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ADVENT ONE: HOPE

11/29/2020

Isaiah 40:1-5
Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her penalty is paid ...
A voice cries out: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

The theme for the first Sunday in Advent is always HOPE. Did you notice how often the word “shall” appeared in this reading? Every valley SHALL be lifted up, the uneven ground SHALL become level, the glory of the Lord SHALL be revealed, all people SHALL see it together. There is no uncertainty in what Isaiah is saying here, it’s “go ahead and hold on to your hopes because this WILL happen.” And that hope is still ours today.

How could we possibly move into waiting for the promises of Christmas without a goodly helping of hope? And if ever there has been a year — in modern times at least — that needed hope, this one would be it.

We’ve had a year of horrible, hate-filled politics. The lives of whole classes of God’s people have been repeatedly devalued and degraded, families torn apart, economies casually destroyed — and all that was before “the ‘rona” hit us and looks to be destroying the social bonds that once held us as one people, together.

What is it you hope for? What is it you long for this Advent season in this horrible year? What part of the promises given us by the prophets and by the One who walked among us do you most wish to see come to its completion? What do you hope for among the gifts of Christmas? This is the season of hope. Can you still find that hope within you?

I think we’ve made it this far because deep within each human soul — often without us knowing it — is a small flickering flame of hope. Sometimes that flame burns brightly and sometimes it’s dim and faint — but it’s still there and is still burns. The flame is our hope that the promises are real — the hope that no matter how many times we fail ourselves and each other that promise remains real. A promise that there is goodness, there is decency. That we can and will one day live together in the peace of God’s love.

This is the promise as each Christmas rolls around again — that God’s love, in human form, is born again and again and again into this needy world. We spend these four weeks of Advent each year being reminded that we are not abandoned, not alone — that the love of God that came to us in Jesus is real and is for us and will not ever be taken from us.

This is what Advent season is about — a time to turn our focus from the problems around us and to center instead on that hope inside us all. It’s a time to be reminded that the promise is strong and unbreakable. Even in the form of a helpless newly-born child, it cannot be destroyed or taken from us.

So look within yourself and let that flame of hope bring light, within and without. Let that promise shine around you, let it shine for your brothers and sisters and radiate hope into a dark and struggling world, for then, as Isaiah assures us in today's reading, “the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together.”

This is an important part of the promise – not just that the promise is real but that we will see it together. In this time of non-stop quarreling and division that word, together, may be the most beautiful part of the promise.

“Come, O long expected Jesus, born to set your people free,” Come, and fill us once again with hope.

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WHAT CAN I GIVE IN RETURN?

11/22/2020

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Psalm 116:12-19
What can I give back to God for the blessings poured out on me? I’ll lift high the cup of salvation—a toast to God! I’ll complete what I promised God I’d do, and I’ll do it together with all people.

Oh, God, here I am, your servant, your faithful servant: set me free for your service! I’m ready to offer the thanksgiving sacrifice and pray in the name of your love and your grace. I’ll complete what I promised God I’d do, and I’ll do it in company with all people.

[This is my half of a two-person message]

It was an unexpected struggle to choose a scripture for today. Since next Sunday will start Advent season we wanted to do our Thanksgiving message today but the lectionary readings didn’t seem to fit at all. It got even weirder when I did a search for scriptures dealing with thankfulness. I’m still a little horrified at just how many scriptures there are extolling the writer’s desire to express their thankfulness to God for having stepped in and slaughtered their enemies and left them piled up at their feet. Humm ... that really wasn’t the message we were looking for — honest.

So I was very thankful to stumble onto Psalm 116, which is a hymn of praise for answered prayer. It’s a longer psalm in its entirety. I pruned it down quite a bit to just the part I particularly want to address, basically verses 12-19.

What can I give back to God for the blessings poured out on me? This is the verse that spoke to me — What can I give back to God for all I’ve been given? This is, after all, Thanksgiving 2020, and many of us may well be thinking something along the lines of “how are we supposed to be grateful this horrible year?” And, that can be a valid question.

This has been in many ways a horrible year. Between the pandemic and our currently fractured social contract, wildfires and hurricanes, and an impending economic collapse, we all seem to be hanging on by a thread, waiting for the next calamity to strike us.

Some have lost their homes (some have even lost their lives) to violent climate-based outbursts. Many of us are beginning to fear the loss of democracy itself in our nation -- and families have been ripped apart by political differences.

But it is the pandemic which has caused the most pain, by far. Some have suffered unspeakable tragedy and grief through the loss of a beloved family member they weren’t even able to say “goodbye” to. Some have lost jobs as businesses shut down. Others, especially the more fragile elderly have lost basically all human contact as fear has driven them into isolation. We all know the losses. I don't need to go on. How on earth do we acknowledge gratitude in the midst of all this?

That's where this psalm speaks so clearly to me and to you, I hope. What can I give back for the blessings poured out on me? The answer is to look around you. Because in the midst of all the ugly, there have been blessings — amazing blessings — medical personnel who give their all - and then keep giving; friends who keep in contact no matter what, who won’t allow you to tuck in and hide from the world; new life born into our families – babies come regardless of outside events; relearning the joy of not rushing so much, baking your own bread, tending a garden, having actual conversations with those you live with -- or just sitting back and watching a sunset; the generosity of strangers has been astounding this year as people reach out to offer help wherever they can – offer help to total strangers who aren't liberal or conservative, old or young, black or white or brown -- just another human who needs something or someone.

I could go on and on — and so could you if you stop to think about it for a moment. If we set our minds to it we can all find blessings amongst the inconveniences and pains, even in the midst of suffering. So, the scripture asks — what can I give to someone today that will be a blessing for them? This is how we will repair this world - each of us doing our part, sharing our gifts -- and doing it all together.

So, that’s the question for today. Where can I return grace for grace given? Look around you -- see who needs help. And thank God that you are able to offer that help.

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GIFTS GIVEN, GIFTS USED

11/15/2020

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Matthew 25:14-30 ~~ A man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. The one who had received the five talents went off at once and traded with them, and made five more talents. In the same way, the one who had the two talents made tw more talents...... After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them..... Then the one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying, 'Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.'

There are two writings I’m using for this week’s message. The first is the familiar one shown above, from Matthew’s gospel — the Story of the Talents. It’s a long story and I have edited it down here to the particular verses that speak to the point I hope to make today. Please read the entire parable for yourself — it’s all important — ending as it does with Matthew’s signature line about “weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

It’s the story of a rich man who went on a journey and left varying amounts of his money with picked servants for them to care for. When he returned, all but one had invested the money and had good returns to give back to their master. The one poor soul was so afraid of losing it all and the master’s wrath if he should do so that he just sat on the gold and returned it to the master, with no loss, but no profit earned either. The master was not happy with this and things went downhill from there. And, as with many stories from Matthew, the emphasis seems to be on the punishment due when we get it wrong.

The second writing I’m using is from that great theologian, Erma Bombeck. In case you are too young to know who she was, she wrote a syndicated humor newspaper column about life and families in suburban USA in the 2nd half of the twentieth century as well as several books. Although she was a humorist, she could also be quite profound. Her take on this parable speaks to me much more than Matthew’s original version does.

She says, "When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, 'I used everything you gave me.’ " Bombeck stands in direct contrast to Matthew’s pitiable one-talent servant. She sees herself standing one day before a God she clearly loves and wants to have pleased with her life, like a child hoping their parent is proud of what they’ve done. “I hope I got this right. I did the best I could for you with what you gave me,” as opposed to the terrified servant who expects to receive nothing but rage from his master — and rightly so, since he ends up stripped of his job, his possessions, and thrown, weeping, into that outer darkness.

I don’t believe in Matthew’s angry God. The God I serve and hope to meet someday is much closer to Bombeck’s God. I freely acknowledge that I have screwed up from time to time in this life -- sometimes from cowardice just like the one-talent servant -- but when I get to the end I hope I can also say that I used everything God gave me. Maybe a little late because sometimes I didn’t recognize those gifts until after the fact, but I did use them.

Think about it. Throughout history fear has been used as an instrument to force people into performing in certain ways. Love and respect have been used to draw people into certain choices. Which one draws the best response from you? Which image of God speaks to you in a voice you want to hear?

Maybe we could all take time to look over our lives and see – honestly – what gifts God has given each of us to use. Have we done a good job, so far, in using the love and compassion, the wisdom and the courage God gives us? Are we using them freely or simply hoarding them out of fear? Are we using them the best way we can? Think about it.

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ONE DIVIDED FAMILY

11/8/2020

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Amos 5: 16a, 21-24 ~~
Therefore thus says the Lord, the God of hosts: 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 waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

This has been a rough week — an exhausting, frightening, hopeful, disappointing, stepping-out-in-faith sort of a week – that somehow has ended with hope. At least for many of us. I’ve been saying all along, “It will be OK. It will be OK.” It’s going to take a lot of work and prayer to get to that “OK” but we will get there.

I’ve always loved this scripture from the prophet Amos. “I don’t want any of your ‘performing-for-the-audience’-worship. Stop telling me how holy and wonderful you are. I don’t want to hear it.” Instead, “let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” Having grown up at the right time for it, whenever I read this line I hear it in the deep, rolling voice of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

There really is a lot more to Amos than this one line, and yet it seems so perfect for the time we live in that we have pretty much reduced Amos to this abbreviated message — because this is a message that is still so needed and — apparently — still largely unheard. Dr. King's “I Have a Dream” speech, where he famously quoted from Amos, was almost 60 years ago now, and yet — here we still are—so divided. No closer to being one family of God’s people.

The day after the election this week, I listened to Vice-President Biden (now President-Elect Biden) promising — if the polls turned out right — to be an American president, not just a Democratic president — a president for all Americans. He used a phrase I was unfamiliar with. He said the office of president is “the one office in this nation that represents everyone and that it demands a duty of care for all Americans.” That phrase, a duty of care, really resonated for me, so I looked it up to see where it comes from. Turns out it’s a legal term. I didn’t know that. In tort law, a duty of care is a legal obligation imposed on an individual requiring “adherence to a standard of reasonable care while performing any acts that could foreseeably harm an other.”

Well — loosen up the legal language and that sounds almost scriptural to me — almost Jesus-like, in sentiment if not in syntax. When we interact with others we are required, as Christians, and apparently as American citizens, to stick with a level of reasonable care when interacting in any way that could foreseeably cause another person harm. Act in a way that is, in Amos’ language, both righteous and just. And what is justice but kindness and decency and fairness — to use my own language?

We as a people have a lot of growing and healing to do in order to become the people of God, as we’ve always chosen to see ourselves -- united in one family of love. We’ve allowed ourselves to become complacent and I think – and hope -- these past few years have shaken that complacency. We’re pretty good at seeing all the faults in others, but we need to check ourselves, as readily as we do those “others” so that we see where we have fallen short of God’s command to be one people. We need to not just judge the behavior of others, but of ourselves.

We’ve allowed ourselves to become much too complacent in too many areas – accepting the status quo when, in reality, the status quo has NOT been fair or just for so many. Perhaps we need to spend more time with those Old Testament prophets whose call was always for justice and righteousness – the ones who always demanded righteousness from all God’s people.

Draw us together, God. Teach us the grace and humility to check our own assumptions and change when we need to be the ones changing.

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HUMAN RULES or GOD'S LOVE?

11/1/2020

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Matthew 23:1-4

Now Jesus turned to address his disciples. “The religion scholars and Pharisees are competent teachers in God’s Law. You won’t go wrong in following their teachings on Moses. But be careful about following them. They talk a good line, but they don’t live it. They don’t take it into their hearts and live it out in their behavior. It’s all just veneer.

Instead of giving you God’s Law as food and drink by which you can banquet on God, they package it in bundles of rules, loading you down like pack animals. They seem to take pleasure in watching you stagger under these loads, and wouldn’t think of lifting a finger to help.“

I grew up in a church that had a lot of rules. I bet many of you did, too. Some of the rules were pretty scary to a kid. I was taught that if I was bad God would have to punish me. It would make God unhappy to do so, but that’s how it was.

It was only as I grew older that I began to see that those scary rules weren’t really God’s rules — God’s rules were things like love one another and care for the poor and powerless. They weren’t rules like dress a certain way or only guys can do or be certain things, or worship this exact way and no other. Those rules were rules that men created because they thought that’s how it ought to be. They are what the writer of Matthew’s gospel is referring to as “bundles of rules, loading us down like pack animals” in our reading today.

I began to look around at the world and began to see that the God I loved loved us back, so why would he (it was still always “he” at this point when I was still a chlld) -- why would he do terrible things to the creation he loves? I suspect that many of you had similar questions when you were young. It turns out that those were all really good questions to have.

I was blessed to live a childhood surrounded by good, loving people — and I knew they didn’t deserve to be punished for anything. I devoured books from the time I could first begin to read — not just fiction, but science and history — and I recognized that God created everything that was in those books — so why would God want to punish any of it? And when I wasn’t reading I was out in nature, playing with and learning every creature, every tree, every rock, and I saw that the God who created all that beauty, all that super-abundance of life must love it so very deeply.

Could the God who created giraffes and tiny kittens possibly not just want us to smile and share the joy? How can you not smile at a giraffe? And kittens, or a puddle of soft, new puppies? Or a newborn human child?

The one who arranged sunsets with the sun sinking down into the ocean and color exploding everywhere must want us to share that sense of awe. That wonderment. Not fear that at any moment we might slip and find ourselves facing damnation. The one who brought forth birds in every color combination known to humankind surely loves ALL of creation just as much — including us humans.

A God who loves creation that much must surely want creation to love him/her/it (you can see that over the years I’ve shifted ideas on the gender of God) – that God must want to be loved in return -- and that God wants us to love all the rest of that creation, as well.

And that includes loving each other. Sure, there are some that are so easy to love, no problem -- but there are others who are making it really hard, right now. They seem so filled with spite and nastiness. Loving them can seem so impossible, and yet--“love one another as I have loved you”— there are no exceptions, no excuses. That’s not a man-made rule like some of the ones I discovered when I was younger. That one comes straight from Jesus, so we have to figure it out somehow.

Perhaps, if we can’t love them all right now, we can at least pray for them — pray often and pray sincerely. Who knows? It just might turn into love.

May it be so.

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ADVENT ONE: HOPE

WHAT CAN I GIVE IN RETURN?

GIFTS GIVEN, GIFTS USED

ONE DIVIDED FAMILY

HUMAN RULES or GOD'S LOVE?

Rev. Cherie Marckx

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