October 21 -- Twenty-Second after Pentecost

Grace to you and peace from God who created us from the clay of the earth, from Jesus who brings us back from our sin and brokenness and into new life, and from the Holy Spirit who comforts and challenges us even now.  AMEN.

First of all:  You.  Are.  Here.  For whatever reason — maybe you’re here because you’re a regular and you can’t imagine your week without coming to Bethlehem on Sunday, maybe you’re here because you haven’t been and you feel bad, maybe you’re here against your will and someone is making you come this morning, maybe you’re new here and found us by word-of-mouth, or internet, or just drove by...Whatever way got here this morning, friends, I believe that God has brought you to this place!  In Exodus, when the Israelites are backed up to the Red Sea or wandering in the wilderness, time and time again, God is reminding the people, because they’re always forgetting -- especially when they panic, when they’re afraid, when they start to lose hope -- “Hey remember, I brought you this far, and I’ll bring you through!”  That’s true for us all today too, even as we just begin to know each other, God has brought us to this place.  And I give thanks that our paths have crossed this morning!  

Our Good Word today comes from the Gospel of Mark, where the disciples are backed into a place of wanting-to-be-the-best (James and John) and then the others into a place of anger.   

Sometimes, our need-to-be-the-best and our anger can lead to our demise, could be the death of us.  And yet -- here’s what I love -- Jesus, just holds them through it, and calls them out of it.  “Teacher,” they say, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.”  Hey Jesus, make me the best one in this room.  Make me the smartest, the most successful, the most holy, the most spiritual, the most humble (which is a little ironic -- but I think that’s the one us church folk can fall into the most).  Anyway, Jesus make me the best!  We all have that drive at some level, I think.  

When pastors get together and share what’s up, I’ve always felt a little twinge of jealousy at all the cool things the other churches are doing (BLC is no exception—part of what drew me here).  I can’t speak for the others, but I’ve got this internal voice that needs to be better, that needs to sit by Jesus and get glory.  Maybe you too?  James and John are not alone, they weren’t bad guys — but they wanted to be the best and they wanted to be known for it — “Teacher, give us whatever we want,” they demand.  

Sometimes we talk to God like this too:  “God give me whatever I want.  Make me great.  Make us great here at BLC!”

And here’s what I love -- Jesus just holds them/us through that demanding phase, like a child’s demanding phase.  And what does he say, “You don’t know what you’re asking.”  You don’t get it.  

A few years ago, we caught Micah singing a song he had heard on the loud speaker at a Padres game:  “I’m sexy and I know it.” When we asked him about it, it’s clear he just didn’t understand yet.  “Daddy! You know, it means ‘you know it...it means you know something other people don’t know.’” Sexy = I know it.  Innocent and sweet, right?

Sisters and brothers in Christ, our misunderstanding of Christ’s call is almost innocent and even sweet.  Our wanting to be the best, our wanting to get the glory, our wanting to be seated in places of honor and respect, is like a child not getting it and being held anyway.  

Sisters and brothers in Christ, Jesus holds us in our brokenness.  “You do not know what you are asking,” he tells us too.  “This isn’t about being the best, this isn’t about giving so that you get all the glory.  This isn’t about getting what we want out of the church or the pastor or the council.  This isn’t about pulling strings and being lord over others...  

This is about being a servant.  This is about making sacrifices.  To use a great biblical image: this is about foot-washing.  This is about giving ourselves away for the sake of the world.”  That’s what it means to be Christ-ian.  That’s what Christ has instructed us to do:  wash each other’s feet, “just like I’ve done for you,” Jesus says.  We do that with our money too.

And this is a gift!  Jesus calls us to freedom through our percentage giving.  Jesus invites us to joyfully release that with which we’ve been entrusted.  It’s all God’s anyway.  It’s just been entrusted to us for this short life.  We joyfully release just a percentage of it, as a way of thanking God for bringing us through, holding us, loving us all along.  Let it go.  (Always thought that’d be a good song for a stewardship campaign.) 

“When the disciples heard these things, they became angry.”  They became jealous.  Even scared.  When we are invited to joyfully release just a portion, just a percentage of God’s gifts to us, we too can become angry and scared.   Maybe some of you have gone through that in this or previous stewardship campaigns?  I did a big campaign back in San Diego, a couple years ago...and it was such a joy, but it wasn’t without some struggle.  I remember some of our members telling stories about their fears and even angers at being asked to participate.  Asked to give to the church -- any church -- and we cry out:  But I don’t like what the church is doing!!  Every one of us can say that about something going on at church.  I’m not giving to that!!  I’m not voting for that with my money because I don’t like what they’re doing.  Jesus holds us through this.  “You don’t know what you are saying.”  (Only place in the world...) Biblical stewardship -- i.e. first fruits, proportional, regular, sacrificial and yet joyful giving -- is not about others and who gets “your” money, it’s not about church budgets and deficits and bills and salaries, it’s about you.  It’s an invitation to go deeper in your own faith.  Jesus holds us through our fears and angers, through our concerns about the future and our bitterness about the past.  

And when we’re finished with our rants, with our anger.  When we’re finished trying to be the best all the time, promoting ourselves, having to have the last word, trying to always beat out the others and prove our righteousness next to Jesus...Jesus offers us the final word:  “Dear ones,” he says to us even today, “It’s not about being the best.  I’m about serving, friends.  I’m about loving.  I’m about giving.”  

Sisters and brothers in Christ, Jesus serves us, loves us, and gives himself away for us.  To be at Jesus’ side, actually means to kneel at the feet of our neighbors and tend to their needs.  Jesus turns everything on its head!  There is no throne, disciples.  There’s a wash basin and a towel.  That’s where we find the real glory...and it makes no sense to the world.  Being Christian is not about fighting for our own rights, for our own spot, the best spot….it’s about tending to the rights and needs of others, particularly those who are left out in the cold and the rain.  To sit at Jesus’ side is to give yourself away.  Not out of guilt or compulsion, but out of joy and thanksgiving for what God has first done for us.  We get caught up in the current of grace.

We offer our gifts, not out of guilt or compulsion, but rather out of joy and thanksgiving for what Christ has done for us: Christ has forgiven us, for all our anger and jealousy and need to be on top, especially at the expense of others.  Done!  Forgiven!  And Christ now holds us/you in grace and peace.  When we are taken with that kind of hope and redemption, we can’t help but respond with our time, talents and treasures, we can’t help but respond with our whole lives.    

Let me conclude with an image:  

When we were little -- I grew up in Houston, Texas -- we spent most of our childhood in swimming pools to survive the heat.  And I remember how we used to create whirlpools in my friend’s backyard pool, going around and around in a circle in that small pool.  Then we’d take turns hopping out, and then jumping back in, only to be caught in the current.  It was so much fun, and we couldn’t help ourselves but to keep that current going so the next one could jump in and keep experiencing that joy of being carried by that same current.  

Sisters and brothers in Christ, God creates the current.  As we bring our gifts forward—our time our talents and our money—as we live this life of faith, as we participate with our church family in all the ways that we “discover, celebrate and share,” it’s like we’re caught in the current of God’s grace!  And when we’re caught, we can’t help but continue to move, continue to give and grow, continue to participate, continue to go in peace and serve our Lord.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

October 14 -- Twenty-First After Pentecost

Grace to you and peace from God, our only Source and Ground.  AMEN.

“How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God.” Ouch!  In one of the wealthiest counties in the nation, in one of the wealthiest countries in the world.

“Easier for a camel…than for a wealthy person...” How would you explain this...say, to children?  How do you explain it to yourself?  (Actually saw the eye of a needle in a museum in Rome…but, not much help...)  What’s Jesus really getting at here?  This is worth our reflection, and we’ve gotta wrestle with this.   But let’s start by acknowledging “Jesus loved him” (vs. 21).  In fact, that’s the only instance in all of Mark... 

--

A couple years ago, I participated in a Gathering confession, like we here at the beginning. But these words, I’ve never been able to forget: “God, we hang on to and save up our money and our possessions as if you didn’t even exist.  We cling to our riches and our earthly things as if you’re not even real.”   

I think what Jesus is saying to the rich man in the story -- and to us who have money and things too -- that’s it’s even harder for us because we can fool ourselves into thinking that we can really secure and protect ourselves.  With pension plans, and insurance, with airbags, and security alarms, with a strong military and police force, with trusted financial advisors and back-up plans, and investments and security cameras, with brilliant doctors and nurses, plenty of warm and rainproof clothes and roofs over our heads…[pause] and with a clean record to our name: “I’ve kept all the commandments, never broken the law, if I did it was so minor and wasn’t even a big deal.  I pay my taxes, and I even go to church.” 

So, I really think I deserve all this...that I’ve worked for!   I can at least totally justify why it’s OK for me to have it all…

“With all our stuff, with all our money and privilege, who even needs God (except as maybe a sweet grandpa in the sky, who benignly loves us and throws a few reminders at us once in a while about how we better behave)?”  The poor and sick need God, they’ve got nothing else.  But the healthy and the wealthy?  “Who even cares if God’s even real or not?”  Are you getting the energy around this confession?

“God, we hang on to and save up our money and our possessions as if you didn’t even exist.”   

And today we hear Jesus sigh: “How hard it will be for those of us with wealth to enter the kingdom of God.”

Our possessions and our money become like a blanket that shields us from the deep truth that all we have and are comes from God, belongs to God, and returns to God at the last.  

Truly trusting in God is even harder when we’re wealthy (and I’d add in healthy).  This is what Christ was getting at:  Entrusting ourselves to our Source and Ground, even now...  

So what might this all look like for you, as you use and share and spend money?  As you make decisions about the future?  How are you doing these days with trusting in God?  Does your bank statement reflect that too?  “Lord, I’ve kept all the commandments!”  He’s fishing for that pat on the back.

But Jesus doesn’t give it so easily.  Jesus doesn’t let him off the hook.  The rich man in the story went away sad.  And he didn’t get to hear what Jesus said next…

We do:  Jesus sighs and comments for a moment on how hard it is for people how have a lot of stuff now to trust God.  Then the disciples — namely Peter — takes his turn at fishing for a pat on the back.  “We’ve left everything and followed you!”  Nope.  He doesn’t get it either:

Finally, we can’t rescue ourselves... 

Friends in Christ, this is about God doing the rescuing.  God being the final provider of shelter, security and eternal safety...even now.  God’s the ultimate security guard, security system, God’s the ultimate nurse and doctor and advisor, the true back-up.  For us it’s impossible, but for God, sisters and brothers, even we can be saved.  Even we can live free.  Open and trusting.  Peaceful and honest.  Naked before God.

Luther’s definition of sin was the self turned inward.  Suspicious, anxious, scared, protective, paranoid...and then all the behaviors that come as a result of that deep-seeded fear.  

I love to compare that with our little lab-mutt, Chloe.  She embodies trust.  Chloe rolls over on her back, fully exposed, naked and entrusts her whole little life to me!  For a while there, we had an issue with peeing on the floor, and we have a dear friend who is our personal dog-whisperer.  Andrea, told us that especially with her breed, these accidents are actually communication:  her way of telling us that we have her absolute submission, “I’m all yours, here’s everything I have.  I am literally emptying myself for you.”  [too much?]  

How would that look for us?  What if that was a metaphor for how we worshipped God and served our neighbor?  Go in peace, serve the Lord…[empty]!  What would that look like?  

“How hard it is” even to imagine, right?  I mean we’re so much more guarded and controlled than Chloe.  So much more turned-inward and blanketed with stuff, I’m afraid, too.  

[open hands]  “God, how can we trust you with the same self-emptying as a sweet, loving and submissive dog?  Help us to use and release money and handle our affairs as if you really did exist, as if you really are real!”  That’s our prayer. 

And sisters and brothers in Christ, I hope you know — and if you don’t, I’m going to tell you now — I hope you know that God does love us and forgive us, even us wealthy ones!  Just as we love and will do everything we can to protect and shelter and save our little Chloe, so God loves us even more!  You know that, right?  

God loves us and grieves to watch us live all clenched and curled up.  God graciously waits for us to roll over, even today, and entrust ourselves, into Christ’s everlasting providence and forgiveness.  Because the sooner we do that, the happier we’ll be: that’s when we enter the kingdom!  It can happen even in this life, even on this earth, even amid these headlines and developments and struggles.  That kind of love, that kind of grace, that kind of rescue, can only come from God -- who is for you, who forgives you even when you struggle to surrender, even when you’re ashamed to be naked, even when you can’t let go or roll over, even if you go home sad.  Remember, Jesus looked and the rich man, and loved him.  He loved him...and then invites him to trust even more.  

Our journey continues, friends in Christ, and we are not alone.  Our journey continues together, and through it all, God stays with us...always.  Peace amid the storms.  AMEN.

October 7 -- 20th Sunday after Pentecost

Harsh words today from Jesus on divorce.  Harsh?  Or are they rooted in compassion and actually packed with grace?  Let us pray…

“God may the words of my mouth and the meditations of each one of our hearts be always acceptable in your sight for you are our strength and our redeemer.” 

Have you ever been trapped?  Maybe in an argument, maybe in a game, maybe in a situation?  If you go one way, they’ll get you.  If you go the other, something else bad will happen.  It’s a terrible place to be.  Sometimes we’re trapped in our relationships:  Say we have a dear friend who is really in trouble…we want to help them and have all the best intentions, but that means saying some things, telling our truth in a way that can truly upset our friend.  If we don’t, we’ll continue to watch them flounder.  If we do, we risk hurting or alienating, maybe even losing our friend.  Trapped.  Telling our truth is hard, being honest with ourselves and with our loved ones is hard.  It’s much easier to avoid the difficult conversations, it’s much easier to keep the peace, the status quo, the superficial harmony.  But even then we’re trapped.  

The question of divorce that comes up so directly in this text today, we have to understand, is an attempt by the Pharisees to TRAP Jesus.  They’re trying to back him into a corner.  The Pharisees aren’t asking Jesus about divorce with the best intentions.  They’re not dealing with their own issues at home, in their own marriages, and looking to their friend to help them sort through the Law of Moses, in order to do what is right.  They’re trying to trap Jesus.  

We are in a totally different place than the Pharisees when we ask difficult questions about divorce and marriage.  We’re wondering what the right thing to do is, the right way to think…

Marriage in Jesus’ day was nothing like marriage today in the United States.  Back then, you didn’t meet someone, date, fall in love, get down on one knee, have your favorite song as a first dance, and plan to live happily ever after.  Marriage was a business agreement between men: the father of the bride and the potential husband.  Romance had very little to do with it.  Lust maybe.  As the years passed, a married couple might begin to fall in love.  But at the outset, the woman was seen as property, an asset gained.  I’ve been at a few synod assemblies, namely a couple years back (before 2009), where a resolution would inevitably come to the assembly floor that we “uphold the biblical understanding of marriage.”  I think I know what the authors of these resolutions were trying to say, but I would always vote against such resolutions that seek to link marriage to a “biblical understanding”... if for now other reason but...a biblical understanding of marriage is a cold, calculated contract, where women and their voices are completely devalued.  Now certainly there were exceptions, but we have to make note of how marriage was seen in the days of Jesus and the Pharisees.

The good thing about marriage for women in that day, was that it meant—not romance and companionship—but protection, legal protection, financial protection, (in some ways) physical protection.  It meant safety at one level; another word for that is salvation.  You know this: she was the responsibility of her father until a certain age where the father is looking to “marry her off” well.  Once she’s married she’s no longer the father’s responsibility.  She literally belongs as property to the husband. So a divorce would literally put her out in the cold. [pause] (Today, if a couple gets divorced, either of them could feasibly go back and seek shelter in the arms and the homes of their parents—not so back then.)  She can’t go back to her father, because he no longer owns her.   

It would be like if you took back a car you sold years ago, and started making payments on it again. [pause]

Harsh, right?  Talk about being trapped.  So, in that very different context and understanding of marriage and divorce, look at what Jesus does here:  First he brings up for the Pharisees the issue of people’s “hardness of heart.”  There’s a lesson and a challenge in that for all of us—married or single, straight or gay, old or young, Christian or non.  Jesus calls people, especially those in power, to soften their hearts.  In our relationships, in our dealings, even in how we look at ourselves.  Spark Story Bible... “Love is easy going, love is kind.”  Jesus calls us today through this text to be easy going with our love and our treatment of each other—what a wonderful contrast to a stiff, calcified heart.   I’ve certainly experienced softness of heart in this community: In our neighborhood, as people show up and speak out and share support in the midst of all this vandalism and racist graffiti and terror.  What would it look like to embrace “Christ’s soft-heart initiative” in the coming days — in all our dealings and our relationships and our thoughts?

And then Jesus calls us to responsibilities and back into relationship.  He (and Genesis) remind us that we were all created in order to be in relationship.  “It’s not good to be alone.”  For some, that means we are called into the covenant of marriage.  For others: life-long friendships, partnerships, family connections. God’s original intention for us is that we be together. The human being, is the human being-together with another—be it a spouse, a child, a friend, a parent, a pet.  All of these—I don’t have to tell you this— are literally life-giving, science has shown.  That’s how God intended it.  Some congregations are doing a blessing of the animals today: October 4, St. Francis.  Next year?  

Really what that is, is a celebration of a relationship, a companionship that God has given us with all creation, and a call to be about the work of soft-hearted protection, like a good marriage contract was intended to be back then, creating safe spaces, safe forests, protected deserts and oceans, joyf-illed homes with pets where we’re not always sure who’s taking care of who, right?  This is what Jesus is seeking to re-affirm!  The blessing of the animals: “May you enjoy life together, as God intended.”

And finally, look at what Jesus does for women, in that brutal context—first, he empowers women to divorce as well, giving them some degree of dignity and power, which they didn’t have.  Now women are more free to divorce their husbands, and sometimes that’s definitely the best thing.  But not so back then, and Jesus’ mention of it is radical and liberating.  And then ultimately he comes down hard on men who divorce their wives, for to do so in that time was to cast another “human being-together” out into the cold alone.  Jesus is passionately invested in bringing all people to the center.  No one in God’s vision is to be cast out—not women, not children.  And Jesus reminds us again of that in the final scene here in our text, where he brings the children to the center and holds them in his arms — it’s a visible image for everyone of God’s inclusivity, God’s soft-heart, God’s freedom and love and joy and peace!  

To take this Gospel lesson seriously, is to understand that you are included in the center, in God’s loving embrace, everyone is included in God’s loving embrace!   

We are all trapped...in a good way.  We are all trapped, you could say, in God’s arms.  We are all trapped in our faith, we can never divorce that, because once God has gotten hold of us as God does at the very beginning, we can never break free.  And yet we are trapped in freedom — in the freedom that is ours through Christ’s love.  Trapped in the promise of the Holy Spirit’s ever-presence, trapped in grasp of grace, this day and for evermore.  AMEN.   

September 30 -- Nineteenth after Pentecost

These “amputation metaphors” are tough.  

I’m just going to go there:   There are other things in this passage like welcoming the ministry of others who are not like us, and keeping things good and salty.  But when Jesus says “when your eye causes you to sin, cut it out...” it’s hard, at first, to notice or focus on much else.  So let’s talk about this...

“Amputation metaphors” were certainly common in Jesus’ day and his hearers would have certainly been attuned to their teacher’s hyperbole and known that they were just that — metaphors — and they would have heard clearly what Christ was really saying: 

If something is preventing you from following me, from trusting in me, from living in me — if something is preventing you, causing you to stumble, deep down at your core, that thing needs to be cut off and cut out, even if it’s highly “valuable”.  (Colleague talks about the Offering as an exorcism.  “Are you ready for an exorcism?” he says, as the ushers prepare to come forward for the plates!)

Coming into October, friends in Christ, we are being asked too:  what does a “sin-ectomy” look like for us?  What do we need to cut out and cut off?  

Let’s just think for a minute about our hands our feet and our eyes, because Jesus talks about them:  It’s not about literally cutting them out and off, but how are they causing us to sin?  (Let me say too, the word sin in the Greek: hamartia = “missing the mark.”)  How are we missing the mark, the mark of our baptism, the mark of the cross, the mark of Christ?

Where are the places we’re going, the investments of time and resources we’re making...that might be causing us to miss the mark of Christ?  What do our credit card statements and internet search histories, and if there was a record of our conversations this past week that we could  listen back to, how are we stumbling?  What needs to be cut off and cut out?

You might do a little inventory this week.  Think about your hands, as Jesus does: what are things that your hands have done, that should stop?  Have your hands been used for violence against others or against yourself?  Our hands can be used for typing...words and ideas that hurt others.  Our hands can be used to signal terrible things...  [pointing sharply]   Or our feet?  Where have they taken us?  To places that build up or places that drain life, hurting others and earth...[pause]  Or your eyes, what have you been feasting your eyes on?  Things, people, self-serving dreams and wishes? 

There are things we all need to work on, yes?  Things to ponder and pray over, things to confess, things that only we as individuals (in the quiet presence of God) can truly know simply need to go, must be cut off.  Addiction in its many forms is a powerful force.  And it’s not just substances or material things that hook us:  some of us are addicted to the chase, or to receiving praise and recognition, or to making sure everyone else is doing it right (disciples in the text), or to securing certainty, or to out-doing everyone else, and looking humble and calm all the while.  Right?   

(Last week: clenched fists)  And let’s be honest: so much of this has to do with money — Ivan the Terrible’s troops baptized with swords out of the water: our wallets?

An interesting thing happens with this text, doesn’t it?  At first, it seems so medieval and out of touch — chopping off of body parts and all... But when we move through, slow down and “pray these scripture words of Jesus”, it gets intensely personal.  And in the grip of these stumbling blocks, we might just be experiencing a certain hell, a certain and painful distancing from God, from the peace and the joy of God.  

We all, if we’re honest need a “sin-ectomy”.  We all need Christ to come and surgically remove that which is holding us back, tying us down, clenching our fists...like they’re wrapped into a clench.  We need God to come and cut this binding!

  

How did we plead earlier at the font?

“We confess that we have not allowed your grace to set us free.  We fear that we are not good enough.  We hear your word of love freely given to us, and yet we expect others to earn it...”

—

Here’s what I know: we need Christ.  This world needs Christ!  We are indeed, in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves.

And sisters and brothers in Christ, God comes to the rescue.  Christ is here.  Jesus is our surgeon who scrubs in...and cuts out all that is causing us to stumble.  Today is the day of surgery.  And Christ operates with divine precision.  Removing what needs to go — not pain free — so that we can now use our hands and our feet and our eyes and our ears, our tongues and our brains and our backs and our fingers to love and serve both inside this church community and beyond!

And Christ’s successful operation leaves us with everything we need to be God’s people.  AMEN?

Even now.  Even here, we have everything we need to be the people that God has created, called, gathered, enlightened and sanctified us to be!

Forgiven or our sin, surgically removed of it, all of it, as we heard and celebrated and trust that we are, over there at the font — right at the very beginning of our worship service! (thought it was just another Sunday…) — to have had a successful “sin-ectomy” flings wide open the doors of the church and the doors of our hearts and minds to live in faith and love and joy together, reaching out.  

Or as Jesus said in the last verse of our passage for today, to “be at peace with one another.”  

May that peace of God which passes all human understanding, keep your hearts and minds in faith in that Christ Jesus, this day and forever.  Amen.

  

September 23 -- Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost

I want to ask you to do a simple exercise with me:

Clench your fists as tightly as you can.  Squeeze like your hanging on for dear life or squashing a bunch of grapes in the center.  Now hold them there until I say stop…

Now, let go.  Open you hands, relax them…    Try this all again.

— “May the words of my mouth…” — 

Which was easier?  Which do you think you could sustain longer?  Which was more grace-filled?  

Which do you think is more Christ-like?

My heart actually started pounding a little bit with the clenched fists, sweat…

Of course, it’s easier to relax and let your hands be open.

At the core of our text from James is an invitation — in the midst of all the gripping and grasping and clenching in our lives and our world — to relax, trust and hold your hands open.  This is to receive the peace of God, the gentleness of the Spirit, the welcome of the Word, the vulnerability of Christ himself.

— 

James is a “400-level” letter written for an early Christian community, a small congregation. [Explain “400”.]

Obviously conflict has been an issue in that small church.  Disputes have broken out among members of the family.  Competition, gossip, backstabbing, judgmental status seeking, high anxiety...outright hostility even...have ripped into the fabric of that early church community, and so James is addressing these directly and clearly.

And here’s what’s surprising us in Scripture today: 

(A couple weeks ago, Ephesians said that the opposite of drunkenness was singing?  That was Scripture surprising us too: not sober, stoicism, but singing...)

Today, James describes wisdom as gentleness...also not what we would think of.  I’d think of some Harvard Astrophysicist, who’s travelled the world, knows every species of plant and bird, and is now well into her 80‘s.  That’s my definition of wisdom, but James says that the one who is wise is [open hands] gentle.  Nothing to do with age, education, social standing.   The one who is wise is willing to yield, peaceable, full of mercy, no hypocrisy.  That’s where James says there’s “a harvest of righteousness.”  Not grasping and grabbing...but open and welcoming.  Isn’t that a fantastic invitation...and a surprising idea?  In the midst of communal strife in James’ congregation, comes a lesson: wisdom is gentleness.

We live in a cut-throat culture, where wisdom (which we would now call, acc. to James, earthly wisdom) is used to get ahead, even at the expense of others.  But the wisdom from above, as James teaches, the wisdom of another level, is not envious or boastful [clenched fists].  It’s gentleness [open].  

—

Friends in Christ, when you pray, how do you do it?  I mean, we’re thinking about our hands today.  Do you clench your fists, interlocking your fingers?  That’s fine if you do, but just as a spiritual exercise at least today, maybe this next month, try praying with your hands open.  See if that does anything for you.  When you pray with us here at church, or at home at the dinner table.  That might be an interesting experiment.  

Fake it, if it doesn’t feel natural at first...but try to stick with it.  I’ve actually invited people into this practice before and the results can be...like Scripture...surprising.

—

This passage talks about disputes among church people.  Can you imagine that?  ;)  Good thing that’s a thing of the past.  Poor early church.    ;) Those of you who are joining BLC today, we don’t ever have disputes here, right?  ;)

No, there is a timelessness to conflict within God’s church.  Helps us to take a breath and realize, when churches do have issues (not us of course ;), that that’s nothing new.   

And here’s what James shares with us about disputes:  They come from clenching and gripping and grasping so tightly.  James uses words like envy and coveting and “craving after”...but isn’t that just language for what you physically experienced in your body earlier?  Heart racing, sweat, a flexing that simply can’t be sustained — eventually we give up or burn out!  

When it comes to disputes in God’s church, we are called to relax our hands, open and welcome what Christ teaches and elicits from us.

—

I have a giant poster of Planet Earth in my office.  And in the bottom corner I have taped a tiny newspaper picture cut out of the SD Union Tribune.  The woman’s name is Tameka Brown, and she’s obviously standing in a courtroom, wood panels, police officer standing in the background.  I’ve always kept that tiny picture, ever since I heard the story behind it... 

It was a couple years ago in San Diego.  Tameka Brown’s son was shot and killed...in yet another act of downright evil, aggression: “clenching”.  The crime was careless, racially motivated by someone who did not, as James would say, “resist the devil”.  But, Tameka’s son’s murderer was caught.  

And Ms. Brown was given a chance to testify in the courtroom, to speak about her son to the jury, the judge and this young man, all looking at her.  What would you say?  Ms. Brown had a well-prepared statement ready to go.  She was going to talk about her boy, about justice being served, and she would have most definitely put her son’s murderer behind bars.  Evidence all there.

But in the interview, Tameka Brown said that something came over her that morning:  She had literally been clenching onto her prepared statement for days.  But when she was finally called on to testify, she let her statement fall [open] to the side, she went up to the stand, [pause] and began singing “Amazing Grace” to the courtroom.  “I don’t know what came over me,” she said, “but there was no more room in my heart for hate and revenge.”  Then, in a stunning and eloquent display, she turned to the judge and looked at the young man who shot and killed her son and said, “I forgive you.  And I even love you.  Judge, I beg of you, let me take this boy home with me and take care of him.  We all know what prisons do to young men: it won’t make him any better, and it won’t make me or our neighborhoods any better.  I’ve lost my own son, but let him be like a son to me.”  The judge said in an interview, he had never seen anything like this in all his years in the judiciary system.  His eyes welled up with tears. 

Tameka Brown may be the wisest person in the world, according to James...because of her gentleness.  

Friends, Ms. Tameka Brown doesn’t just inspire, her little picture in my office serving as a reminder of mercy:  Tameka Brown gives us a glimpse of God.  

Will you pray with me:  [open hands]

“Ever-gentle God, you are wise.  Thank you for bringing us home and for caring for us.  Fill us now with your wisdom.  Release us from our gripping.  Open our hands to trust, and call us again to service, humility, and peace, in Jesus name.  AMEN.”

September 9 -- 16th Sunday after Pentecost

Sisters and Brothers in Christ – Don’t you dare let Jesus off the hook!  I don’t care if you’ve been part of a Christian community for a long, long time, or if this is your first time in a church ever today!  Don’t you dare let Jesus off the hook.

This Syrophoenecian woman didn’t let Jesus off the hook…and it was her first encounter (so it’s never to early to say, “Hey Jesus, you can’t get away with that!”)  Ask for what you want from God – make sure it’s the right thing to ask – and don’t let Jesus off the hook, casting you off like a dog.  Don’t imagine yourself unworthy of Christ’s eyes, ears and healing hands.

Did you hear that in the Gospel?  Jesus called that woman asking for help a dog!  That’s bad now—sounds kind of like “bum” and name-calling is a big deal: we’ve got a president who’s got a quick derogatory name for everyone, we’ve got a Social Statement that we just started studying TODAY on Women and Justice, timely right? Name-calling is a big deal today—but in that period in time, you have to understand, this wasn’t just a mean name, this was a racial slur:  

Syrophoenecia was the area up north over by the Mediterranean sea, modern day Lebanon, only the difference of about 100-150 miles.  So just stretch it, and think of Philadelphia. [pause]  Some stinky woman from Philadelphia, who never went to church (and cheers for the Phillies and the Eagles).  Can you believe she’s got the nerve to ask our dear Jesus for a hand out?  And Jesus calls her a dog. 

How do you deal with this? …Jesus making cruel, racial slurs.  Does that mean it’s ok?  Biblical scholars have tried to soften this through the years (some say Jesus was testing her, or he was just kidding) – but many scholars are also realizing we can’t get around this terrible name-calling episode – 

The Rev. Dr. Anna Carter Florence said that Jesus called a woman something that would have made his mamma slap his mouth and say, “I did not raise my boy to talk that way!”  

And she knew it too – that Syrophoenecian woman — she was a mama herself.  She knew that it was not an appropriate thing to say, and so she spoke up; she stood up to Jesus and said:  “Yes, Lord, but even the dogs eat the crumbs from the master’s table.”  [pause]

She didn’t let him off the hook.  And it was as if something snapped in Christ and he turned to her – and instead of chastising her (imagine if you were in a position of power over someone and they talked back to you)  — instead of publicly shaming her or punishing her for her lack of respect – Jesus says, “For saying that, you may go.  The demon has left your daughter (the next generation).”   [pause]

What a story.  What do we learn from it?  And the account immediately after where the blind man is made to see?  

What do we learn of God from all this?  

One: Don’t let Jesus off the hook.  Ask for what you want—make sure it’s the right thing.  And then keep coming back.  Jesus can take it.  He can take your anger, your standing up to him, your assertiveness.  Christ even admires it.

This text is not about emboldening bullies and racists, it’s about empowering the downtrodden and pushed-aside.

It’s not always pretty — Jesus employs a racial slur and you should be furious at him for that (and under anger is always hurt and fear)!  It’s not always pretty, but in the end, sisters and brothers in Christ, God always responds.  

It’s not always pretty, but in the end God gathers us in, heals our hurts and our fears and our sins, and then—having been forgiven and transformed—we are sent back out…to go and do likewise.  To go and heal the hurts and pains of our neighbor, to forgive and love, and forgive and love, and forgive and love…and serve.  We emerge from this very challenging Gospel text even stronger.  

And then the pesky book of James today holds our feet to the fire and says, “When someone comes into your church who’s obviously down and out, poor, maybe smelly (an outside group perhaps that asks to use “our” church).  And we say, ‘Sit way over there, you dog.‘  Versus when someone who drives a fancy car, wears nice jewelry and designer brands, smells good, and has a nice wallet, you say, ‘C’mon in.  Please sit here in the front row.  Could I get you some coffee?  Wanna teach Sunday School?”  

James full-on questions that person’s BELIEF IN GOD!  When our words and our actions, our faith and our works, don’t line up, James might just dismiss us—like many young people, frankly, who look at the church and say, “Well, they must not really believe in God.  Look at how they treat the outsider.”  Ugh, that pesky Lorax James – would have certainly held Jesus’ feet to the fire, upon hearing how Jesus himself first treated that annoying woman from Philly.

Sisters and brothers in Christ – these are challenging texts today, they go deep.  Here’s the Good News: first, we get to hold Jesus’ feet to the fire.  Put the pressure on him.  Ask Jesus for what you want for yourself, for this country, for this planet.  Demand justice for women.  Cry out for peace.  

“Smart off” to him for fair treatment of everyone regardless of gender or nation of origin or religious persuasion or any other hot-button modern-day dividers. Make sure it’s the right thing.

  

Shouldn’t everyone get the same…mercy, love, forgiveness, healing care, grace, treatment from God?  The Syrophoenecian woman sure thought so.  And she demanded it from Christ.  And Christ came through in the end.  In the end, there is healing and grace.

Christ comes though with you today.  The road might have been rocky up to this point, it’s not always pretty, but God is here.  Reaching out to you, promising you the same things that the Syrophoencian Philadelphian woman demanded.  God reaches out to you with a hand of healing.  Forgives you this day, and asks that you now go out and forgive and serve and welcome others…with the kind of passion and commitment that we see in the Scriptures.  

You know the other thing we see in the scriptures?  Imperfect people, mouthy people, racist people, selfish people.  We see broken people in the Bible, and this is good news because it means that God can take even us and turn us into forgiven and blessed healers and tellers of God’s enduring love.  Our eyes have been opened too.

Beloved, let us love one another, Ephesians says, for love is of God and anyone who loves is born of God.  You are born of God – a child of God: forgiven, healed, joyful, eyes wide open – and now free to go and tell the Good News to everyone you meet.  

May it be so, this day and all days.  AMEN. 

September 2 -- 15th Sunday After Pentecost

Sisters and Brothers in Christ, welcome back to the Gospel of Mark.  For like 6 weeks we’ve been hearing from John, about Jesus as the Bread of Life.  Now we shift gears again, as we begin a new school year, as we stop for a moment to celebrate Labor Day, as we brace ourselves for another busy fall, as we continue to go about our work as people of God — welcome back to the Gospel of Mark, where Jesus is short-tempered and quick, particularly with any who think they’re better than anyone else.  With those who “lord it over” others. 

You know, I’ve been known to do that.  I’ve been known to lord it over others – maybe not out loud, but in my head, certainly.  Thinking I know better. Thinking I deserve what I have, thinking my churchy life marks me, not just as different, but better, than all those slackers and non-practicers out there.  Hypocrites!  “Dang it, Jesus is talking to me here this Sunday.”  And thanks be to God for that.  Welcome back to the Gospel of Mark. 

This text is obviously about much more than dirty hands: Not what goes in – churchy stuff, churchy friends, churchy house with crosses and bibles and jewelry and bumper stickers on display, the churchy life.  It’s what comes out – love, compassion, and namely care for the marginalized: the orphan and the widow (code for any who have no advocates)…It’s Christ-follower ACTIONS that make a person clean….not just honoring Christ with our lips.

I always think it’s a helpful exercise to think back on all the words that you said this past week.  What was on your lips?  (Maybe even go home and write down what you can remember.)  What came out of your mouth this week?  What kinds of words were on your lips?  Were they words of love, or words of anger?  Words of slander behind someone’s back, words of bitterness, words of impatience, or gossip?  What was on your lips this week—as you dealt with your family or your co-workers?  As you “chatted” with your friends?  Were they good words, or were they hurtful?  Were they words of humility or words of “lording it over others”?

I’m going to take a risk, sin boldly, and “lord it over” someone right now...but I still think it’s an interesting illustration: 

I’ll never forget how when I went backpacking in high school with our Lutheran camp in Colorado, we had to keep track of what came out of our mouths, what words were on our lips.  We had to hold each other accountable for any cut-downs:  any time you cut someone down in any way, we had to say 3 positive things to build them up.

And the one who was stuck constantly in this consequence of having to offer 3 positives, was the one in our group who never said a bad word, who always went to church, who dressed very properly, who had lots of Bible verses memorized – but she was full of contemptuous glares…and little comments that chipped away at other people’s self-esteems.  (see how I’m “lording it over” her now?)  And it was a struggle for her to think of positive things to say.  But wasn’t that interesting: it’s not what goes into a person that defiles, Jesus says, but what comes out.  Keep track of what you say this week…

(Maybe say a prayer for your lips and your tongue when you wake up every day this week.)

James, the book of James – we’ll be in it for about 5 weeks and I encourage you to read the whole thing during the week – the book James, like Jesus in Mark, isn’t concerned about putting on a show.  It’s about pureness of heart.  Religion that is pure and undefiled is this:  it’s having the most glorious church building the world has ever seen ;) it’s having the brightest, most colorful Sunday School program in the ELCA, it’s having the sanctuary completely packed on Sunday mornings!  NO, of course not.  Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, according to James (and the long line of prophets that came before him, including Christ himself) is religion that cares...for one another and for those with no advocates (widow and orphan).

It makes me think of the LORAX…“I speak for the trees!”

Take beliefs and churchiness — talking — out of it: who are the people who are actively caring for the voiceless in our society, for the 21st century equivalent of the widows and orphans?  Who are the people actively reaching out to the poor, the planet (who’s going to speak for the trees, besides the fictitious Lorax)? Who is looking out for the immigrant, the disabled, the uninsured, the silenced, the oppressed, the powerless, for the one who is alone (even here at church on Sunday)…

Take religious beliefs and rituals out of it: who is doing the Word?  Who shows up in times of distress and conflict?  Who stays?  Who gives generously?…You know, we can learn a lot about ourselves by looking at our credit card statements – I’d never want to share mine with you.  Who shows you Jesus, not just tells you about Jesus?  (Think of people in your life — doers of the Word.)  Maybe they’re from inside the church, but maybe not.

Ever had that happen to you: a non-Christian, maybe even atheist actually teach you something about Jesus?  The “happy reversal”?  I’ve been blessed by many instances…pure and undefiled persons, not part of my Christian family, showing me about care for the voiceless and the powerless!  These kinds of things happen all the time, but I invite you to pay more attention, to notice those people.  (maybe say a prayer for our eyes too)

Now, I plan to stay in the church for as long as I live.  This not church bashing.  (Article a few years back: “So You’re Spiritual but not Religious, Don’t Bore Me”)  The imperfect and yet faithful community, the Word, the Meal, the Font—these are just too important in my life to go without them.  But these things alone don’t make me pure and undefiled…

Christ makes me clean.  And I need the church to keep hearing that, reminding me of that.  Jesus is the one alive in but also beyond the pages of Scripture – Christ is the one alive in my sisters and brothers outside of the church too!  I need the church to keep calling me back to that.  I need this inside to keep moving me outside.

Surround yourself with people who care for the “voiceless in their distress”.  Who’s your Lorax?  Your scratchy old voice that, while annoying, might just be right, and at the core is deeply loving?  

Who are those who don’t just say the Word of God, they do it…as Francis of Assisi put it: they, “preach the gospel at all times, and only when necessary, use words.”  Maybe they’re children, or people in their 20’s or their 80’s – crying out for justice and compassion, annoying the rest of us.  But maybe they’re spot on?

These people are God’s gift to us, part of God’s on-going work in shaping you and molding us.  We can resist them, “the Loraxes” but they keep coming and nipping at us, pointing us to greater faithfulness.

Will you pray with me…  “God, we’re doing our best here.  But we fall short.  Take us the rest of the way.  Continue to mold us and fashion us.  God, you have washed us in the waters of baptism, you have cleaned our hearts.  And we give thanks that you continue to cover us in your faithfulness, in your forgiveness, grace and love.  Bless our lips and send us out now...to be doers of your joy and hope and welcome in a hurting world.  Thank you for sending us prophets, advocates for the voiceless, to nip at us and call us back to what matters.  Thank you for leading us in this journey, through your Son Jesus Christ, AMEN.”

#808 “Lord Jesus, You Shall Be My Song as I Journey”