Blog Posts - Church of the Open Door: First Christian Church, Ukiah

New Year's Note

1/1/2016

Throughout Advent and Christmastide we have been having group discussions instead of a written Pastor Message - so there has been nothing much to post here -- except for my thanks to my congregation for being the kind of people who love to engage in a discussion and share their thoughts on what we are reading and hearing! We are returning to "normal" this week, so the posted sermons will return soon!

May your New Year be filled with blessings galore -- and may you take them out and share them with the whole world!

BLESSING ... AND BEING BLESSED

11/22/2015

1 Chronicles 29:10-13

David blessed God in full view of the entire congregation:

Blessed are you, God of Israel, our father
from of old and forever.
To you, O God, belong the greatness and the might,
the glory, the victory, the majesty, the splendor;
Yes! Everything in heaven, everything on earth;
the kingdom all yours! You’ve raised yourself high over all.
Riches and glory come from you,
you’re ruler over all;
You hold strength and power in the palm of your hand
to build up and strengthen all.
And here we are, O God, our God, giving thanks to you,
praising your splendid Name.

Today is Thanksgiving Sunday. Well...technically it is Christ the King Sunday by most lectionaries. I don’t find royal imagery particularly helpful in my understanding of God but I do, definitely, find gratitude to be both helpful and necessary...so today is Thanksgiving Sunday.

Most of us find it fairly easy to come up with a list of things for which to offer our thanks to God. We share our gratitude each week along with our offerings, as part of our worship, and, even in troubled times I would guess that most of us could come up with a sizeable list of things to be grateful for. We live here in peace and plenty, in comfort and cleanliness. We go to bed at night without fear of bombs falling on our homes.

We are a blessed people – and we acknowledge that our blessing is merely a matter of geography and luck – nothing that we deserve more than any other being on this planet. And we are duly grateful and we do give thanks and we do try to share our blessings with others.

We share food, we share clothing, we support various local agencies and help enable them in their various tasks to make things better for those in need. We do pretty well, I’d say – as individuals and as a church. Could we so better? Of course we could, but we do try to show our gratitude in concrete forms.

But – there is something else that is called for in today’s reading, and that is blessing. Not “blessings,” in the form of ‘things’, but “blessing” – wishes and prayers for goodness and favor and well-being for the person being blessed. Sincere good wishes going out from our heart to their heart. The hope and desire for good things for them. True caring and well-wishing.

In the Old Testament especially, blessing often appears to involve a transference of power – not power in terms of might and dominance but a moral power, a special sense that God is with the recipient. It’s a slippery concept to define clearly because it appears to be used in a number of different settings.

When the aging Isaac, for instance, intends to give his special father’s blessing to his eldest son, Esau, and that blessing is “high-jacked” by the conniving Jacob, the theft of this important blessing destroys the family. This blessing once given is irrevocable - it cannot be taken back – the theft cannot be made right.

This is a “one-time-only” blessing, but other blessings are less restricted and can apparently be given at will. These are the blessings we offer each other most readily – often casually, as when someone sneezes – but these blessings are still in some way a transference of power – a mark of respect – a recognition that someone is worthy of a blessing. And this, I think, is the power we hold with a blessing. In blessing someone, we somehow recognize the worth, the holiness in them.

When we offer a blessing, unless we are just mechanically voicing words we don’t really mean, we are forced to actually see the one being blessed – and, more than just a wish for well-being, our blessing becomes an acknowledgment that its recipient is worthy of our good-wishes and worthy, even, of our respect as a fellow human person.
What if we were to practice blessing others? These blessings don’t have to be spoken out loud, even – just sincerely thinking about what we are doing, and meaning it. Not just saying words, but truly intending that the power of God’s good wishes pass through us to whomever. This is pretty easy when we are thinking of blessing those we love - family and friends – but what about strangers? Loud, dirty, obnoxious strangers?

What about people who steal from us? Or do us violence? What about politicians advocating horrifying, dehumanizing, wicked public policies? Are these not the very people who most need a blessing? A healing? A turn to the right direction? Can we manage to bless them – not the annoying or outright bad things they are doing, but themselves, the pieces of God’s creation that they are – because, try as we might want to deny it, these, too, are God’s beloved children.

And here we end up back where we started – any blessing we have to give was first given to us – freely – by God. And I don’t believe God blesses us without hoping we will share that blessing in our turn. We understand this more easily with “things” -- if we have plenty of food and warm clothing it is no hardship to pass some on to others -- but this also applies to any blessings of understanding and kindness and love that we may possess. If I have an open and welcoming heart, it is because God gave me that heart. That blesses me and so I can, in turn, offer the same blessing to others who need it. To all who need it.

Is a blessing from me really that big a deal? It is, in a couple of ways. First, in that I recognize the other person as a fellow child of God – whether I “like” them or not; and second, that seeing them, whether the person I see is whole or broken, I can honestly wish them well. I can wish them wholeness and healing and hope and God’s active, life-giving role in their lives.

And, one final note on blessing, in our reading today, David blesses God..... I don’t even know what to say about that...does God in any way need our blessing? I suggest the reading does tell us that God desires our blessing. David is out there in front of the congregation -- presumably speaking for the congregation -- blessing God. I have a feeling there is much more power in our blessings than we might be comfortable with, and if that's so, get over it. Go out into the world and truly see and truly bless the kingdom of God and all that dwells within it. Think of the power for goodness if we all did this together.

Imagine our world if every person who calls themself a Christian were to pray blessings on ISIS? Not blessing the hideous things they do or the hatred in their hearts but looking deeper and truly blessing the child God created them to be ... Do we, or do we not believe God has the power to honor those blessings?

PARIS: 11/13/15

11/16/2015

Leviticus 19:33-34
“When a foreigner lives with you in your land, don’t take advantage of him. Treat the foreigner the same as a native. Love him like one of your own. Remember that you were once foreigners in Egypt. I am God, your God.

There comes a time in the life of every writer-slash-preacher when you realize that the thing you are struggling to say has already been said by someone else. Not only already said, but said much better than you are likely to say it.

Saturday morning as I began to work on my sermon for Sunday -- a message in response to the vicious attacks in Paris the day before and the response I believe we are called to in answer to them -- I happened to take a break in my writing and scanned my facebook page where I found an essay by writer-extraordinaire, Anne Lamott. A piece which, yes, said what I was trying to say and, indeed, said it so much better than I would ever do.

After reading it through a couple of times I simply decided to toss my own half-finished attempt and read Lamott's in place of my pastor's message. It is so very, very worth hearing. And so, with appreciation and deep gratitude for the gift of Anne Lamott's writing, here is Lamott's response to terrorism -- in France -- in Beirut -- in Baghdad -- in Kenya .....

I wish there was a website we could turn to called, "What it means, What is True, and What to do." Lots of very tense religious people are going to insist that their Scripture answers all these questions.

That's nice.

Lots of them will try to hustle us into joining them in Vengeance World. As if that had just been so helpful before, right?

So where do we even begin today? What do we do when it feels like we are all doomed, and the future will only be worse, and we can't remember anything that ever helped us come through? From high school philosophy, I remember that Francis Bacon wrote, "'What is Truth?' asked jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer." It seemed the ultimate truth, at sixteen years old.

But I think we can do better than that. We have shards of truth, and we can gather them up, bits of broken mosaic tile that shine.

We know that this is a very dangerous place, that we are an extremely vulnerable species, that Cain is still killing Abel.

We know that "Why" is not a useful question; and "Figure it out" is not a good slogan.

We know that the poor, the innocent, babies and the very old, always bear the brunt.

So where do we find grace and light? If you mean right now, the answer is Nowhere. It's like after a child dies. Grace always does bat last, and the light always overcomes the darkness--always, historically. But not necessarily later the same day, or tomorrow, after lunch. Wendell Berry told me 25 years ago, in Advent, the darkest shortest days of winter, "It gets darker and darker and darker, and then Jesus is born." But it is only November 13! It gets even darker.

What is the answer? Gandhi is almost always the answer. Jesus's love for the poor and refugees is the answer. Adding a bit of light and warmth to these cold dark days doesn't hurt. Candles are beautiful and bring a soupçon of solace to our souls. People living on the streets could really use your old blankets and jackets.

Grace will always show up in the helpers, as Mr. Rogers' mother used to tell him in times of tragedy. But today, right now, if you have a nice bumper sticker that explains or makes sense of what happens in Paris, it's probably best if you keep that to yourself. It is definitely best that you not share it with me. It will cause me to get a tic in my eye and will guarantee that the next time I see you, I will run for my cute little life. Everyone in his or her right mind will. So how do we even know truth, in the midst of b.s. and lies?

What is true for me is that [in 2012] the shootings at Sandy Hook were the actual end of the world, evil or at least the most extreme mental illness made visible. There were no answers that day, the next day, the day after that. Well, you could go to certain web sites and Twitter posts, and I will not name names, and be told how stupid you were not to see that there was only one appropriate truth. Reload! But again, that was not helpful.

What was helpful was that we stuck together in our horror, grief, anxiety and cluelessness. We grieved, we feared, we despaired, and raged, prayed; we reached out for any help at all; and these were appropriate responses. I am going to recommend that we do that today, and tomorrow. Wounds and trauma revealed were healed; eventually.

Some of us couldn't eat at all, someone of us binged, some of us couldn't turn off the TV, some of us couldn't turn it on. Those were all appropriate. We felt like shit, and let some time pass, talked and stuck together. And day by day, we came through.

Talking and sticking together was the answer. It honest to God was. We were gentler, more patient and kind with each other. If people are patient and kind, that's a lot. It means something of the spirit is at work. For me, that is grace made visible. It doesn't come immediately, and it doesn't come naturally. What comes naturally is, Shoot the mo-fos. So when we could, after Sandy Hook, we paused, breathed, sighed, gasped at the rising numbers. Nothing changed legally, not one word, but we came through. Hearts were healed, imperfectly. People walked, lived fully, and even danced again, after bad psychic fractures that did not heal quite right, and that still hurt some days.

We will again, but it takes time. I so hate this! Hate this, hate this, hate this, and do not agree to this, but have no alternative, because it is Truth: it will take time. Today, we try to keep the patient comfortable--ourselves, our beloveds, the poor.
We're at the beginning of human and personal evolution. Whole parts of the world don't even think women are people.

So after an appropriate time of being stunned, in despair, we show up. Maybe we ask God for help. We do the next right thing. We buy or cook a bunch of food for the local homeless. We return phone calls, library books, smiles. We make eye contact with others, and we go to the market and flirt with old or scary unusual people who seem lonely. This is a blessed sacrament. Tom Weston taught me decades ago that in the face of human tragedy, we go around the neighborhood and pick up litter, even though there will be more tomorrow. It is another blessed sacrament. We take the action and the insight will follow: that we are basically powerless, but we are not helpless.

I have no answers but know one last thing that is true: More will be revealed. And that what is true is that all is change. Things are much wilder, weirder, richer, and more profound than I am comfortable with. The paradox is that in the reality of this, we discover that in the smallest moments of amazement, at our own crabby stamina, at kindness, to lonely people who worry us, and attention, at weeping willow turning from green to gold to red, and amazement, we will be saved.

(c) Anne Lamott 2015

JUST HOW WELL DO WE LOVE OURSELVES?

11/8/2015

Mark 12:28-34a

One of the religion scholars came up. Hearing the lively exchanges of question and answer and seeing how sharp Jesus was in his answers, he put in his question: “Which is most important of all the commandments?”

Jesus said, “The first in importance is, ‘Listen, Israel: The Lord your God is one; so love the Lord God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence and energy.’ And here is the second: ‘Love others as well as you love yourself.’ There is no other commandment that ranks with these.”

The religion scholar said, “A wonderful answer, Teacher! So lucid and accurate—that God is one and there is no other. And loving him with all passion and intelligence and energy, and loving others as well as you love yourself. Why, that’s better than all offerings and sacrifices put together!”

When Jesus realized how insightful he was, he said, “You’re almost there, right on the border of God’s kingdom.”

I suspect if I were to ask you, “How much do you love yourself?” I would mostly get some mumbled “I don’t much think about it,” and maybe a couple would answer something like “I don’t really like myself much.” We are taught from childhood that it is somehow wrong to think too highly of ourselves, much less to love ourselves.

All this does not say much about the teaching in today’s gospel reading in which Jesus is quoting a much, much older teaching. The injunction to love our neighbors as ourselves goes as far back as the book of Leviticus and is part of the quite explicit instructions God gave to Moses on Mt. Sinai a good 900-1300 years or so before Jesus’ time.

Leviticus 19:18: You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.

How on earth are we supposed to manage loving our neighbor if we can’t get over the culturally-ingrained hurdle of being humble and saying weird things like, “Oh, shucks - it was nothing,” when others try to say good things about us?

Just what does it mean to love ourselves? I think we should be able to agree it does not mean standing in front of a mirror half the day lost in admiration of our beautiful selves, not does it mean that we love ourselves and our own wants to the point of thinking that no one else matters.

On the very first page of Genesis we are told: God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. And then, after a few more verses about humankind it continues with the word that God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. God loves us, therefore we are good enough for God’s love. Not through our own earning but through God's free gift. That's what God does -- God loves.

In both the Old and the New Testaments we are commanded to love others in the same manner in which we love ourselves. So the question is, do we truly love ourselves – in a healthy, honest way? Do we truly believe that God really does love us?

Some of us were lucky in our families. We’ve been loved and cherished in our lives. But others have had different lessons thrust on us: You’re ugly; you’re stupid; you’ll never amount to anything; no one will ever love you. Some people find it almost impossible to love themselves ... and, it appears that if we cannot love ourselves, we cannot love our neighbors.

So again, the question: Just what does it mean to love ourselves?

NOTE:
An extensive discussion followed the message, the upshot of which was that most of us felt uncomfortable claiming to love ourselves but could be comfortable with "being satisfied" with ourselves or "being comfortable in our own skin." There was still a feeling somehow that we had to "be better" to "earn" God's love. A later reflection on the reading was that God looks at us, with all our flaws, and loves us anyway -- and that this is the love we are to offer our neighbors -- seeing their flaws (if we must) and loving them anyway.

What are your thoughts on the question of loving others as we love ourselves?

GOD IS GOD ... And We Are Not

10/25/2015

Job 38:1-11
And now, finally, God answered Job from the eye of a violent storm. He said:
“Why do you confuse the issue?
Why do you talk without knowing what you’re talking about?
Pull yourself together, Job!
Up on your feet! Stand tall!
I have some questions for you,
and I want some straight answers.
Where were you when I created the earth?
Tell me, since you know so much!
Who decided on its size? Certainly you’ll know that!
Who came up with the blueprints and measurements?
How was its foundation poured,
and who set the cornerstone,
While the morning stars sang in chorus
and all the angels shouted praise?
And who took charge of the ocean
when it gushed forth like a baby from the womb?
That was me! I wrapped it in soft clouds,
and tucked it in safely at night.
Then I made a playpen for it,
strong boundaries so it couldn’t run loose,
And said, ‘Stay here, this is your place.
Your wild tantrums are confined to this place.’

One of the first things I was told on entering seminary was to always remember that “God is God ... and you are not.” This is very much the message of today’s reading. I don’t like the book of Job. I may as well state that right up front. There are bits of it, like today’s reading, that I can read and accept, and even enjoy – but the book begins with a picture of God that I simply find repugnant. I understand that the form of this story is a literary device to allow the characters to say certain things and it is written from the point of view of a tribal culture – but, still.....

At a casual read the book of Job asks a question: Why do bad things happen to good people? It’s the age old problem of theodicy. But on a more careful reading it turns out that is the wrong question. The real question asked here is: Why are good people good?

At the beginning of our story God recognizes that Job is good, but wants to know why he is good. It is to make himself feel good about himself? Is it to look good in God’s eyes? Is it because, seeing God’s goodness, he wanted to look good too? Or maybe Job believes that we are good for goodness’s sake – that this is, in truth, our natural state?

The story begins with a discussion between God and Satan (who is described here as the “Designated Accuser” - I love that title) as to just why Job is such a good man. Satan declares it is only because God has spoiled him rotten by showering him with riches and good things and never letting anything harm him. By this time, God is somewhat wondering God’s self and this is the point where the story loses me, because God tells Satan he can do whatever he wants to Job. The image of a being who would so casually toss aside all that Job loves just to settle a philosophical argument is not one I can reconcile with the God I love and serve. As I said, it is a literary device ... still...

Because, taking God at God’s word, Satan does every rotten thing he can think of. Within the course of one day
• marauders slaughtered all Job’s farm stock as well as his field hands
• lightning struck and fried all his sheep – as well as all the shepherds
• Chadean raider stole every one of his camels and massacred his camel drovers
• as lastly, word came that every one of Job’s children, who were gathered at the eldest son’s house for a party, were wiped out when a tornado hit the home,
but even with all this Job refused to sin by blaming God – he remained true and faithful. So ... on another day, God told Satan to take it even further, and Satan inflicted Job with boils – running, open sores all over his body – but Job remained true.

At this point three of Job’s so-called frends come to him and begin grilling him, claiming to comfort him but actually trying to convince him that somehow he must have done something wrong to bring this all on himself. The story goes on for many, many chapters but that is the drift of his friends’ counsel - somewhere you brought this on yourself. And Job holds firm that he did no such thing – he has done nothing wrong and he does NOT deserve this. He even calls God to listen to his testimony of innocence and then demands that God justify God’s self to him – Job.

Which God does by asking a series of questions: Where were you when everything that is was created? Did you set the stars in the skies? Do you control the tides? And so on ... And after a few more chapters, Job agrees, yes, you can do what you want because all that exists is yours – it was never mine. And, finally, having made his point, God restores all that was taken from Job – and that appears to strike many as a happy ending.

I have never understood or found any satisfaction in this resolution to the story of Job. It may have made sense in a tribal culture in which the idea of individuals mattering didn’t really exist, but somehow, the idea that you can wipe out a man’s family and then simply plug in a new one later on and every thing is peachy keen just doesn’t work for us today.

This is one of the primary differences between the Old and New Testaments – the role of the individual. Sometimes in the Old Testament God seems invested in individuals, such as David the shepherd boy who became king, but then God will turn around and slaughter hundreds of innocent people with no apparent thought for the human persons involved. The Old Testament God is often very puzzling to us today.

Historically, the role of the individual person didn’t really begin to flower fully until the late Middle ages and the Renaissance - but the idea that God sees and cares for each of us individually is a goodly part of Jesus’ message. We are no longer interchangeable cogs in a machine. We matter.

When we speak of Jesus as the bridge, the great high priest, the one who stands between us and God, perhaps this is what we mean. When Jesus says he is bringing us a “new thing” maybe this is it. What he brings is the Good News that the same God who created all that is – the One who created the dolphins and the field mice, the One who moves the tides, the One who set rings around Saturn and placed the stars Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka in Orion’s belt – this same One, Jesus tells us, sees every sparrow and cares about me ... and you ... and values even the least among us -- especially the least among us.

God is God ... and we are not – this is absolutely true, but this God that Jesus showed us knows and names us and loves us.

Thank God. Amen.

HOLY GROUND

10/11/2015

Exodus 3:1-5 .....
Moses was shepherding the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. He led the flock to the west end of the wilderness and came to the mountain of God, Horeb. The angel of God appeared to him in flames of fire blazing out of the middle of a bush. He looked. The bush was blazing away but it didn’t burn up.

Moses said, “What’s going on here? I can’t believe this! Amazing! Why doesn’t the bush burn up?”

God saw that he had stopped to look. God called to him from out of the bush, “Moses! Moses!”

He said, “Yes? I’m right here!”

God said, “Don’t come any closer. Remove your sandals from your feet. You’re standing on holy ground.”

This is not one of the lectionary readings for this Sunday. I was led to it by a conversation I became part of on-line this week. I’ll get into all that a little later, but I want to begin by setting the stage for this reading with a little background material.

We all know the story of Moses. Born in Egypt as a next-best-thing-to-a-slave at a time when male Hebrew babies were being killed to keep their population down, Moses survived when his desperate mother placed him in God’s hands and tossed him into the Nile in a floating basket. He was rescued by Pharaoh’s daughter and raised in the royal court, as part of the family. We then skip a number of years until he is a grown man who, witnessing an Egyptian beating a Hebrew to death, intervened and then beat the Egyptian to death himself.

Later, when he was threatened with “outing” by a fellow Hebrew who had witnessed his act of violence, Moses fled from the royal court into the wilderness, somewhere on the far side of the Red Sea, met Jethro, the “priest of Midian,” married one of his daughters, and became part of the family there, as well.

It’s easy to skip over this part of the story in order to get to the “good stuff,” but this part has some interesting points to it. First, it doesn’t appear to have been any secret in Egypt, at least among the Hebrews, just who Moses really was. Second, when Moses ran into trouble it wasn’t the Egyptians who threatened him - that was his own people. When he tried to break up a fight among Hebrews, the combatants basically told him to bug off because they didn’t need to listen to him, they had watched him murder a man. That was why he fled Egypt.

This was a first of the many times the Hebrews would reject Moses’ right to lead them. It would be the Midians – strangers – who would take him in and make him one of their own. Most likely these people didn’t even worship the same god as Moses, but they made him part of the family. Rejected by his own people – the people he would be sent to save – Moses was welcomed and accepted by non-Jews – a story line that would be repeated about 1500 years later by another Hebrew leader named Jesus.

The third point of interest here is that Moses’ encounter with God took place on “holy ground” and that patch of holy ground was not in a temple precinct or within royal walls. There was no gold, no cedarwood, no pews, no organ. It was just a random someplace out in the middle of pretty much nowhere, where the sheep and goats grazed. And that leads us around to the point I originally chose to talk about...

Holy ground – what makes a space holy and how do we recognize it?

As I said, I got into an on-line conversation occasioned when a fellow pastor commented that she often hears people talk about how the "church is dying" but that she doesn't believe it is the church itself that is dying, but instead, the way we view and use church - specifically addressing old single-use church buildings. She then went on to articulate her vision for a multi-purpose setting for church -- one where the hungry would be fed and the homeless cared for. What she described didn't sound much like our traditional image of the church of the past, but it was an appealing (to me) image of what the church could be.

Another pastor then chimed in with a question concerning "sacred space" and many people's need for a "set-aside" ambiance for worship, and asked where we find a balance between service and sacred worship. [I did not ever get around to asking any other these pastors if I could quote them here and so am not including their names -- if you recognize yourself in here, thank you so much for your thoughtful contributions...]

Others then came in with descriptions of the churches they serve...and they were the most wonderful mixed lot of descriptions! One church meets each week in a parking lot and shares a full service with all the usual parts, followed by a potluck lunch -- all with no building at all! Another described a traditional large church building, but one that serves as a community center -- being used all week by many different groups. I offered a description of our church setting, where we look like an ordinary strip-mall office, but where we gather to feed the hungry and clothe the naked -- and come together to share our lives and worship God.

Each and every "church" described in this conversation was "sacred ground" because in every one the people come together in love and service to the One who gives us life and hope. Our churches are many -- and they are varied -- and it doesn't seem to matter so much what they look like -- it's the hearts of the people of God that make any place and every place holy ground.

The "church" is alive and well -- we just need to open our vision to what we are really seeing when we look at them. Thanks be to God.

WORLD COMMUNION SUNDAY 2015

10/4/2015

Mark 10:13-16
The people brought children to Jesus, hoping he might touch them. The disciples shooed them off. But Jesus was irate and let them know it: “Don’t push these children away. Don’t ever get between them and me. These children are at the very center of life in the kingdom. Mark this: Unless you accept God’s kingdom in the simplicity of a child, you’ll never get in.” Then, gathering the children up in his arms, he laid his hands of blessing on them.

Today is World Communion Sunday and I do not have a sermon, per se. Instead I have a poem and a couple of questions...and one observation. Observation first, because I want you to hold this thought while you listen to the poem.

In today's reading, Jesus appears, at least, to clearly be speaking about actual children -- but in other places in the gospels Jesus when Jesus speaks about children, the little ones, he is speaking more of the powerless, those with no status in society, those without political or cultural clout of any kind -- the poor, the voiceless, invisible people. Listen to the words of our scripture in that light ... and then listen to this poem by Jan Richardson:

“And the Table Will Be Wide”
A Blessing for World Communion Sunday

And the table
will be wide.
And the welcome
will be wide.
And the arms
will open wide
to gather us in.
And our hearts
will open wide
to receive.

And we will come
as children who trust
there is enough.
And we will come
unhindered and free.
And our aching
will be met
with bread.
And our sorrow
will be met
with wine.

And we will open our hands
to the feast
without shame.
And we will turn
toward each other
without fear.
And we will give up
our appetite
for despair.
And we will taste
and know
of delight.

And we will become bread
for a hungering world.
And we will become drink
for those who thirst.
And the blessed
will become the blessing.
And everywhere
will be the feast.

© Jan Richardson, The Painted Prayerbook

I'm not sure that I could say anything about World Communion Sunday that says it better than that ... so I will ask my two questions for Reflection: 1) With all the best will in the world, with whom would you still find it difficult to share God's table? 2) Are you willing to do so, when Jesus invites them anyway?

And I will leave it at that. May there be blessing and plenty for all of us.

REFUGE, SHELTER, SANCTUARY

9/20/2015

Psalm 91:1-6; 11-16
Assurance of God’s Protection
You who live in the shelter of the Most High,
who abide in the shadow of the Almighty,
will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress;
my God, in whom I trust.”
For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler
and from the deadly pestilence;
he will cover you with his pinions,
and under his wings you will find refuge;
his faithfulness is a shield and buckler.
You will not fear the terror of the night,
or the arrow that flies by day,
or the pestilence that stalks in darkness,
or the destruction that wastes at noonday.
.......
For he will command his angels concerning you
to guard you in all your ways.
On their hands they will bear you up,
so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.
You will tread on the lion and the adder,
the young lion and the serpent you will trample under foot.
Those who love me, I will deliver;
I will protect those who know my name.
When they call to me, I will answer them;
I will be with them in trouble,
I will rescue them and honor them.
With long life I will satisfy them,
and show them my salvation.

refuge, shelter, sanctuary, haven, harbor, port in a storm, oasis

I began by thinking of the word “shelter,” because I knew I wanted to talk some about all the many people who have been displaced by the wildfires and are now sheltering somewhere. The “lucky” ones are with friends or family – when I checked in with a friend in the area this week she mentioned that everyone she knows has someone living with them right now. But most are in campgrounds and fairgrounds and anyplace big enough to hold so many, many people – the temporary “shelters” that pop-up in situations like this.

I knew we would acknowledge the grief of this situation in our prayer time and we'll share some of the stories of the incredible grace and goodness being shown forth all over the place here in a few minutes, but I have some thoughts to share first.

Just briefly I want to review those words I opened with: refuge, haven, harbor, port in a storm, oasis, shelter, sanctuary. These words are all primarily nouns, but some of them are verbs, as well: A shelter (noun) is a place where people can come to shelter (verb) and a place where we shelter (verb) others.

My point here being that shelter is no abstract concept to be discussed at a distance but that it is instead a very active thing, and that we, as Christians, as followers of the way of Jesus, are called to make sure our sheltering is a very active thing and not just something we talk about. It is what we do – whether it is easy or convenient, or not.

While our primary focus here today is those sheltering from the Valley Fire - and that’s as it should be – these are our neighbors and we are personally involved in this one -- this is immediate and real for us. BUT – before this fire the topic most on my mind, at least, was the endless stream of frantic refugees pouring into Europe – desperately seeking a place of safety for their families – a place of shelter. Their need is the same as that of our neighbors – they ARE, if we take our following Jesus seriously – our neighbors, too. And the chances are that their displacement is going to take much longer to overcome. Horrible as it is to lose one’s home, the Syrian refugees have also lost family and culture – their homeland – everything.

I’m not trying to say one disaster is worse than another, or one group of people worthier of our compassion than another – simply that one will probably be dealt with sooner than the other, simply by virtue of time and place.

We are called everyday to provide shelter – not only in the big disasters like these – but also in the local families given shelter, year round, right here in Ukiah at Project Sanctuary - every day – families uprooted by violence and fear. And the children sheltered from hunger by the free lunch programs right here in our country. We are called to shelter the homeless from the ravages of their condition – to feed and shelter them as best we can - every day. We are called to provide the shelter of a listening ear and a door open in welcome for the friendless, the lonely. And all this goes for all the frightened, hungry, despairing people of the world.

Sheltering is something Christians do - not only when the big news stories are splashed all over the TV, but every day one of our neighbors – our brothers and sisters - anywhere – is in need.

Our reading today gives us one aspect of sheltering - that God is our refuge, our shelter in time of trouble – always with us and never abandoning us – and this is knowledge vital to us. God cares for us.

The other aspect of sheltering is us. If God is to act in this work, most often it is our hands that will do the lifting, the bandaging, the feeding, the holding. God cares for us and therefore we are able to reach out and care for each other. And if we are paying attention, we should be recognizing that everyone we come across in the course of a disaster is someone who will continue to be our sister or brother – not someone to forget about as soon as this immediate need is settled and we can all go back to “normal”.

And one more point to ponder...Many of our people will be able to rebuild. It will be difficult and frustrating and exhausting but they will have the resources to start over. They have insurance. They have the basic knowledge to help them wade through the morass of paperwork it will take to deal with FEMA. For them it will probably all work out -- eventually.

For many others though, it will be almost impossible – those who were already just scraping by – who couldn’t afford insurance – whose employment was already sketchy, whose jobs may have just gone up in smoke. Those, like the child quoted on a recent television human-interest story, for whom life in a temporary shelter seems better than the life they had before the fire. Where do they go now?

How will we continue to be sanctuary for these our brothers and sisters?

WHO DO YOU SAY I AM?

9/13/2015

Mark 8:27-34
Jesus and his disciples headed out for the villages around Caesarea Philippi. As they walked, he asked, “Who do the people say I am?”

“Some say ‘John the Baptizer,’” they said. “Others say ‘Elijah.’ Still others say ‘one of the prophets.’”

He then asked, “And you—what are you saying about me? Who am I?” Peter gave the answer: “You are the Christ, the Messiah.”

Jesus warned them to keep it quiet, not to breathe a word of it to anyone. He then began explaining things to them: “It is necessary that the Son of Man proceed to an ordeal of suffering, be tried and found guilty by the elders, high priests, and religion scholars, be killed, and after three days rise up alive.” He said this simply and clearly so they couldn’t miss it. But Peter grabbed him in protest. Turning and seeing his disciples wavering, wondering what to believe, Jesus confronted Peter. “Peter, get out of my way! Satan, get lost! You have no idea how God works.”

Calling the crowd to join his disciples, he said, “Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You’re not in the driver’s seat; I am.

“Who do people say I am?” That’s the first question. “Who is it that you hear other people say I am?” But then comes the harder second question – “Who do you say I am? What are you saying when you talk about me?”

Jesus is big news today – or at least, some version of Christianity is big news. Jesus has become a player in American politics. You can’t watch TV news or listen to a talk show or read a blog without hearing all about what “Christians” believe. It’s funny, all the yammering is about Christian faith and the Bible - but if you really listen, almost no one actually talks about Jesus. It’s all about what the Bible says instead of what Jesus teaches. Jesus himself has become lost in a welter of general ignorance, bad biblical scholarship, nonstop babbling, and a frantic determination to prove we’re better than everyone else.

In the light of all this I believe the two questions Jesus asks in today’s reading are every bit as relevant now as they were when Jesus first asked them – maybe even more relevant.

“Who do people say I am?” When I try to listen for mention of Jesus in all this deluge of talk, I only seem to hear two themes. First, that Jesus died for our sins, and secondly, that Jesus has forgiven me but will probably never be able to forgive you unless you somehow become just like me. (And even then you get the feeling that it’s still doubtful.)

Now, let me state quite clearly that there are many people out there who are writing and saying perfectly wonderful things about who Jesus is – beautiful, hope-filled things – true things – but in our cultural climate today you have to really hunt to find them. These people are indeed preaching and teaching in churches all around us, writing blogs and books and generally carrying on conversations, but they almost never make the 5:00 news. They never show up in the headlines on internet news pages. They are rarely media darlings.

Instead, the Jesus we are given today is harsh and judgmental. If we listen only to “what people say” then we probably will never meet the Jesus who described himself as anointed to “bring good news to the poor.” The one sent to “proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, and to let the oppressed go free...”

And so, we come to the second question: “Who do you say I am?”

For me, Jesus is the one who teaches us, who educates us in the ways of the reign of God. The one who tells us to look beyond what the world would have us believe – the one who shows us how to live as God calls us to live – the one who teaches us to care for each other and to recognize the spirit of God in each person we meet. I don’t worry much about finding the proper theological category for Jesus. I personally don’t care what title we put on him: the Son of God or God, the Son, a miracle worker, or simply a man.

When I look at the stories of Jesus, when I see the acts of his followers in this world, when I hear his voice speaking directly to my heart, I see one who loves me no matter how badly I screw up, the one who loves the whole world in this same way. I see one who lived in such a way that he refused to be shaped by the broken ugliness of those around him, the one who reminds us we are in God's reign here and now -- regardless of what it may look like around us. I see the one who points me toward the God whose child I am – and I see the one I want to follow with my own life.

The lectionary program I use to keep track of the readings for each week has taken, in the last year or so, to posted a handful of quotes pertaining to the chosen readings. One quote offered this week is by a modern writer who is apparently a fairly big name in evangelical circles, but one I have to admit I had never heard of before. His name is Scot McKnight and he says:

"Those who aren't following Jesus aren't his followers. It's that simple. Followers follow, and those who don't follow aren't followers. To follow Jesus means to follow Jesus into a society where justice rules, where love shapes everything. To follow Jesus means to take up his dream and work for it."

I like that – but – in order to follow Jesus we have to first of all decide who Jesus is for ourselves – then – and only then – can we follow. Jesus makes it quite clear to Peter that he doesn’t want Peter to go by what others say - he wants Peter’s own understanding. There will always be those who try to tell us who Jesus is – who set themselves up as authorities – and many of those will be dead wrong – presenting us with a Jesus shaped in their own image. We must figure it out for ourselves – with the help of others, yes – but never just blindly accepting someone else’s claim to private knowledge.

And Peter gets halfway there. He moves his definition out of the Old Testament and into present-day reality – he’s doesn’t just see a reincarnated prophet out of the past, but a promised messiah for the present and future. But even Peter doesn’t go far enough. He hopes for a messiah who will bring power and status and modern-day glory ... and stops there. And Jesus has to rebuke him for trying to reject danger and suffering to come.

Read the stories of Jesus for yourself. Hear what those stories say to you. Listen to other people’s personal experiences of him. Pray and think ... and listen ... listen to your own heart and the Spirit that lives within you. Remember the times you have somehow known that Jesus was with you. Know Jesus for yourself -- and then – and only then – you can know him to follow him. Follow the Jesus your heart recognizes and walk in his path.

Peace, from a fellow follower. Amen.

WORK or LABOR

9/6/2015

Romans 4:4-5 (The Message)
If you’re a hard worker and do a good job, you deserve your pay; we don’t call your wages a gift. But if you see that the job is too big for you, that it’s something only God can do, and you trust him to do it—something you could never do it for yourself no matter how hard and long you worked—well, that trusting-him-to-do-it is what gets you set right with God, by God. This is sheer gift.

It’s Labor Day weekend – Yay! Some of us here work and some of us are retired – after having worked for a long time. I imagine that most of us have worked at a variety of different jobs in our lifetimes. I myself have labored as a file clerk, a darkroom technician, an accountant, a waitress, a seamstress and a professional quilter, a salesperson in a retail store, a marketing manger, a proof-reader, an administrative assistant, an educator, and a public relations coordinator.

I have worked for others, run my own business, and directed a large educational program with an extensive staff of volunteers under my direction. And for the past 18 years, I have been a church pastor.

Those are the paid jobs at which I have labored - but that list doesn’t give all the work that I have done, because I have also raised a family, studied and learned how to feed that family through some very lean times, volunteered at schools, been a student myself, counseled addicts and alcoholics for several years, and made music in many, many different settings – for none of which was I ever paid a penny.

Work or Labor? Looked at from one direction they are the same thing – we often tend to use the two words interchangeably. But if we use the biblical meanings of those two words – as we sometimes do to make a point, as I’m doing today – we find that labor is what we do for hire – the thing we do in order to pay the bills. Work on the other hand is all those things we do as our part in building up the kingdom of God. Even St. Paul made a point of the fact that he labored as a tentmaker in order to pay his own way, while I don’t think there is any doubt that his work was evangelization – telling the world about Jesus and the grace of God.

Work is when we are in the process of exercising our heart’s deepest desire – or in Frederick Buechner’s words, that place where our own deep gladness meets the world’s deep hunger.

The lucky few find a way to make their labor and their work be the same thing but for most of us there often is no obvious connection. All the same, that largely depends on how we approach our necessary labor. In my own case, on the one hand, I am lucky enough to be paid for doing the work I love right here in this church - this is the work that fulfills me. However, I’m not paid enough here to make this my only income and so I also labor at selling office supplies – hardly the stuff of my heart’s deepest desire.
I sit in a small cramped office and try to think and create marketing materials, working through through constant interruptions and often unreasonable demands. And though I try, I simply cannot convince myself that my choice of roller-ball over fiber-tip pen makes a difference in the greater world out there. But even so, there are choices I can make here that DO matter.

I can respond with courtesy to a customer who is not being courteous to me, refusing to repay ugly with more ugliness. I can put aside the work I’m doing – even if it’s a rush job – to take a few minutes to listen to a co-worker who, it is obvious, just really needs someone to listen to them right that very moment. I can refuse to participate in gossip about a person we all know – tempting though it may be. I can face an often boring job with all the grace I can muster and make the best of it I can.

Now, simply because I use my own experiences for my examples do not run away with the idea that I am offering myself as any kind of perfect model here. Far, far from it. This is more what, lying in bed at night reviewing the day, I wish I had done. I get tired and frustrated, and no more than anyone else, do I enjoy having to put up with rudeness. I use myself simply because I am the example I know best.

Besides the things I’ve mentioned here, there is a major difference between work and labor. When we labor, it often lands and stays right on our shoulders. We are given a task and expected to do it. Period. No performance, no pay.

The first requirement of our work, however, is to recognize that we cannot possibly do it all alone. In the words of Paul as given in our reading today:

...if you see that the job is too big for you, that it’s something only God can do, and you trust him to do it—something you could never do for yourself no matter how hard and long you worked—well, that trusting-him-to-do-it is what gets you set right with God...

God never expects us to do our work alone.

The second thing to remember is that we CAN change our labor into our work if we learn to approach it with the mind and heart of Jesus. In the words of an old Franciscan prayer:

Blessed is he who loves and does not therefore desire to be loved;
blessed is he who fears and does not therefore desire to be feared;
blessed is he who serves and does not therefore desire to be served;
and blessed he who behaves well toward others and does not desire that others behave well toward him.

This – this willingness to do our labor with grace and to do our work without expectation of payment in return except the knowledge that in so doing we are pleasing God – this, again in Paul’s words, is sheer gift.

Blessings on your work AND your labor. And blessings on your resting this holiday weekend – all is holy.