain us, carry us through.  We don’t have to understand everything.  We don’t have to agree with one another.  We are invited to learn from one another, but we don’t in the end have to come to the same understanding.  Still, we are invited to trust, to rest in the love of the God who creates us, carries us, holds us, and graces us into being. 

               Some of these biblical passages, such as the one we read today, are hard for us to understand.  And sometimes the world and nature and people’s behaviors are a challenge for us to understand.  But there is more to this world than understanding.  And there is much that is beautiful that goes far beyond our ability to understand.  Resting in God’s presence is more important, more needed, more reviving and restoring that knowing.  So, as Isaiah said it so profoundly, “Be still and know that God is God.”  That is all the knowing, ultimately that we need.  The rest is relationship: the rest is listening, caring, talking, and being with God.  More important than anything else we can do.

               And so, I want to end this shorter sermon with a moment of silence.  But rather than reflection, I invite you to rest in the loving, caring arms of God.  Rest, be, accept the love and grace that is offered you in this moment.  Amen.

Dangerous, angry times

     Youngest and I went up to Old Sacramento on Saturday afternoon to have some mother-daughter time.  We went to the Crocker Art Museum and then walked down to the train museum and wharf to get some ice cream (because in my mind Old Sacramento means trains and ice cream).  As we walked into the ice cream store, we saw a sign in the middle of the entrance that read "Masks must be worn, as per state mandate.  Anyone failing to comply with this mandate will not be served."  We were wearing our masks, so not a big deal.  We walked up to the counter, ordered our ice cream and stepped aside for the next person to order.  Apparently the people who walked in behind us were not, however, wearing masks.  One of the workers (my guess is the manager) said to the woman behind me, "Ma'am, I'm sorry, but masks are required by state mandate within this facility.  Please put on a mask.  I believe I have one I can give you."  After a minute, though, he said, "Oh, I'm sorry.  It appears we have just run out.  If you do not have your own mask, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave."  

    I don't know about you, but if I were asked to leave a facility, I would.  I would do it out of embarrassment if nothing else.  But also, I am lacking that sense of entitlement that some people apparently have.  This woman was one of those people.  "Well @#$% that!"  She said, "I'm not going anywhere!"

    She stepped up closer to the counter to order.  The worker said, "I'm sorry, ma'am, but if you do not leave, I'm going to have to call the police."

    "You do that!" she said, and then proceeded to call him a list of nasty discriminatory slurs that I will not print here.  She then turned to two of the other workers insisting that they take her order.  The other workers both shook their heads and backed up, frankly looking a little scared.

    The first worker responded by saying that yep, the slur she had used absolutely applied to him, and that as a result he was better at certain graphicly described behaviors than she was.  He then repeated that if the woman did not leave, he was going to call the police.

    The woman responded by approaching the counter and knocking everything on it to the floor, spilling the tip jar, scattering coins, making a huge and violent ruckus.  The worker then bounded over the counter, the same counter that Youngest and I were standing in front of (which we both quickly stepped back from), to move towards her, threatening to kill her at the same time and saying, "Don't think for a second that I won't do it!"  She laughed and ran out.

    Whew.  Situation over.  But frankly, Youngest and I were so shaken by the incident that we did not have the ability to taste our ice creams at all.  

    While it is a challenge for me to NOT express some of my thoughts on all of this, today I am working hard to face that challenge because I don't see that as productive in this moment.  What I want to focus on instead is this: I think the divisions in our country and in our society, the divisions that I saw escalate in that store, reveal a much larger issue.  

    We have forgotten that we belong to one another.  We have forgotten that the person in front of you with whom you disagree is still your sister, is still your brother, is still your sibling.  We have forgotten that we are to be kind and loving to others, even when they disagree with us, even when we don't like what they believe or what they do, even when we are embarrassed or uneasy, or hurt.

    To put this a bit more forcefully: while it takes effort on our part to respond to anger with compassion, this is the job of being an adult.  Having no self-control or ability to respond to anger with a calm and listening presence can only increase the divisions and the struggles in our world.  To be kind, to be caring: these are not easy, but no one ever said that life would be easy.  Just as you can spread violence by reacting with more violence, you can spread kindness by reacting with a calm and caring presence.  YOU have the power to diffuse violent and scary situations with your very demeanor, with your caring, with listening deeply and responding with compassion.

    So once again we have a choice to make: do we add to the pain, anger, and panic of the world by responding in kind when others lose it?  Or can we be part of the solution and movement to make the world better by staying calm, by hearing one another, and by acting with love?  

    We won't always be able to do the right thing.  I know this.  As always, I'm preaching to myself here and I know that it is not easy to respond to nastiness, to hurtful comments or actions with kindness.  It takes practice.  But, for better or worse, we are getting a whole lot of practice of late!  So take it for the gift it is: to practice taking the high road in the face of anger.  People are stressed.  People are scared.  And ultimately, people are just people: flawed and trying to do the best they can in difficult circumstances.  Try to picture each person as your mother, or your sister, or your best friend: someone having a hard day.  You may disagree with them, but you can still love them.  

    If we can do anything to help the current situation in our culture, it's worth the effort.

    That interaction that Youngest and I witnessed did not just upset the manager and the customer.  An ice cream store full of customers and employees were affected by what we experienced.  And while, fortunately, no one was hurt, things could have gotten worse, they could have escalated even more.  I am thankful that they didn't.  But also saddened that it happened at all.  It would have been so easy for either of the two main characters in this incident to take a different path.  The woman could have just left when asked to do so.  The manager could have stayed calm and just said, "I hear you are upset, but we are required to follow the law."  So much could have been done differently.  But it wasn't.  So I'm just taking the lesson for what it was: a chance to think through my own reaction for the next time someone acts out.  How will I respond?  How will you respond?  How will we make this world better together?