Alleluia, Christ is Risen!

Isa. 65:17-25

John 20:1-18

04/17/22

Easter morning begins with a community in despair.  Those who had believed in Jesus, believed in his kingship had hoped, no, had assumed that Jesus would free them from Roman tyranny and rule.  The messiah-ship for most of the Israelites meant that God’s chosen people would no longer be oppressed.  They would come to fullness, own their own land, have their own place, be the honored, the privileged, the wealthy and full-lived people God had meant for them to be.  Instead, Jesus had not changed the political structure.  Instead, he had called the people to change themselves. Jesus had called them to stop raising themselves up as “chosen” above all other people. Jesus had called them to stop their oppression of those they would judge within their own community: Samaritans, widows, prostitutes, adulterers, tax collectors.  They had been hopeful when they heard of Jesus’ power and strength; they had been hopeful of a new life for themselves. Instead they had been called to make life better for those around them. And they had become angry. So angry that they killed him. Jesus died because of our sins, because of our sinful nature that could not stop hoping for better things for ourselves, that did not instead help

and love those less fortunate around us.

But as with all revenge, his death did not bring healing, it did not bring comfort.  They were still left without the things they had wanted.  They were still left stuck in a life that was hard and unfair.  And now they had guilt added to their disappointment and fear; guilt that they had killed this man who preached nothing but radical and all powerful love.

For those who still believed in Jesus, for those who still loved Jesus, the emptiness was even more profound.  For those in the community who had been outcasts, Jesus had brought a new way of living life, of seeing life.  Jesus had brought life for the least accepted in the community.  And for them, his death was just unfair.

Easter morning begins with this sense of despair.  And in the gospel of John, Mary Magdalene alone went to the tomb before the sun had even begun to rise.  Not a safe thing for a woman to do, even in those times.  But in her love, in her grief, in her need, she went to the tomb to do the rituals which were part of grieving in their society.  She went to remember, she went to mourn, she went to care for the body of the Lord she still loved.  But when she arrived, she found that the body was gone!  For her in that moment, the despair was deepened to a new level.  Even the body was gone.  There was nothing left for her, and nothing for her to do with her grief. 

For us too we experience these times of grief and despair when it seems like nothing could get any worse.  It is in that deepest place of sorrow that we begin Easter.

As I set about writing this sermon, I thought about how all of us here in this place have experience resurrection moments.  I don’t know a single person who has not experienced deep loss, tragedy, pain, death.  Starting from when we are young, we all go through times of loss, times of grief and tragedy, and even times of deep despair.  I was reading an article recently that said that 1/5 of every child in the United States experiences bullying in high school.  My guess is that it is a larger percentage earlier on.  The world is full of bullies.  The world is full of people who would crucify you if given the chance.  And so most of us have experienced persecution at one time or another, or loss, or just pain.  We have experienced death.  The death of our dreams, the death of our hopes, the death of our loved ones, the death of our beliefs or understandings about the world.  And I would add that most of us, then, have also experienced despair.  There have been times for all of us, I believe, when getting up in the morning to face a new day is hard, when any beauty in the world is elusive. 

And yet you persist.  You go on.  You face each day until Easter comes.  For most of us, I believe that Easter does not come suddenly like it did for Mary, for the disciples, for those who loved Jesus.  For them, Easter came a day and a half after his crucifixion.  He was killed on Friday night, and raised by Sunday morning.  For them, his resurrection was full, miraculous, amazing, and, also, overwhelming. 

For many of us, perhaps for most of us, the resurrections in our life do not happen like this.  They are a slow recovery.  They are a walk through grief that you only recognize as a resurrection when you awaken one day without the same heaviness, or when you look back and see how far you have come. 

They may come slowly, but they do come.  The message of the resurrection for us is a promise.  It is a promise that whatever we are feeling, experiencing, living through that is despair, that is an end, that is death; that there is life that will follow. It is a promise of resurrection that says no death, no death is to be feared for no death is the end.  Death does not have the last word.  As an Indian saying says, “All will be well in the end.  And if it is not well, it is not the end.”  That is the promise of the resurrection. 

The resurrection is also an invitation.  It is an invitation to hold on to hope, to hold on to that promise, no matter what you are living through at the moment.  No matter what you see that is terrible and tragic and deadly in the world, those things are not the end, that are not all there is.  God is the God of new life and it comes after every death.  That is the promise and that is the invitation to hope for all of us.

We are in a year of “hope” this year.  And so there are two things I would like us to do.  The first is that I want you to turn to your neighbor and share a resurrection story of your own.  Again, we all have them.  Share a story of a relationship that you thought was over that was resurrected and healed.  Or a divorce that ended with a new and better marriage.  Or a time of deep despair that broke into new life, into hope.  Share your own stories of resurrection, for those are the stories of hope that keep all of us going, that keep all of us remembering the truth of the resurrection.  I invite you do that now.

As Mary was weeping outside the tomb, angels appeared to her.  But she was lost in her sorrow, and could not recognize them as angels. And so Jesus himself came to her, “Why are you weeping?  Whom are you looking for?”  Still, in her grief, in the darkness of the early morning, in her despair, she did not, could not recognize him.  “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” 

He responded by calling her name.  “Mary!”  Was all he said.  By calling her name, by seeing her, by loving her, he gave her the strength, the love, the courage to see and recognize him.  And in that moment, all of her despair became joy.

That promise of new life, that promise of joy, is there for us as well.  For us too, God is alive anew around us.  And when we cannot see it, when we are blinded by our grief, when we are overwhelmed with despair, when we are trapped in Good Friday; God calls us by name, loves us, and gives us the strength to look, to see, to believe in the unbelievable, and find ultimate joy in the very midst of our deepest despair.  As the passage in Isaiah tells us, those promises are huge.  “I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind....no more shall the sound of weeping be heard.  No more shall there be in it a baby who lives only a few days or an old person who does not live out their whole life.... before they call I will answer.  The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox.”  All things will be new: this promise is for you.

And so, the second thing I want to do is to pass out stones of hope.  These are rocks that I want you to carry with you during Easter-tide to remind you, weekly and daily that death is not the end, that resurrection is the promise and that it is a promise for each of us. 

And finally, I want to end with a poem that I found written by Annie Johnson Flint:

Some of us stay at the cross,

some of us wait at the tomb,

Quickened and raised with Christ

yet lingering still in the gloom.

Some of us 'bide at the Passover feast

with Pentecost all unknown,

The triumphs of grace in the heavenly place

that our Lord has made His own.

If the Christ who died had stopped at the cross,

His work had been incomplete.

If the Christ who was buried had stayed in the tomb,

He had only known defeat,

But the way of the cross never stops at the cross

and the way of the tomb leads on

To victorious grace in the heavenly place

where the risen Lord has gone.

 

Don’t stay at the cross.  And don’t stay at the tomb.  Instead, step into the grace, and the promise of new life.  It is the promise of resurrection, here for each of us.  Thanks be to God!  Christ is Risen!  (He is Risen indeed!)  Amen.

Being Born From Above

 

John 3:1-21

Psalm 139:13-18

1/23/22

What happens in today’s story?  In today’s gospel reading, Nicodemus is asking literal questions which Jesus answers at many levels, the least of which is the literal.  Nicodemus’ response is to become very simply perplexed by Jesus’ answers.  He cannot move out of the literal, and Jesus becomes frustrated with him saying “Are you a teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?  …If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?”  We hear Jesus’ frustration with Nicodemus’ limited understanding and limited views.  But while we understand that when Jesus is talking about being born from above, that he is not talking about an actual second physical birth, none-the-less are we any more understanding of these difficult ideas, of these deep truths?  What does it really mean that “The wind (or spirit) blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.  So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Does it mean that we won’t recognize the Spirit because it comes unexpectedly?  Does it mean that everyone born of the Spirit is like the wind, flitting in and out?

So today, I actually want us to do something a little different.  We are going to do a study, rather than have a traditional sermon, and we are going to look at a number of different Biblical passages, all of which talk about “salvation” or “eternal life”.  I want to start by saying that I know we have different understandings within this room about what that even means, and I am not going to talk about what it means right now.  That’s for a different date.  For today I want to talk about how we get there.  Because there are a lot of different scriptures and they say different things.  So, for today I invite you to listen, to think, but also to participate with me in this, exploring these scriptures.

The first passage I want us to look at is Matthew 25, which we spend a lot of time on.  Who remembers the crux of Matthew 25:31-46?  “Now when the Human One[a] comes in his majesty and all his angels are with him, he will sit on his majestic throne.  All the nations will be gathered in front of him. He will separate them from each other, just as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right side. But the goats he will put on his left. Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who will receive good things from my Father. Inherit the kingdom that was prepared for you before the world began. I was hungry and you gave me food to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me.  I was naked and you gave me clothes to wear. I was sick and you took care of me. I was in prison and you visited me.’ Then those who are righteous will reply to him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you a drink?  When did we see you as a stranger and welcome you, or naked and give you clothes to wear?  When did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ Then the king will reply to them, ‘I assure you that when you have done it for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you have done it for me.’ Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Get away from me, you who will receive terrible things. Go into the unending fire that has been prepared for the devil and his angels.  I was hungry and you didn’t give me food to eat. I was thirsty and you didn’t give me anything to drink.  I was a stranger and you didn’t welcome me. I was naked and you didn’t give me clothes to wear. I was sick and in prison, and you didn’t visit me.’ Then they will reply, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and didn’t do anything to help you?’  Then he will answer, ‘I assure you that when you haven’t done it for one of the least of these, you haven’t done it for me.’  And they will go away into eternal punishment. But the righteous ones will go into eternal life.”

In this passage what determines salvation?  What is NOT mentioned here?  (faith!).

This passage in Matthew is in great contrast to the passage we just read from John.  But while the passage I read to you from John talks about faith being the doorway to God, I now would like to read to you from the book of Mark 1:21-28: “Jesus and his followers went into Capernaum. Immediately on the Sabbath Jesus entered the synagogue and started teaching. The people were amazed by his teaching, for he was teaching them with authority, not like the legal experts. Suddenly, there in the synagogue, a person with an evil spirit screamed, ‘What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are. You are the holy one from God.’ ‘Silence!’ Jesus said, speaking harshly to the demon. ‘Come out of him!’ The unclean spirit shook him and screamed, then it came out. Everyone was shaken and questioned among themselves, ‘What’s this? A new teaching with authority! He even commands unclean spirits and they obey him!’ Right away the news about him spread throughout the entire region of Galilee.” 

Who is it in this passage that actually recognized and believed that Jesus was the Holy One, the Son of God?  Who was it?  It was the demon.  In Matthew 8 there is a story very similar to this about the demons in two men who also recognize Jesus for who he is.  They also then submitted to Jesus will.  To quote Matthew 8:32: “Then Jesus said to the demons, ‘Go away.’ And they came out and went into the pigs.”  So not only did they have faith, but they obeyed him.  Are they then saved?

Now I’d like to read from you from 1 Corinthians 12:8-10:  “A word of wisdom is given by the Spirit to one person, a word of knowledge to another according to the same Spirit, faith to still another by the same Spirit, gifts of healing to another in the one Spirit, performance of miracles to another, prophecy to another, the ability to tell spirits apart to another, different kinds of tongues to another, and the interpretation of the tongues to another.”

One of the many things that this says to me is that faith is a gift.  So, if what you need for salvation is faith, but faith is a gift from God, what does this say for those who have not been gifted by faith?  Did God pre-ordain them to not receive salvation?  Does this mean God has purposely withheld faith and therefore salvation from some?  Hm.  That wouldn’t be a very loving God would it?

One of my favorite passages is from Romans 14:8-11. “If we live, we live for the Lord, and if we die, we die for the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we belong to God.  This is why Christ died and lived: so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.   But why do you judge your brother or sister? Or why do you look down on your brother or sister? We all will stand in front of the judgment seat of God.  Because it is written, As I live, says the Lord, EVERY knee will bow to me, and EVERY tongue will give praise to God.”  This is also reflected in Luke 3:4-6:  A voice crying out in the wilderness: “Prepare the way for the Lord; make his paths straight. Every valley will be filled, and every mountain and hill will be leveled. The crooked will be made straight and the rough places made smooth. And ALL people will see God’s salvation.”

So, the question that is raised by this for me is, if every knee will bow and every tongue give praise to God, and if all people will see God’s salvation, that sounds awfully inclusive.  And if salvation is achieved through faith or confession or belief, or even works, how does these passages fit into that?

Finally, we have the passage from John 14.  Jesus says, “I am the Truth, the Way, the Life.”  “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”  Many Christians have interpreted this to again say that all we have to do is believe.  But I don’t hear it this way.  This is about a whole lot more than believing – this is about following in and being in the “Way” and it’s about living “the Life”.  We come to God by following in or going in or being in Jesus’ way- So once again we are back to looking at what Jesus did and what we, therefore, are also called to do.  Jesus loved everyone –including his enemies – forgiving even those who killed him from the cross.  He healed the sick.  He challenged the self-righteous to act with love rather than legalism.  He fed everyone who came to him.  And we are called to do the same. 

As you know, there has been a long-standing controversy among Christians about what it really is that saves.  As these passages point out, this controversy was present from the beginning of Christianity and was therefore written into our very Biblical passages.  But I think that James sums it up for us pretty well in his second chapter vs. 14-17: “My brothers and sisters, what good is it if people say they have faith but do nothing to show it? Claiming to have faith can’t save anyone, can it?  Imagine a brother or sister who is naked and never has enough food to eat.  What if one of you said, “Go in peace! Stay warm! Have a nice meal!”? What good is it if you don’t actually give them what their body needs?  In the same way, faith is dead when it doesn’t result in faithful activity.”  We try to separate these things out, but James tells us that they really can’t be separated out.

And that leads us back to today’s passage.  In the lectionary passage today, the story of Nicodemus, while Jesus uses the phrase, “you must be born from above” and it is only Nicodemus who uses the phrase “born again”, an idea Jesus challenges as showing a lack of understanding.  It is ironic, then, that so many Christians have bought into Nicodemus’ phrasing of needing to be “born again”, not paying attention to the fact that not only is this not Jesus’ idea, but that Jesus actually gets upset with the way Nicodemus fails to understand Jesus.  We can again become Nicodemus by being literal about a need for a second birth.  We can become formulaic in our understanding of what it is to be “saved,” the very thing Jesus is confronting.  Nicodemus is trying hard to make these ideas of being born of water and spirit literal and tangible – graspable.  We understand that.  We, too, want these ideas to be understandable, clear-cut, simple and spelled out for us.  Tell us what we need to do to be saved.  Make it clear for us and easy.  But Jesus says “no”.  “Being born of water and spirit” cannot be rigid, or fixed.  If it becomes cliché or codified, it loses depth of meaning.  Being born both of water (especially in the form of baptism) and Spirit requires putting aside certitude and assumptions – that is part of what Jesus means when he declares that the Spirit will blow where it chooses and we will not know from whence it comes or where it is going.  Trying to pin down faith in a formulaic or set way cheapens it and destroys it.  Instead, being born from the spirit invites us to recognize that God’s full character as revealed in Jesus will reshape our lives only if we stay open to where the Spirit leads, to where it blows in spite of and in contrast to our assumptions and expectations. 

A tourist came too close to the edge of the Grand Canyon, lost his footing and plunged over the side, clawing and scratching to save himself.  After he went out of sight and just before he fell into space, he ran into a scrubby bush which he desperately grabbed with both hands.  Filled with terror, he called out to heaven, “is there anyone up there?”  A calm, powerful voice came out of the sky, “yes.”  The tourist pleaded, “Help me!  Help me!”  The voice responded, “Are you a believer?”  “Yes, yes!”  “Do you have faith?”  “Yes, yes!  I have strong faith.”  The voice said, “In that case, simply let loose of the bush and trust that everything will turn out fine.”  There was a tense pause, then the tourist yelled, “Is there anyone else up there?”

Having enough faith, loving others enough – striving to do these things is all part of the journey.  It is all something we grow into. The question “Have you been saved?” for me is always be answered with, “I am on the way” because it isn’t a switch – either on or off.  It is a process of becoming more faith-filled, becoming more loving, following more closely in the path of Jesus every day.  Many seem to be able to point to a moment in time when they came to faith or offered their life to Jesus.  But I see even by their actions that they are, too, are really still on their way to true faith –most have not yet reached the point where, like Jesus, they are willing to give up their lives so that others, even their enemies, may live. 

So, as always, the question remains, where is the good news in this?  All of the passages we read today give us some insight into salvation.  But the Good News is that ultimately, salvation is not about us - it is about God.  It is God who saves.  It is God who loves us.  It is God who gives us the grace that leads us “home.”   And for me, what all of these different passages say, what God’s grace points out, is that I really can’t be in the position of judging anyone else’s path.  It is not for me to limit how or to whom God’s grace extends.  My concern needs to be about following the best I can in the path.

I want to share with you a quote from Charles Peguy (French poet & essayist 1873 – 1914) “Grace is insidious.  When grace doesn’t come straight, it comes bent. When it doesn’t come from above, it comes from below. When it doesn’t come from the center, it comes from the circumference. We may finish a way we never began, but we shall finish. This age, this land, this people, this world, will get there along a road they never set out on.”

And finally, I want to end finally with a poem written by Ken Rookes intitled,

Sometimes I am born from above

Sometimes I am born from above;

my spirit soars and I sense

that greater Spirit touching and caressing

my soul. Perhaps it is merely

my imagination, but I feel myself

rising above my petty concerns,

my selfish fears. In these moments

my soul sings (with Dame Julian),

all shall be well;

and my conviction grows deeply

that I must employ all my best efforts

to make it so.

At other times

I find myself firmly tethered

to this dust-filled earth, and those same

inward preoccupations push urgently

and insistently to the front,

and I worry, like the man in the story;

will I have enough, and have I got it right,

and will those gates be opened to me?

Sometimes I am born from above

and I feel the Spirit’s wind blowing,

blowing, and hear her singing

with words outrageous

and melody unconstrained;

thus I find myself moving awkwardly

but unembarrassed amidst rhythms

half-learned, infused with life

and never fully understood.

 

Let us be open to God’s Spirit today and everyday.  Amen.

 

Resurrection Then and Now

 Luke 24: 1-12

               Happy Easter!  And it is a happy day!  For the first time in a year some folk will be coming back into the sanctuary today to celebrate Easter, the day of resurrection, the day of new life.  Others will be at home, waiting for it to be safer, waiting a little longer but still celebrating this glorious day with us!  Some came in for the Easter sunrise service, worshiping outside at the break of dawn as the sun peeked over the horizon and day came.  It is a day of new beginnings.  And it is a day when the life that we knew resurrects in this place.

               And yet, as you look around, you know that it is different.  So many of us are still at home.  The choir is not here singing with us for the in-person service.  And we will have no singing in the in-person service at all!  Those who sang for the pre-recorded service were fewer.  People are still wearing their masks.  Some of us have not been able to get vaccinated yet, and a few are choosing not to.  We are divided: some watching from home, some in person.  Our coffee hour is still mostly through Zoom.  People are not hugging, not even shaking hands.  Things remain different.  Things are not what they were.  The glorious entry back has not come to pass in the way we might have envisioned it a year ago!    Things are different.  And we may be wondering if they will ever “return to normal”. 

               But the truth is that there is no “normal”.  As we’ve talked about many times before, the only thing we can absolutely count on is change.  And while we may hope that change comes more slowly than it certainly has this year, that is often not how life presents.  Change is inevitable.  And all we have is to decide what we will do with the time that we are given.

               But today on Easter, I find, just as I found last year, that there is more similarity in our strange Easter with that first Easter than most Easters we have celebrated together.  For while we love to celebrate easter with trumpet and singing and large groups of gatherings, with eating and praise and beautiful clothing and decorations, we are reminded by today’s scripture readings that this is not what happened that first Easter.  A group had come to the tomb.  But it was not a joyful, loud, big group.  Instead, it was a group of a few, very sad, very disappointed, very scared, but faithful women who came to the tomb.  They were told by “two men in clothes that gleamed like lighting” that Jesus had risen.  But this did not lead to praise and singing.  This did not lead to great celebration and gathering and feasting.  No.  They heard the news, and then they ran away and told the disciples.  And this, too, then, did not spur or inspire the disciples to gather in a large joyous crowd either.  They, too, did not respond by gathering their families for worship, or gathering their families for a celebration feast or Easter Egg Hunt.  They did not begin to praise God, or preach the word, or celebrate Eucharist (thanksgiving).  They did not sing.  Instead we are told, “they did not believe the women because their words seemed like nonsense.  Peter even left them.  He went back to the tomb by himself, saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and, we are told, he ”went away, wondering to himself what had happened.”  This is the original Easter: chaos, confusion, separation.  Questions, hiding, running.  Distance, retreat, disappointment, disbelief.  This is the original Easter.  This is the day we celebrate: a day of not knowing, a day of not understanding, a day of disbelief and retreat. 

               And so perhaps it is deeply appropriate that we, too, as we gather in our separate places and yet our together places, that we, too, are separate, are not knowing what tomorrow or next week or next year will look like, that we spend a day in having our set ideas of what Easter is, and what Church is, and what WE are supposed to be on this day: that we have all of this broken open. 

               In the transitional ministry class that I’ve been taking, it has been reinforced for me once again that because people so fear real, true, deep change, the only thing that pushes us to truly grow, truly deepen in our faith, in our communities, and in our work for God is some kind of “catalytic event”.  That the only thing that really moves us to be better, be stronger, be more faithful, deeper, more loving and connected to God and each other is chaos, is change, is crisis.  So, I would like to invite you to consider that this time is an opportunity.  And that this new stepping back in a different way, in a non-usual way, in a slightly chaotic and definitely different way is a GIFT to us.  It is a gift of being able to remember and reconsider what is important to us about church, what is the meaning for us in our faith, what is the true and deep and beautiful message of Easter.

               I shared this story on Good Friday, but I want to share it here again because I think it is so relevant and important:  When St. Paul’s Cathedral in London was being built, the architect was walking among the stonecutters.  He wanted to know how people were feeling about what they were doing.  So he asked one of the cutters, “What are you doing?”  And the cutter answered, “I’m hammering this stupid rock!”  Wren moved onto ask a second cutter, “What are you doing?”  This one answered, “I’m shaping this rock to be a cornice over a doorway.”  Finally he asked a third, “What are you doing?”  To which this stonecutter instantly replied, “I’m building a cathedral!” 

               Do we focus on the fact that it may feel like hard work to rebuild our congregation and our community?  Do we focus on the need to make everything the same ASAP so that we can “go back to normal”?  Or do we take this opportunity to really look at the amazing gift of resurrection.  Jesus was not resurrected in the way we expected.  And in fact, he was not resurrected the same.  We hear that Philip put his hands in Jesus’ side. His body was not the same.  He was resurrected with his scars.  And as we resurrect as a church, our body will not be the same either: some have moved away, for example.  And others have joined us: we had six new members join and I’ve been contacted by others who have been “participating” in our church whom we’ve never met. 

Jesus’ interaction with the disciples and his community was also different.  We read in scripture that the disciples didn’t recognize him on the walk to Emmaus.  We also hear, “When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them.  Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight.”  He came and went in a very different way and he was not the same person going around healing and teaching.  He spoke to few, and he inspired those few to be the risen Christ in the world: to go into the  world teaching and healing as he had done.  So, too, our church community will not be the same, will not look the same.  We will continue to do some teaching through zoom so that those who cannot come in and do not live close can continue to be part of us.  We will continue to offer multiple ways of seeing services: in person or from home.  Resurrection looks different than what we were before. 

But we have a choice.  We can see the hard work of the stone-cutter, or we can see the new church that we are building with wonder and with awe.  We can grieve what has changed, and indeed that is part of moving through and into something new.  But we can choose to become stuck there, and stuck in a process of trying to recreate exactly what was, or we can rejoice at the changes, and look for the ways in which God is re-creating us, re-inviting us into new life, new vision, new hope, a new church community. 

The good news of the resurrection is for each and every one of us.  We, too, get to be resurrected anew.  We are invited to start this day and every day with hope, with joy, with new vision into what could be, what might be, and to see into what WILL be. 

I want to share a little story that Rev. Michael Piazza wrote about and which Lyle shared with me about the amazing creative, life-giving work of God.  Rev. Michael Piazza wrote this: “Slaves would cook huge meals for the masters’ families, while they often were forced to make do with the leftovers. One staple often left to the slaves was what my mother used to call "pot liquor." Now, for those of you who didn't grow up poor, pot liquor is the liquid left after the food has been cooked.  My grandmother used to boil collards or turnip greens. When they were done, she would remove them and then drop globs of dough into the still boiling water to make dumplings. That often was all the slaves had to eat.  It wasn't until about 100 years later that nutritionists discovered [that] almost all the nutritional value of the food was left in the pot liquor. The slave owners would stuff themselves on the best life had to offer, but the slaves were the ones who were made stronger and healthier by the pot liquor.  Perhaps that is how it is with pain. The good times may make your life feel full, but the struggles can make you healthy and strong. You must decide which it will be; perhaps, though, there is not as much to fear from pain as you once thought.”

               And so, we learn that when we go through the pain of our crises, of our challenges, of the struggles, that when we can forgive, and when we can go through the work of dealing with the losses and the grief, when we can breathe into each day, we can emerge on the other side resurrected.  We will not look the same.  But those scars we carry are usually places of greater strength.  When the broken bones heal, the places they heal are stronger.  When we have scars, that scar tissue is tougher.  It does not look the same, but in it is life; new life, God-given life, resurrected life.

               This is the day we remember that Jesus has risen!  Not in the ways expected or even hoped for: but in the ways God has caused new life to be: fuller, deeper, spread out among and through and beyond the disciples and the community.  And we are a part of that resurrection, too.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

Haggai

            Unlike the other prophets whom we’ve studied so far, Haggai is speaking to a people who have already been destroyed.  He is talking to the exiles of the destroyed Judah who have been in Babylon.  Now, under Cyrus’ edict (after Persia conquered the Babylonians), the remaining Israelites have been allowed to return to Jerusalem.  Haggai is therefore giving instructions for a new Jerusalem, and he is encouraging the rebuilding of the temple, the rebuilding of the tradition, the rebuilding of the Israelite commitment to their faith as they return home.  This is a very different message from what we’ve heard from the other prophets.  And the response of Zerubbabel, the high priest, is to lead the people to do exactly what Haggai says God has commanded.  They do set to work on building the temple.  And Haggai announces that as a result, God will grant peace, God will be with them, God is pleased.  The book of Haggai approaches the conclusion with this phrase, “From this day on I will bless you.”

            So, unlike the other prophets, and perhaps especially Amos who we heard from last week, the book of Haggai is hopeful, it is living in the resurrection of Israel, it is the promise of new life that comes after death.  Since we are in the season of lent, walking towards the cross, this resurrection and focus on the resurrection may seem to be premature.  But I think that, first of all, going through those times of hardship, those times of death, we can be boosted and supported by knowing that even out of death resurrection comes.  And secondly, I am aware that even in our most difficult times there are small moments, at least, of new life, or hope, of good things.  Those understandings, and that promise of new life, that hope, that belief, allows us to carry through, to make it through, to push forward even through the darkest times. 

            You all know the story of Pandora’s box (or jar, is, I understand, a more accurate translation).  The idea behind this Greek myth is that Pandora accidentally let loose on the human race all the evils of our world except one – that one being despair.  In another version, she let out (and away) from humanity all the good things in the world except for Hope.  In another version, everything in the box was evil except the very last “spirit” to slip from the box, and that spirit was hope….Whichever version you know of the story, the message is the same: with all the evils that are in the world, the one thing that humanity could not tolerate, could not live with: the one thing that would make life unbearable is despair, or lack of hope.  When people do hit that place of ultimate despair, that is when they give up, and we know the results of that…suicides, murders, harm to other people.  All of it ends the same: death. 

But the message of the gospel is a message of hope.  The scriptures do talk about endings, they do talk about sorrows, they do talk about walking through fire, as the Israelites did when they were sent into exile, as Jesus did when he was sent to the cross.  But the scriptures don’t leave us there.  There is always something beyond death, beyond the dark night, beyond the fiery trials and tribulations.  And that is the Good News of our faith.  On the other side of any loss, of any death, of any pain, God promises resurrection.  Haggai is the voice for that resurrection that is offered even in the Old Testament.

            I want to share with you a story written by Arnold Lobel in his book Grasshopper on the Road.  The story in entitled “A New House.”

The Road went up a steep hill.  Grasshopper climbed to the top.  He found a large apple lying on the ground.  “I will have my lunch,” said Grasshopper.  He ate a big bite of the apple.  “Look what you did!” said a worm, who lived in the apple.  “You have made a hole in my roof!  It is not polite to eat a person’s house,” said the worm. 

“I am sorry,” said Grasshopper.  Just then the apple began to roll down the road on the other side of the hill.

“Stop me!  Catch me!” cried the worm.  The apple was rolling faster and faster.  “Help, my head is bumping on the walls!  My dishes are falling off the shelf!” cried the worm.  Grasshopper ran after the apple.  “Everything is a mess in here!” cried the worm.  “My bathtub is in the living room.  My bed is in the kitchen!”

Grasshopper kept running down the hill.  But he could not catch the apple.  “I am getting dizzy,” cried the worm.  “My floor is on the ceiling!  My attic is in the cellar!”The apple rolled and rolled.  It rolled all the way down to the bottom of the hill.  The apple hit a tree.  It smashed into a hundred pieces. 

“Too bad, worm,” said Grasshopper.  “Your house is gone.”

The worm climbed up the side of the tree.  “Oh, never mind,” said the worm.  “It was old, and it had a big bite in it anyway.  This is a fine time for me to find a new house.” Grasshopper looked up into the tree.  He saw that it was filled with apples.  Grasshopper smiled, and he went on down the road.

The worm in this story was upset.  The worm experienced great loss – of everything that he owned.  But the worm also had the vision to see possibilities beyond his losses; to look forward, to go into new life, to experience resurrection.

Does that mean that we can avoid the pain and the grief?  No, we can’t.  We have to feel those things too.  But it does mean that we can avoid deep despair.  And I think that is the deepest gift, the deepest promise of our faith. 

As I wrote this sermon, I found myself reflecting on the hardest times in my own life.  I know that each of us has gone through difficult, painful, deeply disturbing times.  I have no doubt that for you, as there was for me, there were moments when the questions loomed large, “will we make it through this?”  “HOW will we make it through this?”  “Will we be okay on the other end of this?”  “What will that other side look like?”  For myself, the other side of those times did not look the way I had hoped or expected.  Nothing stayed the same, and nothing returned to what it was.

No, instead things are better than they were before.  I mean this genuinely.  I am happy here at this church, I am happy here in CA again with the sun and the land and the mountain, I am happy with David, I am happy with my family.  More than this, I walked through the fires of our life and came out with two very different and very real understandings than before I went through.  The first, I came through knowing my own strength, a strength based in large part on my faith.  God walked in a tangible way alongside our family through the toughest times.  I go forward trusting God’s presence to a much deeper level than ever before.  And secondly, I understand much more fully that “this too shall pass.”  Nothing lasts.  Nothing stays the same.  Everything changes. And that means that whatever is good in your life should be appreciated and celebrated now because it will not stay the same.  And whatever is bad in your life will not be a burden forever because it, too, will not stay the same.  These are deep gifts of learning: that everything changes, and that with god on our side there is hope, and there is faith that we will make it through whatever life hands us. 

A quote that has been helpful to me over the years, written by Paramahansa Yogandanda is, “Do not take life’s experiences too seriously.  Above all, do not let them hurt you for in reality they are nothing but dream experiences.  If circumstances are bad and you have to bear them, do not make them a part of yourself.  Play your part in life but never forget that it is only a role.”  I play my part, but I never forget that my deeper identity is as a child of God.  Your identity is as a child of God.  That is what is real.  That is what is ultimately important. 

I found as I wrote this that this poem came to mind:

I asked God for strength that I might achieve.
I was made weak that I might learn humbly to obey.
I asked for health that I might do greater things.
I was given infirmity that I might do better things.
I asked for riches that I might be happy.
I was given poverty that I might be wise.
I asked for power that I might have the praise of men.
I was given weakness that I might feel the need of God.
I asked for all things that I might enjoy life.
I was given life that I might enjoy all things.
I got nothing that I asked for, but everything I hoped for.
Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered.
I am, among all men, most richly blessed.

– Prayer by an unknown confederate soldier

            There is another message in Haggai, though.  In the book of Haggai we are told that resurrection does not look like just sitting around and taking life easy. Resurrection is not a passive experience for us of sitting and waiting for God to act.  The Israelites were required to rebuild the temple – not an easy, simple, or small task to take on.  This was a primary message of Haggai: you must rebuild the temple: all of you must rebuild the temple together.  But the results of this, for the Israelites, for this people of God, were amazing.  First of all, when they had a hand in their own renewal, in their own resurrection, it became not only a source of pride, but they had a much deeper ownership in who they now were as a people.  Before the exile, the temple had really only been used by the elite.  It was a place built by, and for, the elite.  But it was only after the rebuilding of the temple that it became the center of life for the Israelites. That joint effort, that working together (not hired by the wealthy, not forced to build something for others, but choosing to be part of creating something for themselves) to rebuild this central building brought a deeper sense of faith, of commitment, of community to the people.  

Again, it came with a lot of work.  The message here is that for those who hope that new life, that resurrection, that “heaven”, that new beginnings of any kind are given to us on a silver platter, are a place where we are served and do not need to lift a hand on our own behalves but  can just nap and wait for the wonderful to come, the reality will be something far different.  The resurrection is a place where there will be good things, wonderful things: God’s presence, new life.  But those things also come with a much deeper gift: meaningful work and purpose.   

This week I read an article in the Washington Post about a school where the girls were being sexually harassed.  They tried to talk to the principal, who brought in only the “Leader” from the boys and told him to stop it.  But the girls knew this was not enough.  They fought for an education program at their school that would teach everyone more about how to be respectful of all people, no matter their age, gender, situation, race, or any other factor.  They changed the whole culture of the school by pushing this through.  And they came out with strength, with a sense of their own power and ability to change their world.  It not only improved things for them in the short run, it also empowered them and their fellow students as they were able to witness the power of their efforts change the world in which they lived.

Walking into new life will involve the work of all of us talking, sharing, healing, and growing together.  If we accept the invitation to follow God’s call to action, to working together, to building the new together: if we accept the invitations for meaning, to purpose, then, as Haggai tells us in his book, “From this day on, God will bless you”.  And that is very good news.  Amen.

Reading Signs

Jeremiah 33:14-16

Psalm 25:1-10

Luke 21:25-36

In today’s lesson from Luke, Jesus is talking about a new day coming.  He is announcing what that will look like when the new earth begins.  But the pictures that he draws are not pretty.  “On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea.   People will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken.”  These catastrophes, these crises, these traumas, they are the sign of the new world coming, a new life coming.  They are the sign that things are changing.  Do we experience these things now?  Of course we do, as did the Israelites in their time as well.  People are in anguish.  People do become terrified, anxious and perplexed.  This happens in all times.  And the message to us is two things.  First, when horrible things are happening, these are invitations for us to rely more fully on God, to trust in God knowing that God is with us in these changes, in these challenges.  And second, we are called to remember that these difficult signs and hard times are actually fertile ground for new birth, for new life, for a resurrection that comes again and again, and again. 

I’m reminded of a quote I saw recently. “When you’re in a dark place, you sometimes tend to think you’ve been buried.  Perhaps you’ve been planted.  Bloom!”

Today we begin the new church year.  The church year begins with Advent, not New Year’s.  But like New Year’s day, in the church we are called to begin the new church year with anticipation of the new life that is coming, as we look towards Jesus being born anew into our lives.  We remember that out of whatever chaos we have and do experience, new life will come, is coming, has come.  And we are invited to celebrate that today. Today is a chance for a new start, a new look, a new approach to our lives.  It is not that we forget what has gone on before.  Trying to avoid what has happened rather than incorporating it into our beings means that we fail to heal from it.  Denying things that have happened leads to them coming out in strange and unresolved ways. Instead, we have to take our experiences, all of our experiences, incorporate them into our beings and allow them to help God in transforming our lives for the better. 

In the movie, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Toula struggles to find balance between family traditions and desires for her, with what she hopes for and sees as fulfilling a dream for her future.  She falls in love and decides to marry a non-Greek man, and her father, in particular, feels betrayed by this, forbids it at first, is angry and hurt by it.  Toula struggles because she loves her family and does not want to hurt them.  But as her brother finally says to her, “don’t let your past dictate who you are but let it be part of who you will become.”

            We carry our past with us.  But we decide, by our choices about how to deal with that past, if it will hinder us, bind us, control us, hold us captive and refuse to let us go or heal; or if it will inform our future, lead us into a place of new growth, new healing, new challenge, and new life.  There is a wonderful book that I’ve shared with you before called The Beethoven Factor.  In it Paul Pearsall talks about the different responses people have to crisis.  He says we are aware of two of those responses: we’ve all heard of victims and we are also aware of survivors.  Victims are people who stay in that place of being victims, who cannot heal from their pain, cannot get past it but live in that.  They often become bitter, cynical, dysfunctional and stuck in an endless cycle of loss.  Survivors are people who fare better, but who still wear their experiences in a way that limits them and continues to define them.  But he then identifies a third group of people, a group that he believes is exemplified in the person of Beethoven.  As he tells it, “There stood Beethoven, gravely ill and totally deaf.  Eyes closed, he kept conducting the orchestra even after they had ceased their performance and the audience had risen to its feet in thunderous applause.  As a singer stepped from the choir to turn him around to see those whose shouts of “bravo” resonated throughout the concert hall, tears of elation filled his eyes.  Perhaps the worst loss a composer could experience had been the catalyst for a remarkably adaptive creativity that allowed him to transcend his tortures to become immersed in the thrill of conducting the premiere of his Ninth Symphony, the “Ode to Joy”.  At that moment, and not only in spite of but because of his adversity, Beethoven had experienced the thrill of thriving through adversity.”  Thrivers, people who are able, with God’s help, to take their challenges and create new life from them, be part of resurrection, be part of seeing the new, that is what we are called to be.

            In the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding Toula discusses with her mom the struggle she is facing between the needs or concerns of her family and her own decisions about what will lead her into the life she wants for herself.  And her mother, in her wisdom, says this, “My village saw many wars.  Turkish, German.  They all made a mess.  And my mother said, ‘We’re lucky to be alive.’ And I thought, we’re not lucky to be alive.  We’re not lucky when they are telling us where we should live, what we should eat!  Nobody has that right!  And then I see you and I see your sister and your brother.  We came here for you.  So you could live.  I gave you life, so that you could live it.”

            God came to give us LIFE so that we could LIVE it.  That doesn’t come without going through pain and struggle.  It doesn’t come without challenge to our understandings of the world, to our very being, to our comfort.  But we are invited to move through pain and into a new year, into new life, into a new beginning.  

I want to end today by reminding you of the Old Testament readings.  From Jeremiah we heard:  “The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah.  In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety.  And this is the name by which it will be called: “The Lord is our righteousness.” 

And from the Psalm we heard:  “All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness, for those who keep his covenant and his decrees.”  When we trust in God, we can live in the hope that the new life will be glorious and full of God’s love and care.

            Sister Joan Chittister said, “The essence of happiness... is having something to do, something to love and something to hope for. At the outset of the liturgical year, the church presents (us) with a model: a Child who lives only to do the will of God, who opens his arms to love the entire world, who lives in hope of the coming of the reign of God by giving his life to bring it.”  Jesus gave us his life, his teaching, his love: he risked his own life and died because of those commitments: he did all of that, that we might live.  We honor Jesus then by choosing the new life, a life of hope, that he would have us live.  As we begin our new year, I invite all of us to begin again, to search for meaning not by letting go of the past but by incorporating it into our beings, moving through all of the lessons and challenges and gifts we’ve been given, and inviting God to make us new.  Amen.

A new season

1.  I've been worrying about the changes in church demographics... worried that I would have trouble supporting my family in the difficult career I have chosen.  I've also been missing AFDA - the Academy for Dramatic Arts program that was my dream and vision and that we began in Ohio.  I'd found myself thinking that I wanted to start something like that here, and that if I did, maybe on church campus, things might change either for the church or for myself.  But I didn't know any drama people, any directors, that I could really work with to put something like that together.  And then last week, a director called me, out of the blue, to ask about how he might start a similar program in this area...
2.  I've had a dream about a co-housing situation in which people might all live in houses in a compound: each would have their own individual places, but we'd also have common places and common times.  We could share some meals, create community, be there for one another in a more concrete, less individual way.  This has become more real as I've found myself talking with six different individuals who are in challenging housing situations and could really benefit from something like that, from cheaper housing supplemented by a large community center, and I found myself thinking about tiny houses and a big/main house.  What if I had a house on a plot of land that was big enough to add tiny houses as we needed them for folk who need a place to stay, either for a while or permanently?  I shared this with a friend and found that they were really excited about the idea as well.  I'm putting it out there to the Universe to see what we might do, but I see possibilities in this.
3.  I had put work on my book down for awhile: too hard, too intense to face all of our story again.  Yesterday, despite the fear, I picked it up and began editing.  I need a real editor, so if someone is interested, let me know.  It's a book about justice, and it's our story as well.  Not easy. But the work has started again.
4.  Today we had new people come to our adult ed at church.  We've had other new people showing up at church and at other events as well.
5.  And now, just a few minutes ago, I found a set of keys I had lost over the summer.  As odd as it sounds, it felt like a sign: the tide is turning, things are changing for the better, new life is on the way. We've all been going through a tough time.  Even when each step seems a little better, there have also been backwards steps and pain and frustration, but it feels like the season is changing.  And I am seeing glimpses of the spring.

On that note, dear friends, keep calendars cleared for the week after Christmas next year... more info to follow.

Reformation - Big Time

Jeremiah 31: 27-34
John 8:31-36

Today we celebrate the 500th year of the beginning of the Reformation.  This sermon will be unusual in that it will focus more, therefore, on church history.  As you know, Martin Luther is known as the father of the reformation, though his work of reformation was continued by John Calvin and Huldrych Zwingly whom we name as the Presbyterian Founding Fathers.  Most years on Reformation Sunday I therefore have focused more on Calvin and Zwingly but because this year marks the 500th anniversary of the publication of Martin Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses in 1517, today I will focus more on Martin Luther and what was happening that began the Reformation 500 years ago.
Martin Luther’s was not the first attempt at reformation within the Catholic Church.  Jan Hus, Peter Waldo, John Wycliffe all made significant efforts at confronting problems in the Church.  However, Martin Luther took advantage of the newly available Gutenberg printing press and with that at his disposal, he was much more successful where others had not been able to make significant strides in either changing the church or creating a new church movement. Martin Luther was a prolific writer and he used the printing press to quickly disseminate religious materials to the people. Luther had been a Augustinian Monk and a lecturer at the University in Wittenberg.  And his publication of his 95 theses was not for the purpose of starting his own break off denomination, but rather it was simply an attempt to reform the Catholic Church.  However, he was excommunicated in 1521 at the Diet of Worms.  After his excommunication, he translated the Bible into German (before that it had only been in Latin and therefore only the priests were able to read it). 
Martin Luther’s main issue with the Roman Catholic Church, as you may have read in the 95 Theses, was the sale of indulgences, which basically were “get out of purgatory with payment for sins” cards.   Luther stated, in particular, that the Pope had no authority over purgatory, could not grant people “get out of purgatory” tickets, and certainly could not SELL them.  That was his primary gripe.  However, he also confronted the idea of saints as people to whom we should pray in place of God.  He felt very strongly that this was not a biblical concept in any way.  As the reformation continued, there were several key points that he emphasized.  First, that it was the Bible and not tradition that should inform spiritual practices, or as we say it, “scripture alone”.  Second, that we find our salvation through our faith and not through works, hence, “faith alone”.  And third that salvation comes only from God through grace, not by anything we can do and certainly not by someone else speaking on our behalf, praying on our behalf or selling us a way into eternal life, (in other words, he challenged the idea of praying to specific Saints for them to advocate to God for us, confessing our sins to a priest rather than directly to God, and again, the priestly ability to grant people access to heaven) hence, “grace alone.”  These are the main points of the protestant reformation, though there were many other points made along the way. Since purgatory is not a biblical concept that was tossed out.  As I said before, the idea of saints was rejected by the protestants except in the global sense that all who die in the faith become the saints of God.  “The priesthood of all believers” meant that all of us are able to have personal and direct relationships with God.  We are also all able to read scriptures in our own languages and with our own interpretations.  Other issues that were important to Luther included a confrontation of the Catholic devotion to Mary, as well as the mandate for clerical celibacy.  More importantly, he presented a different idea in what constituted sacraments (as you know we only have two: baptism and communion), and what the sacraments really are (for example, do the communion elements become the literal physical body and blood of Christ or not), as well as whether or not they are considered necessary for salvation.  The reason we only have communion in most Presbyterian Churches once a month was a statement, for example, against the Catholic idea that it was necessary to take communion to clean yourself of sin so that you had to have it as close to death as possible.  For most Protestants, it is a celebration of community and the Church, it is a way to remember all that God has done for us, and most importantly, it is a way of participating in Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, but it is not necessary for salvation.  He confronted and challenged ideas about censure and excommunication, challenged practices of Christianity’s involvement in secular laws, and continued to challenge the authority of the Pope in many matters.  He also challenged which books of the bible would be considered “scripture” and as you know, protestants have fewer books than Catholics as a result.  Luther decided that what should be considered “canon” would be determined by practice, or what had been used most frequently and liturgically, theology and politics. 
Many of the issues that divided the Catholic and Protestant churches continue to do so: Protestants still do not focus on Mary, we do not pray to saints, we do not follow a Pope or even hold our pastors with too much authority, we still only have a few sacraments and our understanding of those sacraments remains different, we don’t believe in purgatory, we still stick to the three key phrases of the Protestant Reformation, “Scripture alone, faith alone, grace alone.” 
        At the same time, as you know, these differences have become much less important than they once were.  For example, the idea of “faith alone” has been tempered by most Protestants with the understanding that if you really and deeply believe in the words Jesus gave us, works will be part of your faith.  As the book of James in our scriptures says so very articulately, “My brothers and sisters, what good is it if people say they have faith but do nothing to show it? Claiming to have faith can’t save anyone, can it? Imagine a brother or sister who is naked and never has enough food to eat. What if one of you said, “Go in peace! Stay warm! Have a nice meal!”? What good is it if you don’t actually give them what their body needs? In the same way, faith is dead when it doesn’t result in faithful activity. Someone might claim, “You have faith and I have action.” But how can I see your faith apart from your actions? Instead, I’ll show you my faith by putting it into practice in faithful action.  It’s good that you believe that God is one. Ha! Even the demons believe this, and they tremble with fear.  Are you so slow? Do you need to be shown that faith without actions has no value at all?...  As the lifeless body is dead, so faith without actions is dead.”  As a result of these statements in the book of James, Luther actually did not want to continue to include the book of James in the Canon.  He felt very strongly that our actions have nothing to do with salvation and so found these words offensive.  But, the people prevailed on this.  The book of James was very much in use and he was unable to strike it from the Canon.
Additionally, the problem that Martin Luther was most concerned about, that began the whole Reformation, naming the selling of indulgences, is no longer practiced in the Catholic church either.  The Catholic Church additionally now uses lay leadership to a much greater degree, recognizing that all of us have a call, and Bibles are translated into many languages and read in the native languages of the people in almost all congregations.   I think one of the greatest changes recently is that we are now working together, across denominations, more and more.  We no longer see those differences with the same sense of importance that we had before.
There were many results of the Protestant Reformation.  It led to a series of religious wars that culminated in the thirty years war which killed between 25-40% of the entire population of Germany between 1618 and 1648.  While many believe the Reformation ended in 1648 with the passing of the Peace of Westphalia (which declared that each prince could determine the religion of its own state but also allowed Christians of different denominations to continue to practice their own faith in peace), many others say it never ended since we continue to have different Christian denominations and splinters within all of those denominations continue.   Scholars credit the Protestant reformation as being the catalyst for a higher literacy rate, lower gender gap in school enrollment, higher school enrollment, more pro-market and pro-work attitudes, among other things.  In the negative, Witch Burnings were more common and witch hunts more active in communities that were torn between Catholic and Protestant believers.
While Luther was the founder of the Reformation, as you know, the forefathers of the Presbyterian Church: Calvin, Zwingly and later, Knox, took the reformation further even than Luther.  One of the phrases of our denomination is “reformed and always reforming” or “reformed and always being reformed” depending on the translation.  We believe that God is always at work among us, guiding us forward into new and deeper understandings as well as into change.  But we also know that change is hard, change is not comfortable, and if it is not intentional decision to move forward, the church will stumble. 
       Diana Butler Bass wrote, “Luther and his associates were protesters rather than reformers—they stood up against the religious conventions of the day, arguing on behalf of those suffering under religious, social, and economic oppression. …In the United States, Protestantism has often been torn between the impulse to protest (the abolition movement, women’s rights movements, the Civil Rights movement) and the complacency of content by virtue of being the majority religion. After all, if you are the largest religious group in society—if you shape the culture—what do you protest?  Yourself?”
       Bruce Epperly put it this way, “Reformation faith is forward, rather than backward-looking, evolving rather than static, at home in this world, rather than in a previous age or a heavenly realm.”
       But the unfortunate truth is that Protestant Churches have become “stuck” as well, in large part because we ARE the dominant religion, the religion of our culture.  Christianity began as a movement against the status quo: challenging the system that oppressed many and lifted up a few.  But now we are the dominant group, and that means we are part of the system that is oppressive.  So, as Diana Butler Bass wrote, do we protest ourselves? 
     Change is hard.  And we are not keeping “at home in this world rather than a previous age” with a great deal of success.  As a result, there is a new movement “out” of the Protestant Church just as in the Protestant reformation, there was a large movement out of the Catholic Church.  You know this, I’ve mentioned it before, you see it within your own families as your own children or your children’s children no longer value church or go to church.  And what is interesting is that they are right on schedule.  There has been some kind of major Reformation of the church every 500 years and as we celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, we are right on schedule for another one. What will that look like?  We know, we trust that God is simply doing a new thing, but we do not yet know what that will look like. 
     In the face of all of this, what is important to take away?  Perhaps what is most important is what has always been and what always is most important: that our identity, worth, and well-being should not determined by our successes and failures, by our actions, by our virtuous living, even, but by God's gift of loving us into being.  It is, therefore, our relationships with God that matter.  We could argue theology and we could argue about how we do worship, what we emphasize, what the sacraments mean, who should have authority and who shouldn’t.  We could grieve the changing, diminishing Church, as I know many of us do.  And we could look forward towards where and how the Church will be newly reformed, what it will look like and how we will move forward. But I think all of these things are not ultimately that important.  What matters again is the relationship.  And as far as Church goes, the question should always be, when we come to see who Jesus is, does it matter to us, does it affect us? Are we changed in our encounter with the living Christ, are we challenged, moved by our presence in this place.  And if we aren’t, what is Church about?  What is the purpose in coming here if it does not change us and strengthen us to be the people God calls us to be in the world?  And perhaps what is of bigger question to us today as we reflect and remember the Reformation, what would make this place, now, a place that inspires growth, change and movement?  What reforms need to happen within the Church, big C and within this congregation, little c, that would make this a place of growing deeper in our relationships with God and in our commitments to live lives that challenge systems that oppress, that help people who are suffering, that change the world?  I encourage you to  think about this because in our fellowship hall we have sheets up that I would like to invite you to write on about Reformation – what do you value about who we are, both as Christians and part of the big Church, and as members of this little congregation.  But additionally, what changes, reforms, protests need to continue to happen in the large church; and what changes, reforms, protests need to happen within this congregation.
        Are we willing to let go of what we think we want, what we think will make us happy, and instead to be open to the path Jesus wants us to go, to follow in the way, in the path of a man who ends up dead before he ends up resurrected?  Does our faith, does our encounter with the living Christ make a difference for us?  The question on Reformation Sunday is: are we willing to give up what is comfortable and easy as a church to follow Jesus?  Are we willing to step out to hear what the people of God, God’s children, all of God’s people really need to experience God’s love, God’s grace and God’s presence in this place at this time?
That is the question that we are constantly called to ask as we continue to seek to be a church that is reformed and always reforming.  Amen.