November 16, 2008 + Following unlikely heroes into an unlikely world + Frank Alton

Matthew 25:14-30



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For many years I have read the Parable of the Talents the way most people do: God is the CEO, Jesus is commending the first two assistants for their risk-taking, and the third assistant is punished for being too cautious and failing to act appropriately on what he knew about the CEO; namely, that “you are a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed.”

That is a reasonable interpretation and there are some good lessons in it. But some pastors and scholars have taken a second look at the story because it is offensive to imagine God behaving like the CEO. Most commentators go to great lengths to allegorize the parable to explain how God could behave like the CEO. I learned way back in seminary that usually we shouldn’t allegorize a parable. When we take a hard look at the behavior of the master we realize that he's an absentee landlord who doesn't do any work himself, but lives off of the labor of his slaves. Furthermore, this master wants his slaves to make profit in a way that would be seen in Jesus' culture as of necessity coming at the expense of other more honest people; it would be seen as greedy and grasping rather than smart or virtuous. Even if we say the third servant sees a harsh master and so gets what he expects, the master still plays along with it. The third slave is punished precisely for refusing to break God's commandment against usury – loaning money out at interest (Matthew 25:27). Both the Hebrew bible and the New Testament consistently condemned usury. So we have to ask ourselves: is the behavior of the master in the parable something that God would commend, let alone imitate? Is this the God we see in Jesus Christ? And is this kind of behavior what Jesus expects of God's people? Does God give us the treatment we expect and bring upon ourselves?

If we are dissatisfied with that view of God we must consider if it is possible that Jesus isn’t identifying the God he calls Abba with the CEO. What if we instead hear Jesus making a comment on standard human economics, in which "The rich get richer and the poor get poorer?" If we read the parable of the talents in the context of the next passage – the parable of the sheep & the goats – we learn that the kingdom of heaven is found among those who suffer from such economics – the hungry, the stranger, the sick, the prisoner. Might these two stories be an invitation to follow the third servant into the outer darkness and become her servant because that is where we will find Jesus - with those left out when the rich get richer?

This suggests a very different idea of what God is like and what it means to “follow Jesus.” The master is like a God, but a god of this world, a violent uncaring deity. The kingdom of heaven is what it is like when that which is given as currency by the gods of this age is not invested in the kingdom of this world in a way that takes advantage of others. The final servant is the one who “knows” correctly and refuses to invest what cultural gods have given her, even though she knows that this choice will cost her dearly. She is not afraid because she is afraid of losing the money; she is afraid because she knows that she will not please the master, the “hard” one. She is cast into outer darkness–a place where servants of God who refuses to participate in the economy of the principalities and powers of this world wind up.

Now the parable reads as a story about the interaction of the reign of God with the dying reign of this world. What action is the parable calling us to? The answer is given in the next story – the parable of the sheep and the goats. The way we respond to someone like the third servant is the way we respond to Jesus. If Jesus identifies with the third servant as s/he is banished from the successful of this world, then to follow Jesus is to leave places of worldly success and find the outcasts. As we minister to them we are acting like sheep rather than goats. A Christian songwriter I knew some years back named Bryan Sirchio says it well in a song he wrote about following Jesus. The song’s essential message is:

“Jesus said 87 times, ‘Follow me.’ Maybe that's the bottom line of what ‘Christian’ means. But if I'm a follower of Jesus, then why am I such a good life insurance risk? And why, when I do my giving, do I still keep so much when so much hunger exists? And if I follow Jesus, then why do I have so many friends among the affluent, and so few among the poor? And if I follow Jesus, why do missiles and guns make me feel more secure? God save us from the Christs we create in our image: the Jesus who's as left wing or right wing as we; who always seems to favor our side against the enemy.”

So, pleasing God means following Jesus into the outer darkness rather than pleasing the master in the parable by getting a great return on his investments. We shouldn't try to please the master in the parable because the world in which people like that come out on top is passing away. Maybe the question for us is whether we can really believe that – if we really can trust God enough to risk living as Jesus taught us rather than according to the demands of those who try to set themselves up in Jesus' place as lord, who try to enslave us to worldly standards by telling us that our security lies in acquiring resources for ourselves, striking out at our enemies.

I need two things in order to take that risk. First I need to see signs that God’s new world is really coming, that in fact it is already present in some ways. Second, I need to see some concrete ways to follow Jesus today. It is always dangerous to identify today’s political realities with God’s new world. Yet it is also dangerous not to.

Another rabbi, Leonard Beerman, rabbi emeritus of Leo Baeck Temple, preached the following words last month on Yom Kippur: “Lest you think that Yom Kippur doesn’t have political implications, let me say to you what I’ve said before. A religion must be political. A religion divorced from politics is a religion divorced from life, and a religion divorced from people. I am not talking about partisan politics in the synagogue. No, religion must be political because this world is political, for this world has to do with the decisions we make, the decisions that determine who shall live and who shall die, and how we live and how we die. A religion that does not help us, cajole us, nudge us, to confront the moral issues present in all of this, is a religion that is just another anti-depressant, a religion that is another anti-anxiety medication, a religion that at best is a subordinate amusement. It is a religion that does not denounce, it adapts. It does not move the heart it hardens the heart. It does not stir the conscience it blunts the conscience. Those who want a religion which blunts the conscience would rob Judaism of what I believe is its moral grandeur.” (Leonard Beerman, “A SERMON FOR YOM KIPPUR MORNING,” October 9, 2008)

And so, I think we must dare to say that the election of Barack Obama is a sign of God’s new world. We know it’s not a perfect sign. As early as the morning after the election I was marching in downtown among people who were already targeting Obama with their shouted slogans: “Listen, Obama, the people are in the struggle.” Yet we cannot deny that by electing Barack Obama Americans said “No” to many evils. Anna Quindlen has written, “There were many reasons to elect him president, but this was one collateral gift: to be able to watch America look [the] old evil [of racism] in the eye and to say, no more. We must be better than that. We can be better than that. We are better than that.” (“Living History,” Newsweek, November 17, 2008)

I believe we must also see a sign of that new world in the limited progress toward the end of poverty that has been made on what are called the United Nations Millennial Goals. They were to be accomplished by 2015. In the report made in September by the secretary general he expresses hope: “Looking ahead to 2015 and beyond, there is no question that we can achieve the overarching goal: we can put an end to poverty.” The report gives examples of goals that are on track: primary school enrollment around the world is 90% in all but two regions; gender parity in primary education is up; deaths from measles and AIDS fell; malaria prevention is expanding; the incidence of tuberculosis is expected to decline by 2015; 1.6 billion people have gained access to safe drinking water.” Then the Secretary-General says what we must do: experience has demonstrated the validity of earlier agreements on the way forward; we know what to do. But it requires an unswerving, collective, long-term effort. Time has been lost. We’ve wasted opportunities and face additional challenges, making the task ahead more difficult. It is now our responsibility to make up lost ground – and to put all countries, together, firmly on track towards a more prosperous, sustainable and equitable world.”

So there are signs of God’s new world. But there is much to do. Following Jesus means that we – not just others, but we – will be the ones who do some of that. A Celtic theologian named Herbert O’Driscoll says, “I suspect that being saintly is connected with handing over one’s self-will to a greater will…” He recalls George Bernard Shaw’s play Saint Joan. He said, “there is a moment in that play when Joan of Arc is trying desperately to get Charles, the insipid, spineless dauphin, to show some initiative. In her exasperation she shouts at Charles that there is one thing he has never learned. Intrigued, he asks her what that is. Joan of Arc says, “Charlie, you have never learned that we are put on this earth not to do our own business but to do God’s business.’ And that realization, O’Driscoll argues, is at least the beginning of being a saint.” To know that you and I are here not to do our own business but to do God’s. (Herbert O’Driscoll, “The Community In Time,” A Year of the Lord, p. 133)

The Bible doesn’t leave us in the dark about what God’s business is. It’s loving God and loving neighbor. God’s definition of neighbor is not limited to those who live in your zip code, though it better include those. Your neighbor is anyone who has been beaten and is lying in the ditch of life. Your neighbor is anyone who needs you to be neighbor to them. Your neighbor is a child in America underserved by our society. Your neighbor is a prisoner in Guantanamo Bay without due process. Your neighbor is a civilian in Fallouja who is suffering from illegally dropped white phosphorous incendiary bombs. Your neighbor is someone in Darfur who is living in a refugee camp fearful of no food, fearful of being raped tonight. (Ed Bacon, sermon 110908)

We can’t literally follow Jesus into all those places. But we can work to improve their lives. As we prepare for the presidency of Barack Obama we would do well to remember a story Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. told about Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In one situation, a group came to President Roosevelt urging specific actions in support of a cause in which they deeply believed. He replied: I agree with you, I want to do that, now you go out and make me do it. Schlesinger said he understood that a President does not rule by fiat and unilateral commands to a nation. A president must build the political support that makes his decisions acceptable to the voters. FDR read the public opinion polls not to define who he was but to determine where the country was – and then to strategize how he could move the country to the objectives he thought had to be carried out. (William J. vanden Heuvel, “Franklin Delano Roosevelt: A Man of the Century,” an address by to the Monthly Meeting of The Century Association, Apr-4-2002, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute.)

We can help President-elect Obama close Guantanamo and say that torture is unacceptable. This morning’s bulletin tells about an event next Sunday where you can learn more about that. Many have been demonstrating for the right of people to marry the person they love. Some are attempting to raise children to understand what it means to follow Jesus into situations like this. Bringing food for Thanksgiving gift baskets is a concrete way to do this.

John Bell from the Iona Community in Scotland helps us picture the new reality: “Heaven shall not wait for the poor to lose their patience. Christ has championed the unwanted; so injustice confronts its timely end.” Will you follow Jesus into the outer darkness where injustice is confronting its timely end? That is the question this parable leaves us with.

16 de noviembre de 2008 + Frank Alton

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November 12, 2008 + I am the way, the truth and the life + Hayward Fong

John 15:12-17; John 10:7-18; 1 Cor. 12:8-13

Yesterday, November 11th, was Veterans Day. In another couple of weeks, we will celebrate Thanksgiving Day. Both of these days are uniquely American in origin. November 11th is also observed in Canada, but it is called Remembrance Day.

Veterans Day is a day dedicated to the brave men and women of the armed forces who have served our country with honor in war and in peace. Originally called Armistice Day, it marked the end of World War I on November 11, 1918 and was declared a national holiday in 1938. In 1954, the name of the holiday was changed to Veterans Day to honor all of America’s veterans.

This coming Monday, November 17th is World Peace Day, a date not commonly observed. This observance was started by Don Morris, using the name “Peaceguy”, to give the common people a way to demonstrate their desire for peace at the grass roots level. The movement calls for one person to change so others may see the change and also change, cascading like a snowball rolling down the mountainside. In observance, people devote the day in prayer for peace all day, and use outward signs by driving with their headlights on and wearing a white ribbon.

I think it is fitting that we spend our devotional time today reflecting on these three dates, Veterans Day, Peace Day and Thanksgiving Day. We need to remember that the freedom and way of life we enjoy has come as a result of the many sacrifices that have been made in the past. We are indebted to the millions of American service men and women, past and present, who have help secure this for us

To be a veteran on Veterans Day, as I am, is to live for a while with memories that never fade. It is to live with troubling thoughts, too. Can the horrors that is war ever be fully disguised by patriotic emotions? I don’t know. All I know is that soldiers share a bond unlike another other.

The name of the Army chaplain escapes me, but I’ve never forgotten the moving story he told a group of us young soldiers one Sunday morning many years ago. Its message seems particularly appropriate in exemplifying the ultimate meaning of the new commandment that Jesus gave us.

During the heat of a World War II battle, a young infantryman was hit and lay dying between two firing lines. When his buddy Dave heard him call for help, Dave started to go to his friend’s aid, but his platoon sergeant held him back. “It would be suicide to go to him,” the sergeant shouted over the gunfire. Then the wounded man cried again. Dave broke away and ran through a hail of bullets to reach his friend. Desperately, he tried to drag his fallen comrade back to safety, but in the process he himself was mortally wounded.

When the shooting halted, the platoon sergeant ran to the two men. The first had already died and Dave had little time left. “Why did you do it?” the sergeant begged in anguish, “I told you not to go.” Dave answered, “He was my friend and I’d do it again.” Then just before he died, he smiled and added, “It was worth it just to hear him tell me when I reached him, “I knew you’d come.” We were trained in the buddy system in World War II, and learned to be friends and care one to another.

Though examples of courage and patriotism, such as this, are worthy of emulating, we must not lose sight of our Lord, Jesus Christ, who has set the ultimate example for us to follow.

To that end, let me read a poem written by Maj. Gen. James B. Middleton.

A Soldier's Prayer
Lord, bless the wives who grieve alone
And comfort the mothers who mourn their own.
Give solace to the fathers who lost their sons
On foreign shores and in places unknown.
Lord, strengthen the resolve of we who remain
To see that they did not die in vain.

I was a teenager when I entered World War II. By the time I returned home, I had voted in my first election and have voted in every election since. We had defeated the Axis powers that sought to enslave the free nations of the world. We were invincible. When Communist Russia became the next threat, we stood up to her. When Russia built the Berlin Wall, we countered with the Berlin Airlift. We would not allow Russia to suppress the West German people. When North Korea invaded South Korea, we came to her defense as a United Nations effort. Vietnam badly tarnished our image and resolve.

At the time of Vietnam, this didn’t seem to be the America the G.I.s fought, bled and died for. Freedom and pride were badly abused. Young people showed disrespect for authority. Irreverence, rudeness and blatant absence of discipline rule the schools. Bellyaching amid abundance seemed to be the normal pastime. Crime, violence and greed dominated the news. This wasn’t the America I returned to in 1946. In the intervening years, things seemed to become worse with our many questionable foreign policy decisions.

In 1980, I was sent to represent the United States Army at Memorial Day services conducted at Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills. I was in my mid-50s at the time, nearing mandatory Army retirement. Most of the participants were veterans of World War I; there were a few older G.I.s from World War II. These men were, for the most part old, humped and weary, almost a symbol of a fading America. But as I looked into the eyes of those veterans, gazing at the young people in the audience, young people of varied colors, I saw hope in those eyes with the radiance of victory of bygone years. Through the aging eyes of those veterans, I saw the hope of rebuilding the greatness of America; eyes that had seen battles lost, but wars won. The intervening years have borne this out.

Who can forget the huge fireman clutching a dying baby in the Oklahoma City bombing; missionaries giving love, care and life in remote villages of the world; American Olympic athletes generating honor and inspiration in a depressed world; our diplomats feverishly arbitrating for peace in the world’s hot spots; the countless heroes and heroines of the 9/11 terrorist attacks; our nation responding to natural disasters such as the hurricanes that have befallen our eastern seaboard with annual regularity, and the Tsunami on Christmas day 2004 that killed almost 300,000 people; the man made tragedies of Columbine High School and Nickel Mines Amish School; and closer to home the ravages in recent years of recurring wild fires that have destroyed hundreds of homes and killed numerous fire fighters; our citizens offering lives, food, technology and health to all parts of a dying world.

When Iraq invaded Kuwait, we, along with the support of other democratic nations, rescued her in Operation Desert Storm. We have ended a military struggle under the banner of NATO to protect the people of Kosovo from genocide. The world is now facing a similar situation in the Congo. Many question the wisdom of our nation’s current military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, as indicated by the election results of last week, but there is no question as to our resolve in answer to humanitarian needs wherever they may occur. Only history will provide us with the answer of whether we are doing the right things in dealing with this current situation.

Within our own shores, we are engaged in fighting a war of internal ills. Hardly a day goes by that we don’t read about corporate corruption that has resulted in the loss of lifetime savings by investors, real estate foreclosures caused by unscrupulous lending practices, bank failures brought about by lack of Congressional oversight necessitating federal takeovers. Even closer to home we still have daily reports of police brutality on the heels of the still smoldering Rampart Police Station scandal. Our school system is failing to give our children the needed tools to cope with the challenges of tomorrow while spending money to build gilded new campuses. Although some of these battles seem lost, we must have hope. I believe America will win, if only our people will remember.

When I get downcast about the direction our country is going, I remember what I saw in the eyes of those aging veterans that Memorial Day over a quarter century ago and thank God for all the young people who do not make the front pages of our newspapers as part of our nation’s problems, but who will be the unsung heroes of tomorrow, the real spirit of America.

On Thanksgiving Day, 2008, for what will you be thankful? Your faith, your family, your freedom are all, no doubt, high on your list. How about all the helping hands that have brought you this far, the hands that lifted you up when you were down, that someone who took the time to listen to you, all the unknown persons who gave you a smile with a “Have a good day.” We need to be reminded that Thanksgiving is a heart felt attitude that can only multiply in blessing…both for the giver and the receiver.

Carl Sandburg said, “I see America, not in the setting sun of a black night of despair…I see America in the crimson light of a rising sun fresh from the burning creative hand of God.”

“This is the day the Lord hath made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” God bless America!

Closing Prayer: We thank Thee, O God, for our country, formed on the principles of orderly liberty, realizing that it can be perpetuated only if, in the hearts of its people, there dwells a keen sense of righteousness and justice. Grant that this spirit may grow in the hearts of all of us. May our souls be ever inclined toward the virtues that tell of gentleness and kindness, of loving-kindness and forbearance toward one another? Help us to live a life of love, patience, courage and fortitude so we may rise to the level of the image in which Thou hast created us. Amen.

November 9, 2008 + Elizabeth Gibbs Zehnder

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The differences between our lives and the lives of people described in the bible can trip us up. Today’s text assumes that we understand the wedding traditions of 1st century Palestine. It seems as though they did weddings very differently that we do.

For example, Tim and I got married here at Immanuel. Mary Ann Weaver, the wedding director, not coordinator mind you, director, worked with us for the ceremony and reception. From the bridesmaid lunch the day before the wedding to the cutting of the cake at the reception – every moment was clocked out. Mary Ann kept all of us doing what we were supposed to do when we were supposed to do it.

Weddings in New Testament times had a different rhythm. The groom would show up to the bride’s family’s home at an unappointed time and that’s when the wedding would begin. The bridesmaids were in charge of welcoming the groom. It could be any hour of the day or night, hence the importance of having lanterns ready.

As I read this text, I feel sad that there isn’t more sharing going on here – shouldn’t those who have oil share with those in need? You know, in the spirit of if you have two coats give one to your neighbor who doesn’t have one….

But no, it turns out that the sharing of lamp oil is not the point of this text. Maybe it’s more like gas in the car – I remember Sara Erickson telling me about her work for Obama’s campaign. He was attending a fundraiser in LA and Sara’s friend was recruiting people to help out with transporting Obama and his staff to the airport. She had lined up enough drivers and cars, Sara was one of them. They waited until the event was over, and then Obama and his staff climbed aboard and the motorcade headed for LAX. Obviously Sara didn’t show up at the fundraiser with her gas gauge on empty. She wouldn’t ask the driver of the car next to hers if she could siphon some gas out of their tank…She wouldn’t wait for the moment when they were getting in the car to say “oh, mind if I stop by the gas station, I’m running on fumes.” Sara showed up prepared for the role she had promised to play.

So, yes, it was silly of half of the bridesmaids not to come prepared. Maybe they had expected the groom sooner, like before it got dark, maybe they hadn’t imagined that they would be waiting so long, maybe they hadn’t thought it through, but there they were without what was needed, and their last minute shopping trip cost them their admission to the wedding celebration.

In his Gospel, Matthew layouts out stories about characteristics of God’s kingdom. The Kingdom of God is like… a mustard seed…its like yeast that we use for making bread….its like treasure hidden in a field…., but here, Matthew shifts verb tense from present to future– This is how its going to turn out in God’s new world, this is how its going to be …it’s a reference to a future event – one that is coming for certain, but its not scheduled. It gets us in an advent mood a little early.

I’ve shared with you all before, my experiences in advent of 2005. I was very pregnant with Naomi – the doctors had given us a due date of mid-December, but I was feeling like she was coming sooner! Every kick and cramp made me stop and wonder – was it now? It was so hard for me not to be able to know when she would be born, when should I ask my mom to fly out? when should I start my maternity leave, how could I pull together Christmas for Eva? All I could know is that she was going to be born, but the day? The hour? Who knew?

At the same time John, my father-in-law’s health was failing. He had been battling cancer for three years and the tide, it seemed, had turned decisively against him. It was obvious that his strength and vigor were draining from him, but how much longer did we have with him? Would he live to meet his grandchild? It was clear his death was near, but the day? The hour?

And it was advent, so along with all of the world, I was waiting for Jesus to return. Another event that had been promised and immanent, but not calendared. Bursting with Naomi and grieving John’s decline, I found myself attentive to the textures of waiting for Jesus’ return in a whole new way. It was suddenly profoundly relevant to me that something so important could be happening without a published timetable.

In today’s reading and in the preceding chapter, Matthew reminds us that no one knows the day or hour of the arrival of the kingdom of heaven. There’s speculation that Matthew included that emphasis because the faith community was really wrestling with Jesus’ apparent delay. Those who had been eyewitnesses to Jesus and his ministry were passing away, the stories were being shared 2nd and 3rd hand. Given the economic and political turbulence of the times, people of faith had banked on Jesus coming back soon and setting everything right. And yet the years continued to roll by. So Matthew is reminding them (and us) that Jesus said “no one knows the day or hour – not the angels not me, only God in heaven knows” So keep awake, be prepared.

Alright – be prepared, so I can get a pretty good handle on how to prepare for a baby to be born – go to the doctor, come up with a birth plan, get a crib, wash some baby clothes

…And it’s different every time, but we know a bit about how to prepare to loose someone who we love – we have those important conversations, we make sure we know their wishes about cremation or burial, we learn about where safe deposit keys are.

…but God’s New World? how do we prepare for God’s Kingdom to arrive?

Sarah Dylan Breuer suggests, We prepare for God’s kingdom by seeking it – by pursuing the things that God pursues. We prepare for the fulfillment of Christ's purposes on earth by doing what he did. We prepare for God's kingdom by seeking it, and God's justice first.

Mary, the teenage girl, who found herself unexpectedly pregnant, sang a song when she recognized the connection between the child in her womb and the coming of God’s Kingdom. She doesn’t mention much about baby clothes and cribs, rather she prepares herself for what lies ahead by describing what God is about in the world –

Bringing down rulers from their thrones, lifting up the humble, filling the hungry with good things. She gives voice to the radical upheaval that accompanies the in-breaking of God’s New World. She aligns herself with who she knows God to be.

So what is our song, Immanuel? What is on our to do list as we seek to live prepared?

How about starting with….
* Ending poverty and hunger
* Promoting gender equality and empowering women
* justice for immigrants
* economic justice
* Combating HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
* Caring for God's Creation

You might notice these aren’t easy tasks – there is no quick fix for world hunger – people have poured their whole lives into working for these changes and progress is almost imperceptible.

There are breakthroughs – did you hear, we elected a fine man to be our next president, and his father was Kenyan and his mother American! But there are set backs – that same day Californian’s voted to bar gay and lesbian people from being able to get married.

If we are looking to the results of our labor to motivate us, then we will surely grow weary as the wait grows long, we’ll get distracted and discouraged, we’ll let our oil run out and be found unprepared.

What we thought was a short wait has turned into a long one, if we are to live prepared, if we are to stay engaged in the things that God is engaged in, then our motivation needs to be rooted in who we know God to be. We work for justice because God loves justice. We give our time to feeding the hungry because God wants every child to be well fed. We protect and promote life, because God is the God of life. As we heed Jesus’ charge “keep your wits about you, you don’t know how long the waiting is going to be.” We seek to stay engaged in the things that Jesus was engaged in.

Maybe there’s a reason why there isn’t a fixed date on the calendar…it’d be just like us to let ourselves off the hook until the day before – like putting off studying until the night before the final exam. With a date on the calendar we could fool ourselves into thinking that we were in control of the whole event. We could have some gauge of knowing how to prepare just enough to get by. Just enough oil in our lantern to get in the door of the party.

But God’s not a professor handing out grades. God’s not interested in our heroic all-night study sessions. It’s the whole of our life that God wants – each day that unfolds, each breath that we take.

If we knew the day or hour, we’d be all about planning, scheduling, we’d carve out just enough time for God and we’d stay in control of our lives, juggling all the other things that keep us busy and distracted. It's so not the point.

God’s not interested in the parcels of time that we carve out for “God work”. God isn’t interested in being the first priority among many. And when we step back, we see that we are kidding ourselves if we imagine we would control the arrival of God’s kingdom.

God’s desire is for the whole of our being to be in communion with the whole of God.
Doing and attending to the things that God loves, that’s how we prepare ourselves,
  that’s how we “stay awake”
  that’s how we find ourselves there,
  ready to celebrate the wedding feast with joy,
Our lanterns ablaze against the night sky.

9 de noviembre de 2008 + Elizabeth Gibbs Zehnder

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November 5, 2008 + Sick sinner to healed saint + Hayward Fong

Matthew 9:1-13

He sat in his booth by the side of the road. His toll-booth, located on one of the main roads from Damascus into Israel, was on the outskirts of Capernaum. It was a good station. Besides regular taxes paid by the residents, travelers had to stop, present their imported products to the tax official, and pay their taxes before they could go on.

Now it was almost closing time. He gathered his papers together, checked the bills, the receipts, and added the money he had collected. “Hmmm,” he thought to himself, “not bad; business is good and getting better every day. A few more years, and then…” He had put his mind to it early. He had seen it time and time again: money talks. So he had decided to make money—that was the important thing. He would not become rich, necessarily, but make enough, enough to live well, enough to retire early and enjoy life. And if others could retire at sixty-five, he could make it at sixty.

He was clever enough to do it. He had a mind for figures, mathematics, statistics. His classmates and teachers had always thought him clever at school. He was not a man for sports, too puny, not strong enough. He would never make it as a salesman, he was not the glad-handing type. People had often remarked about his high forehead, “a sign of wisdom and knowledge,” they had said. He knew he was clever, clever enough to make money.

So he had chosen to be a tax gatherer. Why not? It was a lucrative field. He had heard that tax-gatherers were hard-hearted, money-hungry, demoralized men. But it couldn’t really be that bad. After all, they were Jews—most all of them were Jews. Just because they worked for the Roman government in collecting taxes, should not make them outcasts. Though people charged these publicans, these tax collectors with taking too much, how would they know exactly how much went to the government, and how much went to them? Some took twenty to twenty five percent. He would only take the accepted fifteen percent. That had been established, and after all, a man had to make a living, even if he has to do it by working for Rome.

Furthermore, he was a true son of Abraham. He was proud of his Jewish ancestry. He would always be true to his heritage. He could never deny that, even if it meant losing this position working for the Romans. It hurt him when he tried to attend the synagogue. After he had become a publican, they tolerated his presence a few times, but they had been so cold to him. They didn’t want him in their congregation. He knew it, he felt it, and he had never gone back. Then, he was too busy anyway, too busy with his work. After his retirement he would go back. Then he would say his prayers, and do his duty toward God.

Yet, as he sat there, adding up his columns, checking his receipts, almost ready to close up shop, he felt discontent. He felt uneasy. It seemed as if from the figures before him, he heard the voices of people. “Robber!” “Thief!” “Crook!” What had that woman said to him today? “Swindler!” “I’m only doing my job,” he had replied. “Lady, I’m not getting anything out of this. Somebody has to collect taxes…”

So it had been lately, every day. He tried to put it out of his mind, but he couldn’t. He was an honest business man. He was a God-fearing man. This was getting on his nerves. Nobody seemed to understand. And the words rang repeatedly down the corridor of his mind: “Robber, thief, swindler, crook.”

The public ostracized him. His neighbors shunned him. The church people had made it clear how they felt. They looked down on him as they would a prostitute. That wasn’t fair. “Collaborator with Rome,” they charged, “traitor to Israel.” But he was not a traitor, and he would never be. Still he had no friends, that is, none outside the circle of other publicans. And yet they were not really friends. He could feel that. As long as he had money, he was acceptable. If he would ever lose it, he doubted if any of them, any one of them would be his friend. They were selfish. They were all out for what they could get. He had had so much more education. He had studied Greek and literature, yet he could never discuss it. All they could talk about was money, and women, of course, but mostly money.

His head was swimming now. He wondered if he could ever get through adding up the columns, as his whole life paraded before him this afternoon

And then he saw Him coming. Down the road He walked, a few of His friends with Him. He had seen Him from time to time, the Carpenter from Nazareth. He came to pay His taxes regularly. He was always prompt. Whenever he had told the Carpenter that taxes had gone up for the next year, the Man had looked at him, merely looked--and yet those eyes had spoken volumes--“was it the tax or was it his percentage.” But without a word He had turned quietly and gone His way. The next year He would be back with the required amount.

And now He was coming down the road toward his toll-booth. He had heard that Jesus had left the carpenter shop, had gone down to the river of Jordan to be baptized of John. He had come to live in Capernaum. Everybody was talking about it. He had cleansed lepers and healed demon-possessed people. People were coming all over to see Him and hear Him. He himself had joined the crowd one day. He had wanted to see for himself. He could not quite know what was happening up front when they had brought the paralytic to Him, but he could hear: “The Son of man has full authority on earth to forgive sins…” (Matthew 9:6).

Son of Man? Authority to forgive? To forgive sins? He thought of those words now. He was a sinner, he knew that. His whole money-hungry life--his whole “money talks” philosophy--it was not right. He bent over his work again as if deeply engrossed, but he was not thinking of his work. “The Son of man has full authority on earth to forgive sins…”

Then he could feel it. He did not have to glance up. He knew the Teacher, the Son of man as He called Himself, was standing directly before him. Now he had to lift his head. And those eyes that had looked on him many a time before, looked straight at him now…straight at him, and through him, and through his books, and through his accounts, and through his empty life.

All of a sudden he felt dirty inside, just plain dirty. He started shuffling his feet, and his hand twitched nervously. Was the Son of man going to call him names, like the rest of them? Then let Him get it over with! No, instead He smiled, and He said: “Follow me” (Matthew 9:9). Follow Him? He wants me to follow Him? Me, publican, outcast, crook, a thief? He trusts me and wants me to become a disciple?

Matthew couldn’t believe his ears. He was overwhelmed at the compliment, overjoyed at being wanted by the Son of man, and suddenly he did not feel dirty any longer. Just clean, forgiven, at peace. “The Son of man has full authority on earth to forgive sins…” That was it! He closed his books. He tumbled out from behind his desk. He shut his booth. And so it was that a publican, a gatherer of taxes, an outcast of society, abruptly made up his mind and made a decision that would alter the entire course of his life: from Matthew the publican, to apostle of Jesus Christ!

For Jesus to choose a publican was as “unwise” a choice as any He could make! The public classified tax-gatherers with prostitutes. They were dishonest, greedy, money-minded men. They were not fit for the synagogue, nor could they testify in court. Jesus was not blind to these facts. He knew the friends he had, the company he kept, the influence this would have made on his life. He knew the man’s ambitions, goals and desires. Yet when a scribe with social position and professional attainments came to Jesus, our Lord discouraged him from discipleship: “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head” (Matthew 8:20). But to Matthew no such negativism, only the positive: “Follow me.” The qualifications of the past make no difference to Jesus.

He only sees the possibilities of the future. Matthew is sharp, keen, clever, and orderly. Matthew has set his goals in life. Matthew will attain those goals. Matthew is disturbed by his life as a publican. Matthew is empty inside. Matthew is already sick of a life that seeks only money. Matthew wants out of the rut! Humanly speaking—a poor choice! Divinely speaking—a magnificent choice! And the proof of that? The Gospel according to Matthew!

The first Book of the New Testament is a product of Matthew and his ready pen. For now whenever Jesus would teach, whenever He would preach, there was Matthew at His side. The pen which once added figures now took it all down. The keen perceptive mind which had kept his ledgers now preserves for posterity the Word of God.

And now I must tell you one more thing about this little, clever fellow, who once believed only in the philosophy “money talks.” He writes a gospel about Jesus, and he does not mention himself! Peter gets into the foreground, and James, and John, but not Matthew. Humility is a true mark of conversion. There is only one incident in which Matthew is specifically involved. But he is too humbled to put his own name into it. We have to put the pieces together from the gospel of Luke.

Immediately after his conversion, he invited Jesus to his home. It was quite a feast. Matthew himself is too modest to play it up, but Luke does (Luke 5:29). All his former friends and acquaintances were there. It was a going-away party. Matthew at the head of the table, Jesus in the place of honor, and around the table sat all the social and religious outcasts: worldly men, greedy men, money-hungry men, men with stunted minds, sick, hollow and empty men! Matthew had given suppers before, but never with a Man present who could lose His good name. And yet there was nothing in His manner to make any of his guests feel uneasy. If they wanted the friendship of Jesus, if they looked for help, they could find it in Matthew’s new-found Savior.

But the religious leaders heard about it. They came to see what was going on. As the publicans were ever looking for more money, as empty sinners are ever looking for more excitement, so the religious leaders were ever on the outlook for scandal. “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” (Matthew 9:11) they criticized. Jesus, who has not condemned one of these outcasts, now turns to the religious people with a forthright answer.

“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick! Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous but sinners” (Matthew 9:12, 13). That fits me, says Matthew, as he listens with new-found joy. It fits him all right, and that is why he records it following his call. “The Son of man has full authority on earth to forgive sins. I have come to call ‘sinners’ to repentance.”

Matthew has been rescued. Rescued from his sins, yes. Rescued from his empty life, yes. Rescued from his money-hungry life, from his disillusioning philosophy of “money talks.” Rescued from a life he has deliberately chosen, and has found unfulfilling, unsatisfactory—wanting! And Matthew could never get over it. He had found the pearl of great price. Into his narrow life has come the experience of grace and love. If Jesus could call a despised outcast, a disturbed sinner like Matthew, then He opens the door to all; then He has indeed come to “call sinners to repentance.”

Matthew would say it to you and me with all his heart. “The Son of man has full authority on earth to forgive sins.” He knows whereof he speaks. He has experienced it—he has been rescued. He knows we can experience it, too. And so he must record it in red ink when he takes up his pen to write the gospel: “If a man has a hundred sheep and one wanders away from the rest, won’t he leave the ninety-nine on the mountain side and set out to look for the one who has wandered away? Yes, and if he should chance to find it I assure you he is more delighted over that one than he is over the ninety-nine who never wandered away. You can understand then that it is never the Will of your Father in Heaven that a single one of these little ones should be lost” (Matthew 18:12-14).

November 2, 2008 + What kind of leaders do we need? + Frank Alton

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Micah 3:5-12; Matthew 23:1-12

In two days many of us will go to the polls to elect a President, some members of congress and judges, as well as to vote on local and state measures that will impact people for generations to come. That’s a pretty awesome responsibility. It may be even more awesome for people of faith, because we have some source documents that go back past the constitution to guide us. The passage we read from Micah says a very radical thing: when the leaders of the people fail, all the people suffer consequences, not just the leaders: “Hear this, you rulers: because of you Zion shall be plowed as a field; Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins.”

In the case of the U.S. even the world beyond our borders suffers the consequences of our leaders “gone bad.” It’s critical, then, that we choose leaders who are less likely to go bad. So I want to look at some criteria for leadership that Micah and Jesus offer. Of course, in a democracy our responsibility doesn’t end with an election. We also need to hold rulers accountable once they are elected. So these criteria guide both our voting and our letter writing to elected officials between elections. Both Micah and Jesus come at these criteria from the negative side – the leaders they were addressing were failing to show these qualities. We may make our evaluation from either the positive or negative side.

The first quality lifted up is humility. The conclusion of our Gospel lesson has Jesus telling the crowds, “All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.” We have just been through eight years during which our leaders have believed that the United States needs to be a dominant and unilateral leader in the world, whether the world wants us to lead or not. That hasn’t gone so well. Today there aren’t many nations that want to follow us. Yet we have heard a lot of that same discourse recently in the campaign. Of course, some patriotic hyperbole is inevitable in a political campaign. But I believe that the message of Micah and Jesus for us at this important juncture in history is that perhaps the task for the U.S. during the next phase of our history is to begin by rejoining the world. Then, with greater humility, perhaps we can play a wiser leadership role. (Sloan Coffin 58) We could do worse than follow St. Augustine who said: “Never fight evil as if it were something that arose totally outside of you.”

Yesterday there was an interfaith service for "No on 8" down at St. John’s Cathedral. It was an inspiring service with many celebrities speaking. One man was a new celebrity – Father Geoff Farrow, the Catholic priest who came out against Proposition 8 at the end of mass at his parish in Fresno last month. He was suspended from the priesthood. He has been called courageous and he has been maligned as disobedient and scandalous. He received a standing ovation when Martin Sheen made reference to him, not even knowing he was in the room. He’d been assigned the role of offering a Catholic prayer. I expected him to make a few remarks before his prayer. But he went straight to the prayer and then sat down. He is one hero obviously not yet ready for Hollywood style stardom. He reminded me of the difference between being a hero and being a celebrity. Some people can be both, but we at least need heroes who don’t seek celebrity status for its own sake. If you choose to listen to Micah and Jesus, you might ask yourself which candidates demonstrate greater humility.

The second quality I see Micah and Jesus calling for is the ability to hold ambiguity. The leaders that Micah rebuked said: “Surely the Lord is with us! No harm shall come upon us.” No ambiguity for them. Things was as clear as day: they could get away with anything because God was on their side. Some religious people hold certainty dearer than truth and prefer obedience to discernment. Too many bear out Charles Darwin’s contention that ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge (Sloan Coffin 10). In other words, the more people know, the more aware they are of what they don’t know. People who know just a little tend to come to very solid sounding conclusions. Apparently such religious folk were as abundant in Micah’s time as they clearly are in ours. Conventional religious wisdom has always stressed correct belief and right behavior, often with a wink and a nod when the behavior of the teachers fails to align with that. Jesus challenged that when he said, “Do whatever they teach you & follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach.” That is one of the most damning reprimands that can be given a leader.

My ability to hold ambiguity was challenged most recently by questions raised around the death of John Robert McGraham. John’s death itself wasn’t very ambiguous. To pour gasoline on someone and light a match has to be one of the most clearly inhumane acts that can be taken by a human being. But questions about his life swirl with ambiguity. On the one hand, the fact that John was homeless for so many years is a witness against our culture and against the institutions that serve this community, including the church. Homelessness is an embarrassing reality in the wealthiest country in the world, and in a city known for having the greatest disparity between rich and poor in the country. At the same time I know that it is often challenging to help the homeless. It often appears that they don’t want the help we can give. Some times it seems that they demand more than is reasonable because they won’t accept the shelters that are available or the services that are offered. And what do we do with people who have mental illness due to drugs, trauma from war or abuse? Some of those people were being abused in the institutions society had set up to care for them. So they were released. But that hasn’t worked either.

I confess to having gotten worn down by all this over my years at Immanuel. When I first came to Immanuel I wanted to help every homeless person I met. I had just lived for nine years in Mexico where there were no homeless people. Food and shelter for all are considered basic rights in Mexico. But in Mexico it is not government or non governmental institutions that take care of the homeless. Families simply don’t let family members become homeless – at least they didn’t used to. It’s complicated when our cultural family values don’t function in the same way. So I’m not as spontaneous in my response to the homeless any more. That bothers me. Elizabeth brought this home to me this past week when she asked about someone who came with a story asking for help. She expressed the dilemma we all feel when we have to decide to help a particular person. “What if this one is Jesus?” Which candidates demonstrate the need to acknowledge the complexity, live with the ambiguity, and struggle to find solutions?

Another clear criterion the prophets apply to leadership is the courage to tell the truth. The essential sin of the leadership of Israel was the fact that "the right" was for sale. One could bribe the judge for a positive personal outcome. The preacher (prophet) would mold the message around economic benefit. If you want good news, you can have it for a price. The sin of corruption is compounded all the more because the false prophet claims God’s backing. Micah on the other hand, comes with the power of God for "truth telling," the ability to resist the whims and desires of the people for words of peace and light when there is no peace and light. Micah “declared to Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin.” That is not the way to win friends. The truth will make God's children healthy and mature, but first it will make them angry.

It turns out that these criteria for leaders are cumulative. We have to bring humility and the ability to live with ambiguity to our courage to tell the truth. The other day I visited an encampment at Olvera Street where a group of folks are carrying out a fast of several weeks to demand that attention be given to the needs of immigrants. The idea behind the fast is to recall the historic Mayday march of 2006 that went right past Immanuel. The shout that day was, “Today we march, tomorrow we vote.” The fast is designed to move people to implement the second part of that slogan: to vote, and to hold political leaders accountable for the crisis they have created and tolerated. It was billed as “the largest hunger strike in U.S. history, calling on 1 million people to sign a pledge to vote for immigrant rights.

One of the fasters, Frank Romero, has been at Immanuel many times and I went specifically to visit him. I had decided to fast for just the one day – which felt pretty wimpy when I saw his tag that read “Day 16.” Frank told me how they had had to keep moderating their ambitious goals. They went from wanting a million signatures to believing that several thousand signatures would still be significant. They went from the idea of a hunger strike until something changed to fasting through the election. Some of the fasters, including Frank, had to either moderate or go off the fast altogether for health reasons. Some might get cynical about all that. But as I met the fasters and others working in solidarity with them, I couldn’t shake the inspiration I got from seeing their courage to tell the truth, even if nobody was listening. Which candidates demonstrate that quality?

Being compassionate people for others: “Hear this, you rulers of the house of Jacob… who abhor justice and pervert all equity… [and] give judgment for a bribe.” Micah's words sound very much like some of the denunciation we've heard pronounced lately upon corporate executives who have enriched themselves while the people who worked for them have their life savings erased by greed. It has been said that there is no smaller package in the world than that of a person all wrapped up in himself. The prophets – from Micah to Jesus – want to free people from their smallness and offer them a different way. In that way, love is our business; if we can’t love, we’re out of business. When Jesus talked about love, he didn’t just leave it at love for family or those like us. He pointed out that it is the person who is different that calls out for our love.

This gets to the very heart of Jesus’ teaching. Unfortunately, Jesus’ followers have had a difficult time over the millennia sticking with the heart of Jesus’ teaching. Even Peter didn’t get it right away.Remember the story of Peter and Cornelius? It started with a vision in which a sheet with profane and impure beasts came down and he was instructed to eat foods that his faith told him were profane and impure. The story ends with Peter in the house of a profane Gentile centurion named Cornelius preaching that “God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean,” and then baptizing a bunch of Gentiles in the name of Jesus. What finally sunk in for Peter is, first of all, that no discrimination against any sort of repugnant person can resist the crucible of learning not to call them profane or impure. Once that happened, he realized that it was then his responsibility to build a different kind of community. Baptizing those Gentiles was considered even more blasphemous than being in their home. Peter understood that to not call anyone profane or unclean is a positive command to actually build a new community.

When we apply this criterion to the task of electing leaders, I think we have to consider two questions that keep getting asked in the current political climate. First, who are “real” Americans? And second, what is “American interest” in a particular part of the world? Micah and Jesus both ask leaders to be people for others in ways that make those the wrong questions. Real Americans and those who benefit from our policies should not be defined as those who are able to pay for the right answers or who accept the social order as it is handed to them, even if they are excluded from its benefits. Rather, those who have been excluded and unable to pay should be the very ones who help us discover a new identity characterized by being compassionate people for others.

So as Americans and as people of faith we have a tremendous responsibility to exercise on Tuesday and beyond. Let us go thoughtfully, because as the song says, “we are singing for our lives.”

2 de noviembre de 2008 + Frank Alton

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October 29, 2008 + Authentic love + Hayward Fong

John 13:31-35

For the longest time, our Pastors and pulpit guests have preached on the importance of fellowship and community. Community building has been a theme woven throughout our mission program objectives here at Immanuel for some time. I don’t usually think of these ingredients as part of my personal Christian life. But, I have since found fellowship and community to be particularly important to us as individuals when our faith is ebbing and low.

At those time, the loyalty of friends is so important. In retrospect, it raises the question in my mind of my loyalty. Am I truly loyal to my friends? Are their lives better because I am their friend? Do I pray for my friends to have good things happen to them?

I read a story many years ago about an artist who made a sketch of a winter twilight. The trees were laden with snow and a dreary looking house stood in the midst of the drifted field. It was a bleak and depressing picture. Then, with yellow chalk, the arrtist put a light in one of the windows. The effect was almost magical. The entire scene was transformed into a vision of comfort and cheer.

It’s amazing to see the effect we can have on another person’s life. If we care enough about one to pray for him or her, God uses that prayer to also bind us close together in our friendship. Our Wednesday Morning Worship Service had its beginning as a prayer service and evolved into the more formal service as we know it today. Recently, I felt the need to place greater emphasis on the needs of people on the Weekly Prayer Request, so we have set aside a special time to pray silently for those needs.

When our friends are having problems, our first desire should be for God to use us to help them get through their problems. We must also warn them of the dangers that are before them. If we give them only ourselves, it is not enough. We must also give them God.

When Mother Teresa of Calcutta was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, someone asked her what we can do to promote world peace. Her answer was deceptively simple but very much to the point, “Go home and love your family.” Go home and love your family!

Unfortunately, the word love has received some poor press in recent years, and, as a result, it doesn’t have the bite and meaning Jesus was talking about when He gave us His new commandment, “to love one anothor ” All too often we hear comments like “I just love your new outfit.” Or, “I just love the barbeque sauce on the Colonel’s fried chicken.” Or, “Don’t you just love the lines on the new BMWs?”

But Jesus’ new commandment and Mother Teresa’s formula for world peace is a much harder and tenacious love than shows up in casual conversation and in television commercials. The English word is deficient in this respect in that we only have the single word love. Jesus new commandment is not something we feel, it is something we do. Authentic love, the kind that binds us together as families, as communities is not a euphoric emotion that sneaks up on us on our blind date. Rather, it is learned and relearned again and again.

I think Antoine de Saint Exupery, the French author and aviator, captured an important slant on love when he said, “Love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction.” It is looking outward toward common goals and desires that enriches the love among family members, that allows each member of the family to grow and mature as uniquely different individuals, yet bonded together.

In my growing up, saying, “I love you,” was non-existent. I had to learn to say it; the more I said it, the more I meant it and the easier it came. This is not to imply that it became mechanical but rather because it became real.

Something else about Jesus’ rugged kind of love was beautifully expressed by Paul when he wrote, “Love believes all things” (I Corinthians 13:7, RSV). But that phrase might better be translated, “Love is always eager to believe the best.” That’s the model for us in our relationships...every day believe and expect the best in each other.

As Mother Teresa implied – as we express our love within the family circle through words and touch and loving actions, we will experience a peace and joy that “surpasses human understanding” (Philippians 4:7, JBP). World missionary Dr. Frank Laubach summed up the whole idea of Jesus’ new commandment in these words, “When iron is rubbed against a magnet, it becomes magnetic. Just so, love is caught, not taught. One heart burning with love sets another on fire.”

I had finished and printed this message last Friday but what I heard on Bill Moyer’s weekly program on KCET caused me to come back and share these closing thoughts. He was interviewing a man by the name of Mark Johnson. Mark had just finished a project, which I would call love in action.

Ten years or so ago, he was one of thousands in New York City rushing to catch the morning subway to work. All of a sudden, the people at the station stopped their rush, himself included, spellbound by two white clad monks playing music and singing words they probably did not understand. A short time later, Mark was in Santa Monica walking along the beach front when he, along with others, was captivated by various musicians playing and singing spiritual messages of love.

Mark’s eyes were opened to how music might be a common medium to communicate the message of love. He obtained the consent of these Santa Monica musicians to record their music with the intent of having it played by musicians around the world as a TV production. Mark started in South Africa. After locating a musician renown in the land he wanted to begin where love was needed the most. They went to an AIDS ridden village for the TV recording. Afterwards, he asked the people what he might give back in return from this project. They felt that a school devoted to music would be most appropriate since it was music that had brought him to them. From that beginning, more schools have been funded by Mark Johnson’s program, “Playing for Change: Peace through Music.” This is another example of what God can do with a person with a vision answering the call to love.

So each day, let us ask God to help us see the opportunities to love as Jesus loved and in so doing set the world on fire.

October 26, 2008 + Samuel Chu

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26 de octubre de 2008 + Frank Alton

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October 22, 2008 + Here I Am, Lord + Hayward Fong

Ephesians 2: 1-10

On Thursday, October 9, 2008, at 8:30 in the evening, a homeless man, later identified as John Robert McGraham, was doused with gasoline and set afire, a mere four and a half blocks north of us at Third and Berendo Streets, burning him to death. Last Wednesday morning, I addressed what happened during the time we set aside for prayers of the people.

Last Saturday, 250 people filled this Chapel to memorialize John. They came from all walks of life, near and far, rich and poor, some homeless with their personal belongings in shopping carts, many came pondering the question “Why would any one do this to another human being?”

Studies show that sadistic violence does not discriminate by gender, race, ethnicity, social or economic status. All may be targets of violence and homeless people are among the easiest. What leads people to perpetrate such atrocities on homeless people who are striving to survive on our streets? How could society in general and we in particular have allowed such an awful thing to happen?

Last month, the State knocked $4 million from the current year’s budget, money that was earmarked for housing and services for the homeless. Further cuts have been made in the ensuing fiscal year which will wipe out emergency housing and assistance programs, which translates into no State funding for shelters, food banks and transitional housing. It has shunted its responsibility down to the lowest level and says “Here, it’s your problem, take care of it.” The poorest of the poor don’t have enough societal clout to climb the budgetary ladder to plead their case. Our governmental institutions have failed John and others like him and have left it to the likes of us to handle.

Jesus Christ was a man of action! As the Son of God, He immersed Himself in what He saw going on around Him. His ministry did not revolve merely around the synagogue. When He saw people in need, Jesus reached out in love.

Jesus teaching and preaching methods would never be described as a hit-and-run ministry. The Gospels record 132 instances of Jesus teaching, healing, encouraging, working with individuals and groups, warning and ministering to people’s needs.

Ten of these occasions were in the temple and in the synagogues. The other 122 were with people where they lived…in the workplace, marketplace, neighborhoods and communities (Winning Through Caring, Matthew Prince).

Jesus Christ’s commission as recorded in Matthew 2:19, “…to go and make disciples…” was never more relevant that today, right now for our times. Broken relationships litter our world. Society is under siege.

Races and religions discriminate against each other. The employed and unemployed, educated and uneducated, rich and poor, gay and straight are polarized. Even among the major religions, Protestants against Catholics in Northern Ireland, Jews against Muslims and among Muslims, Sunnis against Shiites in the Middle East, Hindus against Christians in India, Nepal and Bhutan. Bigotry has shown its ugly head in the current presidential campaign.

If ever there was a time that our society needed bridge builders and peacemakers, it is now. God invites each of us to join Him and become His agents of reconciliation. God “reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation…” And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are called to be Christ’s ambassadors (2 Corinthians 3:5).

Paul and Apollos were ambassadors for Jesus Christ, servants through whom others came to believe (1 Corinthians 3:5). Paul talked to the polytheists at Athens, to the common citizens in Antioch and to the jailer in Philippi.

The challenge of the church today is to move out into the marketplace and workplace, which have the same needs as in the days of Jesus and His apostles. The church is revitalized when the disciples of Christ share the good news with the world. The gathering last Saturday memorializing the tragic death of John Robert McGraham, the out pouring of love and concern, have given living testimony to the meaning of spiritual conversion and community.

Leonard Sanderson and Ron Johnson in Evangelism for All God’s People wrote, “We as Christians should spend as much time as we possibly can with those who need Christ, in the workplace, at play, in social clubs, in hospitals, in schools…wherever people are. If we follow Christ’s example, we will break out of the ‘holy huddle’ where the only people we know are already Christians.”

We must never underestimate the power of relationships. We can never predict the power of Christian example. God by His Spirit uses different people, different means and different methods to nudge others along toward Himself. The work of the Spirit is complemented by a great network of God’s people. God doesn’t expect us to fly solo in our efforts to share the good news.

Our personal evangelism is not a program or special event, preaching on the street corner or going door to door. It is a way of living and relating to others. We need to listen to others. We can tune into the conversation of others and link Jesus Christ to their needs…their inner hurts of failure, their insecurity, their loneliness, their rejection or a desire for wholeness.

Former Congressman John B. Anderson reminds us, “Christ’s teaching is very plain. He expects us to take the role of the Good Samaritan, and not delegate our Christian love and compassion and concern in every instance to the paid professionals. We are enjoined to love our neighbor…not just pay taxes to employ someone else to love our neighbor.”

As God’s community of believers, caring about specific needs in the nation, community, neighborhood and street corner should be our motivation and concern. Individually we have many opportunities to serve. Psychologists tell us that volunteering makes people feel good, physically and emotionally. It moves us from focusing on ourselves and problems.

In New York City, high atop Morningside Heights stands a beautiful cathedral, the Riverside Church. I attended worship services there once during World War II when I was in New York on a weekend pass. The church was built through the benevolence of John D. Rockefeller and he wanted one of the great preachers of that era, Harry Emerson Fosdick to fill the pulpit when it was completed, which he did until 1946. I didn’t realize at the time who Dr. Fosdick was in the annals of great American preachers.

In his first sermon, Dr. Fosdick described what he felt would be essential to the success of the new church. He said, “You know it could be wicked for us to have that new church – wicked! Whether it is going to wicked or not depends on what we do with it. We must justify the possession of that magnificent equipment by the service that comes out of it. If we do not, it will be wicked! If we should gather a selfish company there, though the walls bulged every Sunday with the congregation, that would not be wonderful. If we formed a religious club,…though we trebled our membership the first year, that would not be wonderful…” “But,” he continued, “if in this glorious wretched city, where so many live in houses that human beings ought not to live in, where children play upon streets that ought not to be children’s playgrounds, where unemployment haunts families like the fear of hell. And two weeks in the country in the summertime is a paradise for a little child, if we could lift some burdens and lighten some dark spots and help to solve the problems of some communities, that would be wonderful. If in that new temple we simply sit together in heavenly places, that will not be wonderful, but if we work together in un-heavenly places, that will be.” He preached those prophetic words in 1929 about the same time as Immanuel moved into this magnificent cathedral.

In the parable of the Last Judgment (Matthew 25:31-46) which we studied a month or so ago, Jesus introduced a new principle of judgment, that of our reaction to the needs of others. He is not so much concerned with what we did not do in following His Commandments, but rather “What did we do to ease the burdens of others?” We will be measured not as reported in the newspaper or TV or in the history books, but rather by our actions and interactions with people we meet in our daily walks of life.” Might this be said of our life when our journey here on earth ends, “He or she made life easier.”

Jesus’ principle is summed up in the sentence, “As you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.” In human life, a parent gets more pleasure when something is done for his children than something done for himself. It is the same with God. In one sense we can do nothing for God and give nothing to God, for God being God has everything, but He wants our love as expressed in doing something for His sons and daughters. When we do something for a fellow human being we are doing something for God.

There is an old legend of Martin of Tours, the soldier saint. One cold winter day as he was entering a city a beggar asked him for alms. He had nothing to give him, but the beggar was blue with cold. Martin took the old soldier’s cloak he wore, cut it in two, and gave half to the beggar. That night, Martin had a dream. In it, he saw heaven and all the hosts and Jesus. Jesus was wearing the half of the soldier’s cloak. One of the angels asked, “Master, why are you wearing that old cloak?” And Jesus answered, “My servant Martin gave it to me.”

The care and concern for John Robert McGraham by people in the neighborhood during his life on the street and the continued out pouring of love following his tragic death has served to glorify God once again by giving real meaning to “love your neighbor as yourself” in building His community here on earth as it is in heaven.

Our congregation is at the cross roads along its journey in the 21st Century. It is now preparing the map for Immanuel to follow in answering this call to action, to walk in the way of our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ. It calls for us to go into the world with Him together. Are you ready to answer, “Here I am, Lord”?

Amen.

October 19, 2008 + The Absent-Present God + Frank Alton

Exodus 32:1, 2, 4-5, 7, 10-11, 13-15, 19-20; 33:1a, 3, 12-23

A lot has happened since I last stood here two Sundays ago. We went from debating whether we were in a recession to comparing the financial crisis to the Great Depression. It appears the presidential election has been all but decided. All of that takes place against the backdrop of ever increasing awareness of global warming, the roller coaster of Middle East violence, and the ever present threat of nuclear annihilation.

Many say the world is in the midst of a major transition. Every time any part of the world faces the end of an age or stage of life, it faces a question: Is this a moment of shedding & breaking down old forms so a threshold can be crossed into another stage of culture or of life? Or is this the final curtain? How we answer may be a matter of temperament, but we all feel a certain level of anxiety about what next. One of my new mentors, Michael Meade, describes some of ways anxiety gets played out: “On the threshold of an age old battlefields are revisited. Money changes value faster than it changes hands. Once again the great question of a woman’s right to choose abortion lies on the campaign trail. Once again the death penalty is in question. Once again the demand for civil rights flares up. Question of racism demand renewed attention. The questions that divide the genders rattle within houses and institutions.”

The Hebrew people gathered at the foot of Mount Sinai were at one such critical juncture. Their roots went back to a single family in their founding stories about Abraham & Sarah, Isaac & Rebecca, Jacob, Leah & Rachel. The experience of Egypt had transformed them into something larger than a clan but less than a distinct community. They eventually became slaves in Egypt, until God liberated them by the hand of Moses. They quickly arrived at Mount Sinai. Back in Chap 19, when they arrived at the desert around Mount Sinai, right before giving Moses the 10 commandments and the law, God had said to Moses: “Say to the house of Jacob…if you obey my voice and keep my covenant you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation.” Did you catch that? No longer would they be a clan; they would be a kingdom of priests. The Hebrews were actually born as a people at Sinai. Everything before that had been a gestation period. When they set out from Sinai, everything would be different.

The story we read this morning takes place while they’re still at Sinai. The people didn’t know they were to be a priestly kingdom and holy nation. Only Moses had been told that, and who knows what he understood those words to mean. He had some sense that, in spite of how dramatic the Exodus was, they “ain’t seen nothin’ yet.” Or as Dorothy put it in The Wizard of Oz, “I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.”

Cataclysmic transitions generate anxiety in both leaders & people. What is going to happen when the things I’ve always depended on are no longer certain? People were in a panic because they knew something was ending. They demanded that Aaron do something about it. He placated their panic by making a golden calf to worship. They had no idea what was coming down; that is not comforting. They weren’t thinking about the new, they were scared about losing the old.

Moses knew more. He also knew something new was coming. He may not have understood the nature of the new or its implications for their lives, but he had enough information to be more focused on the future. He had heard God tell him that this rabble of liberated slaves was going to become a nation, God’s treasured possession out of all the peoples. The passage we read today addresses God’s spiritual preparation of Moses.

The first step in that preparation was to show Moses that being a kingdom of priests was not primarily about being distinct from other nations because they’d been chosen by God to be special and unique. It was more about being people who learned not to be anxious about the things that made other people anxious. I was reminded of this truth at the Yom Kippur service held here at IPC when the rabbi invited all the non-Jews forward to receive a special blessing. She reminded the congregation that the Hebrew slaves were not the only slaves in Egypt and that the exodus was not only for the Jews but for all the slaves. The distinctiveness that God wanted to build into the people who became the Jews has to do not so much with chosenness but with a quality of life that one rabbi has called “a non anxious presence.” (Ed Friedman)

To expect no anxiety may be a bit much. It’s more about keeping anxiety at a low enough level to be able to act. I saw the impact of that quality of life yesterday at the funeral of John Robert McGraham, the homeless man who was torched to death last weekend. The people of this community set up a memorial altar after John’s death and responded with powerful expressions of grief and anger to the atrocity. They had some anxiety, but they were able to act. That was enough for John’s siblings. Yesterday at the funeral, John’s brother, David, confessed his cynicism about the world. He told us that his sister had what he called “the fantasy” that hundreds of people would show up for the funeral. He didn’t know how to let her down easily about what he considered a fact: that no more than 50 would show up. As he stood before the 250 people gathered, he barely got words out through his tears. He shared how the outpouring of love for his brother had begun to change his cynical heart. He obviously was not over the shock of having been wrong; but he said he was glad to be wrong. This particular wrongness was powerful in his life.

Then his sister, Suzanne, got up to speak. On Wednesday when I met with Suzanne and David, she was mostly concerned that I wouldn’t be too religious during the service. But what she said to the gathered congregation topped anything I could have said. She said that she believed that the perpetrators had accomplished a good thing in spite of their evil intent. I thought I was hearing the patriarch Joseph speaking to his 11 brothers. This woman, who took a certain pride in not having faith, was bearing witness to God’s providence in her brother’s horrible death only a week after he had been murdered in one of the worst atrocities that can be inflicted on a human being. I was blown away. But that is the impact of a community that can overcome at least enough anxiety to act in ways that are seen as beautiful by others. In one sense, the people were just expressing their grief in the only way they knew how. But the family experienced it as loving solidarity that transformed them in significant ways.

The question I want to raise this morning is, “What is involved in the spiritual preparation for being able to act in loving solidarity in the midst of crisis so that others can be transformed?” For Moses it involved nothing less than a new way of experiencing God. Up until this point, Moses had been treated to face to face conversations with God. Now God was preparing him for a stage of the journey in which Moses would experience God’s presence as absence. I believe that the capacity to draw on God’s presence when we experience God as absent is the foundation for the capacity to express loving solidarity. Loving solidarity is a way to be close yet separate; to be in the world so deeply that one is tempted to be anxious, but to not allow the anxiety to keep us from loving those around us, even if they’re frozen by fear. To know God’s absent presence is the spiritual foundation of the practice of compassion.

God said to Moses, “I will not go up among you.” Moses argued with God and seemed to win the argument. God replied, “I will do the very thing that you have asked.” But did God do what Moses asked? Moses asked to see God’s glory. God responded, “I will make all my goodness pass before you & will proclaim before you the name, Yahweh. But you cannot see my face; for no one shall see me and live.” Now that may sound fine to you, but Moses is the guy had spoken to God face to face time and again. This must have felt like a major demotion to Moses.

Actually, it wasn’t so much a demotion as a protection from turning one way of relating to God into an idol. We have to move out of habitual ways of relating to God in order to explore new dimensions of God we haven’t known before. We never have all the answers. If we did God knows we would try to manipulate God. Ann LaMott says, “I hate it that I can’t prove the beliefs of my faith. If I were God, I would have the answers at the end of the workbook, so you could check as you went along, to see if you’re on the right track. But nooooo.” (Plan B, pp. 274-75)

The appearance of God’s glory would be the answer in the back of the workbook for Moses. God said, “I will make my glory pass in front of you. Then I will whisper to you my name.” How odd. God had already whispered the divine name to Moses, back in chapter 3. What’s this about? Remember what the name, Yahweh, meant? “I Am Who I Am.” Or maybe, “I Will Be Who I Will Be.” In other words, you could know God’s name, and still not know anything about God. You still would not be able to control God, or even manage your life in such a way as to avoid God. God was reminding Moses, “Just because I cause my glory to pass in front of you, don’t think you’ve got me figured out. I Am Who I Am.”

God was inviting Moses to go deeper in their relationship. When Moses saw only God’s hand and then the back of God, he sees God leaving. But it wasn’t a sign of departure. He sees a God who disappears in appearing. It was the same experience the two disciples had at Emmaus: as soon as they recognized Jesus, he disappeared. We could say it another way: God gets closer as God retreats. Wasn’t this what happened to the Apostle Paul on the Road to Damascus? Or we could say that God is more deeply united with us as we allow God to be more separate from us. That’s what Mary experienced in the garden when Jesus said to her, “Don’t cling to me.”

Whenever we’re invited to go deeper with God it involves darkness. Deep places tend to be dark places. In Christian history this experience has come to be called the Dark Night of the Soul. Dark nights of the soul are provoked by different circumstances. Sometimes they come as something interrupts the forward movement after a success. It’s necessary because otherwise success will become an idol. Or when they experience the losses that accompany bold changes in their lives, changes that are part of God’s call, but which are unfamiliar and therefore unsettling. They also happen when we simply need to access other parts of God, to get a larger taste of God.

Whatever provokes it, it’s frightening to experience God’s hand covering our faces so we can’t see the familiar – we can’t see reality as we are used to seeing it. When all the old securities are called into question, when everyone seems to have lost their way, the way must be found in the darkness and unconsciousness that waits just at the edge of the bright lights of the anxious daily world. It is tempting for every culture that goes through such a time to return to old ways, old idolatries.

As people of faith and as a community of faith we’re subject to the anxiety & temptations, and we’re called to be priests and prophets in the world. We need to develop the capacity to be fully in the world with all its anxiety, & subject to all its temptations. That’s not difficult for most of us – it comes quite naturally to feel the anxiety of an economic depression, the threat of global warming, and the grasping at straws that tries to hang on to old certainties that are already debunked. It’s tempting to insist on old ways. People wanted the old idols back. Aaron gave them to them. Moses wanted to relate to God and God’s glory in the same old way. That wasn’t God’s agenda for the next stage. Some aspects of returning to the old ways are necessary. But returning is never enough.

As followers of Jesus and Moses we’re called to be in solidarity with those who are under the anxiety. Solidarity represents distance within proximity akin to God’s absence within God’s presence. We need to be able to step back and see ourselves and others in that situation at the same time we access the wisdom to lead through it. It’s quite a challenge. But it is our challenge.

19 de octubre de 2008 + Frank Alton

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October 15, 2008 + In Life, Seize the Moment + Hayward Fong

Matthew 13:44

To modern western ears this may sound like a far fetched story; but, as usual, Jesus was in fact telling of an every day occurrence in Palestine.

As a young boy, I read about pirates burying chests filled with gold on some remote island. In the 49’er days of our statehood, sourdoughs were known to bury their gold nuggets and dust before Wells-Fargo came onto the scene. And it has been rumored that the great golfer, Sam Snead, buried all his winnings in tomato cans in the back yard. But in the days of Jesus, it was a common practice. Palestine was a land of wars and still is. At any time, a man’s back yard might become a battle ground and his house looted. So burying valuables in the ground was one of the most common ways of safeguarding one’s property. The Rabbis had a proverbial saying: “There is only one safe repository for money --- the earth.” I wonder what the Rabbis would say today in light of the current real estate crisis.

Folk-lore is full of tales such as the one we read today. There is one about Alexander the Great who was present when the king of a certain country was called upon to decide a case. A man who had found a treasure in a field, which he had bought from another, wished to return it to the seller. The seller refused to take it back on the grounds that he had sold the field with all its contents. The king settled the matter by deciding that the treasure should be given as a dowry to the daughter of the one man who was going to marry the son of the other. Alexander laughed and said that in his country the king would have killed both men and confiscated the money.

The story that Jesus told was not an improbable happening but rather about something which happened so often that many such stories circulated.

To some readers, this parable probably raises a moral question. When the man found the treasure, he immediately concealed it and rushed off to buy the field without revealing what was in it. This sounds almost like some of the insider trading on Wall Street that we have read about in past several years.

It may be that the man was within his rights. The Jewish Talmud Law is quite clear about findings. “What belongs to the finder and about what must information be given? These things belong to the finder --- if a man finds fruit or scattered money, these belong to the finder.” It would then seem that the man was within his rights. And yet the whole parable has an atmosphere of haste. Why the haste to purchase the field if the treasure legally belonged to the finder anyway?

It has been suggested that Jesus was telling this story of a sharp minded man to get a point across to his disciples. Rhetorically, “If a man will go to all that trouble to get a treasure that perishes, how much more should you spend all your energies and make every sacrifice to get the treasure that matters most of all?” In other words, “If only Christians were as earnest about things of the Kingdom as sharp-minded business people are about the things of business, what a difference it would make in this world of ours.” The one point of the parable is the finding of the treasure and the sacrificing of everything for it; so a person should sacrifice everything for the Kingdom of God.

When we come to the meaning of the parable, the first thing that stands out is the accidental way in which the treasure was discovered. It was found when the man was not looking for it. There have been people who have met Jesus Christ in what looks like a completely accidental way.

Charles Spurgeon, one of America’s greatest evangelists tells this story of his conversion. He was fifteen years old and was off to church one New Year’s morning in New York City. But a blizzard kept him from reaching his church. He turned down a side street and came to a small Methodist chapel. The preacher who was to conduct the service had also been delayed by the blizzard so one of the church officers was called forward to conduct the service for about fifteen people. He was not prepared, obviously. All he could do was keep repeating the text, “Look unto me and be ye saved all the ends of the earth,” because he had nothing else to say. Something about Spurgeon caught the impromptu preacher’s eye; he turned to him and said, “Young man, you look very miserable; and you will always be miserable – miserable in life and miserable in death – if you do not obey my text.” Then he suddenly shouted at Spurgeon, “Young man, look to Jesus! Look, look, look!” Spurgeon recounted, “I did and then and there the cloud was gone, the darkness had rolled away, and that moment I saw the sun.” It looked like a series of the sheerest accidents which made Spurgeon stumble on the grace of Jesus Christ.

It often happened that Jesus came most unexpectedly into a person’s life. An extreme example is Simon of Cyrene. It was the ambition of every Jew once in a lifetime to attend the Passover in Jerusalem. Jews from abroad would scrape and save for the greater part of a lifetime to make it possible. That was probably what Simon had done. He was making his way to the holy city and the sacred temple when he found himself with utter unexpectedness carrying a cross for Jesus (Matthew 27:32). I believe that God is looking for us even before we look for Him.

The man in the parable was at his day’s work when his shovel hit against the treasure and his whole world was changed. And so it is that you and I are likely to come up against God in our daily work. It is one of the amazing facts of life that the day’s work can produce the greatest things.

For years, Johann Sebastian Bach was teacher and organist at St. Thomas’ School in Leipzig. His salary was about $600 per year. His duties entailed training the boys’ choir, playing at worship services, weddings and funerals, and – most amazing of all – produce new compositions every Sunday. They were never published; they were simply written, sung, and then stored in a cabinet where they aged and were forgotten … music that we cherish today such as “Jesu, joy of man’s desiring.” His day’s work in Leipzig produced 265 church cantatas; 263 chorales; 14 larger works; 24 secular cantatas; 6 concertos; 4 overtures; 18 piano and violin concertos; 365 organ works and 162 pieces for the piano.

It is not in longing for some other task than our own but in doing our own faithfully and well that we find happiness and God.

The man in the parable seized the crucial moment when it came. He didn’t stop to make a full and critical examination. He acted as did Charles Spurgeon.

One of the greatest dangers in life is that we may be moved by some high impulse, but we do not act at once and that impulse dies. If we would possess the treasure of the Kingdom we must seize the moments however unexpectedly they come – and they will come, not in times of vain longings for what we don’t have, but in a day’s work.

I close with these words from a familiar hymn by James Russell Lowell (Hymnbook, Hymn No. 361):

Once to every man and nation comes a moment to decide,
In the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side;
Some great cause, some new decision, offering each the bloom or blight,
And the choice goes by forever ‘twixt that darkness and that light.

Amen.

October 12, 2008 + The Prophet vs. the Priest + Andrew Il-Koo Cho

Annual Presbytery pulpit exchange.



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12 de octubre de 2008 + Andrew Il-Koo Cho

Traducción para Robin Ramos.



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