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I HAVEN’T GOT A NICKEL BUT I’LL GIVE YOU WHAT I’VE GOT

8/26/2018

Acts 3:1-10
One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, at three o’clock in the afternoon. And a man lame from birth was being carried in. People would lay him daily at the gate of the temple called the Beautiful Gate so that he could ask for alms from those entering the temple. When he saw Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked them for alms. Peter looked intently at him, as did John, and said, “Look at us.” And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them. But Peter said, “I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth stand up and walk.”

And he took him by the right hand and raised him up; and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong. Jumping up, he stood and began to walk, and he entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God. All the people saw him walking and praising God, and they recognized him as the one who used to sit and ask for alms at the Beautiful Gate of the temple; and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.

I’m taking a one-week break from our summer sermon series, just for today. I was reading this week, and something in the reading triggered a long train of thought which led me to this reading. I’ve been thinking about it off and on all week so I decided to share it with you.

The key phrase here is, obviously, the one about giving what we’ve got. I took the reading today from the NRSV: “I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk.” In The Message, it reads like this: “I don’t have a nickel to my name, but what I do have, I give you.”

No, this isn’t going to be a stewardship sermon where I end up gently suggesting you increase your giving – that’s not where we’re going at all. What I do want to discuss is the nature of “giving” itself.

So often when giving comes up in church it has to do with tithes and offerings – but it that really the giving that God wants from us? I understand that money is the building block of our capitalist society – I’m not anti-money – honest – it’s a useful tool. It’s just not what I want to talk about here today since I’m fairly certain that God is not a capitalist. So when we talk about giving in a God-context, what exactly is it we think God is asking for?

Peter and John were asked for help by a beggar. They freely admitted they didn’t have a nickel between them – but instead of just leaving it there and walking on by, they gave what they did have. They gave their faith and trust in Jesus’ promise that they, too, could heal – they could give health and bodily strength. The believed it, so they gave it. What they gave came from themselves.

So – what are some of the things we give that we believe God would want us to give? We give food for those who may be hungry – both through our pantry basket here and our monetary donations to the Food Pantry. We also support Plowshares in the same ways. We participate in the bag lunch program. We gather socks and underwear and necessary toiletries for Plowshares as well. In our recent fire-beset years, we’ve given to funds to support fire-victims in their recovery. Those are all ways we give what we have to those who don’t have right now. And they are all good. I’m not criticizing them, But they are all based in money, in one form or another – with the exception of the time and effort we put into the bag lunches – there we are giving a piece of ourselves.

Some people with lots of money build hospitals or fund clinics, support scholarships - all kinds of wonderful things. But what about those of us who can't do those big money things? I always suspect that when God asks us to give it’s not just money or the things money can buy that God is talking about. I suspect God wants us to give pieces of ourselves away.

What could those things be? Time would be one of the most obvious, I think. Most of us are pretty busy with our own lives. Sometimes the last thing I want is to be asked to take my time for something new. But perhaps giving my time is exactly the right thing to do. No money, just my time – to help someone else's project, to stop and talk with someone, to listen to them, let them know that someone is caring about them.

How about attention? How many needs exist around us that we don’t even notice because our attention is focused in one direction only? And how many times have we rushed on by someone because we were in a hurry? What if what they truly needed was just someone to give them a few minutes of their attention?

All through scripture God, speaking through Jesus and the prophets calls for justice – for the rights of the poor and the powerless. Do we even notice when those rights are being eroded away all around us? When medical insurance companies raise their prices while cutting services to people who need that coverage in order to physically survive or when supplemental food programs are cut do we check to see if we are still OK and then turn away? Or do we take the time and effort to write letters and make phone calls and read ballots and vote out the people who enable these iniquitous actions?

Do we care that the poor suffer a much higher rate of violence in their daily living than we do? Do we do anything to address that inequity? Do we bother to care?

These are the things God wants us to give. The money-things are good -- absolutely -- but they often only provide a temporary patch on the deeper problem. How about if we are called to address that deeper issue – and fix it?

The prophet Amos, so long ago, spoke for God when he told us:

“I can’t stand your religious meetings.
I’m fed up with your conferences and conventions.
I want nothing to do with your religion projects,
your pretentious slogans and goals.
I’m sick of your fund-raising schemes.....
Do you know what I want? I want justice—oceans of it.
I want fairness—rivers of it. That’s what I want. That’s all I want.

What if we try taking God at God’s word? One thing I noticed – maybe for the first time – in today’s reading is that Peter didn’t just tell the beggar to “stand up and walk” and then go on his own way. Scripture says that having said this, Peter then reached out and took the man’s hand and lifted him up. He stayed around and physically helped the man to stand.

In the Letter from James, we find one of my favorite lines: If you come upon an old friend dressed in rags and half-starved and say, “Good morning, friend! Be clothed in Christ! Be filled with the Holy Spirit!” and walk off without providing so much as a coat or a cup of soup—where does that get you? Isn’t it obvious that God-talk without God-acts is outrageous nonsense?

Well, yes it is obvious. So what can I do about it today?

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INTRUDERS & SLANDERERS

8/19/2018

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Jude 1:10-13
These people slander whatever they do not understand, and they are destroyed by those things that, like irrational animals, they know by instinct. Woe to them! For they go the way of Cain, and abandon themselves to Balaam’s error for the sake of gain, and perish in Korah’s rebellion. These are blemishes on your love-feasts, while they feast with you without fear, feeding themselves. They are waterless clouds carried along by the winds; autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, uprooted; wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the deepest darkness has been reserved forever.

Well, okay then, that was an interesting reading, wasn’t it?

The next up in our series of “letters not written by Paul or by Paul-pretenders” is this strange missive from someone named Jude. When I turned to my commentaries to see what folks had to say about Jude I laughed out loud at the understatement in Marcus Borg’s opening sentence to his chapter on this odd letter: Jude is perhaps the strangest document in the New Testament. I have no argument to make with that.

It is another in our recent series of we don’t know who wrote it, or when it was written, or to whom it was written, letters. The author identifies himself as a servant of Jesus and brother to James. Since both James and Jude were extremely common names at this time, this doesn’t tell us much.

In Mark’s gospel, it is mentioned once that Jesus had a brother named Jude, and since the James who was the leader of the church in Jerusalem was also identified as a brother of Jesus, the early church jumped to the conclusion that this Jude was, indeed, Jesus’ brother. However, all the external evidence points to this document having been written somewhere after the year 100, when any sibling to Jesus would have been around 100 years old himself. So just who this “Jude” is, is unknown.

We have no idea to whom it was written, but we do know why. Strangers – intruders – dare I say aliens – have come into this community with different ideas. Jude is by far the most tribal document in the New Testament.

Borg, while conceding that no one knows for certain, suspects the name-calling and conflict was about antinomianism. It would take at least an entire sermon to adequately explain what that is, but it was a “thing” in the new church at that time – one of the many conflicts as Christianity developed.

It is basically an argument for argument’s sake that comes back to faith or works? Does grace release us from all requirement to follow the laws? Does it matter what our actions are once we’ve been saved by grace? A thoroughly idiotic argument in my opinion, but one that has been fought again and again down through the centuries – and probably is still being argued somewhere today. If you even have to ask the question, you have missed the boat entirely.

Anyway – let’s go back to the last couple of verses of today’s reading as the letter writer describes these intruders:

They are waterless clouds carried along by the winds; autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, uprooted; wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the deepest darkness has been reserved forever.

A couple of verses earlier he also describes the new people as “dreamers who defile the flesh, reject authority, and slander the glorious ones.” But I think my favorite line in this whole piece comes a little further in the letter when the writer goes on to complain that “the intruders” are “bombastic in the speech.”

Pot, meet kettle. Anyone who writes that long, florid sentence from the reading has no business calling anyone else bombastic.

This entire letter, a mere one and a half pages, seethes with tribalism – These people are coming in and they are not like us – they don’t share our values. There is no coming together and sharing ideas to perhaps grow our understanding – there is only us and them. Does any of this language sound familiar?

My tribe is right, therefore yours must be wrong. We’ve always done it this way. No, YOU’VE always done it that way but you aren’t everyone. You talk funny. We’ve always been here. Umm, no you haven’t. This is a country for white people. Your group is lazy. Your group is greedy. My religion is right and yours is wrong.

We could go on and on and on. If we learn anything from Jude’s letter it is simply that tribalism has existed forever and probably always will if we refuse to get our acts together – but the one thing that is perfectly clear is that tribalism is not the way of the Kingdom of God! All those tribalistic sayings I quoted a minute ago are found nowhere in Jesus’ teachings.

Day by day it seems we divide ourselves further and further from each other, finding new and different ways to segregate ourselves. That is, that’s true if you believe the talking heads on TV. This is what they want us to believe. But is it? Really?

Are we really so divided? Yes, a great many people are – and in the ugliest possible ways. But more of us are not. Most of us are not. We are not tribes – we are people of God.

While our congress pushes through bills that the 1% wants and revoke rights protections for “other” tribes, immense swaths of the country stand against them. We may lose some of the battles right now, but our hearts do not change and the pendulum will swing back again. Mixed neighborhoods continue to thrive and neighbors work and play together. Total strangers join together to help out folks in need. Church communities from different faiths work together for the betterment of those around them.

Does this mean then that we can just sit back and do nothing? Of course not. We must continue the fight for basic decency and shared goodness, because every time we do we move a little more forward. And every time we speak out and say ‘this is wrong’ the chorus of protest grows a little louder. And when we listen to each other and hear the voices in agreement, we all grow a little stronger.

The tribalists shout and make a lot of noise. The rest of us quietly speak truth and value everyone and feed the hungry and work to get out the vote and haul out our boats and rescue people in floods and we march in the streets and say ‘no, your policies are wrong and we won’t stand for them’ and we drive long miles to take food to disaster victims – total strangers – who just need help. And we go on, building the kingdom of God, here and now – where there is no “us” and “them” because we are all one family – the family of God.

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THE SAME YESTERDAY, TODAY, AND FOREVER

8/12/2018

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Hebrews 11:1-3
The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. It’s our handle on what we can’t see. The act of faith is what distinguished our ancestors, set them above the crowd.
By faith, we see the world called into existence by God’s word, what we see --created by what we don’t see.

We’ve spent a good bit of time these past two weeks dissecting the misnamed Letter to the Hebrews – what the writer possibly meant and how it has been misquoted and misused in recent centuries.

Last week we talked about the Jewish priesthood and sacrifice – how the writer compared Jesus to them them in metaphorical terms – and ever since we’ve been reading it in literal terms, thereby often missing the mark completely.

What we have not talked about in all this is what the letter has to offer us in encouragement and expanding our understanding of Jesus and our role as followers of Jesus. Quite possibly the most important lesson we are given in Hebrews is found in chapter 11, which opens with the reading we started with today and this assertion: faith is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living... The act of faith is what distinguished our ancestors, set them above the crowd.

In a piece that is beautifully written, but unfortunately too long to read here in it’s entirety, the writer then gives a condensed rundown of Old Testament history and the role that faith played through all those centuries. Here’s the Reader’s Digest version:

By an act of faith, Abel brought a better sacrifice to God than Cain. It was what he believed, not what he brought, that made the difference.
By an act of faith, Enoch skipped death completely.
By faith, Noah built a ship in the middle of dry land. He was warned about something he couldn’t see, and acted on what he was told.
By an act of faith, Abraham said yes to God’s call to travel to an unknown place that would become his home.
By faith, barren Sarah was able to become pregnant, old woman as she was at the time.
By faith, Abraham, at the time of testing, offered Isaac back to God.
By an act of faith, Isaac reached into the future as he blessed Jacob and Esau.
By an act of faith, Moses’ parents hid him away for three months after his birth.
By faith, Moses, when grown, refused the privileges of the Egyptian royal house.
By an act of faith, Israel walked through the Red Sea on dry ground.
By faith, the Israelites marched around the walls of Jericho for seven days, and the walls fell flat.
I could go on and on, but I’ve run out of time. [this is still the writer of Hebrews speaking] There are so many more—Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, the prophets. . . . Through acts of faith, they toppled kingdoms, made justice work, took the promises for themselves
Not one of these people, even though their lives of faith were exemplary, got their hands on what was promised.

The kind of faith that our writer is talking about here is not based on quick resolutions of our problems. The people described here didn’t just announce they had faith in God, then sit back and expect God to fix all their problems right then and there.

If we have faith, it is because we trust the one who gave the promise. I can’t tell you how many times, as a minister, I have had perfectly sincere people explain to me that they prayed once, but God didn’t answer – so they felt completely justified in their assumption that there is no God. That was never faith in God – that was “faith” in the correctness of their own desired answer. When that particular answer didn’t occur, it apparently never entered their minds to look for another answer – maybe a different answer, a better answer, maybe an answer already on its way – possibly even “no” because what they asked wasn’t right for them.

Every one of us, I’m sure, has been lied to, betrayed at some point in our lives. Someone has promised something with all the sincerity at their command, and still fallen short of keeping that promise. People are fallible – even those of us right here. Even the best of us will fail someone some time. We humans can fail to keep our promises – our faith believes that God never will.

In the first letter to the people of Corinth you may recall, St. Paul stated right up front that the message of the Christ followers is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. Paul later goes on to add that Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.

Centuries later, St. Francis would acquire the nickname of “God’s little fool” and happily rejoice in rejecting any idea that he was who he was through any great power of wisdom of his own. He was God’s fool, and nothing more – trusting God all the way - even against the evidence of his own eyes.

When we trust God, we are trusting beyond what we can see. Trusting the one who gives the promise and basing our trust on centuries of promises kept and our own belief in promise still to be kept. We trust, not because it’s “magic” in any way, but because we are already living in a trustworthy relationship with God.

And we trust God because Jesus trusted his abba – trusted with every fiber of his being. All the way to the cross and beyond. And we trust Jesus, and trusting, we follow, and following, we imitate.

To those who do not believe, faith is an impossible and foolish act. For those of us who do believe, having faith is the easiest thing ever.

It’s easy now, but it may not always have been so. It may have been a struggle to get here. There may be times when it still is a struggle – that’s OK. Jesus had a couple of wavering, doubting moments himself – why on earth should I ever assume I can do better than Jesus?

The point our writer made with his long list of Old Testament saints was that most of them never lived to see the fullness of the promises made – and yet they still believed. They still trusted.

We, like they, still have faith, and the time we spend together learning and praying, and sharing our stories can only help each of us build our faith a little stronger, and a little stronger. We may never in this life see the final resolution of our efforts to build God’s kingdom here and now. It’s unlikely that we will, and yet we go on, “foolishly” trusting in a promise given.

I believe because I trust God. I trust God because I believe. And I believe because Jesus tells me I can, and I trust Jesus, because he remains always worthy of that trust. As our writer reminds us: Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

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READING THE BIBLE IS HARD WORK (OR IT SHOULD BE)

8/5/2018

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Hebrews 4:14 – 5:6
Now that we know what we have—Jesus, this great High Priest with ready access to God—let’s not let it slip through our fingers. We don’t have a priest who is out of touch with our reality. He’s been through weakness and testing, experienced it all—all but the sin. So let’s walk right up to him and get what he is so ready to give. Take the mercy, accept the help.

Every high priest selected to represent men and women before God and offer sacrifices for their sins should be able to deal gently with their failings, since he knows what it’s like from his own experience. But that also means that he has to offer sacrifices for his own sins as well as the peoples’.

No one elects himself to this honored position. He’s called to it by God, as Aaron was. Neither did Christ presume to set himself up as high priest, but was set apart by the One who said to him, “You’re my Son; today I celebrate you!” In another place God declares, “You’re a priest forever in the royal order of Melchizedek.”

“Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are.”

It’s a lovely sentiment, isn’t it? Jesus “gets it,” he understands because he too was one of us. How often have you sat in church and heard this reading – and not really thought too deeply about it? “Jesus is our great High Priest.” It’s common terminology in the New Testament, right?

Nope. This language of Jesus as High Priest appears – as nearly as I could trace this week – only here in Hebrews.

To truly understand this reference we need to have a basic understanding of the role of the Temple in Jerusalem and the office of High Priest. Since, in the New Testament, the high priest is often seen as the “bad “guy” – the one who connived at crucifying Jesus – it may be difficult for Christians to truly grasp this role and a its huge importance in Jewish culture.

The Temple was the physical dwelling place of God on earth and the only place at which sacrifices could be offered – and sacrifice was the center of Jewish worship. Again, we Christians have a slightly warped idea of the meaning of sacrifice because our New Testament writings tend to only speak of sacrifices offered as payment or expiation for sin. This is true, to a point, but sacrifices were also routinely offered in praise of God or in thanksgiving or as celebratory gifts.

Animal sacrifice was virtually a full-time business in the temple, and the part of the temple set aside for this was more of a slaughterhouse than our idea of a place of worship. The high priest, most likely, did not participate in this day-to-day slaughter. He had other responsibilities. He alone could enter the holy of holies – the center of the temple where God actually lived -- and he alone could speak directly to God. The high priest stood as mediator between the people and God – and this is the priestly role in which the writer of Hebrews places Jesus. Jesus now is the one who stands between God and us and speaks and acts on our behalf.

But not only is Jesus the high priest, the mediator, he is also the sacrifice – sacrificing his life for us – and doing so in a manner that ended temple sacrifice forever. He is the “once for all” sacrifice. This is common Christian thinking. Unfortunately, because we modern day Christians are not so educated in the Jewish concepts of sacrifice, this has led down some strange and just plain wrong paths.

Since all most people know of sacrifice is as a sin offering, it has been assumed that Jesus died for our sins. This assumption has led to the development of an atrocity we call “atonement theology” which has long been a blight on Christianity. If Jesus died for our sins, then, obviously, it is because we are all sinners. And if this sacrifice was necessary it must be because God could not or would not forgive us without someone paying this blood price for us. We all deserve this horrible death, but Jesus died in our place so we don’t have to. That’s a mighty big leap from what the writer of Hebrews actually says. It’s an even bigger leap from what Jesus taught us about his relationship with the God he called abba.

Atonement theology – or substitutionary atonement - was first articulated by St. Anselm in the year 1098. It’s not even 1000 years old. It is not biblical -- and yet, a large proportion of Christians assume this is and has always been the default Christian position. (It is not.)

First, this theology makes God out to be a monster and not someone I desire to worship and serve. A God who is all love and creativity does not demand a payment of blood in exchange for that love. Secondly, it focuses our attention entirely on Jesus’ death – in this view of our relationship with God Jesus’ death is the only thing about him that really matters. Better yet, it neatly takes our minds off the living Jesus and all he worked so hard to teach us. Why bother with that boring stuff like caring for each other and working for justice when Jesus has already died to forgive your sins and guarantee your passage to heaven?

Thirdly, it is completely non-biblical. Jesus speaks of his coming death, but never as God’s demanded offering. It is simply what happens to people who stand up and face down the powers that be – people who are passionate enough about what they believe that they are willing to die for that belief. It is the human powers who are all too willing to sacrifice others.

And, by the way, this substitutionary atonement is not found here in Hebrews. Don’t blame our poor writer. This whole theology, which has become the keystone of conservative Christianity is, in fact, a mis-reading of Hebrews combined with several misleading assumptions. Jesus was not a sacrifice demanded by God. To quote Marc Borg: what Jesus sacrificed was his life because of his passion for God. To sacrifice is to make a gift of one’s own life to God. That is what Jesus did – not because God required it, but because of his passion for God and God’s will. And his love for God's people.

This Letter to the Hebrews is not about celebrating temple sacrifice and placing Jesus within that culture, but rather it is about the end of any need for the entire system of sacrifice. Jesus died as he lived, showing us in his life how to live as children of God, working for justice, caring for each other -- being citizens of the new Kingdom of God – set free at last from all that we have allowed to separate us from God’s love.

Our Bible must be read carefully -- hearing what it actually says, not what someone in our past has told us it says. Listening to the words of the living Jesus teaching us how to live, not how to die.

Next week we will finish up the other smaller points left to Hebrews.

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I HAVEN’T GOT A NICKEL BUT I’LL GIVE YOU WHAT I’VE GOT

INTRUDERS & SLANDERERS

THE SAME YESTERDAY, TODAY, AND FOREVER

READING THE BIBLE IS HARD WORK (OR IT SHOULD BE)

Rev. Cherie Marckx

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