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THE PROMISE OF GOD'S LOVE, By The Rev. Richard Garland
Isaiah 35:1-10
Third Sunday in Advent

Every passage of scripture has a setting and a context. Ours today is a desert, a profound hope, and a God who acts out of love. If you have ever been in or near a desert, it can be a disorienting, frightening, and awesome experience. In the heat of the day there is a shimmering which, to the thirsty, is the promise of water. To follow it is to walk toward a great peril and broken hope. Rocks strewn on the ground, appear like loaves of bread to a mind disoriented by the heat and dehydration. It is no wonder that the desert became a common image for discouragement, hopelessness and despair - a valley of shadows. And yet, for those who know it best, a desert is filled with surprises: a sudden oasis, nourished by water, full of green - a place to rest - "he leads me beside the still waters, he restores my soul." At night, with the bright and familiar stars, even in the desert direction is revealed. So, for those who believe that God cares and is willing to act, even the desert is a place of hope. This is a powerful image for those who walk through their own shadowed valleys, looking for a place to find rest for their souls.

One of the most startling pictures in my vast collection of photographs is one taken from the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem. It looks to the southeast from a point near the magnificent Al Aksa Mosque. When it was taken twenty-five years ago, one saw in the distance a vast desert, rich with splendid colors, but foreboding and forbidding. At the edge of the city there was a lovely home with a walled garden. Inside the walls were signs of life and the grounds were rich and green. What is striking about the photograph is a walled line of green against the great desert beyond. The truth it told is that the desert there is a climactic desert. It is a fertile place, full of possibility. Full of life and hope if only someone would add the water. And for those who believe that God is a fountain of the water of life, even the desert places of life can and will bloom.

Listen then as the Prophet Isaiah sings a song of hope to the people who have walked in the desert of despair, a song that tells of the promise of God's Love. [A reading from Isaiah 35:1-10]

Someone once observed that the teachings of Jesus are filled with action words like - believe, go, say, tell, show, pray, love, witness, watch, hope, serve, hear, and do. The insight here is that Love is a verb - an action. It is action borne of deep faith and devoted to filling the world with its presence. We say that God is Love, and that is true. But the Love of which we speak is the compassion of God reaching into the hearts of those who find themselves walking in darkness. So allow me to invite you to a new way of looking at Love, particularly God's Love - to see Love as God's activity in creation - to see Love, born at Christmas, full of possibility and hope - to see Love even as the expression of our own life and faith.

We have sung the beautiful words: "Love came down at Christmas, Love, all lovely, Love divine, Love was born at Christmas; Star and angels gave the sign." But when we're honest sometimes that seems remote and out of reach - particularly at Christmas. The truth is that sometimes we don't feel very loving, or very lovable, and sometimes we just wonder what this thing Love is all about. It's hard to feel that way at Christmas, but sometimes we do. It's normal to feel that way sometimes - it may even be a blessing that we do feel that way, because it may help us to sort things out. But as true as that may be in retrospect, who can think about love when they have been "downsized" out of their job? Who can bear the thought of love when they have been disappointed in relationships or lost someone they have loved? Who can feel worthy of love when they feel they have made a mess of things?

How we understand love and loving is rooted in how we envision God. That said, it is also true that our understanding of God is colored by our own experience of being loved, or accepted as lovable. It is significant that the Christmas story is rooted in peoples of ancient faith - people who had every reason to give up on life - even give up on God. When we hear words like "The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light," it is a testament that people could still trust God even though, by any other standard, they had nothing in which to hope. When we look at the prophecies, we see the language of wilderness and loss and weakness and danger. But from them came the language of hope and fulfillment and redemption and glory and joy. As difficult as the lives of these people had been they still trusted God and still believed that God would save them, could even make the desert bloom. What they saw was that God was still committed to them, that God cared for them - loved them. That truth kept them strong and enabled them to live in the promise of God's Love.

So, what is this love which reveals the promises of God? Love is that which gives energy and creates. We see that in creation itself. What God had made was affirmed as good. It was filled with vitality and life, and it is the source of our life. If you want to see love, look for those things that are life-giving: people caring about one another and encouraging each other - people listening to each other and seeking to understand each other - people committed to justice and mercy - people laughing and crying together and being with one another in holy silence - people valuing one another not for what they do or who they are, but because they are. When you live in this kind of environment, it fills you with energy and releases the vitality of the grace of God.

The subtlety of this is that it is not something that ones does alone. Love is possible only in relationship and it always has a human dimension. The story is told of a small child who was frightened one night doing a storm. He cried for his mother and she came and hugged him and calmed him down. As he settled into that satisfied comfort that comes when a person feels safe, his mother said: "You know, you can pray to God when you are afraid, and God will comfort you." I know, Mommy, but sometimes I need someone with skin on." His insight is deeper than one might imagine, and theologically correct. There can be no doubt about God's love. We see it in the gift of creation - we see it all around us in the beauty of nature. But sometimes we need someone "with skin on": - to quiet the ancient fears - to share the beauty we see - to work together for justice and peace. "The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light, upon them has light shined..." "...they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given!"

When love came down at Christmas, God wrapped that love in the shape of a baby - and as the baby grew, he "became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him." One of the things that love does is that it changes our vocabulary. A tragedy of our modern era is that, in the name of realism and truth, violence and evil and greed and self-centeredness have become the centerpiece of much of our culture and even our entertainment, and the mantra has become: "I did it my way." To them I say: "There is another way!" Ringing bells for the Salvation Army, placing a gift under a Giving Tree, donating blood at the holiday, contributing to the food pantry, baking cookies for a lonely neighbor, sending a card to a friend grieving their way through Christmas, a pleasant smile for a shopper or a store clerk overwhelmed by it all. It's not flashy but I'll take that kind of realism and truth any day! That kind of realism and truth holds the promise of God's love, wrapped up in kindness and justice and mercy, reaching into the lives of people walking through their own private deserts, offering life and hope, and setting before them a vision of grace and love. We don't need any more of "I did it (or I got it) my way." The deepest love and the most enduring truth, is seen in people who have prepared in their hearts room to receive the promise of God's Love, who are willing to walk hand in hand together on the path to peace. This kind of love outlasts everything else.

Many of us have heard of the composer Felix Mendelssohn. It is he who wrote the beautiful music to which Charles Wesley's text, "Hark the Herald Angels Sing", is set. Few, however, have heard the story of his grandfather Moses Mendelssohn. When it was time for Moses to marry, his father made arrangements for his warm and compassionate son to wed Fromet Guggenheim, a rich, young, and beautiful woman. They had never met. What made this proposed union extraordinary was not only the humble origins of Mendelssohn, but his physical appearance. He had a brilliant mind, but he was small, ugly, and he was a hunchback. A party was arranged for the two to meet. While he was deeply engrossed in conversation, she had an opportunity to observe him from a distance, and was immediately repulsed. She emphatically told her father that the engagement was off.

When Moses was informed that she did not wish to marry him, he requested and was granted a conversation with her alone. They talked quietly for a few moments, then Mendelssohn said, "I wish to tell you a story." "As you know," he began, "all marriages are arranged in heaven. Before I was born an angel was escorting me to earth. I asked if it was possible for me to see the woman God had selected for me. The angel answered that though it was highly unusual, he did not think it was impossible. I was granted one look, and to my astonishment the woman had an ugly hump on her back. I pleaded with God, "It is not fair that a woman should be a hunchback. She will be the object of scorn and contempt. I beg you, give me the hump and let her be well formed and beautiful."

Mendelssohn was silent for a moment before he concluded. "God heard my prayer, and granted my wish. I am that young man and you are that young woman." Fromet Guggenheim looked at Moses Mendelssohn and viewed him with different eyes. The man she now saw and later married was wonderfully attractive - a man of warmth and compassion. From them came a grandson in whose music was the song of God's Love.

The promise of God's Love is not some impossible purpose, laid as an other burden upon an already weary person of faith. It is a gift of energy borne of the creative power of God. It is the devotion to see with different eyes, the beauty of another. It is healing that brings hope where before people could only see obstacles and weakness and frustration. Out of that hope grows a deep and satisfying peace, which makes it possible to love. Let the Christmas story change how you look at life. Look deep within your heart and see the image of God, full of hope and possibility, active and life giving. May the promise of God's Love bring joy and peace to you this day and always. In gratitude join your voice to those of the angels to give Glory to God for a wonderful gift.

At our Church/Charge Conference on Tuesday night we will enact various items of business. One of these will be the report of the Lay Leadership or Nominating Committee which presents persons for election to positions of servant leadership for the next year. There are many roles within the church which are not listed in that report - and one of them is particularly appropriate for this Advent season. It’s an important one and it involves each and every one of us. All of us - young and old, male and female, rich and poor have been elected to the position of “carrier of the vision.” You were elected to that position when you were baptized.

Any person seeking to know Christ, any person looking for the God of hope and peace is a “carrier of the vision.” We are in good company when we carry this vision. We join with prophets like Isaiah, Psalm writers like David, early preachers and letter writers like Paul, and with those who heralded the coming of the Messiah, like John the Baptizer.

Each week as we worship we hear and proclaim part of this vision, but today, the Second Sunday of Advent we hear it in vivid terms. We hear from the prophet Isaiah that there is One coming in whom will dwell the Spirit of God, a spirit of wisdom and understanding, a spirit of counsel and might, a spirit of knowledge and awe. We hear that there is a time coming when there will be a kind of peace which we cannot even imagine. Isaiah describes this in language that is surprising and exciting. He talks about wolves living with lambs, calves and lions together in peace, and a child leading all of this. What a surprise this would be - and yet - do we not worship a God of surprises?

This child will come in a surprising way like a shoot or a branch from the stump of Jesse. Jesse was the father of David - a young boy chosen by God to become the second King of Israel. David tried to follow the ways of God and even though he made some really big mistakes and some really bad decisions, for the most part he did what God wanted him to do. To David’s credit, when the things he did wrong were pointed out to him, he was sorry. He repented, and he turned away from them, trying again to be faithful to God.

By the time Isaiah wrote, however, David’s kingdom had been split into two. The northern kingdom, Israel, had been destroyed and the southern kingdom, Judah, was in great danger. There would come a time when there would be no more king in David’s line. But still, out of what appeared dead, nothing more than a stump, would come a shoot, a new growth, a new branch - One in whom would dwell the spirit of God.

In the Christian church we have understood this passage in Messianic terms. We have understood it to be telling about the coming of Jesus. We have understood that he brought a new day to the earth, a new kind of life. We proclaim that he brought a new kingdom, a new form of government, a new way of being and living together. A way that will fulfill the vision that Isaiah proclaimed, where those who once were greatest enemies will live in perfect harmony and peace with each other. This is part of the vision which we are privileged and challenged to carry.

John the Baptizer proclaimed this vision in a different way than Isaiah. Living in a time when most Jews were oppressed by the Roman government he proclaimed that the Messiah was coming and they should get ready. He was a wild looking character out there in the wilderness proclaiming, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” The Message, a modern retelling of the Gospel story, puts it this way, “Change your life. God’s kingdom is here.”

John wasn’t a particularly popular carrier of the vision. He spoke the truth as he understood it and it got him in trouble. Some of the temple authorities came to him and, again in the words of The Message, John proclaimed, “What counts is your life. Is it green and blossoming? Because if it’s deadwood, it goes on the fire. I’m baptizing you here in the river, turning your old life in for a kingdom life. The real action comes next: The main character in this drama - compared to him I’m a mere stagehand - will ignite the kingdom life within you, a fire within you, the Holy Spirit within you, changing you from the inside out. He’s going to clean house - make a clean sweep of your lives. He’ll place everything true in its proper place before God; everything false he’ll put out with the trash to be burned.”

What is this new life? What is this vision which Isaiah proclaimed in glowing exciting terms and which John warned people to prepare for? Again we hear part of it in the Psalm for today. We might update the language a little to fit our current times and hear, “Please help our President and Congress to be honest and fair just like you, our God. Let them be honest and fair with all your people, especially the poor. Let peace and justice rule every mountain and hill. Let the President and Congress defend the poor, rescue the homeless, and crush everyone who hurts them..... Let the President be fair with everyone, and let there be peace until the moon falls from the sky. “(Psalm 72:1-4, 7 CEV revised) The Psalm concludes recognizing that these things will not happen by themselves, “Lord God of Israel, we praise you. Only you can work miracles. We will always praise your glorious name. Let your glory be seen everywhere on earth. Amen and amen.” (18-19 CEV)

It is a vision that we are called to carry - a vision which we are to proclaim, and a vision which we are to share with others and work to help make a reality.

When we carry something normally we are taking it from one place to another or from one person to another. Carrying the vision means taking it from our place of worship into our homes, into our schools or places of employment, into our communities. Being carriers of the vision means we take the vision to others who may not share the vision, who may not have heard it - who don’t know about this surprising and radical way to live.

During Advent we remember and celebrate the surprising way that God chose to reveal God-self to us, as an infant, the baby Jesus born in Bethlehem. During Advent we wait for the time when the vision will be fulfilled in its entirety - when Christ shall come again. During Advent we carry and proclaim the vision as we look to the ways that God enters into our lives everyday.

With the prophet Isaiah, we are called to proclaim the vision. With John the Baptizer, we are called to confront the ways that we and others are not preparing the way of the Lord, but are instead being obstacles to the vision becoming reality.

We are challenged to carry a vision and a prayer, as the Psalmist did, that we would be honest and fair with all God’s people, especially the poor.

We often fail to realize that we are always carrying a vision. The question is, “What vision are we carrying?” Is it a vision of the poor being treated with respect and care or is it one where everyone looks out for their own needs and doesn’t care about others. Who is at the center of your vision - is it God or is it you? Look at the way you spend your paycheck - it’ll tell you a lot about the vision you carry. Check out your calendar - how you spend your time speaks volumes about what is important to you.

What is the vision we are carrying to our children, grandchildren, the children in this church, or in our neighborhood? The way we treat children, the elderly, or disabled speaks volumes about whether or not we really believe that all people are God’s children. Notice the way you talk to you family, friends, co-workers. Do your conversations show respect and promote a vision of peace and harmony?

Hear the way The Message shares the Romans passage. “Those of us who are strong and able in the faith need to step in and lend a hand to those who falter, and not just do what is most convenient for us. Strength is for service, not status. Each one of us needs to look after the good of the people around us, asking ourselves, `How can I help?’

“That’s exactly what Jesus did. He didn’t make it easy for himself by avoiding people’s troubles, but waded right in and helped out. `I took on the troubles of the troubled,’ is the way Scripture puts it. Even if it was written in Scripture long ago, you can be sure it’s written for us. God wants the combination of his steady, constant calling and warm, personal counsel in Scripture to come to characterize us, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next. May our dependable steady and warmly personal God develop maturity in you so that you get along with each other as well as Jesus gets along with us all. Then we’ll be a choir - not our voices only, but our very lives singing in harmony in a stunning anthem to the God and Father of our Master Jesus!

“So reach out and welcome one another to God’s glory. Jesus did it; now you do it!” (Romans 15:1-7)

At all times - and especially during Advent - we are given both the privilege and the challenge of being carriers of the vision, those who seek to live out the vision found in Isaiah, in the Psalms, in John the Baptizer’s words, in the exhortation and encouragement of the Apostle Paul, and in the life of Jesus the Christ. We are to be those who reach out and welcome one another to God’s glory.

Thursday we ate turkey. Friday was the biggest shopping day of the year. Christmas decorations are appearing all over the place. Yet today marks the beginning of Advent – a time of preparation. But for what exactly are we preparing? Are we preparing for a month long shopping spree? Are we preparing for a month of frenzy, filled with parties, commitments, the need to decorate, to send Christmas cards, to buy just the right gift – or any gift? Are we preparing for heavy traffic jams or for financial difficulty as we once again spend too much to try to purchase the perfect Christmas? If we are, then we are likely to find ourselves on December 24^th, singing “O Holy Night” but really thinking “O Crazy Nightmare.”

Are we preparing as some religious groups seem to do this time of year, for the end of the world, the anticipated second coming of Christ, an event about which Christ said that no one would know except God? Are we preparing for the birth of the Christ Child which took place over 2,000 years ago? Are we preparing for and anticipating the presence of Christ in our lives every day? The lighting of the first Advent candle invites us to dream dreams of a better world, to allow expectant visions that have nothing to do with sugar-plum fairies to dance in our heads. Advent invites us to fill the cup of today with a full measure of tomorrow. The passage from Isaiah, especially, expresses the Christian hope for a different, brighter future.

During Advent we celebrate that God changed the world in a dramatic way in Bethlehem long ago when God became human and entered into our world as a newborn infant. However, we also recognize that in our very complicated world, we need more than an infant Jesus. The really big problems of our lives need an adult Christ - and even more they need a Divine Christ.

During Advent as the lights of the season sparkle in the night around us, we are encouraged to think about the ways in which we might walk in the divine light that God gives. As we are invited to parties, and this year as we are still a nation at war, we are invited to open ourselves to a world transformed by the peace of God. As we put on party clothes, we are reminded to dress ourselves in Christ’s light so that we may become catalysts for the transformation of the world.

When the prophet Isaiah thought about the advent of God, he envisioned a world of peace – a radical peace where every nation would come to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob to learn the ways of God and to walk in God’s paths. He describes a time when weapons of war will be turned into tools for gardening, when people will no longer learn war and when everyone will walk in the light of the Lord. What a wonderful vision, but how radically different from the world in which Isaiah lived, and about 2500 years later how still radically different from the world in which we live.

These words from Isaiah proclaim a vision that has been able to catch the imagination and the hope of people through the years. These words are among Isaiah’s most famous: “beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nations shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”

These words appear on a plaque outside the United Nations building in New York, when the UN was founded out of the ashes and rubble of World War II, and still warfare rages among nations, with Iraq being only the most recent in a long series. Humanity has not come any closer to fulfilling the prophet’s dream of peace.

Isaiah’s listeners would have understood immediately that when he spoke of people coming to the mountain of the Lord, he was referring to Mount Zion, the mount on which the city of Jerusalem is build. Jerusalem would have a unique role as a place of worship and law-giving. Today, Jerusalem is the center of a hot-bed of tension. Still, I have to wonder and dream of the vision of peace, when I realize that the biggest problem, the fact this one location is the center of holiness for the world’s three largest religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam – religions born out of a common ancestry could possibly be the very source of the solution .

The psalm appointed for this day is Psalm 122. We heard a few words from it at the beginning of the service as we prepared to light the advent candle, but there is more to it. The first time, I really paid attention to this psalm was in March of 2002 sitting on the streets outside of Jerusalem, looking at the city that we had just left. I looked at the building closely crowded together and read in the psalm about a city “closely compacted”. I thought about the soldiers that I saw on the streets with their weapons and the checkpoints through which we had to pass to get to the Western Wall, and the prohibition against going up to the temple mount where the Muslim Dome of the Rock is located, the golden domed building that dominates the skyline of Jerusalem. I read, “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: Peace be within your walls, and security within your towers. For the sake of my relatives and friends I will say, `Peace be within you.’ For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek your good.”

What would it be like if the three major religious groups in Israel truly prayed for the peace of Jerusalem, and more importantly worked for the peace in peaceful ways instead of in ways that promote more violence?

I think that this is a key question to ask ourselves during Advent. It is a key question to ask ourselves not just about Israel, but about Afghanistan and Iraq, about the Sudan and about many other places in the world. Is peace possible?

It’s hard to even ask that question sometimes. There’s a whole arm of the entertainment industry that is dedicated to war and violence. It's big business. Today it may be Halliburton that profits, but there have always been plenty of individuals and corporations who have made a bundle on every war we have declared. It's also a national unifier. It is easy to oversimplify. To put yellow ribbons on the back of our cars, display our country's flag, slap "Support our Troops" signs on our cars and think that those who believe this war is wrong are unpatriotic, are against the troops, and are jerks. It’s easy to forget that our flag stands for the right to disagree with each other and with our nations policies and to do so in freedom. It’s easy to forget that this is one of the reasons we claim to be pushing democracy in other countries, so that individuals are free to express their viewpoints and to freely elect those who represent us.

Can you imagine what life would be like in our nation if people put the same kind of energy, prayer, sacrifice, and zeal behind something like affordable healthcare and housing, or some other equally important humanitarian concern? Might this help to bring about peace?

“God's role in the Exodus; in Jesus' ministry, death, and resurrection; and in Isaiah 2:2-5 all have significant implications for us: (1) There are other ways to make good things happen than by going to war. (2) God is creative in the way God transforms situations of human bondage, and we who seek to be God's servants can also be creative when we set our minds "to study war no more." We are called upon to put as much energy into peacemaking as currently gets put into war-making by so many others. (3) The impossible is possible. (4) It's up to us to take this question seriously and look at ways to say yes to it. (5) There are concrete examples of places it has worked: South Africa in ultimately resolving apartheid, the USSR, which fell due to bankrupting itself on military spending, India's liberation from Great Britain at the end of WWII. Moreover, with the death of Yassir Arafat, slight though it may be, there is an opportunity for both Israel and the Palestinians to compromise and give up some of what they want in terms of land and rights in order to establish peace for both peoples.”[i]

The real point is that our ways are not God’s ways, but they should be. When we ask God to bless our nation or to bless something we do, it would be better if instead of asking God to bless our actions, we were to do the things that God blesses.

“Jesus is both realistic and challenging about issues of war and peace. He tells us that there will be "wars and rumors of wars," but his blessing in the Sermon on the Mount is given to the peacemakers. It is a challenge that is offered to each one of us. We pray that the leaders of the nations would be peacemakers, but the well-known prayer of Saint Francis reminds us that that role begins at an individual level. ‘Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.’"[ii]

It is a matter of transformation. Advent should be an opportunity for Christians to open ourselves to be made instruments for God’s peace, in preparation for the coming of the Prince of Peace.

There is a story from an unknown source about a piano teacher at a university who was simply and affectionately known as “Herman.” “One night at a university concert, a distinguished piano player suddenly became ill while performing an extremely difficult piece. No sooner had the artist retired from the stage when Herman rose from his seat in the audience, walked on stage, sat down at the piano and with great mastery completed the performance. Later that evening, at a party, one of the students asked Herman how he was able to perform such a demanding piece so beautifully without notice and with no rehearsal. He replied, "In 1939, when I was a budding young concert pianist, I was arrested and placed in a Nazi concentration camp. Putting it mildly, the future looked bleak. But I knew that in order to keep the flicker of hope alive that I might someday play again, I needed to practice every day. I began by fingering a piece from my repertoire on my bare board bed late one night. The next night I added a second piece and soon I was running through my entire repertoire. I did this every night for five years. It so happens that the piece I played tonight at the concert hall was part of that repertoire. That constant practice is what kept my hope alive. Everyday I renewed my hope that I would one day be able to play my music again on a real piano, and in freedom."

William Sloan Coffin once said, “We have learned to soar through the air like birds, to swim through the seas like fish, to soar through space like comets. Now it is high time we learned to walk the earth as the children of our God.”

We do this as the pianist did, by practicing everyday; by living everyday the way that God has called us to live; by praying that each one of us may be an instrument of God’s peace. We know that peace is much more than the absence of war. True peace is so much deeper, a peace that passes understanding. The biblical concept of peace or shalom includes justice and genuine accord between people. Even more widely, shalom includes peace with the natural world and with non-human creatures.

It’s a beautiful dream, and I believe that the vision of the prophet is a sign of its real possibility of becoming a reality. The vision itself is the first fruits of the rich harvest that God will one day bring to all. “Our anticipation for that day of fulfillment is intense. There are times when we wish the angels of heaven would swoop in and right the wrongs that are so obvious, and bring in God's kingdom of justice and peace.

Yet, as Jesus himself says, "No one knows the day or the hour." It's not for us to know. For us, there is only the waiting. Such waiting is the task of Advent.”[iii]

“Tell me the weight of a snowflake” a sparrow asked a wild dove. “Nothing more than nothing,” was the answer. “In that case, I must tell you a marvelous story,” the sparrow said, “ I sat on the branch of a fir, close to its trunk, when it began to snow – not heavily, not in a raging blizzard – no, just like in a dream, without a sound, and without any violence. Since I did not have anything better to do, I counted the snowflakes settling on the twigs and needles of my branch. Their number was exactly 3,741,952. When the 3,741,953^rd dropped onto the branch, nothing more than nothing, as you say, the branch broke off.” Having said that, the sparrow flew away.

The dove, since Noah’s time an authority on the matter, thought about the story for awhile, and finally said to herself, “Perhaps only one person’s voice is lacking for peace to come to the world.”[iv]

[i] The Immediate Word, Nov. 28, 2004

[ii] The Immediate Word, Nov. 28, 2004

[iii] The Immediate Word, Nov. 28, 2004

[iv] Hewett, James S. Illustrations Unlimited, Tyndale, Wheaton , IL , 1988, p.404, #6

Today is an exciting day in the life of our congregation. There is a spirit of thanksgiving in the air as our nation prepares to celebrate that holiday this week. There is a spirit of celebration as we received three people into membership in our congregation at the 8:00 service. There is a spirit of excitement as the children and youth of the Sunday School share their favorite food and celebrate their thanksgiving feast. There is a spirit of generosity and compassion as food is sorted and details completed for the distribution of Thanksgiving food through the food pantry. There is a spirit of expectation as we consecrate our offerings to God and our commitments for the coming year. I hope you feel the spirit because thankfulness is a mighty virtue, it leaves no room for discouragement.

There is a “legend of a man who found the barn where Satan kept his seeds ready to be sown in the human heart, and on finding the seeds of discouragement more numerous than others, he learned that those seeds could be made to grow almost anywhere. When Satan was questioned, he reluctantly admitted that there was one place in which he could never get them to thrive. `And where is that?’ asked the man. Satan replied sadly, `In the heart of a grateful (person).’”[ii]

This spirit of gratefulness comes through loud and strong in the reading this morning from Exodus. It is a story from about 3300 years ago during a time when the Hebrew people were wandering in the desert wilderness under the leadership of Moses. At some point in their wandering God told them to build a place of worship. The immediate chapters around this passage tell of the design of a tabernacle in the desert. It was large, but also portable. It had a wooden frame bedecked with jewels, and hangings of fine linen.

Gifts were needed to build the tabernacle. So a call went out, “bring your offerings. Bring money or jewelry or precious stones, or wood or fine linens. Bring whatever you can give to the building of the temple.” The call went out and the people responded. The gifts came pouring in.

Then a most unusual thing happened. There is no other story like this in scripture – and probably few in history. The project managers came to Moses with a request: “Tell the people to stop. We already have more than enough to do what the Lord wants us to do. We are being inundated with offerings. Ask the people to stop bringing them.” So Moses sent word for the people to stop giving and they did. But there was already more than enough to do what needed to be done.

Can you imagine that! Wouldn’t it be amazing if someday the food pantry and the RI Food Bank were to say, “Please stop bringing in donations. We have more than enough to feed all the hungry people.” Can you imagine being told that there is more than enough money to help the people who need fuel assistance! Can you even conceive of the idea of the finance and stewardship committee standing up and saying, “Please, no more pledges, no more offerings, we have more than enough to do what God wants us to do.” Wouldn’t that be a great day!

Brian Bauknight, a Methodist pastor, preached a sermon on this passage and he pointed out three things about the success of this offering for the tabernacle. Three things that explain how the people got to the point of “more than enough” and show us what we can learn from this story.

First, the trust level was high. The trust level in the community of believers was high. Integrity was in place. This is an important starting place for any offering. There was no arm-twisting, no gimmicks.

This must be true for the church as well. In order for this church to ask you to pledge toward the ministry and mission of this congregation, you must be able to trust those who are in positions of leadership. That does not mean that you have to agree with all of them about everything; but it does mean that you must believe that the finance and stewardship committee has worked hard to determine the financial needs of the congregation; that this work has been done in a prayerful spirit understanding the mission of the church and the needs that exist. You must believe that the financial secretary, the weekly counters, and the treasurer will make honest accountings of the monies received and use them for the purpose for which they were given. As I said last week, you must believe that the church has something to offer to the world and that this congregation will be faithful about meeting that responsibility. It is vitally important that the trust level not be eroded.

“God has placed the church on a growth track. Growth is not necessarily in quantity so much as it is in quality – Christian formation, faith development, the most important kind of growth. If you take time to know the story, you will sense integrity. Integrity is very important to all of us – to the church. Integrity was present in the desert. Therefore, the resources came in as requested.

Secondly, the capacity to give was present. Who would have believed that a nomadic people wandering in the desert in the thirteenth century B.C. would have had these kinds of resources to give?”[iii] However, they had brought resources with them. Their capacity to give was greater than they knew, and Moses was aware of this.

Bauknight says that “the capacity of most local churches to sustain a vital, healthy ministry is clear. The church is not at the end of its rope. Unfortunately, we have told ourselves that we are poor for so long that we now believe our own prophecy! The real question is our willingness to release some of what we have for the work of the kingdom.”[iv]

“One Sunday morning a pastor encouraged his congregation to consider the potential of the church. He told them, `With God’s help we can see the day when this church will go from crawling to walking.’ The people responded, `Let the church walk, Pastor, let the church walk.’

“He continued, `And when the church begins to walk, next the church can begin to run.’ And the people shouted, `Let the church run, Pastor, let the church run!’

“The pastor continued, `And finally the church can move from running to flying. Oh, the church can fly! But of course, that going to take lots of money for that to happen!’

“The congregation grew quiet, and from the back, someone mumbled, `Let the church crawl, Pastor, let the church crawl.’”[v]

At the beginning of 2004, our church budget and our anticipated income had a gap between them, a rather substantial one – a cavern some might have called it, about $19,000. There are many fixed items in our expenses just as there are in family or municipal budgets. The place for cutting would have been program – and we do not consider that to be a viable place to cut – that is the heart and soul of the ministry and mission of the church. We prayed, made our needs known and studied the numbers carefully. By the summer that gap had narrowed to about $8600. A special request went out to the congregation. People responded as they were able. For some the capacity to give was great, for some it was somewhat smaller, for some the capacity to give at that time did not exist. Each person had to make that decision between him or herself and God. The gap was narrowed to about 2%.

As of right now, I can tell you that all of our current obligations have been met. We are on track with our connectional ministry – we have paid 80% of our mission shares. We fully expect to finish the year with all of our responsibilities met and our mission shares paid at 100%. Now, I am not at all ready to come to you and say, “Enough, no more!” But I come with thanksgiving that because of your faithfulness, we will have enough to do what we have been called to do this year.

My prayer is that, once all of our pledges for next year are received, we will be able to move ahead into 2005 knowing that we will not have to come to you again asking for an additional offering to meet our regular expenses. My prayer is that we may be able to go into 2005, asking God what else we are to be doing, and spending more of our creative energy on our ministry and mission and less on the financial needs.

Our church is not in a weakened position with regard to resources. Our capacity is present. We are not overextended or tapped out. There is enough to do what is asked of us.

Thirdly, the offering that Moses requested was a free-will offering. This is true of all offerings in the church; nothing less will suffice in the ministry of the Christian church.

If you are a sports enthusiast, or a supporter of the arts, you may have a season ticket to one of these, or you may purchase tickets for specific shows or events. Those prices are set – you are told what you will pay and if you are not able to pay it, you simply do not attend.

This doesn’t happen in the church. There is no season ticket, or ticket of admission to worship, Sunday school, VBS, youth group, Bible study, choir or anything else. Our ministry is funded by the free-will offering of the people.

“Carol Burnett tells a wonderful story about a ride she took in a taxi in New York City. She arrived at her destination and asked the amount of the fare. Upon being told, she voiced her opinion that the chargers were a bit high, but then paid the cabby his fare.

“As she exited the cab, her coat caught in the door. The cab drove away (fortunately quite slowly in traffic), with Miss Burnett running along behind, shouting for the driver to stop. Finally, someone got the cabby’s attention, and he stopped his cab, got out, and apologized profusely to the actress: `Miss Burnett, I am terribly sorry. Are you all right?’

“`Yes, I’m fine,’ she responded. And then, as only Carol Burnett would know how to do, she asked, `How much more do I owe you?’”[vi]

Your pledge and your weekly offerings are not a matter of what you “owe” your church. “The church is the one institution in the world that depends 100 percent on the free-will offerings of the people. The church of Jesus Christ operates with a standard that is different from that of the world.”[vii]

Perhaps the key to this whole story is the phrase, “The people are bringing more than is needed for the work which the Lord commanded to be done.” It is not what we want to do, but what God gives us to do.

As a teenager I was part of a building project for a new church building. The design of the building was awesome. At some point in the process another voice was heard and the building was scaled down. It is still a magnificent structure and it has been serving God faithfully and generously for some years now. Recently an addition was added to the building. Human ambitions can be too high and too grand. That is always a danger. God’s vision is what counts.

We have tried very hard to be led by God’s vision of the work that we are called to do in this location and the ways that we are called to reach beyond our walls into our community and our world. These are reflected in the missional budget that is proposed by the finance and stewardship committee.

At this time of thanksgiving, we might think of the woman who went to her pastor and said, “I really love this time of year.” “`You mean the fall colors and the crisp autumn air?’ he asked. ‘No, that’s not what I mean at all,’ she said. `I mean the stewardship campaign.’ `You’ve got to be kidding,’ he responded. `You actually like this time of year?’

“`Yes, and I’ll tell you why. This time of year makes me take stock of my life. It makes me think deeply about my priorities. It makes me ask if I am living the way God is calling me to live.’”[viii]

That’s what needs to happen to us at least once each year. We need to think deeply about our priorities, about what God is calling us to do as a congregation and how God is calling us to live as individuals and as a congregation.

[i] Sermon title and some thoughts from presentations by Brian Bauknight at NE Conf. Pastor’s Assembly Aug. 2004, permission of speaker, also from Sermon by same title in Brian’s book Right on the Money, Discipleship Resources, Nashville, TN 1995 pp.23-28

[ii] Hewett, James S. Illustrations Unlimited, Tyndale Publishers, Wheaton , Il , 1988 p.262 #12

[iii] Bauknight, p.25

[iv] Bauknight, p.25

[v] Hewett, p.459 #6

[vi] Bauknight, p.27

[vii] Bauknight, p.27

[viii] Bauknight, p.11

When you looked at the sermon title in today’s bulletin did you wonder if I had lost my mind? I imagine that the members of the Finance and Stewardship Committee must have thought I was crazy. Why would the pastor preach about tearing up your pledge card during the middle of the Stewardship Campaign when our goal is to get as many people as possible to fill out a pledge card for 2005? Let me assure you that this is not a gimmick, the title and the intent of this sermon is exactly what they appear to be.

First, of all, let me say that I would probably never have come up with a title like this myself – or, for that matter the courage to preach this sermon. This summer while attending the New England Conference Pastor’s Assembly, I heard a wonderful sermon by Rev. Brian K. Bauknight from Christ United Methodist Church in Bethel Park, PA. He has preached and even published a sermon by this title, and it really got me thinking.

Usually, I try to talk about stewardship as being much more than pledging to the church. Stewardship is a way of looking at life. I really do believe that, and like many people I sort of cringe when it comes time for what we usually call the stewardship campaign, a time to raise the financial commitment for the church budget. I try to talk about stewardship as much more than financial, but I realize that generally the word stewardship seems to get associated primarily with money. This year, we have been very intentional about trying to remember that our budget is a mission budget – it is the document that guides us in fulfilling the mission to which God calls us in this place. Your pledges are commitments toward doing the work of God – and yes, that does include such seemingly mundane things as electricity and insurance and salaries.

The time for presenting pledge cards is often looked upon as necessary drudgery among one’s church obligations. Rev. Bauknight tells the story of two men who were stranded on a desert island. “One seemed cheerful and upbeat. The other was nervous and dispirited. The second man spoke first: `Why are you so happy? Don’t you know we’ll never be found? We’ll both surely die on this forsaken island.’ `Cheer up,’ replied the first man. `We’ll be just fine. My church pledge is due next week, and I know the finance committee will find me!’”[ii]

Many of you have received a letter from the church signed by both Robin Marek the chair of the Finance and Stewardship Committee and me. If you didn’t receive a letter and the enclosed pledge card and information, there are copies available in the narthex on the easel with the large poster that proclaims, “We are the Church Together.” As much as we would truly love to receive your pledge card and your commitment, I invite you to tear up your pledge card if any of several situations describe your life right now. I realize that this is risky business, but I really do mean it.

First, it is probably time to tear up your pledge card if you believe that the church no longer offers what the world needs!

If the church is simply one more nice institution in the community, a nice social club, where someone holds membership and visits occasionally and pays dues, then the church is no longer offering what the world really needs and you should probably give your money to the Red Cross, the United Way, or the Heart Fund.

Bauknight tells about an editorial in The Christian Century written by William Willimon. He wrote about a meeting of the Board of Trustees at the church – related college where he was serving. They hired a consultant to give some direction regarding their goals and objectives. The consultant said that “The college needs to focus upon helping young people become more adult.”

An older, retired United Methodist preacher asked, “Sir, what exactly do you mean by `adult’?” The consultant replied, “You know what an adult is. An adult is a person who is autonomous, liberated, capable of standing on his own two feet and looking out for himself.” “That’s exactly what I thought you meant,” replied the preacher. “Fact is, the people in my church who believed that are in big trouble right now.”[iii]

The reality is that life is not easy. In the church we proclaim a gospel that reminds us that we are only strong when we lean on Christ. We proclaim a gospel that tells us that we are only truly liberated when we are free in Christ. We declare that when we look out only for ourselves, we end up with a hard, crusty selfishness.

I cannot imagine what it would be like to have a son or daughter in Iraq right now without having a church family to count on to help share the worry and to be praying for all of our soldiers there and elsewhere. I cannot imagine facing a serious illness without a church community to surround me in prayer and to offer practical help. I cannot imagine raising young children without other Christian parents to help provide guidance and understanding.

The mission of the church is fundamentally about what the world does not and cannot offer: hope, peace, strength of soul. The church proclaims that every person is a child of God, that no one should live in poverty, or fear, but that when someone does, they are not alone – not ever. The church proclaims that healing means the healing of body, mind, and spirit – and that this healing is both earthly and eternal.

However, if you believe that the church no longer has a vision; if you think that the church no longer offers what the world needs, then you should probably tear up your pledge card.

Secondly, you should probably tear up your pledge card if giving is a chore and not a joy. In our epistle reading today, Paul says quite clearly that God loves the person who gives gladly. That statement means exactly what it says. God loves those who give with heartfelt gladness, rejoicing eagerly.

If you are angry or disgruntled because the church is always asking for money, then you should probably not give. In fact, you should probably tear up your pledge card.

Let me speak personally here. Through the years, one of the blessings that God has given me is the joy of giving. When I was a very small child, our Sunday School had offering envelopes for all the children. They had two pockets that said, “This side for us. This side for others.” You couldn’t get much clearer than that. Every Sunday morning my father gave each of us two nickels. One went into the side for us and the other the side for others.

My parents didn’t really believe in giving an allowance, so when I approached them about that when I was in junior high, I clearly laid out my expenses – lunch money, etc. and negotiated an allowance which included the amount to go into my church offering.

Years later as a young mother going through a divorce, my lawyer had me fill out a form listing all of my expenses. There wasn’t a line on there for my church pledge but I added it. He informed me that I would not be able to continue to give that amount, that I couldn’t afford it and that it wasn’t a valid expense in the legal system. I pointed out to him that there were lines on the form for cigarettes and alcohol, that they were considered valid and that I had left them blank. If I had put my pledge figure on those lines he would not even have batted an eye. Secondly, I told him that it didn’t really matter what he considered valid. When I had my bottom line figure, I would determine how it was to be spent and that it would most definitely include a pledge to the church.

You see, the only thing that got me through that divorce and through the years preceding it were the love and support of the few people in my church community who I had allowed to have a little bit of a view into my life. My pastor had been for me the person who modeled God’s love and my gratitude for that made me want to give back so that others could experience the same thing.

In the years following, I have always spent a long time determining what my pledge with be. Some of you have already returned your pledge cards for next year, I have not. But I will. I am still sitting with it, praying over it, and letting God show me what an appropriate figure will be. I know that it will be more than I think I can afford to give – it always has been, but when I put that amount down on the card, I will feel good about the amount I write, and I will feel good about every check I write during the year because I know what God has done in my life and I want to celebrate that by giving.

If you are not happy inside about giving to the church, don’t give. If you don’t want to give to the Discretionary Fund to provide emergency funding for someone in need then don’t give. If you don’t want to support the mission budget of the church to provide Sunday School curriculum for our children, and a place for the community food pantry, and the many other opportunities that take place in this building, then don’t do it.

Please hear this: If you don’t have it to give, God does not expect you to give anyway. God does not expect us to give what we do not have.

For a disciple of Jesus Christ, giving is a voluntary act of the heart. Nothing less. If giving is not fun, if giving is a negative experience, you should probably tear up your pledge card.

Finally, You should probably tear up your pledge card when the reality of God no longer has a claim upon your life.

I just explained to you how the reality of God in my life is intimately connected to the joy of giving. They go hand in hand. Consider carefully, does the reality of God still claim you? Does God’s presence make a difference in your life? In our very busy world, God’s presence should be the center out of which all of our priorities are ordered.

The stewardship thought in today’s bulletin says it well. “A wheel can have only one center. Either everything in our lives, including our resources, will be organized around our relationship with God, or everything in our lives, including religion, will be organized around our pursuit of affluence-or whatever else we choose as the center of our lives.”

The church is a faith movement, not a charitable institution. We are disciples of the Lord of history; not an organization of do-gooders. Certainly we should be doing good things – but that is a result of the reality of God in our lives, not our purpose in being. However, if God is no longer an important presence in your life, your pledge card should probable be set aide. If seeking that relationship with God is not important then you should probably tear up the card.

So, there you have it. Three reasons to consider tearing up your pledge card. What we are finally about at pledge time is discipleship. The budget is important but that is not the bottom line, discipleship is the bottom line. The bottom line is not where we are headed, but who is our Head!

When the offering plates are passed on Sunday morning, it is not the dollar amount within the envelope that is most important. It is the representation of you and I that makes the difference. It is our statement of what the church means in our lives and what we believe it can mean in the lives of others. It is our statement of the joy of giving to God because God is vitally important in our lives. The envelopes are symbols of our presence, of the offering of ourselves as disciples of Jesus Christ. The offering should be a happy time in the worship service, a time of gratitude and joy – otherwise, we might just as well send out monthly bills that you can pay when you pay all the other bills in your life.

[i] Many of the ideas for this sermon and some content came from Brian K. Bauknight, preaching at NE Conference Pastor’s Assembly, August 2004, Used by permission. His sermon by this title is also found in Right on the Money, Discipleship Resources, Nashville , TN 1995

[ii] Bauknight, p.16

[iii] Bauknight, p.17

They were trying to rebuild and it seemed like such a big project – overwhelming really. Everything they had had been destroyed, for years they had lived far from their home and now finally they were able to return to the land that they loved. Finally they were able to return to Jerusalem. After defeating the Babylonians who had deported the Jews, Cyrus allowed them to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple. In 521 BCE Cyrus was succeeded by Darius who permitted another wave of exiles to return. Among them was a prophet, Haggai, whose ministry covered only one year, 520 BCE.

Haggai discovered that the exiles were spending a great deal of time rebuilding their homes, planting crops, going on about their lives, but they were not rebuilding the temple. For Haggai the temple was to be the center of their national and religious life; it symbolized and guaranteed the presence of Yahweh in their midst. This may be hard for us to understand because we recognize that God is with us everywhere. For the Hebrew people though, the temple was the place where God lived.

Haggai called them to remember – to look around them. He asked, “What do you see?” It was easier for them to remember the “good old times” back when Solomon’s magnificent temple stood there. It was hard to remember the “good old days” and to compare it with where they were then.

It’s often tempting to think about the “good old days” times that seemed simpler, more peaceful. If we are honest with ourselves though we realize that the “good old days” were not all that simple or peaceful. It doesn’t do any of us any good to get bogged down in thinking about the past. The Hebrew people to whom Haggai spoke needed to face the reality of their situation. We need to face the reality of the situations in our lives.

We live in a world where nuclear weapons are a reality. Since 9-11, we have learned that weapons of mass destruction can be things we would never have anticipated – including passenger airplanes.

This week I attended a meeting at the Rhode Island State Council of Churches. We were discussing some of the major needs that we expect to encounter this winter. We all knew that the cost of heating fuel is much more expensive this year, so we anticipated that we would be getting many more calls this year looking for fuel assistance. Many of us are grateful for the moratorium on utility shut-offs during the winter, what I did not realize is that we have many families in this state going into the winter without heat or utilities because they were never able to pay off the bills from last winter. The cost of gasoline and heating fuel is also expected to make it more difficult for people to purchase the food they need.

The newly returned exiles knew that there was no way that they could rebuild the temple the way it had been; they could not turn back the clock. They did not have the resources – the gold and silver of days long gone. They could not rebuild the temple the way it had been and so perhaps it was easier to not rebuild it at all. They faced a mammoth task.

We face a mammoth task in the days and weeks ahead. This week’s election has shown what we already knew that we are a nation deeply divided about many things. We realize that even as Christians we are deeply divided about many of the issues that were considered core issues by some of the candidates. However, there are some things that we, as Christians should be able to agree upon. One of these is the mammoth task of caring for our brothers and sisters in this community and state who will be hungry, cold, and homeless this winter. Like the returned exiles we may feel overwhelmed by the challenge. Like the exiles we are concerned about our own homes, our own heat, food, our own needs. It’s only human to feel this way – but it is not the call issued by God.

Three times, in this passage, Haggai calls for courage. First he urges the governor to have courage. Then he exhorts the high priest to have courage. Finally, he pleads with the people to have courage. Where would they get the courage they needed? Where do we get the courage we need? We find that answer in the fifth verse, “My Spirit is among you, fear not.”

No matter what the situation we are not left to face it alone. God is with us in the midst of whatever we face.

The exiles wondered where the money would come from to rebuild the temple. They needed what they had for their own needs, for their homes. This is the cry we still raise today. Where will we get the money to meet the needs of the church? Where will we get the money to feed the hungry, to provide heat for those who are cold, shelter for the homeless?

Unlike the exiles to whom Haggai spoke, we are not trying to build a temple, or a church; but we are trying to continue to build a ministry, to continue a mission, to continue to be faithful disciples of Jesus Christ. We are trying to be the people God has called us to be.

The word from God that Haggai delivered to the exiles was, “Work, for I am with you, just as I promised you when you came out of Egypt.” They were not being asked to do anything alone and neither are we. They were being told to work and to do so, because they were not alone – because God was with them. If they work as they are told, God will do wonderful things and they will soon discover resources they didn’t know they had – resources that would come from other places, resources that would seem to multiply, because the silver and gold belongs to God not to them, not to someone else, not to another nation.

I believe that the same is true for us as we seek to be about God’s work. If we work at doing what we are able to do, God will bless that work and it will be multiplied. When we have a passion about doing the work of God, then we discover that our resources are multiplied in ways we could not have imagined.

I was thinking back to several years ago, when this congregation decided to try to raise $2,000 or $3,000 dollars in preparation for a liver transplant for one of our children. We decided to hold a supper. It was great fun and the number of people who helped out was amazing. People who had never met each other were working side by side, having a great time and raising money for a worthy cause. Soon other responses started to pour in from people in the community. Other groups started to hold fund raisers. It became necessary for us to establish a special account for the money. By the time everything was done, our goal of 2 – 3,000 dollars had been exceeded by 500%.

The exiles were told that if they had courage and worked, knowing that God was with them, they would discover that the temple they would build would be even more magnificent than the one that had been destroyed. If we are willing to have courage and to work as each of us is gifted to do, knowing that God is with us, we too, will be amazed at what we are able to do for God with God’s help.

There is no limit to what the people of God can do, when we truly are doing the work of the Lord, when we are not caught in the past, but are looking to the future, aware of our situation and of the needs that face us, when we have courage and remember that all that we have belongs to God and is to be used in ways that make us faithful disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ.

October 31, 2004 -- Sermon at 8 AM by Mark Zaccaria (not available); 10 AM Worship featured skit by Youth Group, no sermon.

October 24, 2004 [Not available] -- Brief Meditation by The Rev. Richard Garland -- worship was special music program

Three years ago our country was in a panic about anthrax. More recently the world was worried about SARS. We are concerned about the spread of HIV/AIDS. One of the topics of the most recent presidential debate concerned the flu vaccine. We are concerned about healthcare and about illnesses that affect the population.

There’s another ailment though that most of us don’t really know much about, but which is really quite dangerous. It’s a spiritual ailment - not a physical one. It’s been around for a long time, and the apostle Paul described it in a letter to Timothy, a young pastor and good friend of Paul’s. It’s called “itching ears.” While it may sound silly, it isn’t. Paul describes it this way, “... the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths.” (2 Tim. 4:3-4)

The reason that itching ears is so dangerous is that it leads us only to the places we want to go. That is its lure and also its danger. It closes our heart, mind, and ears to the truths that we need to hear. Itching ears can lead us away from God.

Commercialism tell us that the only way to be happy is to have the biggest, the best, and the most of all the current toys, and the itching ear syndrome leads us to spend more, buy more, and enjoy it less. Hollywood tells us young and beautiful is the only way to be - and itching ears spend a fortune on trying to have the impossible body - feeling poorly about ourselves because we don’t possess that exceptional physical specimen.

There is a current threat of a new strain of itching ears as part of our upcoming presidential election. The campaign committee of one of the candidates set out a list of things that a good Christian should do in preparation for the election. That same committee contacted a large number of evangelical churches requesting copies of the church membership listings and encouraging churches to hold events to rally people around the cause. These two items come very close in my understanding to violating the strict IRS regulations about the involvement of non-profit groups in politics and also violating the privacy of church membership information. The implication from this particular campaign has been that if you are a good Christian you will vote for their candidate and that if you do not, both your Christianity and your patriotism are suspect.

Sojourners, a group that year round focuses on ethical concerns in the world from a Christian perspective, responded to this with an ad campaign that proclaims, “God is not a Republican or a Democrat.” Their literature affirms that people of faith will vote for different candidates for reasons grounded in their faith understanding and that we will not all agree on the most important issues or on the response to them.

Itching ears can be dangerous. It can cause us to pass judgment on others without having a proper basis for doing so. Itching ears can focus on one particular issue or one passage of Scripture and try to make that the basis for all of Christianity; ignoring what Christianity has taught for 2,000 years. Itching ears lures us to make one road the only road. It can cause us to close ourselves to other opinions. Ultimately, itching ears can become deaf ears, not able to hear the Word of the Lord.

That’s why Paul warns Timothy to be careful of the disease of itching ears. Fortunately, as Paul proclaims there is treatment for itching ears although those afflicted with it may resist the treatment. Therefore, it is most effective as a preventative measure. The treatment is “sound doctrine.”

Certainly, those afflicted with itching ears do not think that they are practicing and proclaiming anything other than sound doctrine. They truly believe what they teach and what they think everyone else ought to believe also. There is a tradition within Methodism which is a helpful tool in helping to evaluate what is, and what is not “sound doctrine.” We call it the Wesleyan quadrilateral. In geometry a quadrilateral is a figure with four sides. The Wesleyan quadrilateral - with its four sides - has been helpful in preventing or treating itching ears. The four sides of the quadrilateral are Scripture, Tradition, Reason and Experience.

The Contemporary English translation puts Paul’s words this way, “Everything in the Scriptures is God’s Word. All of it is useful for teaching and helping people and for correcting them and showing them how to live. The Scriptures train God’s servants to do all kinds of good deeds.” (2 Tim. 3:16-17 CEV)

John Wesley, the man who is credited with being the founder of Methodism agreed wholeheartedly with Paul on that. Throughout the history of the church, there has been much debate about what we really mean when we say that Scripture is the word of God. There are many approaches to this and it has been the source of more than a little conflict among believers.

Whatever, it is we believe on that matter, we are left with the Bible - the collection of writings which has been collected and accepted by the Church. This collection and process of acceptance took place over a long period of time.

“In many ways the Bible is like a patchwork quilt. It comes to us having been written by many persons in many different times. And yet the multicolored patches form one garment. The experiences that prompted the writing of the Bible were so important to those who lived, told, and wrote about them that it became and remains today a sacred text.”[ii]

One distinguished Bible scholar explains the unity of the Bible as a great drama. “It deals with people’s hopes and fears, their joy and anguish, their ambitions and failures. There is a great deal of diversity in the Bible: different authors, different historical situations, and different kinds of theological expression. But underlying all this great variety is the dynamic movement, similar to the plot of a drama, which binds the whole together. The biblical drama, however, is unique in that God appears in the cast. Not only is God the Author who stands behind the scenes prompting and directing the drama, but God enters onto the stage of history as the Chief Actor. ... The biblical plot is the working out of God’s purpose for the creation in spite of all efforts to oppose it. ...”[iii]

It was the early church which struggled to determine which writings would be given the status of Holy Scripture. It is the tradition of the church to which Mr. Wesley suggests that we also turn for guidance in helping us to understand the Scripture and God’s message to us and how to live life in accordance with the will of God.

When Jesus went to the synagogue he read from the Hebrew Scriptures. These were sacred texts which were also part of the tradition into which Jesus was born. The Bible is also our sacred text and part of our tradition. Within the Church, tradition has enriched the experience of us all. Many of our hymns are centered in Scripture. Tradition, the second side of the quadrilateral, not only formed the canon - the accepted body of sacred texts - but also has pointed us in the direction of truth when our ancestors have begun to wander away.

John Wesley, for instance, believed that much of the practice of faith had become too mechanical. He pointed back to tradition and to Scripture to the idea of Scriptural holiness. He sought an understanding of both personal practice of faith through prayer, study, and other disciplines, and also the very important practice of social holiness - of feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, clothing the naked, and seeking justice for all persons.

He reached back to an earlier tradition that led him to a more fulfilling understanding of the Word of God. The tradition of the church can also enrich our lives and our faith and can help us understand the Scripture for our own time.

“Scripture and tradition present us with an understanding of the world. But surely one of the most important tasks of life, if not the most important task, is to develop beliefs that are genuinely our own. Our personal experience is a vital part of that development.”[iv]

We have experiences in our lives of feeling that God is leading us in particular directions. Unfortunately, there have been people who have committed horrendous actions believing that this was what God was telling them to do. When we believe that God is speaking to us, what we hear must be tested against the basic message of the Scripture. It must be weighed against the traditional understandings of those who have gone before us in our faith. If what we hear is different from the message of Scripture, if it contradicts faith-filled tradition, then it must be rejected.

In John’s Gospel, in what we call Jesus’ farewell discourse to his disciples, he says, “I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.” (John 14:25-26) It is the Holy Spirit working through people like ourselves who is the teacher of sound doctrine, who guides us in the ways of faith.

“Human experience varies little from generation to generation. People in every time and place struggle with matters of faith and obedience. ... Scripture and tradition remind us we are not alone in doubt and uncertainty. Many of the great heroes of the faith had moments of doubt and uncertainty.”[v] So interpretation of our experience needs to be guided by Scripture and tradition, just as our experience, helps us pick up the Scripture and read passages which make us wonder if they were written just for us at that particular moment of our experience.

God has given us minds and it is by using those minds and the power of reason that we may understand our world and our place in it. Reason is part of what helps us to sort out what we are hearing the candidates saying and helps us to make sense of their rhetoric.

Reason is that part of us which enables us to plan ahead, to learn from our mistakes, to understand what someone means by their words and actions. It is reason which helps us to make ethical decisions. “The power of reason has made it possible for persons to walk on the moon, to improve the quality of food products, to discover the basis of disease, and to establish institutions that provide healing and support for persons in special need.

“The very fact that we speak of the Scriptures as God’s Word implies that God chooses to address us as rational beings. ... Without reason it would not be possible to hear or to respond to God’s Word. Nor would it be possible to examine our lives and our traditions in the light of Scripture.

“When we read Scripture, we are enabled by reason to consider the time and place in which the particular passage was written and to reflect on the people and the situation to which it was first addressed. Reason helps us determine the unique relevance of that Scripture for us and for our time. For while God’s word is timeless, every generation must discover how to apply that truth in its time and place. Surely the fundamental truth of the Scripture is that God is love and that we are called to be in loving relationships. It is through reason that we are able to determine just what it means to act lovingly toward the other.”[vi]

It is through the faithful application of Scripture, tradition, reason and experience that we are best able to avoid the danger of itching ears and face the difficult decisions of life. We are faced with decisions that our ancestors could not even begin to imagine. When we look to Scripture alone we are not going to find clear guidance for how to respond to the use of life support systems, stem cell research, cloning, Internet usage, or any of a myriad of questions which face us daily.

We may locate a verse of Scripture which seems to speak to our concern, but unless we invite the Holy Spirit to guide us through the use of tradition, experience, and reason, we are likely to be taking something out of context and finding meaning where it doesn’t exist. We may be like the sign in a church nursery which read: “We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.” (I Cor. 15:51)[vii]

The life of a Christian is to be lived in response to the gracious love of God. We may learn about God first through our experience as children and infants as we learn from our parents, teachers, pastors, and other adults. We start to hear the stories of Scripture and the explanations of those around us. We begin to use our ability to reason to make sense of what we are learning. As we mature our knowledge of Scripture increases. Our grasp of tradition deepens. Our wealth of experience widens. Our ability to reason grows. We are led by God, breaking into the drama of our lives in the form of the Holy Spirit, breathing into us the Living Word of God, guiding us in pathways we might not have expected, and opening our lives and our response to ways of faithful living. Scripture, Tradition, Experience, and Reason, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit is both an effective preventative treatment for itching ears, and also a proven cure for this malady.

If you have trouble remembering any one of these four, use the mnemonic that the Confirmation class discovered this year: REST, Reason, Experience, Scripture, Tradition. If you are struggling with a difficult issue, if you are trying to make sense out of conflicting information bombarding you from different directions and each insisting on its validity alone, if it seems to you that the situation is more complicated than some would try to portray it then the youth would say, “REST in Christ” use reason, experience, scripture and tradition and God will guide you through the tangles and confusion. It is an effective prevention or treatment for the dreaded malady of “itching ears.”

[i] Much of this sermon is a revision of a sermon by the same title given in 2001.

[ii] “The Centrality of Scripture” in NRSV introduction, Cokesbury, 1990. p. 6

[iii]From The Unfolding Drama of the Bible, by Bernhard W. Anderson (Fortress Press, 1988); pages 14-15. Quoted in NRSV translation of The Holy Bible published by Cokesbury 1990

[iv]Cokesbury, p.7

[v]Cokesbury, p.8

[vi]Cokesbury, p.8

[vii]Hewett, James, S. Editor, Illustrations Unlimited Tyndale, Wheaton, Ill. 1988 p.43 #2

Have you ever felt like an outcast - Unaccepted, unseen, overlooked? It’s a horrible feeling. To be an outcast is to be treated as “less than” others, not worthy of attention, not worthy of the common courtesies we extend to others. There are different kinds of outcasts in society both today and in Jesus’ day.

There are the outcasts that can be identified by sight. In Jesus’ day that included those who had been diagnosed with leprosy. There are many different skin diseases that were characterized under the broad term leprosy. True leprosy, which we know today as Hansen’s disease is a horrendous disease caused by a parasite. The disease is transmitted by intimate contact, usually with a household member. The incubation period can be from one to two years up to as much as forty years. Its origin is very difficult, if not impossible at times to determine.[i]

In Jesus’ time the only form of disease prevention available was quarantine. Lepers were shunned, banned from society. If a person with leprosy was well enough to go out, he or she had to yell, “Unclean!” so that people would stay a safe distance away. Their clothes had to be torn so that they could be easily identified.

Imagine the utter separation from family and community. If you were a leper, you would not be able to hold your child or grandchild, or feel the hug or kiss of a loved one. You could not sit down together for dinner or go anywhere together. You were not allowed into the market to shop.

If you were a leper in Jesus’ time, you were also cut off from your religion. You were not allowed in the temple for worship. The separation was absolute. Imagine what it must have felt like to see people at a distance, even those you loved and have to yell out “unclean, unclean” to warn them to stay away. This story confronts the fear that people had, fear that they could be exposed to and contract leprosy.

This story also confronted their prejudice. At least one of the ten lepers to be cured was a Samaritan. Samaritans although from the same religious root as Jews were not considered Jews. Jews and Samaritans did not associate in daily life. In fact, in this gospel account, Jesus is traveling along the border between Samaria and Galilee on his way to Jerusalem. That means that he was following the traditional route used by Jews – a route that took them out of their way in order to avoid going through Samaritan territory.

It’s also interesting to me that there were a group of lepers that included both Jews and at least one Samaritan. Remembering that they were cut off from society, survival could not have been easy for them. They were bound together by their disease, something that transcended the normal hatred between Jews and Samaritans – something that brought like souls together in a time of crisis.

Imagine, if you will, the shock of those with Jesus when one leper returned after being cured – and he was a Samaritan. It was almost impossible for them to imagine that a Samaritan would have done anything good, let alone be praised here, by Jesus, for being the only one to return, for actions that were praised over those of the Jewish lepers who had been healed. The Samaritan who returned was told by Jesus, “your faith has made you well.” All ten lepers were cured of their leprosy, but the Samaritan leper – the double outcast – received a double healing. He was not only cured of his leprosy, but he was healed as well. The other lepers were in a hurry to resume their original lives; and who can blame them? The one, the alien, the stranger, recognized that his life had changed, that it had been transformed, and that he could not return to his old life. Rather, he would be embarking on a new life, and he returned giving thanks to God for this realization.

There’s a phrase in this story that I had never really noticed before. The lepers came, and stood at the required distance and called out to Jesus, pleading for mercy and healing. Luke says, “When he saw them, he said, `Go and show yourselves to the priests.’” “When he saw them….” Now, obviously, Jesus saw them or he wouldn’t have responded to them. But, I think that Luke meant something more here otherwise he didn’t need that extra phrase. “When he saw them….” I’m hearing here more than just physically seeing them. I think Luke meant to imply that Jesus really saw them. Jesus did not ignore them. He didn’t simply tell them to go to the priest to get rid of them. He saw them as people who were ignored, people who were outcasts, people with hearts and souls and feelings, people who were being devastated by this horrible disease. He did, indeed, have pity on them and sent them to see the priest because it was only the priest who could confirm their healing and reinstate them in the community.

Especially in Luke’s gospel, Jesus is shown as having great compassion for those who are on the fringes of society, those who are considered the last, the lost and the least, those not quite “good enough” – and this story is no exception.

Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. In Luke’s gospel, this means he was on the road of preparation for his crucifixion. Jesus could have been thinking about himself, but he wasn’t. Even at that time, he was responding to the needs of those around him, those who needed him the most, and those whom others might have ignored.

I imagine that for much of the crowd, the lepers may have been almost background noise in the midst of their day. I wonder how many of the people with Jesus really saw them, really took the time or made the effort to look at them and to see them. I wonder how many people driving through Boston, for example, really see the men and women who come up to cars at the traffic lights and ask for money. Windows may remain tightly closed and heads looking straight ahead or perhaps a sort of sad negative shake of the head. Others perhaps, open the window and pass a few coins or dollars to the person, but I wonder how many really look at the man or woman.

We have our own groups of modern outcasts and those people out on the streets are just one group. Think for a minute, if you will, about the people who might be considered outcasts in our society. There are some obvious ones that come to my mind. Too often the homeless, the poor, the hungry are treated as a form of outcast – someone who somehow didn’t work hard enough, or spent their money carelessly. While that may be true for a small number of people in those conditions, it is simply not true for the majority. The cost of housing in our society makes many families one paycheck away from being homeless. The inequities with which our children begin life based on where they live and the advantages that parents can provide for them, means that not every person has an equal opportunity to “make it” in the world. But too often we seem to overlook those whom we need to see through the eyes of Jesus.

Elderly persons in our society are sometimes treated as outcasts by a government that fails to provide adequate means of healthcare for those who have spent years caring for others. A delightful octogenarian told me one day about her doctor asking her son questions about her health and her medications. In some cases, family members do need to be the ones answering some of those questions, but not in hers, and the doctor at the hospital who didn’t know her made no attempt to find out which was the reality for her. Her comment to me was, “They see gray on the head and they think the brain is dead.” How many times are senior citizens looked past, through, or over, rather than being seen and listened to as people of value to our loving God?

Within our churches there are groups that are all too often treated as if they were modern lepers. Some of the obvious are people with HIV/AIDS, openly gay/lesbian/bisexual or transsexual persons, and those with active drug and alcohol dependencies. This week, I was thinking of another group in our society that has the potential to be outcasts. Outcasts in that we prefer to believe that they don’t really exist, that their situation will go away if we ignore it. October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month and much of my experience has been that many people feel some sort of vague pity for those who are in a situation like this, but wonder why they don’t just get out. For too many years, women especially were told by pastors and by good church leaders that they should be submissive and that if they loved their husband and prayed for him, he would come around and they would have the joy of having brought their spouse to Christ. Sometimes they think that if they just pray hard enough and believe enough God will stop the hurt and the pain.

Those who are on the receiving end of domestic violence don’t need us to blame them, because in most cases they are too busy blaming themselves. Their loved one can be so caring and so loving and so wonderful some times, that the victim believes if she can just do the right thing, or manage to not do the wrong thing, everything will be fine. There is a stigma that keeps too many people silent and enforces isolation. They don’t want their families to know; they don’t want the children to know; society may know the batterer as a fine upstanding citizen. Domestic violence takes many forms and it is insidious and cunning in working its way into a relationship.

I want to share with you a simple story. I have struggled long and hard with whether or not to tell you this story, but I think it may be an important illustration that will help you understand what I am saying. Sixteen or seventeen years ago, I was standing in a grocery store buying milk for the family. I picked up whole milk for the children and myself and skim milk for my husband. As I did so, I caught myself praying, “Oh, God, please don’t let this milk go bad before he drinks it.” It was like a lightning bolt hit me out of the blue! Suddenly, I realized in my heart, what my head certainly knew – if I checked the expiration date on the milk and took the milk directly home and put it in the refrigerator, I was not responsible for whether my husband drank the milk in a timely fashion before it went bad or let it sit until it was no longer fresh.

Now that seems like a silly thing and something very obvious, but for me it was an epiphany. For me, it was just as real as Jesus saying to the Samaritan leper, “your faith has made you well.” Suddenly the power that my husband held over me no longer existed. Usually it doesn’t happen that suddenly, and it still took me quite awhile to make a move.

My purpose here is not to tell you about myself, but to use that as an illustration that could be multiplied over and over again more times than we can ever imagine. On Thursday evening, the North Kingstown Community Partnership Team in conjunction with the Women’s Resource/Domestic Violence Center held a vigil out on our front lawn to remember victims of domestic violence, and especially to remember those who have been killed.

If the size of the turnout is any indication, we as a community are not seeing the victims of domestic violence. We are ignoring them, walking around them, or denying their existence or perhaps we truly don’t know what a major problem it is. Victims of domestic violence do not walk around wearing name tags that say, “I’m being abused.” They are more likely to keep the situation to themselves. As a community and as a society, we need to create an environment where it is safe to speak up, safe to tell the stories and where we join together to say and mean, “This has to stop.”

When you came in today, were you surprised to see a red human cut-out? It is one of the Silent Witnesses. Silent Witnesses are full-size wooden cut-outs representing women, children and most recently men who have been killed in an act of domestic violence. They are not alive to tell their stories, so these silent witnesses tell the story for them. They remind us that while the victims can no longer speak they must not be forgotten.

The one in our church represents a mother and two children who were killed, just before the mother had decided to talk with her pastor about her situation – just before the mother had decided to break the silence and seek some help.

It might be enlightening for you to think about your reaction when you saw her there this morning? Where you surprised? Were you shocked? Were you distressed, or angry? Did you think, “this doesn’t belong here, doesn’t belong in church” or did you perhaps see with new eyes the face of domestic violence in our community?

We don’t require outcasts in our society to stand off at a distance, to wear identifying clothes or to shout out their condition when they approach. We are much too civilized for that, aren’t we? Instead, we simply ignore them, pretending or wanting to believe that they don’t exist, not in our family, not in our church, not in our community.

We learn from Jesus’ example, from his life, his teaching, his healing, that God cares for all people, not just those who are “socially acceptable”, not just those who live perfect lives, not just for those who have it all together. We learn that God’s heart has a passion for those who are excluded, for those who are for any reason considered by someone else to be “less than”. We learn that we are to be Christ-like in being inclusive and in welcoming and receiving God’s children in all conditions and in all places and in standing with and standing up for those who need help in finding their voice.

When I was a child, I remember many conversations with my friends about what happened at home when report cards came out. The ones I remember the most were about how much money some of my friends would get for good grades. A dollar for an “A”, fifty cents for a “B” and “a quarter for a “C”. None of that took place in my house, although at the time I wished that it did, because my grades were quite good and it would have been great to receive some money for them. My parents didn’t believe in that approach to grades – and after I had children, my children were disappointed to discover that neither did I.

The expectation was that we would do the best that we could. A “B or C” for one child was not compared to an “A” for another, but each was evaluated based on the ability of the child and the amount of effort invested. School was our work and we were expected to do our work without complaint and without the expectation of a reward.

That is the approach taken in today’s gospel lesson. To our modern ears the idea of a servant or slave doing his work in the field and then coming in and having to prepare dinner doesn’t sit comfortably. There isn’t any modern equivalent to bring this into our culture. Employer and employee do not work in this case. So instead, let’s look at how this passage fits within the context of where Luke has located it in his gospel.

This part of the 17^th chapter has four teachings from Jesus to his disciples. They are about sin, forgiveness, faith and duty. The first two about sin and forgiveness set expectations for behavior within the community of faith and at the same time acknowledge that there are times when we may do something that causes someone else to stumble in their faith. There are times when someone – a brother or sister in the faith – hurts us. You see, the problems of conflict existed even in the early church. Relationships among believers are based on ethical standards; what brothers and sisters do is not their business alone but affects the community. Responsible love can both give and receive a rebuke. Relationships within the Christian community can include repentance, words of forgiveness being spoken and heard without anyone being superior to the other or trying to play God. The disciples recognized that this is not an easy thing and they plead to Jesus “increase our faith.”

So we hear in Luke, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, `Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.” I expect that when we hear that, we listen quite literally and then we find ourselves in trouble. I can’t tell a tree to uproot itself and be replanted in the sea. It just doesn’t happen – and I don’t imagine that it happens for any of you. And how much faith does it take to do this – why nothing more than faith the size of a mustard seed – and that is very small. So, does our inability to move a tree with a word, mean that we have no faith?

Not at all! What is not immediately clear to us when we read this section is the nature of the phrase, “If you had faith.” The Greek language has two types of “if” clauses; those which express a condition that is not true, such as “If you had a million dollars” – which I do not, and those that express a condition that is true, “if you had a car” – which I do. In this case, the second kind of phrase is used. “If you had faith – and you do.”

Jesus, then is not reprimanding the disciples for their lack of faith, but rather is affirming the faith that they do have and inviting them to live out the full possibilities of that faith. It eliminates the impossible – like uprooting a tree – and it eliminates the absurd – like planting a tree in the sea. Instead it puts them and us in touch with the real power of God who is the one who empowers the life of discipleship.

It reminds us that our identity is a child of God and that what we do as God’s children is what is expected of us. A slave in Jesus’ time understood that his or her time and labor belonged to the master. You remember that Jesus came among us as one who serves – remember the night of his last meal with his disciples when he washed their feet as a servant would do. Jesus’ followers are also those who serve. There is no time or place where we can say, “I’ve completed all my service now, so I can sit back and let someone else serve me.” Certainly there are times when we all change the kinds of things we are doing in service for Christ. There are times when our abilities change and there are times when we are able to do more or less than at other times. But none of these changes who we are in relationship with God. We are still God’s people called to do the work of God. We do not earn special rewards for doing certain kinds of work. We are not elevated above someone else because of what we do. We are expected to work all of this out with God who knows what we are able to do and what we are not able to do. In the end, we aren’t awarded first, second and third prizes for what we have done, but rather we have done what has been expected of us as followers of Jesus.

We don’t need a mountain sized faith in order to do God’s work. The faith we have is sufficient. As we encounter the challenges that come with serving God we discover that God gives us the faith we need.

Our epistle lesson today, was written to a young preacher named Timothy. Both his grandmother and his mother were women of strong faith, and he is also a man of sincere faith. In a time when it was becoming dangerous to be a Christian, Timothy has given into fear. It has become easier for Timothy to be quiet and his faith has become dull. The writer of the letter, Paul, who is himself in prison because of his faith, urges Timothy to rekindle the faith which God gave him. He reminds Timothy that God does not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline. He urges Timothy to rely on the power of God and to speak out, to witness to his faith, and not to be overtaken by a spirit of cowardice.

I’m pretty sure that when Timothy received this letter, he didn’t suddenly feel a tremendous surge of power and courage within himself. More than likely, he felt a little guilty about needing to be reminded of his responsibilities. Maybe he was a little angry at Paul for oversimplifying the situation. He probably gulped hard, prayed fervently, and then went out nervously to do the work that he knew God had given him to do. At first it was really hard, but as time went on, and he continued to be faithful to God’s call, he probably looked back over his life and marveled at some of the things he had done; things he could never have done on his own. He may have been surprised at the way that his faith grew and the way God was able to use him when he trusted in God enough to take those first nervous steps.

Imagine how he would have reacted if someone had told him that his job was to preach the word so that 2000 years later people all over the world would still be gathering to worship Christ and to celebrate Holy Communion. I’m sure that he would have protested that this was an impossible task - even more impossible than asking a tree to uproot and replant itself. But that’s exactly what happened. Perhaps the early Christians didn’t know how seemingly impossible the task set before them was. They were probably focused more on trying to convert one person at a time. If you’ve ever tried to explain to family or friends why it’s important for you to get up on a Sunday morning and attend a worship service, study the Bible, attend a meeting during the week, rehearse with the choir, or prepare a Sunday School lesson, then you know how impossible it seems to try to explain to even one other person. Moving a tree might seem easy by comparison.

Paul urges Timothy to "guard the good treasure entrusted to you." It is the faith-filled lives of others, who have guarded that treasure and passed it along to others, who have brought us to this point today. Over the centuries, people, just like us, have continued to share their faith with their spouses and children, with their neighbors and co-workers. Some of them have responded and others have not. Those who have accepted and embraced that faith have in turn continued to share it with someone else. It is the faith-filled actions of men, women and children in many countries over many years who have kept the faith alive so that someone was able to tell us the story. I’m sure that many of them sometimes wondered if they had even the faith of a mustard seed.

Some of us may rejoice in the amount of faith we have. Some of us may think that our faith seems so very weak, particularly when the problems and tragedies of life cause us to stumble and to be afraid or doubtful. But Jesus’ words to the disciples are his promise to us also, "If you have faith as small as a mustard seed" - and you do - then you can do what seems impossible. You can, with God’s help, deal with the illness that seems so overwhelming. You can, with God’s help, overcome the grief from the death of a loved one. With God’s help, we can face terrorism, unemployment, loneliness, uncertainty. "If you have faith as small as a mustard seed" - and you do - then you can do what seems impossible.

Hollywood has made so many wonderful movies about the improbable, or even the impossible taking place. Several years ago, a popular one was the movie Field of Dreams. In this movie, a farmer out in his cornfield hears a voice saying, “If you build it, he will come.” Naturally, he’s confused and unsure of what is happening. Eventually he realizes that he is to plow under his corn crop and build a baseball field. His neighbors and most of his family think he is crazy.

Jeremiah’s land purchase at Anathoth could be understood as his own “field of dreams”. Jerusalem was under siege and Jeremiah the prophet was being held prisoner in the court of the guard. The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah telling him that his cousin was going to come to offer to sell him a field. The law of redemption meant that Jeremiah had the right to be the first to purchase the field, but under the circumstances, why would he want to. The city was under siege and he was in jail and Jeremiah himself had been prophesying that the city would be destroyed and the people taken to live far away. Things didn’t look like they could get much worse; and yet, God instructed Jeremiah to buy the field. Jeremiah recognized a word of hope and a promise for the future and did what he was told.

The real estate transaction is described in great detail. There were two copies of the deed. One was the public document available for ready reference. The authenticity of it could be guaranteed by the other copy, a sealed one, in case the unsealed one should be lost, damaged, or changed either deliberately or otherwise. In this case, both the sealed and unsealed copies of the deed of purchase were placed in a clay jar so that they would last for a long time. In fact, documents found in clay jars in this area have been preserved for more than 2,000 years.

Jeremiah clearly didn’t expect to take immediate possession of his property. He was not proclaiming that the tide of events would change and that Jerusalem would be saved. He knew that it would be many years before the truth of the Lord’s words would be realized that, “Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land.” Jeremiah’s deed of purchase would enable him, or his heirs, to reclaim the field as soon as normal economic activity resumed after the time of exile. It was very truly a “field of dreams”.

I suspect that Jeremiah knew the truth of the words of the psalms - and perhaps especially the one we read today, Psalm 91. He was proclaiming as the psalmist did, “My refuge and my fortress; my God, in whom I trust.” Through his actions he made a long range proclamation that, “You will not fear the terror of the night, or the arrow that flies by day, or the pestilence that stalks in darkness, or the destruction that wastes at noonday.” Jeremiah knew that even though Jerusalem, and its people, would not be saved from this attack in the short term, still for the long term they would indeed find refuge in their trust in God. Jeremiah based his confidence in the kindly nature of God. His was an act of faith in God in the face of an experience of what would otherwise be a total collapse of hope. He purchased the “field of dreams” and preserved the title for the long term.

Jeremiah’s “field of dreams” reminds us that the people of God are called to be in the risk-taking business. Sometimes it seems we are called to do outrageous things, trusting in faith that God will be there to help us in our times of need. Are we willing to trust God with our financial resources, with our families, with our churches? As a church we might ask, what is the field that we are to build? “If you build it, he will come?” Who will come?

In January of 1968, people of faith purchased the land on which this building now stands. Thirty four years ago, construction of phase one was begun. Four months later, on the Sunday before Christmas the first service was held in what is now our fellowship hall and large Sunday School room. This building became a field of dreams for that group of people and a promise of hope for the future for many more to come.

Constructing the building didn’t guarantee a smooth road for the new church. Two years later word was received that the Quonset Navy Base was going to be closed and within the next year and a half membership in this church decreased by almost 60%. It’s been an up and down road since then; but today we have two worship services and a membership almost double what it was before the news of the Naval Base closing.

When I arrived here, our financial situation was somewhat precarious, as it has been from time to time and as it frequently is in churches. The budget we adopted had a deficit of about $15,000. We had cut everything we could think of and knew that the only place left to cut was the important programs and ministries of the church. In faith, we made the decision not to cut those, but to continue building upon the field of dreams trusting in God’s faithfulness. It was not a business decision. It was a faith decision based on the sure knowledge and experience that God’s economy is not the same as the world’s economy.

While I don’t want to equate the actions of Ray Kansallas (the character in the movie Field of Dreams) with God’s actions, Ray Kansallas was also operating on a different economy than the world around him. He took risks based on what the voice was telling him to do. It was during the summer that he plowed under his corn crop to build the field. The field sat through the fall, the winter and the next summer. When the farm financial situation looked really bleak, Ray looked out his window and said, “Something’s going to happen out there. I can feel it.”

Shortly afterwards Shoeless Joe Jackson and other members of the 1919 Chicago White Sox started making regular appearances on his field. Then Ray received another message. This one was “Ease his pain.” As with the first message, Ray had no idea what this meant, “what pain? whose pain?” As he tried to figure this out, his generally supportive wife in a great understatement observed, “This is a very non-specific voice you have out there.”

That’s the way we feel sometimes, isn’t it? We believe that God is calling us to do something but we aren’t sure what it is and we don’t generally hear a voice as clearly as Ray did. However, that message, “Ease his pain” is one which the rich man in the gospel reading should have heard and heeded. Outside the gates to his home was a poor man, a man named Lazarus, a man covered with sores. Apparently, the rich man knew of his presence and knew his name. In a sudden reversal of fortunes in the parable both men died and poor Lazarus found himself in heaven while the rich man was in Hades where he was being tormented. He begged for Lazarus to be able to come to him and make him more comfortable. How strange that the man who had ignored him on earth, the man who had not done anything to ease Lazarus’ pain, was now pleading for Lazarus to come and ease his pain.

One wonders if the passage from 1^st Timothy might have been written to someone like this rich man. “For the love of money is a source of all kinds of evil. Some have been so eager to have it that they have wandered away from the faith and have broken their hearts with many sorrows.” I would say that was a pretty good description of what had happened to the rich man in Jesus’ parable. He probably thought he was a very good man, but ignoring a sick hungry man at the very opening of his house – a man whom he knew by name – sounds like one kind of evil; it is definitely a wandering away from the high ethical standards of his faith that expected him to take care of those in need.

The letter to Timothy continues, “Command those who are rich in the things of this life not to be proud, but to place their hope, not in such an uncertain thing as riches, but in God…. Command them to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share with others. In this way, they will store up for themselves a treasure which will be a solid foundation for the future.” Or, as Ray Kansallas heard, “Ease his pain.”

That’s a message that we as individuals and as a church hear over and over again. “Ease his pain. Ease her pain.” And often we ask, “What pain? Whose pain?” There are so many answers to that question. We with our field of dreams, our gift of hope and a promise for the future can and do answer that question in many ways. Ease his pain – the hungry family that comes to the food pantry. Ease her pain – the woman who cannot buy school supplies for her child and gratefully receives the donations available through Project Outreach. Ease his pain – the man who’s wife has died, who doesn’t know where to turn. Ease her pain – the woman who is losing her sight, or her hearing, and with it, some of her independence and is afraid of what the future will bring. Ease their pain – the family that is new to town and is looking for a place to worship and a place to make friends. Ease his pain – The man who receives a blanket donated through Blanket Sunday. Ease her pain – the little girl who receives food from the youth group’s collections for the 30 hour famine for World Hunger.

Ease his pain. Ease her pain. Ease their pain. We could go on and on. Actually that was the third message that Ray Kansallas received in the movie. “Go the distance.”

I was talking with Nina Dunne yesterday and she told me that she has received a request from World Hunger for a special offering for donations for food for the Sudan. UMCOR – the United Methodist Committee on Relief – is desperately looking for donations of money for food, for clothing, flood buckets of supplies used in cleaning up after hurricanes. They are assessing needs in Haiti where many of the areas needing assistance can only be reached by air since so many roads are under water. The American Red Cross sent out a request for chaplains to come to assist in recovery efforts in Florida and Alabama. They want us to come not as chaplains but to work in the shelters, to give out food and water, to work as mass care workers in desperate situations living in staff shelters that may not have electricity, water, or communication abilities. Needless to say, it will take a long time and an incredible amount of resources to recover from these hurricanes. Go the distance.

Jeremiah knew that he would have to go the distance. He knew that he might never be able to make use of the field he was being told to purchase, but it was still a symbol of hope, a promise that a time would come when houses and fields and vineyards would again be bought in the land. We are called to go the distance in building the field of dreams, in easing the pain of those in all kinds of need, of being faithful disciples of Jesus Christ.

Near the end of the movie there is a scene where Ray is hearing conflicting voices. His daughter is saying, “People with come.” This is a word of hope for him, an encouragement to continue with the commitment to what he has done, to go the distance and not give up; to not give in to the other voice coming from his brother-in-law who holds the note on the farm, “You’re broke. You have to sell. We will foreclose.”

When we are faced with those conflicting voices promising hope in the midst of difficulty it is easy to get confused. It can be hard to know where to turn, which voice to listen to, which advice to follow. It is then, that we are called to remember once again, a field of dreams, a symbol of hope, and promise of a future. It is then that we remember the words in first Timothy where we are counseled to pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness. It is then that we recall the psalmist who professed, “God says, `When they call to me, I will answer them; when they are in trouble, I will be with them.’”

This doesn’t mean that bad or even horrible things won’t happen in our lives. Jeremiah buying the field didn’t stop the fall of Jerusalem. We are not encased in a protective bubble. I can’t explain it other than as a faith statement but every event has within in it, the promise of God’s presence with us, a word of hope and future. Even in the midst of trouble, if we open our eyes and hearts, if we listen carefully, if we look to God, we can find the field that we are to buy - we can find the hope for tomorrow.

“If you build it, he will come. Ease his pain. Go the distance.” Not bad advice coming from Hollywood – and in it’s own way, when connected with today’s Scripture readings, it is a gospel message of hope, a reminder of God’s radical economy, and of our responsibilities as disciples of Jesus Christ.

“A visiting American textile buyer told a long but amusing anecdote at a luncheon in Seoul, Korea. The translator repeated it to the group in just a few words and the audience laughed and applauded. Later, the textile buyer commented to the translator, `I think it was wonderful the way they appreciated my joke. It’s amazing how you were able to shorten it in Korean.’ The interpreter replied, `Not at all. I merely said, `Man with big checkbook has told funny story. Do what you think is appropriate.’’”[i]

Money talks. It influences our behavior and it affects our outlook on life. “In Hollywood there is an exclusive school attended by children of movie stars, produces, and directors. Asked to write a composition on the subject of poverty, one little girl started her literary piece: `Once there was a poor little girl. Her father was poor, her mother was poor, her governess was poor, her chauffeur was poor, her butler was poor. In fact, everybody in the house was very, very poor.’”[ii]

Contrasted with this child, I grew up rich. Instead of having one blue sweater I had two. Instead of having one red dress, I had two identical ones. It was that way with a lot of my clothes. I knew they were good clothes because my twin cousins had worn them before I got them. When they no longer fit me, my sister would get them. When my shoes wore out, a heavy piece of cardboard would go in the bottom and they would show up on the feet of another child in school. Once or twice a week I had a penny or two to spend at the penny candy counter on the way to school. On Sundays, I had my offering envelope with a dime in the side that said, “This side for us.” and a nickel in the side that said, “This side for others.”

Money counts – and our attitude about money counts even more. “Jesus talked a great deal about money. Sixteen of the thirty-eight parables were concerned with how to handle money and possessions. In the Gospels, an amazing one out of 10 verses (288 in all) deal directly with the subject of money. The Bible offers 500 verses on prayer, less than 500 verses on faith, but more than 2,000 verses on money and possessions.”[iii]

Today’s gospel lesson is one of those parables about money and possessions and attached to it are several sayings that elaborate on what our responsibilities are and what our attitude should be. However, it’s one of those parables that can be very confusing - especially the part where the master commended the actions of the steward. The first important thing for us to realize is that the manager (and certainly Jesus) did not praise or condone his dishonesty, what they praise is his shrewdness, his cleverness, his decisive action.

The steward was realistic. He faced facts. He didn’t pity or deceive himself. He sized up the situation with cold logic. He knew that he was responsible for his future and he was committed to taking care of himself. There was nothing casual about his actions or his approach. How often, though, we followers of Christ are casual about our souls. The golfer takes lessons and reads books, while the religious person forgets to pray. A salesperson becomes an evangelist for some gadget, while the disciple of Jesus rarely mentions the Savior of the world. The steward in this parable planned an earthly future. Most of us have savings accounts, pension plans, annuities, insurance and various forms of preparedness for this world, but do we make the same preparations for our eternal home?[iv]

To understand this parable, we need to back up and think about the original meaning of the word steward. It goes back to a simple order of life, to an understanding that everything belongs to God and we are God’s agents to care for everything and everybody in the world. We are stewards, not owners. Our job is not hoarding or wealth or spending it for our own pleasure, but the proper circulation and use of it in God’s sight. We have a right to a livelihood, but it is on a commission basis. We may keep enough of this world’s goods for ourselves, provided that we live to serve the common good within the will of God.

How much is enough? That’s a hard question to answer. Enough depends upon what country we live in, and what part of that country. Enough depends upon how many people in our family. Enough depends upon our medical needs. Enough depends upon so many different conditions that none of us can determine for another how much is enough and how much is more than enough.

Jenny Lind, the great Swedish soprano, knew the answer to that question for herself. She “disappointed many of her friends because she turned down so many big contracts that would have made her world-famous. One day a friend surprised her sitting on a sunny seashore reading the New Testament. The friend rebuked the singer for not seizing her chances. Quickly, Jenny Lind put her hand over her Testament and said, `I found that making vast sums of money was spoiling my taste for this.’”[v]

John Wesley, considered the founder of Methodism, following Jesus’ example preached many sermons about money. Kenneth Carder, a United Methodist pastor wrote a book of sermons on United Methodist beliefs. He tells of hearing a speaker at a civic club who had been asked to share reasons for his success as an entrepreneur. Carder wrote that his attention increased when the speaker attributed his extraordinary financial success to the philosophy of John Wesley. “He said, `Wesley said that we are to earn all we can and save all we can. If we earn all we can and save al we can, then we can invest in new and profitable ventures.’

“The speaker was, at best, only two-thirds Wesleyan. Earn all you can and save all you can are two of the three basic points of John Wesley’s famous sermon entitled `The Use of Money’. The critical emphasis of Wesley’s understanding of stewardship is made in the third point: give all you can.”[vi]

Carder continues, “Wesley’s warnings of the dangers of wealth and the misuse of money echo those of Jesus. Both Jesus and Wesley seemed to be afraid of money, for it tends to do something destructive to the human soul. And yet when viewed from the perspective of a steward, wealth can be a means of fulfilling God’s purpose for creation. Just as Jesus had much to say about wealth, so also Wesley preached on stewardship more than any theme other than grace and holy living.”[vii] Wesley’s sermon “The use of Money” is based on today’s Gospel reading.

Wesley urged people to gain all that they could. However, there were specific guidelines to this. We should gain all that we can but only through lawful employment and by honest industry, something that the steward in this story is accused of not doing. We are to consider the cost of what we gain and not gain wealth at the cost of our health or anyone else’s. We should gain but not by hurting our mind, or by hurting our neighbor’s health, heart, mind, or soul. We should gain all that we can by using our common sense – using all of the understanding that God has given us. It was actually for this common sense, for this shrewdness that the steward was praised.

By reducing the debt that each person owed his master, he gained the good will of the person whose debt he reduced. We don’t know whether the reduction involved stealing from his master or whether it involved reducing the commission that he would gain by collecting the debt. However, since those who owed the debt believed him to be acting on behalf of the master, he also gained goodwill for the master who would have been perceived as being generous to those in his debt. The steward made friends for himself and his master – albeit by questionable means.

We are, however, to be scrupulously honest in all things, and that includes all of the ways in which we use money. The steward was not faithful with what was entrusted to him, but we are told that we must be faithful – even in the smallest of things. We are told to use our money to make friends for ourselves. In this parable that means giving to the poor. Jesus often emphasized the importance of things that seemed trivial to others – a cup of cold water, the one talent. We tend to ask, “What can I do?” and because we think we can do only something that seems small, we often think we need do nothing. We seem to equate “bigger” with “better; Jesus on the contrary spoke repeatedly of how crucial little things are.

What makes greatness? Not the size of the means, but the nobility of the end. The steward even though he will be received into the homes of others is not great. A person who lies is not great even though he or she may attain to great power in the world, but true greatness lies in the person who is truthful even if considered a failure by the world.

“What makes greatness? Not the size of the means, but the intensity of the need to which it ministers. A lantern of itself is a small affair, but not when it shines to mark a harbor or a lost ship. A cup of cold water is almost trivial, but not to a person dying of thirst in a desert.”[viii]

For me, recently, greatness was the actions of a family in this church who I met on the New Jersey turnpike on my way home from vacation. I was in great pain with a pinched sciatic nerve. They were also on the way home from their vacation and ministered to a need of great intensity for me. They became my companions and one of them drove my car while the other drove their car. They think it wasn’t anything since they were traveling in the same direction and to the same location as I was. To me it was nothing short of a miracle. Greatness is not in what we give or what we do as much as it is in the need to which it ministers.

Wesley urged people to “save all you can’. This clearly reflects the viewpoint that all that we have belongs first to God and that we are stewards. We are to take care of our needs and the needs of those for whom we are responsible, but there is a distinction between our needs and our wants.

Finally Wesley taught that we are to give all that we can. Since everything that we have belongs to God then all that we have should be given to God. Earthly wealth does not belong to us – we are the stewards, the custodians. As the steward probably reduced his commission on the debts so as to prepare a future for himself, we also, are to reduce the commission on what we have so that we meet our needs, not all of our wants. Thus we also save all we can and then are able to give all we can so that the needs of others can also be met.

The things that we have and the money that we have are training tools by which God teaches us how to live. In our lives we start our children off with a small allowance teaching them how to manage small amounts of money first. We tell our children that when they show that they can be trusted with a small amount of money then they will be trusted with more. We do the same thing with responsibilities in life. When a child can be trusted to do his homework when told, then we may give more freedom in letting the child decide when to do the homework.

This parable tells us that this is the way that God views money and possessions. When we prove ourselves faithful with money then God will trust us with the real jewels of the heavenly kingdom. Money counts because it is important as a training ground for real living.

“Wesley practiced what he preached. As a student, Wesley lived on twenty-eight pounds. He earned thirty pounds, so he gave away two pounds. As his earnings increased, he continued to live on the same twenty-eight pounds. When he earned 120 pounds, he gave away ninety-two pounds. Wesley wrote to his sister, `Money never stays with me. it would burn me if it did. I throw it out of my hands as soon as possible, lest it should find its way into my heart.’”[ix]

“Luke’s parable of the steward provided the basis of at least 27 of Wesley’s oral sermons delivered between 1741 and 1758. To Wesley , the basic point of the parable is that God holds us accountable for our stewardship and that accountability is based on investing in the lives of others.”[x]

No slave can serve two masters. You cannot serve God and wealth. This is not a prohibition, but a simple statement of fact. You cannot walk east and west at the same time. You cannot sit and stand at the same time. You cannot serve two masters both of whom demand total allegiance. You cannot serve both God and wealth. We cannot have one God on Sunday and another god on Monday.

[i] Hewett, James S. Illustrations Unlimited Tyndale, Wheaton , IL , 1988, p370, #10

[ii] Hewett, p.371, #18

[iii] Hewett, p.372, #20

[iv] Interpreter’s Bible, Luke, p.281

[v] Hewett, p.374 #29

[vi] Carder, Kenneth “On Being Two-Thirds Wesleyan” Sermons on United Methodist Beliefs, Abingdon Press, Nashville , 1991, p.70

[vii] Carder, p.71

[viii] Interpreter’s Bible, Luke, p. 285

[ix] Carder, p.74

[x] Carder, p.75

I’ve always liked today’s Gospel reading. I like the image of Jesus going out and looking for a lost sheep. And although it may not sound very practical to leave 99 sheep to go looking for the one that is lost, I always found it comforting to think that Jesus would love me that much. I remember fondly the picture of Jesus with a small lamb draped across his shoulders. To me these passages spoke of love and comfort: Jesus loving us so much that he keeps looking for us until he finds us and then is so happy that he throws a party.

In a way it’s kind of like what we are doing today – having a celebration of being together again after some of us have been away for part of the summer. We anticipate seeing each other and catching up on what’s been happening. We look forward to being together. We hope that some who have been away from us for awhile will chose this time to come back, and we will rejoice and join the celebration.

The second parable in this section is similar to the first – and I certainly identified with it immediately when I read it in preparation for today – I could identify with the woman – recognizing myself hurrying frantically around the boardwalk trying to find my lost pocketbook. When my pocketbook and I were reunited, my pocketbook didn’t really care, but I certainly did – and I was anxious to share my excitement with someone. I hurried back to the tourist information booth where I had stopped earlier while looking for the security center. As I approached, I sort of waved my pocketbook in the area in front of me, and the three women at the booth all clapped. They thanked me for coming back to let them know that I had found it, and I thanked them again for being so kind to me and for helping me.

When something or someone is lost and then found, we want to celebrate, we want to throw a party.

This party takes on a new dimension though if you look at it in the context in which the stories are told. Tax collectors and other sinners were coming to listen to Jesus. The Pharisees and the Scribes were grumbling and complaining about Jesus and especially that he even ate with sinners. Eating together is an important part of social activity. Eating together indicates a willingness to be open to some kind of relationship with those with whom we eat.

In the 1960’s there was a movie called, “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner”. It stared Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy as the very white sophisticated parents of a grown daughter who surprised them by coming home with a man with whom she had fallen in love. “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.” The man she had fallen for was everything a father could have asked for in a prospective husband for his daughter – everything except that he was black and they were white. Spencer Tracy made no secret of his unwillingness to accept this prospect. It threw his neat little world into a turmoil over which he had no control – and he didn’t like that one little bit. It became even more complicated when the prospective groom played by Sidney Poitier secretly told the father that he would not marry his daughter without his permission. It appeared that Spencer Tracy would have some control in the future over who came to dinner.

In these parables, Jesus seems to be saying to the Pharisees and scribes, “Guess who’s coming to dinner.” They already knew that Jesus was eating with tax collectors and sinners. After all that’s what they were complaining about. Jesus didn’t seem to care that he shouldn’t be associating with those people. So he told them a parable about a shepherd who lost one of his 100 sheep.

Matthew tells a similar story, but in Matthew’s gospel the story is set in the context of telling believers how to behave toward one another. In Matthew’s gospel the sheep has gone astray and the shepherd looks for it. If he finds it, he rejoices. In Matthew it seems that church leaders are being told that if someone wanders off and then comes back, he should be welcomed back into the fold.

Luke’s story is different. The shepherd searches until he finds the lost sheep. There is no “if” in Luke’s gospel. The shepherd is persistent. The lamb is lost – Luke doesn’t say that it wandered off; it is simply lost – just as those who were coming to hear Jesus were lost – and the shepherd searches until he finds them – and then throws a party. “He calls his friends and neighbors saying to them, `Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.”

Who’s coming to dinner? Well, the friends and neighbors were invited. If God is the shepherd – and since this is a heavenly celebration then this must be true, then God’s friends would certainly be the righteous, the Pharisees and the Scribes. They are being invited to the party to celebrate finding the lost sheep. The Pharisees and the scribes are being invited to the party to celebrate that the tax collectors and the sinners are listening to Jesus and are being found. Like Spencer Tracy, they are not happy about this guest list.

Even though Israel’s history is full of references to God as the “good shepherd”, in the first century shepherds were generally not held in high esteem. Most were poor and their occupation was dirty, backbreaking work. Luke’s Gospel is the only one that tells of angels appearing to shepherds at Jesus’ birth and of their hurrying into the city to see the child who was born. Throughout Luke’s gospel, beginning right there, there is an emphasis on the inclusion of the lost, the last, and the least. An unspoken meaning in this parable is that God – as the shepherd – is seen in the outcasts, just as God is also seen in the outcast of the Good Samaritan in that parable.

If the Pharisees and the scribes are unhappy now, hold on! It’s about to get worse. Next a woman is used as a way to illustrate God’s mercy. Do you see the Pharisees’ outrage growing? First Jesus welcomes tax collectors and sinners wholeheartedly, and then he likens God to those in society who are unworthy of such association.

To the well-to-do Pharisees the coin might be considered “peanuts” not worth their time. But this parable is also one of proportion. I once read that based on the amount of money Bill Gates makes, that if he were to drop a $100 bill, it would actually cost him money to waste the time to stop and bend down and pick it up. Now that seems ridiculous to us, but it makes a point. To God, even the smallest of the small is important. Not only is it worth the search, but its discovery is also worth the celebration.

These parables do not call for the sinner to repent. Rather they call for the righteous to join the celebration. They boldly shout, “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner!” Then like Spency Tracy’s character we have to decide what are attitude will be.

God still calls out to those who are lost and God still rejoices when one accepts God’s invitation to come to the table. If we have recently been the one who has been lost then we can relate to the tax collectors and the sinners who found great joy in being included in the table fellowship with Jesus.

However, most of us are probably more like the Pharisees and the scribes – we are the righteous 99. Mostly we prefer to keep ourselves separate from the world. How many of us are eager to walk along most of the streets in South Providence late at night? How many of us are anxious to be in the alleys at night where the homeless huddle together for warmth? How many of us are enthusiastic about visiting those in prison?

Most of us would rather stay safely within the walls of the church, or associate with those who are like us, rather than go with the shepherd and the woman in search of what has been lost.

If we rejoice upon finding what was lost, we proclaim that relationships are based on mercy. If, on the other hand, we refuse to join the party, we proclaim that relationships are based merely on what we deserve. Don’t ask God for what you deserve. You might get it! Always ask God for mercy, and remember if we find God’s mercy to others offensive, we are cutting ourselves off from God’s grace for ourselves.

"A large prosperous downtown church had three mission churches under its care that it had started. On the first Sunday of the New Year all the members of the mission churches came to the city church for a combined Communion service. In those mission churches, which were located in the slums of the city, were some outstanding cases of conversions - thieves, burglars, and so on - but all knelt side by side at the Communion rail.

"On one such occasion the pastor saw a former burglar kneeling beside a judge of the Supreme Court of England - the judge who had sent him to jail where he had served seven years. After his release this burglar had been converted and become a Christian worker. Yet, as they knelt there, the judge and the former convict, neither one seemed to be aware of the other.

"After the service, the judge was walking home with the pastor and said to the pastor, `Did you notice who was kneeling beside me at the Communion rail this morning?'

"The pastor replied, `Yes, but I didn't' know that you noticed.' The two walked along in silence for a few more moments, and then the judge said, `What a miracle of grace.' The pastor nodded in agreement. `Yes, what a marvelous miracle of grace.' Then the judge said, `But to whom do you refer?' And the pastor said, `Why, to the conversion of that convict.' The judge said, `But I was not referring to him. I was thinking of myself.'

"The pastor, surprised, replied: `You were thinking of yourself? I don't understand.' `Yes,' the judge replied, `it did not cost that burglar much to get converted when he came out of jail. He had nothing but a history of crime behind him, and when he saw Jesus as his Savior he knew there was salvation and hope and joy for him. And he knew how much he needed that help. But look at me. I was taught from earliest infancy to live as a gentleman; that my word was to be my bond; that I was to say my prayers, go to church, take Communion and so on. I went through Oxford, took my degrees, was called to the bar and eventually became a judge. Pastor, nothing but the grace of God could have caused me to admit that I was a sinner on a level with that burglar. It took much more grace to forgive me for all my pride and self-deception, to get me to admit that I was no better in the eyes of God than that convict that I had sent to prison.'"[1]

Let us become people of outrageous, expensive, reckless joy. Let us be part of the great celebration when Jesus calls out, “Guess who’s coming to dinner!”

[1] James S. Hewett, Editor, Illustration Unlimited (Wheaton, Ill: Tyndale, 1988) p. 257 #3.

The Christian Sacrament of Holy Communion has its roots in a feast. From the very beginning the faithful were invited to the Table to receive both nourishment for the body and a sense of community for the spirit. On Holy Thursday the disciples got a full meal, and a hard lesson in faithfulness. We often miss that connection because our services have become routine, and because we receive only a little bit of food when we commune. With that in mind let us look at a curious parable told to the dinner guests of a ruler who was a Pharisee. The story lays the ground rules of what Jesus saw as instructions for the feast. It may also give us important insights to the meal we now celebrate as Holy Communion.

In the text of the parable: Jesus offers instructions on how to behave at the beginning of the feast; who to invite when you give feast; and what will happen to you if you are not a gracious guest. Then he draws the pictures together by suggesting that these are images for that eternal feast which is called the Kingdom of God. In one sense, this is a "hard saying" for it counsels us not to seek places of honor, it admonishes us to be hospitable to the poor and the impaired, and it warns us that if we put God off, God will extend divine mercy to others instead of us.

There is much more to a feast than a meal. Anyone who has been to a family reunion knows the truth of that. In the Biblical context the word which means feast comes from another word that means "to make a pilgrimage." That calls to mind a visit to and worship at "a place where a unique manifestation of divine activity has occurred, and may be expected to occur again, or where some particularly sacred memory is preserved." Of particular importance is the recognition that, for biblical peoples, all feasts were religious occasions.

This presents a problem for our services of Holy Communion. We have institutionalized and formalized them to the point that they seldom bear any resemblance to a feast, and, in our culture at least, they rarely involve the people Jesus tells us to invite to the feast. Indeed, some would even exclude some people. As a result, the Service of Holy Communion is often looked upon as an optional exercise and not a Holy Obligation that includes a radial hospitality. I must confess that I am bothered by the casual attitude that so many people have towards worship and Holy Communion, and I long for a sense of intention that would make Communion more central in our practice of faith. When I worship elsewhere, I find myself gravitating toward those traditions that offer an open Communion each Sunday. There is, at the heart of Communion, a feast that nourishes the spirit. At its core it is a pilgrimage of faith that draws us into the very presence of Jesus, and bids us join ourselves to him. That involves humility, hospitality, inclusiveness, and graciousness.

At Pastor's Assembly there is a tradition that we celebrate Holy Communion at 7:15 in the morning each day that we are there. That is a real sacrifice for me because another personal tradition is for a group of friends to play Trivial Pursuits each evening until midnight. Several Years ago our Celebrant was a dear brother in Christ, Ulises Torres. Born in Chile, exiled for years by the cruel Pinochet Regime, Ulises ministers through the eyes of one who understands both the suffering of the little people and the gladness of those who feast together. One morning he led us in what is called the Coconut Communion.

He explained to us that in the South Pacific the coconut palm is everything to the island people: it is their food; it is their building material for homes; it is their shade from the sun; it is that and much more. So the meat of the coconut, dipped in its own milk would become the elements of our communion that morning. The drama of the communion comes at many levels: understanding the place of coconut in the lives of these island people, a common thing made holy by human necessity; chewing the meaty elements, so different from the sweet and easy bread and juice to which I am accustomed. But the most dramatic part of the service for me was the time of consecration when the coconut is opened. One does not take it in the hands and break it. A hard blow from a sharp machete knife is required. The sound is disturbing, the act is messy, and it is difficult to think about other things when you hear, "This is my Body broken for you." as the coconut is broken by a machete.

We were standing outside in a circle, in a broad field under a canopy of blue sky surrounded by mountains. It is a beautiful place and I was with dear friends. Our minds and spirits had been focused by song and prophetic word. Now, with the words of consecration fresh in our ears, we were about to receive the elements of Holy Communion. All that remained was for the coconut to be broken and the elements shared. With a harsh, unforgiving sound, the machete broke the hard shell of the coconut. Then, horror of horrors, the broken coconut fell out of control, spilling its milk and its contents onto the table and the ground. It was an offensive sight; and it was so important that we saw it. I realized in that instant why it is so essential that the feast of Holy Communion be at the center of our practice of faith. It is a reminder that in brokenness there is still hope. Things are not holy because of what they are, but because of what, and who, they connect us to, and how we are connected to them. Jesus speaks of the feast because he understands that it is connected to a pilgrimage of faith which leads into the very presence of God.

In the presence of God honor is not given to those who seek it, but to those who "do justice, and love kindness, and walk humbly with their God." Those who have received sufficient bounty to be able offer a feast, are obligated to invite the poor and the impaired to the banquet, and this act of justice will be rewarded when it really counts, at the resurrection. For when the Master gives the last invitation to the Great Banquet which is called the kingdom of God, we will not get away with making excuses about being too busy to attend. Such are the instructions for the feast.

When we receive the bread and the cup, it is not a private act of devotion. It is a pilgrimage of faith made in the presence of all of God's people to the very presence of God. It is a connection to the brokenness of Christ which, through the resurrection, leads us to life. It is a connection to the common things and the common people who, in the economy of God, deserve and will receive justice and hospitality. And it is a connection to God through an acceptance of the gracious invitation to be nourished by God's creative spirit. These, then, are the instructions for the feast. "Come, all is now ready."

OUR READING THIS MORNING FROM THE PROPHET JEREMIAH IS DEVOTED TO ACCUSATIONS, DENUNCIATIONS, AND INDICTMENTS OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL FOR FORSAKING GOD. NOT COMPLETELY, PERHAPS, BUT MIXING LOYALTY TO GOD WITH WORSHIPING CAANANITE GODS. JEREMIAH PRESENTS THE VIEWPOINT THAT NOTHING SHORT OF EXCLUSIVE ALLIGIANCE TO GOD IS ACCEPTABLE.

JEREMIAH RECEIVES FROM GOD A CALL TO DECLARE TO THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL, IN HIS NAME, A STATEMENT, IN FACT A HARSH STATEMENT.

THE PEOPLE ARE NOW REJECTING THEIR ORIGINAL COVENANT, HAVING FORGOTTEN, THAT GOD, AS THEIR HOST, HAD DELIVERED THEM FROM EGYPTIAN SLAVERY, GUIDED THEM THROUGH THE WILDERNESS, AND BROUGHT THEM TO A PLACE OF BOUNTIFUL HARVESTS AND SECURITY.

GOD, THROUGH JEREMIAH, ASKS THE QUESTION “WHAT DID I DO WRONG THAT THE PEOPLE HAVE STRAYED SO FAR FROM ME”? FROM THE WORSHIP OF THE ONLY ONE OF SUPREME WORTH, THEY HAD FALLEN INTO PURSUIT OF WORTHLESS THINGS AND IDOLS. AND IN DOING SO, THEY HAD DIMINISHED THEIR OWN WORTH.

THEN GOD GOT MORE SPECIFIC…. THEY HAD BEFOULED THE LAND; THEY HAD CORRUPTED THE WORSHIP OF GOD WITH WORSHIPING PAGAN GODS. WEALTHY LANDOWNERS HAD HOARDED THE FRUITS OF THEIR ABUNDANT HARVESTS FOR THEMSELVES AND HAD DENIED FAIR BENEFITS TO THEIR TENANTS AND LABORERS. PRIESTS AND PROPHETS HAD BEGUN TO SERVE THE CAANANITE’S GODS RATHER THAN GOD; RULER’S CONDUCTED THEIR AFFAIRS AS THOUGH GOD DID NOT EXIST.

THEN GOD, THROUGH JEREMIAH, BROUGHT HIS INDICTMENT OF ISRAEL. NOT ONLY WOULD THE PRESENT GENERATION SUFFER FOR THEIR SINS, BUT FUTURE GENERATIONS ALSO. GOD TOLD THEM, THAT EVEN PAGAN NATIONS LIKE CYPRUS AND KEDAR. REMAINED TRUE TO THEIR GODS, FALSE AND WORTHLESS THOUGH THEY MAY BE. GOD COMPLAINS THAT THE PEOPLE HAVE BEEN BLESSED BY GOD, BUT HAVE TURNED THEIR BACKS TO HIM. THEY HAVE GIVEN UP EVREYTHING FOR VALUES THAT ARE WORTHLESS, FLEETING , AND UNRELIABLE.

THE PEOPLE HAVE COMMITTED TWO SERIOUS SINS; THEY HAVE FORSAKEN GOD, THE LIVING WATER, THE SOURCE OF ALL WISDOM, GRACE, AND BLESSINGS. AND INSTEAD HAVE PUT THEIR TRUST IN “CRACKED CISTERNS”, UNRELIABLE ALLIES, LEADERS, AND RELIGIOUS PRACTICES THAT ARE DOOMED TO FAILURE. A CRACKED CISTERN THAT CANNOT HOLD WATER. IN FACT, CANNOT HOLD ANYTHING.

ONE ELEMENT OF THIS PASSAGE INVOLVES THE BASIC FACT OF RENUNCIATION OF FAITH. OF FAILURE AND SIN THAT NEEDS TO BE ADDRESSED HEAD ON; THE SECOND ELEMENT LOOKS INTO THE BASIC CAUSES OF THIS RENUNCIATION AND PROVIDES NOT ONLY WARNINGS OF FAILURE, BUT ALSO HOW TO AVOID IT.

I THINK ALL OF US WOULD MUCH RATHER SPEAK OF FORGIVENESS AND GRACE, THAN SIN AND PUNISHMENT. IT IS SOMETIMES MORE DIFFICULT TO DEAL WITH SIN DIRECTLY. IT IS EAST TO SLIP INTO A SELF RIGHTEOUS POSITION OF CONDEMING OTHERS FOR ACTIONS THAT ARE PERHAPS NO WORSE THAN OUR OWN FAILURES, OR TO TACKLE “SAFE SINS” THAT ARE SO FAR REMOVED FROM US THAT WE RUN NO RISK OF CONDEMNATION OURSELVES. THERE ARE ALWAYS THOSE WHO USE CONDEMNATION OF OTHERS AS THEIR OWN EGO SUPPORT SYSTEM; SUBTLE FORMS OF PRIDE AND HYPOCRISY MASKED AS THE VEIL OF TRUTH, OR HATING THE SIN BUT LOVING THE SINNER.

YET THIS READING ALLOWS US, AND EVEN COMPELS US TO CONFRONT PEOPLE WITH THE DESTRUCTIVENESS OF THEIR SINS. WE MUST ALWAYS KEEP IN MIND NOT OT CODEMN OR JUDGE, BUT TO ISSUE A CALL TO RETURN AND REPENT. BUT HOW SHALL PEOPLE FEEL ANY NEED TO RETURN UNTIL THEY FIRST UNDERSTAND THAT THEY HAVE, IN FACT, LEFT GOD? THEY MUST REALIZE THAT CHANGE IS NOT POSSIBLE WITHOUT REALIZING THE NEED FOR THAT CHANGE. RETURNING AND REPENTANCE IS NOT REALLY POSSIBLE WITHOUT REALIZING THE NEED TO DO SO. BY LOVING OTHERS, WE CAN BRING THEM TO THE REALIZATON THAT THEY MUST CHANGE; LOVE SOMETIMES MAY NEED TO BE “TOUGH LOVE” FOR IT TO SUCCEED. THE POPULAR SLOGAN USED IN THE MEDIA TO COMBAT DRIVING WHILE INTOXICATED “FRIENDS DON’T LET FRIENDS DRIVE DRUNK” REFLECTS THIS PERSPECTIVE ON A VERY SECULAR LEVEL. SUPPOSE IF WE SAID THAT FRIENDS DON’T LET FRIENDS WORSHIP FALSE GODS. HOW WOULD THAT WORK?

IT IS NOT OUR JOB TO PUSH PEOPLE TO THE BOTTOM SO THEY CAN CLIMB BACK UP; IT IS OUR TASK TO TELL THEM THAT THEY ARE HEADED TO THE BOTTOM, OR ARE ALREADY THERE, SO WE CAN PROVIDE A WAY BACK.

THE SECOND ELEMENT DEALS WITH HOW WE MIGHT AVOID THE CAUSES OF ISRAEL’S FAILURE. HERE THE CAUSE IS A FAILUER IF IDENTITY, AS THE PEOPLE OF GOD, A FAILURE TO SPEAK THE NECESSARY THINGS AND TO ASK THE RIGHT QUESTION. PERHAPS THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION NOT ASKED IN JEREMIAH IS “WHERE IS THE LORD?”

THERE ARE SO MANY PEOPLE, AND GROUPS, THAT HAVE THEIR OWN AGENDA BASED ON AS LITERAL INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. GAY RIGHTS, PRO OR ANTI ABORTION, FEMINISM, OR CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. WHAT SO MANY OF THESE GROUPS SHARE IS THE IDEA THAT ONE SIDE OR THE OTHER IS THE RIGHTEOUS ONE, IS THE ONLY POSSIBLE CORRECT ONE, AND SO IS USED A REASON TO SHUT OFF DISCUSSION IN THE NAME OF GOD.

BUT THE LACK OF DISCUSSION ALSO MEANS THAT THE NECESSARY QUESTIONS ARE NO LONGER BEING ASKED, THE ISSUES ARE NO LONGER BEING BROUGHT INTO THE LIGHT OF THE RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD AND DISCUSSED WITH THE FIRST QUESTION “WHERE IS THE LORD?”

THIS MORNING’S PASSAGE SIMPLY CALLS US INTO ACTIVE AND ONGOING DISCUSSIONS AS CHRISTIANS, ALWAYS BEGINNING WITH THE QUESTION “WHERE IS THE LORD?” THAT ALLOWS US TO RETELL THE STORIES AS THE FOUNDATION OF EVERYTHING ELSE THAT FOLLOWS. IT REMINDS US OF WHO WE ARE AND TO WHOM WE BELONG, AND SERVES TO PROVIDE A COUNTER TO CHANGING GODS WHILE DENYING THAT WE HAVE DONE SO. IT ALSO TELLS US TO BE ESPECIALLY DILIGENT IN TELLING THE STORIES TO OUR CHILDREN. NO EASY TASK IN OUR MODERN WORLD WHERE THERE ARE SO MANY COMPETING FORCES. BUT THAT ALSO TELLS US WE MUST BE EVER ACTIVE AND CREATIVE IN FINDING WAYS TO BE FAITHFUL IN TELLING THE STORY OF GOD IN WAYS THAT OUR YOUTH CAN HEAR AND UNDERSTAND. TELLING THE STORY ANDASKING THE RIGHT QUESTIONS IS THE MEANS TO ESTABLISH OUR IDENTITY AND TELLS US WE DO NOT HAVE TO LOOKING FOR OTHERGODS.

THE PSALMIST REPEATS , IN A FASHION, EXACTLY WHAT JEREMIAH WAS SAYING. HE REMINDS THE PEOPLE THAT IT WAS GOD WHO DELIVERED THEM FROM SLAVERY AND BROUGHT THEM TO THE PROMISED LAND AS HE HAD PROMISED. BUT THESE PROMISE HINGE ON AN ALL IMPORTANT CONDITION; THE PEOPLE MUST HEED GOD’S WORD AND FOLLOW GOD’S WAY.

THE CONCLUDING CHAPTER OF HEBREWS CONTAINS PRACTICAL ADVISE FOR CHRISTIAN LIVING IN A COMMUMITY OF FAITH. THE KEY TO A VITAL CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY IS MUTUAL LOVE. THE FOUNDATION OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS IS UNRESERVED, SELF-GIVING CARE, REGARD, ANDACCEPTANCE OF ONE ANOTHER. THE AUTHOR ENCOURAGED FIDELITY IN MARRIAGE, AVOIDANCE OF GREED, AND SIMPLICITY OF LIFESTYLE. THERE IS NO NEED TO SEEK ACUMMULATION OF WEALTH, OR CONSPICUOUS CONSUMPTION – TRUST IN GOD’S PRESENCE, HIS PROTECTION, HIS AID, AND HIS GUIDANCE ARE SUFFICIENT. READER’S OF THIS PAASAGE ARE URGED TO HOLD IN THEIR HEARTS THE TEACHING AND EXAMPLE OF THE LEADERS WHO HAD BROUGHT THEM TO CHRIST. THEIR FAITH AND PATTERN OF LIVING HAD SUSTAINED THEM AND KEPT THEM FAITHFUL. SOLID FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST HAD PROVIDED EARLIER CHRISTIANS WITH A SURE FOUNDATION FOR COMMITTED DISCIPLESHIP ANDWOULD SERVE PRESENT AND FUTURE FOUNDATIONS EQUALLY WELL.

HEBREWS ASSUMES THAT CHRISTIAN LIVING DOES NOT GET CAUGHT UP IN CONSMERISM, OR KEEPING UP WITH THE JONES’ BECAUSE THAT DOES SQUARE WELL WITH LOVE FOR OTHERS. THE PROMISE THAT GOD WILL NOT FORSAKE US IN VERSE FIVE IS NOT A GUARANTEE OF MATERIAL SECURITY OR WEALTH, BUT MAKES THE STATEMENT THAT THIS IS THERELATIONSHIP WHICH MATTERS MOST ANDWHICH SHOULD CONCERN US THE MOST. YOUNG DR. DAVID LIVINGSTONE (YES, THE SAME LIVINGSTONE OF “DR. LIVINGSTONE, I PRESUME”) WAS PREPARINGTO EMBARK TO AFRICA ON HIS FIRST MISSIONARY VISIT, WAS CONFRONTED BY FRIENDS AND COLLEAGUES WHO EXPRESSED THEIR FEARS AND CONCERNSFOR HIS SAFETY, HE OPENED HIS BIBLE TO VERSE FIVE AND READ WHAT GOD HAD SAID. “NEVER WILL I LEAVE YOU; NEVER WILL I FORSAKE YOU.” AND LIVINGSTONE ADDEDTO HIS FRIENDS, “THAT IS A PROMISE I CAN RELY UPON, FOR IT IS THE WORD OFA GENTLEMAN!” QUITE AN INTERESTING CHARACTERIZATION OF GOD!

THE AUTHOR HAS BEEN CALLING THE HEARERS BACK TO THE FAITH THEY CONFESSED AT THEIR CONVERSION AND TO WHICH THEY HELD FIRM IN THE EARLY DAYS. HE APPEALS TO THEM TO REMEMBER THEIR LEADERS.

THESE FEW VERSES OFFER US GLIMPSES OF WHAT CHRISTION COMMUNITY MEANT. IT WASN’T A HOLY HUDDLE OF WORSHIPERS SCARED FOR THEIT LIVES AND OBSESSED WITH RELIGIOUS RITUAL. IT WAS A COMMUNITY WHICH EXPRESSED AND SHARED LOVE AND IN DOING SO PRAISED GOD – FOR IT IS GOD WHO REACHES OUT TO US IN LOVE AND COMPASSION.

THE EVENT THAT TAKES PLACE IN OUR GOSPEL READING THIS MORNING PROVIDES A LESSON IN HUMILITY AND A REBUKE TO THE PHARISEES. SIMON, FOR OUR PURPOSES, AND WHO WAS THE HOST, GAVE QUITE GRAND PARTIES, THE TYPE YOU AND I WOULD LIKE TO BE INVITED TO ATTEND. HE ALWAYS INVITED HIS FELLOW PHARISEES AND IMPORTANT VISITORS TO HIS TOWN. VISITING SCHOLARS, TRAVELING PREACHERS, PHRISEES FROM OTHER LANDS. TODAY, ONE OF THE GUESTS IS JESUS BAR JOSEPH, AN ITERANT PREACHER FROM GALILEE.

ANOTHER GUEST IS A MAN IN QUITE SOME PAIN, SUFFERING FROM DROPSY (WHAT WE KNOW AS EDEMA). WE SUSPECT WHY JESUS WAS INVITED, AFTER ALL HE WAS BEING WATCHED CLOSELY. APPARENTLY THE OTHERS WERE HOPING TO GATHER EVIDENCE AGAINST THIS UPSTART RABBI WHO WSA CAUSING QUITE A STIR AMONG THE LOCALS. PERHAPS THE AFFLICYED WAS ANOTHER PHARISEE. I DON’T SEE SIMON INVITING JUST SOME SICK MAN TO THE PARTY. IN ANY EVENT, JESUS MUST SUSPECT WHY HE’S THERE AND SURPRISES THE PHARISEES BY PERFORMING AN ACT OF MERCY BY HEALING THE SICK MAN WHO WAS IN GREAT PAIN. AND THEN.

ANTICIPATING THEIR CRITICISM, HE ASKS THE QUESTION THAT STUNS THE PHARISEES ABOUT LABORING ON THE SABBATH TO SAVE A SON OR OXEN THAT HAD FALLEN INTO A WELL.

THE PHARISEES WERE SILENT. THE AUTHOR PRESENTS HIS BELIEF THAT POWER RATHER THAN WORDS WOULD SILENCE THE CRITICS. JESUS CONTINUED TO STUN THE HOST AND OTHER GUESTS BY TELLING THEM THAT THEY SHOULD NOT JUST ALWAYS INVITE THE SAME GUESTS, KNOWING THAT A RECIPROCAL INVITATION WOULD BE FORTHCOMING. BUT RATHER INVITE THE POOR, THE HELPLESS, AND THE SICK WHO COULD NOT REPAY THE “DEBT” IN KIND. HE WAS TELLING THEM TO EXALT THEMSELVES BY BEING HUMBLE. JUST AS THEY SHOULD NOT ALWAYS TRY TO GRAB THE SEAT OF HONOR BY THE HOST. AFTER ALL, AT GOD’S GREAT BANQUET, HE JUST DOESN’T KNOW WHEN TO CLOSE THE DOOR AND JUST KEEPS ON SENDING INVITATIONS. IT IS A DIFFICULT CONCEPT; EXALTING ONE’S SELF BY BEING HUMBLE. BUT THAT’S WHAT GOD CALLS US TO DO. IT’S NOT IMPORTANT WHAT WE HAVE OR DON’T HAVE. IT IS IMPORTANT THAT IN ALL WE DO OR SAY, PERHAPS WE SHOULD BEGIN WITH THE SILENT QUESTION “WHERE IS THE LORD?”

Readings: Jeremiah 1:4-10; Responsive Psalm 71:1-6; Hebrews 12:18-29; Luke 13:10-17

God’s call to Jeremiah is one of the most instructive passages in the Bible. God declared that he had sanctioned Jeremiah as a prophet even before he was born. But the very young Jeremiah, probably a teenager from all accounts, pleaded that he was only a youth and that he lacked the ability to speak the words of a great prophet. God responded that Jeremiah was being called not because of his age or ability but because God had chosen him. God would put the proper words in his mouth. Talk about a leap of faith!

While you and I may never become a great prophet like Jeremiah, we are all – in our own way -- called to serve God. God’s call to us may not be as dramatic as Jeremiah’s. We may, without even recognizing it, answer God’s call simply because we were touched by God’s holy word at some point in our life. It is not a matter of how we receive the call, but how we respond and how we choose to serve.

I think the lessons of scripture often can best be related through contemporary life. So let me spend some time this morning telling you the story of how another man answered God’s call throughout his life. He is a man you all know, but may not really know. I think his life tells an interesting story that relates well to our scripture this morning.

It was 1902 and a 27-year old man arrived by train in a small Wyoming town to start a new business. He couldn’t afford the train fare twice, so he made a commitment to the town before he ever saw it. It was a mining community, about a thousand residents. It had a company store that operated on credit and 21 saloons where a good deal of cash was spent. The man came with two revolutionary ideas. He would set up a business that operated only on a cash basis and, this is the interesting part, his business philosophy would follow Jesus’ command to “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” For this man, the golden rule was everything in his faith.

His principles came from his upbringing. He was born on September 16, 1875 on a small farm outside Hamilton, Missouri. His father was a poor farmer and primitive Baptist minister, and his mother was a devout woman born of a genteel Southern family. His parents came to Missouri from Kentucky to farm and teach their faith. Only half of his siblings lived to their adulthood. The man was raised to believe in God, self-reliance, self-discipline, honor, and the Christian ethic of the Golden Rule.

So when the sun rose over Kemmerer, Wyoming on April 14, 1902, it revealed a sign reading "GOLDEN RULE STORE.” In setting up a new retail business under the name and meaning of Golden Rule, he would later say he was publicly binding himself, in his business relations, to a principle which had been a real intimate part of his family upbringing. “To me,” he would later say, “the sign on the store was much more than a trade name. We took our slogan ‘Golden Rule Store’ with strict literalness. Our idea was to make money and build a business through serving the community with fair dealing and honest value.”¹

When he counted the receipts on that first day, it totaled about $34, well shy of the $500 in savings he had coupled with a $1500 loan to launch his business. He opened the store each day at 7 AM and stayed open until late at night when there were no more customers.

He was used to hard work. When he was eight years old, his father told him that he should start to assume responsibility for purchasing his own clothes. So, he ran errands, collected and sold junk, and worked the farm fields to earn sufficient money to buy that pair of shoes that he needed. Then by the age of ten, he started raising pigs. His neighbors complained about the smell of the pigs, so he sold the pigs and made sixty dollars profit. That was his introduction to business.

Throughout his business career, he remained dedicated to his faith. He operated by certain principles and policies that today would be old fashioned in an era of corporate scandals. For each policy, he would ask that it be tested by this guiding principle: “Does it square with what is right and just?”

He married his wife Berta in 1899 in Cheyenne, Wyoming. They had two sons together. After eleven years of marriage, in December of 1910, Berta fell ill with pneumonia. She died one day after Christmas. When his wife died, he said, “In that hour, my world crashed around me.” He chose to treat his grief by donating $10,000 in memory of Berta to the First Methodist Episcopal Church in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Six years later he married his second wife, Mary, whom he met on a trip to the Holy Land in 1916. They had one son together. Tragically, Mary also died suddenly in 1924. He again donated to the memory of his wife. This time he established a foundation in Mary’s memory, helping adoption agencies, homeless shelters, youth clubs, vocational schools, libraries, family guidance centers, missionary projects, peace organizations, and health clinics. He also established an organization where destitute farmers could live and work until they could rebuild their lives.

Eventually, he married his third wife, Caroline. They had two daughters together and their marriage lasted 45 years until his death.

But back to that first year that the store opened. By the end of that first year of operation in 1902, his store had grossed nearly 30 thousand dollars. And a few years later he was able to open more stores based on his golden rule principle.

By 1928, with over 1000 stores, sales had totaled $177 million dollars. In October of 1929, a few days before Black Thursday, his company’s stock was listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Yes, the stock market crashed, and he personally lost $40 million dollars. Nevertheless, his faith never wavered. The number of stores continued to increase during this time. Also, the store’s low-priced merchandise attracted customers in those hard times during the Depression.

He continually donated to charity. He donated to the Christian Herald and a home for retired clergymen. He accumulated personal debts of over $7 million dollars. By 1932, he had lost much of his personal fortune, but he continued to keep the business alive – operating by his cherished principle of the golden rule.

He was a an extremely generous Christian man. He donated so much of his business’s and personal profits to charity that, in fact, these good deeds almost put him out of business and into bankruptcy. However, he remembered his Christian roots and he always pulled through any problem.

Throughout his roller-coaster life there were good times and tough times, but he would later say, "I would never have amounted to anything were it not for adversity. I was forced to come up the hard way.” He would even declare, “I am grateful for all my problems. After each one was overcome, I became stronger and more able to meet those that were still to come. I grew in all my difficulties." And he credited his faith for carrying him.

The man wanted to live to be 100 years old, but on December 26, 1970, he fractured his hip after falling in his Park Avenue apartment. While recuperating, he suffered and died of a heart attack on February 12, 1971.

James Cash Penney, better known as J. C. Penney, was 95 when his remarkable life ended.

You know J. C. Penney from the retail store empire that still bears his name today – an empire he grew from those original “Golden Rule Stores.” You may not have known J. C. Penney the man who found his own way to answer God’s call. Through his faith-based business ethics and charitable giving in the millions, he found a way to help many, many people who needed far more than a discount bargain at a department store.

You’ll remember In recent years one of the catchy ad slogans that the J. C. Penney company used to help sell its goods: “It’s all inside.” That slogan also could have spoken to the measure of J. C. Penney himself --- the size of his heart and his faith. From all accounts, like all of us human beings, he was not perfect. At times, some viewed his management style as too autocratic. He frowned on drinking and smoking and some employees felt he tried too hard to push his values on them. He allegedly once gave a bribe demanded by his largest customer when he ran a butcher shop. But he regretted it and he refused a second demand, choosing instead to lose the customer and also the business. He had standards and ethics and, during his life, gave millions to charity. This was how J. C. Penney chose to serve his God with his life and honor his precious golden rule.

We may never have the chance to become a CEO, a president of a great nation, or a great prophet like Jeremiah. We may never have the opportunity to give millions to charity, write a great book or compose a beautiful song for the glory of God, but we all have our own humble talents and ways to serve God. God not only knows who we are, but he knows what we are yet to become. And we should never be afraid to answer His call. In the words of Jeremiah, “The Lord gave me a message. He said, “I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb. Before you were born I set you apart and appointed you as my spokesperson to the world. You must go wherever I send you and say whatever I tell you. And don’t be afraid of the people, for I will be with you and take care of you.”

God’s comforting words to Jeremiah have a quality of eternity and destiny. He has a plan for all of us and it includes our courage to overcome our pathetic excuses and offer our own talents and service. Before you were born he set you and you and you – and all of us – apart and he appointed all of us with special talents to carry His word to the world. And just as Jeremiah found out, we can’t say, “I’m too young,” or “I’m too old,” “I’m not smart enough, I’m too short, I’m too tired, I’m too busy.” As we all find out sooner or later, excuses don’t work with God. God knew us before we were born and he has a plan for all of us. We just have to accept it and turn our lives over to God. And just as J. C. Penney found out, we will overcome the obstacles.

Jesus himself encountered many obstacles. In our story today from Luke’s Gospel, Jesus heals a crippled woman on the Sabbath and incurs the wrath of some religious leaders who felt he was not honoring the Sabbath as a day only for worshipping God. How dare he heal someone on the Sabbath!

Now, Jesus had always taught his followers to be obedient. Jesus revered the Sabbath and he practiced his religion faithfully. Six times in Luke, Jesus is described as teaching on the Sabbath. But to Jesus, part of what it meant to honor God’s day was to make sure that those on the outside – people who had been excluded -- were included in his healing and teaching ministry. He respected God’s Sabbath, but he struck out at the hypocrisy of using ceremony and ritual to ignore service. He taught us that to serve God, we sometimes have to overcome ritual to help God’s people who are in need.

The ancient Pharisees often stood on ceremony and law. It was custom for people to communicate with God only through the priests. The author of the book of Hebrews reminds early Christians that since their conversion, things have changed. They are no longer tied to the law. The old mind-set must be revised. We need not fear, because we have Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant. We no longer always need to bring in a religious leader to speak on our behalf—we each have a personal relationship with Christ.

Jesus’ life was disciplined, but he didn’t stand on ceremony. His life was all about service to God and God’s people. A lesson J. C. Penney also learned. Remember Penney’s ethical test for business: “Does it square with what is right and just?”

We honor the Sabbath to respect and honor God, but God’s discipline for all our lives also includes service and includes a personal relationship with God made possible by Christ. It practices inclusion, not exclusion.

I love Philip Yancey’s book, What’s So Amazing About Grace? He offers so many inspiring messages. He strikes out at the practice of exclusion in a chapter called No Oddballs Allowed. He writes, “The apostle Paul, resistant to change -- a ‘Pharisee of the Pharisees’ who had thanked God that he was not a Gentile, slave or woman – ended up (after his conversion) writing these revolutionary words: ‘There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.’ Paul proclaims that Jesus’ death broke down the temple barriers, dismantling the dividing walls of hostility that had separated categories of people.”²

As we go back to our jobs, our lives outside this house of worship, let us remember that God calls each of us, just as he called Jeremiah, just as he influenced the life of James Penney, just as he made Bob Hisey a man of faith. He knew us before we were born. He calls us to serve in the example of Christ -- not to stand on ceremony, but to help all, excluding none. This week when you face the difficult decisions, ask yourself “What would Christ do?” I think you’ll also find the answer “squares with what is right and just.”

Let us pray. O God, we thank you for including us in your plan. We thank you for not accepting our excuses and encouraging us to overcome obstacles that prevent us from being better Christians, from helping others and serving you. We ask that you guide us and be at our side as we try to answer your call in the best and humble manner we know how. As we look ahead to our charge conference in the next few months, we pray that you will call members of this congregation to step forward, offer their talents and serve on the many committees that guide the work of your church. Calm our fears, remove our excuses and instill a wonderful willingness to answer your call.

Lord, we thank you for giving us guidance through Jesus’ example. He truly brings us joy and leads us in the greatest dance of our life --- our Christian faith. Amen.

Let us respond to Christ’s gracious life by singing Lord of the Dance, hymn 261.

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Benediction: And now as you go forth, may the Lord bless you and keep you. May the light of his face shine upon you. May your life be filled with great abundance. May you give as well as receive as you place your life in the kind and loving hands of Jesus. Amen.

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¹ JC Penney story drafted from a work and opinion on JC Penney by Gerard Kickul, a business student’s paper from a course at the University of St. Francis.

² Yancey, Philip, What’s So Amazing about Grace?, Zondervan Publishing House, 1997.