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HOW DO WE WELCOME? WHO DO WE WELCOME?

10/28/2018

Matthew 25:41-45

Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘depart from me...for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’ Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’

This is not, properly speaking, a "sermon." It's the lead-in for a prolonged congregational discussion. The subject was "welcoming" - are we as welcoming as we like to think we are? Do our unspoken messages match those spoken aloud?

To set the conversation going I copied out the "Home" page for this site, as well as parts of the "Who Are We?" page and read them aloud (not all my congregation are computer literate, nor care to be). And followed them up with a few standard statements from the Disciples.

Then we settled in to talk about what "welcoming" actually means and how well we think we're doing in that area. So - here's what I opened with:

Home Page
The Church of the Open Door is an open and affirming, progressive gathering of people who come together to share our lives, to learn and grow, and to serve, as best we can, our community and the wider world around us. We try our best to follow the teaching of Jesus that we are here to feed the hungry and clothe the naked -- in short, to care for each other. We believe, in the words of Thomas Merton, that "Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether they are worthy." All are welcomed here, If you are seeking something more in this life, come and join us on the journey.

We meet in a church that doesn't look much like a church from the outside. We believe it is what happens inside that matters. We gather each Sunday morning at 11:00 for worship. Our time of worship consists of a gathering time of singing and greeting one another and hearing about each other's lives. We then move into a time of sharing our Joys and our Worries – for our church, our loved ones, our local region, and the world -- and especially what we call Moments of Grace - those times we particularly stop and notice the goodness of the world around us, both in human action and in the beauty of the natural world . Having lifted these all in love and prayer, we move into telling the story of God’s Love - as found in scripture and other writings. With the Pastor’s teaching and a following discussion we break open these stories to see what they mean for us today. Finally, we gather each week at the table to share the Bread and the Cup in remembrance of Jesus and as a sign of our desire to sit at table with the whole world. Then, having been fed ourselves, we are sent out into the world to share what we have been given and to serve God however we are called.

Who We Are
As of November 2014 we are the Church of the Open Door: First Christian Church of Ukiah.

With a move into our new location (415-C Talmage Road, Ukiah), and a distinctly non-churchy-looking building, we felt a need to come up with a new name that encapsulates our vision and mission. We decided to expand our old name to hold both past and future. The Church of the Open Door: First Christian Church of Ukiah is a mouthful, but it says two very important things about us.

First, it says our door is open to anyone who is seeking for something they haven't found in the past. If you have been turned-off or out-right rejected by some example of the institutionalized church and think you want nothing to do with formalized church -- our door is open. Our table is open -- to everyone. If you are looking for a welcoming, learning, growing, family community -- our door is open.

The second thing our new name says about us is that we value our past and the saints who have gone before us, creating a space from which we could learn and grow and emerge into the vision of church we hold today. We hold to and value the open and welcoming ethos of the two denominations that are the historical roots of our present church.

While we consider ourselves a joint-church, we operate from a Disciples polity, and so we must consider the following pieces which we also form our welcoming identity:

Our Identity:
We are Disciples of Christ,
a movement for wholeness in a fragmented world.
As part of the one body of Christ, we welcome all
to the Lord's Table, as God has welcomed us
· from Disciples of Christ Statement of Identity

Our Vision:
To be a faithful, growing church, demonstrating true community,
deep Christian spirituality and a passion for justice.

Our Mission:
To be and to share the Good News of Jesus Christ,
witnessing, loving and serving from our doorsteps
"to the ends of the earth."

What We Believe
With most Christians, we affirm:
1. All people are God’s children.
2. Open Communion. The Lord’s Supper is celebrated weekly, and is open to all.
3. The Ministry of all Believers: Both ordained ministers and lay persons are responsible for leading worship and nurturing spiritual growth.
4. Diversity of Opinion: Each person is free to determine their own belief guided by the Holy Spirit, the Bible, study and prayer.
5. Faith in Service: We believe God’s gifts are never given just for us, but for service in raising up the reign of God among all peoples

This is who we claim to be - who we aspire to be. There will be an on-going discussion as to how we do this better.

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WHATEVER HAPPENED TO GOD’S CRY FOR JUSTICE?

10/21/2018

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2nd Peter 1:5-11

Make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. Therefore, brothers and sister, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall. For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

So, here we are, on our last day of this long journey through the New Testament. Second Peter is not only the last letter we’ll be looking into, but it is also almost certainly the last of all the New Testament documents to be written. Some scholars place its writing as late as the year 150. Most place it at least somewhere between 120 and 150.

A date of 150 A.D. places this missive a full 120 years after Jesus’ earthly life. While the author of this letter clearly identifies himself as Peter the Apostle, naming himself as such and insisting he was present at the Transfiguration on the mountain, the spread of years makes that an obvious impossibility.

This author is also not the author of 1st Peter, even though here again he identifies himself as such. If we take the earliest possible date for this letter it is chronologically feasible, but the language and syntax is entirely different, and so it is highly unlikely to be the same. This is once again a case of someone writing in another’s name to give their teachings more credibility.

That 150 years is also lot of time for Jesus’ message to go a little squirrely – and take on a lot of ideas that come from the writers, not from Jesus -- as we heard last week with 1st Peter’s impassioned urging to love and honor the emperor whom God placed over the Christians of that time, to lead them.

The language of this letter writer sound very similar to that of the writer of the Letter of Jude, in which, if you will recall, Jude used sometimes rather over-the-top hyperbolic language in describing those he preached against as “dreamers who defile the flesh, reject authority, and slander the glorious ones." Similarly, today's writer describes those who think differently as being "licentious scoffers, indulging in their lusts."

Now, granted, the gospels tell us that Jesus occasionally got a little heated in his language – comparing the Syrophoenician woman to a “dog” and calling the Pharisees “white-washed graves” but he never went on and on and on as these second century letter writers so often do. He spent much more of his time teaching on what we should do, rather than teaching against what we shouldn’t do. There’s also that bit about “shaking the dust of a town” off their feet and moving on if their message wasn’t accepted. I don’t recall anything about declaring verbal warfare on those who differ from you.

The main focus of this 2nd letter of Peter is a strictly topical subject, one specifically for the second century Christians: Why has Jesus not yet returned for the believers as promised? This is a question that was becoming more and more urgent as the years passed. The first Christians believed this was something that would happen in their lifetimes. Now the first generation has already passed away, and much of the second generation as well. The question is becoming, not when will Jesus return? but will Jesus return?

After assuring the people that this is just how it is – we’re supposed to get scoffers and doubters the closer we get so just don't listen to them. The writer goes on to explain God’s time-frame:

Do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day. The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed.....

Therefore, beloved, while you are waiting for these things, strive to be found by him at peace, without spot or blemish; and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation. (2 Peter 3:8-18, 14-15)

But as with most of these later writings we’ve been reading this summer (and fall) there is no mention of living as followers of Jesus in the kingdom of God which is here and now. Everything tells us to lead good pious lives so that we will be received into heaven at Jesus’ return. Nothing about building and strengthening the reign of God. Nothing about working for justice for the least among us. Nothing about serving our brothers and sisters.

Nothing but “be without sin so that Jesus will take you with him when he comes back.” And yet, as I recall it, there’s a whole lot of “care for each other, create justice, feed the hungry,” etc. in what Jesus taught. It is what he taught. So where did it go? How did it fade away so quickly?

What happened to the parable of the sheep and goats? What about “whatever you did not do to the least of these you did not do for me?” How about “many will cry out Lord, Lord, but I will say, I do not know you”? It seems Jesus was quite clear on these things, so where did these teachings go?

In just a little over 100 years justice has all but disappeared from Christian teaching, to be replaced with personal piety, perhaps because these newer Christian communities are mostly gentile and so don’t have the 100’s of years of calls for justice that were built into the Hebrew psyche.

That millennia-old teaching still crops up in Christian practice off and on down through the centuries – such as with the Franciscan movement in the 1100’s, or the social gospel movement in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. It is also still very much a part of many churches' practice today. I know of some marvelous work being done in diverse communities -- but by far the dominant teaching of Christianity down through the centuries has been that “be good so you don’t go to hell” thing that we were all taught and which so many denominations still make the focus of their belief.

How far we have gone adrift and how difficult it seems to steer us back in the right path. I wish more Christians would read the gospels – and maybe Acts – and get them down pat before ever venturing out into anything else. The various Letters are the compound story of how the original Christians took Jesus’ messages and tuned them to their own life experience -- not always for the better.

Sadly, justice and care for each other seem to have been the first things to go.

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HOW QUICKLY (AND EASILY) WE SHIFT WITH CHANGING TIDES

10/14/2018

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1 Peter 2:4-6, 9-10
Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in scripture:
“See, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious;
and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”
.....
You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people;
once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

We are almost finished with our slow-motion journey through the New Testament (or Christian Scriptures.) Just to summarize one more time, the first year we looked, in some depth, at the four gospels. Over the past two summers we’ve been reading all the epistles or letters, beginning with the genuinely Pauline letters, followed by the attributed-to-Paul-but-probably-not, and finally, the latter half of this summer, we been discovering the anybody-but-Paul letters.

The two Letters of Peter are the final letters, if my notes are correct. When we finish them next week we will have studied our way slowly and carefully through the entire New Testament – with the single exception of Revelations – which I don’t expect to get into anyway. At least not now.

So, well done, People. You’ve hung in there. You’ve contributed intelligent and interesting discussion. I know way more about this part of the Bible than I did before we started. I hope you do too.

So, on to the First Letter of Peter. It was long taken as a given that the author was the Peter who was Jesus’ chosen disciple but few if any mainstream scholars accept that anymore. As with most of what we’ve read in recent weeks, there is evidence of historical context that occurred much later than Peter’s lifetime. We are fairly confident that Peter was executed in Rome in or around the year 64. The internal evidence here points to this letter being written in the mid-nineties at the earliest and more likely, into the 100s.

Part of the reasoning that originally accepted Simon Peter as the author comes from the “fact” that the letter was written in Rome and the author is identified as “an elder among elders,” or leader in a Christ-community there. Sounds like St. Peter, if you don't worry about dates and things.

This is a circular letter – one written not to a specific community but intended to travel around from city to city. Like many of the letters we have read, the communities were in turmoil – but unlike the others this turmoil was not internal, members fighting against members. These communities were being punished from outside for being Christian – but not with death, just with shunning and ostracism, which, while not life threatening, could still separate families, destroy businesses, and destroy longtime friendships.

One important point is that these communities consisted largely of Gentile Christians. They weren’t Jewish Christians being shunned by their Traditionalist Jewish families. They were Gentiles being shunned by other Gentiles – and largely for social and cultural reasons. One of the things that clearly places this letter in the second century is its complete acceptance of Roman authority and cultural mores.

The Roman Christians were told to “accept the authority of every human institution.” Now, that’s a long way from Jesus’ demands for justice for the oppressed. Slaves are to obey their masters and wives to obey their husbands. Even Paul didn’t go this far as we’ve seen, and it is a very long way from Jesus. There is no larger societal demand for justice for the poor and powerless, instead there is a call to personal piety – be good and pure yourself – and don’t make waves in the society around you. To make waves would be a scandal against the community.

Making waves would seem to be the greatest sin for this writer. The teachings seem to be all about “looking good” in the eyes of the non-Christians around them. I’m thinking it would be an interesting exercise to compare and contrast First Peter and Jesus’ Beatitudes.

The teaching continues on from the reading with which we began today:

For the Lord’s sake accept the authority of every human institution, whether of the emperor as supreme, or of governors, as sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to praise those who do right. For it is God’s will that by doing right you should silence the ignorance of the foolish. As servants of God, live as free people, yet do not use your freedom as a pretext for evil. Honor everyone. Love the family of believers. Fear God. Honor the emperor. (2:13-17)

Strange words coming from self-proclaimed “followers” of the Jesus who taught his people that they had “one kingdom, one king.” Stranger yet to be told to honor an emperor who demanded to be worshiped as a god and be told to do so “for the Lord’s sake.”

Jesus never preached sedition, but he certainly never taught outright capitulation into the dominant culture, either. Rather, he seemed to ignore the governmental power structures around him. He did preach against the institutional power of the Temple and the way that power was abused and God’s justice subverted, but as far as the Roman empire went, Jesus appeared to pretty much ignore it – demonstrating with his own life that only those things we grant power over us actually have any such power.

In the end, the power structure killed him – but he never did view them as holding any authority over him. Jesus had one master, one Abba, one God – and the emperor wasn’t it. I wish more self-proclaimed Christians today would remember this. We have one Lord and that one, throughout the Old and New Testaments and into today, continuously calls for justice for the power-less – not compliance with the powerful.

But while this letter is at times distressingly subservient to human authority, while the teaching is to honor the emperor and all those in authority over them, the message somehow still manages to be the ancient Old Testament message – the one that still echoes through the New Testament as well – do not fear. Do not fear. We are a royal priesthood, a holy nation. We are not called to be quiet little citizens of a worldly kingdom. Do not fear. Even though they have power over you, don’t be afraid of them. Humble yourself before God, and God alone, and God will raise you up. The rest doesn’t matter.

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WORLD COMMUNION SUNDAY (RECOGNIZING EACH OTHER)

10/7/2018

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John 21:9-14 (English Standard Version)
When they got out on land, they saw a charcoal fire in place, with fish laid out on it, and bread. Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.” So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, 153 of them. And although there were so many, the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” Now none of the disciples dared ask him, “Who are you?” They knew it was the Lord. Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and so with the fish. This was now the third time that Jesus was revealed to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.

Luke 24:28-31
So they drew near to the village to which they were going. He acted as if he were going farther, but they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent.” So he went in to stay with them. When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him.

I was fully prepared to get back to our Summer Sermon Series today after our little side-trip into small church spontaneity last Sunday. There are only two letters to go and we’ll be finished for this season, but those Letters from Peter are going to have to wait one more week because today is World Communion Sunday.

Although today is, in truth, no different for us than any other Sunday in the year, I love the emphasis on the recognition that Christians all over the world are gathered today to celebrate Jesus’ giving of himself in the form of bread and cup.

Because that is indeed what we are celebrating here – Jesus’ giving of himself – his complete abandonment of himself in this act of giving himself away to us, for us – holding nothing back for himself. This is the meal to which we are invited today, and every day.

To paraphrase a blurb from the Global Ministries web site: The first Sunday of October has become a time when Christians in every culture break bread and pour the cup to remember Jesus’ gift of himself. We remember that we are part of the whole body of believers. Whether we’re in a gothic cathedral, a mud hut, outside on a hilltop, or in a storefront – whether we call it Holy Eucharist, Communion, or the Lord’s Table, we celebrate this communion act in as many ways as there are congregations.

Last Thursday, the 4th, was also the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi. The juxtaposition of these two events may be coincidence, but they fit together as if it were planned. If ever there was a human who, to the best of his abilities, walked in Jesus’ footsteps – it was Francis. When he could no longer make sense of a life of luxury for the few in the midst of the suffering of the many, he stripped himself naked in the marketplace and walked away from that old life. He literally gave himself away in order to find his true self.

One of my favorite Francis stories comes from later in life when his small gathering of followers had grown into an order. Francis had called for a fast, for some reason, but in the middle of the night was awakened by the sound of weeping. Upon investigating he discovered one of the brothers eating some forbidden food, while crying out that he was doomed and damned for breaking the fast that he was too weak to keep. Rather than condemn the weak one, Francis sat down with him and began to eat, as well, breaking his own rule, and declaring that if it was a sin then he would sin as well and go to hell with the brother so he wouldn’t be alone.

The meal we share at this table, or at any table anywhere, is always all about inclusion – invitation and welcome. Everyone is invited and no one, NO ONE is excluded. This is the rule of the one who prepares and offers the bread and cup which are his very self.

After yesterday’s farce of a Supreme Court vote, many of us are crying, “what do we do now?” My granddaughter who lives in the Bay area is looking for recommendations for a self-defense class, since, as she puts it, “we seem to be on our own now.”

Dear friends, two young women who live in the South, are seriously looking into the possibility of moving to Canada, not knowing where all this is going to go. If certain people have their way, their marriage could be invalidated, they could even end up losing citizenship rights we’ve always taken for granted, simply because of who they love We now have a government that has recently stripped visas from diplomat’s same-sex partners. It’s clear that people like my friends face some frightening days ahead -- and for no reason that Jesus would accept.

It is tempting to go back to bed and pull the covers up over our heads for, say, the next four years – but I’m pretty sure that’s not an option. Just as we are invited to share the gift that is Jesus, so we are then expected to share that gift on with others until everyone has been invited and everyone has accepted and everyone has shared.

This thing we are about to do now, here at this table embodies our response to the hatred and fear set loose in our country. Regardless of what our deranged governing bodies may do, we continue to invite people to the table. We continue to open our arms and offer welcome to everyone. Not just here in the meeting room, but in our homes, on our streets, our workplaces, our schools. And in doing so we learn to recognize each other – as did the travelers to Emmaus – we recognize Jesus -- and we recognize each other as fellow inhabitants of the Kingdom of God.

Like Jesus, we offer ourselves – our hearts, our hands, our whole beings in service to building the Reign of God, in truth and present reality – for everyone, everywhere.

I can’t even imagine what I will be called to offer in the days and weeks and years to come – courage, grace, solidarity, hope -- but I pray that when I’m asked, I will have the courage, the heart, and the will to answer “here – come and sit here by me -- share this table with me.”

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HOW DO WE WELCOME? WHO DO WE WELCOME?

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO GOD’S CRY FOR JUSTICE?

HOW QUICKLY (AND EASILY) WE SHIFT WITH CHANGING TIDES

WORLD COMMUNION SUNDAY (RECOGNIZING EACH OTHER)

Rev. Cherie Marckx

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