Audio solamente.
MP3 File
January 29, 2008
January 16, 2008 - Extraordinary results from ordinary people - Hayward Fong
Matthew 5:13-16
I have been both intrigued and mystified by the dreams and visions in the Bible...wrestling angels, burning bushes, chariots of fire, a blinding light on the road to Damascus. Though these mysterious events have stirred my imagination, at the same time they seemed a bit out of this world for my engineering oriented mind. They seemed to only happen to specially chosen people, living in a period many millennia before my lifetime.
However, a deeper study in recent years of those events has shown me that these are windows through which we can see how miracles can take place in our everyday existence. In each instance, God gave the person something specific and tangible to take back into ordinary life. A guiding torch, a new name, a fresh start, a safe place…these events gave our spiritual ancestors a closeness to God, a companionship we can also attain. These people were not Superman or Wonderwoman. They were ordinary people like you and me.
Yesterday, Tuesday, January 15th was the birthday of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. Next Monday, the third Monday in January has been set aside as a national holiday in his memory. During this coming week, there will be various interfaith activities held in his honor throughout our nation.
On August 28, 1963, he spoke these words to the multitude gathered in our nation’s capital, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” He was a man of vision, and though his children are now adults fast approaching middle age, his vision is yet to be fulfilled!
Today, I want to speak about another person of color who also carried out a dream. About five years ago, I heard Leontyne Price sing “God Bless America” at the Met on the occasion of its tribute to Richard Tucker. Leontyne Price’s road to fame was made possible by the dream of another woman of color from an earlier generation, Marian Anderson.
In 1939, Marian Anderson was denied the use of Constitution Hall in the nation’s capital for a recital because she was a black woman. The Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) prohibited its use by persons of color. Learning of this, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt publicly resigned from the organization. Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes invited Miss Anderson to perform at the Lincoln Memorial on Easter Sunday. More than 75,000 people heard the concert live, a record at that time, and millions more heard the radio broadcast. The event was so momentous and inspiring that the DAR finally invited her to sing at the Hall for a war relief concert, an event attended by both black and white people.
Miss Anderson’s honors are legion. She was our delegate to the General Assembly of the United Nations. She received honorary doctorates from over two dozen universities, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Presidential Medal of Honor, and decorations from numerous countries. She won the United Nations Peace Prize in 1977 and her face adorns the $5,000 U.S. Savings Bond.
I believe the stand that Eleanor Roosevelt took in resigning from the DAR was a witness of her wisdom and selfless love for all the people of world, and provided spiritual strength for Miss Anderson in dealing with racism down the years.
I would like to share Mrs. Roosevelt’s wisdom and values with you as we cross the threshold into the Year 2008.
Throughout his writings, Paul speaks of our ministry as a commission, as beaming light, extending grace to more and more people, becoming ambassadors for God and working as partners with our Creator.
In our often dark joyless world, people yearn for sunshine. And when they see it shining brightly and unashamedly in another person’s life, they are drawn to inquire about it. You can be that light. Beaming light into the world depends on how we forge our friendships. Through friendships, the love of Christ can break through.
People are looking for demonstrated love. The people of God need to reach out to others in genuine love, care and empathy. Jesus said that love would mark true discipleship when he gave his new commandment (John 13:34-35).
You can tell if someone cares. He or she sends a card, provides transportation, volunteers, takes care of a child, delivers a meal, listens actively, holds a hand, extends hospitality, visits a hospital, tutors, offers a prayer, cleans, does the laundry, makes phone calls.
The story is told about a minister named Vincent who wanted to take the Gospel of Jesus Christ to slaves in the Roman galleys. He was utterly unsuccessful until he chose to be a galley slave himself. Vincent became one of them, pounding with the oars and sharing their trials and hardships. The story hits the essence of true discipleship. You can only make disciples of your friends.
So tell your story when the time comes. William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, was stung into wholehearted Christian service by a skeptic who said, “If I believed what you Christians believe, I would not rest day or night from telling people about it” (Evangelism Through the Local Church, Michael Green).
Possessing the good news of the gospel bears the obligation of sharing it. That which God divinely gave us must be passed on. You and I can be Christ’s hands, feet and lips that will bring his gospel to those who have not heard it.
Are you a disciple of Jesus Christ? If so, then “Let Your Light Shine!”
Amen.
I have been both intrigued and mystified by the dreams and visions in the Bible...wrestling angels, burning bushes, chariots of fire, a blinding light on the road to Damascus. Though these mysterious events have stirred my imagination, at the same time they seemed a bit out of this world for my engineering oriented mind. They seemed to only happen to specially chosen people, living in a period many millennia before my lifetime.
However, a deeper study in recent years of those events has shown me that these are windows through which we can see how miracles can take place in our everyday existence. In each instance, God gave the person something specific and tangible to take back into ordinary life. A guiding torch, a new name, a fresh start, a safe place…these events gave our spiritual ancestors a closeness to God, a companionship we can also attain. These people were not Superman or Wonderwoman. They were ordinary people like you and me.
Yesterday, Tuesday, January 15th was the birthday of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. Next Monday, the third Monday in January has been set aside as a national holiday in his memory. During this coming week, there will be various interfaith activities held in his honor throughout our nation.
On August 28, 1963, he spoke these words to the multitude gathered in our nation’s capital, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” He was a man of vision, and though his children are now adults fast approaching middle age, his vision is yet to be fulfilled!
Today, I want to speak about another person of color who also carried out a dream. About five years ago, I heard Leontyne Price sing “God Bless America” at the Met on the occasion of its tribute to Richard Tucker. Leontyne Price’s road to fame was made possible by the dream of another woman of color from an earlier generation, Marian Anderson.
In 1939, Marian Anderson was denied the use of Constitution Hall in the nation’s capital for a recital because she was a black woman. The Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) prohibited its use by persons of color. Learning of this, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt publicly resigned from the organization. Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes invited Miss Anderson to perform at the Lincoln Memorial on Easter Sunday. More than 75,000 people heard the concert live, a record at that time, and millions more heard the radio broadcast. The event was so momentous and inspiring that the DAR finally invited her to sing at the Hall for a war relief concert, an event attended by both black and white people.
Miss Anderson’s honors are legion. She was our delegate to the General Assembly of the United Nations. She received honorary doctorates from over two dozen universities, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Presidential Medal of Honor, and decorations from numerous countries. She won the United Nations Peace Prize in 1977 and her face adorns the $5,000 U.S. Savings Bond.
I believe the stand that Eleanor Roosevelt took in resigning from the DAR was a witness of her wisdom and selfless love for all the people of world, and provided spiritual strength for Miss Anderson in dealing with racism down the years.
I would like to share Mrs. Roosevelt’s wisdom and values with you as we cross the threshold into the Year 2008.
“Many people will walk in and out of your life, but true friends will leave footprints in your heart.As Christians and being disciples of Jesus Christ we are called to go into the world and share our faith in the hope that others will become disciples. The greatest thing we can do for people is to bring them into a relationship with our Lord and Savior. To do this, the lamp must be put onto the lamp stand and the salt sprinkled onto the meat.
“To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart.
“Anger is only one letter short of danger.
“If someone betrays you once, it’s his fault; if he betrays you twice, it’s your fault.
“Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.
“He who loses money loses much; he who loses a friend loses much more, but he who loses faith loses all.
“Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.
“Learn from the mistakes of others for you can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.
“Friends, you and me…you brought another friend and then we were three. We started a group, our circle of friends and like that circle there is no beginning or end.
“Yesterday is history, tomorrow is mystery, today is a gift; that’s why it is the present.”
Throughout his writings, Paul speaks of our ministry as a commission, as beaming light, extending grace to more and more people, becoming ambassadors for God and working as partners with our Creator.
In our often dark joyless world, people yearn for sunshine. And when they see it shining brightly and unashamedly in another person’s life, they are drawn to inquire about it. You can be that light. Beaming light into the world depends on how we forge our friendships. Through friendships, the love of Christ can break through.
People are looking for demonstrated love. The people of God need to reach out to others in genuine love, care and empathy. Jesus said that love would mark true discipleship when he gave his new commandment (John 13:34-35).
You can tell if someone cares. He or she sends a card, provides transportation, volunteers, takes care of a child, delivers a meal, listens actively, holds a hand, extends hospitality, visits a hospital, tutors, offers a prayer, cleans, does the laundry, makes phone calls.
The story is told about a minister named Vincent who wanted to take the Gospel of Jesus Christ to slaves in the Roman galleys. He was utterly unsuccessful until he chose to be a galley slave himself. Vincent became one of them, pounding with the oars and sharing their trials and hardships. The story hits the essence of true discipleship. You can only make disciples of your friends.
So tell your story when the time comes. William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, was stung into wholehearted Christian service by a skeptic who said, “If I believed what you Christians believe, I would not rest day or night from telling people about it” (Evangelism Through the Local Church, Michael Green).
Possessing the good news of the gospel bears the obligation of sharing it. That which God divinely gave us must be passed on. You and I can be Christ’s hands, feet and lips that will bring his gospel to those who have not heard it.
Are you a disciple of Jesus Christ? If so, then “Let Your Light Shine!”
Amen.
January 26, 2008
January 13, 2008 - Spirit of Gentleness - Frank Alton
Isaiah 42:1-9; Matthew 3:13-17
MP3 File
Last Tuesday evening I officiated at a memorial service for a young man named Frank Nieves who had died on January 1 just up the street from our home from an asthma attack complicated by an addiction to crystal meth. Chichester Chapel, which seats a maximum of about 100 people, was packed with close to 200 people for the service. I had met Frank when I first came to Immanuel 13 years ago through the HOLA program that operated at Immanuel during those years. I had spent some time counseling Frank; because he was open to receive love from just about anywhere it was being offered. Frank was a sweet, loving kid; and he was full of rage. He had been kicked out of his home by his mother because she couldn’t cope with him. He was taken in by his grand mother. I lost touch with Frank for about ten years after that. Then, last year I saw him walking by our house, and discovered that he was living up the street from us.
Ten days ago when I heard that he had died I felt a surprising sadness for someone that had been so marginal to my life. Frank had obviously left his mark on me. But why? As I watched the crowd gather for the service, and listened to the stories shared there, I realized I’d been drawn in by a combination of Frank’s capacity to love and his insatiable need to be loved. That combination led to an ability to create community around him self in ways and in places most of us would never imagine even looking for, much less finding it.
The image of community communicated thru testimony after testimony is what I believe we all long for; at least I do. When Frank arrived at HOLA, he was so full of rage that he would walk off the basketball court with ball in hand and refuse to allow the game to go on until he settled down. Sometimes that took 5 minutes; sometimes it took an hour. But when it passed, he came back as if nothing had happened and said, let’s play ball. His rage led him to continue to behave like that far into his 20s.
Yet the very people who told those stories through tears on Tuesday night spoke of how much they loved Frank, and how much they felt loved by Frank. Big guys who were still dressed like gang bangers were willing to stand up in front of 200 people and say through their tears, “I loved Frank Nieves.” One guy spoke of the period when he and Frank were homeless, and how if either of them came up with $20, it was split right down the middle between them without a thought given to not sharing it. Another spoke of being in jail with Frank, and how they supported each other. I have never had any desire to experience homelessness nor prison; yet I felt envious of the community those guys had in the midst of those circumstances.
As I was preparing this sermon, seeking a fresh word from this familiar story, I tried to get hold of the power of the image of Jesus standing on the banks of the River Jordan waiting his turn to be baptized. The image that came to mind was the community that gathered around Frank Nieves last Tuesday night. When Jesus came to the Jordan to be baptized by John, Matthew alone of all the Evangelists tells us that John tried to prevent him. Jesus responded, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” In which way? What does it mean to fulfill all righteousness? From the context it has to refer to Jesus submitting to John’s baptism, and to standing in solidarity with everyone else who had come to submit to John’s baptism. And who were they? Who else was there? Well, there were prostitutes & the adulterers who were their clients; there were tax collectors & the religious hypocrites who judged them; there were revolutionaries & the conformists who feared them; there were wimps & the bullies who beat them up. In other words, they were all there. I imagine it was a very socially uncomfortable gathering on the banks of the Jordan that day.
I have come to conclude that most of us have been sold a false bill of goods around the meaning of righteousness. We’ve been told that we become righteous by performing certain behaviors, by avoiding other behaviors, & by avoiding & distancing ourselves from people who perform those behaviors in order to assure that we will not be contaminated or tempted by them. That conviction is drummed into us at such an early age that we barely know we believe it.
But if we believe Matthew’s presentation of the story of Jesus’ baptism, we have to conclude almost exactly the opposite: that righteousness has more to do with submitting to each another, and to standing in solidarity with the very ones we have been taught to avoid. By that definition Frank Nieves was righteous – not an adjective I imagine was ever applied to him during his life time. I remember learning as far back as seminary that in Hebrew the word “righteousness” had as much to do with right relationships as with right morality – probably more so. I have felt drawn to that idea for a long time & have preached it frequently. But the image I witnessed on Tuesday night showed me that it is more than an idea. It is one of the core truths of life. That truth sunk into me a little more deeply last Tuesday night. I realized in addition that not only does righteousness enrich individual relationships; it is a key part of both creating and sustaining community. The congregation gathered for Frank’s memorial service was a true, albeit unlikely and uncomfortable, community.
Today we are reaffirming our baptism. In the Reformed understanding, baptism has everything to do with community. Yes, baptism is about entering into the death and resurrection of Jesus. But it is also about being welcomed into the covenant community of God’s faithful people. We have to transform our sanitized view of that community. I talk to many people who don’t want to come to church because they think they are not good enough. I hear from others that people in the church aren’t good enough: “I thought Christians were supposed to be righteous?” So the consequences of our misunderstanding of righteousness are serious both inside and outside the church.
We must begin to change our view of righteousness, and begin to heal the wounds that result from our misunderstanding, so that we can start to experience a more authentic community. But there’s a hitch: authentic community is messier than our sanitized version. And most of us don’t like things messy. It’s also full of surprises, and most of us like a little more control over our surprises. So what will it take for us to move toward authentic community?
I believe Matthew’s story of Jesus’ baptism offers us some clues. “As Jesus came up from the water, the heavens were opened to him & he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove alighting on him. A voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.’ Whatever you believe about the Trinity, all three members of it were present at that moment: Jesus, the Spirit of God, & the heavenly parent of Jesus who calls him beloved.
Christians have come to believe that the three persons of the Trinity have existed in community since before time. In the passage from Philippians I preached on to begin the season of dialogue we have called “Open”, Paul recites that Jesus, “though in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, being born in human likeness.”
The voice from heaven affirmed for Jesus that in the midst of his humanness he was still a beloved part of that community. Isn’t that what we all want to hear? That in the midst of expressing the most authentic part of ourselves – no matter how different we may be from some one else; no matter how at odds we might be with someone else’s view of what humanness should look like – at least one person will say, “I see you as you are, and I love the you that I see.” That affirmation is precisely what empowers us to live in community, to stand with others in solidarity, & to offer our lives in service to others. And that is the affirmation that we are invited to hear from and say to each other as a baptized community.
Let’s examine what that looks like in Jesus’ baptism. Both the Spirit of God & the voice of God came to rest on Jesus as he arose from the waters of baptism. The voice of God spoke the words we have just said that every human being longs to hear – words that transform us into people who can and will do almost anything asked by the one whose voice it is: “this is my beloved.”
In the same moment the Spirit of God led him into the wilderness where he could discern & test out what that voice was calling him to do. There in the wilderness Jesus faced all the voices both inside and outside himself that resisted following the call to be his most authentic self. From there he returned to his hometown of Nazareth, where he entered the synagogue & read from the prophet Isaiah. He found in those words the voice that won out in the wilderness: the voice that told him that the Spirit had anointed him to preach good news to the poor, proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, & to proclaim that just as the voice of God had spoken favor to him, he was anointed to announce that God’s favor was available to all.
Is that level of graciousness available to us? Could that kind of authenticity, that kind of solidarity, that kind of service, actually come to be practiced here at Immanuel to transform us into the community we long to experience? I believe it could be, but it will require some risk, it will require some letting go of assumptions and stereotypes we may have held our entire lives, and it will take some bucking of systems that keep us from changing.
We took (will take) a little risk today in the way we are reaffirming our baptism. It’s threateningly intimate to touch each other, to look into each other’s eyes, and to speak words that call us to something we don’t find easy: to submit to the waters of baptism with people I may disagree with. Let me put that risk in perspective. I recently read about a Rural Presbyterian Church in northern India. It’s an indigenous church composed of the dalit (untouchable) people who are victims of that vile form of injustice known as the caste system, something most of us have only heard of. Though officially illegal, the caste culture still thrives and crushes the poorest of the people. By Hindu law, children of dalits can only be given a derogatory name at birth (stupid, ugly, dumb). But at the Rural Presbyterian Church when dalits come to faith in Jesus Christ, they have a re-naming ceremony, which utterly re-labels them in light of God’s grace & mercy. They step into a new identity with a new name. This extra-ordinary gift shifts power in every part of life.
To imagine a caste system in far off and exotic India from here in Los Angeles creates a dramatic contrast with our own life. But if we are honest with ourselves, don’t we need that new name just as badly as the dalits? Aren’t we just as disempowered by the pressure we feel to be inauthentic in order to be accepted, rather than risk expressing our true selves that might be misunderstood & rejected? Let us take the risk to be ourselves & stop judging each other from that place of insecurity. Let us remember our baptism and accept the new name that we are given there: beloved child.
MP3 File
Last Tuesday evening I officiated at a memorial service for a young man named Frank Nieves who had died on January 1 just up the street from our home from an asthma attack complicated by an addiction to crystal meth. Chichester Chapel, which seats a maximum of about 100 people, was packed with close to 200 people for the service. I had met Frank when I first came to Immanuel 13 years ago through the HOLA program that operated at Immanuel during those years. I had spent some time counseling Frank; because he was open to receive love from just about anywhere it was being offered. Frank was a sweet, loving kid; and he was full of rage. He had been kicked out of his home by his mother because she couldn’t cope with him. He was taken in by his grand mother. I lost touch with Frank for about ten years after that. Then, last year I saw him walking by our house, and discovered that he was living up the street from us.
Ten days ago when I heard that he had died I felt a surprising sadness for someone that had been so marginal to my life. Frank had obviously left his mark on me. But why? As I watched the crowd gather for the service, and listened to the stories shared there, I realized I’d been drawn in by a combination of Frank’s capacity to love and his insatiable need to be loved. That combination led to an ability to create community around him self in ways and in places most of us would never imagine even looking for, much less finding it.
The image of community communicated thru testimony after testimony is what I believe we all long for; at least I do. When Frank arrived at HOLA, he was so full of rage that he would walk off the basketball court with ball in hand and refuse to allow the game to go on until he settled down. Sometimes that took 5 minutes; sometimes it took an hour. But when it passed, he came back as if nothing had happened and said, let’s play ball. His rage led him to continue to behave like that far into his 20s.
Yet the very people who told those stories through tears on Tuesday night spoke of how much they loved Frank, and how much they felt loved by Frank. Big guys who were still dressed like gang bangers were willing to stand up in front of 200 people and say through their tears, “I loved Frank Nieves.” One guy spoke of the period when he and Frank were homeless, and how if either of them came up with $20, it was split right down the middle between them without a thought given to not sharing it. Another spoke of being in jail with Frank, and how they supported each other. I have never had any desire to experience homelessness nor prison; yet I felt envious of the community those guys had in the midst of those circumstances.
As I was preparing this sermon, seeking a fresh word from this familiar story, I tried to get hold of the power of the image of Jesus standing on the banks of the River Jordan waiting his turn to be baptized. The image that came to mind was the community that gathered around Frank Nieves last Tuesday night. When Jesus came to the Jordan to be baptized by John, Matthew alone of all the Evangelists tells us that John tried to prevent him. Jesus responded, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” In which way? What does it mean to fulfill all righteousness? From the context it has to refer to Jesus submitting to John’s baptism, and to standing in solidarity with everyone else who had come to submit to John’s baptism. And who were they? Who else was there? Well, there were prostitutes & the adulterers who were their clients; there were tax collectors & the religious hypocrites who judged them; there were revolutionaries & the conformists who feared them; there were wimps & the bullies who beat them up. In other words, they were all there. I imagine it was a very socially uncomfortable gathering on the banks of the Jordan that day.
I have come to conclude that most of us have been sold a false bill of goods around the meaning of righteousness. We’ve been told that we become righteous by performing certain behaviors, by avoiding other behaviors, & by avoiding & distancing ourselves from people who perform those behaviors in order to assure that we will not be contaminated or tempted by them. That conviction is drummed into us at such an early age that we barely know we believe it.
But if we believe Matthew’s presentation of the story of Jesus’ baptism, we have to conclude almost exactly the opposite: that righteousness has more to do with submitting to each another, and to standing in solidarity with the very ones we have been taught to avoid. By that definition Frank Nieves was righteous – not an adjective I imagine was ever applied to him during his life time. I remember learning as far back as seminary that in Hebrew the word “righteousness” had as much to do with right relationships as with right morality – probably more so. I have felt drawn to that idea for a long time & have preached it frequently. But the image I witnessed on Tuesday night showed me that it is more than an idea. It is one of the core truths of life. That truth sunk into me a little more deeply last Tuesday night. I realized in addition that not only does righteousness enrich individual relationships; it is a key part of both creating and sustaining community. The congregation gathered for Frank’s memorial service was a true, albeit unlikely and uncomfortable, community.
Today we are reaffirming our baptism. In the Reformed understanding, baptism has everything to do with community. Yes, baptism is about entering into the death and resurrection of Jesus. But it is also about being welcomed into the covenant community of God’s faithful people. We have to transform our sanitized view of that community. I talk to many people who don’t want to come to church because they think they are not good enough. I hear from others that people in the church aren’t good enough: “I thought Christians were supposed to be righteous?” So the consequences of our misunderstanding of righteousness are serious both inside and outside the church.
We must begin to change our view of righteousness, and begin to heal the wounds that result from our misunderstanding, so that we can start to experience a more authentic community. But there’s a hitch: authentic community is messier than our sanitized version. And most of us don’t like things messy. It’s also full of surprises, and most of us like a little more control over our surprises. So what will it take for us to move toward authentic community?
I believe Matthew’s story of Jesus’ baptism offers us some clues. “As Jesus came up from the water, the heavens were opened to him & he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove alighting on him. A voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.’ Whatever you believe about the Trinity, all three members of it were present at that moment: Jesus, the Spirit of God, & the heavenly parent of Jesus who calls him beloved.
Christians have come to believe that the three persons of the Trinity have existed in community since before time. In the passage from Philippians I preached on to begin the season of dialogue we have called “Open”, Paul recites that Jesus, “though in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, being born in human likeness.”
The voice from heaven affirmed for Jesus that in the midst of his humanness he was still a beloved part of that community. Isn’t that what we all want to hear? That in the midst of expressing the most authentic part of ourselves – no matter how different we may be from some one else; no matter how at odds we might be with someone else’s view of what humanness should look like – at least one person will say, “I see you as you are, and I love the you that I see.” That affirmation is precisely what empowers us to live in community, to stand with others in solidarity, & to offer our lives in service to others. And that is the affirmation that we are invited to hear from and say to each other as a baptized community.
Let’s examine what that looks like in Jesus’ baptism. Both the Spirit of God & the voice of God came to rest on Jesus as he arose from the waters of baptism. The voice of God spoke the words we have just said that every human being longs to hear – words that transform us into people who can and will do almost anything asked by the one whose voice it is: “this is my beloved.”
In the same moment the Spirit of God led him into the wilderness where he could discern & test out what that voice was calling him to do. There in the wilderness Jesus faced all the voices both inside and outside himself that resisted following the call to be his most authentic self. From there he returned to his hometown of Nazareth, where he entered the synagogue & read from the prophet Isaiah. He found in those words the voice that won out in the wilderness: the voice that told him that the Spirit had anointed him to preach good news to the poor, proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, & to proclaim that just as the voice of God had spoken favor to him, he was anointed to announce that God’s favor was available to all.
Is that level of graciousness available to us? Could that kind of authenticity, that kind of solidarity, that kind of service, actually come to be practiced here at Immanuel to transform us into the community we long to experience? I believe it could be, but it will require some risk, it will require some letting go of assumptions and stereotypes we may have held our entire lives, and it will take some bucking of systems that keep us from changing.
We took (will take) a little risk today in the way we are reaffirming our baptism. It’s threateningly intimate to touch each other, to look into each other’s eyes, and to speak words that call us to something we don’t find easy: to submit to the waters of baptism with people I may disagree with. Let me put that risk in perspective. I recently read about a Rural Presbyterian Church in northern India. It’s an indigenous church composed of the dalit (untouchable) people who are victims of that vile form of injustice known as the caste system, something most of us have only heard of. Though officially illegal, the caste culture still thrives and crushes the poorest of the people. By Hindu law, children of dalits can only be given a derogatory name at birth (stupid, ugly, dumb). But at the Rural Presbyterian Church when dalits come to faith in Jesus Christ, they have a re-naming ceremony, which utterly re-labels them in light of God’s grace & mercy. They step into a new identity with a new name. This extra-ordinary gift shifts power in every part of life.
To imagine a caste system in far off and exotic India from here in Los Angeles creates a dramatic contrast with our own life. But if we are honest with ourselves, don’t we need that new name just as badly as the dalits? Aren’t we just as disempowered by the pressure we feel to be inauthentic in order to be accepted, rather than risk expressing our true selves that might be misunderstood & rejected? Let us take the risk to be ourselves & stop judging each other from that place of insecurity. Let us remember our baptism and accept the new name that we are given there: beloved child.
January 9, 2008 - Be the best you can be - Hayward Fong
Luke 19:11-27
Last October before I had my hip dislocation, we examined the parable of the talents as recorded in Matthew 25:14-30. Today’s account as recorded by Luke bears a close resemblance to the account in Matthew. Perhaps they are two versions of the same story, or perhaps Jesus used the same story in slightly different forms on two different occasions. Whatever.
There is one very interesting thing about Luke’s version. Jesus in His parables frequently takes incidents from everyday life to illustrate great truths. He liked to teach. It may be in this instance that he used an incident from history to teach a truth.
The parable tells of a king who went to claim a kingdom, whose subjects sent an embassy of protest. He was given the kingdom but took revenge on his opponents. In the year 4 B.C., Herod the King died; he had the title of king but was always subject to the permission and goodwill of Rome. It had been expected that he would will his kingdom to his son Antipas, but he altered his will and left it instead to his son Archelaus. Before Archelaus could inherit the throne, he had to go to Rome to receive its “blessing.” The Jews promptly sent an embassy of fifty men to beg that the kingdom not be given to him. Augustus the Roman Emperor heard the embassy but gave Archelaus the kingdom. He did not, however, confer on him the title of king until he had proved himself worth of it, which, in fact he never did. These are exactly the circumstances in the parable and it looks as if for once Jesus is taking an incident from history to teach His lesson.
This parable repeats many of the lessons of the parable of the talents; but there are others we might examine. The nobleman did not demand the same result from each man. Though each received the same amount, equal results were not required. The one who turned his allocation ten-fold and the other who had turned his five-fold were both equally praised.
God does not demand the same from everyone. He knows well that people have different abilities. God’s demand is not, “How great is your work?” not even “How good is your work?” but rather, “Is this the best you can do?” In school and usually in the world it is the highest mark that receives the highest prize. But even in school it may well be that a score of fifty-five from a student who is not very sharp, represents more honest effort than a score of ninety from a student who finds things easy. God knows about these things and God sets the right value on our efforts when we do our best. As I stated when we last met, the U.S. Army had at one time a recruiting slogan, “Be the best you can be.”
This parable teaches, too, that if we should some day be given a task we must first prove ourselves by doing the little jobs well. It was because they had been faithful in quite small things that the servants were given greater tasks to do.
When I first went to work with the Los Angeles County Road Department, a graduate civil engineer with prior experience with the State Division of Highways, I was given many menial tasks, delivering papers to meetings, setting up conference rooms with everything needed at the meeting such as visual equipment, pencils, notepads, water pitchers, drinking glasses, etc. To be honest, it went against my grain to be assigned these tasks. One of the older men in the Department, who became one of my closest friends and mentor, saw my anguish. He showed me the positive side of these assignments. He said, “Hayward, you have a rare opportunity of seeing who the Department heads are, but more importantly, letting them see you. Do the best you can do with these assignments and it will pay off in years to come.” In later years that exposure did pay off. When promotional opportunities arose, I was more than a name on the roster. They were able to match a face with the name and recall how I cheerfully carried out those menial tasks.
Booker T. Washington, was one of our nation’s great educators. At the end of his life, he was President of Tuskegee Institute and held in honor by peoples around the world. But when he found it was very difficult for a Negro boy to obtain a college education. He heard of a university where Negroes were accepted as students and he walked miles to get there. But when he arrived he found that there were no openings left. They offered him a job sweeping the floors and making the beds in the dormitories. He took it at once, and did the menial job so well that soon he was admitted as a student.
My son, Stephen, wanted to learn how to create the special effects in television productions but didn’t know where or how to get the training. At that time, people took their basic technical knowledge and learned these special effects techniques on the job. He applied at various places, but his basic skills were sorely lacking. Eventually, he was offered a job as night custodian at a post production company which entailed sweeping the offices, answering the phone, where people could order TV tapes from their library and run errands for the people working on production work at night. At every opportunity, he would let the production people know of his interests and they reciprocated by teaching him as time permitted.
This is a very mobile industry, and as his co-workers moved on, various ones would invite Stephen to join them. One such move took him to work on the CBS TV crew for the Winter Olympics in France; others have brought him on the teams producing TV shows such as Star Trek, Lost, Alias, etc. none of which I’ve seen. He has been awarded three Emmys as a member of the winning teams.
It is impossible to start at the top and it would be bad for us if we could. It is foolish to despise the small jobs and to think they do not matter. It is doing the lesser things well that we prove ourselves fit for bigger things.
Further, this parable illustrates a great truth; the reward of work well done is more work to do. The servants who had done so well were not told to sit back and rest; they were given still more responsibility and still greater tasks to do. In almost all spheres of life we see that principle. The actor who is given a small part longs for the day when he will be given a lead role. The surgeon beginning his life work longs for the day when the hardest operations will be assigned to him.
We should always remember that it is not a millstone but a compliment to be given a task to do. The general chooses his best soldiers for his hardest tasks. The teacher puts his best students in for the hardest examinations. The coach makes his best players and athletes train the hardest. The bigger the task and the more the tasks given us the bigger the compliment is being paid us. The higher we rise in the world’s work the heavier the responsibilities. The real man regards a task not as something to be avoided but as a challenge to prove himself and as a compliment to his ability.
Both Matthew and Luke speak of the day when the master came back and demanded an accounting. In the early days people believed Jesus was going to come back to this world at any moment. They expected Him soon, certainly within their own lifetime. That didn’t happen. It is useless to speculate when it will happen; but the day will come when we will be called to account for the way in which we used this life and the talents that God gave us. It will make us work far better if we remember that all our work must some day pass the test of God. George Eliot wrote of Antonio Stradivarius that he winced at all false work and loved the true. At all our work we must remember that we must do it in such a way that it is fit for God to see.
As we step forth into 2008, let us make a single resolution, “Be the best you can be.”
Amen.
Last October before I had my hip dislocation, we examined the parable of the talents as recorded in Matthew 25:14-30. Today’s account as recorded by Luke bears a close resemblance to the account in Matthew. Perhaps they are two versions of the same story, or perhaps Jesus used the same story in slightly different forms on two different occasions. Whatever.
There is one very interesting thing about Luke’s version. Jesus in His parables frequently takes incidents from everyday life to illustrate great truths. He liked to teach. It may be in this instance that he used an incident from history to teach a truth.
The parable tells of a king who went to claim a kingdom, whose subjects sent an embassy of protest. He was given the kingdom but took revenge on his opponents. In the year 4 B.C., Herod the King died; he had the title of king but was always subject to the permission and goodwill of Rome. It had been expected that he would will his kingdom to his son Antipas, but he altered his will and left it instead to his son Archelaus. Before Archelaus could inherit the throne, he had to go to Rome to receive its “blessing.” The Jews promptly sent an embassy of fifty men to beg that the kingdom not be given to him. Augustus the Roman Emperor heard the embassy but gave Archelaus the kingdom. He did not, however, confer on him the title of king until he had proved himself worth of it, which, in fact he never did. These are exactly the circumstances in the parable and it looks as if for once Jesus is taking an incident from history to teach His lesson.
This parable repeats many of the lessons of the parable of the talents; but there are others we might examine. The nobleman did not demand the same result from each man. Though each received the same amount, equal results were not required. The one who turned his allocation ten-fold and the other who had turned his five-fold were both equally praised.
God does not demand the same from everyone. He knows well that people have different abilities. God’s demand is not, “How great is your work?” not even “How good is your work?” but rather, “Is this the best you can do?” In school and usually in the world it is the highest mark that receives the highest prize. But even in school it may well be that a score of fifty-five from a student who is not very sharp, represents more honest effort than a score of ninety from a student who finds things easy. God knows about these things and God sets the right value on our efforts when we do our best. As I stated when we last met, the U.S. Army had at one time a recruiting slogan, “Be the best you can be.”
This parable teaches, too, that if we should some day be given a task we must first prove ourselves by doing the little jobs well. It was because they had been faithful in quite small things that the servants were given greater tasks to do.
When I first went to work with the Los Angeles County Road Department, a graduate civil engineer with prior experience with the State Division of Highways, I was given many menial tasks, delivering papers to meetings, setting up conference rooms with everything needed at the meeting such as visual equipment, pencils, notepads, water pitchers, drinking glasses, etc. To be honest, it went against my grain to be assigned these tasks. One of the older men in the Department, who became one of my closest friends and mentor, saw my anguish. He showed me the positive side of these assignments. He said, “Hayward, you have a rare opportunity of seeing who the Department heads are, but more importantly, letting them see you. Do the best you can do with these assignments and it will pay off in years to come.” In later years that exposure did pay off. When promotional opportunities arose, I was more than a name on the roster. They were able to match a face with the name and recall how I cheerfully carried out those menial tasks.
Booker T. Washington, was one of our nation’s great educators. At the end of his life, he was President of Tuskegee Institute and held in honor by peoples around the world. But when he found it was very difficult for a Negro boy to obtain a college education. He heard of a university where Negroes were accepted as students and he walked miles to get there. But when he arrived he found that there were no openings left. They offered him a job sweeping the floors and making the beds in the dormitories. He took it at once, and did the menial job so well that soon he was admitted as a student.
My son, Stephen, wanted to learn how to create the special effects in television productions but didn’t know where or how to get the training. At that time, people took their basic technical knowledge and learned these special effects techniques on the job. He applied at various places, but his basic skills were sorely lacking. Eventually, he was offered a job as night custodian at a post production company which entailed sweeping the offices, answering the phone, where people could order TV tapes from their library and run errands for the people working on production work at night. At every opportunity, he would let the production people know of his interests and they reciprocated by teaching him as time permitted.
This is a very mobile industry, and as his co-workers moved on, various ones would invite Stephen to join them. One such move took him to work on the CBS TV crew for the Winter Olympics in France; others have brought him on the teams producing TV shows such as Star Trek, Lost, Alias, etc. none of which I’ve seen. He has been awarded three Emmys as a member of the winning teams.
It is impossible to start at the top and it would be bad for us if we could. It is foolish to despise the small jobs and to think they do not matter. It is doing the lesser things well that we prove ourselves fit for bigger things.
Further, this parable illustrates a great truth; the reward of work well done is more work to do. The servants who had done so well were not told to sit back and rest; they were given still more responsibility and still greater tasks to do. In almost all spheres of life we see that principle. The actor who is given a small part longs for the day when he will be given a lead role. The surgeon beginning his life work longs for the day when the hardest operations will be assigned to him.
We should always remember that it is not a millstone but a compliment to be given a task to do. The general chooses his best soldiers for his hardest tasks. The teacher puts his best students in for the hardest examinations. The coach makes his best players and athletes train the hardest. The bigger the task and the more the tasks given us the bigger the compliment is being paid us. The higher we rise in the world’s work the heavier the responsibilities. The real man regards a task not as something to be avoided but as a challenge to prove himself and as a compliment to his ability.
Both Matthew and Luke speak of the day when the master came back and demanded an accounting. In the early days people believed Jesus was going to come back to this world at any moment. They expected Him soon, certainly within their own lifetime. That didn’t happen. It is useless to speculate when it will happen; but the day will come when we will be called to account for the way in which we used this life and the talents that God gave us. It will make us work far better if we remember that all our work must some day pass the test of God. George Eliot wrote of Antonio Stradivarius that he winced at all false work and loved the true. At all our work we must remember that we must do it in such a way that it is fit for God to see.
As we step forth into 2008, let us make a single resolution, “Be the best you can be.”
Amen.
January 6, 2008 - The Fourth Magi - Frank Alton
Matthew 2:1-12
MP3 File
On this Epiphany morning I want to tell a few stories that are evoked by Matthew’s story of the magi from the east coming to pay homage to the baby Jesus. The stories invite us to enter into the story even as they call us to go beyond the story.
In the time of King Herod, wise men from the east came seeking the King of the Jews. When Herod heard this, he was frightened; & he managed to stir up fear in all the citizens of Jerusalem. What were they afraid of? That a rival king was being born? That some foreign nation was playing a trick on them? That these astrologers had some magical power that posed a threat for them? Right at the beginning of his gospel Matthew gives us a reading of the political environment of fear into which Jesus was born. Matthew also suggests that the good news that this new baby was bringing into the midst of all the bad news of his day was part of a larger movement of God’s Spirit – a movement that wasn’t parochial in its boundaries. The presence of the Magi from a foreign land demonstrated that the Spirit of God was stirring up hope & newness in cultures, religions & nations that went beyond Israel.
How does that speak to what’s going on in our world? We stand at the beginning of a year in which we will hold elections for President. That’s one thing we know about the coming year. Who knows what else will happen this year? Whatever else may happen, we are beginning this year on shaky ground. The war on terror shows no sign of ending or of producing what it promised. On the near horizon looms an economic recession that will hurt some more than it will hurt others. On a farther horizon is the threat of global warming that many politicians still aren’t sure we should take seriously. As in Matthew’s story, the leaders of the nations have stirred up fear in their citizens. One specific axis of fear is between Christians & Muslims. Many Christians view Muslims as the greatest threat to peace on the planet. Many Muslims view Christians as the greatest threat to holiness.
Last fall, in the midst of all that, 138 “wise” Muslim scholars and clerics sent an open letter "to leaders of Christian churches, everywhere" to promote constructive engagement between these two major religious communities. It was motivated in part by tension created around the speech that Pope Benedict gave about 15 months ago. But its significance went way beyond that. It addressed one of the central issues of this moment of history: the animosity between Christians and Muslims.
It’s no coincidence that many Muslim scholars & clerics who were signatories to the letter are natives of the same lands from which the wise men came to seek Jesus. What kind of response would be given to these wise readers of the signs of the times?
Unlike Herod, and unlike some politicians in this election year, 300 Christian theologians and leaders responded to the letter with their own generous words: “We receive the open letter as a Muslim hand of conviviality and cooperation extended to Christians worldwide. We extend our own Christian hand in return, so that together with all other human beings we may live in peace and justice as we seek to love God & our neighbors. Muslims & Christians have not always shaken hands in friendship; their relations have sometimes been tense. We acknowledge that in the past and in the present many Christians have been guilty of sinning against Muslim neighbors. Before we "shake your hand" we ask forgiveness of the All-Merciful One and of the Muslim community.”
That response, among others, evoked yet another communiqué – this time, a Christmas greeting: “During these joyful holidays we write to you, our Christian neighbors all over the world to express our thanks for the beautiful and gracious responses that we Muslims have been receiving. May the coming year be one in which the sanctity and dignity of human life is upheld by all. May it be a year of humble repentance before God, and mutual forgiveness within and between communities.”
What a beautiful exchange of sentiments. Into an environment of animosity came an invitation to reconciliation. But does the exchange make any difference in the real world? Just as the visit of the magi signaled a broad movement of God’s Spirit in the world so the letter exchange by representatives of religions that are generally at enmity signals something similar. Matthew focuses our attention on what the magi “saw” versus what Herod and all Jerusalem “saw.” Herod’s seeing was ruled by fear. The Magi’s seeing was guided by light. The rest of the Gospel demonstrates that their seeing aligned with God’s agenda, in contrast to what the rulers saw. And that is significant!
This morning we celebrate the beginning of the Season of Epiphany. The word “epiphany” itself comes from the Greek word epifaneia - radiance. The radiance of God’s face is one way God is revealed to people. We know from history that epiphanies of God are by no means a benign thing. Promises of the Day of the Lord warn that its coming will be full of awe (epifanhz). The Magi had been looking at a star whose radiance had led them from the East to the land of Judah. Announcing to Herod that the radiance was close by generated fear; that fear led to the bloodiest scene in the Gospels – the slaughter of an entire generation of babies in Bethlehem. Without that excruciatingly painful story, the Christmas story becomes a sweet tale without much connection to reality – a warm fuzzy story about poor but noble parents who had a beautiful baby who was born in a nice sanitary stable among contented beasts. The shepherds came to admire him, the Magi came to bring expensive gifts, & he lived happily ever after. The slaughter of innocents blows that version out of the water.
When God comes close, the response is not uniform. God’s epiphany evoked fear, darkness & death in Herod. But when the Magi arrived at the place where the child was, the star stopped and they were filled with exceeding joy and awe, which made them first kneel down before this baby, then offer their generous gifts. God’s radiance has a double effect – fear & darkness upon those who oppose it; blessing on those who seek God’s face. The Gospel always confronts us with a decision: will we choose light or darkness, life or death, compassionate generosity or fear? That question confronts us today.
In many Christian cultures today is referred to as “King’s Day” –a designation that emerges from this story of the Magi. The Magi have been known as kings in fulfillment of the Psalm we sang this morning: “May the kings of Sheba & Seba bring gifts to him.” (Ps. 72:10). The tradition we celebrate at Immanuel around King’s Day symbolically acts out & invites us to find our place in this story. We bring a Rosca de Reyes to the convivio. The rosca has dolls hidden inside to symbolize the fact that the baby Jesus needed to be hidden from Herod because of the fear he evoked. As John put it, “the light was in the world, yet the world did not know it.” Tradition dictates that those who find one of the dolls representing the Christ child in their piece of bread bring tamales or Hot Chocolate on Feb 2 – Candlemas – when we remember the day Jesus was presented in the temple, 40 days after his birth. The message is that all of us are invited to bring Jesus out of hiding & into the light through acts of compassion that overcome fear.
That brings us to the story that gave the title to this sermon. What really matters in our response to the radiance of God’s face? We sing a song during Advent and Christmas that says, “Every day now Jesus is born.” Henry van Dyke wrote a story a number of years ago that fleshes out that song. I found many versions of the story, so I feel justified in modifying it slightly to make the fourth Magi a woman – Simona. Simona never made it to the manger to pay homage to the new born king. She thought she’d failed in her calling. Her gift was three precious gems: a ruby, a pearl, and an almost perfectly shaped diamond.
Simona was on her way to meet with the other three Magi when she came upon a wagon train that had been waylaid by bandits, its cargo gone, its passengers beaten, left for dead. The Magi were healers by nature, but Simona had nothing to offer. No medicine. No food. Not so much as an extra blanket. Her gifts for the King had exhausted everything she had. Surely to give up the Baby Jesus' gifts would be unthinkable. She reluctantly passed the poor travelers by, when a voice that seemed to come from everywhere and yet nowhere at all, told her, "You know what you have to do."
Well, this scared Simona because, being a healer, she had seen people that heard voices that no one else seemed to hear, and she knew the way they were treated. And yet it made sense. She went back to town and sold the ruby. It yielded enough money to buy medicine to heal the victims of their injuries, feed them, & repair their wagons. This set her so far behind schedule that she missed her compatriots; worse still, they were to arrange passage for the four of them.
So she set out walking towards the Star. She came upon a colony of lepers. Once again a voice that seemed to almost come from within, assured her that she had to put these poor souls first, and so she sold the pearl for just enough to buy enough tannis leaf to heal and make them whole. Well, this took a long time and also took a lot out of her. Many seasons passed before she could resume her journey, and when he finally reached Bethlehem, the Baby Jesus was gone!
She would have given up then, but she began to hear tales of this healer, the likes of which she could only dream of being. She started to follow the stories, but always reached this town or that town, only to hear that he had been here last week, or even yesterday, but he left and headed over the hills, across the sea, east, west, north, south. Simona was always just short of fulfilling her quest.
One year turned to two. Two turned to ten, and ten to thirty. Simon found herself at Calvary, when she felt a tugging at the pouch with the diamond she had carried all these years. It was gone! She turned and saw the thief running away. She gave chase but could not catch him. Finally, she picked up a large stone and took aim at the back of the thief's head. She wound up and . . . was just about to let go when she heard a voice, a voice she heard just twice before whisper "Let him go."
Simona stood there, broken. Not only had she lost all three of her gifts for the King; but, here she was, a healer, about to commit murder! She dropped the stone and burst into tears. If only she knew what to do next! Her prayer was answered soon enough when she heard a cry. When she got to where the cry came from, she saw three men on crosses. The law forbade her to help. She was about to turn when she saw the inscription "King of the Jews" over the cross in the middle. For over thirty years she’d searched; now to miss him one last time. She was about to turn and leave, when she heard the voice she had heard just three times before, and as clear as a bell it told her, "My dear sister, you haven't missed me. You've been with me all my life."
What matters today is that Jesus be born in you by evoking acts of compassion that touch the lives of those who need it most. The 3 Magi worshipped a baby in a stable for animals. That’s a beautiful scene. But the baby grew up to teach that even more important than worshiping the baby is recognizing God’s epiphany in the midst of the fearful realities of the world. The story of the fourth Magi seals that teaching.
MP3 File
On this Epiphany morning I want to tell a few stories that are evoked by Matthew’s story of the magi from the east coming to pay homage to the baby Jesus. The stories invite us to enter into the story even as they call us to go beyond the story.
In the time of King Herod, wise men from the east came seeking the King of the Jews. When Herod heard this, he was frightened; & he managed to stir up fear in all the citizens of Jerusalem. What were they afraid of? That a rival king was being born? That some foreign nation was playing a trick on them? That these astrologers had some magical power that posed a threat for them? Right at the beginning of his gospel Matthew gives us a reading of the political environment of fear into which Jesus was born. Matthew also suggests that the good news that this new baby was bringing into the midst of all the bad news of his day was part of a larger movement of God’s Spirit – a movement that wasn’t parochial in its boundaries. The presence of the Magi from a foreign land demonstrated that the Spirit of God was stirring up hope & newness in cultures, religions & nations that went beyond Israel.
How does that speak to what’s going on in our world? We stand at the beginning of a year in which we will hold elections for President. That’s one thing we know about the coming year. Who knows what else will happen this year? Whatever else may happen, we are beginning this year on shaky ground. The war on terror shows no sign of ending or of producing what it promised. On the near horizon looms an economic recession that will hurt some more than it will hurt others. On a farther horizon is the threat of global warming that many politicians still aren’t sure we should take seriously. As in Matthew’s story, the leaders of the nations have stirred up fear in their citizens. One specific axis of fear is between Christians & Muslims. Many Christians view Muslims as the greatest threat to peace on the planet. Many Muslims view Christians as the greatest threat to holiness.
Last fall, in the midst of all that, 138 “wise” Muslim scholars and clerics sent an open letter "to leaders of Christian churches, everywhere" to promote constructive engagement between these two major religious communities. It was motivated in part by tension created around the speech that Pope Benedict gave about 15 months ago. But its significance went way beyond that. It addressed one of the central issues of this moment of history: the animosity between Christians and Muslims.
It’s no coincidence that many Muslim scholars & clerics who were signatories to the letter are natives of the same lands from which the wise men came to seek Jesus. What kind of response would be given to these wise readers of the signs of the times?
Unlike Herod, and unlike some politicians in this election year, 300 Christian theologians and leaders responded to the letter with their own generous words: “We receive the open letter as a Muslim hand of conviviality and cooperation extended to Christians worldwide. We extend our own Christian hand in return, so that together with all other human beings we may live in peace and justice as we seek to love God & our neighbors. Muslims & Christians have not always shaken hands in friendship; their relations have sometimes been tense. We acknowledge that in the past and in the present many Christians have been guilty of sinning against Muslim neighbors. Before we "shake your hand" we ask forgiveness of the All-Merciful One and of the Muslim community.”
That response, among others, evoked yet another communiqué – this time, a Christmas greeting: “During these joyful holidays we write to you, our Christian neighbors all over the world to express our thanks for the beautiful and gracious responses that we Muslims have been receiving. May the coming year be one in which the sanctity and dignity of human life is upheld by all. May it be a year of humble repentance before God, and mutual forgiveness within and between communities.”
What a beautiful exchange of sentiments. Into an environment of animosity came an invitation to reconciliation. But does the exchange make any difference in the real world? Just as the visit of the magi signaled a broad movement of God’s Spirit in the world so the letter exchange by representatives of religions that are generally at enmity signals something similar. Matthew focuses our attention on what the magi “saw” versus what Herod and all Jerusalem “saw.” Herod’s seeing was ruled by fear. The Magi’s seeing was guided by light. The rest of the Gospel demonstrates that their seeing aligned with God’s agenda, in contrast to what the rulers saw. And that is significant!
This morning we celebrate the beginning of the Season of Epiphany. The word “epiphany” itself comes from the Greek word epifaneia - radiance. The radiance of God’s face is one way God is revealed to people. We know from history that epiphanies of God are by no means a benign thing. Promises of the Day of the Lord warn that its coming will be full of awe (epifanhz). The Magi had been looking at a star whose radiance had led them from the East to the land of Judah. Announcing to Herod that the radiance was close by generated fear; that fear led to the bloodiest scene in the Gospels – the slaughter of an entire generation of babies in Bethlehem. Without that excruciatingly painful story, the Christmas story becomes a sweet tale without much connection to reality – a warm fuzzy story about poor but noble parents who had a beautiful baby who was born in a nice sanitary stable among contented beasts. The shepherds came to admire him, the Magi came to bring expensive gifts, & he lived happily ever after. The slaughter of innocents blows that version out of the water.
When God comes close, the response is not uniform. God’s epiphany evoked fear, darkness & death in Herod. But when the Magi arrived at the place where the child was, the star stopped and they were filled with exceeding joy and awe, which made them first kneel down before this baby, then offer their generous gifts. God’s radiance has a double effect – fear & darkness upon those who oppose it; blessing on those who seek God’s face. The Gospel always confronts us with a decision: will we choose light or darkness, life or death, compassionate generosity or fear? That question confronts us today.
In many Christian cultures today is referred to as “King’s Day” –a designation that emerges from this story of the Magi. The Magi have been known as kings in fulfillment of the Psalm we sang this morning: “May the kings of Sheba & Seba bring gifts to him.” (Ps. 72:10). The tradition we celebrate at Immanuel around King’s Day symbolically acts out & invites us to find our place in this story. We bring a Rosca de Reyes to the convivio. The rosca has dolls hidden inside to symbolize the fact that the baby Jesus needed to be hidden from Herod because of the fear he evoked. As John put it, “the light was in the world, yet the world did not know it.” Tradition dictates that those who find one of the dolls representing the Christ child in their piece of bread bring tamales or Hot Chocolate on Feb 2 – Candlemas – when we remember the day Jesus was presented in the temple, 40 days after his birth. The message is that all of us are invited to bring Jesus out of hiding & into the light through acts of compassion that overcome fear.
That brings us to the story that gave the title to this sermon. What really matters in our response to the radiance of God’s face? We sing a song during Advent and Christmas that says, “Every day now Jesus is born.” Henry van Dyke wrote a story a number of years ago that fleshes out that song. I found many versions of the story, so I feel justified in modifying it slightly to make the fourth Magi a woman – Simona. Simona never made it to the manger to pay homage to the new born king. She thought she’d failed in her calling. Her gift was three precious gems: a ruby, a pearl, and an almost perfectly shaped diamond.
Simona was on her way to meet with the other three Magi when she came upon a wagon train that had been waylaid by bandits, its cargo gone, its passengers beaten, left for dead. The Magi were healers by nature, but Simona had nothing to offer. No medicine. No food. Not so much as an extra blanket. Her gifts for the King had exhausted everything she had. Surely to give up the Baby Jesus' gifts would be unthinkable. She reluctantly passed the poor travelers by, when a voice that seemed to come from everywhere and yet nowhere at all, told her, "You know what you have to do."
Well, this scared Simona because, being a healer, she had seen people that heard voices that no one else seemed to hear, and she knew the way they were treated. And yet it made sense. She went back to town and sold the ruby. It yielded enough money to buy medicine to heal the victims of their injuries, feed them, & repair their wagons. This set her so far behind schedule that she missed her compatriots; worse still, they were to arrange passage for the four of them.
So she set out walking towards the Star. She came upon a colony of lepers. Once again a voice that seemed to almost come from within, assured her that she had to put these poor souls first, and so she sold the pearl for just enough to buy enough tannis leaf to heal and make them whole. Well, this took a long time and also took a lot out of her. Many seasons passed before she could resume her journey, and when he finally reached Bethlehem, the Baby Jesus was gone!
She would have given up then, but she began to hear tales of this healer, the likes of which she could only dream of being. She started to follow the stories, but always reached this town or that town, only to hear that he had been here last week, or even yesterday, but he left and headed over the hills, across the sea, east, west, north, south. Simona was always just short of fulfilling her quest.
One year turned to two. Two turned to ten, and ten to thirty. Simon found herself at Calvary, when she felt a tugging at the pouch with the diamond she had carried all these years. It was gone! She turned and saw the thief running away. She gave chase but could not catch him. Finally, she picked up a large stone and took aim at the back of the thief's head. She wound up and . . . was just about to let go when she heard a voice, a voice she heard just twice before whisper "Let him go."
Simona stood there, broken. Not only had she lost all three of her gifts for the King; but, here she was, a healer, about to commit murder! She dropped the stone and burst into tears. If only she knew what to do next! Her prayer was answered soon enough when she heard a cry. When she got to where the cry came from, she saw three men on crosses. The law forbade her to help. She was about to turn when she saw the inscription "King of the Jews" over the cross in the middle. For over thirty years she’d searched; now to miss him one last time. She was about to turn and leave, when she heard the voice she had heard just three times before, and as clear as a bell it told her, "My dear sister, you haven't missed me. You've been with me all my life."
What matters today is that Jesus be born in you by evoking acts of compassion that touch the lives of those who need it most. The 3 Magi worshipped a baby in a stable for animals. That’s a beautiful scene. But the baby grew up to teach that even more important than worshiping the baby is recognizing God’s epiphany in the midst of the fearful realities of the world. The story of the fourth Magi seals that teaching.
24 de diciembre de 2007 - Sanidad - Frank Alton
Mateo 1:18-25
Esta noche celebramos que el regalo más grande de la Navidad es que Jesús vino a ser salvación. Durante la temporada de Adviento vimos la salvación no como una transacción legal para complacer a un dios enojón, sino como una relación sanada. Todo el año contamos historias que revelan la salvación por medio de Jesús al sanar a individuos dañados por el pecado.
No es coincidencia que, habiendo sido anunciado como el que da a conocer a Dios (Jn 1:18), Jesús dedicó la mayoría de su ministerio a sanar a personas. “Dondequiera que él entraba, ponían a los enfermos en las calles y le rogaban que los dejara tocar siquiera el borde de su capa; y todos los que la tocaban, quedaban sanos.” (Mk. 6:56) Donde Jesús está presente, hay sanidad. Creo que lo mismo pasa hoy en día.
Es preciso reconocer que la salvación significa sanidad para entender bien la vida y el ministerio de Jesús. Cuando Bartimeo el ciego le grita a Jesús, pidiendo recobrar la vista, Jesús responde, “Puedes irte; por tu fe has sido sanado.” (Mk. 10:52) Por medio de su sanidad fue salvado; al recibir la salvación de Dios fue sanado.
Efesios 2:8 describe la salvación de Dios por la gracia. Si sustituimos la palabra “sanado” por “salvado”, el bien conocido versículo se convierte en, “Por gracia han sido salvados por medio de la fe.” Jesús vino para ganar nuestra confianza para que, debido a su naturaleza compasiva, podría sanar (salvar)nos, así revelando el deseo de Dios para sanarnos, no solo física sino espiritualmente.
Esto importa tanto porque arraigar la sanidad y la salvación en la gracia pone a todo el mundo en el mismo nivel en términos de acceso. Esto fue importantísimo en la iglesia primitiva, donde los Gentiles y los Judios peleaban por posición. Importó en la Edad Media cuando la iglesia trató de vender la salvación. Sigue importando en nuestro mundo donde aceptamos con demasiada facilidad sistemas que hacen que la sanidad sea más accesible a uno que a otros.
Durante los años en que nuestra familia vivía en Mexico invitando a cristianos de los Estados Unidos a experimentar la presencia de Dios entre la gente vulnerable allí, hubo un periodo cuando llevábamos a los grupos a los basureros y al orfanatorio en Santa Fe. Hablaríamos con padres y madres criando a sus hijos en el basurero, enfrentando la infección constante y la amenaza de muerte. En el orfanatorio muchos de los niños estaban descapacitados – o física o mentalmente.
Al final de cada día nos reuníamos para reflexionar y tratar de encontrar sentido en lo que habíamos visto en ese día. Fue un desafio por personas que vivían con muchas comodidades. Recuerdo a una persona tratando de conectar sus mundos, que de repente se estaban deshilachando en las orillas. Dijo, “Parece que algunas cosas son lo mismo si eres rico o pobre. Tener a un hijo/a enfermo/a, o perder a un hijo/a, es la misma angustia para cualquier padre o madre.”
Después de un silencio respetuoso le pregunté al grupo si creían que era lo mismo. Una persona respondió, “No creo. En mi mundo cuando un niño muere uno sabe que ha hecho todo lo que se podía para el niño. Un o ha provisto lo mejore que los doctores pueden ofrecer. En el basurero, cuando muere una niña, los padres saben que es porque no puidieron pagar los pesitos para comprar la medicina para salvarla. Esta me parece una angustia muy diferente.”
Orar por la sanidad significa orar por niños criados en basureros, orfanatorios, hogares urbanos y suburbanos, y por un mundo donde hemos llegado a creer que no hay suficiente sanidad para alcanzar. La sanidad, la salvación y el perdón están íntimamente conectados; cuando Jesús ofrece uno, ofrece el otro y se lo ofrece a todos. Cuando Jesús ofrece la sanidad, va más allá que curar. No es ni fácil ni barato; pero está disponible y es gratuito.
Esta noche celebramos que el regalo más grande de la Navidad es que Jesús vino a ser salvación. Durante la temporada de Adviento vimos la salvación no como una transacción legal para complacer a un dios enojón, sino como una relación sanada. Todo el año contamos historias que revelan la salvación por medio de Jesús al sanar a individuos dañados por el pecado.
No es coincidencia que, habiendo sido anunciado como el que da a conocer a Dios (Jn 1:18), Jesús dedicó la mayoría de su ministerio a sanar a personas. “Dondequiera que él entraba, ponían a los enfermos en las calles y le rogaban que los dejara tocar siquiera el borde de su capa; y todos los que la tocaban, quedaban sanos.” (Mk. 6:56) Donde Jesús está presente, hay sanidad. Creo que lo mismo pasa hoy en día.
Es preciso reconocer que la salvación significa sanidad para entender bien la vida y el ministerio de Jesús. Cuando Bartimeo el ciego le grita a Jesús, pidiendo recobrar la vista, Jesús responde, “Puedes irte; por tu fe has sido sanado.” (Mk. 10:52) Por medio de su sanidad fue salvado; al recibir la salvación de Dios fue sanado.
Efesios 2:8 describe la salvación de Dios por la gracia. Si sustituimos la palabra “sanado” por “salvado”, el bien conocido versículo se convierte en, “Por gracia han sido salvados por medio de la fe.” Jesús vino para ganar nuestra confianza para que, debido a su naturaleza compasiva, podría sanar (salvar)nos, así revelando el deseo de Dios para sanarnos, no solo física sino espiritualmente.
Esto importa tanto porque arraigar la sanidad y la salvación en la gracia pone a todo el mundo en el mismo nivel en términos de acceso. Esto fue importantísimo en la iglesia primitiva, donde los Gentiles y los Judios peleaban por posición. Importó en la Edad Media cuando la iglesia trató de vender la salvación. Sigue importando en nuestro mundo donde aceptamos con demasiada facilidad sistemas que hacen que la sanidad sea más accesible a uno que a otros.
Durante los años en que nuestra familia vivía en Mexico invitando a cristianos de los Estados Unidos a experimentar la presencia de Dios entre la gente vulnerable allí, hubo un periodo cuando llevábamos a los grupos a los basureros y al orfanatorio en Santa Fe. Hablaríamos con padres y madres criando a sus hijos en el basurero, enfrentando la infección constante y la amenaza de muerte. En el orfanatorio muchos de los niños estaban descapacitados – o física o mentalmente.
Al final de cada día nos reuníamos para reflexionar y tratar de encontrar sentido en lo que habíamos visto en ese día. Fue un desafio por personas que vivían con muchas comodidades. Recuerdo a una persona tratando de conectar sus mundos, que de repente se estaban deshilachando en las orillas. Dijo, “Parece que algunas cosas son lo mismo si eres rico o pobre. Tener a un hijo/a enfermo/a, o perder a un hijo/a, es la misma angustia para cualquier padre o madre.”
Después de un silencio respetuoso le pregunté al grupo si creían que era lo mismo. Una persona respondió, “No creo. En mi mundo cuando un niño muere uno sabe que ha hecho todo lo que se podía para el niño. Un o ha provisto lo mejore que los doctores pueden ofrecer. En el basurero, cuando muere una niña, los padres saben que es porque no puidieron pagar los pesitos para comprar la medicina para salvarla. Esta me parece una angustia muy diferente.”
Orar por la sanidad significa orar por niños criados en basureros, orfanatorios, hogares urbanos y suburbanos, y por un mundo donde hemos llegado a creer que no hay suficiente sanidad para alcanzar. La sanidad, la salvación y el perdón están íntimamente conectados; cuando Jesús ofrece uno, ofrece el otro y se lo ofrece a todos. Cuando Jesús ofrece la sanidad, va más allá que curar. No es ni fácil ni barato; pero está disponible y es gratuito.
December 24, 2007 - Healing - Frank Alton
Matthew 1:18-25
Tonight we celebrate the fact that the greatest Christmas present that exists is that Jesus came to be our salvation. During the season of Advent we looked at salvation not as a legal transaction to appease an angry god, but as a healed relationship. All year long we tell stories that reveal Jesus’ salvation through stories of healing individuals damaged by sin It’s no coincidence that having been announced as the one who makes God known (John 1:18), Jesus spent the vast majority of his ministry healing people. "Where ever he went - into villages, towns or countryside - they placed the sick. They begged him to let them touch even the edge of his cloak; all who touched him were healed." (Mk 6:56) Where Jesus is present, healing is going on. I believe that is still true today.
We can’t have a proper understanding of the life & ministry of Jesus without realizing that salvation means healing. When blind Bartimaeus shouts out to Jesus, asking to receive his sight, Jesus replies: "Go, your faith has healed you." (Mark 10:52). Through his healing he was saved; receiving God's salvation he was healed.
Ephesians 2:8 describes God's salvation by grace. If we replace the word "saved" by "healed" the well known verse becomes, "By grace you have been healed, through faith.” Jesus came to win our trust so that because of his gracious nature he could then heal (save) us, revealing God’s desire to heal us, not just physically, but spiritually.
When we root healing & salvation in grace everyone has the same access to them. That mattered a lot in the early church where Gentiles & Jews fought for position. It mattered in the Middle Ages when the church actually tried to sell salvation. It matters in our world when we too easily accept systems that make healing more accessible to some than to others.
During the years our family lived in Mexico bringing Christians from the U.S. to experience God’s presence among the vulnerable, there was a period when we would take groups to the garbage dump and then the Sisters of Charity orphanage in a part of Mexico City called Santa Fe. We would talk with parents raising children in the dump, facing infection and sometimes inevitable death. In the orphanage, many of the children were disabled – physically &/or mentally.
At the end of each day we would spend time reflecting on & trying to make sense of what we had witnessed that day. That was a challenging feat for people who lived in comfort. I remember one person trying to connect her worlds, which were suddenly fraying at the edges. She said, “It seems that some things are the same whether you are rich or poor. To have a sick child, to lose a child, is the same heartbreak for a parent.”
After a respectful silence in the group I asked the group if they thought it was the same. One person finally responded: “I don’t think it is. In my world when a child dies, you know that you have done everything you could for the child. You have provided the best that doctors can offer. In the dump, when a child dies, the parents know that it is because they couldn’t afford the few
pesos to buy the medicine to save him. That strikes me as a very different heartbreak.”
To pray for healing means to pray for ourselves and our own children; and it means praying for children being raised in garbage dumps, orphanages, urban homes, and for a world where we have come to believe that there is not enough healing to go around. When Jesus offers salvation, he offers healing; when he offers forgiveness he offers salvation; and he offers all three to everyone. For Jesus healing goes way beyond a cure. It’s neither easy nor cheap; but it’s available and it’s free.
Tonight we celebrate the fact that the greatest Christmas present that exists is that Jesus came to be our salvation. During the season of Advent we looked at salvation not as a legal transaction to appease an angry god, but as a healed relationship. All year long we tell stories that reveal Jesus’ salvation through stories of healing individuals damaged by sin It’s no coincidence that having been announced as the one who makes God known (John 1:18), Jesus spent the vast majority of his ministry healing people. "Where ever he went - into villages, towns or countryside - they placed the sick. They begged him to let them touch even the edge of his cloak; all who touched him were healed." (Mk 6:56) Where Jesus is present, healing is going on. I believe that is still true today.
We can’t have a proper understanding of the life & ministry of Jesus without realizing that salvation means healing. When blind Bartimaeus shouts out to Jesus, asking to receive his sight, Jesus replies: "Go, your faith has healed you." (Mark 10:52). Through his healing he was saved; receiving God's salvation he was healed.
Ephesians 2:8 describes God's salvation by grace. If we replace the word "saved" by "healed" the well known verse becomes, "By grace you have been healed, through faith.” Jesus came to win our trust so that because of his gracious nature he could then heal (save) us, revealing God’s desire to heal us, not just physically, but spiritually.
When we root healing & salvation in grace everyone has the same access to them. That mattered a lot in the early church where Gentiles & Jews fought for position. It mattered in the Middle Ages when the church actually tried to sell salvation. It matters in our world when we too easily accept systems that make healing more accessible to some than to others.
During the years our family lived in Mexico bringing Christians from the U.S. to experience God’s presence among the vulnerable, there was a period when we would take groups to the garbage dump and then the Sisters of Charity orphanage in a part of Mexico City called Santa Fe. We would talk with parents raising children in the dump, facing infection and sometimes inevitable death. In the orphanage, many of the children were disabled – physically &/or mentally.
At the end of each day we would spend time reflecting on & trying to make sense of what we had witnessed that day. That was a challenging feat for people who lived in comfort. I remember one person trying to connect her worlds, which were suddenly fraying at the edges. She said, “It seems that some things are the same whether you are rich or poor. To have a sick child, to lose a child, is the same heartbreak for a parent.”
After a respectful silence in the group I asked the group if they thought it was the same. One person finally responded: “I don’t think it is. In my world when a child dies, you know that you have done everything you could for the child. You have provided the best that doctors can offer. In the dump, when a child dies, the parents know that it is because they couldn’t afford the few
pesos to buy the medicine to save him. That strikes me as a very different heartbreak.”
To pray for healing means to pray for ourselves and our own children; and it means praying for children being raised in garbage dumps, orphanages, urban homes, and for a world where we have come to believe that there is not enough healing to go around. When Jesus offers salvation, he offers healing; when he offers forgiveness he offers salvation; and he offers all three to everyone. For Jesus healing goes way beyond a cure. It’s neither easy nor cheap; but it’s available and it’s free.
24 de diciembre de 2007 - La Paz - Elizabeth Gibbs Zehnder
La Paz de la que cantan los angeles ¿cómo se ve? ¿Se ve como una tarjeta Navideña?
En las tarjetas Navideñas que recibo, todo se ve muy lindo, estrellas brillando en el cielo de una noche templada, angeles volando y proclamando las buenas nuevas. Nos pueden engañar facilmente en creer que la paz de Dios viene cuando todo esta bien en el mundo, los niños comen bien, los trabajadores ganan salarios justos, todas las guerras se acaban, cuando todo esta bien, entonces los angeles abrirán sus alas y volarán por el cielo y nuestros corazones saltarán cuando escuchemos las buenas nuevas que la paz de Dios ha llegado….
Pero cuando leemos el evangelio, la paz que trae Jesucristo tiene un tono diferente. Si, resuena con mi ser, si, claramente viene de Dios, pero es tan contraria a la conveción y expectativas que es dificil reconocerla.
Para la mujer que trabajó en la prostitución, que escanadalizo el anfitrión de una cena extravagante, cuando entro ella y beso los pies de Jesucristo y le hecho perfume mientras que servian el salmon – a ella Jesus le dijo “tus pecados estan perdonados, tu fé te ha salvado, ve en paz.” (Lucas 7:50)
Para la mujer que estuvo excluida por 12 años porque su menstruación la hacía sucia ritualmente, cuando se junto con la gente y se atrevio a tocar el abrigo de Jesus. El instante donde sus dedos tocaron el dobladillo del abrigo– ella sintio que paro la pérdida de sangre, y Jesus sintio que se le fue el poder. La hizo venir hacia el y le aseguro “hija, tu fé te ha sanado, vete en paz.” (Lucas 8:48)
A los discipulos que se fueron a esconder, acurracados en su pena, desconcertados por el arresto de Jesus, aterrorizados por su muerte brutal en la cruz, Jesus vino y estuvo entre ellos y les dijo “sientan mis heridas, - la paz este con ustedes” (Lucas 24:36)
Asi es como la paz viene en el Evangelio. Viene en el medio de la dificultad. Viene en medio de la esperanza y el deseo insoportable, viene cuando las cosas estan de lo menos perfectas. Gracias a Dios. Gracias a Dios que no tenemos que esperar para la perfección para que la paz de Dios entre a este mundo.
Asi que esta noche, cuando las velas esten brillando, celebrando el nacimiento de Jesucristo, cuando cargamos la esperanza para que regrese rápido, vamos a tratar de buscar la paz que nos describe el Evangelio.
Vamos a juntarnos con los angeles en su coro alegre y cantaremos las buenas nuevas en los lugares mas inesperados:
Canta para la mujer cuyo pastor se nego a enterrar a su pareja homosexual;
Canta para el jornalero que espera en la lluvia para que le den trabajo;
Canta para la madre que lleva en sus brazos a su hijo con fiebre en la sala de emergencia;
Vamos a encontrar maneras de cantar las buenas nuevas con todo nuestro ser, todas nuestras vidas—lo que decimos, lo que hacemos, donde gastamos nuestro dinero.
Dejen que la canción de los angeles llene nuestros corazones:
“Gloria a Dios en lo más alto, y paz a toda la gente del mundo”
En las tarjetas Navideñas que recibo, todo se ve muy lindo, estrellas brillando en el cielo de una noche templada, angeles volando y proclamando las buenas nuevas. Nos pueden engañar facilmente en creer que la paz de Dios viene cuando todo esta bien en el mundo, los niños comen bien, los trabajadores ganan salarios justos, todas las guerras se acaban, cuando todo esta bien, entonces los angeles abrirán sus alas y volarán por el cielo y nuestros corazones saltarán cuando escuchemos las buenas nuevas que la paz de Dios ha llegado….
Pero cuando leemos el evangelio, la paz que trae Jesucristo tiene un tono diferente. Si, resuena con mi ser, si, claramente viene de Dios, pero es tan contraria a la conveción y expectativas que es dificil reconocerla.
Para la mujer que trabajó en la prostitución, que escanadalizo el anfitrión de una cena extravagante, cuando entro ella y beso los pies de Jesucristo y le hecho perfume mientras que servian el salmon – a ella Jesus le dijo “tus pecados estan perdonados, tu fé te ha salvado, ve en paz.” (Lucas 7:50)
Para la mujer que estuvo excluida por 12 años porque su menstruación la hacía sucia ritualmente, cuando se junto con la gente y se atrevio a tocar el abrigo de Jesus. El instante donde sus dedos tocaron el dobladillo del abrigo– ella sintio que paro la pérdida de sangre, y Jesus sintio que se le fue el poder. La hizo venir hacia el y le aseguro “hija, tu fé te ha sanado, vete en paz.” (Lucas 8:48)
A los discipulos que se fueron a esconder, acurracados en su pena, desconcertados por el arresto de Jesus, aterrorizados por su muerte brutal en la cruz, Jesus vino y estuvo entre ellos y les dijo “sientan mis heridas, - la paz este con ustedes” (Lucas 24:36)
Asi es como la paz viene en el Evangelio. Viene en el medio de la dificultad. Viene en medio de la esperanza y el deseo insoportable, viene cuando las cosas estan de lo menos perfectas. Gracias a Dios. Gracias a Dios que no tenemos que esperar para la perfección para que la paz de Dios entre a este mundo.
Asi que esta noche, cuando las velas esten brillando, celebrando el nacimiento de Jesucristo, cuando cargamos la esperanza para que regrese rápido, vamos a tratar de buscar la paz que nos describe el Evangelio.
Vamos a juntarnos con los angeles en su coro alegre y cantaremos las buenas nuevas en los lugares mas inesperados:
Canta para la mujer cuyo pastor se nego a enterrar a su pareja homosexual;
Canta para el jornalero que espera en la lluvia para que le den trabajo;
Canta para la madre que lleva en sus brazos a su hijo con fiebre en la sala de emergencia;
Vamos a encontrar maneras de cantar las buenas nuevas con todo nuestro ser, todas nuestras vidas—lo que decimos, lo que hacemos, donde gastamos nuestro dinero.
Dejen que la canción de los angeles llene nuestros corazones:
“Gloria a Dios en lo más alto, y paz a toda la gente del mundo”
December 24, 2007 - Peace - Elizabeth Gibbs Zehnder
And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger." Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests." When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about." So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.So what does the peace that the angels are singing about, what does this peace look like? Is it like a Christmas Card?
On the Christmas cards that I get, it all looks pretty nice, stars unfurled in the balmy night sky, angels soaring and proclaiming the glad tidings. We can be easily misled into thinking that God’s peace comes when all is right with the world, children are well fed, workers earn a fair wage, all war has ceased, when all is well, then the angels will unfurl their wings and take to the heavens and our hearts will soar as we resonate with the good news that God’s peace has come….
But when I read the gospels, the peace that Jesus brings has a different tone. Yes, it resonates with my core, yes, it clearly comes from God, but it is so contrary to convention and expectation that it is difficult to recognize it.
To the woman who had been working in the sex industry, who scandalized the host of a fancy dinner party when she came in and kissed Jesus’ feet and poured out perfume on him while the grilled salmon was served – to her Jesus said “your sins are forgiven, your faith has saved you, go in peace.” (Luke 7:50)
To the woman who had been cast out for 12 years because her bleeding made her ritually unclean, when she joined the crowd and dared to reach out for Jesus’ coat. The instant her fingers touched the hem – she felt the bleeding stop, Jesus felt the power go out from him. He called her out from the crowd and assured “daughter, your faith has healed you, Go in peace.” (Luke 8:48)
To the disciples who had fled into hiding, huddled in grief, bewildered by Jesus’ arrest, terrified by his brutal death on the cross, Jesus came and stood among them and said “feel my wounds, - peace be with you” (Luke 24:36)
That’s how peace comes in the Gospels. It comes in the middle of difficulty. It comes in the middle of excruciating hope and longing, it comes when things are as far from being perfect as we can imagine. Thank God.
Thank God that we don’t have to wait for perfection for God’s peace to break into our world.
So tonight, in the glow of the candles, As we celebrate the birth of Jesus, As we carry our hope for his speedy return, let us seek out the peace that the Gospel describes.
Let us join the angels in their joyful chorus and sing the good news in the most unlikely of places:
sing to the woman whose pastor refused to bury her life partner;
sing to the day laborer waiting in the rain for work;
sing to the mother holding her feverish child in the ER;
let us find ways to sing the good news with the whole of our lives—what we say, what we do, where we spend our money—let the angels song fill our hearts:
“Glory to God in the highest, and peace to all people on earth”
January 22, 2008
24 de diciembre de 2007 - La justicia - Samuel Chu
Lucas 2:46-55
Hay una gente de Africa que tiene la creencia de que nosotros los seres humanos se nos crea con una melodia única, una música que es solo para nosotros. Su tradición es de “honrar esa canción cantándola porque es bienvenida cuando nace una criatura, es consuelo cuando la criatura esta enferma, para celebrar cuando la criatura se casa, y en afirmación y en amor cuando la muerte llega.”
Nos toma tiempo para averiguar cual es nuestra canción, y distinguirla de la canción que otros quieren que cantemos. Imaginate tener una canción que es solo para nosotros; una canción que vive dentro de nosotros que nos describe al mundo; una canción que a veces oimos que no la canta de regreso el mundo; una canción que siempre esta ahí, no importa si sea día o noche, lista para consolarnos, para celebrar, sostener y guiarnos. Imaginate eso y preguntate, ¿cuál es mi canción?
Maria estallo con tremenda canción. La conocemos como “Magnificat”. Es una canción de celebración y justicia. Desafía que veamos el mundo al revés. Canta de la caida de los soberbios, los poderosos, los ricos, y de la subida del bajo y ambriento sirviente. Es una canción tan revolucionaria que te podrian meter a la carcel o hasta matarte. Y por eso ha durado tanto esta canción.
En este mundo sordo en que vivimos, madres no casadas y pobres, que no tienen oportunidades; a los extraños no se les da la bienvenida; la distancia entre los ricos y pobres crece más. En el lejano, el cielo se queda oscuro y silencioso. No hay angeles, ni trompetas, ni una estrella para guiarse, nada de buenas noticias, solamente los hechos frios de la vida real.
Pero con la canción de María nuestras imaginaciones sordas son asaltadas y empujadas a sus límites por imágenes, letras, e ideas peligrosas de lo que puede y no puede ser. Nos estimula nuestras imaginaciones para imaginar un nuevo y justo mundo. Y no puede haber justica hasta que se imaginen un mundo justo. La Magnifcat es el tipo de canción arriesgada y atrevida que hace la justicia posible y permisible.
El poeta hindú, Rabindrinath Tagore dice, “He pasado mis días encordando mi instrumento mientras que la canción que vine a cantar permanece sin cantar.” Consumidos por tareas, paralisados por hechos, esperando por mas datos… dejamos nuestra canción sin cantar. Hay una razón por que la gente canta cuando marcha. Los estimula, corta por los datos y hechos y despierta el valor para actuar como ningún dato puede.
En la luz de las letras subversivas de la canción de María, que yo pienso son apropiados para que dejemos que Emma Goldman, la conocida anarquista, tenga las últimas palabras. Emma le encataba bailar. Una noche un hombre la tomo al lado, y con una cara muy seria le susurro que no le parecia bien que una anarquista estuviera bailando, y menos con tanto abandono. No era digno de una persona que ser convertiría en una fuerza del movimiento anarquista.
Emma estaba furiosa y le dijo que no fuera un metiche. Estaba cansada de siempre pensar en la causa. Ella no creía que una causa, que representaba un ideal bello, de liberación de la convención social y los prejuicios, debería demandar la negación de la vida y felicidad. La Causa no podría esperar que ella se convirtiera en monja y que el movimiento no se volveria en un claustro.
"Quiero la libertad, el derecho de la expresión propia, el derecho de todos a las cosas bellas y radiantes." Ella escribio, “El Anarquismo era lo que significaba para mi, y yo viviriá a pesar de todo el mundo — las prisiones, persecuciones, todo. Si, a pesar de la condenación de mis compañeros mas cercanos, yo viviriá mi bello ideal. Si no puedo bailar, no quiero su revolución.”
¿Escuchan la música? ¿Han respondido a su llamamiento y se han unido al coro? Nacido para nosotros este día es un mundo nuevo y justo. Canta, baila y ser parte de la revolución.
“María dijo:Cada quien tiene su propia canción – Naciones tienen himnos nacionales, los amantes tienen baladas, niños tienen canciones de cuna. Tenemos canciones especiales para bodas, cumpleaños en toda cultura. Cuando estas deprimido, felíz, cuando quieres protestar algo, tienes una canción. Esa es una razón porque los IPods son regalos populares. Nos da el poder de hacer una banda sonora y ponerala a tocar con nuestras vidas, y nos estimula nuestras imaginaciones para la vida.
Mi alma proclama tu grandesa, O, Dios,
Y mi espiritú se recogisa en tí, mi Salvador.
Porque has reconocido
A tu pobre servidora,
Y desde este día en adelante
Todas las generaciones me llamaran bendita.
Porque tú, el Todopoderoso, has hecho grandes cosas por mi,
Y bendito es tu Nombre.
Tu merced se extiende de epoca a epoca
Para los que te temen.
Has demostrado fuerza con tu brazo,
Has derrumbado a los soberbios en su vanidad,
Has deponido a los poderosos de sus tronos
Y levantado los bajos a lugares altos.
Has llenado a los ambrientos con cosas buenas,
Mientras que mandas lejos a los ricos sin nada.
Has venido a la ayuda de Israel, tu sirviente,
Conciente de tu merced –
La promesa que le hiciste a tus antepasados –
A Sara y Abraham
Y sus decendientes para siempre.”
Hay una gente de Africa que tiene la creencia de que nosotros los seres humanos se nos crea con una melodia única, una música que es solo para nosotros. Su tradición es de “honrar esa canción cantándola porque es bienvenida cuando nace una criatura, es consuelo cuando la criatura esta enferma, para celebrar cuando la criatura se casa, y en afirmación y en amor cuando la muerte llega.”
Nos toma tiempo para averiguar cual es nuestra canción, y distinguirla de la canción que otros quieren que cantemos. Imaginate tener una canción que es solo para nosotros; una canción que vive dentro de nosotros que nos describe al mundo; una canción que a veces oimos que no la canta de regreso el mundo; una canción que siempre esta ahí, no importa si sea día o noche, lista para consolarnos, para celebrar, sostener y guiarnos. Imaginate eso y preguntate, ¿cuál es mi canción?
Maria estallo con tremenda canción. La conocemos como “Magnificat”. Es una canción de celebración y justicia. Desafía que veamos el mundo al revés. Canta de la caida de los soberbios, los poderosos, los ricos, y de la subida del bajo y ambriento sirviente. Es una canción tan revolucionaria que te podrian meter a la carcel o hasta matarte. Y por eso ha durado tanto esta canción.
En este mundo sordo en que vivimos, madres no casadas y pobres, que no tienen oportunidades; a los extraños no se les da la bienvenida; la distancia entre los ricos y pobres crece más. En el lejano, el cielo se queda oscuro y silencioso. No hay angeles, ni trompetas, ni una estrella para guiarse, nada de buenas noticias, solamente los hechos frios de la vida real.
Pero con la canción de María nuestras imaginaciones sordas son asaltadas y empujadas a sus límites por imágenes, letras, e ideas peligrosas de lo que puede y no puede ser. Nos estimula nuestras imaginaciones para imaginar un nuevo y justo mundo. Y no puede haber justica hasta que se imaginen un mundo justo. La Magnifcat es el tipo de canción arriesgada y atrevida que hace la justicia posible y permisible.
El poeta hindú, Rabindrinath Tagore dice, “He pasado mis días encordando mi instrumento mientras que la canción que vine a cantar permanece sin cantar.” Consumidos por tareas, paralisados por hechos, esperando por mas datos… dejamos nuestra canción sin cantar. Hay una razón por que la gente canta cuando marcha. Los estimula, corta por los datos y hechos y despierta el valor para actuar como ningún dato puede.
En la luz de las letras subversivas de la canción de María, que yo pienso son apropiados para que dejemos que Emma Goldman, la conocida anarquista, tenga las últimas palabras. Emma le encataba bailar. Una noche un hombre la tomo al lado, y con una cara muy seria le susurro que no le parecia bien que una anarquista estuviera bailando, y menos con tanto abandono. No era digno de una persona que ser convertiría en una fuerza del movimiento anarquista.
Emma estaba furiosa y le dijo que no fuera un metiche. Estaba cansada de siempre pensar en la causa. Ella no creía que una causa, que representaba un ideal bello, de liberación de la convención social y los prejuicios, debería demandar la negación de la vida y felicidad. La Causa no podría esperar que ella se convirtiera en monja y que el movimiento no se volveria en un claustro.
"Quiero la libertad, el derecho de la expresión propia, el derecho de todos a las cosas bellas y radiantes." Ella escribio, “El Anarquismo era lo que significaba para mi, y yo viviriá a pesar de todo el mundo — las prisiones, persecuciones, todo. Si, a pesar de la condenación de mis compañeros mas cercanos, yo viviriá mi bello ideal. Si no puedo bailar, no quiero su revolución.”
¿Escuchan la música? ¿Han respondido a su llamamiento y se han unido al coro? Nacido para nosotros este día es un mundo nuevo y justo. Canta, baila y ser parte de la revolución.
December 24, 2007 - Justice - Samuel Chu
Luke 2:46-55
There is a people in Africa who believe that we humans are each created having a unique melody, some music that is our own. Their tradition “is to honor that song by singing it as welcome when a child is born, as comfort when the child is ill, in celebration when the child marries, and in affirmation and love when death comes.”
It takes a while to figure out our song, and to distinguish it from the song that others want us to sing. Imagine having a tune that is just our own; a song living in us that describes us to the world; a song that we sometimes hear the world sing back to us; a song that is there, no matter it be day or night, ready to comfort, celebrate, sustain and guide us. Imagine that and ask yourself, what’s your song?
Mary burst out with quite a song. We know it as the “Magnificat”. It is a song of jubilee and justice. It dares to see the world upside down. It sings of the fall of the proud, the powerful, the rich and the rising of the lowly, the hungry, the servant. It is the kind of revolutionary tune might get you imprisoned or even killed. And that’s why it is such an enduring song.
In the muted world we live, poor, unmarried mothers and their babies don’t stand a chance; strangers are not welcomed; the gap between rich and poor is widening rather than reversing. Out there, the sky stays dark and silent. No angels, no trumpets, no guiding star, no good news, just the cold hard facts of life.
But with Mary’s song our muted imaginations get assaulted and pushed to the limits by images, lyrics, and dangerous ideas about what can and can’t be. They fuel our imagination for a new and just world. And you can’t do justice until you can imagine a world that’s just. The Magnifcat is the kind of risky, daring song that makes justice possible and permissible.
The Hindu poet, Rabindrinath Tagore says, “I have spent my days stringing and unstringing my instrument while the song I came to sing remains unsung.” Consumed by tasks, paralyzed by facts, waiting for more data… we leave our song unsung. There is a reason why people sing when they march. It fuels them, it cuts through the cold hard facts, and it awakens the courage to act like no data can.
In light of Mary’s subversive lyrics, I think it’s fitting we let Emma Goldman, the noted anarchist, have the last words. Emma loved to dance. One evening a boy took her aside, and with a grave face whispered to her that it did not behoove an agitator to dance, certainly not with such reckless abandon anyway. It was undignified for one who was on the way to become a force in the anarchist movement.
Emma was furious and told him to mind his own business. She was tired of having the Cause constantly thrown into her face. She didn’t believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for release and freedom from convention and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy. The Cause could not expect her to become a nun and that the movement would not be turned into a cloister.
"I want freedom, the right to self-expression, everybody's right to beautiful, radiant things." She wrote, “Anarchism meant that to me, and I would live it in spite of the whole world — prisons, persecution, everything. Yes, even in spite of the condemnation of my own closest comrades I would live my beautiful ideal. If I can’t dance, I don’t want your revolution.”
Do you hear the music? Have you answer its call and join the chorus? Born to us this day is a new and just world. Sing, Dance and be a part of the revolution.
“Mary said:Everybody has a song - Nations have anthems, lovers have ballads, children have lullabies. We’ve special songs for weddings, birthdays in every culture. When you are depressed, happy, when you want to protest, when you are in the shower, you’ve got a song. That’s one reason why IPods are such popular gifts. It gives us the power to put our life to its own song track and it fuels our imaginations for life.
My soul proclaims your greatness, O, God,
And my spirit rejoices in you, my Savior.
For you have looked with favor
Upon your lowly servant,
And from this day forward
All generations will call me blessed.
For you, the Almighty, have done great things for me,
And holy is your Name.
Your mercy reaches from age to age
For those who fear you.
You have shown strength with your arm,
You have scattered the proud in their conceit,
You have deposed the mighty from their thrones
And raised the lowly to high places.
You have filled the hungry with good things,
While you have sent the rich away empty.
You have come to the aid of Israel your servant,
Mindful of your mercy –
The promise you made to our ancestors –
To Sarah and Abraham
And their descendants forever.”
There is a people in Africa who believe that we humans are each created having a unique melody, some music that is our own. Their tradition “is to honor that song by singing it as welcome when a child is born, as comfort when the child is ill, in celebration when the child marries, and in affirmation and love when death comes.”
It takes a while to figure out our song, and to distinguish it from the song that others want us to sing. Imagine having a tune that is just our own; a song living in us that describes us to the world; a song that we sometimes hear the world sing back to us; a song that is there, no matter it be day or night, ready to comfort, celebrate, sustain and guide us. Imagine that and ask yourself, what’s your song?
Mary burst out with quite a song. We know it as the “Magnificat”. It is a song of jubilee and justice. It dares to see the world upside down. It sings of the fall of the proud, the powerful, the rich and the rising of the lowly, the hungry, the servant. It is the kind of revolutionary tune might get you imprisoned or even killed. And that’s why it is such an enduring song.
In the muted world we live, poor, unmarried mothers and their babies don’t stand a chance; strangers are not welcomed; the gap between rich and poor is widening rather than reversing. Out there, the sky stays dark and silent. No angels, no trumpets, no guiding star, no good news, just the cold hard facts of life.
But with Mary’s song our muted imaginations get assaulted and pushed to the limits by images, lyrics, and dangerous ideas about what can and can’t be. They fuel our imagination for a new and just world. And you can’t do justice until you can imagine a world that’s just. The Magnifcat is the kind of risky, daring song that makes justice possible and permissible.
The Hindu poet, Rabindrinath Tagore says, “I have spent my days stringing and unstringing my instrument while the song I came to sing remains unsung.” Consumed by tasks, paralyzed by facts, waiting for more data… we leave our song unsung. There is a reason why people sing when they march. It fuels them, it cuts through the cold hard facts, and it awakens the courage to act like no data can.
In light of Mary’s subversive lyrics, I think it’s fitting we let Emma Goldman, the noted anarchist, have the last words. Emma loved to dance. One evening a boy took her aside, and with a grave face whispered to her that it did not behoove an agitator to dance, certainly not with such reckless abandon anyway. It was undignified for one who was on the way to become a force in the anarchist movement.
Emma was furious and told him to mind his own business. She was tired of having the Cause constantly thrown into her face. She didn’t believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for release and freedom from convention and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy. The Cause could not expect her to become a nun and that the movement would not be turned into a cloister.
"I want freedom, the right to self-expression, everybody's right to beautiful, radiant things." She wrote, “Anarchism meant that to me, and I would live it in spite of the whole world — prisons, persecution, everything. Yes, even in spite of the condemnation of my own closest comrades I would live my beautiful ideal. If I can’t dance, I don’t want your revolution.”
Do you hear the music? Have you answer its call and join the chorus? Born to us this day is a new and just world. Sing, Dance and be a part of the revolution.
December 23, 2007 - The Spirit Against All Odds - Frank Alton
Matthew 1:18-25
MP3 File
“The birth of Jesus took place in this way. When Jesus’ mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.” From the beginning of the story we’re given this huge clue about what is going on: Mary is pregnant by the Holy Spirit. Even before the story tells us what happens, before we know what will change, we know that this fact changes everything.
But Joseph doesn’t know. His initial actions are based on how it looks from the outside, namely that she’s bearing some other guy’s child. Here's his society’s rule about that: both the woman and the mans whose child it is get death by stoning -- assuming you know the identity of the father, and that the woman is seized in an area in which someone could have heard her screams if she cried out. Under those terms, Joseph’s response to news of Mary’s pregnancy is as humane as a first century Jewish man could be. The rule for his part was that he had to divorce her in order to show that his love for God was stronger than his love for Mary – there were simply no other options available to him as a faithful Jew. It was not his prerogative to forgive her and act out that forgiveness by consummating the marriage.
But even before having a dream, Joseph took one further step – he determined to divorce Mary secretly, so as not to cause her public humiliation. Joseph’s righteousness is clearly as much a matter of compassion as it is of strict obedience to the law. (Paul Nancarrow) Matthew sets up at the beginning of his Gospel an understanding that to be righteous means to do God’s will as understood in the new circumstances created by Jesus’ origin. In fact, the genealogy that comes right before this story shows us it’s not new. It’s the way God has always acted. Among the 42 fathers from Abraham to Jesus, Matthew inserts 5 mothers including Mary. All five – Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba & Mary - have in common; some seemingly sexual impropriety in connection with them or the conceptions of the sons in the line of David. The story of Jesus' birth follows as the story of Mary’s seemingly improper conception. Mary is found to be with child before she and Joseph are married.
So here’s the deal: we need rules, & we need to stretch rules. Rules make life predictable; to make meaning, we need things to be at least somewhat predictable. Rules are how we know what's what – especially with respect to really important matters. In some ways, you can tell what's really important in a culture by where it most sticks to rules -- things you do because that's how it's done.
For example, weddings are important in our culture. Women who are responsible for many others as heads of organizations, companies, or families often choose on their wedding day to be "given away" by their fathers -- not because they belong to their fathers to be given to another man, but just because "that's how it's done." Men who are already living and sharing household expenses with the woman they love go to incredible lengths to squirrel away enough to buy a diamond ring (& for a woman who doesn't wear jewelry) when they propose marriage because, well, "that's how it's done." (Sarah Dylan’s Blog)
Imagine that amped up about ten thousand times, and you have some idea of how serious Joseph’s culture was about what he needed to do. But Joseph understood righteousness to be as much a matter of compassion as it is of strict obedience to the law. And that was before he had the dream in which the angel told him that the child is of the Holy Spirit. Don’t miss that little detail: Joseph received the information in a dream. We the readers are told it as a fact. Of course we still have the choice to believe it or not. But we have history to help us make our decision. Joseph only had a dream. This was a defining moment for him. If he believed the dream that the child was of the Holy Spirit against all odds, he knew it would change every thing. He hadn’t awakened that day thinking he was facing a defining moment, but he was. He didn’t wake up thinking his life was about to change, but it was. His already stretched idea of righteousness that had made him decide to protect Mary from public humiliation was about to expand further. Going ahead with the marriage would expose both Mary & him to public scandal. To marry under those circumstances meant acting contrary to societal expectations; that certainly would be misunderstood & evaluated as shameful.
Have you ever faced a defining moment? Robert Coles, the child psychologist who wrote many books, including The Moral Life of Children, shares an interview with a fourteen-year-old boy, the first white youth to speak to a black youth in one of Atlanta's desegregated schools half a century ago. "I didn't want any part of them here. They belong with their own, and we belong with our own - that's what we all said. Then those two kids came here, and they had a tough time. They were all by themselves. The school had to get police protection for them. We didn't want them, and they knew it. We told them so, in case they were slow to get the message. I didn't hold back, no more than anyone else. But after a few weeks, I began to see a kid - a guy who knew how to smile when it was rough going, and who walked straight and tall, and was polite. I told my parents, 'It's a real shame that someone like him has to pay for the trouble caused by all those federal judges.'
"Then it happened. I saw a few people cuss at him. Soon they were pushing him in a corner, and it looked like trouble, bad trouble. I went over and broke it up. I said, 'Hey, cut it out.' They all looked at me as if I was crazy. But my buddies stopped, and the kid left. Before he left, though, I spoke to him. I didn't mean to, actually! It just came out of my mouth. I was surprised to hear the words myself: 'I'm sorry.' As soon as he was gone, my friend gave it to me: 'What do you mean, "I'm sorry"!' I didn't know what to say. After a few minutes, we all went to basketball practice. That was the strangest moment of my life."(pp. 27 - 28) Later on he confided to Robert Coles: "Something in me just drew the line, and something in me began to change, I think." (John Purdy, The Human Face of God)
It’s always risky to draw the line. It can go either way. You could be ostracized & have to start your life all over again. You could be tolerated as people allow the memory of what you did begin to fade. Or you could gain people’s respect for standing up for something. Joseph drew the line when he decided to go ahead with the marriage. The angel knew he had to be afraid as he made that decision. The “be not afraid” was dead on:“Fear not Joseph, son of David, You fear disgrace. You fear embarrassment and shame for yourself and for Mary. You fear public scandal. You fear that your reputation will suffer, but it will not happen. For out of this fear comes an opportunity that neither you nor your worthy ancestors could have imagined: you will become the guardian of God. You will be the protector of the Savior of the world. You, Joseph, will become the Stepfather to hope." Rev Craig Shirley quotes Peter Gomes, Harvard University’s Memorial Church.
When did something in you draw a line? Or is something calling you to do that now? What have you feared doing because of what it might bring to you? Is there some conviction you hold privately that you need to go public with in order to be a witness to God’s reign of peace, justice & healing? Is there some truth about yourself that you need to reveal to someone in order to become the one through whom God’s opportunity comes? Is there some act of forgiveness or compassion that you feel deeply called to carry out, but whose implementation could bring embarrassment and shame? Is there some relationship that needs reconciliation in which you could intervene, though you know that things could either get better or worse through your mediation?
The Bible tells us story after story in which the Spirit of God acts against the odds so that we might believe it enough to act in spite of our fears when the odds are not in our favor. But it’s different to be the reader & to be the actor. Joseph received the same information we did. As readers we can sit in our pews, hear the story for the umpteenth time, and applaud his courage. Joseph didn’t have that luxury. He needed to act that very day. How he acted depended in some sense on the degree to which over the years he had allowed his own spirit to be shaped by those same stories of God’s Spirit acting against the odds and against the dominant culture.
The reason we tell good stories over and over again is that they need to wrap themselves around our bones and our tendons; they need to take up residence in the synapses of our brains where the decisions are made about how we will act. That doesn’t usually happen through a single telling. The church tells the same stories every few years because we need to get those stories inside us in order to find what Paul Tillich called “the courage to be.”
But we still need to move from reader & hearer to actor. Joseph didn’t only have whatever Bible stories he had managed to get inside. He had a dream. We all have dreams. Some of them are pretty crazy. We’ve learned that dreams are a mechanism of our psyche that somehow processes our experiences but does not give us literal truth. We don’t usually look to them for life-changing messages. So why did Joseph?
Some spiritual traditions speak of something called discernment – an examination of one's internal reactions to God in prayer. There are different kinds, but one kind occurs when grace is so gently strong that the person praying has an inner assurance that the experience did not come from imagination but from God. Somehow it is impossible to doubt it. Now many of us could convince ourselves that God or an Angel spoke to us this morning. We need to “discern” which experiences are from God and which are not. Are they quiet? Do they lead toward God or away? What is the long-term result?
Joseph's dream may have been a movement of this kind. It contained a quiet certainty of the presence of God. It was like the face of mother to a child, like the voice of a close friend. This is where hearing the stories over and over impacts discernment. Joseph already had a storehouse of trust in God's love. He didn’t experience the storehouse as broken into, shattered or pulled to pieces by the dream. Instead the message fit right into the design of his life. And so he followed.
How does the message of the Christmas story fit into your life? Is God’s birth an impossible tale reserved for children? Or do you find the roots of trust within yourself as Joseph did? What is at stake is not whether or not we believe a 2000 year old tale. What is at stake is whether we will be able to overcome the fears that keep us from acting whenever life calls us to face the little deaths that keep confronting us. If the Spirit is alive in us it means that we are growing; and in almost every case, in order to grow, some part of us has to die – our rules, our reputation, our comfort, our security, our self image, etc. Unless we are willing to risk those parts of ourselves, we cannot grow to embrace more and more of life. Joseph’s experience encourages us to keep listening to the stories, to attend to the Spirit who acts against all odds; & to be open to the surprise of waking up on any given day to discover that we have to draw the line some where, when we had been expecting no such thing.
MP3 File
“The birth of Jesus took place in this way. When Jesus’ mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.” From the beginning of the story we’re given this huge clue about what is going on: Mary is pregnant by the Holy Spirit. Even before the story tells us what happens, before we know what will change, we know that this fact changes everything.
But Joseph doesn’t know. His initial actions are based on how it looks from the outside, namely that she’s bearing some other guy’s child. Here's his society’s rule about that: both the woman and the mans whose child it is get death by stoning -- assuming you know the identity of the father, and that the woman is seized in an area in which someone could have heard her screams if she cried out. Under those terms, Joseph’s response to news of Mary’s pregnancy is as humane as a first century Jewish man could be. The rule for his part was that he had to divorce her in order to show that his love for God was stronger than his love for Mary – there were simply no other options available to him as a faithful Jew. It was not his prerogative to forgive her and act out that forgiveness by consummating the marriage.
But even before having a dream, Joseph took one further step – he determined to divorce Mary secretly, so as not to cause her public humiliation. Joseph’s righteousness is clearly as much a matter of compassion as it is of strict obedience to the law. (Paul Nancarrow) Matthew sets up at the beginning of his Gospel an understanding that to be righteous means to do God’s will as understood in the new circumstances created by Jesus’ origin. In fact, the genealogy that comes right before this story shows us it’s not new. It’s the way God has always acted. Among the 42 fathers from Abraham to Jesus, Matthew inserts 5 mothers including Mary. All five – Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba & Mary - have in common; some seemingly sexual impropriety in connection with them or the conceptions of the sons in the line of David. The story of Jesus' birth follows as the story of Mary’s seemingly improper conception. Mary is found to be with child before she and Joseph are married.
So here’s the deal: we need rules, & we need to stretch rules. Rules make life predictable; to make meaning, we need things to be at least somewhat predictable. Rules are how we know what's what – especially with respect to really important matters. In some ways, you can tell what's really important in a culture by where it most sticks to rules -- things you do because that's how it's done.
For example, weddings are important in our culture. Women who are responsible for many others as heads of organizations, companies, or families often choose on their wedding day to be "given away" by their fathers -- not because they belong to their fathers to be given to another man, but just because "that's how it's done." Men who are already living and sharing household expenses with the woman they love go to incredible lengths to squirrel away enough to buy a diamond ring (& for a woman who doesn't wear jewelry) when they propose marriage because, well, "that's how it's done." (Sarah Dylan’s Blog)
Imagine that amped up about ten thousand times, and you have some idea of how serious Joseph’s culture was about what he needed to do. But Joseph understood righteousness to be as much a matter of compassion as it is of strict obedience to the law. And that was before he had the dream in which the angel told him that the child is of the Holy Spirit. Don’t miss that little detail: Joseph received the information in a dream. We the readers are told it as a fact. Of course we still have the choice to believe it or not. But we have history to help us make our decision. Joseph only had a dream. This was a defining moment for him. If he believed the dream that the child was of the Holy Spirit against all odds, he knew it would change every thing. He hadn’t awakened that day thinking he was facing a defining moment, but he was. He didn’t wake up thinking his life was about to change, but it was. His already stretched idea of righteousness that had made him decide to protect Mary from public humiliation was about to expand further. Going ahead with the marriage would expose both Mary & him to public scandal. To marry under those circumstances meant acting contrary to societal expectations; that certainly would be misunderstood & evaluated as shameful.
Have you ever faced a defining moment? Robert Coles, the child psychologist who wrote many books, including The Moral Life of Children, shares an interview with a fourteen-year-old boy, the first white youth to speak to a black youth in one of Atlanta's desegregated schools half a century ago. "I didn't want any part of them here. They belong with their own, and we belong with our own - that's what we all said. Then those two kids came here, and they had a tough time. They were all by themselves. The school had to get police protection for them. We didn't want them, and they knew it. We told them so, in case they were slow to get the message. I didn't hold back, no more than anyone else. But after a few weeks, I began to see a kid - a guy who knew how to smile when it was rough going, and who walked straight and tall, and was polite. I told my parents, 'It's a real shame that someone like him has to pay for the trouble caused by all those federal judges.'
"Then it happened. I saw a few people cuss at him. Soon they were pushing him in a corner, and it looked like trouble, bad trouble. I went over and broke it up. I said, 'Hey, cut it out.' They all looked at me as if I was crazy. But my buddies stopped, and the kid left. Before he left, though, I spoke to him. I didn't mean to, actually! It just came out of my mouth. I was surprised to hear the words myself: 'I'm sorry.' As soon as he was gone, my friend gave it to me: 'What do you mean, "I'm sorry"!' I didn't know what to say. After a few minutes, we all went to basketball practice. That was the strangest moment of my life."(pp. 27 - 28) Later on he confided to Robert Coles: "Something in me just drew the line, and something in me began to change, I think." (John Purdy, The Human Face of God)
It’s always risky to draw the line. It can go either way. You could be ostracized & have to start your life all over again. You could be tolerated as people allow the memory of what you did begin to fade. Or you could gain people’s respect for standing up for something. Joseph drew the line when he decided to go ahead with the marriage. The angel knew he had to be afraid as he made that decision. The “be not afraid” was dead on:“Fear not Joseph, son of David, You fear disgrace. You fear embarrassment and shame for yourself and for Mary. You fear public scandal. You fear that your reputation will suffer, but it will not happen. For out of this fear comes an opportunity that neither you nor your worthy ancestors could have imagined: you will become the guardian of God. You will be the protector of the Savior of the world. You, Joseph, will become the Stepfather to hope." Rev Craig Shirley quotes Peter Gomes, Harvard University’s Memorial Church.
When did something in you draw a line? Or is something calling you to do that now? What have you feared doing because of what it might bring to you? Is there some conviction you hold privately that you need to go public with in order to be a witness to God’s reign of peace, justice & healing? Is there some truth about yourself that you need to reveal to someone in order to become the one through whom God’s opportunity comes? Is there some act of forgiveness or compassion that you feel deeply called to carry out, but whose implementation could bring embarrassment and shame? Is there some relationship that needs reconciliation in which you could intervene, though you know that things could either get better or worse through your mediation?
The Bible tells us story after story in which the Spirit of God acts against the odds so that we might believe it enough to act in spite of our fears when the odds are not in our favor. But it’s different to be the reader & to be the actor. Joseph received the same information we did. As readers we can sit in our pews, hear the story for the umpteenth time, and applaud his courage. Joseph didn’t have that luxury. He needed to act that very day. How he acted depended in some sense on the degree to which over the years he had allowed his own spirit to be shaped by those same stories of God’s Spirit acting against the odds and against the dominant culture.
The reason we tell good stories over and over again is that they need to wrap themselves around our bones and our tendons; they need to take up residence in the synapses of our brains where the decisions are made about how we will act. That doesn’t usually happen through a single telling. The church tells the same stories every few years because we need to get those stories inside us in order to find what Paul Tillich called “the courage to be.”
But we still need to move from reader & hearer to actor. Joseph didn’t only have whatever Bible stories he had managed to get inside. He had a dream. We all have dreams. Some of them are pretty crazy. We’ve learned that dreams are a mechanism of our psyche that somehow processes our experiences but does not give us literal truth. We don’t usually look to them for life-changing messages. So why did Joseph?
Some spiritual traditions speak of something called discernment – an examination of one's internal reactions to God in prayer. There are different kinds, but one kind occurs when grace is so gently strong that the person praying has an inner assurance that the experience did not come from imagination but from God. Somehow it is impossible to doubt it. Now many of us could convince ourselves that God or an Angel spoke to us this morning. We need to “discern” which experiences are from God and which are not. Are they quiet? Do they lead toward God or away? What is the long-term result?
Joseph's dream may have been a movement of this kind. It contained a quiet certainty of the presence of God. It was like the face of mother to a child, like the voice of a close friend. This is where hearing the stories over and over impacts discernment. Joseph already had a storehouse of trust in God's love. He didn’t experience the storehouse as broken into, shattered or pulled to pieces by the dream. Instead the message fit right into the design of his life. And so he followed.
How does the message of the Christmas story fit into your life? Is God’s birth an impossible tale reserved for children? Or do you find the roots of trust within yourself as Joseph did? What is at stake is not whether or not we believe a 2000 year old tale. What is at stake is whether we will be able to overcome the fears that keep us from acting whenever life calls us to face the little deaths that keep confronting us. If the Spirit is alive in us it means that we are growing; and in almost every case, in order to grow, some part of us has to die – our rules, our reputation, our comfort, our security, our self image, etc. Unless we are willing to risk those parts of ourselves, we cannot grow to embrace more and more of life. Joseph’s experience encourages us to keep listening to the stories, to attend to the Spirit who acts against all odds; & to be open to the surprise of waking up on any given day to discover that we have to draw the line some where, when we had been expecting no such thing.
January 8, 2008
December 16, 2007 - Healing - Frank Alton
Isaiah 35:1-10; Matthew 11:2-11
MP3 File
We continue looking at the signs of God’s coming – justice and peace last week; healing this week. I surprised myself at how theological I got last week as I spoke about peace & justice. I find the same thing happening this week as I approach the subject of healing. I’m not sure people are always ready for a heavy dose of theology on Sunday morning. But what I’m noticing is that the theology many of us learned growing up – or even as adults – actually blocks us from recognizing God’s coming rather than helping us to notice God’s presence. We need to rework our theology in order to open ourselves to what God brings to us.
I see Isaiah and Mathew’s Jesus making some new and challenging connections with healing. They connect healing and salvation in new ways. They relate healing and holiness differently. And Isaiah includes the healing of creation is a necessary part of the enterprise of redemption. First, there is a new connection between healing and salvation.
I spent yesterday morning listening to people who are preparing for ordained ministry in the Presbyterian Church share their statements of faith, motivation & service. I was impressed by the quality of the candidates in this particular group. They were people who seemed deeply centered & who had strong relational skills. They gave me hope for the future of the church. At the same time I was disturbed by a discrepancy that I noticed between their statements of faith and their understanding of ministry. One preached a sermon with some moving stories of ministries of compassion. He spoke eloquently about an experience of visiting a very poor community in Africa where people were dying of AIDS, and where many children were being orphaned. He seemed to understand that serving in such contexts was a necessary and natural outgrowth of the Gospel. But when a committee member asked how he understood the ministry he had witnessed in Africa, he could only see the compassionate part of the ministry as motivation for people finding eternal spiritual salvation. His theology placed a hierarchy over the difference between eternal salvation and temporal healing.
Over the years I have come to see a more central place for healing – in the world, in other people, and mostly in my own life. That, in turn, has led me to explore the role of healing in the Scriptures. I have discovered that over the centuries the church lost touch with major parts of Jesus’ ministry by focusing too much on one part. Almost everything else was shoved aside in favor of an emphasis on humanity’s need for legal salvation in which God the judge sends Jesus to die so that people can avoid the punishment of eternal damnation for their sins and be granted eternal life. We miss so much of the beauty of what God is about in the world by insisting that everything pass through that filter.
Let me offer a different view – one that emerges clearly from the two texts we read this morning. Remember that Advent is the season in which we prepare for God’s coming. We have said that God keeps coming to us, and that a major part of preparing is learning to notice what it’s like when God is around. Isaiah and Jesus offer the same list of signs of God’s coming – though Isaiah offers some important additional ones. Isaiah writes: “Here is your God… God will come and save you. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.” Later, when John asks if Jesus is really the one who is to come and reveal God, Jesus answered: “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.” The only difference is the verb tense. For Isaiah everything is future. For Jesus everything is present.
In the Gospel, healing is the major sign of God’s coming. It is as if the Gospel is saying, “When you see a lot of healing going on, be aware that God is present in that place.” It’s no accident that we have missed that insight. A theologian named Martin Kähler years ago described Matthew’s Gospel as a Passion story with an extended introduction. In other words, the main part of the story is the part about Jesus dying; the healing stories are just filler. That view held sway for many years. The real Gospel story is Jesus’ sacrificial death for our sin. But Jesus spoke very negatively about sacrifice.
When the religious leaders criticized Jesus for eating with sinners, he used healing imagery to contrast sacrifice: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’” (9:13) Later he was criticized for allowing his disciples to satisfy their hunger by plucking heads of grain on the Sabbath he responded, “If you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless.” (12:7) Isn’t it odd, then, that the Gospel would be summarized as Jesus’ self sacrifice when Jesus himself spoke so negatively about sacrifice? Today some are coming to see now that the healing stories are actually a central part of the overall story. I have mentioned that sozo, the Greek word for salvation, also means healing. Sometimes it is translated salvation, and sometimes healing. That ambiguity has to elevate the importance of healing against the backdrop of a view of salvation that is only legal: Jesus died for our sins to pay the price that would satisfy the demands of God, the judge.
Who wouldn’t want healing? Well, it turns out that not everyone does. That brings us to the second new connection that Isaiah and Jesus brought to the picture: the connection between healing and holiness. Jesus did not fare well for healing all kinds of people of their diseases. The great offense that led to his death was that he bucked the system by offering healing and forgiveness to those whom the system kept safely on the margins of “decent society.” They called it blasphemy, and concluded that it was “better that one man die for the sake of the people” (John 11:49) than the whole national system of achieving salvation be destroyed.
Again, both Isaiah and Jesus introduced a different relationship between healing and holiness. Isaiah uses the image of “The Holy Way.” In the orthodoxy of his day the holy way was reserved for those who were ritually clean. Isaiah writes that the unclean shall not pass it by; it shall be for them. (35:8 footnote NRSV) Whether that means that the unclean shall be cleansed, or that the definition of holiness no longer requires separation from those who are ritually unclean, Isaiah is speaking Gospel into a very oppressive situation.
Jesus was more implicit in his treatment of holiness but the message is the same. He knew that the religious leaders would take offense at his inclusiveness toward the infirm. So he said, “blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.” Then he went on to talk about John the Baptist as one who offended many because he didn’t follow the rules of the system about where holy people hang out and what they look like.
We still wrestle with the relationship between healing and holiness. At Immanuel I have seen this over and over. People are attracted to something different about the way people relate at Immanuel. It is different from other churches. And it is different from what they experience at work, in their neighborhoods, in school and other settings of their lives. There is an acceptance of people just as they are – especially people who don’t find broad acceptance elsewhere. Even people who are generally accepted socially are attracted to a community like that, because all of us have parts of ourselves that we don’t find acceptable. To find a community that might accept that part of me meets a very deep longing.
But sometimes the belief system we learned in church growing up doesn’t match that acceptance. I can’t believe it’s true that God accepts those parts of me or of another that I don’t find acceptable to myself. So Immanuel must be wrong to be so inclusive, even though I wish it were right. Now I also know that there are things about the way people relate at Immanuel that are very unattractive. When we blame, shame and attack each other it makes people want to flee from us. For me, however, that just proves the point. We respond to others by blaming, shaming and attacking because that is how adults responded to the parts of us that were unattractive or unacceptable. We are a community of wounded human beings, so we will never be fully consistent in the way we treat each other. But in the midst of our imperfections, there is something beautiful that comes from a view of God that is rooted in grace and compassion rather than judgment and punishment. As we discover that we will treat each other more and more with that same grace and compassion rather than blame, shame and attack. It turns out that the Gospel offers good news about how holy a person has to be in order to be healed.
Finally, the Gospel offers a new connection between healing and creation. Isaiah helps us see that the healing isn’t just human healing. Creation itself is healed: “Waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water.” Our generation needs this dimension of healing like never before. This past week the United Nations Conference on Global Warming taking place in Bali, Indonesia was front and center in the news. The crisis of global warming forces us to face the truth that it is impossible to save some without saving all. The Africans have known this all along. It is the meaning of their word “Ubuntu.” Archbishop Desmond Tutu said: “A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed.” We need to say the same about entire societies and about all of creation. The United States cannot save its economy at the expense of the global environment. Even though it is expected that developing countries will suffer the effects of global warming first and worst, every nation will be severely impacted by it.
At one level we are already experiencing in our personal lives the impact of failing to attend to the healing of the planet. The other night a few of us were talking about all the new things to be concerned about with little babies. From lead in toys to pesticides in food, it would be easy to say, “We grew up with them and it didn’t kill us.” But what we realized is that many of us grew up in a world where those may have been the only contaminants we consumed. Today we all breathe, drink, eat, touch, and are simply exposed to, pollution on every front. The Gospel offers healing to a polluted creation, not just to the people who are poisoned by the very elements they have poisoned.
MP3 File
We continue looking at the signs of God’s coming – justice and peace last week; healing this week. I surprised myself at how theological I got last week as I spoke about peace & justice. I find the same thing happening this week as I approach the subject of healing. I’m not sure people are always ready for a heavy dose of theology on Sunday morning. But what I’m noticing is that the theology many of us learned growing up – or even as adults – actually blocks us from recognizing God’s coming rather than helping us to notice God’s presence. We need to rework our theology in order to open ourselves to what God brings to us.
I see Isaiah and Mathew’s Jesus making some new and challenging connections with healing. They connect healing and salvation in new ways. They relate healing and holiness differently. And Isaiah includes the healing of creation is a necessary part of the enterprise of redemption. First, there is a new connection between healing and salvation.
I spent yesterday morning listening to people who are preparing for ordained ministry in the Presbyterian Church share their statements of faith, motivation & service. I was impressed by the quality of the candidates in this particular group. They were people who seemed deeply centered & who had strong relational skills. They gave me hope for the future of the church. At the same time I was disturbed by a discrepancy that I noticed between their statements of faith and their understanding of ministry. One preached a sermon with some moving stories of ministries of compassion. He spoke eloquently about an experience of visiting a very poor community in Africa where people were dying of AIDS, and where many children were being orphaned. He seemed to understand that serving in such contexts was a necessary and natural outgrowth of the Gospel. But when a committee member asked how he understood the ministry he had witnessed in Africa, he could only see the compassionate part of the ministry as motivation for people finding eternal spiritual salvation. His theology placed a hierarchy over the difference between eternal salvation and temporal healing.
Over the years I have come to see a more central place for healing – in the world, in other people, and mostly in my own life. That, in turn, has led me to explore the role of healing in the Scriptures. I have discovered that over the centuries the church lost touch with major parts of Jesus’ ministry by focusing too much on one part. Almost everything else was shoved aside in favor of an emphasis on humanity’s need for legal salvation in which God the judge sends Jesus to die so that people can avoid the punishment of eternal damnation for their sins and be granted eternal life. We miss so much of the beauty of what God is about in the world by insisting that everything pass through that filter.
Let me offer a different view – one that emerges clearly from the two texts we read this morning. Remember that Advent is the season in which we prepare for God’s coming. We have said that God keeps coming to us, and that a major part of preparing is learning to notice what it’s like when God is around. Isaiah and Jesus offer the same list of signs of God’s coming – though Isaiah offers some important additional ones. Isaiah writes: “Here is your God… God will come and save you. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.” Later, when John asks if Jesus is really the one who is to come and reveal God, Jesus answered: “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.” The only difference is the verb tense. For Isaiah everything is future. For Jesus everything is present.
In the Gospel, healing is the major sign of God’s coming. It is as if the Gospel is saying, “When you see a lot of healing going on, be aware that God is present in that place.” It’s no accident that we have missed that insight. A theologian named Martin Kähler years ago described Matthew’s Gospel as a Passion story with an extended introduction. In other words, the main part of the story is the part about Jesus dying; the healing stories are just filler. That view held sway for many years. The real Gospel story is Jesus’ sacrificial death for our sin. But Jesus spoke very negatively about sacrifice.
When the religious leaders criticized Jesus for eating with sinners, he used healing imagery to contrast sacrifice: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’” (9:13) Later he was criticized for allowing his disciples to satisfy their hunger by plucking heads of grain on the Sabbath he responded, “If you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless.” (12:7) Isn’t it odd, then, that the Gospel would be summarized as Jesus’ self sacrifice when Jesus himself spoke so negatively about sacrifice? Today some are coming to see now that the healing stories are actually a central part of the overall story. I have mentioned that sozo, the Greek word for salvation, also means healing. Sometimes it is translated salvation, and sometimes healing. That ambiguity has to elevate the importance of healing against the backdrop of a view of salvation that is only legal: Jesus died for our sins to pay the price that would satisfy the demands of God, the judge.
Who wouldn’t want healing? Well, it turns out that not everyone does. That brings us to the second new connection that Isaiah and Jesus brought to the picture: the connection between healing and holiness. Jesus did not fare well for healing all kinds of people of their diseases. The great offense that led to his death was that he bucked the system by offering healing and forgiveness to those whom the system kept safely on the margins of “decent society.” They called it blasphemy, and concluded that it was “better that one man die for the sake of the people” (John 11:49) than the whole national system of achieving salvation be destroyed.
Again, both Isaiah and Jesus introduced a different relationship between healing and holiness. Isaiah uses the image of “The Holy Way.” In the orthodoxy of his day the holy way was reserved for those who were ritually clean. Isaiah writes that the unclean shall not pass it by; it shall be for them. (35:8 footnote NRSV) Whether that means that the unclean shall be cleansed, or that the definition of holiness no longer requires separation from those who are ritually unclean, Isaiah is speaking Gospel into a very oppressive situation.
Jesus was more implicit in his treatment of holiness but the message is the same. He knew that the religious leaders would take offense at his inclusiveness toward the infirm. So he said, “blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.” Then he went on to talk about John the Baptist as one who offended many because he didn’t follow the rules of the system about where holy people hang out and what they look like.
We still wrestle with the relationship between healing and holiness. At Immanuel I have seen this over and over. People are attracted to something different about the way people relate at Immanuel. It is different from other churches. And it is different from what they experience at work, in their neighborhoods, in school and other settings of their lives. There is an acceptance of people just as they are – especially people who don’t find broad acceptance elsewhere. Even people who are generally accepted socially are attracted to a community like that, because all of us have parts of ourselves that we don’t find acceptable. To find a community that might accept that part of me meets a very deep longing.
But sometimes the belief system we learned in church growing up doesn’t match that acceptance. I can’t believe it’s true that God accepts those parts of me or of another that I don’t find acceptable to myself. So Immanuel must be wrong to be so inclusive, even though I wish it were right. Now I also know that there are things about the way people relate at Immanuel that are very unattractive. When we blame, shame and attack each other it makes people want to flee from us. For me, however, that just proves the point. We respond to others by blaming, shaming and attacking because that is how adults responded to the parts of us that were unattractive or unacceptable. We are a community of wounded human beings, so we will never be fully consistent in the way we treat each other. But in the midst of our imperfections, there is something beautiful that comes from a view of God that is rooted in grace and compassion rather than judgment and punishment. As we discover that we will treat each other more and more with that same grace and compassion rather than blame, shame and attack. It turns out that the Gospel offers good news about how holy a person has to be in order to be healed.
Finally, the Gospel offers a new connection between healing and creation. Isaiah helps us see that the healing isn’t just human healing. Creation itself is healed: “Waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water.” Our generation needs this dimension of healing like never before. This past week the United Nations Conference on Global Warming taking place in Bali, Indonesia was front and center in the news. The crisis of global warming forces us to face the truth that it is impossible to save some without saving all. The Africans have known this all along. It is the meaning of their word “Ubuntu.” Archbishop Desmond Tutu said: “A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed.” We need to say the same about entire societies and about all of creation. The United States cannot save its economy at the expense of the global environment. Even though it is expected that developing countries will suffer the effects of global warming first and worst, every nation will be severely impacted by it.
At one level we are already experiencing in our personal lives the impact of failing to attend to the healing of the planet. The other night a few of us were talking about all the new things to be concerned about with little babies. From lead in toys to pesticides in food, it would be easy to say, “We grew up with them and it didn’t kill us.” But what we realized is that many of us grew up in a world where those may have been the only contaminants we consumed. Today we all breathe, drink, eat, touch, and are simply exposed to, pollution on every front. The Gospel offers healing to a polluted creation, not just to the people who are poisoned by the very elements they have poisoned.
December 9, 2007 - Justice and Peace - Frank Alton
Text only.
Isaiah 11:1-10
A friend and colleague of mine told me a story a few months ago that has really stuck with me. The church he pastors is going to engage in a building project that will displace a childcare center that has served families in the area for many years. The church obviously had concerns about how to break the news to the preschool without alienating those involved. Some time after notification had been given, one of the Board members of the childcare center asked permission to come to a meeting of the church’s governing body to present their case. To people’s surprise he gave a slide presentation that showed imaginative plans for the growth and renewal of the childcare center. There was no anger or resentment in the person’s voice; only creative imagination and relational power. It was so striking and attractive that someone asked how he could take the loss of the space so casually. He basically replied that the nature of leadership involves precisely that kind of response. What he actually said was, “when people say ‘I’ll believe it when I see it,’ the leader responds, “I believe it because I see it.” The leadership of the childcare center saw a future vision beyond and through the loss.
The 11th chapter of Isaiah describes a future leader who will see in the way that board member described leaders. And the picture Isaiah sees that future leader bringing into focus is one of justice and of peace – two pieces of Immanuel’s core vision, and two consistent themes of the Advent season year after year. The church has understood that future leader as the promised Messiah, whom Christians see as Jesus. That’s why we always read these texts during Advent. But we must acknowledge that Isaiah was contemplating a leader closer at hand – a king at the horizon of the eighth century BCE. The two visions come together when we realize that the text is not to serve as a prediction but as a way of linking Jewish expectation and the compelling reality of Jesus. The point of the vision at both horizons is to introduce a new way of seeing rather than a particular seer.
The final verse we read paints a picture of people everywhere inquiring of that leader. The 12th chapter goes on to show the people bearing grateful witness to that new way of seeing. What, then, is the new way of seeing? How is it that we come to see things before they are visible to the eye? Isaiah describes it as seeing “with” rather than seeing “what.” In the first half of the passage it is about seeing with justice. In the second half it is about seeing peace with imagination – a vision that comes from inside rather than a perception of what is outside as viewed through the senses.
What does it mean to judge “with” rather than “what?” Isaiah describes justice more as a lens than an object. “The root of Jesse shall not judge by what the eye sees, or what the ear hears; but will judge the poor with righteousness, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth.” Isaiah writes in Hebrew poetry and uses the words righteousness and equity as two words for the same value – the value of justice. There was a deep and primal conviction throughout the ancient Near East generally and in Israel particularly, that the royal government is the equalizer, to intervene on behalf of the poor and the vulnerable (widows and orphans) who are unable to supply their own social leverage. And insofar as this text illuminates Jesus’ ministry, it is a reminder that Jesus was received, celebrated, & eventually crucified precisely for his embodiment and practice of this vision of social possibility.
Walter Breuggemann connects this vision to our own reality: “It is impossible to overstate the cruciality of this vision of justice for the coming ideal king, the importance of which is evident in a society like ours, wherein governmental power is largely in the hands of the wealthy & powerful and is operated almost exclusively to their own advantage and benefit. Such an arrangement of public power is a complete contradiction of the biblical vision of government.” Breuggemann, Isaiah 1-39 Westminster Bible Commentary p 101
But for Isaiah, while justice is acted out in the here and now, it is not rooted in what is out there – what can be seen and heard & perceived with the senses. Justice is rooted inside, at the spiritual center of our lives. That means that justice doesn’t depend as much on a careful review of the merits of individual cases as on seeing the world through God’s eyes. It is not a question of, “Does this particular poor person deserve compensation? Does this particular powerless person warrant a favorable ruling?” Justice comes from a right judging; and right judging is judging “with” the eyes of God rather than “what” the physical eye might perceive.
In the second half of the text Isaiah switches to imagining peace, though it appears as a switch to the animal kingdom. There will be conciliation and peaceableness among these species that have been at war with each other since the beginning of time. All things will be new in creation when God fully authorizes the right human agents. The distortion of human relationships is at the root of all distortions in creation. Peace is rooted in justice, and justice must issue in a reign of peace. Isaiah reveals that peace requires seeing with imagination, which once again involves a vision coming from inside rather than a perception of what is outside as viewed through the senses.
The image of the peaceable kingdom is a familiar one to many – the wolf living with the lamb, a little child leading them. The reign of peace initiated by the Heir will transform the entire created order; not only will nations cease from warfare, but even natural enemies, predators and prey, will not hurt or destroy. Cows and bears, lions and oxen, snakes and human children will coexist without injury or harm. It is the fullness of Peace—the Harmony of harmonies, reconciling intensities in mutual richness of life; shalom, wholeness, completeness, shared well-being. All this will happen because the earth—not just the human population, but the entire world-fabric itself—“will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” The vision proposes that real human societies can strive to embody in the greatest degree possible to them the coordinated aims of God for creation. While no actual earthly society—no human community and no ecosystem—may be able to achieve the fullness of Peace under the conditions of this world, the vision serves as an ideal against which any society – say ours – can be measured. It invites the question, “What signs of this fullness of Peace can we see emerging in our own difficult time?” And, “What concrete actions might we take to further embody the divine ideals Isaiah reveals to us here?”
Yet, in the same way that the practice of justice is rooted in our spiritual center, so the vision of peace starts on the inside. In both cases the question that really matters to us during Advent as a season of spiritual practice is, “What is the path to seeing? How do we come to see like that?” Here we have to go back to the previous chapter in Isaiah. The reason there was only a stump of Jesse at the beginning of chapter 11 is that all the tallest trees had been cut down, and the thickets of the forest had been hacked down with an ax. (10:33-34) Chapter 11 opens with a picture of a dry tree stump lying alone in what used to be a forest. But out of the dry stump a shoot had begun to emerge. Since to the Hebrew mind the Spirit is the one whose presence or absence signaled life or death, it is natural for Isaiah to immediately begin talking about the Spirit: “The spirit of the Lord shall rest on that one, the spirit of wisdom & understanding, counsel & might, knowledge and the fear of God” (11:2). That is the precursor to judging with rather than what.
What is happening here? Isaiah is pointing out that in order to follow in God’s way of seeing and judging, a person must develop the openness to experience loss as both good and bad, rather than as merely bad. Do you recognize this? It is precisely the quality that the member of the childcare center’s board demonstrated. The loss had not devastated him. Instead, it became the vehicle for a new vision.
This perspective is rooted in a rereading of the creation story. Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden. Were they being punished, or were they being taught? Did our archetypes of the human race, succeed or fail? Joan Chittester shares the story of her own movement from the view she was taught by the nuns as a child, that when Adam and Eve were expelled it was a punishment for the mess they had made of things. She discovered a different answer when she realized that Adam and Eve were not quasi-divine beings who utterly failed in their vocation, such that God has had to clean up their mess ever since. They were human; “the eating of the fruit was the most humanizing thing they did. What if the real message in the Garden story is that it is of the essence of humanity to stumble from apple tree to apple tree, trying to get it right, searching for ‘the difference between good and evil’ but able to learn it only the hard way? Then the lesson was not that God was angry that Adam and Eve were not gods, but that God knew it was necessary for them to learn that they were human, that life would not be easy, that there would be pitfalls aplenty, and that they could survive them one after the other after the other.” (Chittester, There is a Season, p. 25-26)
Under that view, the text from Isaiah invites us to a cycle of life that involves being open to loss, such that loss leads to wisdom. The wisdom creates space to welcome the poor and the meek into a realm of justice. Some who are so welcomed will become open themselves, such that rights are transformed into gifts and failures into necessary and redemptive mistakes. That transformation creates the space in them to carry forward the work for justice with others.
How do we cultivate life on that path? The spiritual guides of many generations answer in the same way: we cultivate that through the practice of contemplation. Contemplation is a long, loving look at the real. We open ourselves to the silence and solitude of being dry stumps in what others falsely perceive to be a living forest. “The contemplative is the one among us in whom prayer, deep reflection on the presence and activity of God in the self and the world, has come little by little to extinguish the illusions of autonomy and the enthronement of the self that make little kingdoms of us all. The contemplative goes beyond the self, and all its delusions, to the boundlessness of life and the consuming presence of God here and now.” (Chittester)
This is challenging in our world. Our worlds have become so filled with noise and stimulation from the outside that we can no longer even know how to cultivate the rich life of the soul. Ipods and muzak make sure we never know silence. Cellular telephones guarantee that we are never be alone. Wireless internet on our computers allows us to bring the world into every nook and cranny of our lives.
How is this related to peace and justice? “It is what we lack in ourselves that agitates us. What we do not have in our own hearts we will always look for someplace else. What we do not cultivate within ourselves we will always demand from others. If we have not learned how to live a rich inner life, we will want the tinsel and glitter of the world around us and someone else’s money to get it. If we have not set ourselves to the task of self-development, we will want without end someone else’s skills, someone else’s gifts, someone else’s advantages. If we are insecure, we will demand the control of others. If we have not come to peace with our own life, we will make combat with the people around us. If we have not learned to listen to our own struggles, we will never have compassion on the struggles of others.” (Chittester, Time, p. 108).
Isaiah 11:1-10
A friend and colleague of mine told me a story a few months ago that has really stuck with me. The church he pastors is going to engage in a building project that will displace a childcare center that has served families in the area for many years. The church obviously had concerns about how to break the news to the preschool without alienating those involved. Some time after notification had been given, one of the Board members of the childcare center asked permission to come to a meeting of the church’s governing body to present their case. To people’s surprise he gave a slide presentation that showed imaginative plans for the growth and renewal of the childcare center. There was no anger or resentment in the person’s voice; only creative imagination and relational power. It was so striking and attractive that someone asked how he could take the loss of the space so casually. He basically replied that the nature of leadership involves precisely that kind of response. What he actually said was, “when people say ‘I’ll believe it when I see it,’ the leader responds, “I believe it because I see it.” The leadership of the childcare center saw a future vision beyond and through the loss.
The 11th chapter of Isaiah describes a future leader who will see in the way that board member described leaders. And the picture Isaiah sees that future leader bringing into focus is one of justice and of peace – two pieces of Immanuel’s core vision, and two consistent themes of the Advent season year after year. The church has understood that future leader as the promised Messiah, whom Christians see as Jesus. That’s why we always read these texts during Advent. But we must acknowledge that Isaiah was contemplating a leader closer at hand – a king at the horizon of the eighth century BCE. The two visions come together when we realize that the text is not to serve as a prediction but as a way of linking Jewish expectation and the compelling reality of Jesus. The point of the vision at both horizons is to introduce a new way of seeing rather than a particular seer.
The final verse we read paints a picture of people everywhere inquiring of that leader. The 12th chapter goes on to show the people bearing grateful witness to that new way of seeing. What, then, is the new way of seeing? How is it that we come to see things before they are visible to the eye? Isaiah describes it as seeing “with” rather than seeing “what.” In the first half of the passage it is about seeing with justice. In the second half it is about seeing peace with imagination – a vision that comes from inside rather than a perception of what is outside as viewed through the senses.
What does it mean to judge “with” rather than “what?” Isaiah describes justice more as a lens than an object. “The root of Jesse shall not judge by what the eye sees, or what the ear hears; but will judge the poor with righteousness, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth.” Isaiah writes in Hebrew poetry and uses the words righteousness and equity as two words for the same value – the value of justice. There was a deep and primal conviction throughout the ancient Near East generally and in Israel particularly, that the royal government is the equalizer, to intervene on behalf of the poor and the vulnerable (widows and orphans) who are unable to supply their own social leverage. And insofar as this text illuminates Jesus’ ministry, it is a reminder that Jesus was received, celebrated, & eventually crucified precisely for his embodiment and practice of this vision of social possibility.
Walter Breuggemann connects this vision to our own reality: “It is impossible to overstate the cruciality of this vision of justice for the coming ideal king, the importance of which is evident in a society like ours, wherein governmental power is largely in the hands of the wealthy & powerful and is operated almost exclusively to their own advantage and benefit. Such an arrangement of public power is a complete contradiction of the biblical vision of government.” Breuggemann, Isaiah 1-39 Westminster Bible Commentary p 101
But for Isaiah, while justice is acted out in the here and now, it is not rooted in what is out there – what can be seen and heard & perceived with the senses. Justice is rooted inside, at the spiritual center of our lives. That means that justice doesn’t depend as much on a careful review of the merits of individual cases as on seeing the world through God’s eyes. It is not a question of, “Does this particular poor person deserve compensation? Does this particular powerless person warrant a favorable ruling?” Justice comes from a right judging; and right judging is judging “with” the eyes of God rather than “what” the physical eye might perceive.
In the second half of the text Isaiah switches to imagining peace, though it appears as a switch to the animal kingdom. There will be conciliation and peaceableness among these species that have been at war with each other since the beginning of time. All things will be new in creation when God fully authorizes the right human agents. The distortion of human relationships is at the root of all distortions in creation. Peace is rooted in justice, and justice must issue in a reign of peace. Isaiah reveals that peace requires seeing with imagination, which once again involves a vision coming from inside rather than a perception of what is outside as viewed through the senses.
The image of the peaceable kingdom is a familiar one to many – the wolf living with the lamb, a little child leading them. The reign of peace initiated by the Heir will transform the entire created order; not only will nations cease from warfare, but even natural enemies, predators and prey, will not hurt or destroy. Cows and bears, lions and oxen, snakes and human children will coexist without injury or harm. It is the fullness of Peace—the Harmony of harmonies, reconciling intensities in mutual richness of life; shalom, wholeness, completeness, shared well-being. All this will happen because the earth—not just the human population, but the entire world-fabric itself—“will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” The vision proposes that real human societies can strive to embody in the greatest degree possible to them the coordinated aims of God for creation. While no actual earthly society—no human community and no ecosystem—may be able to achieve the fullness of Peace under the conditions of this world, the vision serves as an ideal against which any society – say ours – can be measured. It invites the question, “What signs of this fullness of Peace can we see emerging in our own difficult time?” And, “What concrete actions might we take to further embody the divine ideals Isaiah reveals to us here?”
Yet, in the same way that the practice of justice is rooted in our spiritual center, so the vision of peace starts on the inside. In both cases the question that really matters to us during Advent as a season of spiritual practice is, “What is the path to seeing? How do we come to see like that?” Here we have to go back to the previous chapter in Isaiah. The reason there was only a stump of Jesse at the beginning of chapter 11 is that all the tallest trees had been cut down, and the thickets of the forest had been hacked down with an ax. (10:33-34) Chapter 11 opens with a picture of a dry tree stump lying alone in what used to be a forest. But out of the dry stump a shoot had begun to emerge. Since to the Hebrew mind the Spirit is the one whose presence or absence signaled life or death, it is natural for Isaiah to immediately begin talking about the Spirit: “The spirit of the Lord shall rest on that one, the spirit of wisdom & understanding, counsel & might, knowledge and the fear of God” (11:2). That is the precursor to judging with rather than what.
What is happening here? Isaiah is pointing out that in order to follow in God’s way of seeing and judging, a person must develop the openness to experience loss as both good and bad, rather than as merely bad. Do you recognize this? It is precisely the quality that the member of the childcare center’s board demonstrated. The loss had not devastated him. Instead, it became the vehicle for a new vision.
This perspective is rooted in a rereading of the creation story. Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden. Were they being punished, or were they being taught? Did our archetypes of the human race, succeed or fail? Joan Chittester shares the story of her own movement from the view she was taught by the nuns as a child, that when Adam and Eve were expelled it was a punishment for the mess they had made of things. She discovered a different answer when she realized that Adam and Eve were not quasi-divine beings who utterly failed in their vocation, such that God has had to clean up their mess ever since. They were human; “the eating of the fruit was the most humanizing thing they did. What if the real message in the Garden story is that it is of the essence of humanity to stumble from apple tree to apple tree, trying to get it right, searching for ‘the difference between good and evil’ but able to learn it only the hard way? Then the lesson was not that God was angry that Adam and Eve were not gods, but that God knew it was necessary for them to learn that they were human, that life would not be easy, that there would be pitfalls aplenty, and that they could survive them one after the other after the other.” (Chittester, There is a Season, p. 25-26)
Under that view, the text from Isaiah invites us to a cycle of life that involves being open to loss, such that loss leads to wisdom. The wisdom creates space to welcome the poor and the meek into a realm of justice. Some who are so welcomed will become open themselves, such that rights are transformed into gifts and failures into necessary and redemptive mistakes. That transformation creates the space in them to carry forward the work for justice with others.
How do we cultivate life on that path? The spiritual guides of many generations answer in the same way: we cultivate that through the practice of contemplation. Contemplation is a long, loving look at the real. We open ourselves to the silence and solitude of being dry stumps in what others falsely perceive to be a living forest. “The contemplative is the one among us in whom prayer, deep reflection on the presence and activity of God in the self and the world, has come little by little to extinguish the illusions of autonomy and the enthronement of the self that make little kingdoms of us all. The contemplative goes beyond the self, and all its delusions, to the boundlessness of life and the consuming presence of God here and now.” (Chittester)
This is challenging in our world. Our worlds have become so filled with noise and stimulation from the outside that we can no longer even know how to cultivate the rich life of the soul. Ipods and muzak make sure we never know silence. Cellular telephones guarantee that we are never be alone. Wireless internet on our computers allows us to bring the world into every nook and cranny of our lives.
How is this related to peace and justice? “It is what we lack in ourselves that agitates us. What we do not have in our own hearts we will always look for someplace else. What we do not cultivate within ourselves we will always demand from others. If we have not learned how to live a rich inner life, we will want the tinsel and glitter of the world around us and someone else’s money to get it. If we have not set ourselves to the task of self-development, we will want without end someone else’s skills, someone else’s gifts, someone else’s advantages. If we are insecure, we will demand the control of others. If we have not come to peace with our own life, we will make combat with the people around us. If we have not learned to listen to our own struggles, we will never have compassion on the struggles of others.” (Chittester, Time, p. 108).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
