What the Devil?

(Uriel Presbyterian Church )

 Sermon

“What the Devil...?”

13 March, 2011

First Sunday of Lent A

 The devil lives between “my will be done” and “Thy will be done”.

Hebrew Text: Genesis 2.15-17, 3.1-7 and 22-24

2:15   The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.  16  And the LORD God commanded the man, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden;  17  but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.”.

3:1   Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?”  2  The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden;  3  but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.’ ”  4  But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die;  5  for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”  6  So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate.  7  Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves. 

3:22   Then the LORD God said, “See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”—  23  therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken.  24  He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life.

Gospel Text: Matthew 4.1-11

(NRSV) 1 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. 3 The tempter came and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread." 4 But he answered, "It is written, 'One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'" 5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, 6 saying to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, 'He will command his angels concerning you,' and 'On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.'" 7 Jesus said to him, "Again it is written, 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'" 8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; 9 and he said to him, "All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me." 10 Jesus said to him, "Away with you, Satan! for it is written, 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'" 11 Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.

(Play the video clip of Flip Wilson and the “Devil Made Me Do It”)

There is a whole lot of truth mixed in with a whole lot of funny in that story. Today in our readings from the bible as well as in this film clip we are dealing with temptation...temptation that is personified in something called the devil. 

It just so happens that going out of church last sunday, someone asked me “Do Presbyterians not believe in the devil any more? Why is it that we never talk about the devil? Is it just too old fashioned?”  And I thought...what a wonderful wonderful question!! The really short answer to the question is that we Presbyterians have never “believed in” the devil...we believe in Jesus Christ who is living proof of God’s power, we believe in Yahweh, the God of Israel, the one who created light and dark and separated the sea from the land. And we believe in the power and work and the person of the Holy Spirit.  But I wouldn’t say we believe in the devil. I refuse to even capitalize the word. 

But that doesn’t mean that he...or she...or they...aren’t around.  But the main question that was asked of me was: “Why don’t we TALK about the devil any more?” Again the short answer is because we want to talk about Jesus Christ, and the positive things that Jesus is doing and working in us. But again, that’s the short answer. The some what longer explanation is that in our modern day with our scientific understanding that draws away the veil from so many things that we feel that we are beyond thinking about supernatural things--we feel above it all and many many millions of us feel above and beyond that and  because of this we don’t feel that we need a devil...or even a God to inform us what we need to do.

I feel strongly that in the body of Christ called the Church..with a Big C , each group and denomination of Christians have a different gift to offer, the orthodox have much to teach us about the mystery and majesty of God, Roman Catholics through their many beautiful devotions and spiritual practices  show us how to incorporate God into every activity of our lives, the Presbyterians are excellent at providing solid scholarship and innovative thinking about the bible and about current christian life. The Quakers teach us about equality and the beauty of silence before God, and one of the gifts of our Baptist brothers and sisters is to keep our minds always alert for encroaching evil, the kind of thing that the writer of 1st Peter speaks about: “Be sober and watchful. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.”

But who is this devil? What is the truth about this entity and how do we recognize it? Well, lets take a look at what you’ve already been thinking about this morning in your bulletins (each congregant received a questionnaire  tucked in their bulletin)

I suspect it was a whole lot easier to draw the devil than God, but is this really what we should be on the look out for?  Have you ever SEEN the thing you drew in that picture? I’m curious to know about the names too. By the way, our islamic brothers and sisters have at least 99 names for God. I invite you to look those up on the internet; they are beautiful and varied, but even THEY acknowledge that God’s names are infinite. How many did you think of for Old Scratch? There’s Old Nick, Beelzebub, Belial, Lucifer,  the lord of the flies, the father of lies...and of course Satan. 

It’s this last one that perhaps the most important and oldest. Ha Satan, (the satan) is a Hebrew word (!jfh;) that means “the adversary” and it’s really important if you want to know about the devil that you realize who hasatan is in both the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament. In each instance in the bible, Satan is the prosecuting attorney, the one who makes the case against whatever it is that God is for. Take for instance in the Garden of Eden. HaSatan opposes what God has said, and so tempts Adam and Eve to rebellion. He doesn’t use a pitchfork or fiery flames to scare them into eating; he simply states the truth, albeit a truth that Adam and Eve probably couldn’t understand. After all , the distinction between good and evil didn’t exist until they ate the fruit, so how could they understand “good” or “evil” or even the word “not”? Not that this excuses our parents, because they surely could sense something terrible in the snake’s words, since even animals today can interpret the expression in a speaker’s voice1.  So appears the great trickster, the one who twists things and deforms them, making evil seem good, and good seem insipid and boring. The adversary has a starring role in the book of Job where he puts the case against humanity as a lawyer lays a case before a judge. And this is primarily the Jewish understanding of the devil even today. In fact, commenting on the Book of Job, in the ancient Jewish commentaries, the Talmud, the rabbis express sympathy that God gave him the job  to "break the barrel but not spill any  wine."

If you look carefully at our gospel reading for today, even there, the devil is acting not as the personification of the mighty forces of evil, he is still the adversary, the one who uses the book of Deuteronomy to prove his case to Jesus.

What  and who are we seeing in the temptation story of Christ? This is one of the most fascinating passages in the gospels--it’s like that question: “If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound?” If Jesus is in the desert by himself, who was there? It’s also fascinating because nowhere else in the gospels do we peer into Jesus’ head, with the exception of Jesus time in the garden of Gethsemane before his arrest.  Every where else we the hearers of the story are standing a far off observing what Jesus is doing outwardly. But here we have a glimpse into Christ’s soul.

How do we even know this story? Because the disciples had not even met Jesus yet and certainly the gospel writers weren’t out in the desert with him.  So how did Matthew know what happened?  We don’t know who the source for this story is. Is it Christ as told to the disciples? Is it a part of the oral tradition of the Gospel before it was written down?  Is this a way for the gospel writer to talk about Jesus as entirely human, subject to the same temptations as ourselves? There was no Jewish prophecy or tradition that Jesus needed to be tested by Satan, and while conflict with the devil in the new testament is not limited to this passage alone, in Matthew there are only three or four places where Jesus refers to the devil or demons or the evil one.  And here, satan is still the tempter, not the demonic force that will push back against the gospel message.

 So where does the prince of darkness grim get his fire and brimstone? The seed of the answer lies outside of the New Testament, in the Apocrypha, that part of the bible that we Protestants don’t read. In the apocrypha we find stories and events that didn’t make it into the final version of our bibles. There there is a reference to Satan being a fallen angel, with a host opposing God.  And in Revelation, which just barely made it into the bible, Satan is portrayed as the great dragon who is hurled into a lake of fire.

But it took an  Mediaeval Italian and an 17th century English poet to give the devil his due, so to speak. Dante Alighieri, wrote three volumes of poetry based on a dream he had in which he wandered down through seven layers of hell and up through seven layers of heaven, and described the fiery pit in  such detail that centuries of christians have confused his accounts with gospel truth.  Then there was John Milton, a English puritan who wrote the story  called “Paradise Lost”. I can remember as  a child on Sunday afternoons, leafing through the huge victorian parlour table copy that we had at our house, getting scared by the copperplate engravings of the devil. It was Milton that made the devil beautiful.  Milton went back to two obscure sentences in Genesis 6. in which this nephilim race of beings is described. To explain about these would be the subject of a whole Sunday School class, but he wrote that Satan was the most beautiful of all the angels in heaven and then created a whole mythic history around his anti-hero.  For our great grandparents and grandparents, the demon of the fiery pit and the fallen angel from these old poems are  what they passed on to us.

But here is the hideous problem with giving you this information.  It doesn’t touch at all on the the very real truth of pervasive evil, that miasma that flows through our lives  and our souls and our relations with each other, nor does it give you a clear picture of the source. 

Humans are creatures of duality.  This duality comes from our nature and our nurture; our observations of everything around us, and like Adam and Eve an almost primitive sense of  the deeper meaning of things that we can’t see, or smell, or taste or touch, but which we know to be there. It’s not unreasonable for us to understand this in terms of duality: there's a day, and on the opposite there’s night; we can see the bright side of the moon, but there is a dark side. There is a season when everything will grow, and a season when nothing grows. there is life and there is death. Even our computers are composed of binary bits that are either zeros, or they’re not! These opposites are part of the nature around us so we see things in duality. So it’s very thinkable for us to conceive that if there is a divine being constantly craving  our salvation and promoting our goodness that there would be an opposite force  that works for our perdition and our loss. In  a certain way that makes sense to have that balance, hence we make the devil in an image that fills that void the best. 

In the 21st century we have other concepts of the devil. We still have our duality, but most modern people think that we fulfill the function of the devil quite well ourselves. We are the ones who are striving against God just in our very natures. We are the ones who invent systematic evil like apartheid and the Spanish Inquisition. We are subject to the corporate evil that can take over whole countries and groups of people driving them to devilish madness; like Cambodia under Pol Pot or Jim Jones in Guyana.

 Maybe it’s not nearly so important WHO the devil is, but WHAT the effect of that ultimate darkness is upon us. It is sin and despair, violence and apathy, the things that we give control to and the faults that we delight in cultivating. I would put to you today that it is unsafe for your soul to believe and trust too much in a physical devil because it lets us off the hook way too easily . Take a look at the last question on the questionnaire: “What individuals, (historical or living), and which groups of people are/were in league with the devil?” What did you put down? I’ll lay dollars to doughnuts that if you’re like me, that was very easy to think of. When we can see the devil in others; when we can demonize “them”, then it is far to easy to ignore the devil in ourselves.  But there IS no “them”. On the most basic level, they are US--flesh, blood, love, hate, spirit-filled, mothers and fathers, who put their clothes on before their shoes just like us. Yet I will in no way deny that there is evil present there. 

There is SUCH evil around us and against us and in us. But the bottom line is that God subverts and overthrows the works of evil and of that agglomeration that we call the devil.  Satan is not God, and has no independent existence . From the very beginning, God takes the evil that we have done and recasts it, God’s very next act is to provide for our parents, giving them clothes, and while an angel stands between Eden and the first humans, God continues to have regard for them and provide them what they need. In Jesus Christ, evil is subverted and overthrown, by his example and by his teaching, but more than that through his unnecessary suffering and death--for he was completely innocent--by our understanding of God’s law, sin follows death, and Jesus had no sin. Finally there is Christ’s  resurrection the promise of the overthrow of the kingdom of this world and the inauguration of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Is satan passé? The idea that “the devil made me do it” is a literalism that tricks and distorts the very thing it is trying to prove, but don’t allow yourself to be lulled into a complacency. An excellent practice this lent, if you feel like you want to get rid of the devils that are screwing around in your life, I would suggest that you read a short little book by C. S. Lewis called the Screwtape Letters. The author of the Chronicles of Narnia provides a brilliant series of lessons in the importance of taking a deliberate role in living out Christian faith by telling the story of a new Christian with all his temptations and failings, but he tells it as seen from the devils' viewpoint.  Each chapter is a letter written from Hell giving encouraging advice to demons who want to succeed in their chosen career path.  And it is subversive Christianity at it’s best. 

Amen

You Only See What You Know

(Uriel Presbyterian Church )

 Sermon

“You Only See What You Know”

6 March, 2011

Transfiguration Sunday A

 There’s a lot of truth in that African proverb...

Text: Matthew 17.1-13

Matt. 17:1   Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves.  2  And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white.  3  Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him.  4  Then Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”  5  While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!”  6  When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear.  7  But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.”  8  And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone. 

Matt. 17:9   As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, “Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”  10  And the disciples asked him, “Why, then, do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?”  11  He replied, “Elijah is indeed coming and will restore all things;  12  but I tell you that Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but they did to him whatever they pleased. So also the Son of Man is about to suffer at their hands.”  13  Then the disciples understood that he was speaking to them about John the Baptist. 

  An old African saying goes “You only see what you know”, meaning that the world is shaped by the kind of knowlege and perception you have.  And perception is everything. Seeing the bread and juice laid on this table a buddhist would simply see food, but to a Catholic Christian, for example, these represent something so sacred that only a consecrated, deeply holy person  is allowed to touch them and to lose a single fragment would be to desecrate God’s very self. 

You only see what you know.

 In Barbara Kingsolver’s novel “The Poisonwood Bible” a conservative american missionary family comes to live in the jungles of the Congo, where they see much, but understand almost nothing, with disasterous consqueneces. One of the daughters tries to bridge the gap by striking up a friendship with a boy her own age, and as they are talking, he is puzzled that white people make distinctions between live people, dead people, people yet to be born and  gods who live beyond all life....to him they are all the same..they are “muntu”-- personhood. Muntu persists through all these--forelife, life, afterlife, paranormal life,-- unchanged. Muntu resides in all these conditions, peering out through the eyeholes of the body, waiting for what ever happens next. “That is muntu”, the boy says... “but trees are also muntu”.

 “Trees?”, his new American friend asks... “how are trees muntu? “Well, look at them: they have both have roots and a head...” 1 the little missionary suddenly realizes the enormity of the life of the African world surrounding her that she doesn’t even understand the slightest bit.

 In the same way the apostles only see what they know in the miracle of the tranfiguration. They are taken by Jesus to the top of a mountain where something very odd happens, marvelous and maybe terrifying, but deeply odd. On top of this mountain Jesus is suddenly met by two mysterious figures that Peter addresses as Moses and Elijah. Then just as suddenly they disappear and Jesus is left alone.  The men know there were two other figures there. They know that they had to be something really really important and they know that the three were talking with each other and then they  know that the other two disappeared and all three disciples heard a voice speaking about Jesus. So what did they SEE? For Peter it is the two greatest figures in God’s history come to the mountain, and for two thousand years, no one has questioned that. 

We see what we know. 

In the past few years as I reread this story in all three gospels I continue to wonder and my wondering pushes me out onto the thin ice of understanding. What if these two dazzling figures weren’t Elijah and Moses after all? Were the disciples were privileged to briefly witness the mystery of the Trinity made manifest? What would make Peter call them Moses and Elijah, and what were the three talking about?

I believe that  Peter and James and John saw the perichoresis. Perichoresis is a fancy and beautiful word that means to dance in and out of a circle. And in modern language it tries to describe the relationship between the creator-god, the redeemer-god (Jesus) and the Holy spirit, the sustaining-God. Think of a circle of three dancers arms joined, weaving in and out of the light, completely connected together yet fluid, distict yet one. They have “Muntu”, to borrow that African word, and this muntu moves and shifts and changes, peering from the eyeholes of mystery with a brightness that dazzles and confuses.

I think that what the disciples saw was  the God of the ages, the “Eternal Law” that Moses tried to put into babbling tricky words, I think they saw the Christ, the incarnate one, the one who lived and moved and had being with us, and finally I think they saw the fiery Spirit of God that moves in the essence of wind like Elijah’s chariot of fire.  I think Peter and James and John saw what they knew and not knowing the concept of the trinity, put the pegs of their understanding into holes that they could see. 

 Like the disciples who first witnessed the Transfiguration, the church isn’t really sure what it’s seeing and what it all means, what its purpose is, and what it calls Christians to do today. In short, the church all these centuries later, is still not sure if the Transfiguration is at heart a celebration of who Jesus is, or should be recognized as the somber Lenten beginning of Jesus' journey to Jerusalem and crucifixion.

Because this is where the story leads. As the disciples come down the mountain, the conversation isn’t at all about what they’ve just lived through. It’s about John the Baptist and what “muntu” is peering out from behind his life and preaching.

And likewise, as we gather at this table today, we are looking for a transformation in our lives,  in closing our eyes and being with God and each other, we want to know beyond our seeing, to slide off the edge of our experience into the pool of God’s unknowableness. In this bread and this cup we want to taste grace and feel the healing touch of God throughout this week, to stir things within us that will grow and change. As we approach this table-mountain of transformation and throughout this Lenten season, may you meet Jesus and go away with more than you thought possible. Taste and know the goodness of God, 

to whom be the glory now and forever, 

Amen

Don't Worry....Be Hippy (?)!!

(Uriel Presbyterian Church )

Sermon

“Don’t Worry...Be Hippy (?)”

27 February, 2011

Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time, A

Hebrew Text: 1 Corinthians 4:1-5 

(NRSV) 1 Think of us in this way, as servants of Christ and stewards of God's mysteries. 2 Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy. 3 But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. I do not even judge myself. 4 I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me. 5 Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive commendation from God.

Gospel Text: Matthew 6:24-34  

(NRSV) "No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. 25 "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? 28 And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you--you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear?' 32 For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today's trouble is enough for today."

Just as Spring is following close on the heels of  Winter, so the annual events in the US have a definite progression. The Superbowl winners have hardly gotten back from Disney world and the nation is already rolling out for the next Clash of the Titans, though this one won’t be on a green field; it’ll be on a red carpet...that way the blood won’t show. The weapons of choice won’t be a football and a pair of enormous pitchforks at either end of the field, it’ll be stiletto heels and an infinite cunning and a savoir-faire that would make sharks squirm with envy. 

Tonight is Oscar night and long before the guest take their seats for the 4 hour long ceremony, a kind of frenzy is taking place outside the theatre that somehow communicates even 2000 miles to our little part of the world.  Not so much to about critiquing film, but to find out WHAT will these people be wearing tonight? 

As you know, I’m not the most elegant dresser, in fact clothes are perhaps the smallest line item in my entire yearly budget, but I do confess to tuning in to the red carpet portion of the Oscars....just to judge for myself what these people are going to be wearing. For every swan that glides across the red carpet in white silk and French rhinestones, there are going to be those ducklings who lost touch with their minds when they handed over their wallets to the people who dressed them. Is it going to be some horrible frumpy blue satin potato sack that makes beautiful Helena Bonham Carter look like she has her gown on upside down and back to front...and falling off her shoulders to boot? Or  snort my coke out my nose laughing at Robert Downy Jr’s nice formal tuxedo with a dorky turquoise bowtie and matching turquoise tinted sunglasses and his feet thrust into black  tennis-shoes with white platform soles. 

It’s people like me that drive these hollywood actors crazy. I’m the reason that they spend a $2000 (or more) a day on a stylist to help them choose a look/hair/makeup that will cost between $8000 and $30,000 on clothes for one night of their life.  Can you imagine the anxiety and stress in Los Angeles the week before this event? There are the stylists who are going bezerk with clothes that haven't arrived yet from Italy, and the attendees who fear being shot down in flames not only on live tv instantly broadcast around the world but even worse, being the butt of jokes on millions of twitter feeds and facebook pages; 

These young handsome people fear looking slovenly almost more than they  fear of not winning that little golden statue. And let’s not forget the thousands of behind the scenes people who are involved in every aspect of this circus who have their entire careers wrapped up in making this night of glamour happen.

It’s the opinions of people like me who drive these hollywood people nuts, but it’s people like them that drive Jesus crazy. They definitely didn’t have academy awards in Israel in Jesus day, but they did have people who’s minds were filled with nothing but looking chic and fashionable. In fact the Greeks and Romans invented fashion consciousness. Before the Roman Empire, clothes changed very little from long century to long century. Did you have greek furniture in your home or was it all Syrian crap that your aunt had given you when you got married? Did your slaves know how to braid your wife's hair in the latest swags popular on the Emperor’s island retreat on Capri? Suddenly, it mattered what colour you were wearing this season. Suddenly the length of your palla determined whether you were in the right social and business crowd or whether you were an outsider. And Jesus hated all that nonsense. HAAAA-TED IT.

In this section of the sermon on the Mount he holds up the mirror to the shallow concerns of his listeners who were desperately worried about their appearance and their status, their wealth and their future prospects, but only vaguely aware of who they were inside.  He begins this part warning us that we can’t serve two masters, God and mammon. Mammon is an Aramaic word that means possessions. It’s neither a scorning term or a elevating term though. But it is strange for Jesus to put it on the same level with God. It’s surprising that Jesus places the things we have on par with God in a discussion of the  object of human service. For those first listeners sitting there listening to the master, it must of been an strange twist to think that they served their possessions instead of their possessions being of service to them; that they were the servants, not the masters; that they pampered and cosseted and gratified their stuff, instead of the other way around.  

It is an affront to our understanding of what life means, both then and now.  It’s revolutionary on Jesus’ part to declare that human life is not an end in itself; that our journey from the cradle to the grave is not the game itself, but the vehicle for a greater action. Jesus makes us notice that we find the meaning of our lives outside ourselves; that human life inescapably serves something that gives it meaning. Moses, Ghandi, Marie Curie. Al Capone, Atilla the Hun, Ma Barker...all of their lives had a meaning beyond just living. Moreover, the choice we make with the life  we lead is not whether we SHALL serve something else with our existence, but WHAT or whom we shall serve.  This is the underlying message in what Jesus goes on to say about worrying about our lives.

IT has always been very puzzling to me the whole speech about the lilies of the field, neither spinning nor toiling, and the grass of the field which is green today and shoved in an oven tomorrow, and the birds of the air bit. This whole thing just reminds me of 1960s hippie philosophy. Don’t worry, be happy. But clothing won’t make it self: the cotton won’t pick itself or spin itself or weave, dye, sew itself.  So what gives? In trying to makes heads or tails of hippie philosophy this week, I was really surprised to find that the foremost hippie thinkers of the 1960s had been the best little sunday school students of the 1950s; They had really read the bible! Sitting in church classrooms with wide eyes and receptive hearts  they somehow heard in stereo technicolour the sermon on the mount that that was presented to them by  sunday school teachers for whom Jesus words were monochromatic utterances.  What these bright kids heard was :  God doesn't operate from scarcity; God operates out of abundance, where there is enough for all, all must share. 

FIfteen years later with this particular passage of scripture in mind, they sought to free themselves from a path committed to mammon, choose their own way, and most interestingly , find new meaning in life.  And while we’re on the subject of clothes, one expression of their conversion was their clothes. Through their appearance, hippies declared their willingness to question authority,  to deviate from the path of  mammon and  express their commitment to radical change, one that was not based on possessions and status.

Things went pretty haywire with drugs and ethical decisions, but the fact remains that these earnest young people were the largest group in history to dare to experiment and experience the radical ideas that Jesus represented. 

But as these hippies discovered as they lived out their commitment well into their 40s and 50s, the challenge to trust in God’s providence doesn’t exclude working and having property.  Jesus isn't prohibiting or even discouraging sowing and reaping, working and storing in barns. He is calling us not to base our lives on these things or serve them. Through our activities we have got to be developping integrity and honesty, compassion and charity and putting these things first, making these the qualities of the Kingdom of God. 

I love the writings of Alyce McKenzie (1) , in thinking about this part of the Sermon on the Mount she reflects:  “In this short passage, I am being pushed to give up one of my most cherished occupations, worry, in favor of trusting God for the basics of daily life. I am being pushed to consider that my other loyalties are in conflict with my loyalty to God (6:24). Jesus' teachings are digging tools that undercut the foundation of my house. My priority, my life's project has been to build a comfortable present and a secure future for me and my family. Jesus wants to undermine it and eventually, to replace it with radical, risky trust in God and the mission of seeking God first, confident that other matters will fall in place. If I give up a preoccupation with anxiety and security, it would seem like I would have time and energy for seeing to the needs of others around me. These teachings take something away to free me for something more. In that sense they are just the beginning.”  Amen

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(1)     a wonderful homiletics professor and expert on the book of Proverbs who blogs at www.patheos.com

Invisible Believers

(Uriel Presbyterian Church )

Sermon

“Invisible Believers”

20 February, 2011

Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, A

Faith is the invisible energy that produces visible results.

Hebrew Text: LEVITICUS 19:1-2, 9-18

(NRSV)1The LORD spoke to Moses, saying: 2Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them: You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy.

9When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest. 10You shall not strip your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the alien: I am the LORD your God.

11You shall not steal; you shall not deal falsely; and you shall not lie to one another. 12And you shall not swear falsely by my name, profaning the name of your God: I am the LORD.

13You shall not defraud your neighbor; you shall not steal; and you shall not keep for yourself the wages of a laborer until morning. 14You shall not revile the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind; you shall fear your God: I am the LORD.

15You shall not render an unjust judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great: with justice you shall judge your neighbor. 16You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not profit by the blood of your neighbor: I am the LORD.

17You shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin; you shall reprove your neighbor, or you will incur guilt yourself. 18You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.

Gospel Text: MATTHEW 6:1-6, 16-21

(NRSV) 1“Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.

2“So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 3But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

5“And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 6But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

The major religious events of ancient Israel are great theater on the grand scale. Noah’s small ark standing on the vast plains of Ur waiting for the billowing clouds of heaven to be rent asunder by the deluge. 

Moses going up on Mount Sinai where  the mists close behind him like curtains. He brings down the commandments, and the children of Israel are unimpressed, and in grand dudgeon he smashes them along with the golden idol they have made while he was gone. 

Building on the dazzling victories and the meteoric rise of his father King David, Solomon builds a huge temple. Inside, behind a great blue, purple and crimson curtain, is the Holy of Holies, where the high priest, like Moses before him, communes with God. He returns from this holy communion with the most precious gift, the forgiveness of sins, the healing of the broken covenant. To this day the pulling aside of the curtain of the ark in the synagogue is done with great ceremony as a reminder of this and with everyone standing and facing the ark as it is opened.

Given all this, it is very interesting that Jesus flies in the face of historical drama and tells his listeners NOT to be seen practicing their devotion openly. In fact he describes those who do so as “hipokritai” (u`pokritaiv,) which i s exactly the same word as ‘hypocrite”   . But even more interesting is that hipokritai doesn’t entirely mean what we think it means in Greek. In Greek it’s not an insult at all, it’s  the word for ‘stage actor’--someone standing on a stage, making a speech. But here it’s being used to describe people who perform religious acts with an eye on the grandstand. People who crave not only people’s attention but God’s as well.

But I’m getting a little ahead of myself. Ironically, I need to set our stage a little bit myself. Just to remind you, we’re in Galilee with Jesus, on a nice afternoon, sitting in the high hills with the wind from the sea of Galilee far below us gently blowing across our sun-drenched backs We’re gathered to hear Jesus teach us his most important lessons, lessons that history calls the Sermon on the Mount. After Jesus teaches us the surprising virtues of meekness, peace and poverty, which he calls the beatitudes, and compares his listeners to salt and light , Abruptly  Jesus begins to  tell us how we shouldn’t act; all those things that make our lives miserable and trapped. But now Jesus changes direction again. He leads us out of the land of "you shall not,"--the land of commandments, to bring us into the land of holy living;--the land of "you shall," That is where we find ourselves this morning. 

Some of the things that Jesus tells us to do are to give alms and to pray and later on his sermon he says we are to fast as well.  These are the things that we are supposed to do because we love God. He tells us this very matter of factly. He doesn’t say IF you pray, but WHENEVER you pray. He doesn’t say IF you give charitably, Jesus says WHENEVER you give charitably. He says straight out, you’ve got to pray and you’ve got to give to others.  

Sometimes it appears that we’ve completely forgotten this. 90 percent of us are embarrassed to pray in public, not just out loud but even silently as well. Maybe some of this reluctance stems from misunderstanding this part of scripture. All too often when I ask who wants  to pray within a group, there is complete and utter silence, I have to ask multiple people because  one after the other each one shyly says, “Oh I can’t pray, I don’t know how.”.  Perhaps we’re secretly thinking: “I don’t want anyone to think that I’m trying to pretend I’m spiritual...or intellectual...or better than everyone else. See how that idea of hypocrite lifts it’s tricky head again?  

To this reasoning I say “nonsense”, and I apologize if I seem so blunt. But the truth is that. you learned quickly enough as a child how to ask your mother for a cookie, and your dad for five dollars; --and both of them definitely made sure that you knew how to say thank you to Aunt Thelma for the sweater she knit you. We can praise the beauty of a neighbor’s flowers, a neighbor’s car, and talk about how fantastic Martha’s cakes are. You learned how to say I’m sorry to your big brother when you got mad and crushed his model airplane... I’ll guarantee no one ever taught you to say sorry to the cat when you stepped on her tail--but you did it any way! 

Most of us would never willingly step on stage in front of an audience in a million years... that is why Jesus is saying it’s all right to be invisible believers. It’s all right to board up that famous “fourth wall” that the acting community talks about and pray and give and fast without eyes watching us... Imagine if your whole life was a public performance sort of like Jim Carrey in the “Truman Show”. The anxiety involved would be unbearable.

But you’re not alone in this anxiety. The disciples obviously felt the same thing and Jesus taught them to pray using the Lord’s Prayer. In it, Jesus showed us that prayer is no more than opening your heart to God, praising, thanking, confessing to and begging your parent in heaven and saying plainly what is on your heart and mind. Some how we get this idea that we have to know how to take three steps forward,  curtsey just right to the ruler of universe, before breaking forth into an operatic solo. But it ain’t that. No fancy speeches, no thou’s or thees or thines involved. In fact when we sound like a King James Bible we sound more than a little ridiculous. 

And this is where Jesus arrives at his main point.  Prayer and giving gifts for God is not meant to be Shakespearean drama played out on the public stage, it’s not even meant to be a sitcom. In fact when we are learning about God, it is God who is the actor and we are watching and learning to follow God’s every move, yet, when we practice what we have learned from God’s pageant in our life as Christians, things are reversed. Instead of the wide open stage of the universe, our place of action is bedroom or our closet or even a garden shed. We disciples are the actors and God is watching us to see what we will do, and how we will be faithful. Will we pray when no one is there to see? Will we give 10% of our means if no one is checking our name off of a list?  Seminary professor, Dr David Wells puts it really well: “The place of encounter between God and his people is not the temple, the great theater, the Holy of Holies. It is the locked room (where the disciple meets God one on one), [it is] the anonymous gift [and the regular enveloppe put in the offering plate], [it is the private vow and] the undisclosed hunger.”1 

There are times when we are called to pray in public, here in public worship for instance. By the way, Jesus was joking about the trumpets, No one, even in ancient Israel, would be such a prat as to carry a trumpet with them to announce themselves at worship time.

But here it should be a joy and a relief to cry to God in prayer and song, and Jesus made no prohibition against that! Let your words and thoughts flow from your tongue the way the Spirit moves them! In fact while I carefully write this sermon every week, spending hours and hours choosing every word, my prayer for worship I never write down. I want them to come forth from the dialogue that we have here with God, to be part of the living that we do together. Some times it is scary because I don’t know where God will take the prayer, sometimes it’s sort of boring maybe, but that’s me and not God. 

 I encourage you to pray out loud at meal times and in hospital rooms, at times of crisis when you ask God to be near, at times of rejoicing when you can hardly shut your mouth because you want to thank God so much. 

I encourage you to not only support this congregation financially, but with your presence and your service here and in the community. And to mutually encourage each other to be more giving as well. 

Amen

-----------------------

1    The Christian Century, January 23, 2000, p. 205

Love is...(not)

(Uriel Presbyterian Church )
Sermon

“Love is...(not)”
13 February, 2011
Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, A


Love or Evil? What we think, where we look,
and what we choose to focus our lives on has alarming importance.

Epistle Text: 1st Corinthians 13:1-13 (* not the Revised Common Lectionary reading)
(NRSV) 1If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. 9For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; 10but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. 11When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. 12For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

Gospel Text: Matthew 5:[17-20]21-37
(NRSV) [17 ‘Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfil. 18For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. 19Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.]

21“You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’ 22But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire. 23So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, 24leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift. 25Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are on the way to court with him, or your accuser may hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. 26Truly I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.
27“You have heard that it was said, ‘you shall not commit adultery.’ 28But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. 30And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell.
31“It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ 32But I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
33“Again, you have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but carry out the vows you have made to the Lord.’ 34But I say to you, Do not swear at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, 35or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. 36And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. 37Let your word be ‘Yes, Yes’ or ‘No, No’; anything more than this comes from the evil one.”

 I don’t do this too often, because the gospels were composed to be heard, but this morning, I’d like you to open your pew bibles to pg 4 in the New Testament, so that some of what I’m going to teach you this morning  will be easier to visualize.


Jesus begins this central part with “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets: I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.” and he ends with “unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and pharisees, you will NEVER enter the kingdom of God.

This is pretty terrifying stuff. Who could possibly be more godly than those who know the law best; the scribes, and those who are renewing the fundamentals of Judaism, bringing it into the (then) modern era? These are the people who do everything just right, according to the laws of Moses, which they have made even stricter by the addition of loads of lesser laws that were eventually called the Mishnah, that our Jewish brothers and sisters have learnt by heart ever since.

But here, Jesus is setting his listeners up for what is coming next.   Following closely on the heels of  the section that our bibles call “The Law and the Prophets” comes several other paragraphs entitled “Concerning anger, Concerning Adultery, Concerning Divorce, Concerning Oaths, Concerning Retaliation, Concerning Enemies, and so on for several more pages.

All of the passages in chapter 5 have a very particular order and a visible consistently repeated pattern. If you look at each section in this chapter, each part begins with “You have heard it said....” then Jesus goes on to say... “but I tell you...” and then Jesus seems to proceed to pile on more stuff, sort of like an executioner piling on more bundles of faggots around someone who is going to be burned at the stake.  It’s as if the law given to Moses is suddenly not good enough for Jesus,  not strict enough, not black and white enough, not pure enough to be used any more. In each case, he takes something that Moses taught and heightens the cliff he’s going to push you off of.

The ultimate effect is generally one of terror.  In the online discussion group of pastors that I participate in, many preachers, especially women, were talking about simply skipping the passages dealing with divorce and adultery, because it was too painful for people in their congregations and sometimes for themselves personally.  But I don’t agree with that. We have to deal with the hard sayings of Jesus, but we also have to see them realistically in context, carefully looking at the passages before and after to really see what is happening here. 

So how do we connect the beatitudes to the “be-beaten-down”-tudes?   The answer is actually not found so much in today’s reading as  a page or so on, when Jesus teaches his hearers the Lord’s Prayer and the Golden Rule.  This is the problem sometimes in reading the bible. We can get stuck on certain passages  like “if your right hand offends you, cut it off” or “whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery”, and not see further to the larger message.

And the larger message is this: that nothing we can do will ever make us good enough for God.  And I’m tickled pink to tell you this. Because that is the good news.  In a world where just thinking about illicit sex is as bad as doing the deed (see verse 28), there is just no way to lock up your brain. There are strict denominations of churches that have tried for centuries to put chastity belts on people’s minds as well as their bodies, but to no avail. Our minds are just so sneaky that those thoughts  are there not once, but hundreds of times a day. I even heard this week that one fundamentalist Baptist interpretation of verse 30 is that Jesus is actually talking about masturbation, and that’s why Jesus says we should cut our right hands off. WHAT? Just think of that New York legislator this week who did nothing but flex his biceps on the Internet, and he felt compelled to quit his elected office at the Statehouse and send his career down the drain, all because the thought was as bad as the deed. 

Yet all of these passages in Matthew chapter 5 are part of the same point. Nothing we can ever do will ever make us good enough for God.  Jesus punches this point home, but then spends the rest of his life pointing out that love can do what the law can never do. Like pearls...or more aptly...kidney stones dissolved in vinegar... the things of the law, the endless bickering of rights and statutes and points of precedence are washed and changed by love. The love of God and the love that we share with one another that we learn from Jesus. Prophets announce the absolute will of god and leave it to others to work out how this can be lived out in our imperfect world.  Jesus turned this prophetic mode around.
So I’m tickled pink, this day before Valentines Day, to have this passage set before us, because against each of these passages there is an antithesis...an opposite assertion... that can be made. We heard these read in our first reading this is morning from Corinthians. “Love is patient, love is kind, love is not boastful or arrogant, or rude... never rejoicing in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth”.  These didn’t spring up out of thin air onto Paul’s tongue, this self-proclaimed pharisee of pharisees who struggled with the law his entire life long. Love is what Paul learned from Jesus, though his crucifixion and through his vision on the Damascus Road and then through the followers of Jesus that he encountered after his conversion.

Take a look at the paragraph at verse 21 “Concerning Anger”.  If we read this through the lens of Jesus life and the Great Commandment,  we discover that we can look at it from the opposite end. Love shows no hostility.  If you love your brother and sister, you will not insult them in the first place, nor call them bad names. If you have love, even if you should make that mistake, the way is always open to apologize and make amends.

Now concerning Adultery. While the 7th commandment  is strictly concerned about the rights of husband and householders to keep their property safe from outside interference so that their bloodline can remain uncontaminated. Love..real love...is something else. In a phrase we can sum this up as “Love is not predatory”.  In other words, Love is about relationships, not self-gratification, or conquest, or a contest. If you really love others you see each person male or female as important as yourself, and other’s relationships as sacred.  If you love others, you could not bear to be the cause of a ruptured relationship and heartache.

Which brings us to the third paragraph in verse 31 “Concerning Divorce”. Love is uniting, not dividing.  So much ink has been spilled over this, wars have been fought and indeed, the Episcopal church was formed in 1534 in large part because of the difficult question of divorce. Incidentally, that question was not resolved in the Church of England until 2002. Again it’s the importance of relationship.  It is interesting to note that in the law of Moses there was no prohibition against divorce, it was fairly easy for a husband to obtain, and very common in Jesus day, it seems.  The question is all about remarriage.  It is true that there is no where in scripture that says that remarriage for divorced persons is permissible, yet when we look with the eyes of compassion, how can we countenance making  people outcast and miserable for the sake of a law chiseled in stone? What kind of love is that? Are humans made for the law, or law made for humans? Jesus eventually cycles the divorce question back to the question of adultery, and again we have to state, Love is not predatory. If a relationship exists to perpetuate pain  or even worse, violence, then it is not a relationship, but a torture device,  from which release is a blessing and makes new relationships possible and hopefully fruitful, healing and joyful. Loving relationships are about life, and Jesus is consistently trying to build all kinds of relationship throughout his ministry, his healing and his sacrifices.

 But we are not always made of love, that is why we still need the law as well, to help us to figure out where the boundaries lie.

Jesus went on to talk about the laws about oaths and vows. To put this another way, Love is unconditionally truthful. This is one that Presbyterians in particular have taken to their hearts. In fact when Presbyterians go into court we refuse to swear upon a bible book, precisely because of this scripture. Instead we agree to affirm that we will tell to truth. We don’t need to invent scenarios to prop up our truthfulness.

In fact Presbyterians have stretched this idea out to cut out cussing and vulgar language in general because there is nothing loving or caring about it, so let it drop into the cesspit where such things belong.

We come now to retaliation, “if someone smites you on one cheek, turn the other as well”.  Do you see how Jesus is operating here? He says “love is not retaliatory”. Just because someone does something ugly or cruel to you does not mean that you have to hit them on the cheek, or knock their teeth out, or blind their eye. But I do think that we have misunderstood what Jesus is saying. I don’t he is saying let yourself get beat up, or worse, stand by while someone else is getting abused. Step in. Stop the abuse, but don’t retaliate.  Perhaps the most famous modern example of this is the Marshall Plan that, instead of grinding our enemies faces in the ground after world war two, saw us instead of retaliating, rebuilding not only buildings and infrastructures, but relationships as well. It was perhaps the single most important reason that World War III and the collapse of the world as we know it never happened.  And I dare say, if we had done a better job of this same sort of thing in the Middle East, the world would be much better for it ten years on.

Which leads us to Jesus last passage in this chapter. Love for Enemies. And I can’t say it any better than Jesus did:
 ‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax-collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Brothers and sister of Uriel, let us therefore be perfect in our love.  Happy Valentine’s Day from Jesus to you. Amen.

Be These

(Uriel Presbyterian Church )
Communion Meditation

“Be These”
6 February, 2011
Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, A


The savour is in the message

Hebrew Text:Isaiah 58:1-9a (9b-12)
1   Shout out, do not hold back!
          Lift up your voice like a trumpet!
     Announce to my people their rebellion,
          to the house of Jacob their sins.
2   Yet day after day they seek me
          and delight to know my ways,
     as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness
          and did not forsake the ordinance of their God;
     they ask of me righteous judgments,
          they delight to draw near to God.
3   “Why do we fast, but you do not see?
          Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?”
     Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day,
          and oppress all your workers.
4   Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight
          and to strike with a wicked fist.
     Such fasting as you do today
          will not make your voice heard on high.
5   Is such the fast that I choose,
          a day to humble oneself?
     Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush,
          and to lie in sackcloth and ashes?
     Will you call this a fast,
          a day acceptable to the LORD?
6   Is not this the fast that I choose:
          to loose the bonds of injustice,
          to undo the thongs of the yoke,
     to let the oppressed go free,
          and to break every yoke?
7   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,
          and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
8   Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
          and your healing shall spring up quickly;
     your vindicator shall go before you,
          the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.
9   Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer;
          you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.
     If you remove the yoke from among you,
          the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil,
10  if you offer your food to the hungry
          and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,
     then your light shall rise in the darkness
          and your gloom be like the noonday.
11  The LORD will guide you continually,
          and satisfy your needs in parched places,
          and make your bones strong;
     and you shall be like a watered garden,
          like a spring of water,
          whose waters never fail.
12  Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;
          you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;
     you shall be called the repairer of the breach,
          the restorer of streets to live in.


Gospel Text: MATTHEW 5:13-20
13“You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.
14“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. 15No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.
17“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. 18For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. 19Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

We opened the bible last week to begin listening to what Christ had to say, sitting on a low mountainside that slides gently all the way down to the sea of Galilee. Matthew tells us  about Jesus’ teachings we call the beatitudes. Today  we're listening to  the second of five passages from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount as recounted by Matthew. On this day that we ordain and install new elders, it’s so easy to hear Jesus' words as a requirement rather than a blessing, a command rather than a high commissioning. But take note: Jesus doesn't say, "If you want to become salt and light, do this...." Or, "before I'll call you salt and light, I'll need to see this from you...." Rather, he expresses both  ideas simply and directly, "You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world." It’s the same thing with last week's Beatitudes, Jesus simply recognizes those around him  who are wonderfully poor in spirit, those who are doers of mercy and makers of peace. When Jesus says “You are the salt of the earth and the light of the world it is sheer commendation straight from God  and bears blessing, affirmation, but also a  commissioning for service. All of this also makes it a wonderful passage as we give thanks for the work of elders of this church, most especially for Wendell Hinson and Bobby Beaty

I realize, of course, that he goes on to say that salt that has lost its saltiness is useless and that light wasn't made to be put under a bushel, which might imply for some that there is, indeed, a threat hiding amid this pronouncement. But I wonder. While salt really can lose its saltiness, is it ever really absolutely useless? It used to be in Jesus day that even poor quality salt was useful for making camel dung fires for cooking and heating...if you want the details, ask me after lunch...and then after it was used there, it was hard enough to still be used in road making.

And are candles ever put under bushel baskets? Wouldn't that snuff the flame or, worse, start a fire? but on the other hand,  it could make a nice romantic glow through the chinks and holes. Maybe Jesus is implying that one can lose one's status as quality salt and light. Or maybe he's just naming the absurdity of the possibility of losing one's essence as salt and light in order to underscore the reliability and resilience of the gift he bequeaths. "You are the salt of the earth! You are the light of the world. That's the way it is and that's the way it will stay. Now go use it."

Even if you're inclined to suspect  that Jesus is trying to make  us into  be salt and light rather than calling us so – walk with me a little further to consider of what value it might be to think of this passage in a way that commends rather than commands us.

Think about how we humans are built. We are often pretty vulnerable. I read recently that child psychologists say that for every negative message elementary-aged children hear about themselves, they need to hear ten positive ones just to get their sense of self-esteem back to where it had been previously.  Truthfully, I don't know if anyone has studied this with other age groups, but I’ll bet that it must take 20 positive affirmations for teenagers and then MAYBE goes back to about 10-1 again for us adults!)

To put it another way, Children become what they are named. Keep calling a kid bad long enough, or stupid or silly and he or she will believe you and act bad. Call a child (or teen or adult for that matter) worthless or unlovable or shameful, and eventually he or she – all of us! – will live into the name we've been assigned. But it works in exactly the opposite direction too. In the same way, call us good or useful, dependable, helpful, or worthwhile, and we will try hard so hard to grow into that identity and behavior as well.

And so it is with us when we grow up too. We need to hear positive things from those we love and admire. From our friends, our spouses and partners, our mothers and fathers. Perhaps one of the reasons that I love coming to church is because everything: scriptures, hymns, the people I interact with tell me that God loves me, and that I am worth so much to God that God sent his only child to give me that message and proved it by loving me still even though I beat up and killed him to test his love. And if God loves me that much and still sees me as worthy and fruitful, then what do I care that there are those in  the world who want to wear me down to build themselves up? And I hope that you feel the same way. That you are important and worthy and gifted. So here it is: YOU, people of Uriel are salt and light. Jesus Christ is trusting you and recognizes you as a wonderful integral part of life. Salt is humble and easily overlooked, but without salt we can not function; light is so pervasive and common we forget what a blessing it is, that without light nothing can survive. You've been called to an extraordinary life in Christ Jesus. Give savour to the earth. Light the world. Glorify your Parent in heaven, giving thanks for your of your "rightness" in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Leading From Your Blind Side"

(Uriel Presbyterian Church )
Sermon

“Leading From Your Blind Side”
23 January, 2011
Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, A

Blind side is a football term meaning to tackle someone from an angle

they can’t see. The beatitudes are sorta like that....

Hebrew Text: Micah 6:1-8
        NRSV
1   Hear what the LORD says:
          Rise, plead your case before the mountains,
          and let the hills hear your voice.
2   Hear, you mountains, the controversy of the LORD,
          and you enduring foundations of the earth;
     for the LORD has a controversy with his people,
          and he will contend with Israel.
3   “O my people, what have I done to you?
          In what have I wearied you? Answer me!
4   For I brought you up from the land of Egypt,
          and redeemed you from the house of slavery;
     and I sent before you Moses,
          Aaron, and Miriam.
5   O my people, remember now what King Balak of Moab devised,
          what Balaam son of Beor answered him,
     and what happened from Shittim to Gilgal,
          that you may know the saving acts of the LORD.”
6  “With what shall I come before the LORD,
          and bow myself before God on high?
     Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
          with calves a year old?
7   Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams,
          with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
     Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
          the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
8   He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
          and what does the LORD require of you
     but to do justice, and to love kindness,
          and to walk humbly with your God?

Gospel Text: Matthew 5:1-12
NRSV[23   Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.  24  So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought to him all the sick, those who were afflicted with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, and paralytics, and he cured them.  25  And great crowds followed him from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and from beyond the Jordan. ]

1When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. 2Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:
3“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
5“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
6“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
7“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
8“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
9“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
10“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

Maybe it’s because we’re getting ready for Souper bowl sunday next week, but both the psalm that we opened worship with and Jesus teaching the beatitudes got me thinking about the parallels with the only football movie I’ve ever liked.

The 2009 hit movie The Blind Side is based on the real-life story of pro-football player Michael Oher (pronounced ‘Oar’). For most of his high school career, for all that Michael was physically enormous, he was academically invisible, almost completely illiterate, seemingly retarded, thanks to a truly awful home life. To the world at large, he was just an abstract cypher passing through a series of schools  as he was shuffled through the foster care system; a abused, downtrodden black kid in Tennessee who on fluke got into an elite white private school that was looking to beef up it’s football team.
Michael is a picture portrait of the qualities Jesus talked about in the beatitudes: Poor in spirit, mourning the lack of a mother and father; meek, hungering and thirsting...all the things the jesus is drawing attention to in our gospel reading today.

 On his first day at this intimidating posh school, a precocious fifth grader from a well to do white family strikes up a friendship with this silent, hulking black 10th grader, and soon Michael Oher comes to the attention of the little boy’s Mom.

Now this particular mom, Leigh Ann Tuohy (‘Too-he’), is a force of nature to be reckoned with; a steel magnolia of the toughest and spring-iest kind. Whether it’s working on an interior design contract, handling business for her church or sorting out her children, what Leigh Ann wants, the world better deliver, or suffer the full blast of her not inconsiderable energy.

But this determined and resourceful woman is about to be blind sided, and so was Michael. Blind siding is a football term for when you tackle a guy from an angle he can't see or expect. Neither this woman nor this young boy could have imagined the changes that were in store for them.

When this pushy socialite saw her son’s new friend wandering down a dark November-cold street in shirt sleeves, with a direct practicality typical of her style she confronts him to find out where he left his coat, and within 5 minutes determines that not only does he not own a coat, he doesn’t even have anywhere to lay his head that night.

 Standing in the pouring rain, her mom-ness is completely blind sided by the needs of this oversized black teen in wet smelly clothes who is as meek as a contrite 10 year old. Now Leigh Ann Tuohy may be a barely contained focused force of nature, but that very focus makes her pay attention to what she hears in church and she doesn’t even hesitate. She takes him into her family. Soon Michael is the one who is blind sided by the the first person in his life to have goals and ambitions for him.

And you might call the things Jesus outlines for us today goals and ambitions as well. The crowds gathered to hear Jesus' first major teaching seminar probably expected the familiar, comforting guidelines of traditional Jewish wisdom . Jewish teachers taught that right behavior earned you right rewards, the virtues that you practiced will bear fruit of prosperity, plenty and honor. The book of  Proverbs is a long list of this kind of thinking and even many of the Psalms are written to assure us that courage and bravado, outward strength will win divine blessings.

While Jesus is not anything like the soldier David, or the rich King who teaches his son the prince how to be worldly wise. but yet, he too draws with deft strokes a portrait of who God’s Kingdom contains, and it doesn’t contain any of the usual suspects, not the men who have spend their whole lives studying scripture, nor the merchants who have contributed to the temple, not even the heroes who have lead the nation of Israel. To the people gathered on the side of a mountain he blindsides them with weakness. What’s so shocking about today’s passage from Matthew is that it sounds like it is full of misprints — yet it accurately reflects the same event in both the gospels of Matthew, and Luke. When you read these words with your ears open and listening, it is so counterintuitive that you figure that there must be typos here.

“Blessed are the poor in Spirit”? The spiritually poor ? How could that be a goal and ambition? When you study what Matthew reports about Jesus’s sermon on the mount and what Luke says, you realize that Matthew seems to be really uncomfortable with the sermon too, so much so that while Luke reports Jesus said “Blessed are the Poor” and, “blessed are the hungry and thirsty”, Matthew feels compelled to change it to “blessed are the poor IN SPIRIT”, and “blessed are those who hunger and thirst FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS SAKE”. Luke even reports that Jesus cursed the rich and the powerful, but Matthew just can’t even bring himself to report that part of the sermon because it’s so disturbing.

    When I think of all these strange attributes that Jesus is listing as our goals and ambitions, I  think  again of the blind sided kid Michael Oher. Here was someone who truly was all these things, he expected to live his life on the bottom of the heap and was contented to do so. So he was completely overwhelmed to be put in the prized position on a football team. Yet even though he had been brutalized and had so much to be angry and vengeful about,  he couldn’t even bring himself to tackle other boys on the football field. He was the high school equivalent of Fernando the Bull. He just didn’t have any of that killer instinct. But then his steel magnolia adopted mom provided him something that he could latch on to. Instead of saying that he had to completely change his personality and become a raging bull in order to be a success, she explained his goals in a way that harmonized with his life and with his skills. It wasn’t about being someone different; he had all the gifts he needed. Among his gifts was an almost superhumanly strong streak of protectiveness, loyalty and dedication. Out there on the field he was meant to protect his family, the family of boys on his team. He was to strive to do this with all his might. It was a revelation to him that his weaknesses could be what his team needed most.

    There are so many loud voices in our world that try to convince us of the power of aggression, the power of riches, the power of fullness, the power of evil and vice. But Jesus blind sided all that. In the sermon on the mount he taught us that mercy and purity were unassailable tools. That kind words were mightier than angry ones. That pursuing the cause of justice gave gifts to the pursuers over and above the goals of justice.

    We are called to lead from this blindside, and to allow these qualities to have the upper hand in all parts of our lives. I don’t mean that being beaten down is what we’re after or that abuse should be tolerated, but fruits of the lowest experiences in our lives are not to be despised, but relentlessly exploited to provide an alternative energy source for Christian life. Just like it took Leigh Ann Touhy to make a difference in the life of Michael Oher, so it takes a dynamo sometimes to turn that raw stuff into gold, but Jesus tells us in the sermon on the mount that it will happen and then shows us how through his own life how his wisdom is vindicated. 

The story of Michael Oher and his experience with the Touhy family is a real life example of how the beatitudes will win out in the end. Michael was not the only one who was blind sided, Leigh Ann and her whole family were too. These rich white people powerful in the things of the world learned the lesson of Christian vulnerability from this poor black teen who became a member of their tight family.
 Michael went on to become an All-American selection for Ole Miss and later a first-round draft pick for the Baltimore Ravens.

For the movie, Sandra Bullock was cast to play the role of mom, Leigh Anne Tuohy. Sandra Bullock is well known in Hollywood as a tough cookie who is wary of Christians.  Bullock had evidently met some people who gave Christianity a bad name,  but the impression she came away from the real Leigh Ann  taught her that when people live a holy life, it shows — and it blesses others.
When Bullock met with Leigh Anne to prepare to portray her, she was so impressed with Leigh Anne’s sincere practice of her faith that Bullock said she now has “faith in those who say they represent a faith.” Bullock says the Tuohys showed her that religious faith can be authentic. “I finally met people who walk the walk,” Bullock said.

Just like blocking, and tackling, and running a ball, Christianity has skills that we have to learn. Some things come more easily than others, but when we dare to lead with our blind sides, with the non-dominant skills and gifts of others, as well as the discovery of the fruits of our own weakness, we are beginning to understand and live the Sermon on the Mount.
  Amen.