Wed, 05 Mar 2025 20:35:43 -0800WeeblyWed, 05 Mar 2025 08:00:00 GMThttp://firstchristianchurchukiah.org/pastors-blog/a-brief-note-on-ash-wednesday-from-pastor-cherieASH WEDNESDAY

Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent and the first step on the path to Easter.  The forty days from today to Easter (Sundays aren’t counted) mirror the forty days that scripture tells us Jesus spent in the wilderness, hungry and alone and harassed with temptations.

In earlier centuries we were expected to suffer in some way to join ourselves to the Jesus who suffered for us.  It is still seen as a reminder of our mortality, “You are dust and to dust you shall return,” but in recent decades it is presented more often as a chance to attempt to better ourselves – to replace our pettiness, selfishness, anger and lack of compassion with goodness, with hope, with caring for each other. 

Rather than giving up chocolate bars or steaks or alcohol for the forty days, how about if we look for ways to reach out and help others:  donate to a local food bank; or an animal shelter; support your locals schools; smile at that grumpy person you always seem to run into at the bank (even when you’d prefer to growl back at them); say “thank you, have a good day” and mean it to the server who hands you your drive-up take-out order; give your older neighbor a ride to the grocery store – and home again; donate your time to any of the dozens of organizations trying to make your area a better place to be…..Kindness matters!

I could go on all day, but you get the picture, I hope.  Instead of giving up things that don’t really matter, give yourself away.  The world will be blessed by your caring…..and so will you.

HAPPY GIVING!

]]>Sun, 02 Mar 2025 08:00:00 GMThttp://firstchristianchurchukiah.org/pastors-blog/the-glory-shining-round-usExodus 9:29-35

Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the covenant in his hands, but Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God.

When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, the skin of his face was shining, and they were afraid to come near him. But Moses called to them, and Aaron and all the leaders of the congregation returned to him, and Moses spoke with them.

Afterward all the Israelites came near, and he gave them in commandment all that the LORD had spoken with him on Mount Sinai.  When Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil on his face, but whenever Moses went in before the LORD to speak with him, he would take the veil off, until he came out; and when he came out, and told the Israelites what he had been commanded, then the Israelites would see the face of Moses, that the skin of his face was shining, and Moses would put the veil on his face again until he went in to speak with him.
 
Luke 9:28-36

Jesus took Peter, John and James with him and went up onto a mountain to pray.  As he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning. Two men, Moses and Elijah, appeared in glorious splendor, talking with Jesus.  They spoke about his departure, which he was about to bring to fulfillment at Jerusalem.  Peter and his companions were very sleepy, but when they became fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men standing with him. … While he was speaking, a cloud appeared and covered them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud.   

A voice came from the cloud, saying, “This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him.”  When the voice had spoken, they found that Jesus was alone. The disciples kept this to themselves and did not tell anyone at that time what they had seen.

Today is Transfiguration Sunday -- that Sunday that falls between Epiphany and Lent.  Epiphany ended last Sunday and this coming Wednesday is Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent and our journey to Easter. 

Today’s story requires two readings to fully understand what is going on here – two readings that fall about as far apart from each other as we can get in scripture.  The first reading came from the Old Testament book of Exodus while the second comes from Luke’s Gospel in the New Testament.  They may be separated by a large chunk of time, but we, today, need that first reading to fully understand the second which is the story we really want to look into today.

The important point from Exodus is that when Moses came down from Sinai, “the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God.”

Now, Peter, James and John would have known this story from their scriptures and would therefore have entirely understood the reference being made when Jesus later stood before the three with his face and clothes shining. They would have recognized that what had just happened was not some random event but the sign that Jesus had stood in the very presence of God, just as Moses had done long ago.

We, for convenience’ sake, divide scripture into the Old Testament and the New, but it is truly all one story – an old, old story begun in the Hebrew Scriptures – and told down through the centuries into the New Testament where it’s promises come to pass in Jesus.

Peter, John, and James, that day, saw what had always been there to be seen by those with eyes to see.  But we humans tend to see what we expect to see and nothing more.  It takes something truly out of the ordinary to jolt us past our expectations so that we actually see the deep reality around us. 

Because they had been so recently stunned by what they had seen, the chances are good that the disciples would even have heard the voice of God when it spoke to them, before “common sense” had its chance to rear its head and convince them they couldn’t possibly have seen what they thought they saw or heard what they thought they heard.

The truth is that the three disciples that day saw the “real” Jesus – the shining, son of God, Chosen One – but they also saw the Jesus they knew – the one they had traveled the territory with, shared meals with, and so often witnessed healing the sick and the broken.  They saw both and they understood that they truly are one and the same Jesus. 

The glory of God is all around us all the time but it is hard to see because our minds are so trained to refuse what “isn’t normal,” what isn’t “natural” or “reasonable.”  Maybe it’s not what we expect to see -- so we don’t.  That’s why eye-witness accounts can sometimes be so very unreliable.

But in God’s world, once in a while something will be so real that it breaks through our mind’s defenses and we know that we have seen what we have seen.  We know that we have somehow seen the Holy – a shiny reality more real than anything else we’ve ever seen.

I’ve had such moments.  I expect we all have had them.  I may doubt many things (and I do), but about this central fact -- that God’s holiness is always present all around me -- there is no doubt in my mind.  None. 

And at rare moments I am even blessed to see it.
​

]]>Sun, 23 Feb 2025 08:00:00 GMThttp://firstchristianchurchukiah.org/pastors-blog/diversity-equity-inclusion
Galatians 3: 26-28   (NIV)

In Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.  There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.   

D.E.I. – ‘Diversity,’ ‘Equity’ and ‘Inclusion’ have become flash-words in our U.S. conversation these days.  I don’t really want to get into the politics of all this, nor the psychology of why so many people today appear to be threatened by three words that until recently have been touted as “pluses” -- part of who we are as Americans.  Any civics class has surely taught them as three of the many virtues of being an American citizen.

What I do want to discuss is what Jesus taught us about being one people of God, and most of that will come through the writings of Paul and Matthew today.

When Jesus lived among us it was largely assumed by most of his followers that he came for the benefit of the Jewish people only, although there are several instances in the gospels of him speaking with and healing non-Jews, much to the consternation of his Jewish followers.  We know from stories such as his healing of the son of the Canaanite woman, or the long-distance healing of the Roman Centurian’s servant, both stories as told in Matthew, how little attention Jesus paid to a sufferer’s nationality.

It is Paul who, when his teachings were under attack from Jewish-Christians insisting that new converts must all follow the laws of Moses, including circumcision, gives us Jesus’ clearest, “don’t argue with me” statement on the unity of humanity – regardless of race or gender or ethnicity.  It may be in Paul's words but it's clearly Jesus' teaching:

• Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ.  For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.  Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.
• Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body.   And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body.  If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be?  If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be?  But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.  If they were all one part, where would the body be?  As it is, there are many parts, but one body.    (1 Corinthians 12:12-20)

It is clear that Jesus sees us all as one beloved family of God, one creation with no parts ranked higher or lower than any other.  There is only one story of separation, really, and that one, again, is told in Matthews’s gospel.  No one here is judged by the color of their skin, or their country of origin, or their gender or their riches.

• “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.  He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.


• “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.  For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’


• “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?  When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you?  When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’  The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’


• “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, for I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’ ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’         (Matt. 25:31-45)

Did you notice that nowhere in that long reading was there any question about where you were born?  What language do you speak?  Do you have all your papers?  How did you come to this place?  As we were reminded a couple of weeks ago when we discussed the Justice Prophets:  We’ve been told what to do, and what God requires of us -- to seek justice, and love kindness, and walk humbly with our God …  Now it’s our thing to do and there's more… to feed the hungry and give water to the thirsty, to care for the sick and the imprisoned, to welcome strangers and clothe the naked.

Right now we seem to be failing at much of this – we’re cutting off emergency food for the hungry around the world, chopping away at medical insurance that allows us to help the sick, and gathering up anyone who looks remotely like a “stranger” and shoving them onto a plane to who knows where.

Maybe we need to simplify the language even more – one sentence that still says it all –

• "Love one another as I have loved you….."​

]]>Sun, 16 Feb 2025 08:00:00 GMThttp://firstchristianchurchukiah.org/pastors-blog/radical-amazement
Psalm 139:14-16   (The Message) 

I thank you, High God—you are breathtaking!
    Body and soul, I am marvelously made!
    I worship in adoration—what a creation!
You know me inside and out,
    you know every bone in my body;
You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit,
    how I was sculpted from nothing into something.
Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth; all the stages of my life spread out before you,
 
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel  (1907 – 1972)
​
“Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement.....to get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted.  Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; we should never treat life casually.  To be spiritual is to be amazed.”
​

When was the last time you can remember experiencing a feeling of awe?  Do you remember what it felt like?  In skimming around for ideas to jump-start this message I came upon this definition: “Awe is a profound reverence, a personal and unexpected reaction to seeing God at work.  It is seeing or witnessing something inspiring and feeling the Spirit touch our hearts to confirm truth, expand knowledge, or reaffirm heavenly love.”

Now, that’s a very good definition.  I especially like the one line that reads, "awe is…an unexpected reaction to seeing God at work,” and yet, this is still a very academic definition.  Everything it says is true but there is no feeling of awe about it.  It’s really rather cold:  “Just the facts, mam.”

I myself much prefer Rabbi Heschel‘s statement that we opened with today: Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement … He then goes on to say that to be spiritual is to be amazed.

Abraham Joshua Heschel was a Polish-born Jewish theologian, philosopher and mystic.  Descended from prominent rabbis on both sides of his family, he became a well-known and much respected rabbi himself.  He was serving as a university professor when he was driven out of Poland by the Nazis and, after shuffling around Europe, ended up in the U.S. where he lived out his life (many members of his own family having been killed by the Germans).  He taught in universities here and was a prolific writer – and most notably, became a prominent voice of the Civil Rights movement – often traveling and speaking with Martin Luther King, Jr., sharing Dr. King’s belief that no people are free until all people are free.

My intention in this message is not just to talk about Rabbi Heschel the whole time, though lord knows I could, but to point out that this man who suffered all that he did in his life, is the same man who wrote that one line that has grabbed my heart so, about how we should live our lives in radical amazement. 

What does that phrase even mean?  Amazement, Awe, Wonder – do we really allow space in our busy and conflicted lives to even consider these things?

How often do we take the time to notice what is happening around us?  We have our jobs, we have to do our grocery shopping, keep our minds on our driving.  We love our pets, our various animals, and we laugh at their antics, but do we ever actually properly see them for the incredible creations that they are?

Have you ever been on a hilltop at night, far away from the distractions of ambient light, when every star in the universe is visibly shining – millions of them – just out of reach of your fingertips, and realize that you can’t begin to understand what you’re seeing?

Do you ever attempt to clear your mind of all the ‘stuff’ that clutters it so that you can sit in the silence and invite the wonders of our amazing world in? 

What moments do you remember from months or years back that touched something in you so deeply that you still remember it as if it were yesterday?

Radical amazement is a state of being in awe of the world and all of reality, including the act of seeing.

• Radical amazement is a way of looking at the world without any presuppositions. 
• It's a way of being grateful for the wonder of life. 
• It's a way of listening, touching, feeling God with you.

 
How would you describe those moments of connection, of understanding that once in a while pass between you and God?  For me those moments would include holding my new-born daughter for the first time; certain sunsets that still move me to awe years later in my memories; the sound of Yo-Yo Ma playing his cello; singing in a large old church and hearing my own voice ringing in that space;  that one moment in our old church when, in the middle of service, I realized the sanctuary was filled with those who came before us – the ones who built that place for us to gather and worship.

What are your moments?
​

]]>Sun, 09 Feb 2025 08:00:00 GMThttp://firstchristianchurchukiah.org/pastors-blog/justice-prophetsIsaiah 1:16-17
Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;
    remove your evil deeds from before my eyes;
cease to do evil; learn to do good;
seek justice; rescue the oppressed.
​

We started off a couple of weeks ago to discuss the concept of justice in the Hebrew Scriptures.  We then got sidetracked for a week with the story of Cain and Abel.  So now we are back where we should have been last week.

There are sixteen prophets over all in the Hebrew writings – four classified as Major, and 12 as Minor.  The major and minor titles have nothing to do with their relative importance – they’re simply based on their length.  Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel are the longest and thereby classified as major, while Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi are shorter and so, classified as the minor prophets.

Almost all of the sixteen prophets are recorded as having preached against the common in-justices that were prevalent in their time, but some more than others.  Dating the 16 is not easy.  Joel is given as the first of the recorded prophets by some scholars, but others list Isaiah and Amos as the earliest, while Malachi is clearly viewed as the last – a time span of somewhere around 350 years, give or take.

I’ve chosen – somewhat randomly but not entirely – three of these, Amos, Micah, and Isaiah -- to use as examples for our discussion of Old Testament justice.  Amos and Micah from the minor list, and Isaiah from the majors.  Isaiah is probably the best known among all the prophets – major and minor – while Micah and Amos may be the most familiar to us since much of their writing was used in the civil rights struggle a generation or two ago and are often repeated today.

Isaiah was most recognized for his prophecies about the coming Messiah, that’s why we read him a lot at Advent.  He either served 40 plus years as a prophet or there were three different Isaiahs over those years who have been conflated into one man.  That has been argued for centuries.  He prophesied before, during, and after the Babylonian exile – warning of suffering to come when the people drifted from God and then promising redemption when the people had returned their hearts where they belonged. This quote tells us Isaiah’s stand on justice and our role in making sure that it is available to all:

Is not this the fast that I choose?
    to loose the bonds of injustice,
    to undo the straps of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
    and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry
    and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them
    and not to hide yourself from your own kin?    (ISAIAH 58:6-7}
 
Amos was an older contemporary of Isaiah and was from the southern Kingdom of Judah yet preached in the northern Kingdom of Israel (Samaria).

The main message of Amos is that it is God who demands justice and righteousness, particularly towards the poor and vulnerable, and who will judge his people harshly if they continue to neglect social justice and exploit the marginalized, even if they perform all manner of religious rituals; essentially, true worship requires action to alleviate suffering in order to claim to live ethically. 

I hate, I despise your festivals,
    and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings,
    I will not accept them,
and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals
    I will not look upon.
Take away from me the noise of your songs;
    I will not listen to the melody of your harps.
But let justice roll down like water
    and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.   (AMOS 5:21-24)
 
And lastly, we have Micah.  Micah was active in the Kingdom of Judah (the southern kingdom) from before the fall of Israel in 722 BC and he personally experienced the devastation brought by Sennacherib's invasion of Judah in 701 BC.  His prophesying overlapped both Isaiah and Amos timewise.

The primary message of the Book of Micah is a strong condemnation of the social in-justice and corruption of Israel's leaders, coupled with a promise of future restoration and redemption for a faithful remnant, as well as emphasizing that true worship involves acting justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God, rather than mere ritualistic sacrifices; essentially, a call to live righteously to receive God's favor and restoration. 

In narratives that sound entirely familiar to us today, the rich and comfortable were living quite well in these times while the poor too often lost everything.  The religious and political authorities cobbled together fake “laws” that allowed the rich to retain their comfort at the poor’s loss and to offer “sacrifices” that took the place of actual repentance.

These prophets would have none of it and spoke out long and loudly against the hypocrisy of their day, demanding honest change of greedy hearts, often to their own detriment.  Some of their stories sound eerily similar to that recent experience of the  female Episcopalian Bishop who dared to remind our current leaders of Jesus' constant calls for mercy for the poor and powerless and ended up being excoriated  and threatened for doing so.

We can close this message with perhaps one of the most well-known quotes, from Micah.  It tells us all we need to know:

With what shall I come before the Lord?
          . . . . .
He has told you, O mortal, what is good,
    and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice and to love kindness
    and to walk humbly with your God?
​

]]>Sun, 02 Feb 2025 08:00:00 GMThttp://firstchristianchurchukiah.org/pastors-blog/biblical-justice-cain-and-abelGenesis 4:1-7
Now Adam knew his wife Eve, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have produced a man with the help of the Lord.”  Next she bore his brother Abel.  Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a tiller of the ground.  In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel for his part brought of the firstlings of his flock, their fat portions.  And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard.
​
So Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell.  The Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your countenance fallen?  If you do well, will you not be accepted?   And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.”

We started out last week talking about the biblical concept of justice – specifically in the Old Testament.  I was expecting to come back today and look at some of the prophets who are especially known for their passionate calls for justice – but somewhere along the line this past week I discovered something that led me to bump those prophets up to next week’s discussion while we take a brief side trip.

Last week I casually mentioned my almost life-long frustration with trying to understand the story of Cain and Abel, when even as a child it seemed to me that it was God who was unjust in this story.  I only mentioned this as an aside at the time and never intended to go any further in that direction.

But then, on Tuesday last week, for some reason – call it blind luck or divine intervention, whichever you prefer, I noticed a book sitting right at the front of one of my many bookcases.  Once I noticed it I realized it had probably sat there in that spot for much of the 30 years we’ve lived here.

The book is titled “Hebrew Myths: The Book of Genesis.”  It was written by Robert Graves, British poet, army officer, highly respected historian, and recognized expert on translating Greek and Hebrew poetry while maintaining its historical integrity.  A man of many, many talents.

So – while I was puzzling about Cain and Abel and God’s odd preferences, possible answers to my many questions had been sitting right beside me as I drank my morning tea every day.  How weird is that?

According to Graves, all pre-Biblical sacred documents in Hebrew have been either lost or purposely suppressed.  Epic accounts of the Israelites’ desert wanderings and their invasion of Canaan apparently once existed but have been lost.  We still have snippets of these which pop-up in the Bible now and then.  Perhaps that is what this short story of Cain and Abel and murder is – a brief remnant of a much longer, now-lost story.

It would be, at a minimum, a year-long study to see all that this newly-found book has to offer and I really don’t intend to go there (though it is tempting) but I want to run quickly through two or three pages that focus on the stories (and there are many) of Cain and Abel. 

The discoveries of Graves, along with his co-author, Raphael Patai, offer multiple differing versions for Cain’s rage and Abel’s death – versions they apparently scrapped together from fragments of other writings of later scholars and priests, seeking themselves to explain this original story.

Among these are one which states that God accepted Abel’s gift and rejected Cain’s because Abel had chosen the best lamb from his flock for his offering, while Cain had only set a few paltry flax seeds from his plants on the altar.  When Cain asked Abel why God accepted his offering, he answered simply that “My offering was accepted because I love God; yours was rejected because you hate God.”  Not an answer Cain wanted to hear.

One story tells that when the brothers were of an age for marriage Adam told Eve that Cain should marry Abel’s twin sister and Abel should marry Cain’s twin (there are other long stories as to where these two sisters came into the story)  In this version Cain murdered Abel because he wanted his own twin sister for himself, even though that would be incest.

These alternative tellings of the Cain and Abel story are sometimes brutal and sometime just silly, and there are a whole lot more than the few I’ve listed here.  Storytellers and scholars have tried to make sense of this tale for centuries, each creating some sort of version that made sense to them.  If we follow the when and the who, the story is always shaped to match the story-tellers. To temple worshiping folks in later days this story would have made sense as told because in the temple system, meat was always seen as a much more valuable offering.  It is unlikely they would ever even have questioned God’s choice.

The story I was given years ago is that this was an allegorical tale to describe the conflict between hunters/herdsmen and the growers.  It has always been the herdsmen who have invaded and driven out the growers.  Think of the tales of our Old West – following the ending of the Civil War and even still today.  The cattlemen still think they deserve more land and aren’t always shy about taking it – remember the Bundys and their armed stand-off against the BLM a few years ago?  Just the way it’s always been.

We may not always have all the details that connect a story to a particular people, but if we dig deep enough there’s always a connection.  The oldest stories in our Bible read much more like mythology than history, and whoever put a particular story together always gets to be the hero.

This is an important point to remember whenever we are reading any biblical text.  Who wrote it?  Why did they write it?  What is their point in writing it?  Who benefits by telling it this way?  There will be truth – but whose truth?   Such things matter.

]]>Sun, 26 Jan 2025 08:00:00 GMThttp://firstchristianchurchukiah.org/pastors-blog/biblical-justiceDeuteronomy 10: 12-13, 17-19
 “So now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you? Only to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of the Lord and his decrees that I am commanding you today, for your own well-being  …..   For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing.  You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.

There are many different themes to be found in the Old Testament – there’s the initial creation of all that is; there’s the history of a wandering people, far from any idea of being an actual nation; there’s the building of a faith system based on their one God; and then there’s the political lives of God’s “Chosen” ones – and finally, there are the promises given that would one day be fulfilled in what we call the New Testament.

These themes are scattered over the books of the Old Testament -- depending on whose bible you’re reading – (Protestant bibles have 39 books, Catholics have 46, and Orthodox have 49), and over roughly 1000 years – times when the people’s lives were constantly changing, emphasizing very different values and needs.  This week – and I think next week, too – I want to look into the whole idea of biblical justice – who is calling for it, what is God’s role in justice seeking, what are we called to do about it – and where the idea of “justice” has remained steady in the scriptures – and how it has changed over the centuries.

The primary prophets of justice as found in the scriptures are Isaiah, Amos, and Micah – and I think we’ll leave those three for next week.  This week I want to look at the more generically focused books, like Deuteronomy, Leviticus, and Psalms, where a great deal is said about justice, but not necessarily assigned to any one particular prophet.

The call for justice is rooted from the very beginning in the creation story, and particularly in the idea that humans were created in the image of God – who surely formed the entire concept of justice.  As early as Genesis we are told that we – humankind – are created to be like God.  Surely then, we are meant to be a justice-loving people – right from the start.

• So God created humankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them (Genesis 1:26-27).

All humankind is created in the image of God. It doesn’t matter our gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, or socio-economic status.  All humans are created in the image of God and thus are to be valued and respected.  Right from the start. This is basic teaching.

So it has always seemed interesting that one of the first stories about justice and injustice from the Old Testament comes from Genesis, the 4th chapter.  And ever since I was a child, it has appeared to me that God is the one who was at fault in this story.
Adam and Eve originally had two sons – Cain and Abel.  Cain tilled the soil and brought forth crops from it.  Abel was a herdsman who raised sheep.  Each brought God their best offerings from their labor, and God rejected Cain’s and praised Abel’s.  In a rage over the blatant unfairness of this, Cain killed his brother.

Now, I entirely agree Cain should not have killed his brother – no argument here – but nowhere in this story does it say that God liked lamb shanks better than sweet melon and wine grapes.  How was Cain to know?  Didn’t God create the very first man to be a tiller of the soil?  Adam, the Gardener in Eden?  This turns out to be a lose/lose story as it’s told here.  The only answer I can come up with is, this early in Genesis the people were still learning who God is.

Maybe God is still learning who They are.

Later, in the book of Deuteronomy, Moses speaks long and seriously to the people of the things God shared with him while they have been on their long journey through the wilderness -- things that they must practice in their everyday lives as they come ever closer to the end of their long wandering -- teaching on how to live a life of justice with such statements as

• “You shall not deprive a resident alien or an orphan of justice; you shall not take a widow’s garment in pledge.  Remember that you were a slave in Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you from there; therefore, I command you to do this.”

 

• and “Justice, and only justice, you shall pursue, so that you may live and occupy the land that the Lord your God is giving you.”

There is, of course, much more to be found in Deuteronomy, including the longer reading with which we opened this message today, but the necessity in justice is scattered all throughout this book.

Or, we can look at some of the many statements found in Psalms that urge us to follow the rules of living in just ways:

• “O Lord, you will hear the desire of the meek;
      you will strengthen their heart; you will incline your ear
  to do justice for the orphan and the oppressed,
      so that those from earth may strike terror no more.”

Or maybe this one, referring to Solomon ...
 

• “Give the king your justice, O God,
      and your righteousness to a king’s son.
  May he judge your people with righteousness
      and your poor with justice.”  (Psalm 72:1-2)

“Justice” is a multi-layered concept.  Every quote I’ve used here is a truthful example of the meaning of justice – and yet they are not all the same.

Biblical references to the word “justice” mean “to make right.” Justice is, first and foremost, a relational term — people living in right relationship with God, with one another, and with the natural creation. From a scriptural point of view, justice means loving our neighbor as we love ourselves and is rooted in the character and nature of God. As God is just and loving, so we are called to do justice and live in love.

It may well be best condensed into the simple, but deep phrase we refer to as The Golden Rule:
      “Do unto other as you would have them do unto you.”

It is no coincidence that most every creed. every statement of spiritual belief of every faith system contains some version of this statement.
      “Do unto other as you would have them do unto you.”
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]]>Sun, 19 Jan 2025 08:00:00 GMThttp://firstchristianchurchukiah.org/pastors-blog/arise-shine-for-our-light-is-comeIsaiah 60:1‑2, 19
 
Arise, shine;
   for your light has come,
and the glory of the Lord
   has risen upon you.
For darkness shall cover the earth,
    and thick darkness the peoples;
but the Lord will arise upon you,
    and his glory will appear over you…..
The sun shall no longer be
    your light by day,
nor for brightness shall the moon
    give light to you by night;
but the Lord will be your everlasting light.

We are still in Epiphany, and will be for a few weeks yet, until we come to Lent on Ash Wednesday, March 5th.

Epiphany always seems to me to be a somewhat hodge-podge season without a clear theme – or maybe it’s a time with too many different themes.  So I’ve decided, rather than trying to follow a theme, we’re just going to stick with Old Testament readings for this time.  In fact, today’s reading from Isaiah isn’t even in the lectionary choices this year, but it fits our world right now.

I’ve covered this before but it never hurts to have a refresher.  There were at least three Isaiah’s.  Our reading today is from the third Isaiah.  First and Second Isaiah’s were written before and during the Babylonian exile.  The parts written by our Isaiah today, Third Isaiah, were written during the restoration – the time when the Israelites were actually returning home again after the years of exile.  Third Isaiah is filled with promises that God was even then in the process of re-establishing the people of Israel as a nation living in righteousness.  It sounds good but in reality it wasn’t all that smooth and easy.  Their captors had set the Israelites free and allowed them to return home – but once they were all there, the people themselves could not seem to live in peace with each other.

At the time of the exile, most had been carried off to Babylon, but others had been left behind in Israel (to serve their invading conquerors) and so, never left home.  Among those who went into the exile, some assimilated into the Babylonian culture, even marrying and having children with native Babylonians, while others held fast to their Hebrew heritage, which of course was completely against any intermixing. 
 
What we had then were one group that never left home, one that held true to their Hebrew ways, and one that intermingled with the Babylonians culture.  Now, these three different groups were more or less thrown back into Israel all together, two generations later, and – rather than greeting each other with kisses of joy – there was jealousy and back-biting as each group claimed its own moral superiority.

They’re back home again – sure – but they find they can’t stand each other.  The ones who had never left Israel believed they were the real Hebrews and should have all say as to how things should operate here at home – while the Jews from the exile who had fought hard and suffered to hold fast to their Hebrew heritage saw themselves as the true salvation of the faith.  Both of these groups hated the third group -- those who had actually assimilated into the Babylonian culture -- and no one trusted anyone else. There was fighting and back-stabbing -- all at a time we would expect there to be rejoicing and thanksgiving to God. 

So even though the long-awaited restoration had already begun, things were not going well. The people were home, they have been restored – sort of – but they are still fighting.  They’re home - but neighbor can’t even stand to pray with neighbor.  After having their hopes raised by the return home, they are still in darkness  --- a nasty, hateful darkness, and they long for the light of God’s radiance to lift that darkness and lead them once again toward a life of integrity and wholeness.

This sounds a lot like where we are today, right?  We are a divided, angry nation where, in some cases neighbor can’t bear to talk with neighbor and some of us have started to suspect that people we thought we knew are really from another planet.  We‘re all stumbling around in the dark.

But, in spite of the darkness, this is what Third Isaiah promises:  things are going to be good again – God’s light is going to be shining on us all again – but in order to see these marvels, the people – from all three groups -- must do one thing first – they have to lift up their eyes and look around. God is doing the rest, but they have to do this little bit – they have to at least look around for their salvation – and believe it is there to be found. 

Do we do our part?  Do we look around us – seeking – expecting -- to find Christ?  Do we expect to find goodness in others?  Or anywhere?

We have waited for the Light of the World – this is what we’ve been looking for and for those of us who call ourselves Christians, this Light is to be found through the love and teachings of Jesus.  But Jesus has this annoying thing he does.  He promises to be with us in every problem we face…..but he also expects us to be part of the answer.  

Do we want light in the world?  Then we need to go out and be light.  There’s a lot of dark out there these days with threats of more to come, and it seems as if a whole lot of people are busy hoarding their wattage all to themselves.  All the more reason for the rest of us to go out and shine even brighter.  Open our eyes, look around, and if we aren’t seeing light, then that means it’s our turn to be light.
​
Feed the hungry, care for the lost and abandoned, smile at a stranger, stand up against injustice, march, look at each other with kindness for pete’s sake – light wears many faces.  There is one to fit each of us.  And the love of God will shine right there with us.

Rise up, people of goodness – rise up, and shine.  It’s an old, old message, but one we still need.  The world needs our light.
 

]]>Sun, 12 Jan 2025 08:00:00 GMThttp://firstchristianchurchukiah.org/pastors-blog/january-16th-2025Exodus 4:10-13
But Moses said to the Lord, “O my Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor even now that you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.”  Then the Lord said to him, “Who gives speech to mortals?  Who makes them mute or deaf, seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord?  Now go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you are to speak.”   But still he said, “O my Lord, please send someone else.”  
​​

​I mentioned last Sunday that I had attended an ordination service the previous day.  I have been thinking ever since about the whys and wherefores of the kinds of things we do in churches.  The service of ordination, for example, involves a number of promises made by the one being ordained, by the officials who speak and act in the name of the church, and by all the rest of us – all those there to witness this Call and Answer.

There are multiple occasions – such as baptisms and ordinations -- when “the rest of us” play a role much larger than simply being “the audience”.  We are there to give our affirmation to the event taking place, to offer a free-handed welcome, and to pledge our continuing support to the one taking on a new role.

Many folks, I suspect, would, like Moses, feel suitably aghast if one day God were to demand that they – individually -- become God’s spokesperson.  There are times we are comfortable wearing our faith publicly, and times we might prefer to be less public about it all.  Not that we are ashamed or embarrassed but just that we don’t feel up to the challenge. 

Here is where being part of a church community can make us feel more able to state our faith aloud because we are not alone, but part of a larger group.  Somewhere in our world, God’s love has made a claim on us.  It is entirely within reason for us, in return, to show our own claim on that love – as individuals or as members of a group.

It seemed to me that here at the beginning of a new year is a good time to remind ourselves – again, individually and as a community – of our own commitments, by reading aloud together our mutual Affirmation of Faith:
 

• As members of the Christian Church,
  
• We confess that Jesus is the Christ,
  
• the Son of the living God,
  
• and proclaim Him Savior and Lord of the world.
• In Christ’s name and by His grace
  
• we accept our mission of witness
  
• and service to all people.
• We rejoice in God,
  
• maker of heaven and earth,
  
• and in God’s covenant of love
  
• which binds us to God and to one another.
• Through baptism into Christ
  
• we enter into newness of life
  
• and are made one with the whole people of God.
• In the communion of the Holy Spirit
  
• we are joined together in discipleship
  
• and in obedience to Christ.
• At the Table of the Lord
  
• we celebrate with thanksgiving
  
• the saving acts and presence of Christ.
• Within the universal church
  
• we receive the gift of ministry
  
• and the light of scripture.
• In the bonds of Christian faith
  
• we yield ourselves to God
  
• that we may serve the One
  
• whose kingdom has no end.
• Blessing, glory, and honor
  
• be to God forever.
• Amen!

This is a group commitment – our claim on who we are.  We enter into this pledge as the many, not just as “Jesus and me” so, in that way, this is a pledge – not just to the church – but to the life we live in Christ together.  Our membership in a church community is another pledge that we seek to live as Jesus calls us to live – together.

Living out our life in Christ within a church community is not, of course, the only way we can fulfill this promise.  There are many places, many occasions for us to choose living as Jesus calls us. 

We live in a world filled with reminders that God is everywhere.  When we look out a window in the early morning and see the world painted with a color that defies definition, we understand that this is a way of God saying, “I love you,” to us.  When faced with issues of loss of loved ones, we may be led to remember that God is always with us. 

There are so many times and ways to be aware that we are connected with God, whether we are alone or in church, whether we find ourselves in nature or in words read in a book, or finding love in the simple affection of a beloved animal friend, or just sitting in quiet prayer.

Public, unified prayer, is simply one reminder that we are never alone and when we join with others, we lift not only those “others” but ourselves into union with that One, that Spirit, in which we “live, and move, have our being.”  And how grateful we should be to find ourselves there.
 

]]>Sun, 05 Jan 2025 08:00:00 GMThttp://firstchristianchurchukiah.org/pastors-blog/epiphany-and-moreJohn 1:1-4a, 14, 16-18
​
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.   He was in the beginning with God.   All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being ...   

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as the Father's only Son, full of grace and truth ...

From his fullness, we have all received grace upon grace.  The Law indeed was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

​No one has ever seenGod, only the Son, who has made God known to us.
​

Today is the day before Epiphany or, as UCC Pastor Vicki Kemper puts it in our daily reading for today, “Tonight the season of gift-giving and divine presence we know as Christmastide comes to an end.”   Tomorrow, we enter a new liturgical season, Epiphany. 

Epiphany has several tightly nuanced meanings. I ‘ve spoken about its several meanings before when we come to this multi-faceted feast day.  The phrase it is most often translated as is “to make manifest.”  It refers to the times when something becomes clear or visible or obvious; when something right in front of us suddenly becomes plain to see. 

In the scriptural sense it refers to events that happened when the Christ Child was born – angels in the sky singing praises and pointing shepherds toward the newly-born child; a star like no other shining over that same child; priest-kings from distant countries, bringing rich gifts and bowing down before the child in a stable -- all saying "look here – look here and understand what it is you are seeing.  Something is being revealed to you that prophets have awaited for hundreds of years.  Something is being manifested to you.”

These are stories we have heard all our lives, whether we are children playing our first role in our church’s annual Christmas pageant or elders looking back and remembering so many Christmases long past, but this very repetition can create a problem for us. 

As we spoke last week, we’ve heard these stories so many times that they have, in a way, lost their meaning.  Adorable as babies are, it is not the infant Christ who has filled our lives with grace upon grace – it is the adult Jesus – the Son – the Word  -- who has made God known to us.

In our daily reading for today our writer Vicki Kemper gives us a sentence that I found myself reading over and over again just for the beauty and wonder of what it says to us.  Here she refers to our reason for these early stories – our reason for Christmas – as “the one who put flesh on God’s love.”

God’s love for us is such an amorphous, formless idea – it is something we believe in but how can we image such a thing in our thoughts?   How can it be part of our everyday world?  We can know God’s love because the Son, the Word, chose to put flesh on God’s love, and he became that flesh that made love tangible for us – and presented God’s love in a way that we can at least partially understand.

When we read, “The Word became flesh and dwelled among us,” this is what it means.  Not that Jesus put on a human disguise, but that the Son, the Word, became flesh, just like us, to live among us as one of us.

When we shake hands, when we hug those dear to us or reach out to lift up one who needs help, what we hold is God’s love.  When we are down or lost ourselves and someone embraces us and helps us face the world, what we are held by is God’s love.  When we welcome a new-born child, the flesh we welcome is God’s love.

As it is written in our scripture for today, from the first chapter of John, “…from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace…No one has ever seen God.  It is the only Son, the Word, himself God, who is close to God’s heart, who has made him known to us.

Grace upon grace…This is gift of Christmas…grace that is with us throughout the year, throughout our lives, because of Jesus’ gift of himself.  Grace that is given us at Christmas, into Lent and Easter – and on through every moment of every season.  May we always be aware of just how immeasurably we are blessed – and in so doing, let us share that gift – that grace upon grace with all around us.
 
Amen.

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