Sermons and thoughts on faith on Scripture from my time at Old Presbyterian Meeting House and Falls Church Presbyterian Church, plus sermons and postings from "Pastor James," my blog while pastor at Boulevard Presbyterian in Columbus, OH.
I'm not preaching today, but I still found myself drawn to the reading from Luke. Jesus is in his hometown of Nazareth shortly after beginning his ministry. He goes to the synagogue on the Sabbath and reads from the scroll of Isaiah where it says, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."
When he has finished reading he says, "Today the scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." In Luke, this is Jesus' first public teaching. Jesus seems to see himself inaugurating a new day like that promised by the prophet. And most everything about this new day seems to be a blessing for people who are struggling. The poor, captive, blind, and oppressed are singled out, and there is the promise of "the year of God's favor."
This year is surely the Jubilee year found in the Old Testament, where everything and everybody participate in a year long Sabbath. Key components of this Jubilee were the canceling of all debts and the return of all property to its original owners. All of this was about restoring community, helping those who fallen to once again fully participate in the common life of the nation.
Right now, there are some calling for the canceling of debts in Haiti. And while many people are sympathetic to the plight of Haiti, a lot people who have sent contributions to Haitian relief draw the line at things such as canceling debt.
There are some really troublesome attributes to the Kingdom of God. How are we going to teach personal responsibility if we call off debt? How are we going to encourage the sort of risk taking that builds companies and creates jobs if we have a Jubilee every so many years that starts everything over again? Jesus' vision of the Kingdom looks like a threat to much that we take for granted in our world.
And maybe that is precisely the point. The Kingdom is a threat, a threat to all forms of status quo, to all systems that diminish our true humanity. It is a threat to the view that says, "I am totally unimportant and of no worth," instead insisting that all are gifted and called play their part. And it is a threat to the view that says, "Some people don't really matter. They are just workers or statistics or consumers or commodities." Instead the Kingdom features the last entering first.
On a fundamental level, Jesus' notion of the Kingdom calls us to examine what motivates us at our very heart. When we think about whether debt relief for Haiti is a good idea or not, do we decide based on what is best for Haiti and others? Do we make our decisions out of a deep love for those who are suffering, or are we motivated by something else.
I am convinced that people of faith can sincerely come to very different conclusions about the best courses of action in rebuilding Haiti, or ending homelessness in our own community, or dealing with the healthcare crisis. But I suspect that people on all sides have some vested interest in a status quo that is threatened by the Kingdom Jesus brings.
I've always enjoyed the way John's gospel has Jesus play with words. He will say a word that has one meaning, an obvious, literal one and a figurative one. The person Jesus speaks to will always hear the obvious, literal meaning, and this misunderstanding will provide an avenue for Jesus to speak further. It happens when Nicodemus gets confused about being "born again." There Jesus uses a word that can mean either "born again" or "born from above." English translations have to go with one or the other option, and so we miss the word play.
Today Jesus speaks to a Samaritan woman at a well about "living water." It is possible for us to miss the word play here as well. "Living water" was a colorful way to speak of running water, a flowing stream. Wells, obviously, don't produce living water. And the Samaritan woman's confusion over where Jesus is going to get this refreshing water is understandable. But it is because of this confusion that she raises the question of whether Jesus is greater than Jacob. And her confusion also provides the opportunity for Jesus to speak of the living water he gives that quenches a much deeper thirst.
In John's gospel, understanding Jesus literally is a sure fire way to be left in the dark, and Jesus' opponents are never able to comprehend the deeper level on which he speaks. We modern folks tend to be literalists by nature. We think of myths as untrue and aren't all that good at metaphor or imagery. For many of us, truth means fact. But not in John. In John truth is, "I am the bread of life... I am the vine... I am the light of the world... I am the gate." These phrases are familiar to many of us. But obviously they are not literally true.
I wonder what other truths in the Bible I miss because I don't look beyond the literal.
A strong aftershock measure 6.1 on the Richter scale hit Haiti this morning, adding to the misery there. If you are still looking for a way to help, Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA) has already be sending in funds to mission partners on the ground in Haiti. Learn more about PDA's response and donate online at http://www.pcusa.org/pda/
Exploring in my grandmother's attic, I once came across some school work done by my father in the late 1940s. The lesson was from a Bible class (they used to have those in public school), and it covered the Noah story in Genesis. I was startled when I saw what the lesson taught, even though I was born in the still segregated South. The lesson explained that Ham, one of Noah's three sons, was the forerunner of dark skinned people who were forever to be subservient to whites because of the curse found in today's lectionary story.
Considering that there is no mention of race or color, it seems quite a stretch to use this story to justify the treatment of African Americans. And I suppose that should stand as a stark warning about how easy it is for those in power to use the Bible to justify the status quo.
It seems to me that the Noah stories come in for a lot of misuse and misunderstanding. Because of the ark and the animals, people think of them as children's stories. But in truth the Noah stories wrestle with a huge theological question. How will God deal with a Creation that has gone horribly awry. While on the surface the answer might seem to be, "Clean house and start over again," that is not the case. The story is quite clear that this does not happen. The "inclination of the human heart" is not improved at all by the flood, and today's story shows a drunk Noah and a dysfunctional family where relatives end up slaves to relatives. It isn't exactly clear what Ham does that is so bad in the story. (There is some heavy duty sexual innuendo here.) But if Noah and his family were the new start that was supposed to put humanity back on the right track, things have gone to pot almost instantly.
Clearly things are no better off after Noah's flood than they were before. The only thing that really happens in these stories happens with God. God makes a covenant with Creation and humanity. Despite humanity's horrible failings God will not abandon us. The only thing fixed by the Noah event is the elimination of the destroy-and-start-over option. God commits to us, with all our brokenness and sinfulness. Sometimes, when I look at all the horrors that we humans can do -- even the terrible tragedy in Haiti was largely the result of government turning a blind eye to shoddy construction -- it seems like we humans are a hopeless case. But even when we give up on ourselves, God has decided to stick with us. And I guess that is pretty good news.
I used Psalm 146 for the devotion in our staff meeting this morning. We did a form of lectio divina, listening for something in the text to speak to us or grab us, and then seeking to understand why. I and one other person found ourselves drawn to the phrase, "plans perish," which was rather striking when you consider that we were in a staff meeting to make plans.
The psalm speaks of not putting our trust in human rulers whose plans disappear the moment they die. Only God is permanent, eternal. But don't we still have to make plans?
Two thoughts came to me regarding this. The first is how we should strive to connect with God's plans. Too often in churches, plans reflect the personalities and preferences of those doing the planning more than they do what God would want. How do we let God direct our plans?
The second is to accept the fragile and temporary nature of our plans. Because we associate what we do at church with God, we sometimes act as though our worship style, our structures, or our ministries are permanent and eternal expressions of how things should be. And how we've always done it becomes an idol that we serve.
God, what plans are you calling us to make? And what old plans should we let die?
Some school children get labeled "gifted." While all are gifted in some way, we value some gifts more than others. We label as gifted those with certain gifts. Sometimes we even think that those with the "better" gifts are better individuals. The Apostle Paul thinks otherwise.
This is only vaguely about today's lectionary verses. None of them seemed all that well suited to what many are thinking about this day, the terrible suffering in Haiti. The gospel reading does speak of those first folks who responded when Jesus said, "Follow me." And I imagine that a lot of Christians, and non Christians, are wondering just what following Jesus means right now.
Pat Robertson apparently thinks it means pronouncing blame. He flatly stated that the devastating earthquake occurred because the Haitians made a deal with the devil centuries ago in order to throw off their French masters. Thus they are under a curse. How the apparently demented Robertson knows about this "deal," I have no idea. But his callous lunacy emerges from a question that many are asking. Where is God in this?
Sometimes people of faith seem extremely worried about protecting God's reputation, and the two easiest outs available are (1) blame the victim or (2) insulate God. Robertson finds it amazingly easy to do the former. Others take the tack of moving God far enough offstage so as not to incur any divine culpability. It was only natural forces at work. And yet such forces are presumably from the creative hand of God, and surely God could have intervened if God wanted to do so. And so at the very least, God has chosen not to help.
For me, a more faithful response is to stop making excuses for God and acknowledge that we often do not and cannot know the mind of God. Sometimes the only answer available to us is the one given to Job. "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth..." And sometimes the best we can do when we encounter terrible suffering is to stop trying to determine cause and start trying to help. Jesus says this in so many words when he is asked about whose sin caused a man to be born blind. Jesus says no sin caused the tragedy, but that it exists as an opportunity to reveal God's works.
Perhaps that is the best Christians can do in the face of the suffering we see on our televisions today. Let followers of Jesus simply do what he did when he encountered pain and suffering. He reached out to heal and to make whole. There isn't a soul reading this who cannot do so in some small way.
If you were asked to come up with an image to represent power and strength, what would it be? I guessing that it would likely not be a lamb. Popular images of strength and power when I was growing up included John Wayne, Superman, and any number of cowboy and military heroes. Not a lamb among them.
John's gospel presents Jesus very differently than in the other gospels. Jesus is always in control. Jesus never prays to be spared from the cross in John. Instead, the cross is portrayed as his exaltation. And John narrates Jesus' trial before Pilate in such a way that Jesus is much more in control than Pilate. Pilate is driven about by forces beyond his control while Jesus oversees the event.
And yet, one of John's primary images for Jesus is "the Lamb of God," a lamb who is slain along with the other Passover lambs. Strange that the gospel which depicts Jesus as the least human looking and the most god like would choose such an image. Perhaps this should challenge me to reexamine my own notions of power and strength.
Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God.
Psalm 42 repeats this phrase twice. This is a prayer that longs for God's presence, the cry of one who has known God's blessings, but feels far from God now. It is an internal dialogue that calls the self to remember.
It is interesting how there are times in my life when God is so real to me, so present to me, that I have altered plans and headed my life in a new direction, sure that God was calling me there. But then there are times when that seems a distant memory, when life's experiences almost seem to taunt me in the manner of the psalmist's opponents who say, "Where is your God?"
Strange how easily time can rob a profound faith experience of its substance, how it can seem unreal, like a dream. Surely a part of faith is about a good memory that can say to oneself, "Why are you cast down, O my soul? Hope in the Lord, my help and my God."
Today's Genesis reading is the second of two creation stories in that book. This is the so-called "Adam and Eve" story, a story with very different points to make than the earlier seven day account of creation. A saw a quote recently that said this reading contains the first thing in God's cosmos that is "not good." You may recall that everything in the seven day account was declared "good" or "very good" by God. But in our reading today, after the man has been created, God says, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner."
It's worth noting that some folks have used this verse to argue for a subservient role for women, but the word translated "helper" is normally used to speak of God in the Old Testament, and I've never heard anyone claim that this means God exists to serve us.
God thinks we need to be in relationship, that our nature requires community. That's not all that stunning. Humans are clearly social creatures, although we sometimes seem to pay much more attention to career, success, etc. than we do to relationships.
God also seems to think that we need help. I think we resist this one even more. We like to think of ourselves as independent and self-sufficient. We like to do it on our own. The movie "Invictus" has called to attention the Henley poem I had to memorize in the eighth grade. It ends with the lines, "I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul."
The words may be stirring and they may have helped Nelson Mandela withstand 27 years in prison, but they are fundamentally untrue. Our fates are inextricably linked to others, no matter how great or heroic our achievements.
I think one of the hardest things for me to do is to ask for help, especially to ask for help in an area where I think I should be fully competent. It's as though I think such help would point to a personal failing on my part.
We Presbyterians are Calvinists, and Calvin said that the human tendency to idolatry was at the very core of humanity's sorry state. We think ourselves masters when we were created to be servants. We imagine ourselves sovereign when we all need to be rescued, to be saved.
I'm not preaching today, but I still found myself drawn to the reading from Luke. Jesus is in his hometown of Nazareth shortly after beginning his ministry. He goes to the synagogue on the Sabbath and reads from the scroll of Isaiah where it says, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."
