Sermons represent copyrighted material and are not to be reproduced, transcribed, or used in any form without the permission of Rev. Chris Moore or the speaker for that day.

Resurrection Life
John 20:26-31 & Acts 5:27-41 (CEB)

We are in this “post-Easter” time when we kind of take a break in church. Some pulpits will be filled by guest preachers today, as we enter a period of rest, the frenetic pace slowing a little so we can re-group, getting ready for that final push before summer begins. I’m not sure why we slow down, though…it’s as if the resurrection is the culmination of the impact of Jesus, when it is really just the beginning. The disciples lives got much busier post-Easter, for as they slowly accept the resurrection, they accept much more than just an empty tomb…they accept resurrection lives.

Much of the New Testament is the unraveling of the resurrection, an account of how the reality of a risen Christ also means the embrace of the “Jesus Plan”, a reinforcement of the inherently social, cultural and political implications of a Gospel that announces power to the powerless, hope to the hopeless, forgiveness to the unforgivable…life from death. This was a subversive message during the times in which our scriptures were written. Saying “Jesus is Lord” today is a bumper sticker, proclaimed with pride, openly and loudly. But then the claim “Jesus is Lord” was not only a direct confrontation to “Caesar is Lord,” but also considered a ridiculous, foolish claim to everyone around them…a dangerous act of resistance.

It was also the start of the resurrection life.

At the end of John’s version of the gospel story, we hear an account of this post-Easter, resurrection life in the familiar account of “doubting Thomas. A lot of shadow has been cast at Thomas, but he is more like us that anyone – wanting to trust, but to verify, to have faith only if there’s a guarantee which, of course, isn’t faith. But before we cast aside Thomas, we ought to recognize that he seems to know what is at stake, maybe even more than any of the other disciples. If this is the resurrected Jesus…if this is the promise made real…if this is God’s “Yes” to the Jesus plan, then it changes everything. Of course he wants some verification – who wouldn’t?

The Book of Acts is Luke’s attempt to tell the post-Easter story that we don’t get from any of the other gospels, save for a few days after. Luke carries the story out, letting us see the impact of the resurrection life on the disciples, now called apostles, and the community in which they live. The section from Acts this morning marks the second time that some religious leaders have arrested, detained, and interrogated the apostles for preaching (and for living) the resurrection of Jesus. And once more they declare what they have declared before – their resolve to privilege the call of God over and against human authority.

This can be a blessing or a curse. Sometimes privileging God’s law over human law is a positive thing – like the civil rights movement. Other times it can be much more sinister and disturbing. This assertion of the disciples that you sometimes have to buck the system to be faithful raises a critical question – how do you tell? How do you know when you are “following the will of God” and when you are going along to get along? How do you “verify” that you are on the right track?

The Book of Acts is a series of stories about how the disciples, now called apostles, wrestle with this tension. Peter has a vision in which God tells him, quite in opposition to the ways he has learned to be obedient to God’s will, that he should not “call profane what God has made clean.” Philip encounters an Ethiopian eunuch – both foreigner and sexually atypical – doubly “impure” according to everything that Philip has known thus far, and the action of the Holy Spirit moves him to baptize him, to welcome him into the fold. Saul, according to Acts, one of these very same religious authorities from our passage today, a zealous persecutor of the Jesus movement, encounters Jesus on a road to Damascus, in a halo of bright light, and, after three days of silence and blindness, has the scales fall from his eyes, becoming Paul, the apostle to the Greek-speaking world, quite against all he has known.

If we read the Book of Acts, it seems like being uncomfortable is a pretty clear sign that we are following God and not human law. It seems like moving out of previously held assumptions, even previously held convictions, might be a sign of easing that tension. It seems like transformation might be a component of faithfulness. The resurrection life, it would seem, means that we begin to see things differently. The borders that were once in place become more porous. The distinctions we setup between human beings becomes less important. The ways that we divide ourselves from one another fade into a kin-dom vision, where our differences are part of God’s beautifully created diversity rather than sources for mistrust and fear.

For the disciples, now called apostles, the “verification” of the resurrection is the life that they feel compelled to live. Even more than the appearances of Jesus is their realization of his presence in continuing his walk, so they realize he’s there when they share the bread and the wine, he “appears” among them when they gather together to encourage one another in their work. Who they are changes as the resurrection becomes more and more real to them. As they practice Jesus’ border-busting compassion, his agape love, the love for strangers and the marginalized, he lives again. As they re-embrace his moral values, setting aside their fear and following his ethic of Justice, claiming Jesus as Lord, rather than Caesar, the tomb stays empty. As they change, he rises.

This is the resurrection life. It seems like a particularly poignant time in history to suggest that if we are no different post-baptism than we were pre-baptism, if Easter is only to us a day in which we sing, “Christ the Lord is Risen Today”, with no sense of reverence or anxiousness about what that means for us, if being “Christian” just means a signing ceremony and off to business as usual, then we may not be doing it right.

I am not suggesting to you, or to me for that matter, that living faithfully can only be achieved if you are wantonly and aggressively defying governmental authorities, or engaged in actions that are going to get you flogged and tossed out onto the streets. The world doesn’t need more martyrs, but it does need more people willing to engage with difficult and complex issues, to seek truth and to sacrifice in the name of justice. That’s what I think living the resurrection life means, that we at least consider how to reshape the world around us, knowing that there is a gap between charity and justice, and a difference between compassion and enabling. There are borders for us all to cross, everyday – borders that come to us in the form of a well-worn and far too domesticated question. What would Jesus do?

There are currently more than 23,000 municipalities in the United States, yet fewer than 80 are participating in the ICE programs. Tulsa county is one of them. What this means is that a minor traffic violation can land an undocumented person in Tulsa in the hands of ICE, likely to be deported, regardless of their length of stay in the US, their contributions to our society, or their family connections, children and dependents who will often be left behind with primary breadwinners shipped back to countries where they are in danger, or haven’t been in years, perhaps decades.

We also have a contract with ICE which allows up to 200 of the people you are hearing about on our southern border, refugees from countries torn by violence who are seeking asylum, which is legal, to be detained in our county jail downtown, as they are right now…detained without charges, awaiting their asylum hearings.

This could be a question for us about the rule of law and the sovereignty of our borders, or it could be a question about how we will treat the stranger among us, how what we do to the least of these we do to Jesus himself. See, the resurrection life actually asks us not to merely form a better political opinion, to make our views known on a social policy. It asks us to change the way we look, to act on behalf of human beings in need not because we believe in social justice, but because we have been reborn ourselves into God’s Justice, our baptism a little resurrection of our own, bringing with it the same new assumptions about the world post-Easter – God is at work, the light has overcome the darkness, and though we do not understand it at all, Christ is risen.

The implication of “Christ is Risen” is that the Jesus Plan is in full effect, now living on in our hearts, as well as our hands and feet. We have a chance to announce this new vision to the world around us, to be evangelists, though not like you’ve been taught about evangelism. After all, these disciples, now called apostles, they aren’t out asking people if they die tomorrow, where will their soul go? No, their evangelism comes as they feed the hungry, heal the sick, and stand with those whom Rome has cast aside – and then, when people ask them why they are doing this, they speak of this resurrection life, this carrying on of the Jesus plan.

So I ask us – what is our response to the detainment of human beings in our city? Regardless of how you feel politically or ideologically about an immigration system that we all agree is broken, how we treat those among us who have come seeking new life, seeking shelter and opportunity, even those who have broken our human laws says more about who we are as followers of Jesus than anything else. Can we, as Christians, break up families, orphan children, imprison without charge, or detain indefinitely, and still call ourselves Christians? Or will we strive to see the world differently? When we wonder what we can possibly do about horrific violence like we see in Christchurch, in Sri Lanka, and, horribly, again at a synagogue in California just yesterday on Passover, I will suggest to us, as Christians, that it begins with us saying “no” to dehumanizing tactics any and everywhere, “no” to anti-semitism, racism, to white supremacy, to sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, xenophobia, the fear-mongering used to divide and manipulate, and “no” to the violations of human rights and demonization that start long before a gun is wielded against innocents.

We don’t say “no” to this because of a political party or a social agenda. We don’t say “no” to this because we are lefty hippies, though, to be fair, many of us are. We say no because we follow the risen Christ, God’s great “YES” to the Jesus plan, who has told us what we must do, “…for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me…”

Christ is risen. Thanks be to God.

Sermons represent copyrighted material and are not to be reproduced, transcribed, or used in any form without the permission of Rev. Chris Moore or the speaker for that day.

Luke 24:1-12

I’m tempted this Easter morning, my friends, I’m tempted – we have already put on the special clothes, we have already sung the songs and heard the scriptures and announced, “He is risen,” several times, in fact. I’m tempted – you know this story. You know what happens. He is risen! Now let’s go beat the Baptists to Easter brunch! I mean, I’m not revealing something new – were any of you surprised when the scripture declared the tomb was empty? I heard no gasps. We knowthis story.

Do we, though? Because the news today of at least 130 dead in bombings at churches and hotels in Sri Lanka, the anniversaries of Columbine and Oklahoma City, the ways that death and mayhem cling to us like tree sap…

If we knew this story, I think that we’d see some signs of it, don’t you? I mean we know the story of Sam-I-Am, right? He won’t eat green eggs-n-ham. And we know that the moral of the story is that we should try new things – you never know what you might like. Do we know the moral of this story?

It’s really quite remarkable that we have this story at all. We don’t read my favorite version of the empty tomb every year, the earliest version of Mark. Mark, the earliest chronologically of our gospels, is so abrupt in his final chapter that he says as soon as the angel tells them that Christ is not there, the women flee the tomb with terror and amazement and say nothing to anyone, an ending so dissatisfying that it is only in our earliest manuscripts of Mark…the later ones add some verses on to reduce the shock. Can you imagine? They said nothing to anyone? Then what are we up to in here? I mean without the resurrection, Jesus is a really good person who taught some nice things about how we should live and a really handy guy to have around when you have a barrel of water at an impromptu party.

That’s why this story matters, and why I think we still don’t understand the moral of the story – resurrection matters. Now, how it happened, where it happened, whether or not it was real, like flesh-and-blood, or metaphorical, maybe even whyit happened are not the critical pieces to me, as odd as that may sound to you. What matters to me is the happening – the realization that the status quo has been upended and that love is stronger than hatred, stronger even than death – that is the moral.

Yet when faced with this realization, with the stone rolled away and the tomb empty, the women do what I think we’d all do…they get really, really nervous. They get terrified. And when the women in Luke run back to their friends and announce this and all of the guys in the room dismiss the women. I realize this is surprising to the women here today, that their suggestion or story or account would be dismissed by men, but let’s just imaginethis possibility, OK? The Greek word that is used for this dismissal is leros. It gets translated as an “idle tale,” or “nonsense.” What it means is garbage, drivel, crap, or maybe most persuasively a word that I won’t use from the pulpit. This is more than just dismissal, this is disbelief and rejection.

The men are feeling the same thing that the women are feeling – vulnerable. Something has happened, they cannot explain it. They should feel joy – this is what they wanted, right? But they feel confusion, anxiety, even fear, for they don’t have any idea what is going on. So when faced with the option that all of the things that he said to them have come to pass, that God has indeed raised him up after Rome tore him down, that divine power has more say than imperial power, they rejectit. If the moral of this story is that God’s Love and Justice are stronger than our systems of power and dominance…if the moral of this story is that when it seems like all hope is gone, God has not abandoned us…if the moral of the story is that God becomes at-one with us not through violent, wrathful sacrifice, but through non-violent, grace-filled Love, then I have to ask again – do we understand this? Or are we more like the disciples, hearing this glorious news and rejecting it outright? Are we unwilling to be vulnerable enough to know this – because the whole “good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people” is strangely comfortable…we know it’s not true, but it’s comfortable.

Peter goes to see for himself. He finds the tomb, just as they said, sees only a linen cloth and he returns…wondering what happened. That word, in Greek, translated as “wondering,” is the same word used in our passage from Acts this morning, right before Peter announces, “I really am learning that God doesn’t show partiality to one group of people over another.Rather, in every nation, whoever worships God and acts righteously is acceptable to God.This is the message of peace he sent to the Israelites by proclaiming the good news through Jesus Christ: He is Lord of all!” It is something akin to amazement, reverence, awe…so Peter isn’t walking back home trying to figure out what precisely happened, or attempting to rationally work out the details. He’s not worried about making things fit in a logical framework that he can use to sell this theological product, or defend in an apologetics contest. He is walking back home feeling like you do when you first step beyond the horizon of the parking lot and see the Grand Canyon, or when your child is first placed in your arms, or when you feel love for the first time. He is walking back in awe, in amazement, in wonder.

Easter is not about believing, my friends. Easter is about faithing. Now I know that’s not a word in English, but it isa word in Greek. The word pistisused throughout the New Testament is almost always translated as “faith” or “belief,” but it means faithing. The active, “living it out” kind of trust in something you cannot see, in something that is unverifiable, in something that cannot be real, but is. It is maybe even the opposite of what we think belief is, for it works on our hearts and our souls, not in our brains. The story that the disciples reject is the story that they then absorb more slowly, as the Spirit brings it to them, encounter after encounter, realization after realization that God is indeed active in our lives, not as the puppet master controlling all of reality from behind the curtain, but rather as the creative force that brings growth from pain, change from struggle, hope from hopelessness.

Yet that is not an intuitive thing, you know? It’s not something the women had at the tomb, not something the disciples possessed at first, not something that we come to naturally. We have to teachourselves Easter. Oh, we can do it with easy things…a great building full of meaning and history and symbolism burns, the spire crashing to the ground in a fiery metaphor and we rally. We pledge and give and know that rebuilding is possible and imminent and necessary. It does not come as easily for black churches in Louisiana, without the same length of history, to be sure, but with deep symbolism for an entire group of people. We don’t see it in medicaid expansion to give the possibility of life to thousands in our state, we don’t see it in a #metoo movement that isn’t exposing any new behavior, as if there’s a sudden surge of misogyny, it is simply calling out what has alwaysbeen happening to women. We don’t see it in a call for reparations for the untold and unconfessed damage done to an entire group of people whose ancestors were held in slavery for centuries in our country. Those stories where the stone is rolled away from the tomb of insurance death, the tomb of sexism death, the tomb of racism death…we reject those stories, like they are garbage, nonsense, crap.

So we go back to the women in our Easter story for today – one woman in particular. It is Mary Magdalene, who is probably lodged in our collective memories as the prostitute turned follower, the promiscuous woman redeemed by Jesus. There is nothing in the Bible that either says or even suggests this, it is a relic of a smear campaign for centuries against this woman who may indeed have been even more important to the ministry of Jesus than the tradition would care for. It is this Mary who, in other gospels, converses with the risen Christ and returns to the disciples saying, “I have seen the Lord.” And they, just like in Luke, don’t believe her. They say, “That’s a bunch of nonsense.”

Maybe the moral of this Easter story is that we are not to be believed. After all, resurrection from the dead is pretty hard to believe. For all of us, raised in a scientific world, raised to trust what we can verify, quantify and measure, it seems bizarre. Dead is dead. If the dead don’t staydead, what can you believe in? If dead thingAs David Lose says in his commentary, “Resurrection…breaks all the rules, and while most of us will admit that the old rules aren’t perfect – and sometimes are downright awful – at least weknowthem. They are predictable…resurrection upsets all of that.” The idea that Jesus is alive is scary. It means we don’t understand how life and death work anymore. That something and someone dead can become alive again? It’s a holy mystery, and it means that life (and death) are far more complicated than we might have once thought… not as comforting as we imagined…for the implications are we don’t understand a thing, and we are working far more on trust than we thought we were. The question then becomes – trust in what?

We in the church have made this false claim for centuries that faith is about what you believe – about cementing, solidifying, creating certitude around these claims about Jesus rather than learning to trust likeJesus, learning to be faithers. When Mary says, “I have seen the Lord,” she isn’t just making a claim about a miraculous appearance, she is saying utter nonsense about a new reality, laid out before her in a way she absolutely cannot believe – she can onlyfaith.

“I have seen the Lord” insists that the ways of love will always win over the ways of hate. “I have seen the Lord” confirms that the truth of kindness can be heard over the din of ruthless, callous, and vindictive rhetoric. “I have seen the Lord” gives witness to the fact that there is anotherway of being in the world — a way of being that is shaped by resurrection, that embodies anything and everything that is life-giving, a way of being that is so counter-cultural, so demonstrative of mercy, so exemplary of the truth of Easter that when we glimpse it we almost always reject it.

We sing “Christ the Lord is Risen Today” as a statement of belief, one of the laundry list of things that we sign-off on as Christians, as third-person confession. We may sing it loudly, but we don’t really meanit loudly. But what if we were declaring, in bold voice and astonished tone, “I have seen the Lord,” because we trust in resurrection, despite our discomfort with the hows and the whys? We trust in it because we have learned to see life from death, healing from deep wounds, transformation of broken lives, hearts changed, chains broken, and voices heard? What if we bore witness to things we cannot understand, nor explain, hoped in things that it made absolutely no sense to hope for, trusted in the resurrection power of a God who makes all things new? What if we were declaring the triumph of love in the midst of suffering? I tell you, if you report to the world like that, you will be called foolish, and told that you are spreading garbage, nonsense, crap – fake news.

But Easter is not about believing. It is about faithing.

Sermons represent copyrighted material and are not to be reproduced, transcribed, or used in any form without the permission of Rev. Chris Moore or the speaker for that day.

Luke 19:28-40

When we lived in Edmond and the boys were younger, we would take them every 4^thof July to downtown for the annual Independence Day Parade, one of the largest in the nation. We would go with the neighbors on our street, and we had our “spot”, where we’d watch the parade go by and, much later, watch our own kids in the parade, walking with the Boy Scout troop or marching in the band. The 4^thof July parade in Edmond, Oklahoma wasn’t hard to figure out. There was no deception or subtlety in the messaging. America means the military, the fire department, law enforcement, commerce, banks and industry, team spirit and the Miss whatever contest with horns blaring and sirens wailing…oh, and Shriners. So many Shriners in little midget cars and on giant motorcycles, in vintage muscle cars and a few brave souls in clown suits tossing candy. I could stand in the same place I stood as a kid and probably have the same Shroner hand me candy. It was the same every year because parades are meant to convey a message…and dispense candy. Those are the two functions. Now, I don’t know what kind of candy they had in first century Palestine, but I do know that their parades had the same purpose.

Now, Shriners we get. Flatbed trailers with an entire VFW post or another giant service vehicle laden with employees blasting out “And I’m proud to be an American…” for the seventieth time in the parade – these are images and sounds and cultural “hooks” that we get. Palms and donkeys and shouts of “Hosanna” are not. For us it’s an image familiar only because of picture books from our Sunday School days, remember those “Golden” books, likely a very cartoonish, unusually pale Jesus riding on donkey – a donkey who looks a lot like a brown Eeyore. We have no imagination for what other images might be present, no deep, visceral connection to smells or sounds, or phrases shouted…no personal memory connected to this Palm Sunday parade at all. And Hosanna is just a word we hear and sing only around Easter…I mean, no one shouts Hosanna anymore. Can you imagine? I have a half-caf, venti latte for Chris! Hosanna!!!

These hooks don’t catch us, because they weren’t written for us. They are deep remnants of another culture’s history. But what if I gave youthisimage? A man astride a horse, riding fast through the New England countryside, carrying a lantern? And what if he was shouting, “The British are coming, the British are coming!” Who am I talking about?

<Paul Revere>

And what does Paul Revere inaugurate with this midnight ride? What message does he carry, what does he symbolize? <answers from congregation>

Paul Revere announces revolution, and the expectation of freedom, liberation and autonomy. And we all know that by heart, as they say – it is part of our lore, our mythology, our own story, taught to us in a dozen different ways from when we were young. It may not bear any resemblance to what actually happened, but it remains a “living” image, like Jesus on a donkey would have been to the listeners of Luke (and Mark and Matthew and John) hearing this story they had been told before, picturing the images, imagining the sounds just like we do for that midnight ride.

Myths like these come with their own language. The American Revolution certainly has “catch phrases.” Give me liberty or give me ________? Don’t fire until you see ___________________________? For the Palm Sunday story, the word is Hosanna. Hosanna is a term that literally, in Hebrew, means, “save us!” It is the same root that underlies the name Joshua, Hosea, and Yeshua, or Jesus. It is the primary word used during the Hallel Psalms, sung in synagogue during the first two days of Passover which, in the Gospel stories, just happens to be the exact time Jesus is riding into Jerusalem, mimicking the images and stories from the Jewish prophets as he engages in this street theatre through the back gates of the city, deliberately provoking the powers that be using images and language the people would know by heart. If you think that Jesus wasn’t political, his “parade” is proof otherwise – not to mention that, at least in Luke’s version, this parade is preceded by the “parable of the talents” where one servant defies a cruel ruler and the unjust system by he rules with his own actions.

The message was clear to his followers – God was getting ready to do something incredible in their time. God was about to transform their daily world of trouble into a perfect, holy, just city, full of grace — a New Jerusalem, a paradise where God’s will was done by everyone. Zechariah predicted it in scripture! The Messiah, the return of King David, come again to kick out the Romans who had so oppressed and wounded the people. When you have been beaten down, enslaved and treated unjustly for generations, it’s not hard to imagine a party kicking up at the possibility of such monumental change.

Maybe that’s why this story makes it into all four Gospels. That’s a pretty big achievement. The Christmas story, after all, only makes it into 3 gospels. The Lord’s Prayer is only in two, the parable of the Good Samaritan in only one. So, maybe we’re not giving Palm Sunday enough credit. It is typically just the way to start off Holy Week, a blip on the radar and, unless we join new members as we did today,

just another Sunday as we move towards Easter.

Can we appreciate, though, even if just for a minute what a shift this parade represents? Historical research tells us it is likely that at the very same time this parade was happening, with donkeys and palm branches, another parade was entering the main gates of Jerusalem. This one, quite in contrast to Jesus’ ride, looked more like our 4^thof July parades. It was the full might of a Roman garrison on display, leading the Governor of the region, Pontius Pilate, through the gates with full armor, heavy spear, sharp sword and the clear message during the celebration of the high holy time of Passover to not get too celebratory. Remember your place, Hebrews…Rome is in charge.

In that sense, Jesus’ parade was a shift for his followers, who had quietly left their nets and followed him, reflectively, passively following Jesus all across the countryside. But this day? This Palm Sunday? This was the day that they found their voices, if only for a few moments. It was the day they summoned their courage, and assumed their role as witnesses to God’s will on earth as it is in heaven, becoming earnest participants in the realm of God, shouting Hosanna and really believing that God’s salvation was possible…even imminent.

Before this, when Jesus argued with the authorities, they watched, with trepidation. As The Rev. Dr. Nancy Taylor says in her commentary, “When he defended a prostitute, they gasped. When he conversed in public with a woman from Samaria, they winced. When he defied the Sabbath laws, they cringed. When he declared that the last shall be first, the first last, and the rich poor, they glanced around guardedly to see who was listening. When he kissed lepers and healed those of broken bodies, they whispered in fascinated awe.”

For the past three years–from the day Jesus called them from their fishing nets until this moment–the commitment to follow Jesus, it had been personal. It had been intimate and private; but today, this day, Palm Sunday, the commitment to follow Jesus, it becomes public and it becomes political. We know, of course, that this feeling won’t last, that this same crowd will join in with the calls of “crucify him” that will soon come. But let’s just stay here for a single Sunday, a snapshot of hope and promise, if only to know what is possible for church to imagine.

Perhaps Palm Sunday is featured in all four gospels because this is the day the followers of Jesus become actors and leaders, participants in the kin-dom of God. This is the day the church comes out of the closet. This is the day the church distances itself from the state and from all worldly power, ceasing to be the purveyor of the weak language of left versus right and instead the bringer of moral truth. Maybe this day, even more than Pentecost, is this is the day the church is born, and it’s our turn now, ourturn to show the world what Jesus taught us about God, to show the world what love looks like, to show the world what it looks like to love not only your neighbor but your enemy, not only your enemy, but the immigrant and the alien, the stranger, and the other…the endless supply of “the other.” Now it is time to show the world what it looks like to forgive those who trespass against you, to forgive the one who sinned against you–who sinned against you–to forgive this one not once, not seven times, but seventy times seven times. Now is the time to show the world that power is only power when it is given away.

As Rev. Dr. Taylor concludes: In a manifestly violent world, it is now our turn to show the world, to show our friends, our families, our neighbors, our colleagues, what it looks like to follow the Prince of Peace, to turn the other cheek. It’s our turn now. In a merciless world, a dog-eat-dog and might-makes-right world, in a world red in tooth and claw, it’s our turn to show the world what God’s mercy looks like.

Maybe, just maybe, Palm Sunday is in all of our gospels because it launches the church as a place where we can all hear the prophets, see the images of mercy and justice in our heads, hear the songs of protest and passion and find our own conviction, our own courage to be out as Christians, claiming inclusion, social justice and non-violence as things that aren’t along side our faith…they ARE our faith.

It sounds like an amazing opportunity and I hope that excitement and enthusiasm that I can see on the faces out there will be carried out into this world to make a difference…oh, and there’s just one more thing. Doing this…having this kind of vision…making this kind of claim on mercy and grace and love in our world today might just get you yelled at. Make no mistake, it won’t be well received when you tell people that God loves everyone– every. single. other. It might get some negative comments on your social media, or a one-finger salute from someone in the crowd. It might be the death of some relationships. I don’t suspect that any of us will get nailed to a tree, but you might get called all kinds of names, be uninvited from any number of places, maybe even punched in the face. As we will learn in this week to come, speaking long and loud enough about God’s Grace, pushing the right buttons of the political systems, and reaching out to the “wrong” people is what got Jesus in trouble…in fact, it got him more than trouble, it’s what got him killed.

Sermons represent copyrighted material and are not to be reproduced, transcribed, or used in any form without the permission of Rev. Chris Moore or the speaker for that day.

John 8:1-11

This dramatic “midrash” of the story from John was told prior to the scripture reading:

It’s all too easy to throw stones.

Stoning serves many purposes. It quiets anger, satisfies jealousy, provides a scapegoat, transfers shame, masks a guilty conscience, and facilitates control.

Sacred violence is very powerful. To kill in the name of God or God’s law can easily justify our fears and anger, or make our self-righteous hate a holy action that gathers others into its web.

Under the law of Moses there are several offenses worthy of this exercise in execution, so the sacred ritual of throwing stones has long been practiced in our village. Many of the rocks outside our city gates are stained with the sin of those who have broken the law of Moses. And though I am guilty of the sin of which I have been accused, no stones are stained with my blood.

He came to our village, a man we did not know, the man with the piercing eyes. As I stood before my executioners, he touched me, I trembled as I thought he was my accuser, the one to cast the first stone. I bowed my head and prepared to die.

Instead of hurling insults or rocks he turned away from me and toward the angry crowd and in a clear voice he challenged them, “Let anyone who is without sin cast the first stone.” He stood resolute, I thought they would kill him too. Then he knelt down and wrote in the sand with his finger the names of all the men and women of our village who had died of ritual stoning – a daughter, a son, brothers, sisters, a friend. With his words the sacredness of the deadly ritual was broken. Guilt and truth replaced the justification for violence. Fingers loosened their grip on once tightly held instruments of death. As my executioners left, one by one, he turned back toward me and with no accusation in his voice he told me I was forgiven, and to sin no more. As I watched him walk away I searched my soul and asked myself, “exactly what was my sin?”

I had been the property of my father until I was 13, at which time I was given in marriage to a man I did not know and I became his possession. When he died I was given to his brother because property was to be kept in the family. When I outlived him, my son inherited me. By now I was worthless baggage as I was no longer fertile. I found my worth in the arms of a man who was not interested in possessing me but loving me.

What was my sin… that I had disrespected the property rights of those who held power over me? Was I not grateful enough? If I had been purchased would I not have sinned? Did I threaten the economic viability of the family or the community? If I was not punished could all women in the village refuse to be property and expect to be greatly loved?

I soon left my village to find the man with the piercing eyes because I had many questions, and there were frequent rumors of his where-a-bouts. I found him… but not in time to ask my questions. I stood at a distance, with a crowd of women, at a place called Golgotha and watched….

He too had become a victim of legal and sacred violence. But no one was there to write in the sand for him, no one to accuse his accusers.

This man, without even knowing me, said that I was forgiven. Now I watched as he likewise asked God to forgive his tormentors has he hung on the cross.

It was forgiveness that lifted him beyond the rest of us.

Forgiveness…not stones.

This story is not present in our earliest manuscripts of John’s gospel, it simply isn’t there. Many scholars believe this addition doesn’t even show up until as late as the 4^thcentury. Now that could be a whole sermon in itself, but what I find fascinating this morning is wherethe story gets added. It comes right aftera debate among the crowd about whether or not Jesus is the Messiah. Even in Jesus’ time and place, people had all kinds of ideas about the messiah…and Jesus reshaped them all. He re-imagined God for us, re-worked our tribal mindsets and gave us a whole new vision of what the world might be. We’re still shaken by this vision of what life can be, of what he called “God’s Reign” instead of Caesar’s. And nowhere – NOWHERE – is this more apparent than in the way we think about justice, which often looks more like plain ol’ judgment, and how Jesus pursues Grace.

I want to make this story about injustices against women, and there’s plenty of fuel for that. This is not some scenario trapped in history, meaningless to us because, “things like this never happen anymore” – systems that devalue or ignore women, a woman judged with a double standard by a group of men with her life literally or figuratively on the line. Currently there are waves of legislation, in our state and beyond, that seek more and more control over a woman’s body, but never ask any questions about a man’s body, or a man’s role in the reproductive process. We have a former Vice-President and some actions we might dismiss as a simple invasion of personal space, but which really reveal a deeper cultural comment on the bodies of women. I think of comments from colleagues and friends – a woman, in her robe, stole and metal cross necklace, no less – standing in her own church’s narthex, being asked by a visitor if the man walking by is the minister…a clergy friend who is told often that she should work with a local church/pastor without consideration as to whether or not that church/pastor would recognize her ordination, because women pastors are NOT universal…and I had lunch with a clergy colleague the other day and when the bill came – say it with me women in the room, it was set down in front of…me. It’s like every step that is taken forward, there are three steps back, and we know – we KNOW – that this story is about injustice. And I know what I’d like Jesus, the messiah and savior of the world, to do – rain down holy thunder and lightning on the gathered crowd of men. But he doesn’t.

The woman in question in this story from John is not named, not even by her accusers. She’s not even an individual. The text says that the law demands we stone “such women.” She is a typeof woman – a label, a kind that categorically deserves death. Supposedly caught “in the act,” she is the only one dragged into the public square. The man is nowhere to be found, though clearly the accusers know who he is – being caught “in the act” pretty much removes your chances of anonymity. The code from Deuteronomy that prohibits this woman’s activity alsoprohibits the man’s. Heshould be in that public square as well, he should have the arms raised and the stones aimed at his head, too, but he’s nowhere to be found, which makes this text even more convicting as a trap set for Jesus, rather than anything about the supposed “injustice” these men are lifting up.

The unanswered, even unasked, question is – why? Why are these two caught “in the act?” Was this a setup from the beginning, a way to ensnare Jesus by exploiting this relationship which everyone knew about? Did the man also “caught in the act” get released because it was a setup the whole time? Is this a loving relationship or is she a sex worker and, if so, is that by her choice or because it reveals the few options available for women in a patriarchal system that both demands purity and requires lust, a system that values women so minimally?

It is clear from the last line of the passage that even Jesus holds her accountable for something– go, he says, and sin no more. I don’t really know what has happened, or if this woman has really done something “wrong.” What I do know is that when Jesus is asked to denounce her, he refuses, like he does so often, not rejecting the idea of sin, or the reality that we all miss the mark sometimes, but rejecting the idea that we are to be shamed and punished and subjugated because of it. It has to be madecrystal clear, that he rejects the way this is handled. They are trying to trap Jesus to make a public statement and he uses that to call out their hypocrisy, their false piety and the broken system in which they live and breathe and have their being.

Some have questioned a single line in this passage, the one right after they level these charges against this woman and ask him what should be done with her. That line reads, “Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.” What is he writing? Is he writing the commandment from Deuteronomy to emphasize that they have only one party present for this stoning? Maybe, as some suggest, he is writing down the names of the men in that very circle who have alsotaken advantage of this woman, or this “type” of woman, perpetuating the very immorality they claim to be opposing. Then again, maybe he’s just pausing for dramatic effect?

Dr. Amy-Jill Levine notes in her feminist companion to John’s Gospel that surprisingly, at the apex of the story, as we sympathize with this woman and imagine her there, surrounded by a group of angry men, “Jesus places the right of execution directlyin the hands of the scribes and Pharisees…each must examine his own life according to the same Law under which the adulterous woman stands judged.” While this is admittedly brilliant strategy on Jesus’ part, I’m not sure how crazy I’d be about it as the accused woman. After all, they can start hurling rocks if just one of themclaims to be without sin and it’s not hard to imagine an alpha-male pumped up on self-righteousness and arrogance making such a claim. But they don’t. The awareness of their own sin settles in on them and they walk away, disarmed of their capacity to wield their judgment on others.

Jesus, we should note, doesn’t judge them, either. He doesn’t judge anyone in this story, though if Jesus is the one without sin, God in the flesh, as our tradition says, then he, by his own rule, is the onlyone who can judge the men and this woman, now left alone, standing in the hot sand as Jesus looks up. No one has condemned you? Neither do I – go and sin no more.

I wantto make this story about Jesus rebuking the patriarchy, which I still think is true. And others want to make it a clarification of the reality of sin, and how even though we aren’t supposed to judge, we are all still guilty of missing the mark, which is also true. I wonder if this story helps us to see a Jesus who doesn’t operate on “either-or” and, while dedicated to justice, is trying to get us to step outside our carefully constructed boxes, if only for a moment. It is as if he doesn’t want us to simply switch sides in a self-righteous game, where we judge the judges, or hate the haters, and that makes it all alright. I believe that the story wants to place us in a spot where we have a difficult time with who is the “good guy” and who is the “bad guy” precisely because it is such a human thing operate in a polarity. We always divide the story up in sides and equally as often write ourselves into the role of the good guy.

“Let he who is without sin” and “go and sin no more” have the same impact – they are words of grace in an ungracious time. Grace, to be clear, is not forgiveness or absolution. Those things require repentance and restitution. Grace is the radical notion that we are all loved by God regardless of what we do. It is a concept both reassuring and disturbing, one that we love when it is aimed at us and despise when it is shown to those we disparage. That is why I think that we see it only in Jesus. It’s not as if this woman suddenly pours out grace on her accusers. Why should she? She is trapped in a system that absolutely devalues and destroys her. And the men? They are happy to getgrace, but in no danger, I suspect, of being tainted by it enough to dole it out.

That’s the same for all of us, for I don’t think this story is meant to teach us all to have God’s grace, a Grace I do not understand and struggle to accept. If there’s one thing I am clear about from a long tenure in ministry, it’s that there is a God and I am not Her. I cannot dole out such grace. I am about justice, and my justice is pretty limited and awfully judgy. So, can I hear this morning how Jesus is steering us away from the propensity to refine our abilities of judgment and towards trusting in God’s Grace, letting it shape how we see ourselves and our world? Can I accept how God’s grace sets us free from the constant tennis match of judgment – not because accountability isn’t important, it is crucial – but because it isactually liberating when you become aware of sin as something that unifies us in our incompleteness, rather than a weapon to be used against your so-called opponent. Jesus wants more than just a revolution, he seeks a revolution of our hearts, pushing us to see the humanity and divinity in each of us so deeply that we decide to leave the judgment to God, transforming the world in steps – from vengeance and the settling of scores to justice and then, finally, to a world filled with Grace – wasteful, expansive, amazing Grace.

Amen.

Sermons represent copyrighted material and are not to be reproduced, transcribed, or used in any form without the permission of Rev. Chris Moore or the speaker for that day.

Psalm 32 1-2 & 8-11

Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

Rabbi Lawrence Kushner tells the story of leading a tour of the prayer hall with the preschool children from the congregation. He takes them to the front of the sanctuary to show where the ark is, where they store the torah scroll behind a large, floor to ceiling curtain. He was just about to ask what was behind the curtain and do the big reveal when he notices the preschool teacher looking straight at him and tapping her watch which, he says, is an old Talmudic gesture meaning to wrap it up, bucko! So he tells them that at their next meeting he’ll show them what’s behind the curtain, and it’s very special…and sends them off with a shalom and they walk behind their teacher like little ducklings back to class. Well, the next day the teacher shows up in his office to tell him that apparently the preceding day’s hastily cancelled lesson has provoked quite a discussion of what is indeed behind the “very special” curtain. She told him there are currently four possibilities, according to four different kids.

The first kid, obviously destined to become a philosophy professor, suggests that behind that curtain is absolutely nothing. Such nihilism at such a young age. The next kid imagines a Jewish holy thing of some sort, fairly non-descriptive but important. Another kid, probably from watching too much morning TV says that behind that curtain is a brand new car!! And lastly is the kid who tells them they’re all wrong…behind that curtain is a giant mirror. A four-year old somehow knows that in the words of ancient scripture she would encounter herself, for this is the role of this old, old, stories, some of which make little sense to us anymore. It’s not rulebook or instruction manual, it is a mirror, helping us to see ourselves in new ways, with old words.

This is indeed what must happen with this parable of the lost sons, most often known as the parable of the “Prodigal Son”, though the word prodigal is never used in this passage, it’s a title added much later. Though it is one of the most commonly known parables, next to probably the “Good Samaritan,” Luke is surprisingly the only gospel where this parable can be found. It is familiar to us –veryfamiliar. Likewise it’s meaning is already clear – this is a parable about repentance and forgiveness, right? The younger son is us, the father is…well, THE Father, and the older son is the “bad guy,” not finding the grace that the father gives so freely.

Well, not so fast. The lectionary cut we have for today makes sure to place the parable within it’s context, as part of a conversation between Jesus and his critics, who are shocked by his dining companions. They are scandalized by who he has decided to welcome to his table, these “sinners.” And, you know, birds of a feather flock together – you’ll be known by the company you keep. That’s not just a saying from our time, but actually written in Proverbs 13. So, Jesus was hanging out with the “wrong” kind of people. And in response to this charge, this utterance of what was common sense, found in scripture, Jesus tells this parable, turning the conversation on its head.

In fact he tells three parables, just to drive his point home, the lost sheep, the lost coin and then the lost sons. And in all three cases, the theme is notcontrition and forgiveness, it is welcome and grace. The sheep isn’t apologetic, the coin never says, “I’m sorry,” and there is no forgiveness given, only celebration of the lost being found. And the same is true of the prodigal. The son never apologizes, the father never forgives. It is as if the parable is not meant to teach us some easily digestible message, but rather reminds us of the way that God works, that infuriating, grace-filled love, which is something we already know, but just can’t quite swallow.

When we begin this story with the father as protagonist, the younger son as pitiable foil and the older son as callous jerk, then the mirror that a parable could be becomes more of a script, with all of the parts playing out predictably. Parables, however, work best with the game of “what ifs.” As a colleague, the Rev. Jes Kast, said on Twitter yesterday, “What if the story of the Prodigal Son is not about a son who messed up, but about a Father who messed up and disowned his son who was gay or transgender and finally repents and the celebration is a Dad who says to his son “I see you and affirm YOU. I was wrong. I love you?” What if it’s about how eachchild feels righteous, and stands firm, demanding the other side come to them, when all God wants is for us to eat dinner together? What if it’s about the mother, who is never mentioned, who laments teaching this boy to have such willfulness, leaving her wallowing in her prideful inability to show her wounds and her shameful dedication to the expectations of culture over her son’s direction? There are a lot of “what ifs” to be had in this single story.

So, maybe I ought to treat this like a therapist – so when you ask me what this parable means, I answer – I don’t know. What do youthink it means? And then, of course, as you come up with answers, I’d ask you to consider the version of the story that is the least palatable to you. If the reading only makes you comfortable, then perhaps you look again. For this is what a look in the mirror does, it might make us notice that our hair looks particularly good that day – well, at least someof us – but it likely also reveals the flaws we know and try to conceal or deny. So, who are you in this parable? Which son are you? Are you the father, or the absent mother? Are you the grumbling religious authorities to whom these stories of the lost are told? Are you the narrator, speaking to someone about the complicated scenarios that face us as human beings, trying to share how things aren’t always so cut and dry, and our morality or sense of justice not so easily “right” or “wrong?”

We live in times of great moral confusion. And while we are most often offered a binary solution – right and wrong, good and evil, neatly packaged and separated, the ethical and moral dimension that Jesus always presents us with resists such simplicity. Jesus encourages us not to refine our sense of judgment, but to hone our capacity to love, which stands quite against our inclination to pick and side and to win the battle, whatever that battle may be. Those battles, I’m afraid, are often fought in the dark, and in the light of day things can look quite different than they do when we are flailing away with our sword of righteousness.

As the work was happening for not only this sermon, but the artwork that you see hanging up here this morning, the good Rev. Curry emailed me a selection from some of the reflections that inmates at David L. Moss produce, this one from a guy named Brett. Brett, in reflecting on his own journey of healing, writes that alcoholics and drug addicts often have “the opportunity to have two lives, one on self-will and one on God’s will.” It is those people who truly understand the language of coming to their senses, as the text says, of coming to their selves, as the Greek actually says. They understand, if they are lucky enough to find someone else to receive their newfound sense, what it means to be dead and then alive again, the true essence of being “reborn.”

Brett says that, “I was lucky enough to experience a life full of “myself” will;

living on my terms, my attitude and actions and the consequences one receives living a life of self will and pain.” Of course, not many would look at that as “lucky,” but Brett’s “rebirth” came when he, “had a spiritual awakening.” “I now,” he writes, “get to live a life on God’s will doing what is in front of me working to become a better person,

asking for God’s guidance and direction in every part of my life.”

I’m not sure that this is what is going on with the youngest son. To be frank, I don’t really trust him. I still feel, even after he returns, like he is again taking advantage of his father’s love, like he is doing what he has always done. But for any of us who have been used by someone, someone who we know has a sickness but still makes us angry, this younger son sets off some alarms. And the older son seems so lost in his own bitterness and resentment that he can’t take even the smallest of steps in a positive direction. From this perspective, both sons are lost. Perhaps this is why the father reacts the way he does.

Dr. Amy-Jill Levine, Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies at Vanderbilt. Dr. Levine urges us not to rush to read repentance and forgiveness into this parable. We have been programmed to think thatparables draw a contrast between what Jesus taught and what “the Jews” generally understood. Thus, the Prodigal Son teaches about a loving God, whereas Judaism teaches an angry, vengeful God. But a loving, forgiving, gracious God is not an invention of Jesus, it is part of the Judaism from which he preached and taught. Dr. Levine suggests we ought to let parables provoke us more deeply, to consider how Jesus was provoking his own audience to things they were already aware of and, in the case of this parable of lost sons to a pretty radical idea of just how subversive welcome can be. It’s something we already know about. What happens when we choose to invite someone in first, before we deem them worthy, before we see an olive branch in their hand, before we know that everything will work out the way we want it to? What is the best way, one might ask, to get the wayward to return?

Dr. Levine writes, “Do whatever it takes to find the lost – sheep, coin or child, – and then celebrate with others…Don’t wait until you receive an apology; you may never get one. Don’t wait until you can muster the ability to forgive; you may never find it…instead, go have lunch. Go, celebrate, and invite others to join you. If the repenting and the forgiving come later, so much the better. And if not, you will still…have begun a process that might lead to reconciliation. Take advantage of resurrection,” she writes, “it is unlikely to happen twice.”

I don’t know if I can hear that interpretation, much less implement it. Such a selfless approach takes a hard look in the mirror, my friends, though I think that we know it is true that we welcome before we belong, before we forgive, before we repent. Nevertheless, such a way of reading this parable is challenging and difficult and doesn’t really make sense in my way of structuring relationships, values and my own sense of righteousness. Which makes me think it’s probably pretty close to Jesus’ intent…showing us a God who’s love is different than ours, who’s goals are different than ours, and who’s grace is much wider, much broader that ours. It’s hard, maybe nearly impossible to expand our hearts that much, to extend ourselves so far out onto that branch, all in the name of God’s kin-dom.

Can you imagine what the world would look like if we did?

Sermons represent copyrighted material and are not to be reproduced, transcribed, or used in any form without the permission of Rev. Chris Moore or the speaker for that day.

Psalm 63:1-8 & Luke 13:1-9

March 24^th– LENT III

Thursday morning I left the house earlier than usual. With spring break, I had no “getting kids ready for school” duties, and many of my regular meetings for the week had been cancelled. So, I took the chance to get to the coffeeshop early and do some writing. On my way down 41^stheaded to Riverside, I could see the biggest, most amazing full moon, still pretty high in the western sky, it seemed to me. Then the glare hit me in my rear-view mirror as the bright red sun rose in the east. In that one moment, I could see the yesterday fading in one direction and the day to come rising in the other. It’s rare to be faced with both sides of the scale in such a direct way. Of course that often happens – the moon and the sun at the same time, the night and the day not nearly as separated as we often think of them. It’s not often so visible, though, which gives way to us thinking that these two “sides” are opposites, not connected parts of a circle.

The psalmist sings of this balance for us today, as we hear a prayer to God – a petition, actually – that is attributed to King David. It’s written from “the wilderness,” full of praise and the claims to need only God and God’s presence. “I seek you,” the song sings, “my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” I’ll admit it’s not a feeling I readily know. I mean there are times that I long for the transcendent, and times that prayer and fasting – from food, from social media, from the flow of life — can help me find meaning. But more often I find the presence of God right in the middle of life — in a good meal shared with friends, in a long walk, a good conversation rather than a vow of silence.

It can be easy to read a psalm like this and think that your faith efforts pale in comparison to the monk-ish discipline of “David,” seeking God with “all of his being.” That’s why our lectionary editing is so critical. What you heard this morning is a perfect Lent cut, full of the sacrifice and dedication that we’re supposed to have during this “somber” season of reflection. What better way to solidify that than have a psalm extolling such virtues, using words like “meditate,” “seek,” “thirst,” and “faint?” Maybe that’s why the lectionary reading stops right after all of this “smoke-blowing” directed at the God whose, “steadfast love is better than life.”

But the psalm goes on. The last few verses read:

But those who seek to destroy my life
shall go down into the depths of the earth;
they shall be given over to the power of the sword,
they shall be prey for jackals.
But the king shall rejoice in God;
all who swear by him shall exult,
for the mouths of liars will be stopped.

In other words, after all of that praise and discipline and soul-searching, David’s petition is for the crushing of his enemies, as if all of the praise is just buttering up God so that God’s judgment can be used in David’s favor. It seems like maybe someone needs to fast a little longer.

Of course, that might be how we think of God – a great wizard behind the cosmic curtain, available to deliver to us heart, or brain, or courage. But God is no vending machine, and judgment and mercy are not separate sides, one the full moon and one the rising sun. It’s a difficult lesson to learn, so difficult that Jesus has many, many parables about it. That’s the sure way to know what the teacher wants you to learn, look at the syllabus.

The story of the bent-over woman, is the story of a woman alone in the deepest sense of that word…without a name, forgotten, discarded, neglected, suffering, so ignored that she is literally bent over so her face is not visible. It is a story of God’s judgment and God’s mercy, met together…delivered together…experiencedtogether. This is what makes Jesus so controversial and dangerous in his time. He announces God’s mercy to those on whom the culture has pronounced judgment and he pronounces judgment on the ones who are supposedly recipients of God’s grace and mercy, helping both sides connect to the circle…helping us all to understand judgment apart from shame and mercy apart from absolution.

The story of the so-called “bent woman” comes after the scripture reading for today from the lectionary. But they are connected. The reading speaks of God’s judgment using perhaps two historical events for Luke’s audience, events that are lost to us now. One is some grisly event in which Pilate mingles the blood of Galileans with their sacrifices, perhaps a reference to a massacre of a group of Galilean pilgrims in Jerusalem. The other is the “tower of Siloam” which apparently collapses and kills many people. In both cases, Jesus raises the age-old theological quandary – where is God in suffering? He asks the gathered directly – do you think that these people did something wrong and therefore this tragedy was punishment from God? His answer is unequivocal – nope. That’s not how God works.

But it may be how wework. We pick winners and losers all the time. Our systems are completely structured by this…even the democracy that we supposedly enjoy here in the US of A could be seen as nothing more than the tyranny of the majority, or even the tyranny of the electoral college. Just a couple of years ago we had a debate held in the public forum. One side said, “Black Lives Matter.” Another side said, “all lives matter.” These two “sides” were presented often as if they were opposing sides, as if they were separate ideas, when the reality is that both are true, but they impact us the same way as Jesus presents us with God’s judgment and God’s mercy. If you are a person who has witnessed and experienced the very direct and costly ways that the culture around you does not value you in the same way as others based, in the only logic conclusion, on the color of your skin, then saying, “all lives matter” is not a display of mercy. It is not even true. It is only true IF black lives matter…and they don’t, at least according to any reasonable quantification of economics, criminal justice, employment, housing, etc. When we can effectively say that black lives DO matter, and the statistics bear that out, then, and only then, can we say that ALL lives matter. But by that time, we’ll probably have some other lives to pay attention to because ALL lives matter is a goal, not a destination. You never arrive, because there is always someone else to include, someplace else to visit, some other group or individual who is ignored, left out, forgotten.

We seem to have lost this capacity, perhaps no where more so than in this country. As we all reel from the shootings in Christchurch, and we bear witness to a nation that has not even waited until all of the funerals have happened to take decisive and bold action on the weapons of murder in their midst, we might be tempted to some introspection. After all, New Zealand is not exactly an unarmed nation. And they have gun ranges and their own version of the NRA. They have an opposition party in their government, but all of these agencies are on board with the change.

It makes me wonder. Has our glib “all lives matter” dismissal hardened our hearts so much that we cannot even see what lives don’t matter? And does that have a theological foundation? Has a fundamentalist theology, one that clearly designates winners and losers, one that makes God into a cosmic vending machine, doling out blessings and punishments on the good and the wicked, always demarcated neatly, one which has permeated our culture so deeply…has this theology shaped our hearts so inwardly that we are not able to feel in the same way that the kiwis have felt for one another…has it twisted us so much that we are incapable of seeing ourselves in other people, other religions, other identities, other nationalities, other, other, other?

I don’t want to think that. It feels so much like a judgment to me. Yet God’s judgment, in one way of looking at it, is an ever present gift. What Jesus reminds us is that God’s judgment always comes alongside God’s mercy. This is why Jesus wants to talk endlessly about repentance. Repentance has also gotten a bum rap. Jesus calls us to “turn around,” which is what repentance means, and we’ve made this into a singular event. We repent, get baptized and everything’s cool. Only it’s not. We continue to screw up, to act out of jealousy or anger, to break our word, to lie, to game the system in our favor and call it “hard work,” to close the door on some people because “The Bible Says” and call it “love.” We continue to be unable to experience someone else’s loss deeply enough to let us change us. Repentance is a journey. Jesus keeps bringing it up because we must keep doing it. It is our engagement with the divine circle that is God’s judgment and God’s grace and mercy.

Perhaps the more important thing for the story of the “bent over woman” to give to us is just that – for she is “seen” by so many in her time in the public square. They don’t know her name…WE don’t know her name. Her pain is visible and constant, yet we look for ways that this is herfault, we look away lest we imagine how we might end up there. Instead of opening our hearts with compassion, we take more vitamins, or insulate ourselves with possessions, or keep up with our yoga to insure our bodies never, ever fail. We keep the story at arms’ length, for fear of what it is really asking us to do.

Her story asks us to reconsider how we have ordered the world. It asks us to think about our own resources, about deserving and not deserving, about our “self-made-ness”, our obligations, the “common good,” the call on us when we have accepted that we are children of God to return the favor to others, too. In one way of looking at it, it is God’s judgment, shining a light on our so-called “wisdom.” Jesus standing with and for this woman whose name no one knows, comes in the long litany of actions in which Jesus, the son of God…Jesus, the messiah…Jesus, the savior of the world, gives away his power. He sees suffering and casts love not blame, he has power and gives it away. We, the parable tells us, don’t see at all…or we see and we disregard. When faced with a decision that asks us to consider being loving we instead ask, where are the figs? What value is this tree to me? What do I get out of this?

It’s as if the church doesn’t have a vision problem, it has a love problem. We don’t even know what love is, despite the many examples Jesus gives to us. If all lives did indeed matter, we wouldn’t have to saythat all lives matter. And if all lives truly did matter, we wouldn’t have to say black lives matter. But we do, because they don’t. We do, because we see and disregard. We do, because we still don’t know what love means. We get defensive when the judgment comes our way, rather than seeing it like the full moon in front of us, with God’s mercy rising like the sun behind us, part of a spiritually-vibrant circle. My yoke is easy, Jesus reminds us, my burden is light, but it is real, my friends. It asks us to be better, to try harder, to seek God’s love and then to make it manifest in the world through our own hearts and hands and feet. It is a love that begins at the cross, made manifest in opposition to our system of winners and losers, our animosity and divisions and hate, our quoting of “the rules,” and our insistence on knowing the heart of God. The good news is that despite our stubbornness, God just keeps on being God…

Thanks be to God.

Sermons represent copyrighted material and are not to be reproduced, transcribed, or used in any form without the permission of Rev. Chris Moore or the speaker for that day.

The story of Hagar (or Ha’jar in Arabic), written by Susan Murphy and Rev. Sheri Curry told from Hebrew perspective at the beginning of service:

NARRATOR:

In the Hebrew texts, Hagar is an Egyptian slave to Sarah

Sarah – who is the wife of Abraham and the mother of Isaac.

In the Quran, the Holy Book of Islam,

Hagar is the daughter of an Egyptian king

gifted to Ibrahim to be his wife.

Whether slave or princess,

in both stories she is the mother of Ishmael

who finds herself alone in the wilderness.

Here is the midrash of Hagar based on the Hebrew text.

HAGAR:

You know me as Hagar, the Egyptian slave of Sarah,

concubine to Abraham, and mother of Ishmael.

My story is found in the Book of Genesis – the Book of Beginnings.

I have always assumed that I was born the property of my masters

as I have never known anything but servitude.

I was taught early to serve my captors well.

When my barren mistress offered me to her husband Abraham

as a surrogate to bear the son of a promised covenant . . .

a covenant with a God I did not know,

I fulfilled my duty because, of course, there was no choice.

As this covenant child grew in my body,

I began to experience something I had never known before.

It was the feeling of power – power toward my mistress

who grew more jealous by the day.

My power enraged her and soon I was suffering under her mistreatment of me.

There came a time when I could no longer stand the pain of abuse

and decided that the only relief for me was to face the wilderness.

So, I ran away into the desert knowing that death awaits . . . but so did hope.

It was by the spring on the road to Shur

that the God of Many Names found me and spoke.

I was overcome with awe

as this God assured me that my descendants would be so many

that they could not be counted,

for their multitude would be great.

It resembled a promise that had been made to my master . . .

God had chosen me too!

In that moment, I named the God of my experience.

“You are El-roi,” I said, “The God of vision. For I have seen God and lived.”

And not only did I live but I was changed forever.

In that moment of wilderness with God at my side

I understood that I was loved and had purpose.

I may be regarded as less than,

and my body used by those who held physical and social power over me,

but no longer could anyone destroy my worth.

By the waters of the spring I was made new,

I would never again be defined by the power of others.

And God sent me back . . .

not to suffer

but to claim for my son his right to be a prince,

to be trained and educated

so he too could fulfill the dream of the God of Promise.

And he grew in strength and wisdom and favor in the sight of his father Abraham.

Then the God of Covenant opened the womb of my mistress

and she too gave birth to a son that they named Isaac.

I watched with pride as our boys grew and played together.

But my mistress soon felt threatened by our presence.

So, she gave her husband Abraham an ultimatum,

“Cast out this slave woman and her son,

for the son of this slave shall not inherit along with mychild.”

And early one morning after giving me a loaf of bread and a skin of water,

Abraham placed my son on my shoulders

and sent us into the desert

where once again I faced the wilderness.

When the water in the skin was finally gone and the bread was eaten,

I placed my child under a sun parched bush

and then distanced myself to wait for this child of promise to die.

I could not stand to look upon the death of my child.

Across the sand I could hear Ishmael cry –

God heard too – and called my name.

“Hagar lift up your child and give him a drink.”

Suddenly, I noticed a well of water!

We drank . . . and made our home in that wilderness.

The God of Vision remained true to our covenant.

My child grew up to father 12 sons

ancestors of Islam.

I am Hagar –

a woman of wilderness and water,

promise and destiny.

I am grandmother of a nation,

and I have known God.

The Courage of Vulnerability

Gen. 15:1-12; 17-18 & Luke 13:34-35

The story of Hagar is different depending on who tells it. In the Jewish tradition, Hagar is the lesser figure, a slave girl, who is the mother of Abraham’s first child, Ishmael. But in the Muslim telling, Hagar isn’t a slave girl, she’s a princess – given to Abraham as a wife during an exile in Egypt. The end result is very similar, in that Sarah does finally have Isaac late in age and gets jealous of the attention given to Ishmael, born to Hagar, so she orders Hagar and Ishmael banished. It is in that banishment, when God tells Abraham to abandon Hagar and Ishmael in the desert with no water, that Hagar’s faith is rewarded with water flowing from the ground at the place that will come to be known as Mecca. In Islam, Hagar, pronounced “Hajar” in Arabic, is lifted up as a wise and courageous woman, a model of faith. Whether princess or slave, a woman treated this way – cast out and left for dead with her son – may seem a strange model for faith.

And it is precisely that faith that I want to talk about this morning.

Hagar’s is a faith forged by an unwillingness to let other people define you, to believe the lie that you are not enough, that’s God’s creation of you was somehow incomplete or inferior. It is the faith born of hardship and struggle, not a faith that comes neatly wrapped and complete, but rather a faith that develops, that is honed by people willing to face vulnerability, sometimes chosen vulnerability and more often vulnerability that is forced upon them. Hagar’s faithful action leans into that vulnerability and seeks God in the midst of it.

Researcher Dr. Brene Brown says that we think of vulnerability as a negative emotion, the “core of fear and shame and uncertainty.” Our response, then, is to resist our vulnerability by developing armor, or coping techniques to avoid that vulnerability. Yet, she claims, vulnerability is actually the beginningof all of the positive emotions – empathy, compassion, love, joy. Only when we let ourselves be vulnerable can we experience these things. Love is a wonderful thing, but also very risky – if you give your heart away, it might get broken. Compassion is a tremendous thing, but you’ll surely find that when you are compassionate, you will get taken advantage of, or mistreated. Empathy is desperately needed right now – I think we’ll all agree – but empathy often asks us to consider our most vulnerable times, to place ourselves back in situations which were painful, which arepainful, and to face that pain again so we might help someone else. If we have armored up, if we have denied ourselves into numbness over that pain, such empathy is impossible. We want to encourage othersaway fromthat weakness instead, making love something sentimental and weak, instead of reminding ourselves that Love is strongest at the point of greatest vulnerability, at the mark of a nail, at a place of imminent death – physical or metaphysical.

Vulnerability, Brown says, is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and the word that makes us all nervous – change. And it is displayed, in her research, by people who she calls “whole-hearted.” They are people with courage, she says, which is distinguished from bravery. Brown reminds us that courage comes from the Latin cor– “heart” – and defines courage as living from the heart, being “whole-hearted,” the willingness to embrace our vulnerability in order to be our authentic selves. It’s found in the capacity to say “I love you” first, the disposition to do something with no guarantees of outcome, the willingness to breathe through waiting for the doctor to call after the MRI. It is found with a measure of personal endurance or resilience, to be sure, and also found in a network, a support group, a community, a family of faith that stands up with and for you when you cannot endure, when you are not – at least by yourself – resilient enough.

But in order for that kind of connection to happen, we have to let ourselves be seen, reallyseen. We have to let ourselves be vulnerable, as vulnerable as Hagar seems to be in the desert, when all hope is lost. And that is not a welcome spot for most of us. When faced with that kind of exposure, more often we numb, we justify, we scapegoat. We are the most addicted, entertained, distracted generation in history, and we point fingers as well as anyone. Yet when we numb or avoid our sadness, grief, pain, or struggle, Dr. Brown’s research tells us, we also numb our happiness, joy, liberation, and gratitude. Faithful courage, then, born of our vulnerability, might be the kind of whole-hearted living that comes from believing that as God’s children we are enough and that those around us are also God’s beloved children and therefore deserve our love, empathy, and respect. In the wake of another mass murder at another house of worship, again motivated by words of hate, white supremacy and xenophobia, it is hard to see that spirit out there at all.

Yet, on Friday at afternoon Jum’mah prayers at the Islamic Society of Tulsa, dozens of people from the interfaith community gathered to simply stand in solidarity. We held signs that have been, in a comment both heartbreaking and inspiring, in the back of my car since the Pittsburgh shooting. We simply culled out the ones with Jewish-specific references and the ones with Spanish on them from our visit to a local church with a large immigrant population, and held up the “I Stand With You” and the “You Belong Here” signs with smiles and tears…and we were greeted with the same. And there we stood, people who don’t know each other for the most part, but people who clearly understand each other. We let our guard down on that big slab of concrete between the doors of the mosque and the parking lot, vulnerable to the simple humanity that exists in each of us. Many of the worshippers walked around the entire circle, shaking hands, giving hugs, stepping over their own fear and rage and grief, moving through their own vulnerability to say thank you to us for a willingness to be exposed and to step into the vulnerable places.

We seem somehow to know in the days that immediately follow such awfulness that we need each other, but then we can forget that again, we can retreat back into our supposedly safe spaces, where our vulnerability is mediated. Yet this is the very time we mustlean into the vulnerable places, seeking to encounter and understand the unknown, meeting “the other” and finding that they aren’t quite so “other,” as we find the presence of a God who makes a well for us in the desert of our isolation and fear, giving us living water to drink.

That is the courage that so many of these unheard voices from scripture give to us, like a small gift that we pass over at first. Just as I think that we ought to pay attention to the symbol of faithfulness being presented to us in our Bible as a foreign slave girl, I want us to also pay attention to the people being lifted up as heroes from the massacre in New Zealand, for they all have one thing in common: they don’t claim the title hero. They acted, or reacted, in the moment and seem to clearly understand that courage comes not in those moments, but in showing up at the mosque the next day, to clean the blood and wipe the tears, to cry and wail with the community, and to seek the next step forward. We see this whole-hearted courage in the faces of that Muslim community in Christchurch, as we see it in the faces of foster families, believing in the children that others won’t believe in…in the faces of those who continue to stitch up the wounds, to remove the bullets, to heal the broken bones and shattered psyches, bearing the trauma, seeking the good, moving with courage towards whole-heartedness.

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those who were sent to you! How often I have wanted to gather your people just as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings. But you didn’t want that.” Jesus stands on the outskirts of Jerusalem, having been warned of Herod’s intentions and sees the familiar pattern laid out before him. Jesus knows that those who follow him won’t act as Hagar acts, trusting in God to provide and find a way. We will refuse to be gathered up, we little chicks, relying on ourselves alone and finding that little help when the fox comes to eat. But he models faithfulness for us anyway – like prophets before him. He has every chance to avoid the challenges and responsibilities he knows are coming, yet he decides to live this whole-hearted life, leaning into the vulnerability, confident that God has given him what he needs and will be with him…and we bear witness to his courage.

I am not saying that we need to take the precise path of Jesus – martyrdom and death on a cross. He has already done that for us! Iamsaying that we can develop a greater confidence that God is with us and has given us sufficient resources to not simply endure challenge, but to flourish! So that when injustice presents itself, as it always does, we are not intimidated by our vulnerability, but we embrace it, knowing that all birth comes with pain, all innovation comes from vulnerability, all life comes from death. If we trust like Hagar trusted, like Jesus trusted, we understand that the call is for courage to set our shields down, to remove our armor, not so that we might be slaughtered, but so we can understand how to resist injustice without creating more injustice, so that we might truly know that hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that. God has given us what we need – our own hearts, pliable and resilient, the tools of hope and dedication, and God has given us a community to stand for and with one another so that we might bear witness to God’s reliability in the most vulnerable of places. That’s what we call faith.

Singing:  I will trust in the Lord, I will trust in the Lord,

                 I will trust in the Lord, ’til I die.

Amen.

Sermons represent copyrighted material and are not to be reproduced, transcribed, or used in any form without the permission of Rev. Chris Moore or the speaker for that day.

Rizpah’s “story” — written by Susan Murphy and edited by Rev. Sheri Curry, was told at the beginning of service:

Narrator:

Saul was the first king of Israel – a religious man and the people’s choice. The second king was David – God’s appointed. Between the two reigns was a lingering civil war. During this time of hostility, wilderness, and famine, it seemed as if the people had forgotten how to be human – how to be the community God called them to be.

Rizpah:

I am Rizpah, a concubine of King Saul, and mother of two of his sons –

Armoni and Mephibosheth (Muh-fib’-oh-sheth)

In the war between the House of Saul and the House of David, Saul was killed and David is king.

In the intervening years of civil war, the people of Israel had grown accustomed to hatred, vengeance, and death. The earth was sick with blood.

Yet, the war was nothing compared to our personal wilderness. The rains had not come for 3 years. Each day we lowered our jars a little further down into the wells. The crops were dying. Our skin cracked and peeled like the dry earth that spiders across the land. Soon the wells would be as dry as the parched earth.

It was a widely held belief in Israel that the famine was caused by bloodguilt on Saul. The Gibeonite people accused Saul of genocide, “Give us the heirs of Saul”, they cried, “the God of Israel will be pleased with our sacrifice, and will send the rain!”

King David listened to their request and handed over 7 of Saul’s heirs to be impaled on the mountain top. Two of them were my beautiful sons. The bodies of the dead were left there exposed to the elements. It was the consequence of war. It was political necessity. It was religious legitimacy. It was vengeance. No one else even seemed to notice the violence, they just watched the skies for rain that did not come.

My heart was as parched as the land. And though I was powerless to stop the sacrifice of my sons, my soul could not rest. In my grief I took sackcloth and spread it on a rock next to the gallows. For 5 months, from the beginning of the harvest until the rains fell from heaven, I did not allow the birds of the air to come on their bodies by day, nor the wild animals by night.

Alone on that weary rock, I gave honor to my sons and to those who died at the hands of vengeance and superstition.

I am told that there were whispers in the tents of the village below about a woman who kept vigil over the bodies of the dead. At first a curious few began to hike the mountain trails to get a glimpse of this “WOMAN ON THE MOUNTAIN’ as they called me.

One evening, I noticed that a partially filled jug of water had been left near my rock. I felt gratitude… I kept vigil. A few days later, a well-worn but useful blanket appeared. Hope stirred in me. I kept my vigil.

Later a small pillow fashioned of goat hair was quietly left for me near the place of death. I knew I was not alone. Soon, almost daily, scant offerings of figs, dates, fish, and even twigs for the fire found their way to my hallowed side of the mountain. Always I kept my vigil.

During those 5 months, no one ever spoke or broke the sanctity of my wilderness….but hearts were changing.

Narrator:They say that at night, from the safety of their tents, the people of the village could hear Rizpah’s cries of lament to a God of mercy and compassion, not a God of power and vengeance. Eventually, King David heard of her courage and compassion, and his heart, too, was moved. He went to Jabesh where the unclaimed bones of Saul were buried. He exhumed the remains, and as a symbol of reconciliation, returned Saul to his homeland, where he was buried, along with the bodies of his 7 heirs, in the tomb of Kish, Saul’s father. Once Saul was returned to his ancestors, famine gave way to rain, and goodness returned to the earth.

Identity Theft

2 Samuel 21:10-13 & Luke 4:1-13

The symbolism for the next 6 weeks of Lent is right here on our chancel – this water pump, surrounded by a beautiful wood structure designed to mimic a well, a deep well, from which you would draw life-giving water. It is the purpose of this Lenten season, after all, is that we take time to replenish ourselves, not only by resting, but by going deeper, wrestling with our own adversary. Lent is supposed to mirror the 40 days Jesus spent in the wilderness, facing identity challenges from the devil.

It doesn’t have to be bread, power and safety, of course. The temptations can be for anything, because the real issue is the temptation itself. We tend to think of temptation as something we are directed towards, something as concrete as ice cream or as abstract as a lie to save face. But temptation is just as often what we walk away from – like our trust in God, or our identity as beloved children of God.

The story of Rizpah comes to us as an example of such temptation, though it might not be readily apparent. Maybe this is the first time you have ever heard this story, as it is relegated to only two paragraphs in 2^ndSamuel, and Rizpah, though mentioned by name, never says a word in the story. In fact, for some of what was presented earlier, we had to depend on what is called “midrash” – stories that are written outside of scripture to help fill in the gaps, or to wonder what happened beyond the written words we have in the Bible.

Sometimes we have to look really, really hard for the signs of God’s action, even in the stories in which we’re toldwhat God is doing. We are told, after all, that all of the brutality in this story is a response to God’s drought…the cut-off of rain as a punishment for some political slight, the “bloodguilt on Saul and on his house, because he put the Gibeonites to death,” when he was supposed to honor a treaty and spare them. David, the king after Saul, seeks to reconcile Israel to the Gibeonites and end God’s drought punishment, and so he seemingly without remorse or pause sends seven of Saul’s descendants to a brutal death. Now, it could be noted that in doing so, David also sends 7 men to their deaths who could be considered candidates for the throne of Israel, and calls it the “will of God,” but that’s another midrashic speculation. At very least we ought to be quite familiar, toofamiliar, with the narrative of God’s will used to justify ourviolence. This is the temptation for David, to protect his power by any means necessary, including violence that he can pass off onto God.

Then, enter Rizpah. Not the wife, but the concubine, of Saul, she is virtually powerless to save her sons and so when we see her it is in the role commonly found for women, not only in the ancient Mediterranean world, but in many cultures to this day – the person who laments. Her lament will certainly not bring back her sons, and it may initially seem futile. She might have been tempted to simply retreat into the shadows, one of the only available options for her as a woman in this patriarchal culture. She was being told by the actions all around her that she didn’t matter, her sons didn’t matter. Yet, like Jesus, she refuses the identity forced upon her and takes the only avenue open to resist the natural order of things.

By lamenting in the way she does, Rizpah goes deep, claiming her own identity by refusing to simply play the role assigned to her, to grieve for the appropriate amount of time and move on in silent complicity. Her resistance is an incredibly human response to the forces that assault, violate and obscure human dignity. Like a reporter turning the cameras on the separation of families on our border, like the Crutcher family here in Tulsa, unwilling to simply let their loved ones’ murder be dismissed to the microfilm on the historical record, Rizpah says noto the order of things, and it is her lament that finally breaks through. Rizpah does something that women have done all over the world, throughout history – she cares for the dead in ways that the patriarchal system would not even care for the living. In that resistance, she claims her identity.

Soon, during Holy Week, we will witness the lives of women who stay at the foot of the cross, who bear the grief and lament, who show up to the tomb and who are the first witnesses to the risen Christ, perhapsbecausethey show this kind of defiance to the order of things so often attributed to God’s will, the very violence and vengeance that God defies by raising Jesus. It is because of that identity-claiming action, because of that special kind of resistance, that we even haveChristianity.

The powers that be know that lament is a dangerous thing. From the Lamentations in Jeremiah to the Chilean women who sang protest dirges clutching pictures of their missing loved ones during the reign of Pinochet, women have made social and political statements with their grief. But such resistance is hard to stop, for even the most sinister of regimes cannot shut down the grieving mother. Lament works to alter the narrative that controlling power wants to use, generating time in those deeper places, where our identity can be reinforced and fortified, where our humanity is lifted up and dignified.

David’s assumption is that his sacrifice of blood will bring back the rain, but the text tells a different story. After the murders, the drought continues. The rain doesn’t fall until verse 10, as a direct result of Rizpah’s grieving, as if God is not operating the way that David assumes. What if Rizpah hadsimply drifted into the background, assuming the identity that the culture grants her? Would David have changed his assumptions after the drought didn’t break, or would he have to double-down on his theology?

Rizpah’s actions reflect a theology in themselves, eventually forcing King David to respect the dignity of the dead by giving these victims of violence a decent burial, by acknowledging the value of these bodies. With this act, something of the humanity of Saul’s sons is recovered and Rizpah teaches us all a way out of this cycle of violence that comes from the recognition of a common humanity, from the lament that challenges the notion that some lives are more valuable, and therefore more grievable, than others. The action of God takes place in this story only when the value of all bodies is realized, just as the reality of “all lives matter” is fulfilled only when we can say with full and robust voices that “black lives matter.”

In lifting up the unheard voices in scripture over this season of Lent, we hope to provoke very serious and important questions to reflect upon as we prepare for Holy Week and Easter – just what is God up to? Where and how does God act? And what, if anything, does this have to do with us, with who we are, and who we seek to be as our identity?

When Jesus, in the wilderness, remembers his identity, a child of God, beloved of God and accepted by God, he is able to set aside the offers of illusionary power. The “devil” tempts him with the promise of all things that aren’t of God. The word that gets translated into “the devil” means the “slanderer” or the “accuser,” the one who speaks to abuse or wound. In psychological terms it is the voice that belittles and shames, the “you’re not good enough”, the demeaning self-talk that we are taught. That voice creates an identity in us, and notice what that identity uses to numb the very pain it inflicts – consumption, power, and safety. These are the same things that motivate the advertising which hammers away at us every day, trying to make us feel inadequate and then offering us a product to fix that inadequacy. It is the same force drives our politics, as more and more campaigns are forged entirely on the motivation of fear, with the promise that the candidate will keep us safe, and maintain our power.

What enables Jesus to defy this temptation is, perhaps surprisingly, the remembrance of his humanity, not his embrace of divinity. Rather than taking the bait and puffing up his own power, Jesus goes deeper, he embraces his weakness, he enters that same space that Rizpah enters, the space that lament takes us to, a space of deep reflection and even holy dependance, which is quite counter-intuitive in our culture. We’re supposed to be self-sufficient and independent, but the 40 days in the wilderness how us that Jesus becomes a divine symbol by being the most human he can be, acknowledging his weakness and placing his trust and his dedication in a God who promises him presence, not safety or comfort…a God who promises him enough, not more than he could ever consume…a God who offers him the power of love rather than the love of power. What “The Adversary” tries to get him to do is to think that HE can fix all of his problems, that HE has the power…power that is defined only by it’s ability to dominate and control, not to heal and to care.

We are all tempted over and over again by our own adversaries to forget our identity. We have our hearts broken and are told to “buck up.” Lament is out of the question, it is weak and useless. Instead you should get revenge, which is precisely what the adversary suggests. As we move more deeply into this Lenten season, I offer you a deeper drink of this water…the really cold stuff with a slight metallic taste because it comes from the deepest places. Refreshing and jarring, thirst-quenching and unexpected, this is a season to turn to different things, it is the season to turn our eyes to the cross, where we know that the “order of things” killed Jesus in the way it kills so many. It destroyed his body and buried him, thinking that was it. But God raised Jesus from the dead in order to demonstrate that God’s love is more powerful than all the hate in the world and that the life God offers is more powerful even than death. That, friends, is our identity.

Drink deeply.

Sermons represent copyrighted material and are not to be reproduced, transcribed, or used in any form without the permission of Rev. Chris Moore or the speaker for that day.

Wide Angle
Luke 9:28-36

A powerful earthquake hit the halls of Christianity in the Unites States this past week.
The tremor was felt far and wide and, I suspect, there will be many aftershocks…maybe even a tsunami on the way. The United Methodist Church, unified since 1968 when it finally “decided” its position on segregation, is now, perhaps irretrievably, headed towards schism. It’s still over the issue of segregation, only this time the target is LGBTQIA+ people and their right to belong in a denomination whose official motto is, “Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors.”

In case you don’t know, or don’t really understand what went down in St. Louis during what is called the General Conference, it was a special conference convened specifically to address divisions over LGBTQ+ issues in the church, specifically the inclusion of,
the marriage of, the ordination of, the belonging of, LGBTQ+ members.
Several months ago, the denomination’s bishops pushed hard for a resolution that would have allowed local congregations, conferences, and clergy to make their own choices about conducting same-sex marriages and ordaining LGBTQ+ pastors. This proposal, called the “One Church Plan,” was rejected by a small majority of the gathered delegates, who instead choose the so-called “Traditional Plan”, which keeps the decades old language of the Methodist rulebook, calling the “practice” of homosexuality incompatible with Christian teaching. It was not only affirming the bigotry that has been in place, it was doubling-down on it.

I, along with many of you, stand heartbroken with my siblings in the United Methodist Church, the church that raised me, the church to which my family remains actively connected. To be told by the church to which you belong, much less the church which may have baptized or married or even ordained you, that you actually don’t belong is an unimaginably painful thing. It has been happening for decades now, in single incident after single incident, including to people in this congregation. But now it is a wholesale rejection. And it breaks my heart.

Now, to be clear, it does not break my heart because I believe that I am right in promoting a Christianity that embraces ALL of God’s creation as created in that Divine image, though I do believe that. It does not break my heart because I insist that everyone agree with me on that issue, though I do think that is ultimately a matter of justice in the Church. It breaks my heart because apparently we cannot disagree with any sense of love whatsoever, as demonstrated to many of my colleagues by their fellow church members at a church gathering, with mean words, harsh glares and, eventually, this vote. There is no grace. There is no compassion or attempt to understand. There is only the law. At the heart of this conflict, within the Methodist church and beyond, lies our approach to this “law”, our response to Grace and the authority of scripture itself, a struggle between an emerging Christianity and an adherence to a fundamentalist “orthodoxy” that is not “the way it’s always been,” not “timeless”, not ancient – but relatively new in the long history of the “Christianties” that make up our tradition.

It seems to always start off like this – “The Bible Says…” But, you know, here’s the deal. It can be amazing what happens when you actually read your Bible, because it says lots of things. It does say that marriage is between one man and one woman…but it doesn’t only say that. It also says marriage is between one man and several women, between a man and his slave, between a man and his brother’s widow, or a male soldier and a prisoner of war. The Bible does say a few things about same-sex acts, but doesn’t describe same-sex attraction, love or relationships the way that we do now, nor does it speak to any number of 21st century issues – because every word was written a minimum of 2000 years ago! We have to use the Bible as a tool, a guide, not a rulebook. We read it to extrapolate wisdom, to discern and to help us find moral and ethical directives, using reason, experience and the tradition alongside scripture to find meaning, a meaning that can change as our reason and experience changes. Ironically, it was John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, who taught that model.

This is the United Methodist Church’s pain right now, but it is not just the United Methodist Church. We’ve been there, too. There are many of us here in this sanctuary this morning who can remember the painful, brutal “dialogue” that occurred in here in the UCC, in our own conference annual meetings, and at our Synod gatherings almost 15 years ago over this very issue. We can remember the debates, the number of times t
“The Bible Says” was trotted out and the ways that “Christian love” was wielded like a weapon. It was horribly painful, a time of great anxiety about the future, lament for what we were losing, fear about what might come. And I think that it’s fair to say that as we have gone down this path of openness & affirmation, it has been more beautiful and more wonderful than we imagined…the work of the Holy Spirit, changing our lives, our congregations, and our theology. And the Spirit is not done.

Photographers, especially those who practice photography as their art, often describe a picture by the choice of lens they used. Up-close, tight shots show you specific details, like the dew on the petals of a flower, while a wide-angle lens gives you context, like the storm that is producing the hard rain you thought was soft dew on those petals. Both perspectives are important, and both tell their own stories.

In some ways, what happened over the last weekend was both a tight close-up and a wide angle view of Christianity in the United States. The close-up is the very real and very lamentable pain and conflict caused by the confluence of the movement of the Spirit and the unwillingness to see past doctrine. And in a bigger sense it is about who we are as the Church, and what we think that following Jesus is all about. In the Book of Acts, one story of the origin of the church, the Holy Spirit specifically tells Peter that in order to experience God, he will have to disregard the law, step over doctrine and find a new authority. Will we, like Peter, listen to the Spirit telling us to go out into the world, setting aside the purity codes of our time, moving beyond the “law” that we have recreated to follow the one who cast out the law, reaching beyond our borders for those whom God sends to us and hearing a voice from the Spirit saying, “do not call profane what I have made clean?” When the Spirit commands Peter to seek “the other,” it wasn’t tolerance or “hate the sin, love the sinner” that was sought, it was welcome and embrace. The Bible, my friends, says lots of things. Our tradition has said lots of things. The real question is – what do we think that God is saying – right now?

The late, great church historian, Phyllis Tickle once wrote in her book, “The Great Emergence,” that the church holds a big “rummage sale” about every 500 years, and that we are entering another time of seismic shifts in doctrines, liturgies, practices, theologies and, perhaps most importantly, shifts in authority. The last “rummage sale” was the Reformation, in which the authority of the western Church was replaced with the authority of scripture. Prior to the Reformation, the western Church didn’t necessarily connect their actions to Biblical support, but afterwards – and particularly in the past 200 years or so – the church did the exact opposite, splitting up and causing rifts over the slightest scriptural distinctions in a dedication to scripture’s authoritative position. But the 500 year shelf-life of the absolute authority of scripture might be just about up.

Longtime Harvard historian Harvey Cox has argued that we are moving to an “age of the Spirit,” in which doctrine and dogma are replaced by experience and engagement. This age is driven by relationship and community, seeking a faith in which we know Jesus (and therefore God) by doing what Jesus did, by practicing our faith, not just declaring it. It is a much more slippery, much less tangible and far less certain way of being Christian than the version any of us grew up in or even near, where the authority comes from a complex discernment rather than a wooden, set rulebook.

I believe that we are waist-deep in this newness here at Fellowship, and probably need to swim out further. We question the mainstream practice of Christianity, jettisoning the certainty of pat answers for the trust of God’s Love and Grace, abandoning doctrine and “the law” for the slow process of discernment, the power of experience and the movement of the Spirit. From my perspective, and I trust the perspective of this church, the path of inclusion is more than just a growth strategy or a mission statement. It is the indwelling of the Spirit in our hearts, asking us, as it does throughout the Book of Acts, to step across the borders we have created, thinking that they were God’s borders, for that is where God is found. It’s not just a marketing strategy, or a refutation of the Bible, but an embrace of what we see as the Gospel, the good news of God’s Love for all people…ALL people.

The Church has far more often been just like Peter on the mountainside in our passage for today, seeing Jesus in shimmering light, making all the appropriate scriptural connections and pledging to stay right there – building some edifices to that moment and solidifying it as the revelation of God…while Jesus walks down the hill seeking God in the next moment, in the encounter to come, in the story that is yet to unfold. We have clung to tradition and custom as if they were God, practiced rituals as if they were jars that kept God vacuum-sealed and static, read scripture as if it were the actual words of God, chiseled in stone with a meaning that can survive time, culture, language and translation unchanged. We know that’s not true. Who we think God is, what we think God is up to in the world, how we can know or experience or understand God has all changed, many times, and is changing now.

As we prepare for the season of Lent, a time of reflection and introspection, we will begin with Ash Wednesday and the imposition of ashes, a ritual that is pretty old itself, and evokes even more ancient traditions. Ashes, after all, were the sign of mourning, the sign of lament, the sign of reflection that comes not of choice, but of circumstance. It is a chance to step back, to see that wide angle shot, and then to peer in for a close-up and to see what those perspectives can teach us. It is a time to witness the power of God shining before us and then to follow that light, away from static certainty into the Spirit’s call. Maybe it’s good that the Easter season is upon us, for the time for introspection is now – the Church needs to reflect on what it means to follow Jesus. We need to know that we have come, as the great Robert Frost wrote, to that divergence of two paths in the snow, to the road not taken, and we must choose in which direction we will walk. It will cost us something. We will lose things to that choice. It will be painful and soul-wrenching and worthy of great lament. And then, in a story familiar to us as Christians, then comes the true lesson of Easter…God’s action found in life, in death, AND in resurrection.

Amen.

Sermons represent copyrighted material and are not to be reproduced, transcribed, or used in any form without the permission of Rev. Chris Moore or the speaker for that day.

The Impossible Gospel

Luke 6:27-38

Sometimes you have a sermon all prepared, an outline mapped out and some brilliant anecdotes to go along with it. And then sometimes your church moderator sends you an article from the New York Times…an op-ed she says reminds her about who we are as a church, and you read it, digest it and then hit delete on your keyboard.

It’s really an impossible task to write a good sermon about this text, which is part of a sermon itself, and a part of a sermon from Jesus, no less. It feels just as it’s impossible as the directives from this sermon and think about actually doing this in your life. Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you? It’s a little hard to process. Is it any wonder that we tend to lean on other parts of the Bible, like the ones that we can use to justify the stuff we’re already doing?

This sermon on the plain starts with the Beatitudes, like “blessed are the peacemakers.” Beatitude comes from the Latin beatitudo, which means a state of blessedness or happiness. This is Jesus’ sermon on what makes for happiness. If you search for sermons today on what makes for happiness, you’ll find sermons about building a good marriage or the power of positive thinking. You might find a sermon on generosity or the benefits of volunteering your time, or taking care of your physical and mental health. And all of those would be accurate portrayals, to one degree or another, of what we think makes for happiness. And noneof them would be the alternative version of reality that Jesus preaches with these words. I can’t imagine that “judge not” or “give to everyone who begs from you” washed down any easier in Jesus’ day than it does now, for he is asking us to do things that are so against our nature. I never had to teach my boys to retaliate against a punch with another punch. It was natural. I not only had to teach them todo that, I had to actively teach them not to do that! Their built-in inclinationwas an eye for an eye. And who would argue that such a sentiment drives so many of the systems we create, from our criminal justice system, to our economic systems, to our approach to guns? We know how to treat enemies, or opponents, or “the competition,” which we often couch in the language of enemies, and it isn’t to love them. That seems counterproductive. We’re supposed to hate our enemies. That’s why they’re enemies, right? Why would pray for people who curse us and even, as our text this morning translated the Greek, for those for those who abuseus? That’s a harsh and unwelcome directive, even offensive. For many of us, even the idea of forgiving our abusers, much less praying for them, seems impossible.

The article that Bobbie sent to me was from David Brooks, a NYT columnist who often gives keen and typically atypical insight into events and situations in the world. This was one of his more reflective op-eds which began with this sentence: “I start with the pain.” He described his speeches all over the country where he laments the isolation and social fragmentation that he sees all around us. And he recounts how often people come to him to tell him of a child’s suicide or overdose and how helpless he feels to say anything to them that seems useful. But he knows that pain is real, and sees it in those parents, in the African-American woman in Greenville who is, “indignant because young black kids in her neighborhood face injustice just as gross as she did in 1953,” in the face of the Trump-supporting business man in Louisiana who silently clenches his fists in rage as guests at a dinner party disparage his whole way of life.

Wait, what was that last one, pastor? Are you really going to make a comparison between an African-American woman’s pain over injustice and a Trump supporter feeling a little attacked? Well, no I’m not. David Brooks is, though. And when I first read it I rolled my eyes and tried to keep from disparaging the rest of the article because of that one line.

But then, a couple of days later, I was reflecting on the passage from Luke, this sermon on the plain, and the words of Jesus convicted my own heart from 2000 years away. Why would Jesus give us these impossible words? Why would he set us so against things that seem to come naturally to us? Surely he had been human long enough to have these feelings himself – the selfishness, the inclination for vengeance, the tendency to strike back, blow for blow? Did he say it just to be difficult, so that we might understand that it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle?

I wanted to toss the article after that line from Brooks because I thought, at least in my gut, that a Trump supporter wasn’t worth my compassion, or even my listening. After all, they don’t listen very well, and their “way of life” I see as racist, misogynistic and homophobic. So why listen to them, I could hear myself say in my head, they are my enemy. I reveled in that feeling, like I was right and justified and moral. And then I remembered the passage for this grand sermon I was working on.

Dang it, Jesus. You really are exasperating.

Brooks went on to describe what he called a “social renaissance” going on all around us. It works against the breakdown of healthy connection to one another, transforming our inability to see the full dignity of each other and healing the culture of fear, distrust, tribalism, and shame that has grown so greatly.

He described a project from the Aspen Institute called Weave: The Social Fabric Project. It is a project that thinks globally, but acts locally, enabling community volunteers called “weavers” who engage dozens of different ways to impact the social fabric. The idea is that people, just everyday people who have subscribed to the idea of being a “weaver”, show deep hospitality in whatever they do, they keep showing up and being a place of welcome and relationship and community, where they are with what they have. While the world prizes and teaches and glorifies hyper-individualism, they swim against the stream. We are broken, the philosophy of Weave goes, and we need one another to survive. “We don’t do things for people”, a woman working with teenagers in New Orleans said, “We don’t do things to people. We do things withpeople.”

The people involved in this project, Brooks writes, “are not motivated by” money, power or status. They, “want to live in right relation with others and to serve the community good.” “We don’t just have a sociological problem”, he writes, “we have a moral problem.”

What do we think that Jesus was up to when he preached at these people gathered somewhere on a level field, listening to him share his wisdom? What do we imagine he is pointing us towards when he instructs us to offer our other cheek to those who have struck us, to give not only our coat to someone who asks, but our shirt, also? Why does he tell us to give to all who beg, to do unto others as we would have them do unto us, to love our enemies, to do good and to lend from what we have, expecting nothing in return if not to make a moral claim to us, if not to weave the world back together by first changing our own hearts?

And here’s where this gets real. I can’t do this. I couldn’t even read a single article without judging, tearing apart social fabric by protesting people who judged to be tearing apart social fabric. It makes me wonder, did Jesus say these impossible things expecting us to somehow rise to the to impossible? Or did he say the impossible to convey to us that the world is constantly being made and re-made, that we’re actually partof creating the world with each and every encounter, and the more of those that are built on love, the more in which we at least reach for compassion and understanding, the better the world will be?

Here’s what I know. My strategies only create a world fit for people who are pretty much like me, which is why it makes sense for me to subject myself to Jesus’ strategies, to literally surrender to them sometimes, not as an act demanding my absolute perfection, but as an objective, as my goal, as my orientation. When Jesus says, “My yoke is easy, my burden is light,” it’s because he’s trying to rewire us from just another set of laws requiring our blameless adherence, to our own awareness. I don’t think that Jesus wants us to be paralyzed into inaction with impossible tasks. I think he is asking us in this difficult sermon to keep refocusing our eyes on the far horizon, to keep our ears open to listen for goodness and hope, and to sustain our hearts with grace, clinging to it like a piece of driftwood in a storm. He is telling us to return, again and again, to the spiritual practice, the difficult work of showing hospitality and welcome, the slow pull of building relationship and community…to trust in the Love and the Grace of God to weave us all together.

It’s why I think he follows as he does all these impossible tasks with an equally impossible equation – we will be judged by the same measure with which we judge, condemned by the same tools with which we condemn, forgiven in equal measure to our forgiveness, and we’ll find life where we give life. It’s an impossible thing for meto do, which is precisely his point, I think…to take the burden of willing the world into perfection off the shoulders of we humans who cannot possibly reach that goal and place it instead where it belongs…with God, for whom the impossible ispossible.