tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-79844816338060185392024-01-15T15:53:52.827-08:00A Fresh PerspectiveReflections on Faith and Spirituality from a Progressive Christian Point of View.Chuck Queenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07189976951236608116noreply@blogger.comBlogger498125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7984481633806018539.post-76244073849251246352022-02-22T06:36:00.000-08:002022-02-22T06:36:24.033-08:00What’s in your Purse? (Luke 6:27-38) <p> <span style="font-size: 16pt;">An elephant was enjoying a leisurely dip
in a jungle pool when a rat came up to the pool and insisted that the elephant
get out. “I won’t,” said the elephant. “But I insist you get out this minute,”
said the rat. “Why?” asked the elephant. “I shall tell you only after you are
out of the pool.” The elephant refused, but his curiosity got the best of him.
So he lumbered out of the water and stood in front of the rat, “Now, then, why
did you want me to get out of the pool?” Said the rat, “To check if you were wearing
my swimming trunks.”</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">An elephant will sooner fit into the
trunks of a rat than God will fit into our notions of God. God is so much more than what believers typically believe about
God. How much more? Well, in this text we get a glimpse of the more-ness of
God, especially as this applies to God’s love and grace. God’s love far exceeds
human notions of love. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Jesus says according to Luke,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">But
I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,
bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you
on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do
not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone
takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would
have them do to you.</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">If
you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love
those who love them. If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is
that to you? For even sinners do the same. If you lend to those from whom you
hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to
receive as much again. But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting
nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the
Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just
as your heavenly Father is merciful.</span></b><b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Do
not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be
condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to
you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put
into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back (Luke
6:27-38).</span></b><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">There is no greater description anywhere
of the gospel of Jesus and the way of the kingdom of God, which Jesus himself
embodied. The central piece of instruction is introduced in the first sentence,
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“I say to you that listen, Love your
enemies.”</i> Examples follow: When someone slaps you, stand tall and turn the
other cheek, give your shirt to the one who takes your coat, give to everyone
who begs, if someone takes your goods don’t ask for them back – radical, crazy stuff
don’t you think? Anyone operating out of one’s ego, one’s little self, might cringe
at these expressions of love. Luke caps these off with a reference to the
golden rule, which, to be honest, doesn’t quite seem to fit. Maybe this is how
the teaching came down to Luke in his tradition, or maybe he thought for some
reason this would be a good place to include it – Who knows? What Jesus is actually
calling for, however, exceeds the ethics of the golden rule. Instead of, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Do unto others as you would have them do
unto you,”</i> it’s more like, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“Do good
to others, even if they never do good to you.”</b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Now the question any listener might
naturally ask is, “Why?” <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Why, in heaven’s name, would or should we do
this?</i></b> Jesus’ answer is simple (simple in theory, not in practice), <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Because God is kind to the ungrateful and
the wicked, and we therefore, are to be merciful, as our heavenly Father is
merciful.” </i>This is how we are called to live as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“children of the Most High.”</i> When we reflect the character of God, when
we act in mercy and grace, we bring the love of the Most High into the earthly,
messy, complicated, and fractured relationships of our daily lives. If we just
love those who love us, if we are only good to those who are good to us, that
doesn’t really say anything about the kind of love that God has for the world
does it? Where’s the grace in that? Our calling as children of God is to make
God’s unconditional and inclusive love known, and the only way to make God’s unconditional
and inclusive love known is by loving unconditionally and inclusively like God.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Jesus says that if we love like God our <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“reward will be great.”</i> This <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“great reward”</i> is not some monetary prize
or special privilege or some heavenly honor or recognition, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">it is the person we become.</b> That’s the
reward. Grace is God’s operating principle, not merit. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The reward for loving like God is that we become a person like God. </b>When
we become who we were designed and destined to be, namely, daughters and sons
of God who love like God, there is no greater reward than the experience of
reaching our human potential. There is no greater sense of meaning and
fulfillment, and no greater experience of joy and peace available to human
beings. Anything else is a counterfeit, a false impersonation of what true life
is.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">So, Jesus instructs us to love our
enemies, seek the good of all people and do good to all people because this is
how God loves, and we are called as God’s children to love like God. Now, it
might be good to pause here and chew on another question. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Why, however, would God love like
this? Why would God want to be kind and merciful to the ungrateful and the
wicked?</i></b> The answer is not explicit in the text, but it is implicit. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">God is simply being God. </b>The writer of
1 John says, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“whoever does not love does
not know God, for God is love” (see 1 John 4:7-8)</i>.” <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The reason God loves the ungrateful and the wicked is because God
cannot do otherwise. The essence of God is love.</b> God must be true to who
God is, so even the hater, oppressor, and victimizer is loved by God.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">In addition, every single one of us has
Divine DNA. Every human being is indwelt by God. Of course, many people are
completely unaware of their Divine origin and the Divine indwelling. They do
not realize that the image of God is stamped into their human constitution.
They do not know who they are or to whom they belong. Nevertheless, whether one
is aware or not, the Divine Spirit is within every human being. As Paul said in
the book of Acts to the philosophers in Athens, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“the God who made the world and everything in it . . . gives to all
mortals life and breath and all things . . . For in him we live and move and
have our being.”</i> Therefore we are all <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“God’s
offspring” (see Acts 17:22-29).</i></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">When human beings hate, destroy, kill,
abuse, and victimize it grieves God. God suffers both the victim and the
victimizer. God suffers both the oppressed and the oppressor. For we are all
one people in God. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">When we harm and hurt
one another we are, in a sense, turning God against God.</b> If God hated any
human being, God would be hating a part of God’s self, because every human
being has a part of God within. On the flip side of that reality is this: <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Because the Divine Nature is part of our
human makeup, because God lives within, we all have the potential to love like
God. </b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus is not asking us to do
the impossible. Given human history, it may seem improbable, but it is not
impossible. This is where God is leading humankind. This is our ultimate
destiny.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">The story is told of the mullah Nazruddin
who became prime minister to the king. Once, while he wandered through the
palace, he saw the royal falcon, the powerful symbol of the kingdom. But what
Nazruddin thought was, “This is a very unusual pigeon.” So he got out a pair of
scissors and trimmed the claws, the wings, and the beak of the royal falcon.
Then he said, “Now you look like a decent pigeon. Clearly, your keeper had been
neglecting you.”</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Here’s what many of us do. We take the
royal falcon – the good news of Jesus, the gospel of the inclusive love of God
– and we get out our scissors and we snip and cut and trim and shape it into a
royal pigeon – a creed, a doctoral statement, a rigid belief system, five
fundamentals of the faith, worship rituals and sacred rites, etc., and we make
it about being right or correct or holy or saved or whatever it is that we
think puts us in favor with God. Usually whatever we make it into, whatever we
make it about doesn’t interfere too much with our prejudices, or pride, or greed
and self-interest. It is generally something that makes us feel special and chosen
and privileged because, you know after all, we have the truth. And like poor
old Nazruddin we are, in actuality, unaware and blind to the gospel of Jesus
and the way of God’s kingdom, which is the way of inclusive love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Jesus says, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Do not judge, and you will not be judged.”</i> Now clearly, when Jesus
says do not judge he is not talking about all forms of judgment. There are numerous
instances where Jesus exercised prophetic judgment with regard to the religious
leaders of Judaism (see Luke 11:37-44) and sometimes the people in general.
Jesus refused to be silent in the face of falsehood, deception, greed, and
oppressive religious laws and actions that excluded, condemned, and dehumanized
others. The kind of judgment Jesus is talking about is clarified in what Jesus
says next, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Do not condemn, and you will
not be condemned.”</i> Jesus is not forbidding any form of judgment, but rather
condemnation in particular. This is an example of Hebrew poetic speech, where
the second statement defines, explains, or clarifies the first. The kind of
judgment Jesus is talking about is the kind that condemns, diminishes, and
dehumanizes others. Jesus never condemned the Pharisees or any of the Jewish
gatekeepers, even though he spoke harsh words of judgment against them. In
fact, there are three instances in the Gospel of Luke where Jesus sits at table
with Pharisees. Jesus’ table fellowship where all were welcome functioned as a
sign of God’s kingdom demonstrating the grace and welcome of God. Jesus didn’t
reject or exclude them; they were welcome at the table. But Jesus judged their
actions and their leadership. Let’s be clear, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">inclusive love passionately stands up for and speaks out for what is
just and good and fair and right, but inclusive love does not condemn or reject
or dehumanize anyone. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></b></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Rather, inclusive love forgives and gives.
Jesus says, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Forgive, and you will be
forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you.”</i> God’s inclusive love is
expressed through our forgiveness in particular and through our generosity in
general. It gives and gives and gives. It is like, “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, overflowing
in one’s lap.” </i>Jesus says, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“The
measure you give will be the measure you get back.” </i><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">This is not reward and punishment. This is not give in order to get.
This is not a system of meritocracy. This is simply how love works. Love always
begets more love.</b> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Love ignites and
fuels more love.</b> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">It spreads and
multiplies and overflows sending out blessings everywhere love goes.</b></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">In our own personal lives the more we
practice forgiveness and generosity, the more we grow in our capacity to
forgive and give, and <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">the more we do it,
the easier it gets and the more natural it becomes.</b> What at first may seem
hard, over time becomes more natural, free flowing, and easier to do.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Bertrand Russell was a well-known
British philosopher and atheist who was raised a Christian. One time he was
asked about this Christian notion of loving one’s enemies. He responded by
saying, “There is nothing to be said against it except that it is too difficult
for most of us to practice sincerely.” I suspect that the majority of
Christians today feel the same way. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">What
would it take for us to get to the place where loving our enemies would be so
natural and such a part of who we are that it would cease to be difficult?</b>
What would have to happen in your life and mine for us to arrive at such a
place?</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">A well-known spiritual Teacher, beloved
by some, hated by others, was walking down the road with his disciples. Some
people threw stones at him and cursed him. The disciples asked him, “Master,
why do you bless those who curse you?” The Teacher replied, “I can only give
what I have in my purse.” What’s in our purse?</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">When the inclusive love of God fills our
soul, when it permeates the heart and mind and will, it’s not hard to fight
back the urge to curse the one who curses or hate the one who hates, because
the urge to curse and hate will have undergone a spiritual death. It will have
been crucified with Christ. Unfortunately, some or our purses are filled full
with curses. Wouldn’t it be great if God’s inclusive love filled our purse to
the point that there wasn’t room for anything else? Then it would be easy to
draw out patience, kindness, forgiveness, forbearance, tolerance, mercy,
gentleness, humility, peace, joy and the like. It would be no trouble at all.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Several years ago I participated in a
conference at Georgetown College called, “Re-imagining Faith for America and
the World.” One of the keynote speakers was Dr. Stephanie Paulsell, a professor
at Harvard Divinity School. She told us about being mentored by an Episcopal
priest named Bernie at the University Church where she attended graduate
school. She assisted him at the altar on Sundays as they celebrated the
Eucharist. He allowed her to apprentice herself to him. She followed him in and
out of dorm rooms, soup kitchens, chaplain’s meetings, always watching and
learning. On Sundays, she assisted him in the celebration of the Eucharist.
After a few weeks, when she seemed to get the hang of things, he asked her to
take her turn as the celebrant. She thanked Bernie for the invitation, but
said, ‘I don’t know if I should<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>lead
this ritual, because I don’t really know what it means.’” “Oh,” Bernie said.
“We don’t do this because we know what it means. We do it in order to find out
what it means.”</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Dr. Paulsell said to us at the
conference, “I learned a lot of things in graduate school, but nothing more
important or transformative than this: that faith is not a linear movement from
right thinking to right action. Bernie taught me that we don’t have to wait
until we have everything figured out before we join one another around the
table, or the altar. He taught me that it is possible to act our way—pray our
way, sing our way--into new ways of thinking.” Sounds to me like she is saying,
“It’s possible to fake it until we make it.” But she is also saying that doing
it, practicing it is what enables us to make it. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">How often have we tried to love our
enemies? Probably not enough. Will it be hard? Certainly, when we first attempt
to do so. But <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">maybe we can pray and act and
sing our way into a new way of loving?</b> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">So
that loving others, even those who don’t love us, becomes our first and natural
response.</b></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Maybe if we remain faithful to the way
of Jesus taking it one day at a time, perhaps the day will come when we
discover that it’s not hard anymore. Can you imagine what it would be like to
have our human soul and spirit so saturated by divine love – a good measure,
pressed down, shaken together, running over, as Jesus says – that it becomes
easy to love those who hate and curse us.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Do you think it’s hard for an
accomplished pianist like Sara to play a gospel hymn on the piano? At one time
it was. At one time it was real difficult. I suspect those many years ago when
she was learning keys and notes and who knows, maybe got a little discouraged,
she had to imagine what she would be able to do one day. Can you imagine
reaching a place where you no longer have to fight back the urge to return hate
with hate, blow for blow, curse for curse? Can you imagine a time where all you
can do is bless those who curse you, do good to those who hurt you, and pray
for those who condemn you? Wouldn’t it be great to reach a place where the
inclusive love of God is the only thing in our purse?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>Chuck Queenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07189976951236608116noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7984481633806018539.post-72545470598587500662022-02-15T07:18:00.002-08:002022-02-15T07:26:22.177-08:00Taking Hold of Life that is Really Life (Luke 6:17-26; 1 Tim. 6:17-19) <div style="text-align: left;"> <span> <span style="font-size: x-large;">L</span></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">ast week’s Lectionary text from the
Gospel of Luke was the call of the first disciples in 5:1-11. From 5:12 through
6:16 Luke gathers together several controversy and call stories. The story that
immediately precedes the Lectionary text of Luke 6:17-27 (Sixth Sunday after
Epiphany) is the story of Jesus designating twelve of his disciples as
apostles. Beginning at 6:20 and extending through 6:49 is a section of teaching
that is somewhat parallel to Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7. Luke
omits several teachings that are in Matthew, though some of these teachings
show up in Luke in different settings in abbreviated form. Luke inserts some unique
material and in a few places the material appears in a different sequence than
Matthew’s version.</span></div><p><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Luke 6:17-19 sets the context for the
teaching that follows. In Matthew Jesus delivers this teaching on a mountain;
in Luke Jesus teaches on a level place. The audience according to Luke includes
the twelve apostles, a large crowd of disciples, and a great number of people
from all over Judea, from Jerusalem, and from the coast of Tyre and Sidon. A
good number of these folks sought out Jesus to heal them of their diseases and
free them from their bondage to evil spirits. All of these folks who came
together to hear the teaching of Jesus reflect various levels of interest and
commitment. Luke says in v. 20, </span><i style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Then
Jesus looked up at his disciples.”</i><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> This teaching is meant for everyone, but
it is particularly intended for his disciples.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><i><span style="font-size: 16pt;">“Blessed
are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are
hungry now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will
laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile
you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap
for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their
ancestors did to the prophets.</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></i><i><span style="font-size: 16pt;">“But
woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who
are full now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who are laughing now, for you
will mourn and weep. Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what
their ancestors did to the false prophets” (Luke 6:22-26).</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">As in Matthew, Jesus does not begin with
admonitions or exhortations, but blessings. The first three blessings are not
based on the merit of the recipient nor given as a reward for living a
particular kind of life. The last blessing, which actually uses the word “reward”
infers a life of faithful service for God’s kingdom lived in the midst of vitriol
and persecution unleashed on the faithful servant. This last blessing is the
only one based on faithfulness to Jesus and the kingdom he embodied and
proclaimed (“on account of the Son of Man”); the other three are simply
pronouncements on the poor, the hungry, and the sorrowful. They are not rewards
for good deeds. The blessings simply pronounce or declare what is. The first blessing
is described in the present tense, the next three are set in a future context.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Unlike Matthew, Luke has four
corresponding woes upon the rich, the well-fed, those who laugh (perhaps the
intent here is those who laugh at the poor and defeated), and those who are
well-spoken-of. In each case, the woe consists in the reversal of their
condition or state of existence: The rich have already received their
consolation, the well-fed will one day know hunger, those who laugh will one
day weep, and to be spoken well of has no merit because this is what the people
did to the false prophets.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">So what does this mean? What are the
implications of this teaching? Let me start by suggesting what it doesn’t mean.
I don’t think Jesus is saying that we all have to divest ourselves of all our material
goods to know God and be faithful to God. We could do that and still be
anxious, fearful, resentful, vengeful, bitter persons. We can give away
everything, and if we are bitter about it, we end up being worse off
spiritually after we do it than before.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Also a person who is materially poor is
not immune to the temptations and distractions a person of wealth struggles
with. If one is so poor that one has to spend all one’s time trying to
“survive” one doesn’t have much of an occasion or perhaps interest in
developing a spiritual life. If you have hungry children, your only concern is
getting them food. Though, such a situation could drive one to trust completely
in God, since God is all one has. Still, one might be bitter at God rather than
dependent upon God.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">But having said that, let’s be clear.
Luke does not spiritualize these blessings the way Matthew does. Matthew turns
the “poor” into <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“poor in spirit,”</i> and
the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“hungry”</i> in Luke become in
Matthew those who “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">hunger and thirst
after righteousness.”</i> Luke is talking about definite socioeconomic
conditions. The “poor” in Luke are the materially impoverished. Here in Luke
Jesus is not idealizing or glorifying poverty, but let’s make no mistake, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Jesus has a partisan commitment to the
poor.</b> God favors the poor. Is Jesus showing partiality toward the poor?
Indeed, he is. Poverty is the result of inequity and injustice in the world,
and God always takes the side of the oppressed. Jesus, himself, has a special
concern and compassion for the poor in Palestine. Jesus’ primary mission and
ministry was to the poor. Jesus did not minister in a major city. The two
largest cities of Galilee were Sepphoris and Tiberias, and as far as we know Jesus
never set foot in either. He went to small villages, towns, and the rural
countryside ministering among the peasant class.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">In his woes upon the rich Jesus is not
saying that a rich person cannot be rich in God. While Jesus did indeed
instruct a few people to divest themselves of their material goods and follow
him, Jesus didn’t tell everyone to do that. Luke points out that some women
disciples whose families had wealth supported Jesus and his mission <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“out of their resources”</i> (see Luke
8:1-3). The writer of First Timothy has some interesting advice for the rich.
The writer is instructing church leaders, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“As
for those who in the present age are rich, command them not be haughty, or to
set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but rather on God who richly provides
us with everything for our enjoyment. They are to do good, to be rich in good
works, generous, ready to share, thus storing up for themselves the treasure of
a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life that
really is life.” (6:17-19).</i></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">One can be rich in material goods and
rich toward God; however, it is not easy to do. Jesus warns in other places in
this Gospel that to be wealthy brings temptations, attachments, and struggles
that make it difficult to live in the kingdom of God and lay hold of life that
is truly life. After a certain ruler rich in material goods walked away from
Jesus’ invitation to give all he had away and follow him, Jesus said to his
disciples, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“How hard it is for those who
have wealth to enter the kingdom of God. It is easier for a camel to go through
the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God”
(18:24-25).</i> Now, it’s not impossible. When the disciples expressed their
exasperation, Jesus went on to say, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“What
seems impossible for mortals, is possible with God.”</i> But, make no mistake,
it’s hard. Why? Because the more we have the more we are attached to, which
makes it all the more difficult to do what Jesus asks us to do, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Seek first the kingdom of God, and God’s
righteousness or justice (Matt 6:33a).”</i> It’s the world’s kind of justice
that creates poverty. It’s God’s kind of justice that eliminates it. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">It’s hard for those who have wealth to
realize that wealth puts them at a disadvantage when it comes to the kingdom of
God. It’s hard for all of us to see, because the world operates on a different
principle. Money talks. Money gains advantages. Money makes possible the best
education, the best health care, the best comforts. You see, it’s not just the
money, it’s what having money brings – more comforts yes, but also more power,
more control, more clout, more prestige, and with all these attachments, the
more difficult it is to lay hold of life that is really life. This is why Paul
said to the Corinthians who were getting their priorities all turned around, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Consider your own call, brothers and
sisters, not many of you were wise by human standards, not many of you were
powerful, not many of you were of nobility (1 Cor 1:26).”</i> Now, he didn’t
say, “Not any of you.” It’s not impossible, but he did say, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Not many of you.”</i> The more we have, the
more difficult it is to live in the kingdom of God. So when it comes to living
in the kingdom of God, the poor definitely have an advantage.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">There was a man who feared his own
footprints. So, instead of walking, he took to running, which only increased
the number of footprints he made. What he needed to do, of course, was stop.
Continuing to do more of that which creates fear and , anxiety is
self-defeating. When Jesus says things like, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God,” </i>and
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Woe to you who are rich, for you have
received your consolation,”</i> he is trying to get his hearers to stop and reflect
on the possibility that the values and norms they were conditioned to accept
and conform to could be doing them more harm than good.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Many of the teachings of Jesus are hard
for us hear because they are the direct opposite of what is considered normal
in the world. You see, the kingdom of God that Jesus proclaimed turns the
values, priorities, and conventional wisdom of the world on its head. Jesus
takes what is common and normal and flips it upside down.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">When it comes to the poor and those
beaten down by life in general or the powers that be in particular Jesus wants
them know that the world’s judgment and disregard is not God’s judgment and
assessment of their lives. Jesus in essence is saying, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“You are not disparaged or forgotten by God; quite the contrary, you are
blessed. To you belongs the kingdom of God.”</i></span><i><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">The poor don’t know how blessed by God
they are and the rich don’t know how spiritually poor they are, because the
world has it upside down. So while it seems like Jesus is turning the world
upside down, what he is really doing is turning it right side up. Jesus wants
to lift the poor out of their feelings of worthlessness, and he wants to knock
the rich off their perch of feeling privileged.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">I heard about a woman who liked to tell
the story about a talk she gave to a group of women. She drew stick figures on
the board that represented various styles of relationship. One pair of figures
was grossly mismatched. The first one towered above the second and glared down
at it. Although it was a simple drawing, it expressed the whole world that many
people knew too well. After the talk a woman who did not speak English came and
pounded on the board, hitting the lower figure with her fist and shouting, “Me!
Me! Me!”</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">One day she was in a small group where
she told that story. One of the members of the group said, “Well and good. But
what if she gets out of the relationship? Where will she go? What will she do?”
This lady who told the story at first tensed up as if she was going to attack
the one who asked the question, but then she paused, slid back in her chair,
and waited a few moments before she spoke. She said, “Wherever there is unjust
suffering, you stop it. Sure, you might not know what is next. So what. You
know what shouldn’t be and what won’t last in the long run. It doesn’t make any
difference whether you are on the bottom or top of the relationship. It is
oppressive and it is wrong. There is a better life. Reach for it. And don’t
count the cost.” (Adapted from John Shea, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“The
Relentless Widow,”</i> pp 45-46). This woman, like Jesus, was committed to
exposing false forms, counterfeit expressions and impersonations of life that
is really life. This is what Jesus is doing here.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">We are programmed to be biased and to
see things a certain way, and we come to these biases quite naturally. The biases
of our parents, our religious teachers, our peers, our social groups, etc., all
condition us to view life a particular way. The problem, however, is that more
often than naught our way of seeing is pervaded by counterfeit impersonations
of what true life really is. Jesus wanted to knock people off their false
foundations. Every view point is a view from a point – the point where we stand.
Jesus wanted to give people a new place to stand in order that they might see
God and the world, and their place in it in a different way. In order to lay
hold of life that is really life we have to know what true life is. Therefore,
the false impersonations and counterfeit expressions of life must be exposed. Deconstruction
always precedes reconstruction. As Richard Rohr likes to say, “the movement is
from order to disorder to reorder.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Jesus is trying to get people to see
that what they think is life may not be life at all. Jesus is saying, “You
think the wealthy and well-fed and those who laugh at the defeated and those
who have position and clout are blessed. You are wrong. It’s the poor and
hungry and sorrowful and grieved and hated and rejected who are blessed.”</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">In the kingdom of God we learn best
through failure not success, we learn far more through suffering than through pleasure.
Robert Browning Hamilton says it well, “I walked a mile with Pleasure; / She chatted
all the way; But left me none the wiser / for all she had to say. // I walked <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a mile with Sorrow, / And ne’er a word said
she; / But oh! The things I learned from her, / When sorrow walked with me.” We
may need to see just how “poor,” how destitute of life we are before we will
ever reach out for and lay hold of the life that is really life.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">So what Jesus is doing in these “blessings”
and “woes” is unmasking the counterfeits. Jesus is exposing the false
impersonations of what is truly life, so that we might reach out and lay hold
of true life. Jesus announces and teaches the kingdom of God, which is really a
way of life. A way of life that is very different than the way of life
normalized in the kingdoms of the world. The disciples, like all of us, had a
hard time getting it. They are caught by Jesus more than once arguing over who
should wield the most power and occupy the highest place in the kingdom of God.
Jesus tries to tell them, just as the Christ keeps trying to tell us,
whispering to us in our true deepest self, our true self that true life is not
about ruling and controlling and possessing money and power. Jesus told the
disciples that the Son of Man did not come to be served, to rule, to wield
power, but rather to serve, to give his life for God’s cause, for God’s will
and purpose, and for the redemption, the healing and liberation of many. The
Son of Man is a model for us all. Jesus embodied the life that is really life. As
the writer of First Timothy says, “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">it’s
about doing good, being rich in good works (serving others), being generous,
and always ready to share.”</i> Such are the expressions and manifestations of
life that is really life. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>Chuck Queenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07189976951236608116noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7984481633806018539.post-15372565909573105962022-02-08T08:02:00.002-08:002022-02-08T08:04:46.156-08:00Going Deeper (Luke 5:1-11)<p><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Jesus is becoming known throughout
Galilee as a healer and exorcist. Luke, however, wants us to know that while
Jesus heals all manner of sickness and casts out demons his first priority and
foremost work is to announce the good news of the kingdom of God and teach
about the ways of God in the world. At the end of chapter 4, as a prelude to
our text today in Luke 5:1-11, the people of Capernaum tried to prevent him
from leaving. But Jesus says, </span><i style="font-size: 16pt;">“I must
proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to other cities also: for I was
sent for this purpose.”</i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Jesus had an itinerate ministry, going
from place to place, and he knew that he needed to train disciples who could
continue the work when he was gone. I think early on he sensed that he himself
would not have long. He knew that the powers that be would find his work
offensive. So he calls disciples, whom he will train, and to whom he will leave
the work when he is gone. Our Gospel story today is the call of the first
disciples. Luke’s account is quite different than Mark’s version, and Matthew’s
version who basically follows Mark almost word for word. In Mark the call of
Andrew and Simon occurs in scene; and in a second scene Jesus calls James and
John. In Luke it all takes place in once scene, and Luke changes it up. There
are some similarities, however, Luke’s version is unique. And this is just
another reminder to all of us that a Gospel is not a historical report, it is a
proclamation of the good news </span><i style="font-size: 16pt;">of</i><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> Jesus
and the good news </span><i style="font-size: 16pt;">about</i><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> Jesus.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">“Once while Jesus was standing beside
the lake of Gennesaret, and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word
of God, he saw two boats there at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gone
out of them and were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one
belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then
he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. When he had finished speaking,
he said to Simon, ‘Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a
catch.’ Simon answered, ‘Master, we have worked all night long and have caught
nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.’ When they had done this,
they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break. So they signaled
their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and
filled both boats, so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw it, he
fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, ‘Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful
man!’ For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that
they had taken; and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were
partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, ‘Do not be afraid; from now on
you will be catching people.’ When they had brought their boats to shore, they
left everything and followed him.” (Luke 11:1-11, NRSV)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Jesus is standing beside the lake of
Galilee, also called Gennesaret, and the people are pressing in upon him to
hear the word of God. Beside him are fishermen, who</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">includes Simon, James, and John, and Luke
says they were </span><i style="font-size: 16pt;">“washing their nets.”</i><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
They are doing what must be done, namely, removing the obstructions (grass,
sticks, other debris) that would keep the nets from functioning properly. It
was </span><i style="font-size: 16pt;">routine</i><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> work and it was </span><i style="font-size: 16pt;">necessary </i><span style="font-size: 16pt;">work, and it speaks to (points
to and symbolizes) the spiritual work we all must do if we want to live a healthy,
fruitful, good life.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">The
work of washing the nets is the work of attending to our souls.</span></i><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> Unlike the fishermen, however, who can see quite clearly
what needs to be cleaned and cleared away from the nets, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">we often are blind to the obstructions in our souls </i>that keep us
stuck in one place, and hinder the dynamic flow of the Divine Spirit in and
through our lives. Our ego, unfortunately, is quite adept at keeping us stuck
in one place and blind to the truth that can set us free. In life we acquire
from all sorts of influences (family and friends, religious and social groups, the
media, society at large, all the stuff we watch and read and fill our heads and
hearts with) both positive and negative patterns of thinking and reacting, attitudes
and behaviors that keep us from loving others better and from being all that
God wills for us to be. A key step necessary to divest and detach ourselves of
these negative patterns, attitudes and behaviors is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">to become aware that we need to. </i>That seems to obvious, yet many people
live much of their lives, maybe all of their lives, completely unaware of the
negativity in their souls and what they need to relinquish. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Jesus decides to use Simon’s boat as a
kind of floating podium, so he can speak the word of God to the people. After
he finishes, he tells Simon, better known as Peter, to launch out into deeper
water and let down his nets for a catch. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
spiritual path is always a journey into deeper water.</i> It’s not about
believing doctrines about God, Jesus, or anything else – that’s not deeper
water, that’s shallow water. There are multitudes of people worldwide who are
members of churches, synagogues, mosques, and other religious communities who
believe doctrines, attend religious gatherings, participate in rituals of
worship, etc. and yet remain stuck in the same place spiritually and morally
for years. They make no progress. Why? Because believing doctrines
intellectually, giving mental assent to doctrines does not change anyone. It
does not make a difference in how we live. I have no doubt that God cares very
little about the doctrines we believe. The religions of the world have many
different doctrines. The various kinds of Christianity the world over have many
different doctrines. We are afraid of the Great Mystery God is so we invent
doctrines. God cares little about doctrines. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">What God cares most about is our souls. God cares about you and me as
persons, as human beings. </i>God wants us to grow as persons and human
communities. God wants us to grow in our relationships, and in the constructive
ways we relate to one another and care for one another. God wants us to grow in
character – in honesty, humility, and compassion. And most of all God wants us
to grow in our capacity to love so that we become more fully human. (The more
fully human we become the more like God we become). This is why Paul says to
the Colossians, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Clothe yourselves with
compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another
and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the
Lord has forgiven you . . . Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds
everything together in perfect harmony (Col 12-14).”</i></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">This type of personal growth is a
process that takes time, because the little self, the ego dominated self
acquires over the years many layers of self- protection and defensive posturing.
It takes some time in internal growth to peel these layers back. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Jesus gives us a model for going about this.</i>
Luke tells us that when Jesus heard the Divine Voice affirming him as God’s
beloved son, he was praying. In 4:42 Luke tells us that after a long day of
many hours of ministry, early the next day he sought out a deserted place.
Throughout this Gospel Luke will tell us time and time again how Jesus withdrew
from the crowds to deserted places, places of solitude and silence, places
where he could be alone with himself, and to be alone with himself was to be
alone with God. And it is the same for us. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Jesus
withdrew to places of quiet and solitude to consciously connect with God, the
Divine Spirit within his soul.</i> This is where Jesus found the courage,
empowerment, endurance, guidance, wisdom, and compassion he needed to fulfill
his calling. The spiritual life is a matter of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">cooperation with</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">participation
in</i> the will and work of the Spirit or Christ (same Divine Reality) who
abides in us. The spiritual life is a life whereby one intentionally relies on
and trusts in the indwelling Spirit/Christ to form one into a more aware,
mature, loving human being.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Going deeper requires that we set aside
time to listen for the voice of God in our true self. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The one thing we need to ask God for is awareness</i>. Awareness to see
what is in our soul. Awareness to see our original goodness and beauty, as well
as our sin and selfishness. Most of the time change or growth comes in small,
hardly noticeable increments, but once in a while, we have a revelation, an
epiphany, a moment of enlightenment, which can never be programmed or scripted
because it’s pure gift. We just have to be open and ready to receive it.
Because if we are not open to it, a bush can be aglow with the fire of God, but
it will seem to us to be no different than any of the other bushes. If we are
not attentive, if we are not tuned in and awake, we will miss it.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">I recently came across a different
fishing story about Jesus and Saint Peter that I think sheds light on this
Gospel story. It was well known that the Lord Jesus and Saint Peter used to
retire to the local tavern after a hard day of ministry to break bread and wine
together. One rainy night St. Peter turned to the Lord Jesus and grinned,
“We’re doing real good.” “We?” asked the Lord Jesus. Peter paused, “Alright,
you’re doing real good.” “Me?” asked the Lord Jesus. Peter pondered longer this
time. “Alright, God’s doing real good.” The Lord Jesus, however, could see how
reluctant St. Peter was to admit the source of all goodness. Jesus laughed and
hit the table with his fist. It was the laugh that got to St. Peter.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Peter pushed his face toward Jesus and
blurted out, “Look, I was somebody before you came along. You didn’t make me. I
know that now everyone says, “There goes the Lord Jesus and his sidekick St.
Peter. Jesus cures them and Peter picks them up.” But it wasn’t always that
way. People knew me in my own right. I was respected and looked up to. They
would say, “There goes Peter, the greatest fisherman in all of Galilee.” “I
heard that you were a good fisherman, Peter,” said the Lord Jesus, who was
always quick to praise. “You’re darn right I was. And tomorrow I am going to
prove it. We are going fishing, and you will see how the other fishermen
respect and look to my lead.” “I would love to go fishing, Peter; I have never
been fishing,” said the Lord Jesus, who was always looking for new adventures.
“What will we do with all the fish we catch?” inquired Jesus. “Well,” Peter
smiled with the wry smile of a fox, “We’ll eat a few, store the rest, wait till
there is a shortage, then put them on the market at top dollar and turn a big
profit.” “Oh,” sighed the Lord Jesus, who had a puzzled and pained look on his
face.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">The next morning at dawn the Lord Jesus
and Saint Peter were down at the shore readying their boat. And it was just as
Saint Peter said. When the other fishermen saw Peter, they wandered over.
“Going out?” they asked. “Yeah,” answered Peter, not looking up from the nets. “Mind
if we come along?” “Why not?” shrugged Peter, pretending to be bothered by
them. When they left, he glared over at the Lord Jesus and said, “See!”</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Saint Peter’s boat led the way. Now
Peter was a scientist of a fisherman. He tasted the water, scanned the sky,
peered down at the lake, pointed off to the side, and gave the word in a
whisper, “Over there.” “Why isn’t anyone talking asked the Lord Jesus in a
voice much too loud for the quiet work of netting fishes. “Shhhh!” Peter put
his finger to his lips and glared at the Lord Jesus. The boats formed a wide
circle around the area Peter had pointed to. Peter gave the word, “Let down the
nets.” So they did. And then they began to pull them in. But something was
wrong. The muscles of their arms did not tighten under the weight of fish. The
nets rose quickly; the arms of the men were slack. All they caught was water
and some grass. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">The fishermen rowed their boats over to
St. Peter and the Lord Jesus. They were a chorus of anger. “The greatest
fisherman in all of Galilee, my grandmother’s bald head! You brought us all the
way out here for nothing. We’ve wasted the best hours of the day and have
nothing to show for it.” And they rowed toward the shore shouting curses over
their shoulder. The Lord Jesus said nothing. Saint Peter tried a second time.
But nothing. Peter said, “Over there,” as Jesus took over the oars. All day
long, laboring under the hot sun, they let down their nets and came up empty
each time.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">When evening fell an exhausted St. Peter
raised the tattered sail to make for shore. The weary Lord Jesus sat in the front
with a strange look of anticipation on his face. It was then, as the boat
glided toward shore that it happened. All the fish in the sea of Galilee came
to the surface. They leapt on one side of the boat and they leapt on the other
side of the boat. They leapt behind the boat and they leapt in front of the
boat. They formed a squadron around the boat, escorting it toward shore in full
fanfare. Then in a mass suicide of fish, they began to leap into the boat. They
landed in the lap of the laughing Lord Jesus. They smacked the astonished Saint
Peter in the face. When the boat arrived at shore, it was brimming, creaking,
sinking under the weight of the fish.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">All the other fishermen were waiting.
They gathered around Saint Peter and slapped him on the back. “Peter, you
scoundrel! You knew where the fish were all the time and never let on.” They
hit him on the shoulder. “Peter, you rogue! You put us on. You are surely the
greatest fisherman in all of Galilee.” But Saint Peter was uncharacteristically
silent. He only said, “Give the fish to everyone. Tonight, no one in this
village will go without food.” After that, he said nothing. But later that
evening, at the tavern with the bread and wine between them, Peter looked
across the table at the Lord Jesus and said, “Go away from me. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I wanted the fish to be over them, not with
them. I wanted the fish to rule them, not feed them. You go away from me. I am
a sinful man</i>.” But Jesus just smiled, not the wry smile of a fox, but the
smile that moves the sun and the stars. For the Lord Jesus had no intention of
going away. There were other fish to catch. (Adapted from John Shea, <i>The Relentless Widow,</i> pp. 39-42)</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">In this legendary story, as well as in
the Gospel story, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Peter has an encounter,
an epiphany whereby he comes to a greater awareness of his ego-centered
motivations and strategies.</i> “I wanted the fish to be over them,” he says, “I
wanted the fish to rule them.” The motivations and strategies and preoccupations
of the little self, the false self are common to us all. And when we are
attentive to our souls, we become aware of our selfish strategies and
motivations. Often this is a slow and painful process, however, occasionally we
have a self-revelation, an epiphany.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">However, before we are free to grapple
with all these ego dominated motivations and manipulations we must realize
something else first. What is the first thing the Spirit says to Jesus at the
beginning of the Gospel? The Divine Voice says to Jesus while he is praying, just
after he had been baptized by John, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“You
are my beloved Son, on you my favor rests.”</i> Why does Jesus hear this Voice
before he begins his ministry? Because it is foundational to all progress in
our spiritual and moral growth and development as the daughters and sons of God.
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">When we are secure in God’s love, and are
convinced that nothing will ever sever us from God’s love, we are free to be
completely honest about all the negative stuff we struggle with, because we
know nothing will turn God away.</i> (And I hope you understand that when you
are honest with yourself, you are honest with God, because you can only relate
to the God who is in you, not God out there somewhere.) Paul expresses this in
his letter to the Romans when he says that nothing<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> – “not death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present,
nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all
creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our
Lord (Rom 8:38-39).”</i></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Christ
Jesus</span></i><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> is the Christian way into the
experience of God’s steadfast, forever love. It’s not the only way, but it is
the Christian way. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Christ </i>is the
Divine Reality that is in our souls, Christ is our true self, the indwelling
Spirit, the Divine nature that we all have, whereas <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Jesus </i>is the human person we learn about in the Gospels, who
reveals in his life and work the character and passion of God. So in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Christ Jesus</i>, in the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Christ </i>who dwells within and in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Jesus</i> who we read about in our <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Gospels, we learn that God’s love for us,
individually and as a species, as human beings, is unchangeable and
indestructible. When you actually come to trust that (when you believe it in
your heart, not just your head) then you are free to look deeply and honestly
at all your negative habits, and attitudes, and actions, and see quite clearly
where you need to change. For you have nothing to be afraid of.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">When Peter has this moment of
enlightenment, of self-revelation where he sees just how conniving and
manipulating and prideful he has been, what does he say<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">, “Go away from me. For I am a sinful man.”</i> And what is the first
thing that Jesus says, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Peter, don’t be
afraid?”</i> Don’t be afraid of what? Afraid of God’s wrath? Maybe. How many of
us were told by parents and preachers and Sunday School teachers that if we didn’t
believe the right things or do the right things we would end up in a fiery hell.
(And by the way, these were not bad people who told us these things, they were
just telling us what others told them. They really didn’t know any better.) Who
wouldn’t be afraid of a God who dangles hell over our heads? Was Peter afraid
that he could never be a person worthy of love or perhaps worthy of being a
servant of God? Maybe that too. Jesus says, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Look,
Peter, there is nothing to fear. God loves you and has a purpose for you. You
can’t do anything to keep God from loving you. And you can’t get away from God
no matter what you do. No, Peter, I am not going away. You are going with me
and you are going to be catching people for God. You are going to throw open
the net of God’s love and invite anyone who wants to be loved with an eternal
love to swim right in.”</i> I don’t know why anyone would not want to get
caught in God’s net. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>Chuck Queenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07189976951236608116noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7984481633806018539.post-90228112530854595732022-01-22T10:04:00.003-08:002022-01-22T10:10:26.933-08:00So Great a Salvation (Luke 4:14 - 21; Eph. 2:8 - 10)<p> <span style="font-size: 16pt;">In my sermon last week from John 2:1-11
where Jesus attends a wedding in Cana of Galilee and changes water into wine, we
saw how John invests statements, questions, images, as well as words, phrases,
and concepts with multiple meanings. (This sermon can be accessed at the
Immanuel Baptist Church, Frankfort, KY Facebook page – worship service for Jan
16, sermon starts at about 17.15). A statement or phrase or image may mean one
thing on the conversational level, but have deeper spiritual or moral or
theological meanings. Now, while this is most obvious in John, this is actually
true of all the Gospels. This is most certainly true of our text today.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">All three of the Synoptic Gospels
include an account of Jesus teaching in the synagogue in his hometown of Nazareth
where he grew up, and they all speak of his rejection by the people in Nazareth,
but only Luke tells us what Jesus actually taught. Mark and Matthew’s account
are very similar. Not word for word, but Matthew closely follows Mark. Luke, on
the other hand, goes his own way. Luke changes the chronology, so that Jesus’
Nazareth visit occurs at the beginning of his ministry, rather than later in
his ministry as in Mark and Matthew. When Jesus reads from Isaiah in the
synagogue, Luke actually draws from two passages in Isaiah. The dominate
passage is Isaiah 61:1-2 and the other is Isaiah 58:6. Luke uses this reading
to give us his perspective on what the mission of Jesus was about.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">It was quite popular some years ago for
church leaders in large churches, seminaries, and denominations to push for ministers
and local church leaders to come to some consensus on what their purpose
involved. So many denominational consultants encouraged congregations to go
through a process that would lead to some clear purpose or mission statement.
In a sense what Jesus reads from Isaiah in our text is Luke’s purpose statement
on the mission and ministry of Jesus. Luke is saying, “Here is what Jesus is
about. This is Jesus’ agenda, This is his purpose and mission.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Luke tells us that Jesus will <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“bring good news to the poor.”</i> Who are
the poor? Well, in Luke they are first and foremost the material poor, the
economically poor, those who perhaps often go hungry because they have no money
for food. How do we know that this is Luke’s primary meaning? Because later in
this Gospel Jesus says, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Blessed are you
who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God”</i> and after he pronounces
blessing on the poor he follows with a woe upon the rich. He says, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Woe to you who are rich, for you have
received your consolation.”</i> Clearly, he is not talking about those rich in
spirit, he is talking about those rich materially. And correspondingly he is
talking about those materially poor.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">However, these words in Luke have
multiple meanings. There is no reason to make this exclusively about the
material poor. It could also mean <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“poor
in spirit,”</i> a phrase that occurs in Matthew’s Gospel. This could refer to
persons or communities who for whatever reason are downtrodden and impoverished
in spirit, whether in material poverty or not. It could even have a more positive
meaning as it does in Matthew’s first Beatitude, where it refers to a spirit of
humility. It can mean any of these things, however, it’s clear from the way
Luke uses the word in other contexts that Jesus’ acceptance of and compassion
toward the material poor is Luke’s primary meaning.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">So what else is part of Jesus’ agenda?
Luke says Jesus will <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“proclaim release to
the captives”</i> and that he was sent <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“to
let the oppressed go free.”</i> Again, Luke has in mind all those held captive
and oppressed in various ways. Certainly he has in mind those imprisoned by
authorities in Roman jails and those oppressed socially, physically,
economically, and spiritually. The Jews were often used and abused by the
Romans and sometimes by their fellow Jews, especially those who sided with Rome
for their own personal gain, which is why Jewish tax collectors who worked for
the Romans were so despised.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Of course, Luke would not have intended
the liberation that Jesus is talking about to be limited to those imprisoned in
Roman jails or those oppressed by Rome or their fellow Jews. There are other
forms of bondage and oppression. There are those under bondage to their greed
and prejudice. There are those who are tethered to negative habits and patterns
of thought and behavior. Others are beaten down and oppressed economically and
socially by circumstances and forces beyond their control. Jesus is concerned
with all these forms of confinement and oppression.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">This, too, would include those under
demonic possession and oppression, a phenomena that we read about in the
Synoptic Gospels. And though it may be hard for us to understand in our
culture, in that day and time it was a phenomena that led to debilitating conditions
that were life-diminishing and destructive to others as well as one’s self. In
addition, the Greek word translated <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“release”</i>
is a word that Luke uses in his Gospel to refer to the forgiveness of sins, so
that too would be a part of the purpose of Jesus, namely, to set free those
burdened and weighed down by the guilt of their sins and the harm their sins
and offenses have caused others. You see, there are different kinds of release
and different kinds of captivity and oppression and different kinds of
liberation and freedom. It’s not just one thing; it’s all of these things. </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">What else is Jesus’ mission about? Jesus
will also <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“bring recovery of sight to the
blind.”</i> Here, like the other Gospel writers, I suspect that Luke first of
all has in mind what many spiritual teachers call “enlightenment.” On one level
Jesus restores physical sight, but it is also quite clear that many of the
healing stories in the Gospels function like parables of the gospel of Jesus. Few
of us may be blind physically, but all of us stumble around in more to lesser
degrees in moral, spiritual, and emotional blindness. But it doesn’t have to be
so. Though Jesus’ healings and exorcisms, through his teachings and sayings,
through his parables and riddles, through his confrontations with the religious
authorities and sometimes through vivid shocking imagery Jesus can open the
eyes of those who are spiritually and morally blind – that is, if we want him
to. Many seem to be quite content in their blindness.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Well, what else Luke? Luke caps it off
with the announcement of the year of Jubilee, which Luke refers to as the year
of the Lord’s favor. The year of Jubilee as outlined in Leviticus 25:8-12 was
to occur every fiftieth year in Israel. It was a time of jubilation because it
was a time when all financial debts were to be canceled, all prisoners and
indentured servants were to be released, and all land in Israel was to revert
back to their original owners. Of course, the religious leaders of the Jews at
the time of Jesus had no power at all to actually enforce the year of Jubilee even
if they wanted to, because they were under the oppressive hand of Rome. Jesus
couldn’t enforce this, but he could proclaim the spirit of it. This legislation
was intended to prevent monopolies and limit the consolidation of land and
wealth in the hands of the few, so all would have an opportunity to thrive. The
spirit of Jubilee is the spirit of equality and justice.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">So, all of this, says Luke, is what
Jesus is about. From Luke’s view point this is God’s salvation that is
fulfilled or realized through Jesus’ words and deeds. When Jesus says, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Today, this Scripture is fulfilled in your
hearing,”</i> Luke is telling us that God’s salvation as announced by Isaiah is
going to be realized, it’s going to come to fruition, it’s going to be embodied
in the life and teachings and actions of Jesus. All of this is part of God’s
salvation. It’s like a diamond – it is multi-faceted.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Rick Warren, the pastor of huge
megachurch in Orange County, California, wrote two highly popular books, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Purpose-Driven Church</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Purpose-Driven Life. </i></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">The latter may be the best selling
religious book of all-time. It has sold millions of copies. Warren references
hundreds of Bible verses, however, Luke 4:14-21 is never mentioned. Isn’t it
ironic that a Christian minister writing to Christians about God’s purpose, a
book that quotes numerous scriptures, would not quote the most articulate and
complete statement of Jesus’ purpose and mission in the New Testament?</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">How did so many of us miss this when it
is so obvious in the Gospel of Luke, and for that matter, in the rest of the
New Testament as well? The reason so many of us missed it is because we were
not taught how to see it. We were taught to see something else. We were taught
to see salvation only in terms of one’s individual relationship with God – the focus
being on the remitting of the penalty of sin and deliverance from God’s
judgment. I don’t know what your past experience has been, but I was taught
that sin separates us from God and puts us under God’s condemnation, and unless
we experience God’s salvation we are doomed and will be separated from God
forever. Luke, however, doesn’t say a word about being separated from God or
being saved from God’s judgment.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">As I pointed out Luke draws from Isaiah
61:1-2 in describing the mission and agenda of Jesus. But do you know what Luke
omits from the description in Isaiah 61? The last phrase mentioned in Isaiah
61:2 is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“the day of vengeance of our God.”</i>
Luke omits this phrase. It’s not in Luke 4. Why? It should be obvious. Luke
does not see that as part of Jesus’ agenda. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">One day not too long ago I was looking
for the bread in the pantry. I looked and looked and couldn’t find it. So, I
did what most husbands do. “Hey honey, do you know where the bread is?” Melissa
walks over, reaches inside, picks it up, and looks at me like, “What is wrong
with you? Are you blind?” Well, in my defense let me say that it was in a
different place. I had been programmed to find the bread in this place, but it
was in that place, and I looked right over it. Why did I not see what now seems
so obvious in Luke’s Gospel, and, for that matter, in the rest of the New
Testament? I didn’t see it because I was not programmed to see it, so I looked
right over it. I was programmed to see salvation as the remission of sin’s
penalty and as deliverance from God’s judgment. And yet Luke not only does not
mention this, Luke purposefully omits the phrase from Isaiah 61 that speaks of
God’s judgment. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">I was also programmed to see salvation
as a single, solitary, one time experience. But clearly, what Luke is talking about
would involve multiple experiences. I have shared before the story that the
late Fred Craddock tells about going home to West Tennessee to visit, where an
old high school friend named Buck owned a restaurant. Fred went in for some pie
and coffee and Buck said, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Do you see the
curtain?”</i> This was in the days of Jim Crow, the days of segregation. And
Fred said, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Yea, I see the curtain.”</i> Buck
told Fred, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“The curtain has to come
down.”</i> Fred said<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">, “Good, take it
down.”</i> But then Buck paused and confessed the struggle he was undergoing. He
said to Fred<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">, “If I take the curtain
down, I lose a lot of customers, maybe even my business.”</i> But then he said,
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“If I leave that curtain up, I lose my
soul.”</i></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Buck understood that this was a matter
of salvation. It was about the losing or saving of his soul. Buck understood
that this was about the health and growth, or the diminishment and regression
of his soul. Salvation is about our soul and how our soul relates to other
souls. As Luke will make clear later in his gospel, we can’t love God without
loving our neighbor, because our relationship with God is directly impacted by
our relationship to others.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">When Fred told Buck to take the curtain
down he was calling on Buck to be faithful to the gospel of Jesus, because the
gospel of Jesus is about liberating the oppressed. Paul tells the church at
Ephesus that we are “saved by grace” (Eph. 2:8), and grace can come to us in a
multitude of ways. God’s grace was speaking to Buck through his conscience,
through his spirit. And that Voice was reinforced through the word of his
friend, Fred, who served as a messenger of God’s salvation saying to Buck, “Take
that curtain down.” Fred was saying, “Set free the oppressed.” To employ the
language of evangelicals, which I know from experience very well, we could say
that Buck was dealing with the conviction of the Holy Spirit, and he had to
decide whether or not he was going to be born again and make a profession of
faith. You don’t have to be in church to be born again and make a profession of
faith.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Buck’s profession of faith called for
nothing less that ripping down that curtain. A new birth is just one of the
many images that describe salvation in scripture. Buck needed to die to his
racism, or to his conformity to a racist culture, and be raised anew to do the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“good works”</i> of mercy and justice that he
was created in Christ Jesus and chose in Christ Jesus to do before the
foundation of the world (Eph. 2:9-10). Buck needed a new birth, and maybe some
of us right now, today, need a new birth. Maybe there is something we need to release,
to die to, to let go of so we can walk in the love of Christ. Salvation is an
ongoing process of becoming more Christ-like, of growing in God’s love, and we
must consciously and intentionally participate in this process.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">This is why Paul tells the church at
Ephesus that “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">by grace you have been
saved through faith.”</i> The kind of faith Paul is talking about is “trust in
and faithfulness to” the gospel of Jesus. Buck had to decide whether or not he
was going to trust and be faithful to the gospel of Jesus. And that is a
decision we all face at many different times and occasions and in many
different circumstances in our lives. If we think we get born again and it’s
one-and-done, then we really have not given much thought to how the human soul
develops. The human soul develops in stages over time through many experiences.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">So the question I need to ask today is this:
What do I need to do today to experience some aspect, some facet of God’s
salvation? It’s multi-faceted and it impacts all of life. Do I need to ask
someone to forgive me for something I did or said? Or maybe I need to forgive
someone for what he or she did or said and release the bitterness and
resentment I have been holding onto. Maybe there is some prejudice or bias in
my soul that I have been ignoring or denying or defending that I need to
release, so that instead of being the cause of oppression, I can help be part
of the solution. Perhaps I need to die to my fears and trust that God will give
me whatever strength and inner courage I need in these days of lies and
deceptions in order to live and speak the truth in love regardless of the
consequences. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Jesus says in this Gospel passage, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Today this scripture is fulfilled,”</i> not
someday but today. All we have is now. This is the day the Lord has given us.
This is the day to awake from our sleep and let the light of Christ enlighten
our hearts and illumine our path so the poor will discover good news, so the
captives will be released, so the oppressed will go free, so the blind will
receive their sight, because now, right now, is the day of Jubilee, now is the
day of God’s favor, now is the acceptance and welcome of God who pours out upon
all the riches of God’s grace. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>Chuck Queenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07189976951236608116noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7984481633806018539.post-13613734664878388312021-01-31T09:28:00.001-08:002021-01-31T09:28:22.174-08:00The mythology of the demonic in individuals, institutions, and societies (Key text: Mark 1:12-15, 21-28)<p> <span style="font-size: 16pt;">This is the first of several instances
in Mark’s Gospel where Jesus confronts and expels an unclean spirit or spirits,
also called demons. In the world of Jesus and other cultures, both then and
even today, it was and is assumed that spirits, both good and bad, share this
world with humans, and these spirits can take possession of human beings. I’m
not sure how a modern day psychiatrists might describe or diagnose such a
condition today. I suppose that in light of their training they would describe
it in psychopathological terms. If you ask me what I believe about the
existence of spirits in our world separate from humans I would say, “I am
skeptical, but open to the possibility. Just because I have never encountered
the phenomena does not mean they don’t exist.” But let me stress that a passage
like this should not be read literally, but spiritually, that is metaphorically
and symbolically. This is a religious text, and therefore should be read
spiritually, not literally or historically, so that we can appropriate this in
the most appropriate way. However one might analyze it, the reality is that the
demonic that expresses itself through individuals and groups of individuals is
real. And in this presentation my intent is to unpack that.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">On MLK day, I watched a documentary on
HBO that traced the life and movement of Dr. King from the voting rights act in
1965 to his assassination in 1968. Along with original film segments and the
words of Dr. King, the documentary featured contemporary commentary from the
likes of John Lewis and others who were leaders in the movement. It was
produced in 2018, before Lewis passed. If you have a chance to watch it, I
highly recommend it – very well done. One of the parts that struck me was when
they were in Chicago, and </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">in the marches
there Dr. King and others were calling attention to the inequality and inequity
of employment opportunities and housing for black people. They showed scenes of
the rage and fury of some of the white people who came out to oppose the work
King and others were doing, and I have to tell you I was a bit shaken by it. They
had some close up shots of the faces and the body language of those who were in
a rage, shouting profanities and curses, ready to engage in violence if the
occasion permitted, and I can tell you without any doubt that these people were
possessed by a non-human (unhuman, non-humane spirit, an evil, racist) spirit.
Their words and their actions were demonic. We saw that same evil spirit in the
faces and actions of many of those who stormed the capital incited by words of the
former president.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">This evil spirit is passed down from
generation to generation. I revisited the movie “42” this past week, a dramatic
version of the story of Jackie Robinson, the first black man to break the
segregation barrier in Major League Baseball. It captures a relatively short
period in his life from his final year in the Negro league, his signing with
the Brooklyn Dodgers, his year with their affiliate in the International
League, Montreal, and then his first year playing first base for the Dodgers.
The Dodgers would win the world series in 1955, and in the first game of that
series Jackie performed one of his signature moves, he stole home. I have a large
picture hanging right behind my desk in my church office of Jackie Robinson stealing
home in a game against the Cubs in 1952. In one scene in the movie, where
Jackie makes his first appearance with the Dodgers in Cincinnati, the fans
greet Jackie with curses and racist slurs. A short segment of the scene focuses
on a kid, maybe nine or ten, sitting with his father, so excited to see a big
league game. Then when Jackie takes the field, his father, who seemed so gentle
and loving talking with his son, suddenly changes into a different person. His
face becomes convulsed and contorted with rage as he begins hurling racist
condemnations at Jackie, as do the other white people in the stands around him.
The boy is startled and disturbed at first. Then he looks around, taking it all
in, watching and listening to his father, then suddenly his face changes too as
he joins the racist crowd hurling insults and curses at one of God’s precious children,
whose only difference from all of them was the color of his skin.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">In the Gospel of Mark the primary means
through which Jesus proclaims and teaches about the kingdom of God is through
his confrontation and struggle with the demonic forces that oppress his people.
This is a major theme in Mark’s Gospel. Just after Jesus is baptized by John
and the Holy Spirit comes upon him, the Holy Spirit compels Jesus to enter the
wilderness for forty days, the symbolism recalling Israel’s testing in the
wilderness before they entered the land of promise. Jesus is tested by Satan, who
in the mythology of that time, is the most powerful of the unclean or unholy spirits.
Unlike Matthew and Luke’s versions of Jesus’ experience in the wilderness, we
do not have any glimpse into specifics of this struggle, other than Mark’s
short description, </span><i style="font-size: 16pt;">“He was with the wild
beasts and the angels waited on him.”</i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">The symbolism of that brief description is
rich and powerful. Wild beasts are vicious and violent and ravaging. They are
bent on defending themselves with violence if they feel threatened, and they
have no regrets when they devour and consume their prey. Jesus in the desert is
confronting his own animal nature, a spirit that he confronts in others
throughout his ministry, but must confront and overcome in himself first of all.
Jesus will confront this spirit in the religious leaders who grow increasingly
hostile toward him throughout his ministry, and who want him dead. He will
confront this spirit in Pilate, in the Roman soldiers who torture him and nail
him to the cross, and in the bystanders at his crucifixion who hurt insults at
him and mock him. Jesus will have to confront this spirit in his own disciples
who argue with one another over who will be the greatest, or when they lash out
in anger, like James and John, when the Samaritans denied them passage through
their territory on their way to Jerusalem, and they want Jesus to call down
fire from heaven and destroy them. We all battle these demons and when they win
the day the spoils of victory are what the Apostle Paul calls “the works of the
flesh,” such as strife, greed, jealousy, anger, dissensions, envy, malice,
slander, sexual abuse, destructive addictions, love of power, and all sorts of
dehumanizing and destructive behavior.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">We have a little dog at home, part chihuahua
and part Yorkie. This little dog can be sitting on my lap, reaching up with her
paw to get my attention so I will pet her, looking so pleasant and content and
loveable. But if the front door is open, and she sees another dog outside,
going past, she immediately becomes possessed by her animal spirit. I have
tried to control that spirit, but have not been very successful. We all have an
animal nature that we inherited as part of our evolution as human beings. It’s
part and parcel to our evolution as a species. Sometimes it erupts in vicious
ways like what I witnessed in the MLK documentary, or more recently in what we
all witnessed during the insurrection at the capital. Jesus said that if we are
to be his disciple, we must deny this animal self, take up our cross, and
follow him. The Apostle Paul calls this animal nature the “flesh.” He says it
must be crucified with Christ, so that we can walk in the Spirit, and be filled
with the Spirit, and be led by the Spirit, then we will not fulfill the desires
of our animal nature. There is no eradicating this part of our humanity, at
least not in this stage of our evolution, but we can render it inoperative, we
can control it and keep it in check. This is what Mark is talking about when he
says that </span><i style="font-size: 16pt;">“the angels waited on him.”</i><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
We mean something very similar when we talk about following our better angels.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">There is a scene in the movie “42” where
Jackie faces an unrelenting verbal assault from the manager in Philadelphia. He
comes perilously close to giving in to his animal spirit. He is ready to return
the wrath, but instead he retreats inside the doorway to the locker room where
he unloads and smashes his bat against the wall. Branch Ricky, the General
Manager, meets him there. He tells Jackie that he can’t fight, but he also
tells him that he can’t quit, that there are too many people who believe in him
and respect him. Jackie asks Ricky if he knows what’s it’s like to live day in
and out with all this hate and contempt poured out on him as a kind of
scapegoat. Ricky says, “No, you’re the one. You’re the one living in the
wilderness – forty days – all of it, only you.” Jackie says, “There’s not a
thing I can do about it.” Rickie says, “Of course there is, you can get out
there and hit and get on base and score. You can win the game for us. Everybody
needs you. You are medicine, Jack.” As the Dodgers take the field, Ricky puts
his arm around Jackie and asks, “Who is playing first?” The question is from a
spiritual point of view, “Are you going to expel this demon? Are you going to
follow your better angels? Are you going to deny these animal instincts and
live above the pack, above the racism? Are you going to be the better man? Jackie
says, “I’m going to need a new bat.” He returns to the field, and he ends up
scoring the winning run. Jackie is able, with the help of Branch Ricky, who
speaks truth and teaches truth in love, who himself is one of Jackie’s better
angels, Jackie is able to overcome his animal spirit, his “flesh,” his little
self, and is able to be the better man, the better human being. The way a
Christian might describe it is that he was able to follow the Spirit of Christ.
He was able to walk in the way of Jesus.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Now, the struggle with these inner
demons becomes even more intense, when such spirits pervade, not just an
individual, but groups, whole communities, institutions, organizations, systems
and structures of power, even nations. This is what the Black Lives Matter
movement is about – calling out the demonic, the racism that is deeply embedded
in structures of power, particularly our systems of law enforcement and our
criminal justice system. Now, this doesn’t mean that </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">everyone in the system is demonic or that the
all systems are demonic. Obviously we have some excellent police officers and
judges and lawyers. But we also have some who are clearly racists and know they
are racists, and some who are racists who deny they are racists and may not
even be aware of how racist they are. This is when we struggle with what Paul
calls in Ephesians 6 “</span><i style="font-size: 16pt;">principalities and
powers,” “cosmic powers of this present darkness,” </i><span style="font-size: 16pt;">and </span><i style="font-size: 16pt;">“spiritual forces of evil” </i><span style="font-size: 16pt;">for which we need the whole armor of God,
which involves, among other things, </span><i style="font-size: 16pt;">“the
belt of truth”</i><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> and the </span><i style="font-size: 16pt;">“breastplate
of righteousness/or justice (healing justice, restorative justice, redemptive
justice”</i><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> which is sorely lacking today.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">The demonic can be a prevailing ethos in
a culture, a dominant social, political, and cultural force. The writer of 1
Timothy says that </span><i style="font-size: 16pt;">“the love of money”</i><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
is demonic, it is a </span><i style="font-size: 16pt;">“root of all kinds of
evil.”</i><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> Greed can pervade and dominate a whole society. I have sometimes
wondered in my own life when the desire to better myself or want “more” becomes
greed. It’s a thin line and I, no doubt, have crossed back and forth across
that line. The love of power is demonic. Is there any doubt that what we have
come to know as Trumpism – with its conspiracy theories and lies, with its propensity
toward and incitement of violence, and its hatred toward groups of people like the
undocumented – is there any doubt that this is a demonic force in our society
today?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Paul tells the church at Corinth (1 Cor.
10) that in this struggle with evil spirits/forces, we do not wage war by their
standards, returning blow for blow, wielding brutal and violent power. Paul
says the weapons we use are not “fleshly” – they do not originate from our beastly,
animal spirit, rather, they come from the Holy Spirit, our Christ nature, and
have “divine power.” Divine power is the power of love of neighbor, love of
enemy, love of justice for all people, love for the common good – love for what
is good and right and true and fair and merciful. This is the power we have to
combat the demonic in us, in others, and in the systems and structures and
communities we are part of.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Now, the authority that Jesus exercises over
the demonic as son of man, as the human one, and as the Son of God, is the same
authority granted to us as the daughters and sons of human beings, and as the
daughters and sons of God. We have the same authority as Jesus to confront and
overcome the demonic in us, in others, and in the principalities and powers of
the world. When Jesus sends out his disciples to proclaim the kingdom of God
they exercise the same authority as Jesus. Mark 6:13 says, </span><i style="font-size: 16pt;">“They cast out many demons, and anointed many with oil who were sick
and cured them.”</i><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> We possess the authority to liberate ourselves and others
from the demonic, and the authority to heal spiritual sickness and brokenness
in our lives and relationships and the communities we are part of. We do that
by exercising divine power, the power of Christ, the power of love with honesty
and humility. </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">And let us not miss how Jesus exercised
his authority to liberate the oppressed from the demonic (an authority that we
also have). Anthropologists have studied the phenomena of spirit possession in
other cultures, and what they have discovered across cultures is that the
characteristics manifested by the possessed are similar across cultures, such
as multiple personalities, unusual physical strength, uncanny knowledge of
things, bizarre behaviors which are usually violent and often self-destructive,
and such reactions as convulsions and seizures. These are all characteristics common
across cultures and are present in the Gospel stories. However, there is one
striking different between the Gospel stories, and the research of
anthropologists. The researchers reported that those who were known in their
cultures to be exorcists, holy men or women who could expel the spirits, did so
by means of special incantations, elaborate rituals, and through the use of
power objects. Jesus, however, in the Gospel stories expels the demons by
speaking to the demon. And the Gospel writers links his authority to expel the
demon to his teaching. At the conclusion of the story, those who witness this say,
</span><i style="font-size: 16pt;">“What is this? A new teaching – with
authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.”</i><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> From
the perspective of the Gospel writer his teaching and his capacity to expel
demons are all one piece.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">The demon says to Jesus: </span><i style="font-size: 16pt;">“Have you come to destroy us? I know who you
are, the Holy one of God.”</i><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> Do we know who we are sisters and brothers? One
of the words Paul uses in his letters to describe disciples of Christ is the
word, “saints,” which means “holy ones.” We are holy ones like Jesus, loved,
chosen, called out and given authority and divine power like Jesus to live the
truth of love of neighbor and to speak truth and teach truth about love in love
in ways that expose the demonic and liberate people from it.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">In Paul’s letter to the church at
Ephesus Paul says (in chapter 4) that “</span><i style="font-size: 16pt;">by
speaking the truth in love,”</i><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> says Paul, </span><i style="font-size: 16pt;">“we
grow up in every way into Christ.”</i><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> We overcome the evil in us and in the world
and grow up into the image of Christ by embodying the truth of God’s inclusive
love in our lives and by speaking the truth in love. We speak truth into our
own spirits and souls. We speak truth into the demonic wherever and whenever we
encounter it – in our family, in our church, in our community, in our work
place, in our political and social and religious communities – we live the
truth as best we can and we speak the truth about love in love. That’s how we
expose the demonic and liberate ourselves and others from it.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Are we up to the task? When we were
baptized this is what we signed up for – to live the truth of Jesus, which
centers in love of others, and speak the truth about the way of love in love to
the demonic powers in our own minds and hearts, and whenever and wherever we
encounter such powers in the world.</span></p>Chuck Queenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07189976951236608116noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7984481633806018539.post-71520116506607992462021-01-07T13:50:00.005-08:002021-01-07T14:02:43.805-08:00Is it possible to have compassion for President Trump? <p><span style="font-size: large;">Jesus said, according to Luke, "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you, . . . Do to others as you would have them do to you . . . Be compassionate, just as your Father is compassionate" (Luke 6:27-28, 31, 36).</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I have been praying that I might feel some compassion, rather than anger and hate toward President Trump and his deluded followers. Yes, he is an evil person who has done much evil. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The description that Paul (or someone writing in the name and tradition of Paul) employs in a rather strange apocalyptic passage in 2 Thessalonians fits the President and his followers quite well: "He opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship . . . declaring himself to be God" (2:4). The writer calls this person "the lawless one" (2:3). Those who follow this "lawless one" are imagined as having been deceived by "a powerful delusion," which leads them "to believe what is false" and "to take pleasure in injustice" (2:11-12). Some interpreters believe this was a veiled allusion to Caesar in those years when the followers of Jesus were being persecuted by Rome. Trump fits this depiction quite well. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Trump is evil, but is not evil a kind of deep, soul sickness? He craves power and control the way an alcoholic craves drink. Does anyone believe he is capable of experiencing inner peace or joy? </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Maybe the best thing that could happen to him is that when he leaves office New York pursues charges against him and he actually spends time in prison. I am not sure anything could foster repentance, but as the spiritual writer Father Richard Rohr likes to say, it almost always takes some experience of great suffering or great love to break the spell of our false self and ignite positive and redemptive change in our lives. I don't think Trump is in a place where he is capable of experiencing love, so it would take suffering to initiate it. I have my doubts if anything could break through his narcissistic shell. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But this post is not about Trump, it's about me. Can I feel compassion for a man who is hardened and deluded by his narcissism and truly sick in spirit and soul? I think Jesus would. I think Jesus did. Luke attributes Jesus as saying about his torturers and executioners, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing" (Luke 23:34). </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">That's a different way of seeing isn't it? Maybe Jesus had enough awareness to see what really is, beneath the little, false self driven by all sorts of negative feelings, emotions, and attitudes, which often reflect how people are programmed by their upbringing and culture. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Maybe I could have some compassion if I could see how Trump actually suffers, how his life is diminished by the sickness of evil that fills his soul. Maybe he really doesn't know what he is doing. It is very possible he believes the conspiracy theories he spouts, as many do who have been brainwashed and programmed by right-wing media.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I honestly don't know if I will ever acquire the spiritual awareness that will actually ignite and fuel compassion for the likes of Trump and his followers. But I can keep praying that I will. For now, that's probably the best I can do. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p>Chuck Queenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07189976951236608116noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7984481633806018539.post-88041732454673805932019-10-20T08:53:00.001-07:002019-10-20T08:54:43.333-07:00How Long, Lord? (Jeremiah 31:31-34; Luke 18:1-8)<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">How long, Lord? I suspect we have all
asked that question haven’t we? We may have asked that question after weeks or
perhaps months or maybe even years of our own struggle or a loved one’s
struggle with a serious illness or debilitating pain. We may have asked out of
the despair of a deep betrayal by a spouse or a friend. Or it may have been
after months of trying to find work related to our skills and training. How long,
Lord? The widow in our story who was a victim of injustice must have felt that
way? She keeps crying out to the unjust judge, </span><i style="font-size: 16pt;">“Grant me justice!”</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">It’s interesting that Luke introduces this
parable as a call to pray always and not lose heart. I very much doubt that in
its original setting Jesus intended this story to be about prayer. Luke’s application
of the parable as a call to persistent prayer is an example of how these
stories can connect with us and impact us on different levels. How we understand
and apply these stories depends a lot on our own context and what we are
thinking and dealing with at the time we read them. I can read a parable, or
some other passage of scripture and feel that I have encountered God through that
scripture in some way. A year later, I can read the same parable or scripture
text, and it speaks to me in a very different way. I’m sure many of you have
had that same experience. Such is the nature of sacred texts and the way God can
speak to us through them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">What Luke says about the need to pray
always and not lose heart reminds us of Jesus’ earlier teaching on prayer in
Luke 11 where Jesus says, <i>“Ask, and it
will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be
opened.” </i>Asking is an important part of any relationship and it’s an
important part of our relationship with God. And just as we ask of God, God
asks things of us. All healthy relationships are mutual relationships. It’s a
dance. It’s a two-way street. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Now, if we follow Luke’s leading here
and see this as a story about prayer, it is not just any prayer is it? When
Luke says that we need to pray always and not lose heart it is <b>a particular kind of prayer that is in view
in this story.</b> <b>Luke is talking about
prayer for justice.</b> <i>“Grant me
justice,”</i> cries the widow. The reason it is a widow in our story who is
being treated unjustly is because in that culture widows were extremely
vulnerable. The “widow” is simply representative of the most vulnerable people in
any society. A widow in the patriarchal culture of that day and time could not
inherit her husband’s property, and there were certainly no social welfare
programs in place. For the most part there were no opportunities for
independent employment. This is why some widows, without family support, turned
to prostitution – simply to survive. This is a story about justice.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">By justice, I do not mean, <i>“Getting what one deserves.”</i> Rarely, is
the word “justice” used that way in the scriptures. I didn’t realize this
during the early stages of my Christian pilgrimage. I thought justice meant
retribution. If justice means getting what we deserve, then none of us should
pray for justice; we should pray for grace. But that is not what is meant when
the prophets and when Jesus talk about justice. The biblical term “justice” is
equivalent to the biblical word “righteousness.” To pursue justice or
righteousness is to pursue that which makes for right relations and good will
between human beings and communities, between God and human beings, and between
human beings and all creation. It basically means doing right so that we will
be in right relationship – with God, each other, and everything else. <b>Justice is about that which makes
everything right, whole, just, and good.</b> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">The key elements in the kind of
restorative justice that Jesus and the prophets talk about are compassion,
forgiveness, and restitution, in contrast to retribution and vengeance.
Restorative justice is about healing and restoring relationships that are broken
and severed. <b>At the center of
restorative justice is love of neighbor and the golden rule – doing unto others
as we would want them to do unto us.</b> Justice involves defending and
uplifting the poor and downtrodden, which is a theme repeated over and over
again in the classic Hebrew prophets and in the teachings and actions of Jesus.
It involves the pursuit of equality, inclusion, and the well-being of all
people. It includes the minority as well as the majority. It involves basic
human rights and freedoms. It also includes creation care. <b>All that is central to the healing and wholeness of humankind and
creation is included in the justice or righteousness of God.</b> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">This is why, sisters and brothers, we have
no choice as followers of Jesus but to care about such things as: how we treat
immigrants, what we do about climate change, fairness laws, equality in the
work place, unjust social and economic systems that produce poverty and the
huge disparity between rich and poor, and other justice issues related to how
we treat one another and how we care for our planet. All of these issues have
to do with God’s justice or righteousness. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">The logic in the story moves from the
lesser to the greater. The logic is that if an unjust judge, who, in the words
of Jesus <i>“neither feared God nor had
respect for people”</i> was compelled to act justly on behalf of the widow who
pestered him day and night, <b>how much
more will God, who is compassionate and good, act justly on behalf of the
oppressed? </b>The point here is that God is so “unlike” the unjust judge that
if an unjust judge can be persuaded to act justly, how much more will our
compassionate and just God act justly toward those who suffer injustice. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">In one sense the story is future
oriented. The story teller asks: <i>“Will not
God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night?</i> The
“chosen ones” are equivalent to the <i>“little
ones”</i> Jesus talks about in 17:2. There Jesus issues a severe warning to
anyone who causes offense to one of these “little ones” or “chosen ones” (these
are interchangeable terms). Jesus says in his hyperbolic fashion: <i>“If you cause offense to one of my little
ones or chosen ones, if you cause one of these chosen ones to suffer injustice,
it would be better for you if a millstone were hung around your neck and you
were thrown into the sea.”</i> (I wish our so-called Christian congressmen
would read Jesus and take him sersiously. If we did we would have a country
that cares about justice, rather than now have to be concerned if our democracy
even survive. And it may not. It happened in Germany it can happen here.) This
widow is one of these “little ones” or “chosen ones” whom God gives special
attention. The story teller asks: <i>“Will
he delay long in helping them? </i>[these chosen ones, these little ones, these
vulnerable ones]<i> I tell you, he will
quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find
faith on earth?”</i> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">In its original or first setting, I
suspect that this story reflects the belief of the early Jesus followers in the
imminent consummation and clean up of the world. Many of them believed that
Jesus was going to return soon to fulfill the kingdom of God on earth. We know
from Paul’s earliest letters that the first followers of Jesus were expecting
this in their lifetime. Now, they didn’t believe that Christians would be
evacuated from the earth while the rest of the world destroyed itself in a
global holocaust as some Christians today believe. They did not believe that,
but they did believe that God would be wrapping things up fairly quickly. They
believed that the resurrected Christ would return in some interventionist way
to make the world right. Now, obviously that didn’t happen. So the church had
to re-adjust its expectations. Many Christians are still waiting and expecting
some kind of visible or personal intervention by Christ to clean things up and
bring the kingdom of God to fulfillment. Personally, I don’t believe that, but
I certainly don’t disparage those who do. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">If we look at this from God’s point of
view we should consider that what we think of as a <i>“delay”</i> may not be a delay at all. God’s idea of <i>“quickly”</i> may be very different from our
experience of <i>“quickly.”</i> If 98% of
the scientists in our world are right, it took approximately 13.8 billion years
(give or take a few million years) for life on earth to evolve to its present
state. Surely, God experiences time differently than we do. The main point or
truth in this story is not “when”; the main point is not the timing of it. The
main point is that because God is the kind of God God is, there will be
vindication for God’s chosen ones. <b>Because
God is just and good, there will be vindication for God’s little ones who are
beaten down by the powers that be.</b> These “chosen ones” or “little ones”
are, from the world’s point of view, forgotten ones. For every murder or
injustice that we hear about, there are thousands of others who suffer and die
alone in silence. <b>And the question is:
Will they be vindicated?</b> These who cry day and night for justice; these who
suffer and die and are forgotten, will they be vindicated? This scripture text
says: If an unjust judge can be compelled to execute justice, how much more
will the loving, compassionate, just God of creation vindicate those who have
suffered unjustly? It’s a shame that we were not taught that restorative
justice is at the heart of what Jesus meant when he talked about the kingdom of
God on earth. The vast majority of Baptists were not taught this. And we can
throw up our hands and say, “Oh well” as if that relieves us of responsibility,
or we can try to learn and grow and change. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">The final question is where the rubber
hits the road. <i>“When the Son of Man
comes, will he find faith on earth?”</i> Faith, in this particular context, has
very little to do with belief. It is better translated <i>“faithfulness.”</i> When the Son of Man comes will he find us being
faithful to the justice or righteousness of God? And when we say, “I wasn’t
taught this” I don’t think God is going to buy it, because you are being taught
this now. <b>This is not about having faith
in Jesus. This is about having the faith of Jesus.</b> This is about <b>being faithful to the justice or
righteousness of God.</b> To have the faith of Jesus means that we will love our
neighbor as ourselves, even if the neighbor is a Samaritan, or someone we don’t
particularly like, or even an enemy, that is, someone who wants to do us harm.
To have the faith of Jesus means that we will be faithful to pray for them and
do good by them, even as we speak against what they are doing. As a disciple of
Jesus I have to stand up and speak out against injustice, even while I pray and
seek the good of those who perpetuate injustice. To have the faith of Jesus
means that we will trust God with our fears and insecurities and anxieties, and
seek first God’s just world. It means that we will join Christ in his work to
liberate the oppressed and set the captives free – whether it is a captivity to
physical disease, or mental illness, or spiritual angst, or whether it is a
captivity to political or social or economic or religious powers that exclude
and impoverish and destroy life. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">The question, <i>“When the Son of Man comes will he find faith on earth?”</i> can be
translated into our time and context by asking: When the living Christ, when
God, when the Divine (use whatever name you like) looks at our world, what does
Christ see? Does God see people who are being faithful to act justly, to love
mercy, and to walk humbly with God and each other? Does God see people who are
being faithful to God’s will by loving each other the way God loves each of us?
What will God see? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">In the movie, <i>The Abyss</i> produced in 1989, a US ballistic missile submarine, the <i>USS Montana</i>, sinks near the edge of the
Cayman Trough after some accidental encounter with an unidentified object. With
a hurricane moving in and Soviet ships and submarines wanting to get to the
sub, the Americans decide that the quickest way to mount a rescue is to insert
a SEAL team onto a privately owned, experimental underwater oil drilling
platform called the Deep Core. The designer of the platform, Dr. Lindsey
Brigman, insists on accompanying the SEAL team, even though her estranged
husband, Virgil “Bud” Brigman, is currently serving as the platform’s foreman.
As the SEALS and platform crew attempt to discover the cause of the Montana’s
failure, they come into contact with strange creatures they cannot identify,
which they later call “NTIs” meaning “non-terrestrial intelligence.” The heart
of the story is about their interaction with the NTI’s and the renewal of the
relationship between Bud and Lindsey, who had never stopped loving one another.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">When one of the Navy SEALS goes crazy,
they lose a live nuclear warhead that is timed to explode down the trough where
the NTI’s live. Bud descends on a one way trip to disarm it. He communicates by
means of a keypad on his arm. He says to Lindsey, “Knew this was a one-way
ticket, but you knew I had to come.” The last thing he says is, “Love you,
wife.” After he disarms the warhead, he waits to die. Just as his air is about
to run out and he is about to lose consciousness, an NTI comes to his side and
takes him to a massive NTI spacecraft sitting in the trench. In the ship, they
create an atmosphere for him to breathe.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">The NTI’s have created massive mega-tsunami-level
waves that threaten every coastline, that are stalled towering and hovering above
the coasts. The NTI’s show Bud images of humanity’s destructive behavior on a
view screen, destroying and killing one another. And we have done a lot of
destroying and killing haven’t we? But then they show him the messages of
self-sacrifice and love he wrote with his keypad. The NTI’s conclude that there
is hope for humanity and they cause the standing tsunami’s to recede harmlessly
back into the sea. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">I believe that in spite of all the ways
we mar and malign one another and destroy our planet God sees the potential for
goodness, for justice, and for love. I really believe that, even though there
is a ton of evidence to the contrary. In the text we read from Jeremiah, the
prophet envisions a day when the hearts of God’s people are so changed that
they don’t even need laws to tell them what to do, because they instinctively
know what to do, they intuitively know how to act justly, live mercifully, and
walk humbly. I believe God sees what we can become. I believe God has great
hope for humanity. Obviously God has great patience. We should be asking right
now, “When God takes an inventory of our lives and relationships, when God’s
looks at us, what does God see? Does God see us praying and working for justice
on earth? Does God see us praying and working for a just world healed and made
right? Are we becoming more of what God has called us to be or less? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Gracious God, thank you for believing in us,
thank you for not giving up on us, thank you for patiently enduring us, and for
continually wooing us and drawing us into a right relationship with you, with
each other, and with this planet. Help us to become what you believe we can be.
Empower us to be agents of your good-will, your redemptive justice, and your
healing grace. Give us the courage to not give up and to stand with and cry out
for all those who find themselves beaten down by the destructive powers of
death whatever form they may take. Amen</span>Chuck Queenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07189976951236608116noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7984481633806018539.post-88460855789589757182019-10-08T04:18:00.000-07:002019-10-08T04:18:24.301-07:00Singing a Capella (A sermon from Hab. 1:1-4; 2:1-4) <br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">This
was a big event in the life of the small denomination that hosted the annual
conference. It was a two day event, and worship on the final night was always
the most attended. It was their custom to have an interesting and challenging keynote
speaker and music of the highest quality. The program bulletin that named the
vocalist said that she would sing accompanied by sound track. She had rehearsed
this song numerous times in preparation for this event and the time had now
come. She walked confidently to the stage and nodded for the gentleman in the
sound booth to start the music. She waited and waited and waited. The sound
operator finally looked up and made some motions. The unthinkable had happened.
The player had malfunctioned. She knew there was a decision to make. Either
leave the stage rather awkwardly calling attention to the problem, or sing the
song unaccompanied by the sound track. Out of the silence, strong and sure, the
vocalist’s voice rang true and powerful. </span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">The question I pose
today is this: Can we sing the song of faith without the music?</span></b><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"> Sooner or later we
all face life without the music. It is simply not true that if you love God and
are faithful to God you will always hear the music, that all will go well or
that you will never have any doubts or face any uncertainties. The prophet has
to face life without the music. He expresses his complaint to God in the
opening verses of chapter 1. He wants to know why God is not doing something about
the violence and injustice that Israel is experiencing. The wicked hem in the
righteous, he says, and justice is perverted. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">Now,
it’s important to keep in mind that many ancient Hebrews believed that God
directly intervened into the world and their lives, and the prophet would have lived
within those theological limitations. God’s response to Habakkuk compounds the
prophet’s frustration. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Be astonished! Be
astounded! says the Lord. For a work is being done in your days that you would
not believe if you were told.”</i> Now, that last phrase really speaks to me: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“you would not believe even if you were told.”</i>
If God’s voice thundered it from heaven you they would not believe it. And we are
still that way. In our context today we are told clearly in the Gospels that if
we follow Jesus we have to love and care for people who are different than us,
especially the most vulnerable. Jesus made that a priority. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We can’t treat them like they are less than
human. But there are many Christians today who apparently don’t believe that at
all. That theme of caring for the oppressed, the disadvantaged and the most
vulnerable runs through scripture. It’s in the law and the prophets. Israel is
told to care for widows, orphans, and the non-Israelites (the undocumented, the
aliens in the land), and this theme finds its climax in the life and teachings
of Jesus. But many Christians today don’t trust it and are not faithful to it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">Now,
what are the people being told in Habakkuk’s time? They are being told that the
Babylonians are coming. They are a ruthless and violent people; a law unto
themselves. They worship might and power. They promote their own honor. They are
a people to be feared and dreaded. They will sweep down and set their hooks and
nets into the land and gather the people of Israel into their nets like a
fisherman gathers in his catch, to be used and disposed of at will. So the prophet
cries out to God, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“How can you be silent
when the wicked swallow those more righteous than they?”</i> How can that be?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">Sooner
or later, all of us must face life without the music. It is simply untrue that
if you love God there will always be music. Life with God is not all sun and
summertime. There are dark, cold days in wintry places. So what do we do in
those times when we cannot hear the music on account of the screams of violence
or from the noise of our own fearful chatter and cries for help? What do we do
when things don’t go as expected? When our plans get thwarted, our dreams
dashed, and our questions and our prayers go unanswered? What do we do when
circumstances entrap us in prisons of disappointment and bring us to the brink
of despair? Do we give up on faith and say it was all a mistake? Do we say it
was all an illusion, that we were just kidding ourselves to think that we ever
heard the music at all? What do we do? <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">We
learn to sing without the music.</b> We may complain and question and find
ourselves in a quandary, but we refuse to walk off the stage. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">The
prophet says that the righteous or just shall live by faith. Paul quotes this
line from Habakkuk in his letter to the Romans. This is a dominant theme in
that letter, but here is where he got it. Old Testament scholar Walter
Brueggemann makes the point that the righteous or just person or just community
is the person or community who keeps God’s covenant. A righteous or just person
is one who loves his or her neighbor. A just person invests in the community,
and is particularly attentive to the poor and needy. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Living by faith is not about getting our beliefs right; rather, it is
about doing right. </b>It’s about being faithful to God by loving our neighbor
as ourselves and treating others the way we would want to be treated. This is
the heart and soul of God’s covenant with us.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">I
like the way author Sara Miles has said this. Sara was raised an atheist, but
for some reason wandered into an Episcopal church one day in San Francisco,
where everyone was welcomed and encouraged to take Communion. So she participated.
She ate the bread and drank the wine and discovered that it somehow nourished
her soul and quenched her spiritual thirst. She kept going back and was
encouraged to serve others. So, she started a food pantry. Being in California,
she discovered that they had access to inexpensive fresh fruits and vegetables.
So on Fridays, she opened a food pantry – in the middle of their beautiful new Sanctuary.
All are welcome. There are no forms to fill out. People come and choose what
they want. The down-and-out, the addicted, the messed up, the homeless<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">, all are welcome and all are treated with
dignity.</b> Sara and the other volunteers pray with those who want prayer.
They listen to those who need to talk. They bless those who need a blessing.
And get this: Those who come are considered part of their church community, even
though they may never come to a worship service. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">In
her spiritual memoir titled, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Take this
Bread</i>, she says that one of the main things she learned about faith by
directing and working in the pantry is that authentic faith is more about
“orthopraxy” (right practice) than it is about “orthodoxy” (right belief). She
wrote, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“I was hearing that what counted
wasn’t fundamentalist theology or liberation or traditional or postmodern
theology, it wasn’t denominations or creeds or rituals. It wasn’t liberal or conservative
ideology. It was faith, working through love.” </i>What mattered was faith
working through love. This is exactly what Paul tells the churches in Galatia.
He says in that letter that the only thing that ultimately matters is their
faith working through love. Faith, here is not belief. It is trust and
commitment. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">What matters is our capacity
to trust one another and trust God, and be faithful to our relationships with
God and others by loving others the way God loves all of us.</b> She realized that
faith working through love meant (in her words), <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“plugging away with other people, acting in small ways without the
comfort of a big vision or even a lot of realistic hope.”</i> She discovered it
meant <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“opening up my vulnerable self to
others and sticking with tasks that helped people in the middle of confusion.”</i>
She realized that God cared much more about how we help people, than what we
happen to believe about God.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">So
how do we find the inner strength and power to be faithful when the music
doesn’t play? <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">One of the things we do is
remember.</b> In 3:2 the prophet says, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“O
Lord, I have heard of your renown, and I stand in awe, O Lord, of your work.”</i>
The prophet was part of a faith tradition that rehearsed God’s mighty works in
times past and he remained in awe of those works. The prophet next cries out, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“In our time revive your work; in our time
make it known, in judgment remember mercy” (3:2).</i> His cry for help and for
grace is based on an inherited tradition of God’s salvation – a tradition of God’s
acts of healing and liberation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">Again
and again in scripture the people of God are told to remember God’s great
creative and redemptive acts. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">When we
celebrate the Lord’s Supper we are remembering that our Lord was not called to
be served, but to serve, and to give his life in the service of God’s love and
righteousness in the world.</b> We remember that Jesus gave his life in service
for the healing and liberation of many. We remember the revelation God has
given to us in Jesus of God’s redemptive hope and dream for the world and for
our lives. We remember the life of Jesus of Nazareth and that we, too, are
called to be the body of Christ in the world. We may not feel worthy – that’s
okay. We may not feel close to God – that’s okay. We may not be able to see
beyond our own disappointment or hear beyond the cries of our own pain – none
of that matters. When we come together and partake of the bread and cup we are
remembering <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">how God has acted in and
through Jesus Christ to draw us into relationship with God’s self and to show
us how to love and care for one another. </b>When we share the Lord’s Supper
together we share in the Holy Communion of God’s love that makes us one people,
that says everyone belongs, and that gives us hope that we can become more. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">Heather
Whitestone, was the Miss America winner who had the disability of deafness. Do
you know what she did for her talent competition? She danced. I read somewhere that
in her preparation she placed a special hearing device to her ear and played it
very loud, which allowed her to faintly hear the music. She then memorized the
music – every beat. When the time came for her to perform her dance, she moved
precisely and beautifully to the rhythm of the music she couldn’t hear, but had
heard before, and she remembered. We, too, can benefit from remembering past
encounters and experiences of God’s love. But you know, sisters and brothers,
even if we cannot recount a personal experience of God’s love, we can remember what
is truly worth remembering in the Christian tradition that has been passed on
to us – namely, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">that God has revealed
God’s self though the inclusive love incarnated in Jesus of Nazareth.</b> We can
enter into the experience of that love any day, any time of day, because the God
of love is still speaking and drawing us to God’s self<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">We also wait in hope.</span></b><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"> Sometimes, all we
can do is wait for the music to start again and that is never easy. You walk in
the convenient store at the gas station to get some milk late at night for your
child. Everything else is closed. There is one check- out line, it is long, and
the girl behind the counter is new and the scanner is not functioning properly.
What do you do? What can you do? You wait.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">The
prophet finds himself in a place he could not avoid. We all do. At the end of
his song of faith he says: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“I wait quietly
for the day of calamity to come upon the people who attack us.” (3:16b).</i> He
is looking for justice, for vindication, but he knows it is not going to be
soon, so he must learn to wait. But you know, sisters and brothers, there is a
lot we can do while we wait. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Waiting is
no excuse for inaction.</b> There is no excuse for doing nothing when there are
things we can do. The prophet has faith that a new day will come. He echoes
that faith in 2:14 where he envisions a day when “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as
the waters cover the sea.” </i>The glory of the Lord, as John’s Gospel makes
clear, is the glory of divine love that extends to the whole world. The
fulfillment of that hope seems a long way off sometimes. But as we wait for
that day, we do all we can do to embody and express God’s love and help bring
about its fulfillment. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">The
prophet closes his oracle with a beautiful expression of faith: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Though the fig tree does not blossom, and
no fruit is on the vines; though the produce of the olive fails, and the fields
yield no food; though the flock is cut off from the fold, and there is no herd
in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exult in the God of my
salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a
deer, and makes me tread upon the heights” (3:17-19).<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">Living
in faithfulness to God and neighbor, loving God and loving others can be
sustained by one, looking back in remembrance of God’s great love expressed in
Jesus, and two, by looking forward to a time when God’s loving dream for the
world will be fulfilled. As we remember and wait in hope, we join God in God’s
healing and liberating work by loving others the way God loves all people, and
the way Jesus showed us. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">Our
good God, help us to keep covenant with you, to trust you and be faithful to
love and support one another in the midst of the heartaches and heartbreaks of
life. When the music doesn’t play and when all we hear is silence, help us to courageously
sing the song of faith anyway as we remember the ways you have revealed your
love to us in Christ. Help us to have hope that no matter what injustice
befalls us in due time you will make things right. Let us be faithful to embody
and mirror your inclusive love. Amen. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Chuck Queenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07189976951236608116noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7984481633806018539.post-59369481595327993112019-09-29T08:59:00.000-07:002019-09-29T08:59:29.108-07:00One Hell of a Story (A sermon from Luke 16:19-31)<br />
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<span style="font-size: 15pt;">The late Ken Chafin, who was a Baptist minister
and professor and something of a statesman, tells about a friend in college who
use to preach a lot in some of the small country churches not far from campus.
Chafin would get a card from his friend saying something like: 35 saved in rival
at the Mossy Bottom Baptist Church. Chafin thought that was pretty good since
they only had about 25 members. This pricked his curiosity a little bit, so one
evening he drove out to hear him preach. It was a Friday night and his friend’s
sermon that evening was on the Great White Throne Judgment. His text came out
of the book of Revelation. The preacher was in a white suit, white tie, white
shirt, white belt, and even white shoes. He thundered from the pulpit that if
you didn’t become white as snow through the blood of the lamb you would find
yourself literally in one hell of a predicament, a hell of fire and brimstone.
Chafin said that he didn’t think he was going to get home that night until the
preacher was sure that all 52 people present had decided to purchase fire
insurance.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15.0pt;">When I was a teenager I remember a youth
revival where the evangelist used this story from Luke to preach on hell. If I remember
correctly he preached this message each night of the revival. Let me say very
clearly, that is NOT what this story is about. Now, this story does have
something to do with the afterlife, but <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">this
story is not about where you go when you die or what the afterlife will actually
look like or be like.</b> That’s not what this is about. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15.0pt;">However, a major theme of the story that
does indeed relate to the afterlife <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">is the
theme of vindication</b>. This story is not really a parable like Jesus’ other
parables, and it’s not unique to Jesus. This story is more of a fable or legend
that made its rounds in the ancient world. It pops us in different forms in
several different cultures. It can be found in slightly different forms in the
writings of several ancient Jewish rabbis. Some scholars think it may have
originated in Egypt. So Jesus is drawing upon a familiar legend and adapting it
to teach what he wants to teach<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">. And one
of the things he wants to teach with this story is that there will be
vindication for those who have had a really hard life. <o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15.0pt;">Playing on the reversal theme that shows
up in several places in Luke, the roles of the rich man and the poor man are
reversed. The rich man ends up in misery, which is how the poor person lived
his life on earth, whereas the poor man finds comfort by the side of Abraham.
Abraham says to the rich man<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">, “Child,
remember that during your lifetime you received good things, and Lazarus in
like manner evil things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony.”</i>
Their roles are reversed. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The main point
seems to be that the poor and the oppressed and the downtrodden will be
vindicated in due time.</b> There are folks who have been dealt in life a
really bad hand. In fact, the whole deck of cards are stacked against them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 15.0pt;">So,
what I am saying that this story is saying is that God takes notice. The poor
and forsaken are not forsaken by God. God will vindicate them.</span></b><span style="font-size: 15.0pt;"> There is more to come. Wrongs will be made right.
Justice will prevail. Love will win. The poor will not always be poor. Now,
what will that look like in the next life? What form will that take? I have no
idea. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The point here is simply that God
will make things right.</b> I don’t know what that will look like, but God will
make things right. By the way, historical scholars think this was the primary
factor that led to Jewish belief in resurrection. For hundreds of years the
Jews did not believe in an afterlife. Then, around the third or second
centuries BCE belief in resurrection began to emerge, primarily as a way of
vindicating righteous persons who had been wrongly killed. And it won the day.
It became a popular belief, so that by the time of Jesus most Jews believed in
resurrection, though some, like the Sadducees, did not. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">This story in Luke 16 is about vindication, so in that sense, it is
about the afterlife, but only in that sense. </b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15.0pt;">I think most of you know that I am a
hopeful universalist. I am hopeful, though not certain, that in due time all
people will be redeemed. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">But that
doesn’t mean everyone walks in as is.</b> What would an evil person do if the
main thing in God’s world is about loving others? How would that work? If an
evil person is not allowed to do any evil, how would that work? One’s heart has
to change. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">This is why repentance is an
important teaching of Jesus and a dominant theme in the Gospel of Luke.</b> So,
how does a person have a change of heart who has spent his or her entire life
using and abusing and hurting others? How does that happen? I am guessing here,
obviously, but maybe they have to learn what being hurt, being forgotten, being
abused feels like before their heart can change. Maybe that has to happen
somehow. I think we all understand to some degree the truth of tough love don’t
we? Maybe a kind of role reversal is necessary in order for one’s heart to
change. According to the Gospels, one of the most remembered sayings of Jesus,
maybe the most frequent saying of Jesus is, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“the
first will be last, and the last will be first.”</i> Now, I have no clue how
that might actually work, but maybe that has to happen. The point here,
however, is that there will be vindication. God takes notice of the
downtrodden, and God will vindicate them. They have a future that is glorious
even though they have been beaten down in life. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15.0pt;">A related point this story makes, a
point often made by Jesus through both his actions and his teachings, is that <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">God gives special attention to the poor and
downtrodden.</b> This is why Jesus tells his disciples that when they host a
dinner to invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. These are the
ones God takes special interest in, and so they should too. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">God loves everyone, but God gives special
attention to the most vulnerable and the disadvantaged.</b> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15.0pt;">In one sense this story actually
functions as an indictment on the huge disparity that can develop in societies
between the rich and the poor<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">.</b> Much
has been said about the 1 percent in this country controlling 45 percent of the
income, while the number of people living in poverty is increasing at an
alarming rate. And this story by Jesus paints that contrast in the most vivid, starkest
colors. The rich man engages in conspicuous consumption. A lot of folks, and I
suspect many Christians, would say that he is just enjoying his hard earned
fortune. But that’s not how Jesus or Luke sees it is it? The rich man dines at
the most expensive restaurants, he dresses in the finest clothes, his gated, luxurious
estate is filled with every convenience. The impoverished man at his gate is
covered in soars. He has no health care. Congress has cut his food stamps. He
can’t even find an open soup kitchen to get a meal. The rich man is living in
the lap of luxury while Lazarus is living in abject poverty. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15.0pt;">Maybe you noticed this in the reading,
maybe you didn’t, but <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">the poor man is
named in the story.</b> We know the poor man by name as Lazarus. That’s a
significant detail. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The very ones who
are no-names in society, God names, God gives special consideration and
attention. </b>On the other hand, the rich man, who on earth everyone would
have known by name, the one who would have had place and position and name
recognition has no name in the story. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15.0pt;">Do you ever wonder how Christianity and
the church got so far away from this? Think about it. Just look at the success
of present day Christian ministries who actually teach just the opposite. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">But this has always been a problem in
religion – using our religious faith to justify our wants.</b> It was a problem
in Jesus’ day. In Luke 16:14-15, a couple of paragraphs before the story of the
rich man and Lazarus Luke says, “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all this </i>(that is, they heard what
I talked about last week, what Jesus said about not being able to serve God and
money; that money is a rival god, and so forth), <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">and they ridiculed him.</i> (They didn’t like what they heard). <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">So he said to them, ‘You are those who
justify yourselves in the sight of others; for what is prized by human beings
is an abomination in the sight of God.’”<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15.0pt;">How did they justify themselves? How
would this rich man have justified living in conspicuous luxury while the poor
man lived in abject poverty at his gate? How did the religious leaders justify
their love for and accumulation of money? It wouldn’t have been all that difficult.
In the Bible there are theologies and counter theologies. There are biblical
texts that either directly teach or indirectly suggest that material wealth is
the blessing of God and disease and impoverishment is the result of God’s
judgment. It’s a terrible theology, but you can find it supported in the Bible,
because the Bible is a human book after all. It’s not infallible, because human
beings are not infallible. We get stuff wrong –a lot of stuff. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15.0pt;">And this idea that riches and health and
good fortune is the blessing of God was apparently a popular theology during
the time of Jesus. Jesus’ own disciples seem to have been indoctrinated in this
kind of theology and had to unlearn it. In John 9 when Jesus’ disciples stumble
upon a man who was blind, they ask Jesus, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Did
this man sin or his parents?” </i>What kind of question is that? They assume
his blindness was some form of divine punishment. If there were no biblical
texts to support this bad theology Joel Osteen and those who share his views
about money would not have the largest churches in America. They go to the
Bible to support their bad theology and to justify their vast accumulation of
money. That works well in America, and apparently in some other countries too.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15.0pt;">The rich man could have appealed to this
theology and these scriptures that promise wealth to the righteous and judgment
on the unrighteous to justify his in-attention and do-nothing response to the
poor man who was at his gate. He might have argued that if he tried to
alleviate the man’s poverty or bring some relief to his suffering, he would have
been interfering with God’s will. He could have found a number of scriptures to
argue that point. There is some really bad theology in the Bible. But there is
also some really great theology in the Bible, which <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">reaches its pinnacle in the life and teachings of Jesus.</b> And we can
find this transformative theology all through scripture. For example <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Deut. 15:7-8</i> reads: “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">If there is among you anyone in need, a
member of your community in any of the towns within the land that the Lord your
God is giving you, do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted toward your needy
neighbor. You should rather open your hand, willingly lending enough to meet
the need, whatever it may be.”</i> That’s from the book of Deuteronomy, the very
same book of the Bible that gives us the bad theology of blessing and cursing. We
also find this counter transformative theology all through the prophets. Isaiah
says: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Is not this the fast that I chose:
to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the
oppressed go free . . . ? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and
bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover
them<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>. . .” (58:6–7)</i> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15.0pt;">So, bad theology and good theology,
religious rationalizations for greed on the one hand, and commands to care for
the poor on the other hand, are all part of our sacred tradition. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">What we need, sisters and brothers, is the
wisdom to tell the difference between what is good and bad.</b> If our heart is
not ready to change, then the Bible alone won’t do it. If we have a sick heart,
we will just use the Bible to justify our sickness. If we have a loving heart,
then we will read and use the Bible in loving ways. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15.0pt;">Another point I want to make that should
give us all pause is this: <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The fate of
the rich man is not tied so much to what he did, but what he didn’t do.</b> It’s
not what he did that is judged here. It’s what he didn’t do. So often the
prophets announced judgment on those who exploited and took advantage of the
poor. But here, the indictment against the rich man is not because of what he
did to the poor man; it’s because of what he didn’t do. He didn’t come to his
aid. He didn’t give him relief. Jesus seems to be saying that to do injustice
one doesn’t have to directly exploit the poor. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">To do injustice one simply has to do nothing to alleviate their
poverty.</b> Sometimes when it comes to injustice, to be silent and say
nothing, or to do nothing makes us just as guilty as those who commit the
injustice. And this hits us all doesn’t it? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15.0pt;">I am reminded of the man who rides a
commuter train back and forth to work everyday. The train goes through an
extremely impoverished section of the city. When the man first became aware of
the desperate plight of the residents there he felt some compassion and thought
about how he might invest some resources to help them. But then, you know, life
happens. He got caught up in his work, in his family, in his daily routine and
responsibilities, in his own agenda, the way we all do, the way I do right? So
now when the train takes him by that section of the city, he pulls down the
blinds. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15.0pt;">That person is me. Maybe that person is
you too. Maybe we are all that person. And one could argue quite legitimately,
I think, that we have to do this on some level or we would be inundated with
the suffering of the world, because there is so much suffering and poverty in
the world. And there is some truth in that argument. We need to be careful,
however, because it is so easy to excuse ourselves of our responsibility isn’t
it? This is a kind of unresolved paradox we have to live with, because we have
to find some balance.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15.0pt;">There is one final point to be made. I
remember the preacher years ago who preached this story in that youth revival
being fixated on the fixed chasm separating Lazarus from the rich man.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here’s my take on that: <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">It’s fixed only as long as we allow it to be fixed. We can break
through that chasm anytime.</b> It opens from the inside. And the combination
that unlocks the door will always involve some humility, some honesty, and some
contrition about our lack of love. This is what opens our eyes and enlightens
us to see. This is what will change us. We can do all sorts of religious stuff
and sing Jesus songs all day and all night but unless we have some honesty, some
humility, and some contrition about our lack of love and our need to be more
loving, none of that will make one bit of difference. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I don’t believe God ever shuts the door and locks it from the outside. </b>If
we are willing to walk the path of true repentance then the chasm collapses.
God is like the shepherd and the woman in the parables of Luke 15. God searches
until God finds and God never gives up. But we have to want to be found and we
have to have a change of heart. That’s all inside work that God cannot force
anyone to do. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15.0pt;">God, we are so grateful, as Paul said so
beautifully, that where sin abounds, grace does much more abound. There is
nothing that can keep us from you, if we would only be humble and honest and
contrite. O God, we fail daily and often come short of living out the values of
Jesus. Thank you for being patient with us and forgiving us time and time
again. Empower us and embolden us to do more, to open our eyes and see those
who are hurting and afflicted around us. Help us to find constructive ways to
help. In the name of Christ. Amen. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />Chuck Queenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07189976951236608116noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7984481633806018539.post-67638093989582148422019-09-19T07:39:00.000-07:002019-09-19T07:39:12.734-07:00Lost and Found (A sermon from Luke 15:1-10)<br />
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">The fifteenth chapter of Luke has been
called “the gospel within the gospel.” With the exception of the elder son,
that which is lost is found. The lost sheep is returned to the flock, the lost
coin is recovered by its owner, the lost son is restored to the father, and so
there is good news all way around. We could say that God is better at finding
than we are at getting lost and that is very good news, because we are pretty
good at getting lost.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Robert Fulghum in his book, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">All I Really Need to Know I Learned in
Kindergarten </i>tells about playing hide and seek in his neighborhood growing
up. He says there was one kid who always hid too good. After a while they would
give up trying to find him. Later, after they had quit the game he would show
up and he would be upset. Fulghum writes, “There’s hiding and there’s finding,
we’d say. And he’d say it was hide and seek not hide and give up, and we’d all
yell about who made the rules and who cared about who, anyway, and how we
wouldn’t play with him anymore if he didn’t get it straight and who needed him
anyhow, and things like that.” Fulghum says that it didn’t matter what they
said, sure enough, the next time they played hide and seek he would inevitably
hide too good. Some of us are really good at hiding. We hide behind our
position, our place, our pride, our possessions, and our privilege. Many of us hide
from our true selves. We may be lost, and not even know it, which is true of
the Pharisees and scribes in our text. . <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Luke says that the tax collectors and
sinners were coming to Jesus, and Jesus welcomes them and eats with them, and
the Pharisees and scribes grumble and complain. Why do the Pharisees and
scribes grumble and complain? Because Jesus is calling into question their
worthiness system. Jesus is all about inclusion, Jesus practices an open table,
while the religious leaders restrict and control access as a way of exercising
power and control. They set the rules, and Jesus breaks the rules.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Now, when the Jewish leaders talk about
“sinners” they are talking about people who, for whatever reason, do not heed
their (the gatekeepers) application of Jewish law, especially the purity laws
and the laws surrounding eating – what you eat, how you eat, and especially who
you eat with. For the religious leaders of Jesus’ day the laws governing eating
and table fellowship became a test case for who is “in” and who is “out.” Jesus
defied such laws, which got him in a whole bunch of trouble with the Jewish
leaders. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">It’s easy for us to be judgmental and
dismissive of the Pharisees and scribes here, but <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">what we don’t realize is that many of us do the same sort of thing.</b>
I know I did for years, and maybe still do in ways that I don’t even realize. What
the Pharisees and scribes did with the holiness code, the laws of purity, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">we do the same thing with our particular religious
beliefs.</b> I just can’t understand why so many Christians can’t see this,
though, I have to admit, it took me some time to see it. The majority of
Christians today believe that God only accepts Christians, that if you are not
Christian you are excluded, you are not a child of God, and we have seen in our
history and especially today how that breeds feelings of superiority and
exceptionalism and elitism, and has done far more damage in our world than
bring help and healing. Most churches still do missions and evangelism on the
basis of an exclusionary Christianity. We think we have to get people of other
religious faiths or of no faith to believe like we believe about Jesus, and God,
and the Bible and so forth. And if they don’t share our religious beliefs, we
say they are lost. We don’t realize that in many ways we are just as lost or
even more lost than they are. But when the light comes on, we realize then that
we are all in this together. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">In our most
honest and insightful moments we realize that that we are all lost in some way
and need to be found. <o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Fred Craddock reminisces about playing
hide and seek as a child on the farm:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">“When my sister was ‘It,’ says Craddock,
“she cheated.”</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">She would count, ‘One,
two, three, four, five, six, seven, ninety-three, ninety-four.’ But Fred had a
place under the steps of the porch. Because he was small he could get under
there and never be found. He could hear his sister going to and fro, in the
house, out of the house, in the weeds, in the trees, down to the corncrib, in
the barn. He knew she wouldn’t find him. He would almost give himself away
snickering to himself, “</span><i style="font-size: 16pt;">She’ll never find
me here, she’ll never find me here.”</i><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> Fred then says that it occurred to him
</span><b style="font-size: 16pt;">that she would never find him.</b><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> So
after a while he would stick out a toe. His sister would walk by and see it and
run back to base and say, ‘Ha ha, you’re it, you’re it.’ Fred would come out brushing
himself off and say, ‘Oh shoot, you found me.’ Don’t we all want to be found?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Who can forget that scene where E.T.
points his long, straggly finger toward the sky and says, “E.T. phone home.” It
is a gripping image because we all identify in some way with E.T. We have all
known that longing for home, the longing to feel that we belong, to be found by
people who love us and miss us and want us to be with them. It is a poignant
image of the spiritual longing in each one us because <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">all our longings for home, for place, for a sense of security and
belonging reflect this deeper longing for Love, which is actually a longing for
God, even though we may not even know it or think of it as a longing for God at
all.</b> But it really is, because the essence of God is Love. As the Apostle
John said, “God is Love.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Do we want to be found? Do we want God
or Love (with a capital L) to find us? The place where we are found, the place
where we experience God’s love, is not just a one way street. In the postscript
to both the story of the lost sheep and the story of the lost coin, where Luke
is probably adding his interpretation, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">there
is celebration in heaven over one sinner who repents.</b> Everyone is welcome.
No one is rejected or excluded. No one is turned away. But not everyone is
found. There is the sinner who repents, but there is also mention of
ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. Is that possible? Are
there people who are so just, so righteous they need no repentance? Of course
not. This is an allusion to the Jewish leaders <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">who think they are righteous and need no repentance, but are just as
lost, and maybe even more so, than the ones they labeled “sinners.”</b> In fact,
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">they are the hardest ones to find,
because they (the Jewish leaders and those like them) are lost, but don’t think
they are.</b> Luke suggests that <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">the
finding requires some change</b>, some effort, some recognition of our need and
directional turn around on our part. Luke, and many other biblical writers, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">call this repentance.</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Luke puts an emphasis on repentance
throughout his Gospel. Luke’s Gospel begins with John the Baptist calling on
all the people who came out in the desert to hear him to bring forth fruit in
keeping with repentance. And at the end of the Gospel, the disciples are
charged with preaching forgiveness of sins and repentance in the name of Christ
to all people. Luke emphasizes “all people.” It’s proclaimed to all people
because all are included. Unlike the Jewish leaders who divided people and
labeled people “in” and “out” on the basis of their worthiness system, in God’s
household, all are already in. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Repentance
is not necessary to get in. Repentance is necessary to experience what it means
to be “in” and to live as God’s children in the world. </b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">We can be found, or we can be like the
ninety-nine and think we need no repentance. We can be like the elder son in
the next story who refuses to join the party. In that story the Father welcomes
the prodigal and throws him a party upon his return. But the elder brother refuses
to join the party. The elder brother is bitter and angry and resentful. We know
all about this kind of resentment today, because it is this kind of resentment
that fuels our nation’s immigration policy and practice. It’s the resentment
and bitterness of the elder son. But even the elder son is not “out.” I love
what the Father says to the elder son. The Father goes out to persuade the
elder son to join the party, just as the Father went out to welcome the
returning prodigal. The Father says, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Son,
you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate
and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life, he
was lost and has been found.” </i>The elder son is “in.” The elder son is
loved. But if the elder son is to join the party, if the elder son is to
experience the joy of the party, he will have to repent of his bitterness. He will
have to let go of his sense of entitlement and superiority. He will have to turn
from his resentment and anger toward his younger brother. He needs to repent,
just as the younger brother needed to repent. We all do. You can be a Christian
and be just as lost as anyone else. In fact, many Christians today <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">are </b>just as lost as the religious
leaders in Jesus’ day. And <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">they are the
hardest ones for God to find, because they don’t think they are lost, and they
are full of a sense of entitlement and full of resentment. <o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">God’s love is like radio waves. God’s
love goes out in all directions and falls upon all. But in order to receive
God’s love, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">in order to experience God’s
love in your heart and mind and soul, you have to be tuned in.</b> The question
is: What will it take for us to be tuned in? The specifics of that will vary,
but it’s going to take <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">some kind of
change of heart. </b>It may involve a change in the way we think and relate to
God. When you consider what some Christians believe about God and think about
God, it’s no wonder they never personally experience the love of God, because
the God they believe in isn’t very loving. Other folks, in order to receive
God’s love, may need to get some help with some destructive habits or addictions.
Others may simply need to think of others more and engage in practices of
kindness and generosity. Still others may need to learn to be more grateful.
Repentance, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">change of heart and mind and
will can take us in many different directions, but they all converge in the
experience of God’s love. </b>The end, the goal is the same – to know and
experience and share God’s love. That’s the goal. Getting there may take us
along different routes. But that’s the destination. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">There was a young man who aspired to be
the student of a particular Zen master who was widely known as a man of great
compassion and spiritual wisdom. This young man is invited to an interview at
the master’s house. The student wants to impress the master with his interest
and desire and so he rambles on and on about his spiritual experiences, his
past teachers, and his capacity for spiritual insight. The master listens
silently while pouring a cup of tea. As the young man goes on and on, the
spiritual master keeps pouring and soon the cup is overflowing. The would-be disciple
notices the tea spilling all over the table. He cries out, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Master, the cup is full.”</i> The teacher responds, “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Yes, and so are you. How can I possibly
teach you?” </i>When we are full or ourselves, then there is no room for God’s
love. When we are full of pride, or when we are full of prejudice, or
resentment, or jealousy, or greed, or our own accomplishments or even our own
failures, there is no room for God’s love to abide. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">These stories invite us to see ourselves
as lost in one way or another, and they assure us that God will not give up
until God finds us. God doesn’t quit the game when we hide too good. But <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">these stories also invite us to experience
God’s love by sharing the heart of God, who loves all God’s children with an
inclusive, magnanimous, unconditional, and eternal love.</b> As the story of
the Father and his two sons teach us, being found means joining the Father in
the celebration of the prodigal’s return. In the story of the Father and his
two sons, there was one son who was lost and needed to be found, and there was
another son who was found who ended up being lost, because he refused to share
the heart and joy of the Father over the son, his brother, who came home.
Christians today, who cannot feel hurt for God’s children who are being
oppressed or joy when they are liberated do not have God’s love. If a Christian
or for that matter anyone does not feel compassion or grieved by the way the
undocumented are being treated by our leaders and by others in this country, then
that person does not know and has not experienced the love of God. Because
God’s love is not restricted or exclusive. It is inclusive and extends to all. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Knowing God and experiencing God’s love
means sharing the heart of God. It means allowing God to love in us and through
us. Thomas Merton puts it this way: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I
who am without love cannot become love unless Love identifies me with Love’s
Self. [God is love] But if God sends God’s own Love, God’s Self, to act and
love in me and in all that I do, then I shall be transformed, I shall discover
who I am and shall possess my true identity by losing myself in God [or we
could say, in Love – capital L].” There are many persons, many Christians who
really don’t know who they are or who God is, because they have never allowed
God’s inclusive love to fill their lives. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">The shepherd in our story is willing to
take a big risk. He leaves the sheep in the sheepfold without protection, putting
himself at risk and leaving the remaining sheep at risk in order to find the
one that is lost. That’s not logical. It’s not good shepherding. It’s not even
good pastoral care. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">But the shepherd loves
the lost one so much that he is willing to take the risk in order to find it.</b>
Do we share the Father’s love? Do we want to? Are we willing to leave ourselves
vulnerable, are we willing to take a risk in order to share God’s inclusive
love? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Our good God, let us not make the
mistake when we read stories like this in thinking they do not apply to us, but
to someone else. Help us to see, O God, that we are all lost in one way or
another. And may we all long to be found in your love, to know and experience
your love. But help us to realize, O God, that the only way we can really enter
into the experience of your love is by sharing your love for all people. Our
hearts may need to change for that to happen. Give us the want and will to do
what we can do to open our lives to your compassion and love. Amen. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Chuck Queenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07189976951236608116noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7984481633806018539.post-62958087209312156602019-09-08T09:53:00.000-07:002019-09-08T09:53:03.397-07:00When All Out Commitment Is Needed (Luke 14:25-33)<br />
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Well, here we go again. Another group of
shocking sayings from Jesus. I should have took off this Sunday and let Dr.
Bailey preach this text. Now, it should be obvious that when Jesus talks about
hating father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even
life itself, he doesn’t really mean what we mean when we employ the word “hate”
in reference to an emotional or psychological state of being. But we, too, use
the word in different ways. When I hear some “not so” good news, like when a
marriage breaks up, or a job opportunity falls through, or I hear about someone
being sick, I will say, “O, I hate that” meaning, “I wish it wasn’t so.” Scholars
tell us that in the ancient Semitic context “hate” was frequently used
figuratively the way Jesus uses it here, to speak of a decisive, radical kind
of renouncement or subordination or detachment. </span><b style="font-size: 16pt;">Jesus is talking about a kind of commitment here that take precedence
over all other commitments – even family.</b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">This is not the first set of stringent
demands made by Jesus with regard to discipleship. In Luke 9 Jesus calls a man
to follow him, and the man says, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Let me
first go and bury my father.”</i> And Jesus says, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Let the dead bury the dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the
kingdom of God.”</i> Another person Jesus calls says, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Let me first say farewell to those at my home.”</i> And Jesus says, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“No one who puts a hand to the plow and
looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”</i> Now, once again, in the text
today we face some hard sayings about discipleship. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Now, I personally think there are
degrees of discipleship and levels of commitment, and <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">we are not all called to the same degree or level of commitment,</b>
though all of us must be prepared for it. And I think we have to understand
these sayings in the context of both Luke’s story/narrative and Jesus’ actual life.
Keep in mind that Jesus knows he’s going to die and at this point in Luke’s
narrative he has already told the disciples twice that he will undergo suffering
from the powers that be and be killed. When Jesus first tells them he is going
to suffer and be killed, he also tells them that they need to be prepared to
die to. After he tells them a second time he is going to suffer and die, Luke
says that the disciples did not understand what he was telling them. After,
which, they argue about who is the greatest among them. The disciples are still
in the dark, they still don’t understand the kind of kingdom Jesus has been
proclaiming. And this is very contemporary. I’m convinced that there are many
Christians today who have no clue regarding the kind of kingdom Jesus was
about. I speak from experience. For the first part of my Christian life and
ministry I had no clue either.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">When Jesus talked about the kingdom of
God they thought about the kingdom of Israel under David and Solomon when it
was at the height of its power and glory. This is the kind of kingdom they
envisioned the Messiah would usher in, either through human agency or by
supernatural means. So when Jesus talks about his own suffering and death, this
makes no sense to them. What they did not realize at this stage in their
journey with Jesus <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">is that God’s kingdom
is really a kin-dom.</b> It’s not like the kingdoms they were familiar with at
all. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">God’s kingdom is about being the
family of God and the focus is on how we live together as family, how we treat
one another and care for one another and love one other. </b>The kingdoms of
the world operate by greed and force and violence and love of power. The
kingdom of God is based on love of neighbor. It is grounded in an inclusive
love that even includes love of enemy. It is a completely different kind of
kingdom, an alternative kingdom. It is a kin-dom that is pervaded by love.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Now Jesus knows that if the kingdom of
God is to make any headway at all, if it is to have any effect or influence in
a world dominated by kingdoms that operate by a completely different set of
values, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">then he will need help</b>.
Jesus is going to die. He needs disciples, he needs followers <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">who will continue to embody and incarnate
the values of God’s kingdom after he is gone.</b> Historically, Jesus’ mission was
about <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">launching a movement</b> that
would spread the light of God’s kingdom of love in the midst of human kingdoms,
which are centered more in power and egotism and greed than in love of
neighbor. Jesus needed disciples who would accept this challenge. He still
does. The Apostle Paul clearly understood this when he spoke of Jesus’
followers being the body of Christ in the world. And even though, at this point
in the story, his disciples still don’t get it, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">he knows they will get it.</b> Even though they still don’t understand,
he knows that some will come to understand and some will get it, and when they
do, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">it will require total commitment.</b>
He knows they will face the same obstacles and the same kind of opposition he
faced. It will take complete dedication and commitment to the cause to spread
the good news of God’s kingdom of love and grace and righteousness in the midst
of kingdoms that operate by control and violence and greed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">So this is the context for the radical
demands of discipleship that Jesus makes in Luke. Jesus needs some disciples
who will be all-out and fully committed if his mission is to continue. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Family can’t stand in the way. Lands and
houses and possessions and all earthly stuff can’t stand in the way. The task
at hand is more important than anything else, even one’s own earthly life.
Jesus feels that the future of God’s kingdom of love is at stake, so he is not
hesitant in asking his followers to renounce everything. It’s that important. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Now, I know that we don’t live in the
same cultural and historical context. We live in a different time and setting.
But I think that all of us who claim Jesus is Lord must ask ourselves if we
could make that kind of commitment if asked. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Would you and I be willing to put the cause of God’s kingdom before
family, before job, before pleasure, before everything else in life? </b>And
would we be willing to lay down our lives if necessary for the cause of love
and justice in the world? These are the questions a text like this should cause
us to ask. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">This text is not about (these demands of
discipleship <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">are not about) what you
have to do to experience God’s love.</b> Let’s be clear on that. God’s love is
universal and it is unconditional. God’s love falls on the world like rain
drops. It falls indiscriminately on all. It is not based on any system of
meritocracy. It is not determined by a system of reward and retribution. (However,
I need to clarify – that doesn’t mean that reward and retribution doesn’t have
a place at all in God’s kingdom. I personally think it does, but it’s not the
main thing. I can imagine how reward and punishment might function on a level
that furthers the cause of love, which is the main thing.) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The main thing is God’s kingdom of love,</b> which is so very different
than the kingdoms most people live in and are governed by. Jesus needed
followers who would continue what he started, who would continue to incarnate
the amazing grace and inclusive love of God. And he still does. Jesus still
needs followers committed to God’s cause. There are many Christians today who
do not see this as their mission at all. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Yes, we live in a different time with a
different set of circumstances, and we are not all called to go about spreading
God’s inclusive love in the same way. But commitment is still needed. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">So what Jesus says about counting the cost,
about calculating the time and energy and effort required is just as important
today at it was then. </b></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Sometimes it’s the circumstances of our
lives and the context of time and place, the context of where we live that
shapes the nature of God’s calling to pursue God’s kingdom. Pursuing the
kingdom of love can take many forms and shapes and can be lived out in a number
of different ways. I can understand, for example, how a parent of a child
killed in a school shooting would feel a calling to take up the cause of
getting much needed legislation passed requiring mandatory background checks or
banning military grade weapons from public purchase. I can understand how that
person may feel completely called to give his or her life to this particular aspect
of the kingdom of God.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">There were those in the era of the civil
rights struggle who felt called to give everything to that cause. Some
completely gave their lives to the cause of ending segregation and getting legislation
passed that would help bring about equality and justice in our society. And some
did literally give up their lives. They were killed doing this good work. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">But you know, sisters and brother, every
follower of Jesus should have supported that cause grounded in love of neighbor.</b>
I don’t mean that every disciple of Jesus had to be on the front line. But <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">every follower of Jesus should have
supported and spoke out for civil rights.</b> Now, some were on the front line.
Some had to renounce everything to be out there on the front line working for
freedom and justice. We all have to search our hearts and see what we can do
and what we feel called to do, but <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">every
follower of Jesus should have felt some call to commitment to that cause.</b> There
are some things, sisters and brothers, that are just clear and obvious. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Clarence Jordan, the Baptist minister
who founded an interracial farm community in Americus, Georgia in 1942, even
before the era of civil rights, understood this better than anyone. Their
community was ridiculed and scorned and persecuted for their commitment to the
inclusive love of God. Jordan called Jesus’ teachings in the Sermon on the
Mount <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">the platform for the God movement,</b>
which is exactly what they are. And the God movement is not just a spiritual
movement. It is a spiritual movement for sure, but it is also social,
political, economical, and everything else. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Jesus’ teachings on love of neighbor and how we are to treat others
formed the basis of his movement and what he meant when he talked about the
kingdom of God.</b> What it means to love our neighbor as ourselves should be at
the heart and center of every Christian community. But of course, today, it’s
not, which just shows how far we have deviated from the movement of Jesus and
from the kingdom of God as Jesus embodied it and envisioned it. Every Christian
community, if it is serious about following Jesus, has to ask itself
constantly: <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Do we live by and mirror the
inclusive love of the kingdom of God?</b> Living by the kingdom of God, living
by the teaching of Jesus and the inclusive love of God calls for commitment. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Back in the day of the struggle for
civil rights, Clarence Jordan put it this way, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“I don’t know of anything that has caused me more real suffering and
real anxiety than to see the Christian church sit in this great social
revolution which is rocking the Southland, and our whole nation, as though
nothing were transpiring, keeping God’s salt in a saltcellar that we call the
sanctuary.”</i> He tells about a preacher friend saying to him, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Clarence, we’ve just to lay low on this
thing, and let it all blow over, and when it all blows over, then we can afford
to take a stand on it.”</i> Clarence asked him if he felt that way about all
sin. He said, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Reverend, are you going to
wait until sin just blows over and then hop up and say, ‘I’m against it. Glory
be.’” <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">I
honestly don’t think I could claim to be a follower of Jesus and not stand up
and speak out against how we are treating the undocumented, immigrants, and
people who are coming here seeking asylum in this country.</span></b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"> My discipleship to Jesus calls for that much at the
very least. Let me tell you what I think it means to be a committed disciple
and a committed American. It means celebrating the freedoms we have, while at
the same time standing against and speaking against the injustices that still
pervade our land. Some people say, “America, love it or leave it,” but that’s
not what they mean. What they mean is “America, obey it or leave it.” Love of
country should never be equated with blind obedience. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">One of the great freedoms we should celebrate is the freedom we have to
protest.</b> I love the way William Sloan Coffin expresses this. He says there
are “three kinds of patriots in America, two bad, and one good. The bad kind
are the uncritical lovers and the loveless critics.” He says “the good kind are
the kind who carry on a lover’s quarrel with the country,” which mirrors God’s
lover’s quarrel with the world. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I
believe it is our duty as disciples of Jesus to push for policies that support
love of neighbor and protest those that don’t. <o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Our discipleship to Jesus is expressed
in different ways, and certainly there are levels of commitment required. But
if Jesus really is our Lord, then all of us must live out a commitment to do
what we can do to express and spread <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">an
inclusive love of neighbor</b> in our families, our church, our local
community, our nation, and our world. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Our good God, help us to take our
discipleship to Jesus seriously. Help us spread your inclusive love through the
means we have available. And as we share together now in the bread and the cup,
let us be ready to pour out our lives the way Jesus poured out his for the good
of all people. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Chuck Queenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07189976951236608116noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7984481633806018539.post-48579388286124226192019-08-25T08:58:00.000-07:002019-08-25T08:58:46.876-07:00Crippling spirits and the liberating power of Christ (Luke 13:10-17)<br />
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">The healing stories in our Gospels are
never just about physical healing, they always have spiritual and theological
meanings. The woman in our story had been plagued by a crippling spirit for
eighteen years. It kept her bent over and unable to stand up. Can you see the
fairly obvious symbolical and spiritual implications here? A crippling spirit
of this kind can diminish our sense of worth and value. We find ourselves spiritually
and emotionally and psychologically unable to stand straight and take our
rightful place in the realm of God.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Jesus calls the woman he heals in our
story a “daughter of Abraham.” A daughter of Abraham who has been bound by
Satan eighteen long years. Satan here is a symbol for the crippling spirit, the
spirit that has kept her from living life in its fullness in God’s kingdom. But
she is still a daughter of Abraham. She is still a daughter of God. She is
still God’s chosen. God’s beloved. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Jesus
sees through and beyond the crippling spirit.</b> Can we? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">According to a Greek legend Helen of
Troy was kidnapped and whisked across the seas to a distant city where she
suffered from amnesia. In time she escaped from her captors and became a
prostitute on the streets. Back in her homeland, her friends refused to give up
on her. One admiring adventurer who never lost faith set out on a journey to
find her and bring her back. One day as he was wandering through the streets of
a strange city he came across a prostitute who looked strangely familiar. When
he asked her what her name was she responded with a name that he didn’t know.
Then he asked if he could see her hands. He knew the lines of Helen’s hands.
When he looked at her hands and realized who it was he exclaimed, “You are
Helen! You are Helen of Troy!” “Helen” she replied. When she spoke her name,
her true name, the fog began to clear and a sense of recognition registered on
her face. She discovered her lost self. Immediately she discarded her old
clothes and old life and became the queen she was called to be.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Do you know what your true name is? It
is child of God. It is son of God or daughter of God. That’s who we are in our
true self, the Christ self. The problem is that the true self gets hidden and buried
underneath the false self. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">What we have
to do is strip back the layers of the false self, so the true self can emerge.
Then we will be able to straighten up and walk upright and learn how to love
and to be loved. <o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Another kind of crippling spirit takes
us in the opposite direction. We can be crippled by an inflated ego just as we
can be crippled by a deflated one<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">. We
can be crippled be a spirit of arrogance and egotism. </b>Most of us who are
crippled by this spirit do not see ourselves as crippled at all. We think we
have it all together. The Pharisees in our story represent those crippled by a spirit of arrogance
and egotism. And too often it expresses itself through self-righteous attitudes
and acts and does considerable harm to others. The Pharisees in our story today
do not care that Jesus just liberated a woman who had been crippled for eighteen
years. Their only concern was that Jesus did this good work on the Sabbath in
violation of their interpretation of Sabbath law. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“There are six days of the week when people can be cured of their
ailments,” </i>they say, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Do your healing
then.”</i> But did they really regard the law with such sacredness? Jesus
points out their inconsistencies. He says, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Does
not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and
lead it away to give it water?”</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Does
not each of you do common work on the Sabbath? Of course you, do.” “You
hypocrites,” </i>says Jesus. They don’t care about this crippled woman. They
are offended because in their mind Jesus does not respect their place and
position. They consider themselves to be gatekeepers. They set the rules. They
determine who is in and out. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">I think religious leaders today struggle
with this as much as anyone, maybe even more so. A couple of weeks ago I had an
aspiring religious leader comment on one of my social media posts. He is a doctoral
student at Dallas Theological Seminary, a school that teaches biblical
inerrancy and dispensationalism. He said my posts “sickened” him. He was
determined to debate me and show me and my congregation (he wanted to show you
folks) the foolishness of my faith. He wouldn’t let it go. He kept insisting
that he had the truth, and he knew the truth, and he was sure that if I would
just debate him he could expose my fallacies. I finally said to him, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“I know all about the positions you hold. I
used to hold those same positions.”</i> I told him that I had earned my Masters
degree from a school similar to the school he is attending, a school that
taught, I assume still teaches, biblical inerrancy and dispensationalism. I informed
him that <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I was back then very similar to
the way he is now</b>: I had the truth and I wanted everyone else to see and
know the truth just the way I saw and knew it at the time. But I did tell him that
I did not think I was quite as arrogant about it as he is. Certainly, I had a
lot of ego invested in it that was expressed through self-righteousness. I
still struggle with this from time to time. But this guy was just plum full of
himself. He was severely crippled and didn’t know it. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">So how do we find healing and liberation
from such crippling spirits as self-degradation on the one hand, and arrogance
on the other? In the tradition I was taught faith was the way of salvation. But
it was a <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">rather mechanical understanding
of faith that focused on beliefs. </b>I was taught that if I just believe that
Jesus died for my sins and if I confess Jesus as Lord I would be saved. But did
that really save me? Did that really heal me, change me, transform me? Not at
all. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">All it really did was put my ego
back in charge.</b> I felt that because I believed the right things, and made
the right confession, and said the right prayer that gave me the right to be a
child of God, to be forgiven all my sins, and to gain the promise of heaven. I
felt I had done all the right things, and that made me God’s chosen over all
the other people who didn’t know the truth. Richard Rohr says this about such a
notion of faith (I have included the quote in your worship bulletin): <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Such a mechanical notion of salvation
frequently led to all the right religious words, without much indication of
self-critical or culturally critical behavior. Usually, there was little
removal of most ‘defects of character,’ and many Christians have remained
thoroughly materialistic, warlike, selfish, racist, sexist, and greedy for
power and money – while relying on ‘amazing grace’ to snatch them into heaven
at the end. And it probably will! But they surely did not bring much heaven
onto this earth to help the rest of us, nor did they speed up their own
salvation into the present. Many ‘born agains’ have made Christianity laughable
to much of the world.”</i> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">A mechanical notion of faith or
salvation will not heal us and liberate us from our crippling spirits. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">What we need in order to experience
authentic healing and liberation from our “defects of character,” from the
forces that keep us crippled is a genuine encounter with God’s expansive,
magnanimous, inclusive love.</b> I wonder how many Christians who use “born
again” language have actually had such an encounter. It can come to us in many
ways if we are open to it and ready for it, but it certainly doesn’t just happen
as a result of believing the right things. A mechanical notion of faith and
salvation not only does not bring real healing and liberation, it <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">may actually serve as a substitute that
prevents us from having an encounter with Divine Love, which alone can change
us.</b> We think that if we believe the right things, do the right things, say
the right things that we will be healed/saved. And yet all we have really done
is create another system of meritocracy, another worthiness system similar to
the one the Jewish leaders had created in Jesus’ day. It’s a system that fuels
the ego and makes us feel superior. Then we send out missionaries to get people
in other places to believe exactly what we believe so they can feel superior
too. No real conversion happens. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Now, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">another way we go about this is that we substitute repentance for
faith,</b> which does, on the surface, seem to be an improvement. This works
something like this: We tell people that they are sinners, that they should
fear the judgment and punishment of God, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">but
instead of insisting they believe the right things, we insist that they repent
of their sins, and obey God.</b> And on the surface it seems to work, at least
at first, but then it quickly fizzles out or it just devolves into legalism,
because it’s based on a worthiness system too. These two approaches have dominated
American Christianity. Isn’t it obvious that two approaches haven’t worked? Look
at the state of Christianity today both in our country and our world. As
Richard Rohr has pointed out the majority of Christians in America are just as
unchristian as everyone else – just as prejudiced, warlike, greedy,
egotistical, and materialistic as everyone else. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Both of these systems, one based on belief, the other on repentance
haven’t worked, because love is dangled as the prize at the end.</b> Both are
systems of retribution and reward, and no system of retribution and reward really
changes people<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">. </b>It functions pretty
well at modifying behavior for varying periods of time. But it doesn’t bring
about real transformation. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Real healing
and transformation occurs when our sin drives us into the loving arms of an
Unconditional Lover from whom we have nothing to fear and who has loved us all
along. <o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">I can illustrate this from a beautiful
story in Luke’s Gospel – the story of the prodigal. Actually, it’s more about
the Father than the prodigal. You know this story. The son treats the Father
with disdain. He requests his inheritance. Leaves home. And squanders every penny
“in dissolute living.” He loses it all. This Jewish boy becomes so desperate
that he hires himself out to a Gentile and goes to work feeding his pigs where
we are told that if could he would “have filled himself with the pods that the
pigs were eating.” That’s about as desperate as one can be isn’t it? So he
makes a decision to eat crow, which is better than pig food, and return home.
He decides he will make a confession to his father and ask to be treated as one
of his father’s hired hands. Now, do you think the Son is really sorry at this
point for the way he treated his father? I don’t get that impression in the
story. One of the great things about the stories Jesus told is that they leave
a lot of room for our imaginations and for the Spirit to work. I see nothing in
the story that would suggest that at this point he is remorseful or sorrowful
for hurting the Father. He seems to be just like the person who comes to God
out of fear or guilt or social pressure or something else. There is no real
desire to change. Just a desire to escape punishment. Or in the case of the
prodigal to escape hunger and poverty and humiliation. Desperation sends him on
his way back to the Father, but desperation doesn’t save him from his false
self.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">So what happens? Jesus or Luke describes
it this way<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">: “While he was still far off
his Father saw him coming. [This implies that the Father has been waiting and
watching constantly. The Father is up on the hill every day looking for his
son.] The Father, filled with compassion, ran to meet him. He embraced him and
kissed him.” </i>This was all before the son spoke a single word. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The Father expresses what the Father always
felt – unconditional love for his son.</b> Now, when the Son actually confesses
to the Father he doesn’t do as he rehearsed. There is no mention of working as
a hired hand. He drops that completely. Why? Apparently, now, having
experienced the Father’s love, he feels no need to try to barter or squeak out
a deal. What I think is that for maybe the first time he experiences the
overwhelming, unconditional love of the Father and what flows out of that
experience is true repentance. Repentance is the consequence of being loved,
not the cause. God removes the barter system, the rewards and punishment system
completely. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">In God’s system of grace, in
contrast to systems of meritocracy, love precedes repentance and is the true
cause of repentance. <o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">In God’s system of grace genuine sorrow
and regret over the hurt and harm we have done to others is never produced by
guilt or fear of punishment. Fear, like desperation, may cause us to modify our
behavior, but it cannot change our heart. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">But
when, in our fear and desperation, we experience the unconditional love of God,
then our heart changes.</b> As John says in his first epistle, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“There is no fear in love, and mature love
cast out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, with retribution, and
whoever fears,”</i> says John, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“has not
reached maturity in love.” <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">We are all crippled to some degree and
on some level. We all struggle with the ego. It may be a lack of value or
self-worth that keeps us bent over, unable to walk tall and straight. Or it may
be a spirit of arrogance and a sense of entitlement that leads us to think of
ourselves as better or superior or even more blessed than others. Either way we
are crippled by our ego. Some of us are more crippled than others. Some of us
less. But we are all in need of healing and liberation on some level. Now
sisters and brothers, healing will come, liberation will come, authentic
conversion and true repentance will come about, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">not through guilt or fear of punishment or law keeping or social
pressure or believing the right things</b> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">or
just modifying our behavior</b>– it will only come about <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">when we experience for ourselves God’s eternal, God’s immense, God’s magnanimous,
God’s unconditional, God’s inclusive love.</b> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">O God, let our hearts and minds be open
so we can see and understand why no system of reward and retribution can ever
really change our hearts and minds. Let us be open to the experience of your
great love. For only then can we begin to love others the way you love every
single one of us. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Chuck Queenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07189976951236608116noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7984481633806018539.post-36158961754522418992019-08-18T09:53:00.000-07:002019-08-18T09:53:00.006-07:00When Love Divides (Luke 12:49-56)<br />
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">A few years age Reza Aslan, who was
publicly known to be a prominent voice on Islam wrote a book about Jesus
titled, "Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth.” The fact that he was
known as a popular cultural voice on Islam helped the book sell. Also, in the
aftermath of its publication he had a rather nasty but entertaining interview
about the book on Fox, which helped it climb up several best sellers lists. Now,
there is certainly nothing wrong at all with a Muslim or any non-Christian
writing a good book about Jesus. The problem, however, is that this was not a
good book. Most of the reviewers noted that Aslan was a good story-teller and
writer, but not a very good historian and scholar. Some suggested he was much
better at fiction than at history. His basic thesis was that Jesus was a failed
revolutionary who was willing to use violence to overthrow the political and
religious order to bring in God’s kingdom. He rejected outright, without any
evidence to back his claim, that the many teachings by Jesus in the Gospels about
nonviolence, peace-making, and love of enemies were not actual teachings of
Jesus at all, but teachings placed on his lips by his followers. That argument
has no proof, of course, and it’s hard to imagine any follower of Jesus,
knowing what we know about followers of Jesus, coming up with the teaching on
loving one’s enemies. At any rate, in his book Aslan focuses on a few texts
like this one today. </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Matthew’s version is even a bit stronger
than Luke’s. In Matthew Jesus says: </span><i style="font-size: 16pt;">“Do
not think that I have come to bring peace on earth. I have not come to bring
peace, but the sword.”</i></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">On the surface this may seem like a real
contradiction with the other teachings and actions of Jesus where Jesus
instructs us to love and pray for our enemies and where he says, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Blessed are the peace-makers.” </i>And then
there is the procession he leads into Jerusalem at the beginning of Holy Week which
is basically a peace march.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A peace
march, if not in protest, at least in contrast to the imperial procession of
Roman soldiers led by Pilate to secure the Roman fortress outside the city in
preparation for the festivities of Passover. So what is Jesus saying in the
text today? To read this as if it was Jesus’ intent to divide, to set folks
against one another, is to misread this text. Jesus has not given up on
peacemaking. Jesus is not calling for force or violence. What he is saying, in
his commonly shocking and hyperbolic way, is that the way of love, which he
calls his followers to pursue, can be divisive. As long as there are unloving,
ungracious, unwelcoming, sexist and racist people, then the love of Christ will
create divisions. And those divisions will even cut across family lines.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">The Gospel of Luke gives us the best
example of this. In Luke 4 Jesus enters the synagogue in his home town and he
reads from Isaiah 61. He defines his own work by the agenda of God’s servant in
Isa. 61 as bringing good news to the poor, bringing release to the captives,
recovery of sight to the blind, liberating the oppressed, and proclaiming God’s
grace. The people in his hometown are happy to hear this. Luke says in 4:22, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“All spoke well of him and were amazed at
the gracious words that came from his mouth.”</i> Some might wonder why Jesus
didn’t just end it right there. That’s what most Baptist preachers would do.
Nothing quite like a standing ovation. But Jesus knew what was in their hearts
and he knew that they were thinking only of their own kind. Jesus knew that
their love and loyalty was limited to their own group, their own people. They
thought Jesus’ was speaking about his mission to Israel exclusively. They
reasoned just the way many Christians today reason. They thought God was the
God of Jews only, just the way so many Christians today think God is the God of
Christians only. Jesus wanted to transform people, not please. Jesus couldn’t
let it rest. Jesus could confirm their false view of God.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">So, Jesus draws from the sacred
scriptures they hold in common to challenge their exclusiveness and
exceptionalism. He makes reference to two stories. He first calls attention to
the story in 1 Kings 17. A famine had overtaken the land. There were many
widows in Israel who were in need, no doubt, desperate need, but God sent
Elijah, not to a Hebrew widow, but, of all things, to a Gentile widow and her
son, who had no food. Elijah provides them with food enough to survive and he
heals her son. And in telling this story, Jesus stresses the point that this
was a Gentile. He says, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“There were many
widows in Israel,”</i> in great need, but Elijah <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“was sent to none of them.”</i> Jesus follows that story with another
story found in 2 Kings 5, where Naaman, a Gentile ruler, is healed of his
leprosy by Elisha the prophet. Again, in making his point Jesus emphasizes that
there were many Jewish lepers who were not healed. Elisha was not sent to any
of them. Rather, he was sent to a Gentile. After he told these two stories,
drawn from their own scriptures, the scriptures all Jews held in common, Luke
says, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“all in the synagogue were filled
with rage.” </i>He went from being revered as a prophet of high honor to being
hated as a messenger of the evil one speaking heresies. Luke says they drove
him out of town, and wanted to hurl him over the cliff. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">You see, as long as Jesus focused on the
poor, the blind, the captive, and the oppressed <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">in Israel, among their own people, </b>they praised the words he spoke.
But when Jesus made it clear <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">that God’s love
and grace was not limited to their kind of people, that God’s love is inclusive
of all people,</b> and not exclusive to them, they were infuriated. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">It should be conceded that it is
understandable why Jesus’ hometown crowd would be upset with him. They had good
reason to dislike Gentiles. Their country had a long history of being overrun
by Gentile powers. And at this very point in history, they were basically
enslaved to Rome. They were given some measure of freedom, but the Romans could
do to them whatever they wanted and at times did. Rome taxed them heavily and
confiscated their land. This is why Jewish tax collectors who collaborated and
colluded with Rome were so despised by their countrymen. They were deemed
traitors. They had good reason not to like Gentiles. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">But Jesus couldn’t let them go on thinking
they were God’s favorites and everyone else was going to hell. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Jesus was a truth-teller and he had to tell
them the truth about God’s inclusive love, and it just about got him killed
before he even got started in the work God called him to do. <o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">My job would be easy if I didn’t have to
tell you the truth about God’s inclusive love. You would all just love me.
Everyone would want to come and worship together. Of course, I know whenever I
speak I am speaking my truth – it is truth as I understand it. I could be
wrong, and I am sure I am wrong about many things. But all I can do is tell you
the truth as I see it. So I have to preach about God’s inclusive love. If I
can’t tell you what I truly believe, then I should quit and go sell insurance.
There was a time I thought seriously about that – not necessarily selling
insurance, but quitting. And if I had any other marketable skill at the time I
may have. I struggled with it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">I remember reading that passage in John
6 where Jesus delivered a discourse, and even before he finished his sermon,
most of his congregation had left for good. John says that when many of Jesus’
disciples heard his teaching they said, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“This
teaching is difficult, who can accept it?”</i> Jesus said to them, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Does this offend you?” </i>but he didn’t
stop. He kept going. And a little bit later John says, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went
about with him.”</i> Then after most of his disciples left, Jesus turned to the
little group who had been with him from the beginning, and he said to them, “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">What about you? Do you want to leave too?” </i>I
remember reading that at the time and thinking to myself, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Yes, Lord, I want to leave. Why don’t you show me the door?”</i> Then,
I read a little further where the disciples respond, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Lord, to whom are we going to go? Where are we going to go? You have
the words of life. We are convinced that you speak words of truth. We can’t
leave.”</i> I decided I couldn’t leave either. I would just have to tell the
truth as I understand it. I would just have to speak the words that I am
convinced bring life. So, in the end, I decided that I would just be honest
about my spiritual and faith journey and speak what I know in my heart, and let
the chips fall where they may. That’s what I did and that’s where we are. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Sometimes what we think is peace is not
peace at all. Or what we think is unity, is not true unity, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">not the kind of peace and unity that honors
all of God’s children and recognizes the worth and value of all God’s daughters
and sons.</b> I have shared several times the story that Fred Craddock tells
about going home to west Tennessee to visit, where an old high school friend
named Buck owned a restaurant. Fred went in there for some pie and coffee and
Buck said, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Do you see the curtain?”</i>
This was in the day of segregation. Buck told Fred, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“The curtain has to come down.”</i> Fred said<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">, “Good, take it down.”</i> But then Buck confessed the struggle he was
having. He said to Fred<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">, “If I take the
curtain down, I lose a lot of customers, maybe even my business.”</i> But then
he said, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“If I leave that curtain up, I
lose my soul.”</i> God’s inclusive love divides people and even divides our own
souls, that is, until we decide to love. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Once
we decide that we are going to own and claim and live God’s inclusive then the
division in our own souls is resolved.</b> And even in the midst of outer
division and external chaos, the peace of God fills our hearts. No one today
who spews hate and fear and tells God’s children fleeing poverty and crime and
drugs to go back where they came from has God’s peace. They may think they do,
but they don’t. They may have the world’s peace, but they don’t have God’s
peace. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Listen to how a young woman describes
her experience of moving to a new community and finding a new church home. She
says: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Everybody was super-accomodating,
bending over backward to lend a hand. They were the most welcoming, organized
bunch of people I have ever met. They started helping us unload the trailer and
the truck, they had everything inside and unpacked in less that two hours. They
had already stocked the refrigerator and the pantry with all kinds of dry goods
and supplies . . . The sense of community was really impressive. When someone
needed something, everybody was always there at a minutes notice.” </i>Guess
what church she is talking about? She is describing Westboro Baptist Church in
Topeka, Kan. The church that says horrible things about our LGBTQ sisters and
brothers. She is talking about the church we have come to know as the church
that is filled with hate. Is that God’s peace and love? Even the members at
Westboro Baptist Church love their own. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">In our world today God’s inclusive love
divides as much as it unifies. There is much irony in that isn’t there? It
exposes spiritual disease as much as it heals and restores. Jesus knew that <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">the truth of God’s inclusive love would cut
deep, exposing prejudices, and judging all claims to be God’s chosen over
others.</b> Jesus knew that it would even divide families. But that didn’t stop
Jesus. He knew God’s will for the world. He knew what God wanted to do. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">He knew the kind of peace and unity God
wanted to bring about – the kind that treated all people as God’s chosen
people.</b> And if we have a mind centered on God and a heart in tune with God
and a will to obey God, then we would see just what Jesus sees and we would
trust the inclusive love of God that Jesus embodied and taught us about. Jesus
is our living example of the inclusive love of God. We are called to love
inclusively like Jesus. Now, if that is too difficult. If it is too hard to
accept. If we are too loyal to our political party or ideology or our
particular social or religious group, or too bound to family prejudices to love
inclusively, then so be it. Maybe we should consider Jesus’ question to the
disciples, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Do you want to quit too?”</i>
He asked. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">In the text Jesus says, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“You hypocrites.”</i> Now, I really question
whether Jesus went around calling people hypocrites. My guess is that Jesus’
followers added that to the tradition that was passed on to them. But then
again, maybe he did. He points out that we know how to discern the signs in
other areas of our lives, like the weather. Their society was an agricultural
society. Their very lives depended on their ability to understand the signs of
the weather and how it impacted them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">We read all sorts of signs very well. We
know how to fix up our houses when they show signs of deterioration. We know
how to get help for our bodies when we show signs of sickness. We know how to
build bigger barns and store all the stuff we accumulate when we have more than
we need. But unfortunately, not as many of us know how to be rich toward God
and give ourselves to the unfailing treasures of compassion and grace.
Unfortunately, we are not very good at reading the signs of love that is
limited and exclusive and centered on our own – our own religion or group. The
question for us today is this: <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Are we
willing to love inclusively the way God loves inclusively, even when it brings
division?<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">God, help us to love others the way you
love others. If we love others the way you love others, that means loving all
people. That may mean loving people that some of our friends and family don’t
love at all. Loving them may create division in the groups and families we are
part of. It would be easy not to love the way you love. But you have called us
to be like Jesus. You have called us to reflect and mirror your image. You have
called us to be the light of the world and the salt of the earth. Help us to be
faithful to embody and practice your inclusive love. Because if our family and
friends don’t see it in us, where will they see it. Amen. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Chuck Queenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07189976951236608116noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7984481633806018539.post-5011545629527536632019-08-04T08:41:00.000-07:002019-08-04T08:41:22.068-07:00Greed is Not Good (Luke 12:13-21; Col. 3:1-11) <br />
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">In the 1987
movie </span><i style="font-size: 16pt;">Wall Street</i><span style="font-size: 16pt;">, Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko says to the
stock holders of Teldar Paper, </span><i style="font-size: 16pt;">“The point
is, ladies and gentleman, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed
is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence
of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for
money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed,
you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other
malfunctioning corporation called the USA.”</i><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> Is greed a good thing? If you
eliminated greed from our economy we would have to restructure our economic
system. There is a reason the Christian tradition has made greed one of the
seven deadly sins. In our text today Jesus says, </span><i style="font-size: 16pt;">“Be on your guard against all kinds of greed.”</i></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">It’s important to set this teaching by
Jesus on greed in the context of Luke’s Gospel. In the previous stories leading
up to this passage about the rich fool, story after story, passage after
passage highlights the blindness of Jesus’ contemporaries, particularly the
religious leadership. In the passage right after Jesus’ teaching on prayer that
I talked about last week, the Jewish religious leaders accuse Jesus of casting
out demons by the power of Satan. In other words, to put this in the language
of today, they are accusing him of doing works of liberation for diabolical and
evil purposes. Jesus refutes such foolishness and contends he is doing the
healing, liberating work of the kingdom of God, setting people free and making
them whole. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Jesus goes on to mention the sign of
Jonah. The Ninevites repented when Jonah told them the truth, but Jesus’
contemporaries refuse to hear the truth. So Jesus says, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“The people of Nineveh will rise up in judgement of this generation.”</i>
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Jesus tells them that the eye is to the
body what the heart is to the soul, and their heart is dark and blind to the
light of God. Now, the Jewish leaders claimed to know God and speak for God,
but they were in reality morally and spiritually blind to the love of God and the
ways of God. They didn’t really know God at all, even though they thought they
did and claimed they did. They didn’t know good from evil, or truth from
deception, or justice from injustice. Sounds familiar doesn’t it? Such is the
state of the leadership of many countries in our world today, including our
own. Jesus tells them that the light they profess is actually darkness. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Next, Jesus thunders and rails against
their hypocrisy. When the Jewish leaders chastise Jesus for eating without
observing their laws of ritual cleansing he says, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but
inside you are full of greed and wickedness.”</i> They were full of greed, not
just for possessions and wealth, but for power and position. They were greedy
for control. The fact that Jesus did not acknowledge their legalistic
interpretations of the scriptures or submit to their authority and control,
infuriated them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">This is the setting that leads up to Jesus’
warning about greed and the parable of the rich fool. Jesus had been very
direct, but clearly that was not working. So he tells them a parable. Someone in
the crowd beckons Jesus to settle a dispute between him and his brother over
the family inheritance. Jesus refuses to get entangled in a family dispute, but
he uses the occasion to warn them about greed. Now, Jesus has already warned
them that greed merits judgment, that greed is not good. Now, he takes a
different approach. Jesus insists that to live a life of greed is just a
foolish way to live. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">In those days one’s wealth was measured
in terms of lands and harvests. A rich man’s land produced abundantly. Now,
under the old theology of blessing and cursing this would have been understood
to mean that he was blessed. Not from the perspective of Jesus. The rich man
said to himself, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“I have no place to
store all that I have. What should I do? I know what I will do. I will build
larger barns to store all my grain and my goods. Then I will sit back and
relax. I will eat, drink, and be merry.”</i> If Jesus were telling this story
to me and my kind of crowd he might say, “A bass fisherman said to himself, I
have no place to store all my rods and reels and lures. What shall I do? I know
what I will do. I will build a storage building so I can store all my fishing
stuff. Then I will say to myself. Self, relax for a while. Then, go fish till
you drop.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Now, little does the rich man know, says
Jesus, that tonight he will meet God. And God will say. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Where’s all the stuff that you lived for? Where is it? To whom does it
now belong?” </i>God says, “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">What a fool.
How foolish it is to store up all this stuff for yourself, and not be rich
toward God.”</i> Sort of reminds me of an inscription to be found in a museum
in Deadwood, South Dakota, where they had the gold rush 100 years ago. The
inscription, scratched out by a beleaguered prospector, says<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">, "I lost my gun. I lost my horse. I am
out of food. The Indians are after me, but I've got all the gold I can carry.” </i>And
God says, “What a fool.” It just might be that every time a place another order
to Tackle Warehouse God is probably saying, “What a fool.” I know my wife I saying
that, but God is probably saying it too. I joke about it, because there is no
use in pretending that we don’t all struggle with this. We all do. I’m sure I struggle
with this is as much as you do. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">And while we all struggle with this,
there are some people who are just bigger fools than the rest of us. I will
tell you about one. His name is Mike Long. He was known as America’s big bass
guru. He has been featured on the cover of over 40 fishing magazines. He’s
fished alongside Hank Parker and Shaw Grigsby on their popular TV shows. He has
racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in tournament winnings and big bass
prizes, including the 50 or 60 thousand dollar boat that he owns. Fishing
companies lined up to get him to endorse their products. He dominated the local
tournament trail in San Diego County, California, known as the big bass capital
of the world. The fishing industry, particularly the craze surrounding
swimbaits, wouldn’t be the same today if it weren’t for Mike Long.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Well, guess what? Mike Long is a fraud. Now,
I know some of you think that I have been posting the same fish over and over
again on facebook. Even my son said the other day, “How did you get all those
pictures of the same fish?” Now even if that were true, I would not be the
fraud that Mike Long is. Mike Long was exposed by a man named Kellen Ellis who
was once his friend. Kellen engaged in an extensive investigation of Mike Long
over several years and just recently published the results in a 12,000 word plus
investigative report (which is an amazing piece of investigative journalism)
and a 20 minute video that supplies indisputable proof of Mike Long snagging,
which is illegal, not catching big largemouth bass while they were on the nest.
Mike Long made numerous false unverified claims with false photographs to claim
several lake records in the San Diego area. The fish he snagged illegally he
would hide on his boat in oxygen filled livewell bags which he turned in during
the tournament weigh in as fish he legitimately caught that day. These were
fish previously snagged and then hidden on his boat. That’s how he won so many
tournaments. Mike Long s<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">nagged, cheated,
lied, bribed and bullied his way to become the big bass king of the world. All
of that has been exposed and Mike Long’s name is now held in contempt by bass
fishermen all across the country. His greed, not just for the money, but for
the acclaim and prestige of being the big bass master of the world, the best of
the best, led him to a very dark place, where there was nothing he would not do
for a taste of the praise and glory of being the King of the big bass world. Sounds
like some of our elected officials doesn’t it? <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">In C. S.
Lewis’ <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Lion, the Witch, and the
Wardrobe </i>one of the children, Edmund, who magically enters the land of
Narnia finds himself face to face with the White Witch. She has turned Narnia
into a perpetual winter—though never Christmas. Her plan is to get Edmund to
talk, to get information about the other children. In order to do that she
gives him some Turkish Delight. Lewis writes: “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">At last the Turkish Delight was all finished and Edmund was looking
very hard at the empty box and wishing that she would ask him whether he would
like some more. Probably the Queen knew quite well what he was thinking; for
she knew, though Edmund did not, that this was enchanted Turkish Delight and
that anyone who had once tasted it would want more and more of it, and would
even, if they were allowed, go on eating it till they killed themselves.”</i>
That’s what greed will do – it is self-destructive. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">It’s hard for
us to see how destructive it is, because our economy and culture and lifestyle
is saturated with it. Greed is easy to rationalize and justify, because we
don’t call it greed. We might call it the American dream. We are doing this
with racism today. There are a number of people who are saying racist things
and supporting racist practices, but they don’t think it is racism. They are
blind to their racism just the way many of us are blind to our greed, myself
included. Greed is one of the reasons some people don’t want immigrants coming
into our country. They will take what is ours, they say. And that really gets
to the heart of what greed is. The man Jesus calls a fool, our society would
call prudent and industrious. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Dr. Alan
Culpepper makes the observation in his comments on this text that the rich
man’s vision of the future, “eat, drink, and be merry” - leisure, recreation,
freedom from the demands of work – sounds uncomfortably like the vision most of
us have for our retirement years. Our entire economic system (as is true for
most of the world) is driven by the desire for more. You may remember a few
years back the AT&T commercial where the little girl says, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“You just want more, you just want more.”</i>
The commentator says, “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">It’s not that
complicated: Bigger is better.” </i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The reason
Jesus calls him a fool is because he is preoccupied with himself and his goods.
In the parable the fool talks to himself. He says to himself, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Self, what should <b>I</b> do for <b>I</b>
have no place to store <b>my</b> crops?”</i> Then he says, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“<b>I</b> will do this: <b>I</b> will pull down <b>my</b> barns and
build larger ones, and there <b>I</b> will store all <b>my</b> grain and <b>my</b>
goods.”</i> It’s <b>“I”</b> and <b>“my.”</b> He congratulates himself. He
builds for himself. He lives for himself. We get no indication of any sense of
responsibility toward others.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">By contrast,
consider Jesus’ teaching in the model prayer. It’s not about “my” or “mine”;
it’s about <b>“us”</b> and <b>“ours.”</b> It’s about God and others. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Hallowed be <b>your </b>name. <b>Your</b>
kingdom come. Give <b>us </b>this day our daily bread. Forgive<b> us</b> our
sins, as we forgive those who have sinned against <b>us</b>. Deliver <b>us</b>
from the time of trial.”</i> It’s about God and community, not God and country.
God’s community transcends country. God’s kin-dom transcends nationality,
ethnicity, gender, class and everything else. In God’s kin-dom God is all in
all. Everyone belongs. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">In Colossians
3:5-11, Paul gives us his vision of where God’s living creation is headed. We
are destined, according to Paul, to a place of ultimate renewal. In the time of
fulfillment Paul envisions a world reconciled, at peace, where love of neighbor
prevails. Paul says, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“In that renewal
there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian,
Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all in all.”</i> In that renewal, says
Paul, there will be no religious, racial, and social inequity or inequality. We
will all be one. We will all belong. We will all be united. Christ will be all
in all. What a glorious vision. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Will we ever
reach a time of fulfillment? When we look at how divided we are now as
families, as religious and social communities, as a country and as a world, it
seems like a fairy tale wish doesn’t it? <b>But, sisters and brothers, if we
are truly followers of Jesus, and not just church goers or Christians in name
only, then the dream of Christ being all in all will guide our steps and order
our lives.</b> Love of neighbor will be our first priority. And that, sisters
and brothers, is what it means to be rich toward God. (The quote by Richard
Rohr in your worship bulletin describes beautifully what it means to be rich
toward God.) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Paul tells us
to put away everything that would destroy that unity. Anything that would
demean or degrade another one of God’s children must be stripped from our lives
like we would strip off old, dirty clothes. Paul tells us to set our minds on
things above, not on things of the earth. The way we do that is by loving
others as we love ourselves. Jesus and Paul make it crystal clear to anyone not
blinded by their greed and ego, that we love God by loving others. <b>We are
rich toward God when we live unselfishly and generously, sharing with others,
caring for others, helping others.</b> God’s love is eternal. When we love, it
is the Christ loving in us and through us. <b>To be rich toward God is to be
rich in love and the relationships born out of love.</b> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Paul says get
rid of greed and self-indulgence, put to death all attitudes and actions that
hurt others – anger, malice, slander, abusive language. Stop lying and
deceiving. Strip off all the things associated with your old self, your
egotistical self, your little, false self, and clothe yourself with the Christ
self, the true, larger self. Paul goes on to say in that passage, “Clothe
yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear
with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each
other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. <b>Above
all, clothe yourselves with love,</b> which binds everything together in
perfect harmony.” Above all, says Paul, love your neighbor as yourself. This is
how we become rich toward God, and that is the only kind of wealth that will
last. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">O God, we all
struggle with greed, with wanting more for ourselves, sometimes at the expense
of others having less. Forgive us, Lord. Teach us how to be generous and how to
share with others. Teach us how to love our neighbors as ourselves. Because
many of us don’t know how to do that. Help us to discover a better way so we
won’t die as fools. So that we will be rich toward God. Amen. </span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Chuck Queenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07189976951236608116noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7984481633806018539.post-29062748291543611012019-07-29T07:21:00.001-07:002019-07-29T07:22:00.903-07:00The God we pray to (Luke 11:1-11)<br />
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Dr. Diana Butler Bass is a church
historian and a keen analyst of present day Christianity and culture. She has
written a number of books, several of which I have found quite helpful. She
recently wrote a piece that appeared on the CNN opinion page, part in response
to recent events and part as an analysis of where Christianity is today in our
country. The piece was titled, </span><i style="font-size: 16pt;">“The of
God of Love had a really bad week.”</i><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> She began the piece by noting the crowd
chant, “Send them back,” at a recent political rally. She discusses how the
deep divisions that are tearing our country apart right now are being felt and
played out in churches all across the country. She talks about this in the
context of her own family and shares that she has not spoken to her brother since
the incident at Charlottesville where a white nationalist ran his car through
the crowd killing one and injuring 19 others. After that incident she and her
brother had argued about white nationalism and racism, and haven’t talked sense.
She explains that the two of them had grown up in the same Methodist church and
Sunday School where they used to sing, </span><i style="font-size: 16pt;">“Jesus
loves the little children, all the little children of the world. Red, brown,
yellow, black and white. They are precious in His sight. Jesus loves the little
children of the world.” </i><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Diana says that they had the same parents, same
teaching, same church. They learned the Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you
would want them to do unto you.” They learned the Great Commandment, “Love your
neighbor as yourself.” She says, </span><i style="font-size: 16pt;">“The God
we worshiped was not a scary, threatening God, but the God of love and God’s
peaceable kingdom.” </i><span style="font-size: 16pt;">But then she says (and how many of us have seen this
play out in our own families, friendships, and church), </span><i style="font-size: 16pt;">“My brother, as an adult, traded that God for a tougher, stricter God
who exercises judgment against all who refuse to bend the knee, a kind of
Emperor-God, enthroned in glory . . . a masculine Sovereign, and a winner-God
for people feeling displaced in a pluralistic world.”</i><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> Diana Bass, who
studies religious trends, says this militaristic God became more real to many
Americans and more prevalent in America after 9/11.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">She says, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Meanwhile, the God of love was not having a particularly good run. In
the political age bookended by Ronald Reagan’s culture wars and a devastating
terrorist attack, the God of Love began to look like a loser, one fit for
liberation theologians, do-gooders, and feminists. The churches that still
preached a God of Love declined; those seminaries closed.”</i> That does seem
to me to be an accurate portrayal. We have lost members because I preach a God
of love and inclusion, and have had visitors who won’t came back for that very
reason. They don’t want a God who just welcomes anyone. Many Christians (I
would say most) want a God who just welcomes Christians. Some, perhaps many,
want a God who just welcomes heterosexual people. And a good number of
Christians want a God who threatens people with hell. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">She goes on to say, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“My brother and I read the same Bible and wound up praying to different
gods. His God thunders about lawless mobs and unbelievers. Mine is the
mysterious Word, present before the beginning of creation, calling all people
to compassion, and who welcomes little ones.”</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Same Bible,”</i> she says<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">, “but
different gods.” </i>How many of you have family members or friends, and you
grew up the same way, but you now pray to different gods? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Now sisters and brothers, today’s text
is on prayer and the point I want to get across is that <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">our vision of God impacts how we pray and what we expect in prayer.</b>
One of Jesus’s disciples comes to him and says, “Teach us how to pray?” In
response Jesus gives them a model prayer, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">a
pattern for praying</b> that we simply call the Lord’s prayer. Todays’ text
includes Luke’s version of that prayer, which is shorter than Matthew’s
version. Then, in the two illustrations that follow, Jesus focuses his aim on <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">the nature of the God we are praying to.</b>
Why is this important? Because <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">how we see
God, how we envision God, how we think about God – our operative image of God –
will greatly impact how we pray and what we pray for. <o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Jesus begins the model prayer with, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Our Father.”</i> You probably are aware
that Jesus spoke in Aramaic, which is a kind of colloquial form of the more
formal Hebrew. Our New Testament was written in Greek, so the writers of our
Gospels have translated and interpreted the sayings of Jesus and the stories
about Jesus that were passed on to them. However, interestingly, the Aramaic
word used for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Father” (Abba)</i> has
been preserved in the Gospel of Mark and in two letters from the Apostle Paul. In
other words, the word, in those texts, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">was
transliterated into Greek, rather than translated.</b> It was written in Greek
as it sounds in Aramaic in order to preserve the Aramaic word. The fact that
Mark’s Gospel and Paul preserved the actual Aramaic word that Jesus would have
used, tells us just how significant that word was to his early followers. The
dominant view among the Hebrews focused on the transcendence or otherness of
God. God was so revered that they even refused to speak the name of God. (This,
by the way, is probably why Matthew talks about the kingdom of heaven, rather
than the kingdom of God. It’s the same reality. Out of reverence for the name
of God, Matthew substitutes the word “heaven.”) There is truth in this, God is
to be reverenced, God is above all and beyond all, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">but taken too far God is viewed as out there, separate from creation
and humanity. Jesus understood God to be near. God is not just out there. God
is right here. </b>The kingdom of God is within you (or among you) he told some
Jewish leaders. The Aramaic term Jesus used was a term most frequently used to
describe a warm, personal love a parent has for his or her child. This is the
God of inclusion, rather than exclusion. This is the God who welcomes and loves
all God’s little children of the world, rather than a stern, angry God who has
favorites and operates on the basis of a system of worthiness. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Now, I think the way many Christians
interpret Jesus’ teaching on prayer in the first illustration he uses in Luke
11 is not only a misreading of the text, but a misunderstanding and misjudgment
of the very nature and character of God. A friend shows up unexpectedly tired
and hungry. Hospitality was expected in that culture. They put a premium on
showing hospitality to a guest. For the host to not be able to provide food would
have brought shame on him and his family. But the host has no food to give. So,
in desperation, he goes to a neighbor to ask for food, or beg for food if
necessary. The neighbor does not want to help. The door is looked and the
family is in bed. Go away, he says. But the host is persistent. Jesus says, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Even though he will not get up and give him
anything because he is his friend (friendship only goes so far, right), at
least because of his persistence (or a better translation would be
“shamelessness,” his shameless persistence) he will get up and give him
whatever he needs.”</i> Is God the kind of God you have to wear down, like a
parent who gets so tired of telling his kids no, he finally gives in and gets
them what they want? Do you have to keep bothering God until God finally says
yes? You would agree with me wouldn’t you that that is not good parenting?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">This
first illustration is an illustration of what God is NOT like.</span></b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"> The illustration that follows is intended to contrast
with the first. God is not like the friend who begrudgingly supplies one’s
need, only after you wear him down. Rather, says Jesus: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and the
door will be opened.”</i> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Is it really
that simple? Why is that? Because God is a loving God. </b>Jesus goes on: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“If your child asks for a piece of fish, do
you give him a snake instead? If she asks for an egg to eat, do you give her a
scorpion? Of course not. Now, if you who are evil (Jesus loves to use
exaggeration) know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more (this
is the point – how much more) will the heavenly Father (the good and gracious
and generous Abba) give the Holy Spirit to those who ask.”</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Asking is a crucial component of the
praying life. However, it is not about asking for just anything, or for that
matter, just anything good. Some think that prayer has to do with saying the
right words, or using the right formula, or having enough faith. They turn
prayer into a kind of mechanism, sort of like putting your coins in the pop
machine and pushing the button. They think asking starts a process that if
everything functions the way it is suppose to, then our request, like a can of
pop, will be delivered into our hands. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Now sisters and brothers, asking,
seeking, and knocking on heaven’s door has to be understood <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">in the context of a loving relationship
with God which leads us beyond our little agenda to embrace a larger good.</b>
In the movie <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bruce Almighty</i> Bruce
Nolan, played by Jim Carry, is a news reporter going through a midlife crisis.
He complains to his girlfriend that God does a poor job running the universe
and contends that that he could do a lot better. Well, he meets God, played by,
who else, Morgan Freeman. God gives Bruce the opportunity to run things for a
while, and of course, Bruce wrecks havoc with the world and his relationship
with his girlfriend, Grace. Bruce however, in time finally grows up . . .<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bruce asks God, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“What do you want me to do?”</i> / God says, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“I want you to pray, son.”</i> / Bruce squints his eyes and makes an
attempt, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Um . . . Lord, feed the hungry
and . . . bring peace to . . .um . . .all mankind. How’s that?”</i> / God says<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">, “Great . . . if you want to be Miss
America. Now come on. What do you really care about?</i> / Bruce thinks about
his girlfriend. He says, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Grace.”</i> God
says, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Grace. You want her back?”</i> / Bruce
pauses and then reflects just how far he has come along. He says, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“No. I want her to be happy no matter what that
means. I want her to find someone who will treat her with all the love she
deserved from me. I want her to meet someone who will see her always as I do
now . . . through your eyes.” God smiles, “Now that’s a prayer.”</i> Indeed,
that is a prayer. Prayer takes us beyond our own interests to embrace larger
interests related to God’s kin-dom of earth.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">If you interpret this passage in Luke on
prayer to mean that God is going to give us good things when we ask, then you
are misreading/misintpreting it, because it doesn’t say that at all. What it
says is that <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">just as (there is an
analogy/a comparison here) a loving human father or mother delights in giving
what is good for their children, God delights in giving us what is good for us,
namely,the Holy Spirit. </b>Jesus doesn’t say that God will give us any good
thing. What he says is God will give us the Holy Spirit when we ask. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The phrase “Holy Spirit” is just another
way of talking about God’s (Abba’s) loving involvement and engagement in our
lives.</b> The Holy Spirit is not an entity separate from God. The Holy Spirit
is God – <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">God at work in our lives.</b> When
Paul uses the phrase “Spirit of Christ” that is just another way of talking
about God emphasizing that Jesus is our window through which we see and
understand God’s character and what God is doing and wants to do in the world. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The Holy Spirit is God actively working in
our lives.</b> To ask for the Holy Spirit is <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">to ask for awareness, discernment, and openness to God’s work.</b> To
ask for the Holy Spirit is <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">to
intentionally participate in the work of God/Christ in the world.</b> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">In one sense we already have the Holy
Spirit. The Holy Spirit is what gives us life and breath. Both of the creation
stories in Genesis teach this. In the first creation story the human couple
reflect the very image of God. They are God’s offspring. A part of God lives in
them. In the second creation story the human creature doesn’t come alive until
God breathes into the human creature God’s own Spirit, God’s own breath of life.
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The Holy Spirit is in us, with us,
around us – all the time. </b>When I am talking to God, I am not talking to God
way up there somewhere. I am talking to God in here, in my deepest self, my
true self, where God dwells. To ask for the Holy Spirit is <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">to ask to be a channel through whom the Spirit flows.</b> To ask for
the Spirit is <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">to intentionally be part
of the inflow and outflow of divine blessing in the world. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">When I first started praying years ago
with any persistence I imagined God as out there, somewhere else, relating to
us from a distance. I imagined a God who from time to time would intervene into
our world to control events, circumstances, and people. Surely I was wrong. Isn’t
it obvious that God controls very little? Just look around. Surely <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">God believes in freedom much more than God
believes in control.</b> Clearly, God deeply respects and regards human freedom,
and the freedom built into creation itself, even when we use that freedom or
Mother Nature uses that freedom in abusive and horrendous ways. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Now, I still believe in intercessory
prayer and engage in intercessory prayer everyday. I believe there is great
mystery to prayer. I believe that our prayers connect to positive forces and
powers all around us to help in our healing and to help us tap into God’s wisdom,
and guidance. But I also realize that the way God works in our world and in our
lives is much more subtle and indirect than I or most of you like. When you
think about it, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">just about everything
God wants to do in the world God does through you and me, or it doesn’t get
done.</b> Paul understood this when he talks about the church, the covenant
people of God, being the body of Christ in the world. How does God, the living
Christ, make God’s self known and bring about peace and justice in the world? <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The only way I know God can do this is
through you and me, through people who are willing to be instruments of peace
and conduits through whom God’s love and grace and restorative justice can
flow.</b> This is what the Christian teaching of <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">incarnation</b> is about. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">God
becomes incarnate through us</b> as we are led by the Spirit of Christ. Paul
says in Galatians, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“The fruit of the
Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness,
gentleness, and self-control.”</i> These are humanly embodied qualities. They
express themselves in our demeanor, our conversations, our actions, and our
relationships. The Divine Spirit works <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">in
this material world through material means – primarily, the material of flesh
and blood – you and me. </b>It’s the only way God gets things done in the
world. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Prayer
is the means by which I open my life to God to participate in and help fulfill
God’s will/dream/plan for the world.</span></b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">
Prayer is the means by which I become aware of and sensitive to the ways of
God’s love, and make my life available to experience and express God’s love in
and through my life. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Prayer is readiness
and openness and participation in God’s inflow and outflow of blessing.</b>
Prayer is our way of being available to share in the workings of Divine Love. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Our good and gracious God, help us to
see that what you want from us is our love, because you have already given us
your love. Help us to discover over and over again what your love looks like
and feels like. And may we not keep it to ourselves, for then it wouldn’t be
love. Let us realize that the only way to grow in love is to give love away. Help
us, through prayer, to be open and receptive to your wisdom and inspiration and
compassion, so that we can participate in your loving ways and works in the
world. In Christ’s name. Amen.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />Chuck Queenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07189976951236608116noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7984481633806018539.post-5630266811880942182019-07-15T09:54:00.001-07:002019-07-15T09:54:45.137-07:00The Heart of True Religion (Luke 10:25-37)<br />
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">This teaching of Jesus on love gets to the
heart and soul of God’s will for humanity. I get to preach on this text yearly,
because all three Synoptic Gospels has a version of this passage, and the
Revised Common Lectionary includes this text yearly as part of its readings.
Each version is different, and Luke’s version deviates significantly from Mark
and Matthew’s version. Only Luke includes the story of what we have come to
call the Parable of the Good Samaritan, which is why I love preaching Luke’s
version of the story. All three versions make it clear that these two
commandments – to love God with the totality of our being and to love our
neighbor as ourselves – constitute the goal and fulfillment of healthy religion
and what God longs to see in human relationships and society.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Luke, however, clearly puts the emphasis
on the command to love one’s neighbor. For Luke, loving one’s neighbor is how
one loves God. Actually, these are not two separate commands, but one command.
When we love our neighbor as ourselves we are loving God whether we realize it
or not. According to the Apostle John this is the central way we express love
for God, namely, by loving others. John writes, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us . .
. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God” (4:12a, 16b).</i> Whenever
we love others, we are loving God. God is love, says John, and wherever love is
God is. This is true regardless of what one believes about God. Now, I think we
should be intentional in cultivating a relationship with God, but a
relationship with God that doesn’t focus on loving others is no relationship at
all. In fact, we are just fooling ourselves if we think we are pleasing God
through all our religious activities and observances, if we do not love our
neighbor as ourselves. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">This is clearly Paul’s take on these two
commandments as well. In fact, Paul doesn’t even mention in any of his letters
the first command to love God with the totality of our being. Paul makes
everything hinge on the command to love one’s neighbor as one’s self. In his
letter to the Roman in chap. 13 he says<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">,
“Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another
has fulfilled the law.”</i> Paul goes on to say that all the commandments can
be “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">summed up in this word, ‘Love your
neighbor as yourself.’”</i> Then he concludes his argument by saying, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Love does no wrong to a neighbor;
therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.”</i> Paul is clearly echoing the
teaching of Jesus. Then, in his letter to the Galatians, Paul instructs the
church not to use their freedom from the law for self-indulgence, but rather,
he admonishes them, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“through love become
servants of one another.” “For the whole law,”</i> says Paul, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You
shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”</i> He doesn’t mention two commandments
as Jesus did. He narrows it to a single command. The reason he can talk about
loving our neighbor alone as the fulfillment of the law is because loving one’s
neighbor automatically means loving God. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">We
love God by loving our neighbor. </b>Paul says a paragraph or two earlier that
neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything. This was a sacred
rite and ritual to faithful Jews. Rather, he says, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“the only thing that counts is faithfulness expressed through love.” </i>That’s
the only thing that matters says Paul. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Luke’s version of the story begins with
a lawyer or scribe asking Jesus, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Teacher,
what must I do to inherit eternal life?”</i> One might inherit something now or
in the future, so it’s hard to know exactly what the scribe intends. He could
be asking, “What must I do to possess eternal life now or what must I do to
receive eternal life in the next life?” A major point that John’s Gospel makes
is that eternal life is now before it is later. Eternal life is life in God,
with God, and for God. Of course, the scribe may have taken the view that
eternal is something that is future. Either way, he wanted to know what he
needed to do. He was right in thinking there was something he needed to do, but
he was wrong, if he thought eternal life was a reward for doing something.
Eternal life is not a reward that we earn. Jesus’ practice of welcoming all to
the meal table symbolized God’s inclusive grace. Jesus challenged the major
beliefs and practices within Judaism that made God and eternal life something
you earned. Jesus would abolish all systems of meritocracy. Eternal life in God
is a gift. However, it is a gift that needs to be unwrapped and appropriated. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">We appropriate and experience the gift by
what we do, not by what we believe.</b> You were not taught this, I know. I
wasn’t either. But it’s clearly what this passage teaches. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Jesus responds to the scribe’s question
with his own question turning it back to the scribe: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“What is written in the law? What do you read there?”</i> In Luke’s
version it is the lawyer, rather than Jesus, who recites the two commandments
about loving God and loving neighbor. Then, after he answers by reciting these
two commandments, Jesus says, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“You have
given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”</i> Not believe this. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Do this</b> and you will live. Do this,
namely, love God and love your neighbor (or we could say, Love God by loving
your neighbor) and you will live. That is, you will experience and express the
very life of the eternal God. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">We
intentionally and consciously enter into a friendship and partnership with God
through what we do. And what we do is love our neighbor as ourselves.</b> As
Paul says, that’s the only thing that counts. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">I have shared before and will share again
the story Phillip Gulley tells about the time when, as a young minister, he
accepted a call to pastor a Quaker meeting in Indianapolis. It was a small
community, but a very loving and caring community. The main reason for the
contagious caring spirit that characterized that faith community rested in the
presence of a couple who had helped start the congregation years before, Lyman
and Harriet Combs. When Gulley met them in 1990, they were retired and had
devoted their remaining years to ministering to others. Lyman volunteered each
day at a homeless shelter. Harriet made it her practice to be available to
anyone in need. She babysat, transported people to appointments, tended the
sick, visited the lonely, and did so, says Gulley, with such good humor and joy
that to be in her presence was a redemptive experience. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Over the years, the small faith
community there took on their demeanor. A joyful and grateful spirit infused
the church’s worship and ministry. The little church was incredibly generous,
regularly emptying its bank account to help the less fortunate. Because of the
church’s close proximity to several resources for the homeless, they were
frequently visited by mentally ill persons, all of whom were warmly welcomed
and made to feel at home. So often, people who needed to be touched in a
special way, after a divorce, after the death of a loved one, or in the throes
of a very painful experience, would stumble into their little church and find
strength, comfort, and hope. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">The church did eventually attract more
people. But as gracious as the people of the church were, Gulley would often
find himself frustrated by their apparent indifference when it came to growing
their numbers and getting more people in the community to come. On one occasion,
frustrated that the church was not growing in numbers the way he wanted it too,
he asked Harriet why that was. Her response was, “I guess it was never our goal
to have a large church.” Their denomination, as almost all denominations do,
had spent considerable resources trying to attract new participants to their
congregations, so Gulley was a bit surprised and not a little concerned by Harriet’s
response, which seemed to contradict their denomination’s priority. Gulley was
young and energetic and wanted the numbers to increase. I remember being the
very same way. So he asked Harriet, “Then why are we here?” She said smiling, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“To love.”</i> That’s why we are here.
Gulley could have passed for the scribe and Harriet for Jesus. Do this and you
will live, says Jesus. Love your neighbor as yourself, says Jesus, and you will
experience God’s life and spread God’s life wherever you go. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Then the scribe, says Luke, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“wanting to justify himself”</i> asks, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Who is my neighbor?”</i> It’s hard to know
the scribe’s intention. Luke tells us earlier in the passage that he wanted to
“test” Jesus, but testing can be a negative thing or a positive thing. I think
this scribe was genuinely interested in being right with God. So he asks, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Who is my neighbor?”</i> Who is it, then,
that I need to love in order to experience the life of God and be right with
God? In response, as Jesus loved to do, he told a story. I like to tell
stories, because you will remember a story, when you forget everything else. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Jesus begins the story with, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“A man was going down from Jerusalem to
Jericho.” </i></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Last week I told about Author Nikos
Kazantzakis in his native Crete passing an elderly woman carrying a basket of
figs. She paused, picked out two figs, and gave them to Kazantzakis. “Do you
know me, old lady?” he asked. She said, “No, my boy. Do I have to know you to
give you something? You are a human being, aren’t you? Isn’t that enough?” It’s
not a Jew or a Samaritan or a Gentile or a scribe or teacher or soldier or
anyone else – just a man, a human being, one of God’s children who gets robbed
and beaten and left for dead.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Many who read this story from within an
exclusive Christian viewpoint see the story mainly as an illustration of the
kind of love we should show to a neighbor. And certainly that is part of it.
The one who stopped to help the suffering man made sacrifices of time and
money. It was both costly and risky. It could have been a trap, so he took a
risk. And the help needed required an investment of both money and time. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">But as true as that is, that’s not the
main point Jesus intended. The question asked by the scribe is not, “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">What do I need to do</i> to love my
neighbor?” But rather, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Who is my
neighbor?”</i> I suspect, being an interpreter of scripture, he knew what he
was supposed to do. The law and the prophets are full of exhortations to love –
to act in compassion and to do justice on behalf of the poor and vulnerable.
The question is, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Who should I extend
such costly and risky care and compassion to?”</i> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Let’s not miss what Jesus says. Two
religious leaders among the Jews, a priest and a Levite, did not think “the man”
was worthy of their time and money. They passed by on the other side of the
street so they wouldn’t even have to look at the man and see his face, and feel
guilty for not stopping. A man asked his wife who had been to church that
morning what the preacher preached on. She said, “Ignorance and apathy.” He
said, “What’s that?” She said, “I don’t know and I don’t care.” That was the
approach of the two religious leaders in Jesus’ story. But then a <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Samaritan</b> passed that way, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">someone different racially and religiously
than Jesus and the scribe</b>. In fact, there was an ongoing feud between the
Jews and the Samaritans. For the most part, the majority of both groups
mutually detested and despised the other. As I have often said, if Jesus were
telling the story today in our context, the two religious leaders who passed by
would be a Baptist pastor and the worship leader. Mac, you and I wouldn’t look
good at all in this story. The one who stopped to offer costly and risky care
and help would be, perhaps, a Muslim, or undocumented person, or someone of a
different religion and race. That person would be the hero in the story, just
the way Jesus makes the Samaritan the hero in the story Jesus told to his
fellow Jews. And many of us would be as mad at Jesus as the Jewish leaders were
for making a Samaritan the hero who demonstrated what it looks like to love
your neighbor as yourself. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">When Jesus asked the scribe who it was
among the three that loved his neighbor as himself, the scribe could not even
bring himself to say the Samaritan. He said, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“the one who showed him mercy.” </i>Jesus said, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Go and do likewise.”</i> Jesus makes it all about doing. Jesus asks
us, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Do you want to share in and
cooperate with the eternal life and will of God? Do you want to know God and be
right with God? Then go and do likewise.</b> Go and love your neighbor- the
Muslim, the undocumented person, the person of a different religion or race or
sexual orientation. Go and love that person, your neighbor, as yourself. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Gracious God, inspire us, lead us,
empower us to love like Jesus, and extend God’s welcome and acceptance and
grace to all people, especially those different than us. Amen. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />Chuck Queenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07189976951236608116noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7984481633806018539.post-66289744172736251172019-07-07T08:53:00.000-07:002019-07-07T08:53:07.059-07:00The Work To Be Done (Luke 10:1-11; 17-20; Gal 6:2, 7-10)<br />
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Jesus says that the harvest is
plentiful, but the laborers are few, so ask the Lord of the harvest to send out
workers into his harvest. There is much work to do and few workers to do it.
But even as we ask the Lord to send out workers, maybe we should give some
thought to the work that needs to be done.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Answers will differ. Perhaps there was a
time in our lives when we could assume that all Christians of a particular
stripe would agree on the work to be done. If there was such a time, those days
are gone. One of the interesting things modern biblical scholarship has exposed
is how much diversity there was even in the early days of the Jesus movement. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">What does Jesus sent out the the seventy
to do? For one thing, he sends them out to heal the sick. One of the primary
works of Jesus that the living Christ calls us to do are works of healing. Heal
the sick, says Jesus. The word that we often translate as “heal” or “make
whole” in the Gospels is the same word we translate as “save” in other
contexts. Salvation in the Gospels is a restoration to wholeness. It is about
healing. In the Gospels salvation is healing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Fred Craddock tells about the time he
was acting dean at Phillips Seminary. It was a short stint, he says. One day a
woman stopped to see him. She wanted him to follow her to the parking lot and
to her car. He was a little nervous, but he did. Slumped in the back seat was
her brother. He had been a senior at the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placetype w:st="on">University</st1:placetype> of <st1:placename w:st="on">Oklahoma</st1:placename></st1:place>.
He had been in a tragic car wreck and was in a coma for eight months. She had
quit her job as a schoolteacher to take care of him. All of their resources had
been exhausted. She said to Dr. Craddock, “I want you to heal him.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">He told her that he couldn’t do that. He
could pray for him, but he couldn’t heal him. He said that he did not have the
gift of healing. She got in the car, looked at Fred, and said “Then what in the
world do you do?” And she drove off. Dr. Craddock said that afternoon he went back
into his study, starred at his books, and tried to forget what she had said. Of
course, we know the kind of healing she was wanting, which, of course, could
not be given. But that question gave Dr. Craddock pause. “If you can’t heal,
then what in the world do you do?” she asked. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">What do you make of all the healing
stories in the Gospels? We live in a different time and place. We have
different perspectives on healing. We have different understandings of the
causes of physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual sickness. We have
different understandings of the anti-human forces at work today that diminish
our lives, which destructive powers we need deliverance and healing from.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">But healing is still the great need we
have as human beings and a society– on all levels – physical, mental,
emotional, and spiritual. We have made great strides in some areas of healing,
but still have a long way to go. I think most of us are more aware today of the
connections between physical, psychic, and spiritual sickness, which can be
very complex. And it is not just individuals who need healing. Our
relationships need healing; our communities need healing; whole societies need
healing. There are inseparable connections between works of healing and works
of justice, which works we are also called to do as disciples of Jesus. The two
kinds of works go hand-in-hand. When we work for justice, for what is right and
good and just and fair, we are engaging in works of communal or societal
healing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Quite a few people had gathered at the
large house for the reception. I don’t know the occasion, but there was a punch
bowl, and some cake and peanuts and little mints and some sandwiches. You know
the standard fare. Everyone was standing around, having the kind of
conversations you have at such occasions. “I guess we’re going to get some rain
this week.” “Did you see the game last night?” That kind of stuff. And then
Brenda Williams walked into the room. And there was something about the room
that changed when she walked in. It wasn’t her beauty or her appearance or
anything like that. It had to do with who she was and what she was about. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">She spent much of her time writing
letters, making calls, going to see important people in high places about the
way the law treats juvenile offenders. Seven days a week she worries the
authorities to death. Someone asked her, “You enjoy doing that?” “No, not
really,” was her reply. “You get paid for all that work. Do you have a position
or title? Are you on a pay roll?” “Oh, no,” she said. “You have children in
trouble with the law?” “No. My children are not in any trouble.” “Then why in
the world do you spend your time doing that. It’s no fun. You’re not getting
paid. None of your friends are doing it. Why are doing it?” Her answer, “Because
I have to.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">She feels compelled. She has a calling.
She has a commission. The Spirit of God inspires her and drives her into the
wilderness where she confronts the powers that be on matters of justice for
juvenile offenders. That kind of work is just as important as the works of
mercy and kindness we do when we walk with someone in their time of grief or
loss, or when we help in the soup kitchen or at the Simon House, or when we
give generously of our resources and time to minister to those in distress or
in personal or financial need. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Do you find it interesting that Jesus
tells the seventy he sends out to stay at one place and to proclaim to that
house that the kingdom of God is near. There is to be no shopping around for
the best room and board. Jesus says, “Go to whatever house welcomes you.” And
he tells them to eat whatever is set before them. Why is that? Remember that
Jesus himself sat at table with all sorts of people. The table meal in the life
and ministry of Jesus became an important, if not the most important symbol for
the kingdom of God. All were welcome. No distinctions were made. All were on
equal footing before God. The disciples are sent out to convey that same
message. There can be no hint of privilege. It may be Jewish food or Gentile
food set before them – it maybe a full course meal or trifles – it doesn’t make
any difference. The kingdom has come near to all. That’s why Jesus instructs
them to be servants of all, because the kingdom has come near to all. And that
was the message Jesus said to proclaim to whoever would welcome them into their
home and to their table. The kingdom of God is at hand. The kingdom of God has
come near. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">When Jesus talks about the kingdom of
God, which was the central theme of his ministry, he is talking about God’s
will for the world, and that includes both healing and justice. Paul tells the
churches of Galatia to not be weary in doing what is right. He says that
whenever we have opportunity let us “work for the good of all.” The common good
is central to God’s kingdom and God’s will being done on earth as it is in
heaven. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">As most of you know several years ago I
raised my voice along with many other voices, and we did what little we could
do to help get the Fairness ordinance passed here in Frankfort. The irony of
that is that while there were other Christians and clergy like myself (I wasn’t
alone by any means) advocating and speaking for that legislation, many more
Christians were opposed to it. Far more Christians opposed it than favored it. One
of the arguments that always baffled me, which was one of the most common arguments
advanced against it by Christians was, “You can’t legislate fairness.” Personally, I think
that argument was just a way for them to disguise their prejudice against the
LGBT Community. And when you think about it, it’s a silly argument. Of course
you can legislate fairness. We did it when we abolished the laws of segregation
on a national level. We legislated fairness. And while many still broke the
law, the law itself was helpful in bringing about change. Now, what you can’t
legislate is individual transformation or the healing of a person’s or group’s
racism or prejudice. Only the law of Christ can do that, which is the law of
love. Only the love of God working in a person or community can heal racism and
prejudice. But, yes indeed, we can legislate fairness, and we who are disciples
of Jesus should demand that our representatives enact legislation that promotes
fairness and justice. The healing of a society depends on it, and it’s a key
part of the process. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Author Nikos Kazantzakis was walking
along a dusty path in his native Crete. An elderly woman passed by, carrying a
basket of figs. She paused, picked out two figs, and presented them to
Kazantzakis. “Do you know me, old lady?” he asked. She looked at him puzzled
and said, “No, my boy. Do I have to know you to give you something? You are a
human being, aren’t you? So am I. Isn’t that enough?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">I wish to God it were enough. I’m sure
you have been reading and hearing about the deplorable conditions where asylum
seekers and migrants seeking safety from unsafe conditions are being held and
how they are being mistreated. It’s tragic. Instead of allowing them to stay
with relatives or friends or people or communities that would take them in
until their papers can be processed and they can get a hearing, they are being
imprisoned in overcrowded detention centers where conditions are inhumane and
deplorable. And now our nation’s leader is talking about more raids on the
undocumented gathering up even more people and placing them in those same
conditions, or separating families and sending them back to places where they
have not been in years and are unsafe. Isn’t it enough that they are human
beings? God’s daughters and sons. God’s children loved by God. O no, it’s not,
because there is no compassion, no concern at all. Just hate and prejudice and
fear. That’s what guides the immigration policies and practices of our nation’s
leaders today. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Paul says to the Galatian Christians, “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">So let us not grow weary in doing what is
right (that is, what fulfills the law of Christ, the law of love, the law of
love your neighbor as yourself), for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not
give up. So then, whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of
all, and especially for those of the family of faith.”</i> Generally, in that
culture those who constituted the family of faith were those who were the most
disadvantaged and vulnerable in society. Not all of course, but many. Certainly
the majority. When Paul writes to the Corinthians he tells them that not many
of high status or wealth or those in the high standing of society have accepted
the call to be part of the community of Christ. He tells them that God chooses
the “foolish” things, and “low” things, and the “weak” things of the world to
confound the wise and the strong and the rich. Paul doesn’t say “not any”
well-to-do people and powerful people are called, but he does say, “not many”
are called. And we know from story after story in the Gospels and from the
teachings of Jesus that Jesus had a special interest and regard for the poor
and vulnerable, as well as the outcasts and excluded in his society. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">In the Hebrew scriptures three groups of
people are singled out as worthy of special consideration, compassion, and
care: strangers or aliens, that is, non-Jews, widows, and orphans. Scholars
point out that the legal mandates for caring for these were quite unique among
other known judicial systems in the Ancient Near East. Israel’s covenant with
God, Israel’s law required consistent and outspoken advocacy and care for the
weakest, least protected, and most disadvantaged in their society. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">There is a story told about William
Booth, the founder of the Salvation army, who spent many years reaching out to
the poor and needy on the streets of London. Every Christmas, London churches
sent out representatives to the streets to invite the poor to their Christmas
celebrations. They would typically say, “All of you who are Anglicans, come
with us.” Or “All of you who are Catholics, come with us.” Or all of you who
are Methodists or Lutherans or whatever, come with us.” When all of that was
done, there would still be left a large crowd. William Booth would shout out,
“All of you who belong to no one, come with me!” Who do you think captured best
the spirit of Jesus? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Jesus told the disciples to announce the
kingdom of God has come near, when they sit down to table with all kinds of
folks and when they engage in works of healing. We need a new vision of the
kingdom of God. Actually, it’s an old vision we need. The vision that inspired
and compelled Jesus to welcome all and heal all is the vision we need today.
It’s a vision he died for on a Roman cross. The vision is captured beautifully
in a poem by Cynthia Kirk titled “Kin-dom without Walls.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Imagine a place / Where mercy resides, /
Love forms each heart, / <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Compassion lived out with grit and
determination. / A place where lavish signs / </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Mark each path barrier free.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Imagine a place / Where skin tones are
celebrated / Like the hues of tulips in springtime. / Where languages inspire /
With symphonies of diversity. / Where Respect schools us / In custom and
history / And every conversation / Begins with a bow of reverence.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Imagine a place where each person wears
glasses, / Clarity of vision for all. / Recognizing each one, everything / Made
in the image of God.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Imagine a place / Where carrots and
pasta / Doctor’s skills and medications<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Are not chained behind barbed wire- / Food,
shelter, health care available for all.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Imagine a place where / Every key of
oppression / Was melted down to form public art / Huge fish, doves, lions and
lambs / On which children could play.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Imagine a place where / People no longer
kept watch / Through the front window / </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">To determine whether the welcome mat / Would
remain on the porch.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Such is the work / The journey / They
destination / In the kin_dom of God.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">O God, inspire us to imagine, to dream,
to pray, and to work for the kin_dom of God – where we all belong and we love
our neighbor as we love ourselves. Amen.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Chuck Queenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07189976951236608116noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7984481633806018539.post-24786848752009962742019-07-01T06:42:00.000-07:002019-07-01T06:43:44.603-07:00The Journey to True Freedom (Gal. 5:1, 13-25)<br />
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">You have heard me say a number of times,
“Religion can be the best thing in the world, and it can be the worst thing in
the world.” And that’s as much true of our own religion, Christianity, as any
other religion. Our Christian worship, scriptures, rituals, and practices can
be liberating or suffocating. Paul, it seems, wants to get that message across
to the Galatian Christians, some of whom, want to shackle themselves with the
lesser and unnecessary aspects of the Mosaic law. Paul reminds them that he
brought to them the way of true freedom in Christ, but now they want to settle
for a yoke of slavery.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">In our text Paul contrasts two ways of
life. One way leads to life and true freedom; the other way leads to death and
bondage. I am speaking of life and death metaphorically. One way is a healthy,
redemptive, healing, transformative, and liberating way of life. The other is
an unhealthy, non-redemptive, destructive and enslaving way of life. Paul
identifies the two different ways of life as life according to the Spirit and
life according to the flesh. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">A number of spiritual writers have
pointed out that Paul’s choice of the word “flesh” in contrast to the word
“Spirit” is an unfortunate choice of words at best. Unfortunate because it has
been so misunderstand by Christians and used to teach that the body is evil.
The flesh as body is not evil or bad. In fact, Paul says the body is the temple
of the Holy Spirit. Various explanations have been offered, none of which I
find very satisfying, as to why Paul and other ancient Christian writers use
this particular word to describe the opposite of life in the Spirit. What Paul
calls “flesh” is a way of living rooted in the ego. Now, in one sense the ego
is neither bad nor good. In one sense, a strong ego, aware of its boundaries,
is vital to healthy functioning. But usually when we reference the ego we are
thinking about the egocentric ego. Generally when spiritual writers talk about
the ego today they are talking about the self-centered, self-absorbed self. What
Paul calls the flesh we could call “the little self.” The self that sees itself
separated or all alone and has to protect itself at all costs. This is the
egocentric self. Thomas Merton was the first to use the term “false self” to
describe this egocentric self, or little self. It’s false because that’s not
who we really are or called to be. And the little self has all sorts of ways to
defend and protect itself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Our false selves are inseparably tied
into a false culture. Our egocentric selves is part of an egocentric world.
Both Paul and John use the word “world” in that negative way. John says in his
first letter that the world as a system of egocentric culture is full of
selfish ambition, greed, and boastful pride in riches and the status that goes
with it. This is why John tells his readers, “love not the world,” because
these things are not of God. Paul says in his letter to the Romans, “Do not be
conformed to the world.” What he is saying is, “Don’t allow this egocentric
system, the egocentric culture to shape you into its mold.” That’s not who we
are. So it’s not just the egocentric self that poses a problem, it’s the
egocentric culture that gives respectability to the little self and even
justifies or vindicates the little self. For example, our culture basically
teaches us that greed is good. Our whole economic system is based on it. Wanting
what is bigger and better is good. Buying more stuff is good. Beating others to
the top is good. Our egocentric culture, our “world,” the system in which we
live, constitutes a corporate or collective false self, and it justifies the
little self. The system encourages and blesses our individual greed that rises
out of the false self. This is why it is so difficult to recognize the
blindness of the false self, because the whole culture is blind, the whole
world is blind when it comes to greed, for example, so it’s hard for us to see
our own greed, when the world encourages our greed and blesses our greed. None
of us escape this.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">The egocentric self, and the egocentric
culture, the little self and the system that supports it is personified in
scripture as the devil or Satan. When Jesus is struggling with the Devil in the
wilderness he is engaged in a very human struggle. He is struggling with the
temptations of the false self and the false culture, which is a struggle not
just with actions, but also with motives and the intents of the heart. It’s not
just what we do. It’s also about why we do what we do. I might do something
very good, and be totally egocentric or selfish in why I do what is good. Now, I
would argue it’s always better to do something good rather than evil, but why
we do what we do is important too. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">The egocentric self is the great
deceiver, and can keep us blind for a long time. This is why the serpent in the
Genesis 3 story who tempts the human couple is described by the story writer as
“the most subtle of all the wild beasts that God had made.” The egocentric self
may see something that is evil as a good, and something good may be seen as
weakness. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">For example, right now in our country
there are a number of people who look at our nation’s compassionless, hardline
treatment (which is mistreatment) of the undocumented as an expression of
strength. They don’t see it as evil or something bad. They see it as a good
thing. That’s the blindness and deception of the little self. Something that is
hurtful, the little self may see as a victory or an expression of strength –
even moral strength. That’s how delusional the little self can be. Another
example. Many people think of forgiveness as weakness. Loving one’s enemies is
weakness in their eyes, not a moral strength. I look at the way I used to
understand atonement and can now see how egocentric it is. I thought that in
order for God to forgive sins, someone had to pay, namely, God’s unique Son. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Paul says in the passage that the works
of the flesh, the works of the egocentric self are obvious. Well, they might be
obvious to someone walking in the Spirit and living in the true self, but for
those of us living in the false self they are not obvious at all. We may even
think they are good things; that we should be doing these things. On more than
one occasion I have thought that my workaholism, and my selfish ambition were
good things blessed by God. My workaholism was carefully disguised as
sacrifice. And my selfish ambition was cast in the form – well, this is all for
the glory of God. In reality they were works of the flesh, they were products
of my egocentric, little self. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Now it is God who makes us with an ego,
and none of us escape the development of an egocentric self. It’s part of our
human development. We would like to blame it on Adam and Eve, and some do, but
that story in our Bibles is our story. It’s your story and my story, which by
the way, is what makes sacred myth sacred. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">In the very process of human development
one of the first things that happens to all of us is the birth of self-consciousness
or self-awareness. And it happens early. At some point as we move past infancy we
become aware that the world is separate from ourselves. At some point we
realize that I am different than you. I am someone, you are someone else. As
infants, we have no such awareness. As infants the world is just an extension
of ourselves. But at some point as we grow and develop as a human being we
become aware that we are separate from the world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">As we grow we internalize all kinds of
“messages” about who we are – from our parents, our peers, our teachers, the
media, there are many people and influences that contribute to our formation. We
form images of ourselves and others at a very young age before we even know how
to think for ourselves. We worry about how we look and how we appear to others.
We form an opinion about ourselves based on all these messages from our culture
that we have internalized. Richard Rohr says that the false self is who we
think we are based on these messages. We become very attached to this image we have
about ourselves. We have a tendency to go in two different directions. On the
one hand, we might develop an inflated ego and think too highly of ourselves.
We might feel that we are better than others and develop a sense of entitlement
or superiority. On the other hand, we might think too little of ourselves where
the ego becomes deflated. We might feel like we are completely unworthy, even
undeserving of love. Both ways of thinking are egocentric because we make it
all about us. If you look at families today it’s hard to find a good balance.
Some kids grow up thinking everything is about them. Other kids grow up never
knowing what it is like to be loved.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">This is what makes it so difficult for
us to discover who we really are. Nevertheless, who we really are is already in
our hearts, because we are created in the image of God. As Paul says in his
talk to the Athenians in Acts 17, in God we live, move, and have our existence.
But the true self gets buried in this avalanche of messaging that comes from
our culture. So we have to discover our true self, the Christ self. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">I like the story about the little girl
who was three or four, when her parents brought home a new baby. Within a few
hours of bringing the new baby home, the little girl made a rather strange
request. She wanted to be alone with her new baby brother in his room. This
made the parents a bit uneasy, but they had a good intercom system, so they
gave her permission. They listened carefully as they heard their daughter’s
footsteps moving across the baby’s room. They could imagine her tiptoeing
looking in the baby’s crib. Then they heard her say to her three-day-old baby
brother, “Tell me about God – I’ve almost forgotten.” That’s what the system,
the egocentric system does to us. I believe in our better moments we all intuit
that there is more to us and about us than what others think or have told us,
but we have to discover that for ourselves. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">So what Paul calls life in the flesh can
be thought of as life in the little self or false self. And what Paul calls
life in the Spirit can be thought of as life in the Christ self, or the true
self or the larger self. This is who we really are. This is what Paul calls the
new humanity and living in the Spirit. The true self is what Paul calls Christ
living in me. It’s the Christ self. This is the treasure in the field that we
need to find for ourselves. The true self is who we are in God and who God is
in us. It’s our birthright, but needs to be claimed. It’s pure gift, but needs
to be unwrapped and put into practice.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">So how do we discover our true self, our
larger self, the Christ self? You might expect me to say, through faith,
because that is what most of us were taught. But that’s not how we do it. Faith
comes later and is part of the process. However, the one indispensable thing is
love. Paul said to the Corinthians, “Now abide faith, hope, and love, but the
greatest of these is love.” In this passage in Galatians 5, Paul contrasts the
works of the little self with the fruit of the Spirit. And the first thing he
mentions is love. Then he goes on to mention other qualities – joy, peace,
patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. But
the primary quality is love and all the others flow from it. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">We have to experience and express love to
discover our true self, the Christ self.</b> God is love, says the Apostle
John, and wherever love is God is. When we feel love and act in love, when we receive
and give love, when we experience and express love we are living out of the
true self. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Love is the way into the Christ self and
out of the little self. I like the story of the mountaineer who was a hard,
tough character. He was known for his quarreling and fighting. One week his
brother asked him to care for his young son, because he and his wife had to be
out on a work related trip. Part of his responsibility was getting the boy to
his first grade class. On that first day, he met the boy’s teacher, who was
single, and fell in love at first sight. It took him a long time to ask her out
because he figured that someone educated and refined like her would never go
out with him. But she did. And when he asked her to marry him, she said yes.
One of his friends noticed the change in him and said, “You never want to fight
any more. What happened?” He just said, “I ain’t got nothing against nobody.”
What made the difference? Love opened him up to a new way of being. He
discovered his true self, even though he wouldn’t know to call it that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">We Christians call this larger self the
Christ self. But it really doesn’t matter what religious symbols or language we
use. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">It’s the self living in the reality
of Divine Love regardless of what we call it.</b> As Christians our primary
entry point is Jesus. When we learn about the compassion of Jesus and the inclusiveness
of Jesus, and the way he confronted injustice and how he loved all people, even
those set against him, we are learning how to live in our larger self. But
regardless of how we discover it, when we experience and express selfless,
inclusive, magnanimous love we are living in the true self, even if we call it
something else.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">I will conclude with this. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Living in the true self is living in true
freedom.</b> Now, we are never completely free. Certainly not in this life. We
don’t love perfectly. Even when we are at our best, there’s always some ego invested.
So there is always the need to be continually growing in love. We never arrive.
The more we are able to love like Jesus, who is our model of what the Christ
self looks like, the more free we are. Paul says that when we are led by the
Spirit, when we are living in the Christ self, we are not subject to the law.
We don’t need lots of rules and regulations, when love rules and reigns in our
lives. We know what to do. We know to do the loving thing and we do the loving
thing, sometimes at great personal cost. Paul says basically what Jesus says, that
the whole intent of the law can be summed up in a single commandment, “Love
your neighbor as yourself.” That, sisters and brothers, is what we are called
to do, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">because the true self, the Christ
self, is the self pervaded by love.</b> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Our good God, forgive us for the many
times we have made far lesser things – like religious doctrine, and church
traditions and rules, the most important thing. Help us to see that it
ultimately doesn’t matter what we call this ultimate reality as long as we
experience this ultimate reality by becoming channels of your love. In a few
days many in our country will be celebrating freedom who don’t have the
faintest notion what true freedom really is. Help us all to discover it and
live it by learning how to love the way you love. Amen. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Chuck Queenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07189976951236608116noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7984481633806018539.post-78865164662327169182019-06-04T12:06:00.000-07:002019-06-04T12:06:12.035-07:00A Journey Toward Oneness (John 17:20-26)<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Our Gospel reading today is part of a
larger unit that begins in 17:1 as a prayer of Jesus to the Father. Though it’s
cast in the form of a prayer, it is intended as instruction to the church. Keep
in mind, as in almost all of the discourses in John’s Gospel, these are the
words of John as he and his community try to imagine what the living Christ
would say to them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">This part of Jesus’ prayer casts a
vision for oneness that extends beyond the first disciples of Jesus to embrace
those who would come to be disciples after them, and eventually to embrace the
world. This prayer nurtures a vision of oneness, which is not limited to Jesus’
disciples, and that shouldn’t surprise since “God so loves the world.” Jesus
says that he prays for the oneness or unity of his disciples so that the world
may know that God had sent him to be a definitive revelation of God’s love, and
<b>so that the world would come to know
that God loves them just as much as God loves the unique Son who was sent to incarnate
God’s love.</b> That’s what this text says, <i>“The
glory that you have given me</i> [the glory here is the glory of a loving
relationship, it’s the glory of belonging, of unity<i>] I have given them so that they may be one, as we are one . . . so
that the world may know that you have sent me and have love them [the world]
even as you have loved me.”</i> Think about this for a moment. What this text
is saying is that God loves the world as much as God loves Jesus. What this
text is saying is that <b>God loves all
God’s children (the world) as much as God loves God’s unique Son who functions
as the definitive revelation of that love to the world.</b> Let that sink in sisters
and brothers. Jesus beautifully lived out this relationship of oneness, of
unity between himself and the Father, God in him and he in God. Now, according
to John’s understanding of this relationship, we are invited to share in this
very oneness – this special relationship that the unique Son enjoys with the
Father. The same relationship Jesus had with the Father is available to you and
me. It’s available to the world – to all people everywhere. <b>We are invited to experience the same kind
of love.</b> I have no doubt that if many Christians actually understood what
this Gospel is saying here, they would accuse John of heresy. How many
Christians do you know who think this is possible or think that God loves all
people as much as God loves Jesus. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">I have shared with you before the story
that Tony Campolo tells of being on a landing strip just outside the border of
the Dominican Republic in northern Haiti. A small airplane was supposed to pick
him up and fly him back to the capital city. As he waited, a woman approached
him holding her child in her arms. The baby was emaciated – his arms and legs
were like sticks and his stomach swollen from lack of food. She held up her
child to Campolo and began to plead with him, “Take my baby! Take my baby!” she
cried, “If you don’t take my baby, my baby will die. Please take my baby! Campolo tried to explain why he couldn’t take
her baby, but she would not listen. No matter which way he turned, she was in
his face, crying, “Please, mister, take my baby! Save my baby.” This mother was
desperate. She had no food to give her baby. She could not take care of her
baby. She knew that her child’s only chance of survival would be with someone
who could provide for her child.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Campolo breathed a sigh of relief when
the Piper Cub airplane came into sight. The minute it touched down he ran to
meet it. But the woman kept running after him screaming, “Take my baby! Please,
take my baby!” Campolo boarded the plane as fast as he could. The woman ran
alongside the plane as it started to take off, the child in one arm and with
the other banging on the plane. Halfway back to the capital, Campolo says it
hit him with a great force. He thought of Matthew 25, where Jesus says to the just,
<i>“I was hungry and you gave me something
to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink . . . in as much as
you did it to the least of these, you did it unto me.” </i>Then he realized
that the baby was Jesus. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">When we hear Campolo say that the baby
was Jesus it would be easy for us to accuse Campolo of being overly dramatic,
of stretching the truth. And yet what John is suggesting in this text is that
God loves that baby dying of hunger as much as God loves Jesus. Jesus prays
that the people of the world will know that God loves them as much as God loves
him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">There’s no possibility of oneness, there
is no hope for unity in our world around doctrine or agreeing about particular
beliefs about God or Jesus or how we understand and interpret the Bible or any
other belief we have in our heads. Jean Vanier in his book, <i>Becoming Human</i>, points out that when
religion closes people up in their own particular group, and puts belonging to
that particular group and the success of that group above love and compassion
and good-will toward others, then religion [read that as Christianity] neither
nourishes or opens the heart. It simply becomes an ideology that encloses us behind
walls. On the other hand, says Vanier, when religion [read that as
Christianity] opens our hearts in love and compassion toward those outside our
group to help them find the source of freedom in their own hearts where they
can grow in love and compassion toward others, then religion is a source of
life. I so wish and hope and pray that more of us, especially we who claim to
be followers of Jesus, would become sources of life – wellsprings of living
water. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Now, in John’s understanding, it’s our
mission as followers of Jesus and as a Christ- filled, Christ-centered, and
Christ-empowered community to show the world how much God loves the world. It’s
in this Gospel where Jesus says<i>, “As the
Father sent me, so I send you.”</i> And he gives the disciples whom he sends the
same authority he had received from God to proclaim acceptance and forgiveness.
<b>Our mission as a Christ-centered
community is to show the world, to show all the folks with whom we have contact
the magnitude of God’s love for them. </b>Period. Before they do or say
anything, lest they think they have to earn God’s love by believing the right
things, or by doing the right things, or by joining the right group. Our
mission is to show the world just how much God loves them right where they are,
no strings attached. That’s unconditional love. That’s God’s kind of love. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">So how do we do that? How do we
demonstrate to the world how much God loves them? One way we do that is by
welcoming, accepting, and affirming all people as our brothers and sisters,
even though we may be very different religiously, socially, racially, and
culturally. We show them by our words and actions that we all belong regardless
of our differences. And if we will open our
heart to the Spirit of Christ, in our better moments we will know this indeed is
true – that we all belong. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">It should be the goal of churches and
faith communities like ours to both proclaim this oneness and model this
oneness, so that those we touch, those we serve, will know they are accepted
and loved by God. If we can somehow give the world a glimpse of what this might
look in all our diversity, perhaps we could draw more people into it. Who
doesn’t really want to be accepted and loved as they are? It is this kind of
love that motivates us to become more – to want to grow and enlarge our ability
to love. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Joan Chittister, a Benedictine Sister
and a great spiritual writer, says that when the United Nations Conference on
Women was scheduled in Beijing, people began to argue that, given the status of
women in China, a woman’s conference should not be held there. Sister
Chittister took the opposite position. She felt that the low status of women in
China was exactly the reason why the conference should be held there. It was
not because the messages of the conference would change the Chinese women, for
the Chinese government wouldn’t even permit an official delegation of Chinese
women to attend it. Rather, argues Chittister, <b>it’s what the Chinese women would see and experience that would change
things, at least eventually.</b> They would see women from all over the world
walking freely down their streets, being interviewed on their television sets,
holding press conferences in their hotels. Such experiences would plant seeds
of reformation in their hearts. They would see women, just like themselves,
walking free, alone, and proud. Then they would learn who they are, who they
could be, without a word having been said. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">We have to help people see/envision a new
world. That’s our mission. We are not going to reason people into loving and
accepting others. We are not going to argue people into a vision of equality
and justice. As important as our words are, we are not going talk people into a
vision of oneness. Lord knows how hard I have tried. We certainly have to keep
preaching and talking, because words do make a difference, but most of all, we
need to embody oneness in action through works of compassion and justice. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">I so wish more of our churches would let
go of their exclusive claim on God. When I look around and see how few churches
actually have an inclusive vision the task before us seems almost overwhelming.
Most Christians think their mission is to get everyone to believe what they
believe and practice their faith the way they do. I think many Christians today
are blind to the sexism, racism, exceptionalism, and exclusivism still in our churches
and in our own souls, just the way I am sure I am blind to some of my own
biases and weaknesses. In our
blindness we project our biases and our neediness and our egotism onto God. We
imagine God in our image. We make God conform to our human prejudices and
limitations. All of us do this, myself included, to some degree. The biblical
writers did this. No one is immune to this – we all project our values onto
God. If hate is in our hearts, we will read and interpret the scriptures in
hateful ways. If love is in our hearts, we will read and interpret the Bible in
loving ways. So we must go about this task with humility realizing and
admitting our own sins and faults as we try to live out a vision of oneness. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Our mission is to create a spark. Now
whether or not the spark ignites into a flame is not up to us. That’s not under
our control. Our mission is to plant a seed. We have no control over its
growth. Much will depend on the fertility of the soil or should we say soul.
Much will depend on the openness and receptivity and condition of the person
and community who hears the vision proclaimed and sees the vision embodied,
though be it, imperfectly. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">O God, it’s tempting to think Jesus was in
dreamland when he prayed that the world would see through his followers just
how much the world is loved. We have to confess, Lord, we have been huge
failures living out your vision of oneness and showing the world that we all
belong. If we are honest we have to confess that sometimes we wonder if we even
believe it. May your Spirit reveal this to our hearts and may we experience
your great love for all people, because we will never get it by just thinking
about it. We have to feel it, too. We have to experience it mind, body, and
soul. Let it be so, in the name of Christ our Lord. Amen</span>Chuck Queenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07189976951236608116noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7984481633806018539.post-57716989611307453932019-05-26T09:23:00.000-07:002019-05-26T09:23:31.096-07:00Unwrapping Christ’s gift of peace (John 14:23-29)<br />
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Keep in mind that in John’s Gospel Jesus
teaches in the language of the teachers in John’s community/church. This is how
they imagined the living Christ speaking to them. Perhaps we should do the
same. These are not so much the words of the historical Jesus, as they are the
words of the living Christ, the universal Christ speaking to us. Christ says, </span><i style="font-size: 16pt;">“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to
you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be
troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”</i><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> I would urge you to take these
words personally. This is the universal Christ, the cosmic Christ, the risen Christ
speaking to you and to me. </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">He gives us the gift of his peace. But
it’s not automatic. This is a gift that has to be unwrapped, and that takes
some trust and effort on our part.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">The Christ says, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“My peace I give you. But I do not give to you as the world gives.”</i>
What does that mean? Does it mean that Christ gives more graciously and
generously and unconditionally than the world gives? That is true, but I
suspect that what John is getting at is that the peace that comes from Christ
is of a different kind and nature as that which comes from the world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">God loves the world. Let’s not question
that. God is committed to the healing and well-being and redemption of the
world. But the world is broken. Its values are skewed. And we, of course, are
part of that world, and so our values get skewed. The world is God’s good
creation, and we are God’s children. The light of God, which became incarnate
in Jesus, is the light that is within every human being. John says as much in
his prologue/introduction in the opening chapter. He says, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“in him [the Word made flesh] was life, and the life was the light of
all people . . . He was the true light that enlightens everyone coming into the
world.”</i> The light of Christ dwells with us and in us. The light of Christ
is everywhere and in everyone. But too often that light is never allowed to
shine. It gets covered up and pushed to the side by our selfish ego. We live in
blindness and darkness, when we follow our ego rather than the light of Christ.
And this produces a world of fear, conflict, hate, and violence. When our egos
both individually and collectively as a group or community channel and mirror
the fears, prejudices, greed, divisiveness, and brokenness of the world we have
no peace or we have a false peace. So what is the difference between the peace
of Christ and the peace of the world that is rooted in our ego both personally
and collectively? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">For
one thing, the peace of Christ is born out of trust, rather than fear and
control.</span></b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"> In order to unwrap the gift
of Christ’s peace, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">we must allow the
Christ or the Holy Spirit to be at home in our hearts and souls. </b>(And by
the way, whether we talk about Christ, or the Holy Spirit, or the Spirit of
God, or the Spirit of Christ, or our Father in heaven, or for that matter our
Mother in heaven, we are talking about the same divine reality. The one God
takes different forms and functions in diverse ways, and we use different
images to talk about the one God.) <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Trust
is an important part of Christ being at home in our hearts. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">In John’s Gospel whenever you see the
word “believe” you can substitute for the word believe the word “trust” or the
word “faithful” or use both words depending on the context, and you will have a
better understanding of the meaning. The problem in translation has to do with
how we use the word “believe” today in common speech. Most commonly today the
word “believe” means believing something intellectually as a fact, giving
assent with one’s mind that something is correct. That’s not what the word
means in our sacred texts. For example, in 14:1 Jesus says, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Do not let your hearts be troubled, believe
in God, believe also in me.”</i> That does not mean believe in your mind that God
is real. That in itself is not going to comfort a troubled heart. It’s best to
substitute the word “trust” for “believe.” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Trust
in God, trust also in me,”</i> says Jesus. If we take this as a word from the
living Christ, Christ is telling us to trust with our whole hearts in the love
and grace of God that we see embodied in Jesus. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">It’s our trust in the love of Christ, and our faithfulness to the way
of love that will dispel our fears and worries. </b>Belief alone won’t do it
sisters and brothers. Trust in the gift of Christ’s love and presence with us
and in us, and faithfulness to the way of love is the kind of faith that will
overcome the fears of the world. That’s what brings about God’s peace. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">I heard about a successful banker who
had everything he could possibly want. He seemed to have a good marriage,
beautiful kids, didn’t want for anything really. Everything was going his way.
Then his eldest son began to suffer from a psychotic disorder and was admitted
into a psychiatric hospital. Quite suddenly, this man’s carefully ordered and
managed world was disrupted. This man became angry, because it was not
something he could control. He thought he had built up this barrier against all
threats to his peace and his family’s peace. He was in control of his work. He
was in control of his life. He thought he was in control of his family, but he
wasn’t. He couldn’t control this. Suddenly, he realized he was powerless to do
anything about this. It filled him with anger and anguish. But then something
happened. He met other parents who were living is similar unpredictable
situations. He could see how some of them, even though their lives had been upended
and the future was uncertain, nevertheless, they trusted in love and they
allowed their own suffering to make them more humble and compassionate. And it
changed him. That man, who was all about his career and his success retired
early and began investing time in his son and in others nurturing relationships
of mutual care and compassion. He began working with others to create a world
where there is more love and a deeper sense of community and belonging. He went
form a place where he tried to maintain a kind of superficial peace by controlling
as much as he could, working to eliminate all fears, he went from that place to
a place where he realized that there was much he couldn’t control, and
therefore had to face his fears. And face his fears he did <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">by trusting in the power of love and friendship.</i> He had to learn
how to trust in the love and support of others.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">If
we want the peace of Christ then we have to look our fears right in the face,
and begin trusting in the power of love.</span></b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">
We have to trust in the support of community, because we can’t do this alone. I
think one reason so many Christians today support policies of hate and
exclusion is because they have given into their fears. Instead of finding healing
and the power to be transformed in their churches, their churches have fostered
a culture of fear. They have a faith rooted in fear – fear of hell, fear of
God’s punishment, fear of losing control, fear of others. So they are willing
to believe the lies and deceptions being propagated today about the
undocumented and those who come seeking asylum, because they live in fear, and
their fear stokes false images that foster contempt and hate. It is a sad
commentary on American Christianity that so many churches and Christians are
willing to believe lies and stoke hate, because they are afraid to face their
fears and trust in God’s love that extends to everyone. And many popular and
powerful Christian leaders are stoking that fear. If we are going to unwrap
God’s gift of peace and experience Christ’s peace in our hearts and in our
relationships then we have to face our fears, and learn how to trust in God’s
love, not just for ourselves, but for everyone. God’s gift of peace is born out
of trust, rather than fear. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">A
second thing about God’s peace is that God’s gift of peace is sustained by
love, rather than coercive power and force.</span></b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"> God’s gift of peace is born out of trust, rather than fear, and
sustained by love, rather than coercive force. So if we are going to unwrap and
experience Christ’s gift of peace, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">then
we must learn how to love, and let go of our need and desire to exert power
over others and make them conform to our wants and expectations.</b> So many folks
today want to use their power to control the circumstances of their lives. But
that never works. We can’t control life. But we keep trying. How many in our
country today have bought into this idea that if can just keep people out, and
close ourselves within a fortress we will have peace. And yet look what is
happening. Violence is erupting from within. How many people are walking time
bombs just waiting to explode? School shootings are becoming so common place we
don’t even pause from what we are doing when we hear about another one. And sure
seems like we are about to get into another war because we think we have the
right to control other countries just to protect American interests. What a
gigantic ego we have. The peace the world offers is no peace at all. I am
reminded of what Paul says in his letter to the Thessalonians, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“When they say, ‘There is peace and
security,’ then sudden destruction will come upon them, as labor pains come
upon a pregnant woman, and there will no escape.” </i>We hunker down in our
fortress, we exert force and even violence in our claim to bring peace, and in
doing so we bring destruction upon ourselves.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">A
third thing about God’s peace when compared to the world’s peace is that God’s
peace is based on forgiveness, rather than punishment. Its goal is restoration
and reconciliation, rather than retribution.</span></b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"> There can be no peace without forgiveness. Theologian Walter Wink
tells about two peacemakers who visited a group of Polish Christians ten years
after the end of World War II. The peacemakers asked, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Would you be willing to meet with other Christians from West Germany?
They want to ask forgiveness for what Germany did to Poland during the war and
begin to build a new relationship.”</i> At first there was silence. Then
someone spoke up, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“What you are asking is
impossible. Each stone of Warsaw is soaked in Polish blood! We cannot forgive.”
</i>Before they parted they said the Lord’s Prayer together. They came to the
part about forgiveness – forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who have
trespassed against us – and everyone stopped praying. Tension welled up in the
room. The one who was outspoken said, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“I
must say ‘yes’ to you or I could no longer call myself a Christian and pray to
the Father. And I must tell you that humanly speaking, I cannot do it, but God
will give us strength.”</i> Eighteen months later the Polish and West German
Christians met together in Vienna to begin a process of reconciliation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">We
can’t do this on our own. This is why we must allow Christ and his love to be
at home within our hearts.</span></b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"> Our ego
wants vengeance. We want to make those who hurt us and the people we love the
most pay. Forgiveness is not easy. It is a process we must work through with
the help of Christ and the help of a community that is grounded in forgiveness,
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">which is what the church is supposed to
be.</b> We should be learning how to forgive in our faith communities. The fact
that forgiveness is so rare even in our churches is just another indication of
how far we have drifted from the teaching of Jesus and the Spirit of the one we
call our Lord. We have to grow a spirit of forgiveness. And we need fertile
soil to do that – in our hearts and souls, and in our faith community – to grow
a spirit of forgiveness.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Have you ever hit a big pothole and
afterward start to feel your car vibrate and shake. You take your car to a
mechanic and he says you need a wheel alignment. Your car is out of balance. This
is how many of us go through life. Our lives and relationships are in a
constant state of agitation and disintegration. They are out of balance. And
the reason we are so out of balance is that we are governed by our ego. We get
caught up in a culture of competition and rivalry. We think forgiveness is
weakness. So we are constantly trying to defend ourselves and prove that we are
better than others. Our families suffer. Our communities suffer. Our relationships
suffer. We suffer in the depths of souls, but we refuse to admit it. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The solution to that state of disruption and
alienation is an alignment with the will of God.</b> The way we do that is by
allowing the love of Christ, the Spirit of Christ to become at home in our
souls, in our families, and in our relationships. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">If we are to unwrap the gift of Christ’s
peace, first, we must trust in the love of Christ, rather than give in to fear.
Second, we must learn how to practice the love of Christ, rather than try to
control others. And third, we must practice forgiveness and pursue
reconciliation, rather than harbor resentment and bitterness in pursuit of
retaliation. For this is how Christ comes to dwell – to be at home – in our
souls. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Now, briefly let me make one final
point. We will never unwrap and experience the gift of Christ’s peace until we
trust and are convinced that every person, whatever his or her abilities or
disabilities, whatever his or her ethnic origins, culture, or religion is
precious and loved by God. God’s Spirit is in them just as God’s Spirit is in
us. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Until we trust that we all belong,
that we are all family, and accept that we all have a responsibility to care
for one another, we will not know the peace of Christ. </b>Until we recognize
the dignity and worth of every person, and let go of the need to make them like
us, we cannot know the peace of Christ. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">O God, help us to let go of our fears,
and our need to control people and circumstances, and learn to trust in the
love you have for every one of us. Help us to realize that we all belong, that
we are all your children and all are precious to you. Help us to let go of our
need to retaliate for offenses done to us. Teach us how to practice forgiveness
so that peace has a chance and so we will not be burdened with bitterness and resentment,
and keep replaying these grievance stories over and over again in our mind. Show
us how to love the way you love that we might pursue peace and reconciliation
with those we are separated from. We ask all of this, Lord, so that Christ
might be free to dwell, to be at home in our lives, our families, our church,
and in our relationships. Amen. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Chuck Queenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07189976951236608116noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7984481633806018539.post-34649619218874379022019-05-19T08:53:00.000-07:002019-05-19T08:53:26.627-07:00A growing faith means an expanding love (Acts 11:1-18; John 13:34-35) <br />
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">In Flannery O’Connor’s story titled
“Revelation” Ruby Turpin has the habit of judging and classifying people based
on how they look, how they talk, and the color of their skin. In the opening
scene, Mrs Turpin is sitting in a doctor’s waiting room, forming judgments
about all present. Among those in the room is a mother in a sweat shirt and
bedroom slippers whom she regards as “white trash.” Across from her is a
teenage girl in Girl Scout shoes, reading the book </span><i style="font-size: 16pt;">Human Development</i><span style="font-size: 16pt;">. There is another young looking woman present
that Mrs. Turpin judges as not white trash, but just common. And there is a
well-dressed woman as well, with suede shoes whom she considers her peer. (Mrs
Turpin always noticed people’s feet.) Mrs Turpin would sometimes occupy herself
at night, when she couldn’t go to sleep, with the question of who she would
have chosen to be if she couldn’t have been herself. She developed an entire
“pecking order” of societal worth, with herself and her husband Claude
positioned comfortably near the top.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">In a conversation between Mrs Turpin and
the well-dressed woman there are <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>subtleties that reflect her classism and
racism. She tells the woman that she is grateful for who she is. She says,
“When I think who all I could have been besides myself and what all I got, a
little of everything, and a good disposition besides, I just feel like
shouting, “Thank you, Jesus, for making everything the way it is.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">The girl reading the book becomes more
and more irritated as the conversation goes on. Finally, she loses control. She
hurls the book across the room, hitting Mrs Turpin above her eye. Then she
lunges at her, grasping her neck in a death grip. The doctor rushes in to
separate them and sedate the girl. But before the girl becomes unconscious, she
stares directly at Mrs Turpin. Mrs Turpin feels as if the girl “knew her in
some intense and personal way, beyond time and condition.” Mrs Turpin says to
the girl hoarsely, “What you got to say to me?” The girl raised her head and
locked her eyes onto Mrs Turpin’s. She whispered, “Go back to hell where you
came from, you old wart hog.” Her voice was low but clear. And her eyes burned
for a moment as if she saw with pleasure that her message had struck its
target. Mrs Turpin senses that she has been singled out for the message. Of all
people, she thinks, why me? She was a respectable, hard-working, church-going
woman.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Back home she decides to go out and hose
down the hogs. As she aggressively squirts the hogs she begins to argue and
rave against God. “Why do you send me a message like that for?” she says. She
raises a fist with one hand and grips the water hose tightly with other. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As she blasts the poor old hogs she says to
God, “How am I a hog and me both? How am I saved and from hell too? Why me?
There was plenty of trash there. It didn’t have to be me. If you like trash
better, go get yourself some trash then,” she rails. “It’s no trash around
here, black or white that I haven’t given to. And break my back to the bone
every day working. And do for the church.” “Go on,” she yells, “call me a hog!
Call me a hog again. From hell. Call me a wart hog from hell. . . Who do you
think you are?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Then it came. The Revelation. (Perhaps
like Saul on the road to Damascus). She saw the streak as a vast swinging
bridge extending upward from the earth through a field of living fire. Upon it
a vast horde of souls were rumbling toward heaven. And <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">out in front</b> were all the folks that Mrs Turpin had relegated to
the bottom of the social ladder. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">They
were out in front leading the way into heaven.</b> Flannery O’Conner writes: “And
bringing up the end of the procession was a tribe of people whom she recognized
at once as those who, like herself and Claud, had always had a little of
everything and the God-given wit to use it right. She leaned forward to observe
them closer. They were marching behind the others with great dignity,
accountable as they had always been for good order and common sense and
respectable behavior. They alone were on key. Yet she could see by their
shocked and altered faces that even their virtues were being burned away. She
lowered her hands and gripped the rail of the hog pen, her eyes small but fixed
unblinkingly on what lay ahead. In a moment the vision faded but she remained
where she was, immobile.” As she makes her way back to her house O’Conner says,
“around her the invisible cricket choruses had struck up, but what she heard
were the voices of the souls climbing upward into the starry field and shouting
hallelujah.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">That’s the end of the story. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">We are left to imagine what this “broken”
woman does <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>with the “revelation.” We are
left to wonder what impact, if any, it makes.</b> Would she deny it? Repress
it? Ignore it? Rave against it? Harbor resentment and bitterness? Or would she yield
to it? Would she learn and grow from it? Would she allow this to be an experience
of enlightenment that transforms her into a more humble, empathetic,
compassionate person? We don’t know. But it certainly turned her world upside
down. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Jesus
of Nazareth was known for turning people’s worlds upside down.</span></b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"> Several times in the Gospels Jesus says that in the
kingdom of God, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“the first shall be last,
and the last first.”</i> (That phrase occurs several times in different
contexts which would suggest that among Jesus’ followers there was a memory
that he used that phrase often.) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The
reversal of the world’s pecking order is a key theme in Jesus’ teaching,</b>
and more so in Luke than in any of the Gospels. Mary sings in her Magnificat
(Song of Praise),<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>which is part of the
birth and infancy narrative in Luke’s Gospel: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">God scatters the proud, but gives strength to the weak. God brings down
the powerful, but lifts up the lowly. God sends the rich away empty, but fills
the hungry with good things.</i> In the parable of the great banquet in Luke 14
God’s house is filled with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“the poor, the
crippled, the blind, and the lame.”</i> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">In
God’s household everything is turned upside down.</b> Do you ever wonder why
the preachers in our past never taught us these things? Maybe they didn’t want
to hear it, just the way we don’t want to hear it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">The passage today in the book of Acts is
about a revelation that came to Peter that turned his world upside down. Luke
considers this vision of paramount importance because he narrates it twice.
Luke tells the story in chapter 10 and then has Peter repeat it in chapter 11.
This is almost as important as Paul’s revelation on the road to Damascus which
Luke describes in chapter 9, and then Paul retells two other times. In Peter’s
vision a large sheet descends from above with all sorts of unclean animals.
Peter is told to prepare the meat of the animals and eat, in direct violation of
the laws of purity that Peter’s Bible says came from God. This rocks his boat. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">And apparently Peter needed some persuading
because this scene with the sheet dropping and Peter being told to eat occurs
three times in the vision.</b> In the words of Yoda, Jedi master, “Slow of
heart we all are.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Cornelius, a Roman centurion, we are
told revered God (which is what “fear” means in that context), gave alms
generously, and prayed constantly. He has a vision that synchronizes with Peter’s
vision. In response to the vision, he sends a formal request for Peter to come
to his house. Now, under normal circumstances Peter would not have dared
associate himself with an unclean Roman military leader no matter how pious that
leader was. But these are not normal circumstances are they? So Peter, having
had his vision, returns with the messengers to Cornelius’ house and shares with
Cornelius, his household, and his other close friends who were present the good
news of Jesus. Luke tells us in chapter 10 that as Peter spoke the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the
word.”</i> Throughout this narrative Luke uses several different images to
describe what happens to Cornelius and the others who respond to the message.
He says the Spirit <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">fell</i> on them and
was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">poured out</i> on them just as the
Spirit fell and was poured out on him and the other Apostles at the beginning. He
says that Cornelius and those present <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">received
</i>the Holy Spirit just as he and his fellow Jews received the Spirit. And he
says that they were <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">baptized</i> or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">immersed</i> with the Holy Spirit and
received the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">same gift of the Spirit </i>that
they received when they trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Now, it’s really important to understand
that the only way we can talk about our experiences of God is by using language
and imagery we are familiar with. So all these images of the Spirit – such as
the Spirit falling upon them, the Spirit being poured out on them, their being baptized
or immersed in the Spirit, and their receiving the gift of the Spirit – <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">all these descriptions are symbolic ways of
talking about experiences we have of God.</b> All religious language is
symbolic language. The Holy Spirit who is within us, who is already a part of
our lives, breaks into our awareness and consciousness and human experience
when we open our hearts and minds to the Spirit. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">We experience the Holy Spirit when we center our lives in the Spirit,
when we are receptive to the Spirit. And sometimes it takes a “revelation” to
bring about that break through.</b> Sometimes it’s a great experience of
suffering that brings it about. Sometimes it’s a great experience of love. And
sometimes it comes through a vision, a revelation that we cannot really
explain.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">The Gospel reading for this Fifth Sunday
of Easter emphasizes the foundational core of authentic faith. It gets to the
heart of what all authentic religion is about.</span><span style="font-size: 15.0pt;"> Jesus says, </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">“I give you a new commandment, that you love one
another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”</span></i><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"> In reality, this isn’t new. This was at the heart and
core of Judaism. This has always been basic to who God is and what God wants. In
the Synoptic Gospels Jesus draws out from the Hebrew Scriptures the commands to
love God and love others as ourselves, and says that these two commands are
everything. The whole law, says Jesus, all of God’s expectations with regard to
human life are about loving God and loving others. So how is this a new commandment?
Well, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">it’s new for us who call Jesus
Lord in the sense that Jesus breaks into the world and gives us a beautiful
example of what love looks like.</b> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“By
this,”</i> says Jesus, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“everyone will
know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”</i> It seems
to me that for many American Christians (I can only speak about what I know),
for many Christians in our Western culture today <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">this is not central at all.</b> If one’s faith does not make one a more
loving person, then it’s not worth much. I would say there’s a lot of
Christians today who have a faith that’s not worth much. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">A growing faith always enlarges our capacity to love others.</b> When
Paul speaks of faith, hope, and love together, he says the greatest of these is
love. Love is the center of everything. God is Love. God is not faith or hope,
but <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">God is love. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Peter’s experience of enlightenment enlarges
his capacity to love people. In chapter 10 Peter explains to Cornelius and
those gathered at his house what the “revelation” taught him. He says, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“You yourselves know that it is unlawful for
a Jew to associate with or to visit a Gentile; but God has shown me that I
should not call anyone profane or unclean.” </i>He goes on, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“I truly understand now that God shows no
partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears God (that is, reveres or
respects God) and does what is right </i>(which is to love others, to do what
is right is to treat people right, to treat them with dignity and compassion”)<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> is acceptable to him.” </i>It may have
taken Peter seeing the vision three times, but he got it. His eyes were opened.
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Peter’s expanding faith led to a greater
love that embraced people outside his religious and national group.</b> Peter realized
that a person didn’t have to become a Jew to be acceptable to God. Peter was
able to see outside the boundaries where he felt God operated. He was able to
let go of deeply entrenched longstanding prejudices and biases. Most Christians
today are like Peter <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">before</b> his saw
the “revelation.” Most Christians today mirror Peter’s exclusiveness prior to
his vision. We turn around and say, “Unless one is a Christian, then one cannot
be acceptable to God.” But what Peter learned in his vision is that God accepts
all people who respects God by doing what is right, by loving and caring for
God’s children. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">I am convinced God is constantly working
to move us away from beliefs and practices of exclusion into beliefs and
practices of inclusion. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">As we grow in
faith we grow in love.</b> If we are not growing in love, then we are not
growing in faith. I don’t care how many Bible studies you attend. What some
people call growing in faith is actually regressing in faith, because they use
their faith to draw tighter boundaries that exclude and condemn those who are
different. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Authentic encounters and
experiences of God will always move us to be more generous, gracious, and
welcoming of people who are different than us.</b> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Our Good God, sometimes we become so
entrenched in negative attitudes and hurtful beliefs and destructive behaviors
that it takes a revelation for us to see our sin and our blindness. May we be open
to such revelations. May we not rail against them, but welcome them, and allow
them to have a healing and liberating effect in our lives. Healing us from our
spiritual sickness caused by our negative and biased attitudes and actions. And
liberating us from our prejudices, resentments, fears, and intolerance. May
each of us personally, and collectively as a faith community be open to your
transforming grace that always leads us to be more inclusive and compassionate
and understanding of others. Let us be teachable and moldable. Give us the courage
we need to acknowledged and leave behind hurtful beliefs and actions, so we can
be more fully centered in and expressive of the love of Jesus, our Lord. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Chuck Queenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07189976951236608116noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7984481633806018539.post-59192565155169953952019-05-12T08:53:00.000-07:002019-05-12T08:53:01.235-07:00You are gods (A sermon from John 10:22-39) <br />
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Some of the earliest commentators of
John’s Gospel called John’s Gospel a “spiritual” Gospel. Of course, all four of
our canonical Gospels in our New Testament are spiritual in the sense that that
they teach spiritual truth, and also in the sense that they are primarily
intended to be read and applied symbolically and metaphorically, rather than
literally or historically. Yet, when these early commentators called John’s
Gospel a “spiritual” Gospel it was there way of trying to distinguish it from
the other three Gospels, that are called today the “Synoptic” Gospels, because
they share so much in common. Just a casual reading of the Gospels reveals how
different John’s Gospel is. The style, content, and imagery of Jesus’ teaching
in John is so very different from the style, content, and imagery of Jesus’
teaching in the Synoptics. In John, Jesus teaches the way the leaders in John’s
faith community taught. Most scholars think that John takes a single image or
saying or parable of Jesus, and then develops it into a full blown discourse.
John imagines what Jesus would say if he were speaking to John’s spiritual
community.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">In the passage today Jesus responds to
his fellow Jews, some of whom were undecided about him, but others were
negative and antagonistic towards him. Earlier in this passage, Jesus delivered
his discourse on the Good Shepherd and the sheep, and he draws from that
imagery here. He says, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“My sheep here my
voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will
never perish.”</i> The last phrase seems redundant, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“I give them eternal life, and they will never perish.”</i> Isn’t it obvious
that you don’t perish if you have “eternal life?” Maybe not, because eternal
life is more than just life that never ends, and the spiritual meaning of
“perish” is about anything that diminishes and destroys our humanity. When John
uses the phrase, eternal life, and when he places it on the lips of Jesus
(which he does numerous times), he is not primarily emphasizing the duration of
life. It is forever, but it’s so much more. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Eternal life is God’s own life.</b> It’s the kind of life or quality of
life that is emphasized. It’s eternal because God is eternal. In John, Jesus
embodies God’s life. If I were writing a paraphrase of the New Testament I
would call this “God’s own life.” As the good shepherd Jesus gives or shares this
life with the sheep. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">So, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">eternal
life is life that partakes of the nature and character of God.</b> Eternal life
is life that partakes of God’s grace, God’s goodness, God’s generosity, God’s
compassion, God’s righteousness or justice, God’s integrity, God’s truth, and
so forth. The central theme of John’s Gospel, which is introduced in John’s
introduction or prologue, is that <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Jesus fully
and completely embodies God’s life.</b> Jesus is the “Word made flesh.” Jesus
is the revelation of the will of God to all who will receive his word as God’s
word to them. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">In the language of John,
Jesus and God are one, because Jesus lives in harmony with God and faithfully
carries out God’s will.</b> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">When the Jews who are antagonistic
toward Jesus, hear him claim to be one with the Father, they take up stones to
stone him. They are enraged. Jesus asks them, <br />
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“For which of the good works that I have
done are you going to stone me?”</i> There response is, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“It is not for any good work you have done, rather, it’s for the
blasphemy that comes out of your mouth. For you are making yourself equal to
God.” </i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">It’s really important that we not read
into this claim of oneness with God by Jesus the creeds and confessions of the
church that developed much later. Jesus is not claiming to be God. No good
Jewish monotheist would ever make such a claim. He is claiming to be in union
with God, and because he is in union with God, because he knows God, because he
is listening to the Spirit of God, he is able to speak and act with the
authority of God as God’s son, as God’s agent and redeemer. They accuse Jesus
of blasphemy because in their mind Jesus has no right to claim to be God’s son
and to act on God’s behalf. Jesus is uncredentialed. They are offended, because
they consider themselves to be the gatekeepers, to be the credentialed
spokespersons for God. They see Jesus claiming an authority that he does have.
An authority that belongs exclusively to them. Isn’t this how exclusive forms
of religion and Christianity work. How many churches get kicked out of
denominations and groups because they go against the authority of the
gatekeepers. This is how exclusive religion works.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Jesus’ response to these who accuse him
of blasphemy in 10:31-39 may be one of the most important passages in the New
Testament. Jesus says, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Is it not written
in your scriptures where God says, ‘You are gods.’”</i> The passage he
references is Psalm 82:6. Psalm 82 begins by saying that God holds council <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“in the midst of the gods.” </i>Who are the
gods the Psalmist is talking about? The people of Israel, the covenant people of
God. The problem is that they are not living like gods. The Psalmist says, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“How long will you judge unjustly and show
partiality to the wicked?”</i> The Psalmist speaking with the voice of God calls
them out for their injustice and favoritism, and tells them what they need to
do: “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Give justice to the weak and the
orphan; maintain the right of the lowly and destitute. Rescue the weak and the
needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.”</i> The covenant people of
God, whom the Psalmist speaking as the voice of God calls “gods,” should be
doing the will of God, they should be doing works of righteousness in caring
for the most vulnerable and needy. They should be doing works of healing,
justice, and liberation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Next, comes the verse that Jesus quotes
in John 10, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“I say, you are gods”</i> –
this is the verse Jesus quotes to the Jews who accused him of blasphemy. The
Psalmist says next, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“children of the Most
High, all of you.”</i> Hebrew poetry is about parallelism. The second line
often explains or expands the first line. The first line is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“You are gods.”</i> The second line explains
and expands that affirmation, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“I say you
are gods, that is, you are children of the Most High, all of you.” </i>What
Jesus is telling the Jewish leaders is that it is within his right and authority
to speak for God and do the works of God, because we are all children of God. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">They are accusing Jesus of usurping
authority he does not have, and Jesus says in response that he is simply using
the authority that we all have.</b> They are accusing Jesus of blasphemy
because he claims to be God’s son, and Jesus says that we are all gods, we are
all children of the Most High. We all have this authority.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">The late Fred Craddock was a beloved Disciples
of Christ minister and a professor of preaching and New Testament for many
years. He loved to tell stories in his sermons. And preachers like me love to
tell his stories in sermons. One of my favorite stories is the story he tells
about a conversation he had in a restaurant. I make a point to be tell this
story every year, because there will inevitably be someone here who hasn’t
heard it, and I want all of you to remember it. So here is the story for 2019. He
and his wife were on a vacation together. They had left their children with
grandparents. They were seated at a table in a restaurant in the Smokey Mountains
next to a glass wall (a wall of windows) with a scenic view that overlooked the
valley below. An elderly gentleman engaged them in conversation and when he
found out Fred was a Disciples of Christ minister, he pulled up a seat, and
said I have to tell you a story. Little did Fred know at the time that the man
who pulled up a seat was a former two time governor of Tennessee, Ben Hooper. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">He said, “I owe a great deal to a
minister of the Christian church. I grew up in these mountains. My mother was
not married and the whole community knew it. In those days that brought shame. The
reproach that fell on my mother, fell also on me. When I went into town with
her, I could see people staring at me, making guesses as to who my father was.
At school the children said ugly things to me, and so I stayed to myself during
recess and I ate my lunch alone. In my early teens I began to attend a little
church back in the mountains called Laurel Springs Christian Church. They had a
minister who was both attractive and frightening. He had a chiseled face, a
heavy beard, and a deep voice. I went just to hear him preach. I don’t know
exactly why, but it did something for me. However, I was afraid that I was not
welcome since I was, as they put it, a bastard. So I would arrive just in time
for the sermon, and when it was over I would get out of there quick because I
was afraid someone would say, ‘What’s a boy like you doing in church?’”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">“One Sunday some people queued up the
aisle before I could get out. Before I could make my way through the group, I
felt a hand on my shoulder, a heavy hand. I could see out the corner of my eye
his beard and his chin, and knew it was the minister. I trembled in fear. He
turned his face around so he could see mine and he seemed to stare at me for a
while. I knew what he was doing. I knew that he was going to make a guess as to
who my father was. A moment later he said, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">‘Well,
boy, you’re a child of . . .’ </i>and he paused. And I knew what was coming. I
knew I would have my feelings hurt. I knew I would not go back again. He said<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">, ‘Boy, you’re a child of God. I see a
striking resemblance.’ </i>Then he swatted me on the backside and said, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">‘Now, you go claim your inheritance.’</i> Then
the former governor of Tennessee told Fred, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“I
left the building a different person. In fact, that was really the beginning of
my life.”<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">“You are a child of God.” That’s who you
are. That’s who I am. We are children of God. Every single one of us. The first
creation story describes this as being created in the image of God. There is
work to do to recover that image. But God’s image is God’s gift to all. In the
second creation story it is God breathing into the human creature God’s own
spirit, God’s own life, and the human creature becomes a living being. The
writer of 1 John puts it this way, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“See
what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God,
and that is what we are.” </i>We share God’s life, we share God’s nature. In
the words of the Psalmist and in the words of Jesus who quotes the Psalmist, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“We are gods, children of the Most High, all
of you.”</i> Paul, in Acts 17, says we are all <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">God’s offspring</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">in God we
live, move, and have our existence. </i>No one is excluded. <u><o:p></o:p></u></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Spiritual teachers call this original
goodness, or original participation, or original blessing. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">It’s the first thing and the most important thing about us.</b>
Original goodness comes before original sin, and original sin does not erase
our original goodness. Richard Rohr says<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">,
“It is not ours to decide who has it or does not have it, which had been most
of our problem up to now. </i>[Which is what exclusive religion does. Exclusive
religion says, we have it, and you have to become like us, believe like us, act
like us, be part of our group to get it.] <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">It
is pure and total gift, given equally to all.” </i>Rohr is so right. We don’t
get to decide. We don’t get to judge. We don’t get to say who is in or who is
out. And yet today, that is what a lot of Christianity is about. This is the
problem with exclusive versions of Christianity. They so easily lead us into
Christian exceptionalism and elitism and into feelings and claims of
superiority. We become just like the ones who accused Jesus of blasphemy – we
want to be able to control who gets in. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">We are all God’s children. Evangelism is
not inviting a non-child of God to be a child of God. Evangelism is inviting
people to claim who they already are. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The
question is: Will we claim our inheritance? Will we become who we already are?</b>
You are already in. You don’t have to do anything to get in. Once you know you are
in the question is: What am I going to do about it? Richard Rohr says, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“The true and essential work of all religion
is to help us recognize and recover the divine image in everything.” </i>The
writer of 2 Peter says that God has given us everything we need for life and
godliness (or God likeness), so that we can fully participate in the divine
nature. God has given us everything we need, so that we can daily participate in
the very life and will and purpose of God. God has already given us everything
we need to mirror, to reflect the beauty and goodness and grace of God. We
already have the image of God. We just have to recover it or uncover it from
all the crud that is keeping it hidden. Will we claim it? Will we live it? That’s
the issue. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">When Jesus claimed, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“I and my Father are one”</i> he wasn’t making a claim that only
applied to him. Clearly, for all of us who go by the title Christian, the life
of Jesus functions as a definitive expression of the life of God and a
definitive incarnation of the love of God. But that doesn't make Jesus unique. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">What makes Jesus unique is the degree to
which he lived in union with God and the degree to which he expressed and
manifested the life of God and the love of God. </b>The same divine life that was
in the man, Jesus of Nazareth is in all of us, and we have the same privilege
and authority as God's daughters and sons to live in union with God and do the
works of God as Jesus did, which, of course, are always works of love. We are
already in union with God<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">. The question
is: Will we intentionally and consciously cooperate with God and be channels
through whom God’s life, which is to say, God’s love can flow? </b>Will we
intentionally and purposefully cooperate with God? Will we dance with God, will
we do the two step with God, so that we, like Jesus, can do the works of God. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Jesus told his accusers, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“If you can’t accept that I am living in
union with God on the basis of what I say, then just look at what I do. Look at
the works I do.”</i> We are invited to do the same kind of works. The works of
God are many and manifold. They are diverse and varied. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">What they have in common is this: They are all works of love.</b> They
are works of healing and liberation. Jesus in cooperation with God’s Spirit went
about healing people’s soul sickness as well as their physical sickness by
welcoming and accepting them as God’s children. Jesus went about liberating
people from their false selves and from all the demonic forces within and
without that would oppress and diminish their lives. We are called to do the
same kind of works. Such works can take many different shapes and forms, but
they are all works of love. They are works of kindness and compassion and
justice or righteousness. That’s what we do when we participate in the flow of
God’s eternal life. That’s what we do when we allow the eternal life of God to be
channeled through us. We become channels of blessing to others, and as the old
hymn reminds, that is what we need. Today, in our American culture, where fear
and hate is on the rise, where greed and power and selfish ambition occupies
center stage, works of love are desperately needed more than ever. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">As we share now in the bread and the cup
may we in the act of eating the bread and drinking the cup consciously and
intentionally open our hearts and minds and wills, our total selves to you, so
that your life fills us and flows out to all those in relationship with us.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Chuck Queenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07189976951236608116noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7984481633806018539.post-69153112547803984942019-05-05T09:06:00.000-07:002019-05-05T09:06:04.901-07:00Coming to See (A sermon on Acts 9:1-19) <br />
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Given the nature of reality in the
world, science is able to predict certain things with great accuracy, like
eclipses and full moons and the ebb and flow of tides. Our lives have been
significantly improved by the discoveries and inventions that are based on
predictable patterns in our world. Certain generalities regarding human
behavior are also fairly predictable. For example, had we been born in India, there
is more than a 99 percent likelihood that we would be Hindu, or something other
than Christian. Our individual human freedom is limited by any number of
factors besides just where we live, such as genetics, our early childhood experiences, the nurturing we
received or didn’t receive, our opportunities or lack thereof, our education, and
the list goes on and on. A lot of what we are, what we have, and who we become
is based on luck of the draw, and many factors over which we have no control. However, we are not locked in. The good news we
preach is good news because at the heart of the message is that we can change. And
though we have a strong tendency to resist change, in our </span><i style="font-size: 16pt;">better</i><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> moments, we can see the value of change, and in our </span><i style="font-size: 16pt;">best</i><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> moments we can see areas where we
need to change, and make efforts to change. </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Our text today is about an experience of
enlightenment that leads to a major change in the life of Saul of Tarsus, who
we know as the Apostle Paul. Positive change will rarely happen without
experiences of enlightenment. We first meet Paul in the book of Acts at the
death of Stephen. The crowd was so infuriated at Stephen’s preaching Christ that
they dragged him out of the city of Jerusalem and stoned him. Paul was present
granting his approval, perhaps even inciting the crowd. Luke tells us that
“Saul approved of their killing him.” After Stephen’s death Luke says a “a
severe persecution” broke out against the disciples of Jesus, and Paul,
according to Luke, “was ravaging the church by entering house after house;
dragging off both men and women” committing them to prison. Here is a man
inflamed with such zeal and passion for what he thinks is the purity of his
faith, he is willing to imprison and even kill opponents he considers heretics.
As Paul makes his way to Damascus to arrest disciples of Jesus he encounters a bright
light that leaves him blind. Luke says that he “got up from the ground, and
though his eyes were open, he could not see.” You will probably not find a
better description of our need for enlightenment anywhere. How many of us walk
around with our eyes wide open, but we cannot see. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Enlightenment is a spiritual work of grace in our lives whereby we come
to see truth in a deeper, transformative way that moves to become more loving,
grateful, and compassionate persons.</b> Drawing from Paul’s experience in this
passage of scripture I want to develop two points. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">First,
like Paul we need to have an experience of grace that enlightens us to our sins
and addictions, which prior to such an experience we did not recognize as sins or
addictions, and justified due to our blindness. </span></b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Prior to this experience Paul appears to be absolutely
confident thinking he is doing God’s will by ridding the land of these
heretical followers of the way of Jesus. Paul is completely blind to his own
self-righteousness, and the deeper fear and hate from which his actions spring.
Luke leaves us no sense that Paul ever questioned his actions or had any
remorse or regret or guilt about what he was doing to these followers of the
way. He seems perfectly at ease and happy to go about, as Luke puts it, “breathing
out murderous threats against the disciples of Jesus.” Paul was addicted to a
negative, exclusive version of Judaism that fostered prejudice, hate, and
self-righteousness. You have heard me say often, religion can be the best thing
in the world, or the worst thing in the world. When we use our religious faith
(in our case our Christianity) to justify our sin, then our Christianity
becomes the worst thing in the world. We would be better off not having any
faith at all. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Luke describes in our text today an experience
Paul had of the living Christ that altered his world-view, his God-view, and his
self-view. When Paul describes this experience in his letter to the Galatians
he describes it as a revelation and an experience of grace. Paul says <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“God called me through his grace.”</i> In
his First letter to the Corinthians Paul says, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“But by the grace of God I am what I am.”</i> Grace is the only
appropriate word to describe any experience of enlightenment. From Paul’s
perspective the experience that enabled him to see was completely due to the
grace of God. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">In the movie “Flight” Denzel Washington
plays a pilot, Whip Whitaker, who is an alcoholic. He does this amazing
maneuver with the plane in order to crash land, which was his only recourse.
The maneuver that he performed, flipping the plane upside down, saves most of
the people on board. Four passengers and two flight attendants are killed, and
others, of course, are injured, but his ability to rotate the plane saved the
rest on board. The amazing thing is that he performed this phenomenal maneuver
while legally intoxicated. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Well, there is an investigation and
because he has this high powered legal team with the know how to work the
system, all he has to do is lie one final time to get off free (and of course,
he has been lying all along, lying most of his life – to others and to himself
about his alcoholism and drug use.) This final lie, however, is different.
Because this lie would send a friend and coworker to prison. They found empty
alcohol bottles in the trash on the plane. Somebody has to go down. If it’s not
him (they were his bottles) then someone else to has to become a scapegoat and
take the hit. Well, when that moment came, he just couldn’t do it. He couldn’t
justify himself, he just could not lie this time. He finally had to own it. So
he went to prison. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">The movie concludes with Whitaker’s
confession to a group in prison. He had been in prison for a while and he tells
his story and what he is currently doing to make amends, to make restitution.
It’s a story of coming to see. It’s a story of enlightenment. He ends by
saying, “This is going to sound real stupid from a man locked up in prison, but
for the first time in my life I’m free.” He is in prison. But he is free. He is
free from the control of his addiction over him. He is free from all the
deceptions and lies. He is free from that downward, destructive cycle of denial
and avoidance. To put it in the language of a healthy spirituality – he is now free
to discover and become his true self. In the language of Christian spirituality
we would say, he is free to discover and become his Christ self. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">What sort of experience would it take
for us (you and me) to come to see the truth about ourselves, to see and own
our false attachments and addictions? What would it take for us to see God and
others and ourselves in a more potentially transformative way? What sort of
experience would draw us in to the goodness and grace and love of God? What would
it take? Would it take some great experience of suffering? Or maybe some great
experience of love that unleashes a profound, overwhelming sense of gratitude
that wells up and overflows from our hearts. What kind of experience would it take?
Perhaps only God knows. I don’t know. We are all unique. We are each one
different. We can only really understand these things in retrospect. It takes
what it takes. I don’t know what that is for you. To be honest, I don’t even
know what it is for me. It takes what it takes – whatever that may be. So
first, enlightenment is an experience of grace that enables us to see our sins
as sins. It enables us to see our false attachments and negative addictions for
what the are. It enables us to see our need for transformation, and sparks a
passion for transformation. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Second, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">enlightenment is about coming to see our common connection to one
another and to the Divine Life that binds us all together.</b> Experiences of enlightenment
open our minds and hearts in ways that enable to see that we all belong. We are
all one people. We are all children of God. We all share the divine life of
God. This was a startling revelation to Paul. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">As Luke tells it, there is a blinding
light and then a voice that says, “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Saul,
Saul why do you persecute me?”</i> Saul asks, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Who are you?”</i> The voice responds, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.”</i> Why does the voice say <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“I am Jesus,”</i> and not I am Christ? Because
Paul, who never met Jesus as far as we know, needed to understand the
connection. The eternal Christ, the universal Christ, the cosmic Christ that
Paul will come to preach became incarnate in the man, Jesus of Nazareth. Paul
needed to see that connection. It’s interesting that in his letters Paul never
uses the name “Jesus” alone. Often Paul simply speaks of “Christ” using the
single word. But in those instances where he does use the name Jesus it’s
always in connection with Christ – either “Christ Jesus” or “Jesus Christ.” In
this experience of enlightenment, which Paul attributes completely to the grace
of God, Paul gets the connection. But that is not all he gets. The other
connection he gets is that <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">the divine life
that became incarnate in the man, Jesus of Nazareth, is the same divine life
that dwells in all of Jesus’ followers. </b>The divine voice who identifies
himself as Jesus says, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Why do you
persecute me?”</i> To persecute the followers of Jesus is to persecute the
risen Lord because they/we share the same divine life. The life that became
incarnate in Jesus lives in Jesus’ followers. That life lives in you and me. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Paul would later come to understand,
perhaps after additional experiences of enlightenment, that the divine life,
the Christ life, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">not only dwells in
Jesus’ followers, but in all humanity and all creation.</b> According to Luke,
in Acts 17 Paul speaks to the philosophers of Athens and tells them that the
one true Lord is Lord of heaven and earth, and gives to all mortals life and
breath. Paul goes on to say we all are <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“God’s
offspring”</i> (God’s sons and daughters, God’s children) and in God, the Lord
of heaven and earth (the Christ) <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“we live
and move and have our existence.” </i>It would seem that experiences of
enlightenment continue to expand Paul’s horizons. And in his letter to the
Romans (8:22-23) Paul even broadens this to include <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“the whole creation”</i> which, he says, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“groans”</i> for ultimate redemption. Paul understands that the redemption
of the creation is tied to the redemption of humankind, the children of God. The
Spirit of Christ that is in us exists in all the creation too. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Paul’s encounter with Christ that Luke
describe in Acts (not just once, by the way, but three times) explains the mystical
language Paul uses in his letters about being <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“in Christ”</i> and about Christ dwelling and living in us, which
language he uses over and over again. Marcus Borg rightly, I think, calls Paul
a Jewish Christ mystic. We are one people. We share the Christ life. The Spirit
of Christ resides in us all. We all constitute the universal body of Christ
that Paul envisions being gathered up and reconciled in Christ in the fullness
of time. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Thomas Merton, was something of a
Christian mystic, who wrote about the Christ life or the Christ self as a
reality dwelling in each of us. And like Paul, his understanding flowed out of
his own experience. Merton writes about an experience of enlightenment that he
had while standing on a busy street corner in Louisville: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I love all those
people that they are mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one
another even though we were total strangers. . . . Then it was as if I suddenly
saw the secret beauty of the heart, the depths of their hearts where neither
sin nor doubt nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the
person [-] that each one has God’s eyes. If only they could all see themselves
as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time. There
would be no more wars, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed…<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Dr. Bailey did his Ph.D dissertation on
Thomas Merton. Recently he revisited Merton and presented a paper on Merton.
Dr. Bailey points out in his paper that Merton believed that <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">union in the life of God would be
inevitably expressed through union in the Love of God.</b> Dr. Bailey describes
Merton’s view this way, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Union in the
love of God regenerates the creature through that love. Love is the sign of
union, the sign of the new person. If the individual’s life is characterized by
love, it takes on the new image, the form of God. One who has experienced the
pure love of God in union becomes a source of love for others.” <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">It’s all about love, sisters and brothers,
because as 1 John puts it, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“God is love.”</i>
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Living life in Christ is not just
learning how to love like Christ (it is that, but it’s even more), it’s Christ
loving in us and through us. It’s the Christ self doing the loving. The Christ who
indwells us is love. The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ is Love. This is why
Paul says, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“the greatest of these is love.”</i>
This is why he says that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“the fruit of
the Spirit is love,”</i> first of all, before it is anything else. It’s why
Paul says to the Colossians, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Above all,
clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect
harmony.”</i> Love is the center that holds everything together. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">When we, by the grace of God, experience
enlightenment, then we, like Paul, and like Merton, and like many other
Christian mystics, and mystics of other religious faiths, will see that we all
share the Divine Life, whose essence is Love. We will come to see that we are
all one people, we are all connected, we all belong, and we will proclaim like
Paul, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“There is no longer Jew or Greek,
there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all
of us are one in Christ Jesus.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">O God, open our eyes, for we have been
blinded by our false selves. We have been blinded by all the messages we have
internalized that tell us we are better than others or less than others. We
have been blinded by our pride. We have been blinded by feelings of superiority
and by feelings of inferiority. We have been blinded by our attachments and
addictions. Visit us in your grace, O God, that we might see all of this and see
where we need to change. Open our eyes, Lord, that we might see that the beauty
and goodness and grace of Christ reside in every human being and in all
creation. Open our eyes, Lord, so that we will see how we are to love your
creation, and how we are to love all people, and how we are to love one
another, and how we are to love ourselves. For only then will we actually
experience what is already true – that you are all in all. Amen. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Chuck Queenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07189976951236608116noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7984481633806018539.post-51284323748895784212019-04-28T10:02:00.000-07:002019-04-28T10:02:12.048-07:00Change is a holy word (A sermon from Acts 5:27-32) <br />
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">We should never assume that other
Christians or even non-Christians familiar with Christianity have the same
ideas or mean the same thing when we talk about salvation. I think most
Christians, regardless of their background, tend to think of salvation as being
delivered or rescued from some great peril. Now granted, Christians may have
very different ideas about what that peril is we need to be rescued from, but
most conceive of salvation in terms of rescue or deliverance. I think of the
old hymn, “Rescue the perishing” as capturing for many the main stay of God’s
salvation. Rescue from peril is certainly one image of salvation in our sacred
scriptures, but only one. There are many images of salvation in our Bible.
Other images include return from exile, making whole that which is broken,
reconciling the alienated and estranged, being enlightened out of spiritual and
moral blindness, experiencing spiritual life in place of death, experiencing
liberation from oppression and bondage, moving from hostility and enmity to a
state of peace, turning from the little self to the Christ self, moving from a
realm of injustice to participation in God’s just world, and many other less
used images. All of these images are images of God’s salvation. </span><b style="font-size: 16pt;">The image that Luke is fond of is the one
that involves turning around and changing directions in life. Luke calls this
repentance.</b><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> Others call it conversion.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">It’s interesting how Luke makes use of
this image in the context of the early preaching of the apostles to their
fellow Jews. We have a fairly full summary of that message in Acts 2. On the
Jewish holy day of Pentecost Peter speaks to many of his fellow Jews who had
come to Jerusalem to observe that holy festival. Peter says, (I am just going
to hit the main points here): <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">You that
are Israelites, listen . . . Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to by God by
deeds of power . . . that God did through him</i> (At this stage Jesus was understood
to be God’s mediator to the Jewish people for revealing God’s will) <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">this man . . . you crucified and killed.</i>
According to the first preaching as understood by Luke, God didn’t send Jesus
to be killed. God sent Jesus to show us how to live in God’s kingdom and to
bring God’s kingdom to earth. But the powers that be took offense at Jesus and
killed him. However, when speaking to his fellow Jews on the Day of Pentecost
Peter doesn’t say the powers that be killed Jesus. He says, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“you killed him”</i> even though many who
heard Peter speak were not even in Jerusalem when Jesus was killed. As my
granddaughters would say, “What’s up with that?” The apostles, according to
Luke, were saying, “You may have known nothing about the execution of Jesus,
but you were in on it.” So, how were they in on it? The same way we were. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians,
recited an early expression adopted by the church, when he wrote, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Jesus died for our sins according to the
scriptures.”</i> The best way to translate that is not, “Jesus died <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">for </i>our sins,” which gives the
impression that Jesus had to die to take away our sins. The English preposition
“for” is not the best way to translate the Greek preposition. The best way to
translate it is either “on account of” or “because of.” Jesus died on account
of our sins. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">In other words, our sins
killed Jesus. </b>When you consider how we use the English preposition “for,”
we can say Jesus died for us, but not Jesus died for our sins. Jesus died for
us, because he died revealing God’s will to us. He died serving as God’s
mediator of God’s redemptive power. But he didn’t die for our sins. He died <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">on account of</i> our sins. God didn’t kill
Jesus or send Jesus to die. We killed Jesus, that is, our sins killed Jesus.
The old spiritual asks the question, “Were you there when they crucified our
Lord?” The early followers of Jesus would say, “Yes. Spiritually we were all
there.” <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">We commit the same sins the
powers that be committed in killing Jesus, so symbolically and spiritually we were
participants in the rejection, suffering, and execution of Jesus.</b> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">If we are honest with ourselves, we know
this is true. In many ways we are just as blind as they were. We sell out to
greed and love of power the way many of the religious leaders did in Jesus’ day.
We get jealous when someone else becomes more well-liked than we are. We become
envious of others. We get angry when someone challenges our beliefs or our
religious practices. We react when someone shakes things up and disturbs the
status quo. And we really hate it when someone exposes all that. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">We commit the same sins as the ones who had
Jesus killed, and in that way, sisters and brothers, representatively and
spiritually we participated in the crucifixion of Jesus.</b> So Peter says, and
we can now include ourselves in Peter’s audience, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“this Jesus you crucified and killed.” </i>You could say that by
continuing to commit the same sins, we continue to crucify Jesus.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">But the story goes on, thank God. “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">You killed him, but God raised him up,
having freed him from death.”</i> God vindicated what Jesus lived for, what
Jesus stood for, and what he died for, by raising him up. Then Peter says that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“God made him</i> (or appointed him) <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">both Lord and Messiah.”</i> Then Peter calls
for repentance. Repentance is both an act and a process of life change. There are
at least two important parts to both the act of repentance and the process of
repentance. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">First, it is important <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">that we admit and own our participation in
the sins that crucified Jesus. </b>We need to <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">personally acknowledge are own misguided and misdirected ways of
thinking and acting that have been hurtful and offensive to other persons.</b>
We need to own up to our failures at loving our neighbor as ourselves and the
many times we failed to do for them as we would have them do for us. We need to
realize that whenever we mistreat or hurt another person, we are mistreating
and hurting God, because God lives in that person, whether the person knows
that or not. And then, too, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">we need to acknowledge
not only our personal offenses, but our participation in the injustices of our
society.</b> Even those of us who speak out against injustice and work for
social justice in our society, need to realize that we, too, are entangled and complicit
in unjust systems. We need to look at ourselves truthfully and honestly, and
own our personal sins, as well as our collective participation in the
injustices of society. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Now, the second part of this takes us takes
us in a more positive direction:<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> We must
be serious about and faithful to walking in the way of Jesus.</b> The Hebrew
and Greek words that speak about repentance have to do with change. Repentance
involves a change in how we think and how we live. This may or may not involve
a change in belief. Usually, this does involve some change in what we believe,
at least, I have certainly experienced it that way. But the primary change is
in our attitudes and priorities, as well as our values and practices. This is
reflected in the confession that the early followers of Jesus made at their
baptism.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">For the early followers of Jesus baptism
was an important part of their initial act of repentance. At their baptism they
confessed Jesus as their Lord. Now, this confession was much more than a
confession of belief. Obviously, they did indeed believe that God had
vindicated Jesus by raising him up, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">but
when they confessed Jesus as Lord, they were primarily making a life commitment
to follow Jesus. </b>That’s why this confession was made at the time of their
baptism. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">They were pledging their trust
in and faithfulness to the way of Jesus.</b> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">They were consciously entering into a new covenant based on love and
forgiveness</b>, and committing/entrusting themselves to a new way of life
based on the life and teachings of Jesus. Clearly, they had to believe in what
Jesus stood for and died for to make that kind of commitment. They believed
that Jesus embodied the love and compassion and justice of God. So when these
first disciples confessed Jesus as Lord at their baptism they were committing
their lives to the things Jesus had committed his life to. They were not making
a doctrinal confession. They were making a life commitment. They were
committing themselves to a way of life pervaded by divine love, and their model
for such a life was Jesus. This is why Christians before they were ever known
as Christians, were known as followers of “the way” or people “who belonged to
the way.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">When I believed that only Christians
could know God, I thought one had to verbally confess and believe that Jesus is
Lord in order to be saved. But I didn’t know what I didn’t know, and what I
didn’t know is that <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">it’s the way of
Jesus that saves.</b> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">It’s far more
important to walk in the way of Jesus – the way of love, the way of grace and
truth, the way of compassion and righteousness/justice (doing what is right)
than believing stuff about Jesus. <o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Common sense should tell us this. Common
sense should tell us what God cares most about. Think about it. Do you think
God cares most about our believing stuff about Jesus, or our loving others the
way Jesus loved – showing compassion, meeting needs, and working for a just
world? Common sense should make the answer obvious? But you know, sisters and
brothers, when we are blind common sense doesn’t make any sense. I speak from
experience. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">A number of more contemporary spiritual
writers have described our personal conversion (or we could say the process of
repentance) as a movement out of our “false self” into our “true self.” The
true self is the Christ self. It’s both <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">who
we really are and who we are meant to be.</b> That is paradoxical, and yet
true. This is rooted in the teachings of Jesus and Paul. Jesus talked
paradoxically about the need to lose our life in order to find our life in the
context of telling us to deny our <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>self
(our ego dominated self, our little self, our false self), take up our cross,
and follow him. Paul talked about this symbolically in terms of being “in Adam”
and being “in Christ,” and in the contrast he drew between “flesh” and
“Spirit.” Repentance or conversion (or we could just say growth in the life of
God or the spiritual life) is <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">a journey
out of the little self that is ego-centered, defensive, and self-occupied into
the larger Christ self that is self-giving, compassionate, gracious and
generous.</b> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s the personal
conversion we all need to engage in – a conversion from the little self to the
Christ self. My sense of things today is that the most dynamic witness one can
be for Christ in our cultural context is to live out this journey/this
transformational process <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">in a way that
others can see, and in a way that invites others to participate.</b> I don’t
think there is a more impactful way in our context to be a witness to the
healing and redemptive power of Christ/Love than living out this
transformational journey out of the false self into the true self in a way that
welcomes others to participate in it with us. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">A country gentleman was known for his
talent of carving beautiful images of dogs out of wood. When he was asked about
the secret of his art, he explained, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“I
just take a block of wood and whittle off the parts that don’t look like a
dog.” </i>Repentance is about whittling away at the parts of us – attitudes,
values, habits, responses, reactions, ways of relating, and so forth – that
don’t look like Christ. The parts of us that don’t look like Christ we need to
let fall away like shavings of wood, so that the Christ self can emerge. Authentic
conversion/ repentance draws us into the art of soul-making. What Luke means by
repentance <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">is nothing less than the
process that brings about the transformation of our souls. <o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">And not just the transformation of our
individual soul, but <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">also the soul of
our communities and societies that we are part of.</b> Luke seems to be
alluding to this when he mentions in our text <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“the repentance of Israel.”</i> God is not only interested in our
personal transformation into the Christ self, God wants to see whole
communities and societies engaged in this process. It’s never just about me.
It’s about us. And not just our little group of us. All of us. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">It’s about a world put right,</b> which at
first may feel like a world turned upside down. This is why we are taught to
pray, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Our Father,”</i> not “My father.”
We pray <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“give us, forgive us, lead us”</i>
– not just “me.” <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">God wants to redeem the
world, and all the systems, institutions, and structures of the world.</b> This
is why it is important, I believe, to be part of a healthy faith community,
because it’s never just about me, it’s about us. Unfortunately, too many faith
communities are turned in on themselves. But a healthy faith community will emphasize
that we all belong. And we have to learn to get along. And that’s why
forgiveness is important. I haven’t said much about forgiveness today, but Luke
mentions forgiveness alongside repentance. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">One thing I do need to say about
forgiveness that is very important but often lost today is that forgiveness of
sins is not just about receiving forgiveness from God. Jesus’ teachings on
forgiveness in the Gospels is very clear on this point. Our <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">experience of forgiveness from God is
inseparably connected to our giving forgiveness to others and receiving
forgiveness from others.</b> If we can’t forgive others and accept forgiveness
from others, then we cannot experience forgiveness from God. That’s not because
God withholds God’s forgiveness. Rather, we are simply incapable of receiving
it, if we cannot forgive others or receive forgiveness from others. This is why
we are taught to pray, “Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who have
sinned against us.” If we can’t forgive, we can’t receive forgiveness, because
our heart is not right. Forgiveness is a vital part of putting things right
with others and putting our own heart right with God. It’s all about right
relationships. When we make forgiveness something else, when we make it
juridical, rather than relational, when we confine it to God’s forgiveness, so
we can feel like we are forgiven while we go hating others and being mean to
others, then we have become legalistic and self-righteous, and our religion
actually does us more harm than good. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">So here’s the two critical questions I
need to consider, and hopefully you will consider too: One, Can I honestly see
where I need to change to be more compassionate toward others and passionate
about what is right and good for all people? And two, Am I willing to live into
this change, to do what is necessary to make this change – this change from the
ego self to the Christ self, from focus on self to a focus on what is good for
all?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Our good God, help us to look honestly
at our lives – our attitudes, our values, our priorities, our common reactions
to people, how we treat others – and see where we need to change. Help us know
what we need to let fall away, what we need to lose and die to, so that the
love of Christ can fill us and flow through us. Help us to see too, that it is
never just about me or my group, it’s about justice for all your children. Give
us a larger vision and a deeper compassion that extends beyond me and mine. And
may we all realize that authentic change, real conversion is a cooperative
venture that requires our time and commitment. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Chuck Queenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07189976951236608116noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7984481633806018539.post-44715357624761436312019-04-21T08:59:00.000-07:002019-04-21T08:59:11.172-07:00What about the empty tomb? (Luke 24:1-12; 1 Cor. 15:19-28)<br />
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">The text we read together in Luke 24 is
Luke’s empty tomb story. When it comes to the appearance stories, all the
Gospels have their own unique stories to tell, with the exception of Mark, who
does not include an appearance story. But all four Gospels have some version of
the empty tomb story. Each story is unique and contains variations from the
others (there are differences in the details) but the main point, of course, is
the main point of all the stories. The tomb is empty, and Jesus is alive. The
question this raises for me is this: Why was the story of the empty tomb
considered to be of such importance that each of our canonical Gospels contain
a version of it? </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">It’s not, in my estimation, intended to
teach that the resurrection of Jesus has to be physical? In 1 Cor. 15, where
Paul is responding to questions about the resurrection raised by the
Corinthians, Paul struggles to try to explain what the resurrection involves in
terms of the body. He says, “fles<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">h and
blood cannot inherit the future realm of God.”</i> He says there is a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“physical body,”</i> and a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“spiritual body.”</i> He says <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“it is sown a physical body, it is raised a
spiritual body.”</i> He links our resurrection to Jesus. In resurrection, like
Jesus, we are given a spiritual body. What does that mean? Who knows? But it is
certainly different than a physical body. If the physical body of the crucified
Jesus had remained in the tomb to decay as human bodies decay, that would in no
sense disprove resurrection, according to Paul anyway. Because Paul says that
in resurrection we are given a spiritual body, not a physical body. <br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">When the spirit or soul departs from the
body, the body becomes a shell of our former self. Right? We trust that we will
be given a new body – Paul’s says it’s a “spiritual” body, not a physical one.
So, if we can trust Paul on this, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">then
the significance of the empty tomb has nothing to do with the kind of body we
have in a resurrected state of existence.</b> So why, then, do all the
canonical Gospels have an empty tomb story, where the physical body of Jesus is
no more?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Personally, I think there are two main two
reasons for the empty tomb story. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">First,
the story is important for its dramatic impact in spotlighting God’s
vindication of Jesus.</b> Consider the version of the story we read in Luke.
The women, grieving the death of Jesus, no doubt dismayed and disheartened,
bring spices to the tomb to give Jesus a proper burial. But there is no body to
anoint. So, now add to their grief, perplexity and confusion. Then <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“suddenly”</i> two men in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“dazzling”</i> apparel appear. Feel the
drama. So now, add to the grief and perplexity fear. “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The women were terrified,”</i> says Luke. More drama. We just about have
as much drama here as we have in our youth group. Well, maybe not. The two
messengers speak to the grief and confusion and fear when they say, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Why do you look for the living among the
dead? He is not here, but has risen.”</i> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">This
is high drama highlighting God’s vindication of Jesus. <o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">A story that Tony Campolo shares
demonstrates how this drama works in a contemporary setting. Campolo at the
time, and may still be, a member of a predominantly African American
congregation in West Philadelphia. At the time he said he loved preaching in
his church because of the response he gets. He says they let you know how
you’re doing. One time he was preaching and knew he was in trouble when a woman
raised her hand and yelled, “Help him, Jesus! Help him, Jesus.” Another time,
however, he knew he was connecting. It was a Good Friday service and he was one
of several preachers that day. He was getting “Amens” and “Keep going, brother,
keep going.” I wouldn’t mind hearing that ever now and then. After his sermon
he sat down next to his pastor, who was also his senior and who was to follow
him in the rotation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He looked at
Campolo with a smile and said, “You did all right! Campolo whispered, “Pastor,
are you going to be able to top that?” The preacher smiled and said, “Son, just
sit back, cause the old man is going to do you in.” And he did. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">The preacher would say, “It was Friday
and Mary was cryin’ her eyes out. The disciples were runnin’ in every
direction, like sheep without a shepherd. But that was Friday, and they didn’t
know that Sunday’s comin’!” “It was Friday. The cynics were lookin’ at the
world and sayin’, “As things have been so they shall be. You can’t change
anything in this world; you can’t change anything.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But those cynics didn’t know that it was only
Friday. Sunday’s comin’! “It was Friday. And on Friday, those forces that
oppress the poor and cause people to suffer were in control. Pilate thought he
had washed his hands of a lot of trouble. The Pharisees were struttin’ around, thinking
they were back in charge of things. But they didn’t know – they didn’t know it
was only Friday, and Sunday’s comin’!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">The old preacher did him in – with one
line. Back and forth he went. It’s Friday, but Sunday’s comin’ – It’s Friday,
but Sunday’s comin’ – until he came to the end of his message. The preacher proclaimed:
“It’s Friday!” Then he paused and the whole congregation shouted in joy, “But
Sunday’s comin,’” and the congregation erupted in claps and shouts of
jubilation. That’s dramatic impact. The empty tomb story is about dramatic
impact highlighting God’s vindication of Jesus. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">We live in a world full of Friday
experiences. There are multiple and sometime massive injustices and inequities.
We live in a world of holocausts and genocides.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">We live in a world of hurricanes and
floods. We live in a world of horrific natural disasters and diseases that take
their toll on our families and our lives. We live in a Friday world, but . . .
. Sunday’s comin’! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">The messengers at the tomb tell us to
remember that Jesus told us all this. He told us that he would suffer, that he
would be rejected and crucified. But he also told us that would not be the end.
The message of the empty tomb and the message of the messengers at the empty
tomb is that Jesus is not here. Jesus is not confined to this little place in
time, rendered inoperative and powerless. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">You
can’t hold down, you can’t destroy the power of love and compassion present in
Jesus. You can’t kill the passion for justice that got Jesus killed.</b> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">C.S Lewis, in one of his books calls the
world a “bent planet.” It’s true. But there is a divine conspiracy of love
afoot that intends to set things right. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">In
the midst of all the alienation, contempt, evil, and hostility, there is a conspiracy
of forgiveness, compassion, reconciliation, and hope going on.</b> Even though
the world said, “No” – No to the love and inclusion and righteousness of Jesus.
God said, “Yes,” and “No” to the injustice and violence of the world. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">God said “Yes” to everything Jesus stood
for and lived for and died for. </b>That is the drama, that is the power, that
is the message of the empty tomb. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Now, in my thinking at least, there is a
second important point the story of the empty tomb makes. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">It serves to show the connection between the human being, the man,
Jesus of Nazareth and the risen, exalted, Christ.</b> What began in the man,
Jesus – the love and compassion and justice of God that became incarnate in the
man, Jesus is magnified on a much larger, greater, expansive, and inclusive
scale through the cosmic, universal Christ. To bring that down to earth in more
practical terms what that means is that Love (with a capital L) never gives up.
What God, who is Love, wants to do is bring everything and everyone together in
unity, in oneness. God wants to make the affirmation, “We all belong,” an
actual, practical reality. In Philippians Paul describes this as every knee
bowing and tongue confessing that Jesus is Lord, which implies that everyone will
come to live in the humble, self-giving way of Jesus. Confession of Jesus as
Lord is a confession of allegiance to the way of Jesus. In Ephesians Paul says
that God’s plan is in the fullness of time to gather up all things in Christ,
things in heaven and things on earth. In Colossians Paul says that through
Christ God intends to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in
heaven. Here in 1 Corinthians 15 Paul says that all will be “made alive” in
Christ and everything will be subjected to God by means of the Christ so that
in that fullness of time “God may be all in all.” Everything unified, everyone
and everything brought together, reconciled, cooperating with God. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">That’s one amazing cosmic plan that the
cosmic Christ is working to bring to completion. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Will it ever be realized? Will it ever
be fulfilled? Is Paul right to believe this? I don’t know. Who can say<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">? For that plan to be realized in the human
sphere means that everyone will eventually have to come to repentance and
willfully give up their little selves in order to be changed into their true
self, the image of Christ.</b> Because no one is subjected to God’s will
unwillingly. No one is redeemed and transformed who does not want to be
redeemed and transformed. No one is changed without great personal investment
in the process that brings about transformation. God doesn’t zap people, and
suddenly they become more loving and compassionate and caring people. If God
could do that don’t you think God would? That’s now how life works folks. Salvation
doesn’t work that way. Personal salvation is a process that requires our honest
struggle with our ego, with change, and with faithfulness to the way of Jesus,
the way of compassion and righteousness. Will everyone eventually be willing to
engage in that process, will everyone eventually invest in this struggle and learn
compassion and righteousness? I am hopeful, but I honestly don’t know. What
about people who are hardened by evil? What about someone like Hitler who was
responsible for the suffering and deaths of millions of people? I can image
someone like Hitler needing to invest thousands of years, perhaps millions of
years getting to know all the people his acts killed and caused immense
suffering. Is that possible? I don’t know. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">But
what I believe is that God’s vindication of Jesus on Easter morning means that
nothing can sever anyone from God’s love which has been made known to us in
Christ Jesus.</b> The door is only locked from the inside. God never gives up
on anyone. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Some years ago, when I still held to an
exclusive version of the Christian faith and I was arrogant enough to think I
had the answers and knew who was in and who was out of God’s favor, I was asked
by a funeral director to do a funeral service for a man who had no religious
affiliation. The man had lived a self-absorbed, wretched kind of life. Only a
handful of people were present for the brief service. After the service, the
man’s sister asked me a piercing question. She confronted me with this question:
Could you not give my brother any hope? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">In the Lord of the Rings, Gollum, you
will remember, is a scheming, pitiful, deformed little creature obsessed with
possessing the ring. He wasn’t always like that, of course. He thought he could
possess the ring, but the ring possessed him and led to him regressing into the
pitiful little creature he was. Still, he wants the ring back. Gollum has
learned nothing it seems. He is consumed with repossessing the ring even though
the ring has and continues to diminish and destroy him. Nothing else matters. Sam
and Frodo find themselves traveling in circles lost in the Misty Mountains as
they make their way to the Mountain of Doom where Frodo intends on throwing the
ring into the fire, which is the only way to destroy it. Here they encounter
Gollum, who agrees to help them. He knows the way out. All the while Gollum is
helping them he is secretly plotting, and Frodo knows this, to steal the ring
back. Gollum could well represent the person you most despise, the person you
most dislike<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">.</b> Sam despises Gollum
and is harsh and demeaning towards him. Finally Frodo confronts Sam. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Why do you do that—call him names and run
him down all the time?”</i> Sam responds, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Because
that’s what he is, Mr. Frodo. There’s naught left in him but lies and deceit.
It’s the ring he wants. It’s all he cares about.” </i>Gollum is the ultimate
narcissist. Looking sadly at Gollum, Frodo says to Sam<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">, “You have no idea what it did to him. I have to help him, Sam.”</i> Sam
asks, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Why?”</i> Frodo replies, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Because I have to believe he can come
back.”</i> Frodo, who finds himself slipping away under the influence of the
ring, understands better than Sam the weakness of the human condition. Frodo holds
on to hope. I have to believe he can come back, that he can be saved, that he can
change. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">I wish I could go back and give the man’s
sister who I failed miserably some hope. Because now I know there is always
hope. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">There is always hope because
Divine Love overcomes all the forces of death.</b> It’s never too late from God’s
side. Is it ever too late from the human side? That I don’t know. But if Paul
was bold enough to trust that somehow and someway every person and every
reality in this universe will be ultimately brought together in Christ, so that
God may be all in all, maybe I can be that bold too. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">On Easter morning God said “Yes” to
Jesus’s passion for what is right and his compassion for all people, even
though the world said, “No.” The way of Jesus – the way of compassion and righteousness
that Jesus incarnated – is the way of salvation, and God keeps wooing and inviting
us to pursue the way of compassion and righteousness of Jesus. God keeps trying
to draw us into God’s love, and God will never give up. That’s what I believe,
sisters and brothers, the empty tomb is about. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Today, O God, on this Easter Sunday, we
give you thanks, because the forces of death will not prevail. You raised
Jesus, up. Your love never ends. Hallelujah. Amen.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />Chuck Queenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07189976951236608116noreply@blogger.com0