26 de agosto de 2007 - Elizabeth Gibbs Zehnder

Lucas 13:10-17

Preparación:
Seguro
Tu intención fue
Cuando la levantaste
A ella
Hace mucho
Para tu gloria
Oh, Compasivo
No una mujer
Son que todas las mujeres
Se enderezaron
De formas no enderezables.

--Miriam Therese Winter

No tengo demasiada oportunidad de ver muchas novelas. Es una pena, porque me gustan los argumentos: Cómo la pobre y dulce mucama de campo se enamora del hijo del empresario rico y se casan contra los deseos de los padres.

Este pasaje de Lucas serviría para hacer una novela fantástica: no porque haya ninguna escena romántica con Jesús o con ninguna otra persona . . . sino porque a una mujer inválida, que no tiene de qué valerse, sin ninguna esperanza de sanidad, a quien todas las personas ignoran, Jesús le presta atención: el Hijo de Dios. La sanidad y la nueva vida triunfan por encima de las reglas y reglamentos opresivos. ¡Yo veo a Jesús descripto de forma tal que se transforma en mi héroe!

Uno se lo puede imaginar. Esta mujer, inválida y jorobada, torcida, algo que hace 18 años que ocurre cada domingo, entra silenciosamente al templo, llega un poco tarde porque camina tan lentamente y si llega después que el servicio haya comenzado, sabe que no tendrá que hablar con nadie. Realmente nadie se lo diría a la cara, pero casi todos/as en el templo dan por sentado que ella debe haber cometido un pecado terrible, escandaloso para que Dios le haya dado tal enfermedad y haberle torcido la espalda así. Todos y todas tratan de ver si pueden indagar y enterarse de detalles al hablar con ella, y a ella no le gusta hablar con personas que sean tan juzgadoras y duras dentro de sus corazones, por lo tanto, evita hacer conversación.

Esta mañana vino arrastrando los pies hasta su asiento habitual en la parte de atrás. Estaba tan acostumbrada a ser invisible que se alarmó cuando Jesús la llamó. Alzó la vista para estar segura de que le estaba hablando a ella cuando le dijo: “Estás libre de tu mal”. No estaba segura qué le estaba ocurriendo cuando él le impuso las manos, pero después ella sintió la liberación de la sanidad corriendo por su cuerpo. Se le enderezó la espalda, como si hubiera sido de propio acuerdo. Dio un grito de gratitud y alabó a Dios: toda la gente que estaba por ahí, al ver lo que ocurrió, comenzó a hacer lo mismo y toda el templo irrumpió en alabanza.

Tratar de encontrar nuestro lugar en el texto es un ejercicio útil, para probar distintos Puntos de Vista. Al entrar en la experiencia de la mujer encorvada, torcida, podemos pensar en las cosas que nos tuercen a cada uno/a de nosotros/as.

· A veces es nuestro trabajo: Recuerdo a un vecino de hace unos años atrás en Mariposa que trabajaba en la industria de la indumentaria (del vestido). El taller donde él trabajaba, lavaba ropa de jean (de mezclilla) y él rociaba el ácido sobre los jeans. Con el pasar de los años, se le torció la mano en forma permanente por tanto apretar el disparador del rociador. Cuando lo conocí, ya no podía abrir la mano totalmente. Nuestro trabajo le impone un costo a nuestros cuerpos y los tuerce. Hay veces que lo que nos trae carga es el temor a perder un trabajo.

· A veces es nuestro lugar en la sociedad lo que nos da el sentimiento de fragilidad.

- La preocupación sobre la Inmigración.

- La amenza de la deportación y de tener que reajustar toda una forma de vida para evitar la migra. El simple hecho de caminar por la calle nos hace sentir ya no tan seguros/as, y rondan los rumores de que se hizo una redada en tal lugar o en aquella calle. Y en poco tiempo todo se deforma en este esfuerzo por conservar todo aquéllo por lo que trabajamos tan arduamente.

Nuestros cuerpos y nuestro espíritu se tuercen. Tal como la mujer que estaba jorobada, torcida. No es que estemos quejándonos, estamos agradecidos/as a Dios por nuestro trabajo, nuestas familias, nuestros hogares, nuestras vidas. Pero a veces la carga es más pesada de lo que podemos soportar, y comienza a quebrantarnos, y su peso nos aplasta. Y de a poco, la gente se acostumbra a vernos todos/as torcidos/as, jorobados/as y nos sentimos aplastados/as por el peso, y rápidamente pasan 18 años y nadie se acuerda de nuestro verdadero “yo”, todo lo que recordamos es la sombra quebrantada, torcida, de quien solíamos ser.

Pero luego nos ve Jesús. Y esta es la forma en que Jesús puede ver: él ve el exterior, la caparazón quebrantada y torcida, pero él también ve el interior, él puede ver la luz de quiénes somos en realidad, sin importar qué tan tenue se haya vuelto esa luz. Y con una palabra, y con la imposición de manos, Jesus nos libera de la prisión de lo que nos ha estado quebrantando: ya sean nuestros temores o nuestras luchas, ¡y somos sanos/as!

La palabra griega del texto original que usa Lucas para describir la sanidad es inusual. Dado el contexto, podríamos suponer que Lucas usaría la palabra “sanidad”, pero la frase griega en realidad es “estás libre de tu mal”. Liberado/a: la misma palabra que se usa para “liberación” y para “soltar”, como si una paloma hubiese sido soltada de una jaula.

¡Qué maravilla! ¡Jesús sanó a una mujer que había sufrido tanto, por tanto tiempo! ¡Quedó libre de su sufrimiento, fue liberada! ¡Podríamos imaginarnos que todos/as los que estaban allí se estarían regocijando y alabando a Dios! Podríamos terminarlo aquí, y este pasaje sería una novelita feliz.

Pero eso no es lo que ocurrió; bien, por lo menos no fue así para el líder de la sinagoga. Antes que podamos entrar en su punto de visita necesitamos entender un poco con respecto de las leyes religiosos del tiempo de Jesus.

Ellos ha tenido el entendiamento que no es bueno a trabajar en el dia sabado. Como dios ha hecho toda de la creacion entre 6 dias y come dios ha tomado un descanso el septima dia, tambien es bueno para nosotros a trabajar los 6 dias y descansar el septima dia. Ellos cuenten los dias en una manara differente de nosotros y para ellos Sabado fue el dia de descanzo. Ellos van al Templo para servicios, pero ellos no van a trabajar. Hay libros y libros escrito de la tema “Que significa trabajo y que es descanso” – Como indico Jesus en el texto de Lucas hoy – ellos han dicido que fue ok para cuidar los animales el dia santo.

Para nosotros, es dificil a sentir la importancia que tuvieron estas leyes. Para nosotros, son reglas superficiales, regalas que podemos recuardar, pero no son reglas que vivan endentro nuestros corazones.

Algunos de ustedes juegan futbal? El soccor? Cuando un soccor player reciben la pelote, es algo instintivo a cambiar su postura para reciber la pelota sin el uso de las manos. Ellos usan su cabeza, sus pies, sus piernes, pero nunca las manos. Y si alguien esta jugando contra mi equippo (team) y el usa la mano para manipular el pelota – ovidalo! No es una infracion technical - Voy a sentir la injusticia en mi corozon!

Eso es la reacion del lider del sinogoga contra Jesus...El no pueda aceptar esta mala interpretacion de la ley de Dios

Éste comienza a tratar de pelear con Jesús. Por encima de los felices clamores de alabanza, reniega a la multitud: “Recuerden, es el Sábado: hay que trabajar 6 días y descansar el 7. Es casi como si estuviera diciendo, “Ella ha estado así por 18 AÑOS, ¿qué tanto problema hubiera sido regresar mañana (18 años y 12 horas más), que no es Sábado, y que Jesús la hubiera sanado entonces? Jesús no hizo bien en trabajar de esa forma, ¡esa es una sanidad IN-documentada! ¡Esa es una sanidad ILEGAL!

La gente comenzó a observarlo, todos/as con la cara roja, y luego se dan vuelta para ver cómo va a reaccionar Jesús . . . ¿pedirá disculpas Jesús? Después de todo . . . es Sábado y no se debe trabajar . . .

¿Será que Jesús va a volverse atrás y Des-sanarla, y torcerle la espalda nuevamente? . . . El líder de la sinagoga puso realmente a Jesús en su lugar.

Jesús da vuelta todo y se la devuelve: ¡Estás loco! Le darías comida a tu buey y a tu asno el Sábado. Permites que se haga eso según la ley del Sábado, y eso bien se puede decir que es “trabajo”. ¿Cómo puedes negarle a esta mujer, que es hija del pacto, y obviamente más importante para Dios que un asno, que quede libre en este mismo momento?

Pero, Jesús ¿12 horas más? Podrías haber evitado todo este conflicto si hubieras esperado sólo 12 horas para hacer exactamente lo que hiciste en el Sábado. Por supuesto que Dios desea dar sanidad, pero en el momento y el lugar debidos . . . debes ser razonable, Jesús.

Pero quizá Jesús teía que enseñar algo más grande, tal como Elvira Orellana tuvo que enseñar algo más grande el domingo pasado. Quizá Jesús tenía que hacer algo tan radical que marcaría una distinción más clara entre el nuevo orden que estaba predicando y el viejo orden que había existido.

Al mirar más de cerca, el líder de la Sinagoga y Jesús comenzaron con mucho en común. Ambos amaban a Dios con todo su corazón, alma y mente. Ambos concordaban en que este amor a Dios se debe mostrar en nuestras acciones con otras personas. Pero en lo que sigue es donde Jesús y el líder se separan.

En cuanto al líder de la Sinagoga, bueno, él creía que lo que Dios más desea de nosotros es obediencia. Y él creía que la forma en que él podía mostrar su amor por Dios más claramente era obedeciendo los mandatos de Dios. Así que cuando la ley de Dios decía: “no trabajarás el Sábado”, él iba a amar a Dios obedeciendo la ley, sin importar quién debía esperar sanidad.

Ahora bien, antes de que comencemos a ver a este líder de la Sinagoga como el malo de la novela, debemos respirar hondo y reconocer que a menudo nosotros nos parecemos bastante a él. Nosotros también nos hemos acostumbrado y sentido cómodos con la manera en que la iglesia funciona y la forma en que los cristianos “deben” comportarse y nos incomoda cuando la gente quebranta leyes tácitas. Cuando alguien no espera en la línea del café después del servicio, o quizá cuando suena el celular de alguien durante el sermón. Parte de nosotros siente que se le está faltando el respeto a Dios por ese comportamiento inadecuado y nos sentimos indignados/as. Así que, tratemos de buscar un lugarcito tierno en nuestro corazón para el líder de la Sinagoga; él se está esforzando y lo está haciendo por amor a Dios.

Es obvio decir esto, pero queda muy claro que Jesús veía todo el asunto de manera muy distinta. Jesús también amaba a Dios con todo su corazón, y alma, y mente. Jesús también creía en la importancia de obedecer la ley de Dios y vivir como Dios desea. Pero Jesús estaba enseñando algo distinto sobre qué era lo que Dios ve como lo más importante. Jesús estaba enseñando que lo que Dios más desea de nuestra parte es el amor. La ley y los mandamientos son útiles para guiarnos a amar y cuidar unos/as de otros/as, pero son el medio, no el fin. Jesús está enseñando un mensaje radicalmente nuevo: que Dios quiere que cuidemos de los/as demás . . . no que estén en línea.

Me imagino que la tensión entre Jesús y el líder de la Sinagoga se elevó bastante. Me pregunto si en el transcurso de ese día, después que todo se calmó, el líder de la Sinagoga se sintió avergonzado por haber llegado a oponerse a que se sanara a la mujer.

Me pregunto qué es lo que la mujer pensaba de todo esto, si encontró libertad espiritual después de haber sido liberada de su mal.

Me pregunto si Jesús había previsto el impacto que tendrían sus palabras, si podría comprender qué tan radical nos resulta dejar lo predecible y la comodidad de un mundo que se rige por la ley, donde todo nos parece ser blanco y negro para abrazar a un mundo donde la generosidad y la dádiva, la restauración y la sanidad y el aliento y la renovación son lo corriente . . .

Para algunos/as de nosotros/as, es un horror dejar la seguridad del mundo regido por la ley. Cuando todo es blanco o negro, queda claro que “we stand in terms of God”.

Cuando dejamos eso y adoptamos lo que Jesús está diciendo, es más difícil tener puntos de referencia. Debemos confiar en el amor de Dios por cada uno/as de nosotros/as cada minuto de cada día. Es igual a la diferencia entre nadar en una piscina interior y nadar en el mar. Cuando estamos en la piscina, claro que sentimos lo fresco del agua y su falta de peso, y tenemos los límites de los costados de la piscina y nuestros pies sienten las tejas suaves al fondo de la piscina, y un filtro quita las impurezas del agua. Es predecible nadar en una piscina, tanto como se puede predecir vivir la vida atados a la ley, ganando nuestro lugar en el corazón de Dios por medio de hacer el bien y ser buenos.

Pero bien, cuando nadamos en el mar es un asunto totalmente distinto. Las olas nos golpean, las algas marinas se nos pegan a los pies, las conchillas nos cortan los pies, a veces una ola nos lleva hacia donde no queremos ir Y cuando flotamos y sentimos el flujo de la enormidad de lo vasto del océano nos encontramos que nos sostiene algo mucho más grande y más poderoso que nosotros mismos, nos podemos encontrar rinidiéndonos, y entrando al flujo de la vida. Nadar en el mar es algo que no se puede predecir ni se puede controlar, tanto así como es incontrolable e impredecible vivir una vida de amor, confiar en que el amor de Dios ha puesto el sello de Dios en nuestros corazones y que por siempre y para siempre vamos a pertenecer a Dios: ya sea que nos den tickets por estacionamiento, ya sea que tengamos documentos o no, o que busquemos sanidad en el Sábado.

En unos momentos, al estar en el Servicio de Todos/as Juntos/as, vamos a tener un servicio de sanidad y oración. Les invito a hacerse un tiempo para considerar las maneras en que se pueden encontrar a ustedes mismos/as; como la mujer en el Evangelio, considerar las cosas que esta mañqna les hacen encorvar. ¿Cuál ha sido tu carga? ¿Cómo esa carga te ha cambiado? Y luego, muévete a la segunda parte del pasaje, y comienza a pensar en la sanidad y plenitud que Jesús quiere restaurar en ti, no importa cuáles leyes se han violado.

Vivamos juntos en el amor que Dios tiene por cada uno de nosotros.

Amén

August 26, 2007 - Elizabeth Gibbs Zehnder

Luke 13:10-17

Preparation:

Surely
You meant
When You lifted
Her up
Long ago
To your
praise
Compassionate One
Not one woman
Only but all women
Bent
By unbending ways.
--Miriam Therese Winter

I don’t get the opportunity to watch many novellas. It a shame because I enjoy the plots – how the sweet but poor maid from the country falls in love with the son of the wealthy businessman and they marry against the wishes of his parents.

This passage from Luke would make a great Novella – not because there are any romantic scenes with Jesus or anybody else….but because a crippled woman with no claim, no hope for healing, who is ignored by everyone, this woman is noticed by Jesus – the son of God. Healing and new life triumph over repressive rules and regulations. I find Jesus to be described in a way that makes him my hero!

You can see it in your mind, This woman, crippled and bent over, as she has been every Sunday for 18 long years, comes quietly into sanctuary, she comes a little late because she walks so slow and if she comes after the service has begun, she knows that she won’t have to talk to anyone. Its not like anyone would say it to her face, but everyone in the sanctuary pretty much assumes that she must have committed a terrible, scandalous sin for God to have given her such an illness and bent her back like that. They often fish for details when they talk with her and she doesn’t like to talk with people who hold such harsh judgment in their hearts, so she avoids conversation.

This morning she shuffled quietly towards her usual seat in the back. She was so accustomed to being invisible that it startled her when Jesus called her over. She looked up to be sure that he was talking to her when he said “You are set free from your ailment” She wasn’t certain what was happening as he laid hands on her, but then she felt the liberation of healing course through her body. Her back straightened, as if by its own accord. She shouted out her gratitude and praise to God – all of the people around her seeing what had happened, started doing the same and the whole synagogue broke out in praise!

It’s a helpful exercise for us to try and find our place in the text, to try on the different Points of View. As we enter the experience of the bent over woman we can think of the things that bend each of us over.

– Sometimes it our jobs – I remember a few years ago a neighbor on Mariposa who used to work in the garment industry. The shop where he worked washed denim and he sprayed the acid on the jeans. Over the years his hand became permanently bent from squeezing the trigger on the sprayer. When I met him he could no longer open his hand all the way. Our work imposes a cost on our bodies and bends them. Sometimes it’s the fear of loosing our job that burdens us.

- Sometimes its our place in society that feels so fragile. Worrying about Immigration - The threat of deportation and having to rearrange a whole way of living to avoid la migra. Just walking down the street no longer feels safe and rumors fly around about this place and that street being raided. Pretty soon everything is contorted in an effort to hold on to what we have worked so hard to secure.

Our bodies and our spirit get bent over. Just like the woman who was bent over, its not like we are complaining, we are grateful to God for our job, our families, our homes, our lives. But sometimes the load is more than we can bear and it begins to break us and we are crushed by the weight of it. And bit by bit, people get used to seeing us all bent over and we get used to being bent over and pretty soon 18 years goes by and know one remembers the true “us”, all we remember is the broken down, bent over shadow of who we used to be.

But then Jesus sees us. And that is just the way that Jesus can see – he notices the outside, the broken and bent shell, but he also can see the inside, he can see, no matter how dim its grown, he can see the light of who we are. And with a word and laying on of hands, Jesus releases us from the prison of what has been breaking us – whether its our fears or our struggles and we are healed!

The Greek word in the original text that Luke uses to describe the healing is unusual. Given the context, we might assume that Luke would use the word “healing”, but the Greek phrase is actually “you are set free from your ailment” Set free – the same word used for liberation and release, as though a dove has been released from a cage.

How wonderful! Jesus healed a woman who had suffered so much for so long ! She was released from her suffering and set free!We would imagine that everyone there would be rejoicing and praising God! We could end right here and it this passage would be a happy little novella,

But that isn’t what happened, well at least for the leader of the synagogue. He starts to pick a fight with Jesus. Over the joyful shouts of praise he chastises the crowd. “ It’s the Sabbath, remember – work 6 days, rest on the 7th!. It’s almost as though he is saying, she’s been this way for 18 YEARS, what would be the big deal about coming back to tomorrow (18 years and 12 hours more) when its not the Sabbath and Jesus could heal her? It wasn’t right for Jesus to work like this, this is an UN-documented healing! This is an ILLEGAL healing!

People start to stare at him, all red in the face and then they turn to see how Jesus is going to react…will Jesus apologize? – it is after all the Sabbath and work is not supposed to be done…

Will Jesus take it back and Un-heal her and will her back bend over again?....The synagogue leader has really put Jesus in his place….

Jesus turns everything upside down and dishes it right back to him – You are crazy! you would give your ox and donkey food on the Sabbath – You allow that under the Sabbath law and that’s pretty much “work”. How can you deny this woman, who is a child of the covenant, obviously more important to God than a donkey, from being set free this very moment?

But 12 more hours Jesus? You could have avoided this whole conflict if you had just waited 12 hours to do exactly what you did during the Sabbath. Of course God wants healing, but in the appropriate time and place…Just be reasonable Jesus…

But maybe Jesus needed to make a larger point, just like Elvira Arellana needed to make her larger point last Sunday.

Maybe Jesus needed to do something so radical that it would make a clear distinction between the new order he was preaching and the old order of what had been.

When we look closely - the Synagogue leader and Jesus start out with a lot in common. They both love God with all their heart soul and minds. They both agree that this love for God needs to show up in our actions with other people.

It’s the next part where Jesus and the leader start to part company.

For the leader of the synagogue, well, he believed that the thing God wants most from us is obedience. And he believed that the most clear way that he could show his love for God was by obeying God’s commands. So when God’s law was “do no work on the Sabbath”, he was going to love God by obeying the law, no matter who needed to wait for her healing.

Now, before we start to see this synagogue leader as the bad guy in the novella, we need to take a deep breath and own the fact that often we are a lot like him. We too have grown comfortable with the way that the church works and the way that we understand Christians are “supposed to” behave and we find it troubling when people break the unspoken rules. When someone cuts into the line for coffee after the service, or maybe someone’s cell phone rings during the sermon. A part of us feels that God is being disrespected by the out of line behavior and we get indignant about it. So find a soft place, a little soft place in your heart for the synagogue leader, he’s trying hard and he is doing it out of love for God.

Its obvious to say it, but its clear that Jesus saw the whole thing differently. Jesus also loved God with all his heart and soul and mind. Jesus also believed in the importance of obeying God’s law and living in God’s way. But Jesus was teaching something different about what was most important thing to God. Jesus was teaching that the one thing God wants most from us is love. The law and commandments help guide us in loving and caring for each other, but they are a means not an end.

Jesus is teaching a radically new message. That God wants us to care for people…not keep them in line.

I imagine that the tension was pretty high in the exchange between Jesus and the synagogue leader. I wonder if later that day, after he had calmed down, if the leader felt embarrassed for actually objecting to the woman being made well.

I wonder what the woman thought of it all, if she found spiritual freedom in her physical release from being bent over?

I wonder if Jesus anticipated the impact of his words, if he could understand how radical it is for us to leave the predictability and comfort of a world ruled by law, where things are black or white for us to embrace a world where generosity and giving, restoration and healing and encouragement and renewal are the currency….

For some of us it is terrifying to leave the security of the world ruled by law. When everything is black or white, it is clear where we stand in terms of God.

When we leave that and embrace what Jesus is talking about, it is harder to have points of reference. We have to trust in God’s love for us each minute of each day. Its like the difference between swimming in an indoor swimming pool and the ocean. When we are in the pool, sure we feel the delicious wet and weightlessness of the water, and we are bounded by the sides of the pool and our feet meet the smooth tiles on the bottom of the pool and a filter takes out the impurities from the water. Its manageable and predictable to swim in a pool, just like its manageable and predictable to live life bound by the law, earning our place in God’s heart by doing right and being good.

Now when we swim in the ocean it’s a whole different ball game – the waves knock us around, the seaweed clings to our legs, the shells cut into our feet, some times a rip tide carries us where we don’t want to go AND when we bob and float and feel the ebb and flow of the enormity of the whole ocean and we find our selves being held by something so much bigger and more powerful than ourselves we can find our selves surrendering and joining in the flow of life. It is un-manageable and unpredictable to swim in the ocean, just like it is unmanageable and unpredictable to live a life of love, to trust that God’s love has set God’s seal upon our hearts and that forever and ever we will belong to God – whether we have parking tickets, whether or not we have papers, whether or not we seek healing on the Sabbath.

In just a little while, during the All Together Worship, we will have a healing service of prayer. I invite you to take some time to consider the ways that you might find yourself, like the woman in the Gospel, consider the ways that you are bent over this morning. What has burdened you? how has it changed you? And then, live into the second part of the passage and begin to trust the healing and wholeness that Jesus longs to restore in you, no matter what rules have been broken.

Let us live together in the love that God has for each of us.

Amen.

August 12, 2007 - The Exception - Tony De La Rosa

Isaiah 1:1, 10-20; Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16

Synchronize your watches. (Looking at watch.) The time is now 11: 38 am, and this sermon should last seventeen and one-half minutes. Not because I have timed it, though. It is because this is a Presbyterian sermon, and when I was in seminary, I was taught that the usual Presbyterian sermon’s duration was somewhere between fifteen and twenty minutes. Anything less than fifteen would make the average Presbyterian feel cheated, and anything more than a twenty minute sermon would leave the average Presbyterian anxious about making their tee-off time at the country club. As I look around the sanctuary this morning, I don’t see a lot of “average” Presbyterians, but I don’t want to risk it, and so I have aimed for the optimal seventeen and one-half minutes just to be safe.

Seminary taught me that other Christian traditions have widely varying timeframes for the exposition of the Word of God in their Sunday worship. Roman Catholic homilies keep it short and sweet at eight to ten minutes. Episcopalian sermons average about twelve to fifteen minutes, while most Baptists could easily sit still for forty-five minutes plus of inspired oratory from their pulpits. I am not a Baptist. And some would say “Amen!” to that.

But my church history class provided me with the most startling revelation, the winner of the marathon worship experience. It turns out that the Puritans of New England, our spiritual forebears, would begin church early on a Sunday morning, and would continue in worship for up to eight hours, most of it occupied by preaching, with only a brief break for lunch and other necessaries. What amazed me most, however, was that the sermon was not continuous during that long day. Pastors of Puritan congregations would offer their sermons, with up to two or three hours of exposition on Scripture, and then members of their congregations would respond. The respondents would comment on the sermon, and often they would correct the pastor’s perceived errors and provide their own views on the passages of Scripture being preached upon. The conversation would continue back and forth in this way for the better part of the day before all would head home for dinner as the sun began to set.

Now Frank, our Pastor, and Samuel, our Director of Relational Ministries were not expecting this – in fact, neither one of them is here this morning – but this is one congregant’s response to or further exposition on the themes of their recent sermons. Frank preached three weeks ago on the nature of power and its discontents. In his commentary on the nature of divine and human power, he offered up uncomfortable parallels between the United States of the 21st century and Imperial Rome of the 5th century. Last week, Samuel continued this theme, and addressed the broader issue of security, and drew a frightening picture of a post-9/11 mother teaching her young child that America was at war “to kill the bad man before he kills us.”

Lest any of you suspect that these themes are merely political and not grounded in Scripture, the lectionary passages from which both Frank and Samuel have been preaching have been singularly focused – some might say obsessed -- on the issue of how people living in a particular political construct rank in God’s sight. God’s “choice” of an exceptional people and their presumption of inherent holiness is called into question over and over. The prophets we have heard these last few weeks keep rebuking the fallen people of God. Amos, Hosea and now today Isaiah sound the same note, that something’s rotten in state of Israel-Judah, and that God is not pleased with this sorry state of affairs. The people of Israel and Judah cannot continue to fool themselves into believing that God ignores their defects.

Few nation-states escape the self-aggrandizing heresy that they are God’s chosen nation, the exception above all. The United States of America is no different. Conveniently overlooking the establishment of St. Augustine or the settlement of Jamestown – and completely ignoring the presence of longstanding nations of native peoples -- America’s historically-skewed civil religion holds that our founding begins with religious refugees offering prayers of thanksgiving upon landing on a rocky shore on Cape Cod. These refugees completed an arduous trek across a treacherous sea that recalls the journey of the Ark and the Great Flood. From thence, Washington – our Moses – leads the people to liberation and the Promised Land of democracy. Our messianic martyr, Lincoln, redeems the gospel of freedom and saves the country from destroying itself. And lest you think I overstate the case, just ask any young school child their understanding of American history, and you get these same themes of liberation and redemption – themes that might sound familiar to Christian ears.

But we cannot continue to fool ourselves into thinking that those wordy divines of four hundred years ago succeeded in establishing a new Jerusalem somewhere in Massachusetts, for all their sermonizing back and forth. It is neither heresy nor treason to say so. The God of Isaiah won’t let us get away with suggesting otherwise. “New moon and Sabbath and calling of convocation – I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity. Your new moons and your appointed festivals my soul hates; they have become a burden to me.”

Some argue that America needs to restore the Puritan’s level of personal piety back into the American experience. “What’s missing in America is God,” they say. “We are the chosen nation; God’s new Israel. Everyone back to church for eight hours worth of sermonizing; and no congregational feedback necessary, thank you very much! Just convert the heathen multitudes and make good Christians of them all.” Or, “Deport them all back to wherever they came from.” Or even, “Kill them before they kill us.” This new Jerusalem is the Ozzie and Harriet vision of the American dream, the one with the lovely Hollywood clapboard house with the white picket fence which the Nelsons owned -- and which really exists, by the way. It’s located on a street ironically bearing a Spanish name, “Camino Palmero.” If we only we could hearken back to those good old days of American homogeneity and faithful, Protestant Christian consensus. God would love us once again! Right?

God begs to differ, for thus says Isaiah: “When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood.” And truly, our hands are full of blood. In time of war, against all that we fear, we address our xenophobic insecurities with brute strength and military power, convinced that God is on our side. No matter how many times we invoke the name of our Sovereign, however, no matter how long our sermonizing or elaborate our worship, we cannot escape the reality that lies just outside the doors of the sanctuary: a world of violence and injustice, largely of our own making. To put it simply, God is not pleased with this state of affairs and turns a deaf ear to such hollow worship.

What then are a godly people to do? How do we re-gain the favor of this displeased God to whom we owe all that is living and all that is good? The author of Hebrews suggests just that, namely, that we owe God all that is living and all that is good. Hebrews offers us the vision of a nation of immigrants, the heirs of Abraham, who journey from their homeland in far away Mesopotamia -- or modern-day Iraq -- to a foreign land where they get to live in tents and engage in subsistence farming. This is the Promised Land, the place that God had promised Abraham and his descendents that would be theirs until the end of their days. The Promised Land was not an easy place. It was not a place apparently flowing with the milk and honey of their dreams and prayers. It was a dry, dusty plain, and it was already inhabited. They were to be strangers in a strange land.

Despite this less-than-favorable situation, the descendants of Abraham did not doubt that they were in fact God’s Chosen People. And their certainty was not a result of presumed military superiority, or ostentatious wealth, or aggressive diplomatic moves. No, their certainty was purely a matter of faith. They trusted God and not their own resources in securing for themselves a blessed future in a new land not their own. Hebrews puts the matter bluntly: “They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.”

In the nation of immigrants and their descendants that is America today, these words carry special resonance. People who are the guests of God do not sojourn in the Promised Land with blood on their hands. Instead, God instructs the new arrivals in the holy house rules in Isaiah: “Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings before my eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.” In God’s house, all are welcome, and all are charged with the responsibility of communicating that sense of welcome and hospitality to others.

Indeed, what makes a people exceptional in God’s sight is their willingness to undercut the very definition of their own uniqueness. Since the hospitality of God is universal and open to all, then the people of God must reflect that hospitality, at the risk of changing their self-perception of community. Put succinctly, there is no “us” and “them” in the community of faith and the heavenly country. Blood is not spilled maintaining false boundaries; faith and love and unwavering welcome dissolve those boundaries. The house belongs to God, and the front door of the house of God is never closed. From the moment when Christianity accepted Gentiles into the community of faith, all bets were off. No longer were the people of God marked by the ritual adherence to circumcision and kosher laws. Rather it was marked by the appearance of a deep, abiding, universal and transcendent faith, and faith alone.

No doubt, some are put off by this challenging concept of community. After all, how can a community – or a country, for that matter – protect or preserve itself if anyone is allowed in, and not only allowed but welcomed in, as well? Who knows who or what may walk through the front door. Isn’t that dangerous, particularly in this day and age? Wouldn’t it be safer to draw boundaries or borders or standards around which we can stand guard and keep out those wanting to come in and of whom we disapprove? Perhaps we should ask ourselves first whether our communities are safer, stronger, or more secure because some – maybe many – are kept out. Do the residents of gated communities experience no crime or mishaps within their lines of demarcation? Does the country feel more secure and more admired because it rejects immigrants with startling indifference as to their plight? Does the Church sense its greater blessedness before God Almighty when it excludes gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender persons from ordained office? Did the ministry of Jesus know such bounds or follow such distinctions? Who is drawing these lines, after all?

I posit to you this morning that the exceptional nature of a community is not the Ozzie and Harriett vision of a homogeneous neighborhood, whether speaking of the church or the country. We are blessed and we are great when the front doors never close and all are welcomed in our midst. The Church inches closer to the true Kin-dom of God when all who are a part of God’s creation are welcomed into the sanctuary, and all are accorded the rights and privileges of membership in the faith community. The life, ministry and witness of the Church are that much poorer without the participation of all those whom God has made and called “blessed.” To argue otherwise, I submit, is drawing false lines of demarcation, trying to define community in a way that excludes those who some deem “undesirable.” That is the error of the Pharisees, and Jesus called it blasphemy. The Church needs to do so, as well.

Likewise, the greatness of a country is not the impermeability of its borders or the size of its armaments or the extent of its surveillance. No, the greatness of a country is the length to which it honors and protects the ethnic and multi-cultural richness found within its borders and extends the hand of welcome to those seeking to add to it. The Kin-dom of God manifests the very same richness by virtue of the imagination of the Creator, so the truly godly nation should do no less.

Rather than laying claim to our status as God’s Chosen People, the Book of Hebrews calls on us to acknowledge our shared status as strangers in a strange land. When we are prepared to acknowledge our universal status as immigrants, a different kind of national exceptionalism – the sense that our nation is unique and blessed -- becomes possible. I would assert that because our national identity is not predisposed toward a specific racial, ethnic or cultural makeup, we can inch ever closer to the true “City on a Hill” that those wordy religious refugees in Massachusetts preached and preached and preached about so long ago.

In a world rife with claims that God blesses a particular race, ethnicity or cultural identity uniquely, our country should sound a dissenting note. We must claim that the hope of the world can be found in the ability of humankind to reason, struggle and conceive together a community where the commands of God are followed: good is done, justice sought, the oppressed rescued, the orphan defended and widow protected. Furthermore, we can work to claim that our uniqueness lies not in our sameness, but in our acceptance and celebration of the full richness of humankind. We seek to reflect the diversity of God’s creation in our midst. Our vision of exceptionalism, therefore, is in our ability to reflect the diverse expressions of humankind in a peaceful and just community. In a word, what makes us great as a nation is in our ability to show the world that the diverse expressions of humanity can get along.

In a world grown weary with sectarian conflict, in the godly nation we strive to be, Christian, Jew, Buddhist, Hindu and Moslem can – and do – work together to achieve shared goals. The earth knows no shortage of conflicts between persons making competing claims of entitlement or right to resources based on race or culture. Our land can demonstrate that conflict not be the order of the day when addressing needs that arise from greed or artifice. The godly nation can remind the world that God’s Creation is blessed with abundance, but only if it is wisely maintained and justly distributed.

While we may be exceptional in some regards, we should be careful to declare our exceptionalism with humility. Maintaining a diverse community marked by peace and justice takes major investments of time and effort, and like any earthly construct, we fall short of the standards we hold up for ourselves. Nevertheless, God’s mandate is clear, and the nation that calls itself “godly” cannot ignore that mandate.

One final note: If my vision of the godly nation seems oddly familiar to you, just look around. If you think I have attempted to argue that our country should reflect the reality that Immanuel reflects, I plead guilty. Lord knows, Immanuel is far from perfect, and we have a long way to go before we can say we have achieved a model community marked by an abiding peace and commitment to justice for the full spectrum of humankind. But the sheer enormity of what God has charged us to do should not render us reluctant to pursue the task. After all, Abraham entered the wilderness with little more than a hope and a prayer. We – his descendants –must continue the journey toward the Promised Land.

(Looking at watch.) Three…two…one. Amen.

August 19, 2007 - Welcome to the Conversation - Elizabeth Gibbs Zehnder

Hebrews 11:29-12:2

Stand up, take a look around – do a 360 – take it all in , the stained glass, the dark wood, the velvet seats, the tile work, the ceiling beams…imagine it under construction, the tile workers laying the tile, the painters stenciling the ceiling, Imagine the first service, everything crisp and brand new. The church was dedicated in 1928 – that was before my time, that was before my mother’s time, my grandmother would have been 14 years old that day, and you should know, the sanctuary wasn’t even built in a contemporary style, sure it had modern elements for its day, but the style was based on the French gothic cathedrals of Europe – churches from my grandmother’s grandmothers time!

This sanctuary itself reminds that as people of faith, when we come to worship, we are joining a conversation that has been going on a long time. And that conversation is likely to continue long after our grandmothers are gone, long after we are gone, long after our grandchildren are gone. When I take in that realization, I start to feel very small, rather insignificant, as though it might not matter if I show up at all.

But this eternal aspect of the conversation isn’t the only side to the story- another very important side is the truth of God’s particular love for each one of us. The truth that God has knit each of us together in our mother’s womb, we are fearfully and wonderfully made. The truth that God has been with each breath that we have taken, accompanied us in each loss, mourned each sorrow, danced with us in each joy. The truth that God has equipped each of us to participate in God’s ministry, called each of us to live out of the grace and love of Jesus Christ.

So both are true – here’s the universe, and we are each a little speck on of humanity in the grand scheme of God’s Salvation History and here’s us with the universe orbiting around us. Our scripture today holds these two truths in tension.

To really get inside God’s word to us, we need to remember that the Bible – Genesis all the way Revelation – didn’t just fall out of the sky – the English NRSV- into our hands one day. The Bible is a collection of writings gathered over centuries by God’s people. The book that our reading comes from today – Hebrews, is actually a letter (a fairly long letter) that was written some time before 70 AD to Jewish people who had converted to Christianity. It turns out we don’t know for sure the authors name – some scholars think it was Apollos, others favor Barnabas, but its unclear. As we read the Book of Hebrews, we see that the focus of the letter is on Jesus Christ as the revealer and mediator of God’s grace. The author of Hebrews is practical in encouraging readers to go forward in their commitment to Christ and God and not revert to their former ways.

In the passage we read this morning, the metaphor of a race is invoked.

I am not super athletic – I’ve dabbled in sports a bit, my peak experience was running a 15K race. Let me just say, the training for this race was excruciating. I felt forever out of breath and plagued by side cramps and knee injuries. I was never able to run more than 10 kilometers in training. I felt solitary and weak. But on race day – the energy of the crowd and the other runners carried me. I ran the whole race. If only I had known to invoke the presence of the crowd and the other runners in my training runs, maybe their presence would have changed my experience and my capacity then too.

Hebrews is telling us that our faith journey works the same way. The base reality is that we are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses – and this cloud is not an assembly of couch potatoes and arm chair quarterbacks – this cloud of witnesses have walked the walk – they have struggled with doubt and been crushed by grief, they have felt God’s absence and known God’s presence and they are there encouraging us and cheering us on.

So, as we look around this sanctuary, we can imagine some of the cloud of witnesses that sat in this very space, maybe in the balcony over there. Through the years since the 1920’s, some struggles of faith that they faced were certainly different than ours, but some things were certainly the same. I wonder about how they struggled with discerning who God had called into church membership – wondering if God meant for people with different colors of skin to worship together in the same sanctuary. I wonder if they found it terrifying to depart from what their parents had discerned about that Sunday in 1978 when they received Aurelia Daigeau into membership …

How did they wrestle with understanding God’s calling church leaders – wondering if God was pleased with women exercising their gifts of ministry beyond the Parish Hall kitchen. Were they unsure about what they had unleashed during that congregational meeting back in 1972 when they called Marilyn Moores as elder? The cloud of witnesses, they prayed, they discussed, they talked after the meeting in the parking lot and they sorted out what they could of God’s call on their lives. And here they are surrounding us as we take on our challenges of discerning who God calls into church leadership, of learning our role in the interplay of political boundaries and the kingdom of God. There they are as we wonder if we are invoking God’s joy or God’s wrath.
Its easy to loose our way in these debates and dilemmas, Don’t run around in circles, the Book of Hebrews tells us – run toward the goal, run with purpose and perseverance the race that is set before you and if you get lost look to Jesus.

So, the question to us this morning is what is our race? And how do we run it?

On the individual level, only you can answer that question for yourself. In the same way, you are probably the only person who knows what you really put in the tip jar at Starbucks, or how tidy you leave the airport bathroom stall - You alone know the unseen places where the Holy Spirit is prompting you to focus your attention on that relationship that is rife with tension or poisoned with resentment. In the race that is set before each one of us, only you can say whether God is inviting you to rest and let go or to engage your life with more discipline.

Even though those are truths are held in our individual hearts and known only to God, we live out those struggles – we run those races - in the context of community. Together we become the face of that cloud of witnesses for each other. As the cloud of witnesses we can choose to be a source of grace or judgment. We chose to be a sanctuary of nourishment or poison for the person who is running their race of faith.

I visited Lupe Alvarado in the hospital this week. She’s recovering from her second surgery of the summer – she now has a pin in the femur of both of her legs. Lupe was explaining to me how she couldn’t start working on building strength in her legs until she was fitted for a back support. She’ll have this plastic vest that velcro’s around her waist in such a way that her spine is strategically supported as she works to recover the strength in the bones and muscles of her legs. She needs the support in order to begin the healing that is ahead of her.

We, the cloud of witnesses, are called to be that back support device for each other. We are to be the encourager, the supporter to each member of this community as they run the race that God has set before them.

Now, it almost goes without saying that our contemporary North American culture places a high value on individualism, however, when we come to the this letter to the Hebrews, for them individualism was not as central. In that society, the community - the collective - was given more prominence. In light of that, it’s fair game for us to look at this text in terms of what it means for us as a faith community to run our race.

I think of the challenges facing Immanuel and our efforts to respond out of our relationship with Jesus.

We are challenged when our members struggle to live in the same home as their children - The challenges of immigration and our country’s immigration policies and Immanuel’s response of the New Sanctuary Movement.

We are challenged when our members pay their rent and wonder how they will buy food for dinner that night - The challenges of affordable housing and food security and Immanuel’s response of the Food Pantry and One LA’s housing advocacy.

We are challenged when our members carry the depression and pain of trauma that robs them of emotional resources as they to raise their children - The challenges of violence and stress of urban living and Immanuel’s response of health ministry, pastoral counseling, the El Camino Counseling center.

Not to mention the challenges when our member’s battle cancer, family members in jail, children struggle with addiction, spouses having affairs, and our response as a congregation with nurturing Sunday worship, Sunday school and small group ministries, and All Church Retreats. Of course we have pastoral staff – but we also have elders and deacons and members who are the bread and butter of these ministries.

As we take a look at the community aspect of Hebrews, much athlete running a race metaphor translates….

The capacity for running a race comes from preparation and training – the small details of our behavior add up to our ability to run the race that God has set before us – in every phone call that is made, in every conversation with a first time visitor, in every meeting, in every gathering - are we looking to Jesus to guide our response – are we running the race that has been set before us?

Its easy for us to slip into that little grain of sand mentality – to feel as though we are such small players on such a large stage that our efforts are invisible and insignificant – we drift into thinking that it is only what happens in the sanctuary on Sunday mornings that really matters in the life of this church. Hebrews tells us NO! – the race of faith is run step by step, it happens in the most unlikely of places- conversation by conversation, prayer by prayer, a cup of coffee shared, a casserole brought over to the house, crying together when the grief is to great to bear alone, laughing together when the task is too impossible, meeting someone’s eyes and seeing Jesus lurking in there, realizing that we long for Jesus to guide our words and our hearts as we walk out into the parking lot and into the rest of our lives.

Hebrews advice to us is practical – run the race! You might remember when the LA Marathon route came right past the church steps on Wilshire. It was always such an exhilarating Sunday (well, once you waded through the traffic to get here). We would pop out to the sidewalk in between services and cheer the runners on – I remember both Sara Erickson and David Valdez have run that marathon.

Its not like David showed up early for church on marathon Sunday and decided to duck under the police tape and start running. He chose it, he trained, he surrounded himself with a community of other runners. He made a myriad of choices that added up to him running the race.

In the same way the passage today calls us to choose the race of faith. This 2000 year old conversation has been carried on - it has continued to unfold because women and men of God have moved beyond good intentions to action. Individuals whose names we no longer know – who maybe used to sit in the same pew that you are sitting in this morning - people who might have felt as insignificant as a grain of sand on Santa Monica beach – these individuals took seriously the Holy Spirit’s compelling love and they did what God set before them. And now they are part of the cloud of witnesses encouraging us on in our race. So Immanuel. On the days when we feel like what we are doing doesn’t matter. And on the days when everything else feels more important. And on the days when we feel tripped up and shut down at every turn. Let us be carried by the faithful people who have run this race before us. Let us be carried by faithful people who are running along side us. And let us press in this race that God has set before us. Amen.