1/5/20 - Arise, Shine - Isaiah 60:1-6; Matthew 2:1-12

Arise, Shine

Isaiah 60:1-6; Matthew 2:1-12

January 5, 2020

Emmanuel Baptist Church; Rev. Kathy Donley

We have been reading portions from Isaiah for the last month. You remember that the book of Isaiah is a collection of writings to several generations of Israelites. We are near the end of the book. This part is addressed to those who have returned from exile in Babylon. Or, more correctly, to those who left the land of Babylon in which they were born in captivity, to return to the land of their parents and grandparents. Their return was anticipated as an occasion of great rejoicing, but the reality has been different. Those who were brave and strong enough to make the journey discovered a ruined Jerusalem, populated by the descendants of those who had not been exiled, barely eking out a living. Resettling the land involved a series of obstacles including poverty and famine. So, when the prophet said, “Arise, shine, for your light has come” the people might not have believed he was really talking to them.

But, in fact, he was. This is a plea to set aside their weariness, their despair, to renew their strength for the task at hand. Many of us are weary. Many of us are soul-sick, concerned to our core about the looming devastation of our planet, the indifference to the plight of other creatures, the intentional infliction of cruelty and suffering by humans onto other humans, the spiraling escalation of violence and enmity, bringing us perhaps to the brink of yet another war. If I were to suggest that Isaiah might be talking to us, would we believe it? Would I believe it?

I confess that I am weary and then I wonder about the people of Syria, locked in calamitous civil war for the last 8 years. Weary does not begin to describe it. Is this a word for them? Or is this a word for Palestinians who have been resisting the loss of their land and identity for longer than I have been alive? Or for indigenous people across the globe being assassinated as they engage in struggles to sustain water and forests and life for us all. Or for farmers in Honduras forced to leave their homes and land after 5 consecutive years of drought? Is this a word for them? Is this the year when things will change? Is it their time to rise? Is it ours? I do not know. It may be as hard for us to imagine that the light of God might come to us as it was for Isaiah’s listeners. It was probably equally difficult for Matthew’s hearers to imagine that it could happen in the time of the Roman empire.

In his book, Theology of Hope, German theologian Jürgen Moltmann said that sin is often fundamentally understood as pride, when humans want to be like God. But, he says that is only one side of it. He writes, “The other side of pride is hopelessness, resignation, inertia, melancholy. . . Temptation consists not so much of the titanic desire to be as God, but in weakness, timidity, weariness, not wanting to be what God requires of us”.[1]

The late Peter Gomes was a professor at Harvard Divinity School and minister at Harvard’s memorial church. In a sermon for New Year’s Day, he said, “It is very difficult to tear ourselves away from Bethlehem. There is a time to lay down one’s cares and duties and run to Bethlehem and the manger, a time to follow the star . . . a time to flee for refuge from the troubles of the world. There is also a time to return, to begin where we left off . . . for we have come from an encounter with the world of the possible in the midst of the impossible. We have seen God and survived to tell the tale, moving about not knowing that our faces shine with the encounter, bearing the mark of the encounter forever and marveling in the darkest night of the soul at that wondrous star-filled night.”[2]

Gomes is remembering Jacob who wrestled with God and lived to tell the story. He is recalling that when Moses met God on Mt Sinai, his face was shining and he didn’t know it. Encounter with God transforms us in ways we don’t expect or even recognize. “Rise, shine, your light has come,” says Isaiah. We’re not sure he is talking to us. Maybe he is not. Maybe this word is not for us just now. Regardless of whether or not this is a word from the Lord for us in this moment, it is our time to be faithful. It is our time to resist the temptation to weakness, timidity and weariness, our time to return to where we left off. But how?

Looking carefully at the story in Matthew 2, we might notice two things, two things to remember and hold onto as we pick up where we left off and continue into this new year.

We might notice that the Messiah enters the world and the world does not change. Brutality is still in charge after Jesus’ birth as much as it was before. Jesus and his family will flee from Herod’s violence.

Scholar Richard Swanson says, “Matthew knows that refugee stories often tell us of desperate midnight escapes. Matthew knows that sometimes even parents and children get separated in the dark and never again find each other. Because Matthew listens, he tells a story of messiah that does not pretend that the world is pretty and calm. God is with us in the bodies of refugees. God is with us in the corpses lying in the street. God is with us in the desperate midnight escape. And in each case, God is with us, not because everything turns out alright in the end. God is with us precisely because it does not turn out alright.”[3]

That’s one thing to hold onto.

A second thing we might notice are the actions of the magi. It says that upon entering the house, they knelt down and paid him homage. Paying homage to Jesus Christ is the dominant, recurring theme of this narrative. The phrase occurs at the beginning, the middle, and the end of the story (verses 2, 8, and 11). The Greek word there was commonly used to describe the custom of prostrating one’s self at the feet of a ruler. To kneel or lie down in front of someone, is an act of humble devotion and deference.[4]

The magi do not immediately present their gifts. The first thing they do is pay him homage. Only after this act of worship, only after giving themselves completely to Christ, do they present their material treasures. Preaching professor Thomas Troeger believes that the order of their actions—homage first and gifts second—is significant. Gift giving can be a way of controlling others. If the first thing the magi did was present their gifts, they may have appeared to be in command of the situation. There they would stand with precious goods in their outstretched hands. They would appear like rulers presenting treasures to each other on a state occasion while meeting in the middle of a ceremonial room, each of them on their feet and facing the other in order to assert their equality. But that is not what the magi do. They first express their relationship to Christ as humble, devoted servants, physically kneeling. First homage. First worship. First giving of themselves utterly and completely to Christ. Then their material gifts.[5]

Paying homage to Jesus means offering our entire selves. It means surrendering to what God requires of us. It means that we give ourselves without any sense that we can control God or use God’s name to bless our purposes and schemes. It might mean that we wait, longer than we would choose, for our time to rise and shine.

But we wait and we worship, because the one we worship is Emmanuel, God-with-us. Not the conquering hero, but the refugee seeking shelter, the parent separated from the child. In fact, God in Jesus is with us as victim of our anger, our vengeance. This is the one to whom we pay homage.

Alan Paton is the author who wrote Cry, the Beloved Country about the system of apartheid in his home of South Africa. Once, he gave guest lectures at Harvard. In the question and answer time afterwards, a woman stood up and asked, “Given all that you have said and we have heard, are you optimistic about the future of your country?”

Paton paused and then scowled and then said, “Madam, I am not optimistic, but I remain hopeful.”[6]

Voltaire said optimism was “the madness of maintaining that everything is right when it is wrong.” Hope is something different. Hope is knowing that God is working on a grander scale than we can see. Hope is worshipping the One who is with us, in spite of the fact that not everything turns out alright. Hope is trusting that God is with us precisely because it does not turn out alright.

Beloved ones, let us not give in to our weariness, but let us remain hopeful. Amen.

[1] Jürgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope: On the Ground and Implications of a Christian Eschatology (New York: Harper and Row, 1967), p. 22

[2] Peter Gomes, Sermons: Biblical Wisdom for Daily Living (New York: Harper Collins, 1998), p. 24

[3] https://provokingthegospel.wordpress.com/2016/12/26/a-provocation-1st-sunday-after-christmas-january-1-2017-matthew-213-23/

[4] Thomas H. Troeger, in Feasting on the Word Year A, Volume 1, David Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, general editors, (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2010), p. 215

[5] Troeger, Feasting on the Word, p. 217.

[6] Peter Gomes, The Scandalous Gospel: What’s So Good about the Good News? (New York: HarperOne, 2008), p. 210

12/24/19 - Glimpse of Holy - Isaiah 52:7-10; Luke 2:1-20

Glimpse of Holy

Isaiah 52:7-10; Luke 2:1-20

December 24, 2019

Emmanuel Baptist Church; Rev. Kathy Donley

I had the silly idea that I would find time to read a novel this Advent. That didn’t happen, but I’ll take it on my Christmas road trip. The novel, called Plainsong, is about ordinary life in a small Colorado town. One plotline follows 17-year-old Victoria, who is alone and pregnant. Maggie Jones, the schoolteacher has taken her in temporarily. One day Maggie drives out to the ranch of Raymond and Harold, who are elderly brothers and farmers.

Let me read the next little bit:

"I came out here to ask you a favor," she said to them.

"That’s so?" Harold said. "What is it?"

"There is a girl I know who needs some help," Maggie said. "She’s a good girl but she’s gotten into trouble. I think you might be able to help her. I would like you to consider it and let me know."

"What’s wrong with her?" Harold said. "She need a donation of money?"

"No, she needs a lot more than that."

"What sort of trouble is she in?" Raymond said.

"She’s seventeen. She’s four months pregnant and she doesn’t have a husband."

"Well, yeah," Harold said. "I reckon that could amount to trouble."

Maggie explains that the girl’s father abandoned the family years ago, her mother won’t have her in the house, . . . and the father of her child doesn’t want anything to do with her.

"All right then," Harold said. "You got our attention. You say you don’t want money. What do you want?"

She sipped her coffee . . . looked at the two old brothers . . . . "I want something improbable," she said. "That’s what I want. I want you to think about taking this girl in. Of letting her live with you."

They stared at her.

. . .

After a long silence, Harold says, "Let’s get back to the money part. Money’d be a lot easier."

"Yes," she said. "It would. But not nearly as much fun."[1]

Tonight we celebrate the God who came to live with us. Surely there were easier ways for God to redeem the creation, to fix us, to reconcile the world to God’s own self. Declining anything easier, God chose to enter human existence like one of us and I strongly suspect it was for the sheer joy of it.

When the time came, Mary gave birth to her son. Jesus came into the world as each of us did. His birth involved labor and pain and blood and fear and longing and love and the bonding of parents and child.

In Jesus of Nazareth, God became a particular person, with a specific combination of all the gifts and limitations that one individual bears. Becoming human meant that something new happened in the life of God. God experienced the heights and depths of human existence and all the ordinariness and boredom too.

God become flesh and dwelt among us, as John’s gospel says. Babies can do nothing for themselves. They are entirely dependent on adults to provide and protect and care for them. God entered into the vulnerability that we all share. Becoming flesh – can we think about that reality for just a minute? Flesh is the beauty of a child at play and a couple in love on their wedding day. Flesh makes possible the thrill of ski-jumping or putting a masterpiece onto canvas or scuba diving or singing your heart out on stage or in the shower. Being enfleshed also involves the possibility of injury and disease and weakness, the reality of wrinkles and slowing down and needing more help than you once did. When God becomes flesh, God is repeating, even more emphatically, what God said at the time of creation “It is good. It is very good.”

My friends at Gilead Church in Chicago spent a good bit of time thinking about incarnation this year. One of their affirmations is that “All bodies are beautiful and all bodies are sacred.” They say, “We believe in a God whose love was made known by taking on a body, and what we do with our bodies can still reveal the God of love.” To illustrate this, they made a calendar with pictures of bodies, bodies of church members, sacred, beautiful bodies. They called it Word and Flesh. It honors all bodies and the stories we hold in them.[2]

God becomes incarnate to show us how very much we are loved. You may have seen this nativity scene. It’s at the Claremont United Methodist Church in Claremont, California. It depicts Mary, Joseph and Jesus as separated and caged, reflecting the plight of immigrants and asylum seekers on our southern border. It has been controversial, but this church has made statements with their nativity scenes before. They have also portrayed Joseph and Mary as people experiencing homelessness, and as war refugees in bombed-out Iraq. One year Mary was depicted as a poor woman arrested for giving birth in a bus shelter.[3]

I suppose these are controversial because they are seen as political and not religious – but have you counted how many political leaders and contexts are mentioned in Luke 2? Jesus was political. Enfleshed life is political. Maybe the controversy is because they are so specific. Except that every human life is specific. To portray the Holy Family suffering in these ways is to proclaim that all families are holy and that God has entered deeply and fully into the world in order to reconcile us to God’s own self.

Joy to the world – that’s our theme. Theologian Henri Nouwen wrote “Joy is the experience of knowing that you are unconditionally loved and that nothing - sickness, failure, emotional distress, oppression, war, or even death - can take that love away.”[4] God becomes incarnate to share everything with us. The more deeply we believe that, the more fully we live within God’s unconditional love, the less fearful we will be and the more joy we will know.

Jesus, on the final night of his life, knowing that he was hours away from betrayal and death, shared a last meal with his friends, probably surprised them with these words, “I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full.”

God comes into the world to show how much we are loved. The love of Christ casts out fear. And we carry that love within us. Just as the human Jesus was vulnerable, at the mercy of human beings, so are we also vulnerable and dependent on the love and strength of each other. We align ourselves with Jesus who shared real life with real humans -- laughter and songs and stories and physical pain and tears and regrets and deep sorrow. We draw upon what we know to make connections with others who are also deeply loved by God. Then, God becomes incarnate in us. We become the Body of Christ.

The song we’ve been singing this season says “as we look to one another, a glimpse of holy we might see.” I think that joy happens when we catch a glimpse of the holy.

Two weeks ago, I went to visit our sister E in hospice. She was not having a good day. She struggled valiantly through a brain made foggy by pain meds. Certain words just would not come, like the words “mountain climber” which were essential to a story she was telling. But she said your name, Michael, without hesitation. She started to share something, stopped herself and said, “Don’t tell Michael.” So I promised I would not. Then she said, “I used to play the organ in our other church, because it didn’t have pedals.”

I said, “ Michael would love to know that. Why can’t I tell him?” She looked at me for a long time and then it seemed that she concluded that in the current circumstances, there was no longer any danger that Michael would ask her to be a substitute organist, and she said, “OK.”

In addition to being confused, she was also very agitated. She was worried about something that existed only in her mind and the rest of us could say nothing to ease it. Trying to distract her, I told her that I had been listening to Christmas carols on my drive from Albany and I wondered if she had a favorite carol. She was silent again for so long that I thought I needed to offer her some suggestions or change the subject, but then she quickly blurted out “O Come All Ye Faithful”. Her niece, J, started singing it. I joined in and just kept watching E’s face. She was mouthing the words “O come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant . . .” Maybe she was even singing very softly. She met my gaze steadily. Pretty soon she was crying and I was crying, but we kept singing. She was absolutely not confused or agitated. It was a moment of joy, just a glimpse of holy.

“Mary brought forth her firstborn son and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn.”

And the voice of an angel, a messenger from God announced: “Behold! Good news of great joy for all the people.”

Beloved ones, Joy to the world, the Lord is come! Thanks be to God.

[1] Kent Haruf, Plainsong, (New York: Vintage Books, 1999), pp 107-110

[2] https://www.gileadchicago.org/2020-calendar/word-and-flesh

[3] https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-12-13/nativity-scene-cage-refugees-claremont-column?fbclid=IwAR07INqI2uJaaExC-jc86YLarPx6nmlisuGyvrPpAer10KWwJngB9GjONNs

[4] Henri Nouwen, You Are the Beloved: Daily Meditations for Spiritual Living (New York: Convergent Books, 2017) p. 169

12/22/19 - Courage and Serenity - Isaiah 7:10-16; Matthew 1:18-25

Courage and Serenity

Isaiah 7:10-16; Matthew 1:18-25

December 22, 2019

Emmanuel Baptist Church; Rev. Kathy Donley

With Christmas just 3 days away, we finally get to hear about the birth of Jesus. Matthew’s version is kind of under-stated on the details of the birth itself. We will hear more about those on Christmas Eve from Luke. Today, we just get part of the lead-in from Joseph’s point of view. I know, I know, this is the story some of us have been waiting for all month, but first, we need to go back about 700 years to Isaiah. Isaiah is the prophet that Matthew quotes in verse 23. Matthew is writing as a Jewish person to other Jewish people who know their history. We do not know that history and so this one verse has been tripping up Christians for hundreds of years.

Isaiah the prophet lived in Jerusalem during the 700’s BCE. Much of the first part of the book is about the destruction which is coming because of the people’s sin and disobedience. Matthew quotes from chapter 7, in which Isaiah is addressing King Ahaz, who is the ruler of Judah. Two neighboring countries have joined forces and are trying to take over Judah. They want to take Ahaz’s throne away. Of course, King Ahaz is frightened by this. His dilemma is whether to align himself with a third party or to trust in God for deliverance. God sends Isaiah to Ahaz to reassure him that his enemies will not succeed. And God even says that since Ahaz is so reluctant to take him at his word, that he should ask for a sign from God that this is true.

Ahaz replies “I will not ask; I will not put the LORD to the test.” This is a show of false piety. “Actually, what the king means is that he is so little used to asking God anything at all that he is fearful that YHWH will say nothing to him by way of response.”[1]

Since Ahaz refuses to ask for a sign, Isaiah provides one. Isaiah says “Look, a young woman is with child and is about to give birth to a son. Let her name him Immanuel.” Isaiah says that by the time the child named Immanuel can choose between bad and good, the two kings Ahaz is currently worried about will be history.

Now, Isaiah is not talking about Jesus. I know that this is how it is traditionally interpreted – thanks in large part to Matthew’s quotation – but that is not quite right. Isaiah says that a young woman is already pregnant. She is pregnant in his time, 700 years before Mary carries Jesus. Isaiah is not predicting Jesus’ birth. He is also not talking about a virgin birth. Isaiah is talking about a young woman having a baby, full stop. And there are translation issues between the Hebrew of Isaiah’s time and the Greek of Matthew’s. I don’t want to get into those details right now, but if you want the technical explanation, ask me during coffee hour.

So, if Isaiah is not talking about Jesus in the first place, then why does Matthew quote him to talk about Jesus? Remember that Matthew is writing to Jewish people who already believe that Jesus is the Messiah. He is not trying to convince them of that, as much as he is describing how well Jesus embodies Messiahship, how much he is in continuity with their faith tradition.

Matthew and his audience do not believe that Isaiah was predicting Jesus’ birth, but there are important parallels between the two stories. When Isaiah addresses King Ahaz, he calls him “House of David.” “When Matthew quotes Isaiah, he alerts his audience that God is once again raising up a ruler from the line of David to deliver God’s people. He is appealing to them to trust in the God who has always been faithful, even in the midst of sin and judgment.”[2]

God’s promise to Ahaz was fulfilled. His enemies did not prevail. That sign was true in Isaiah’s day and so, Matthew is applying that truthfulness to the story he is telling about Jesus. Incidentally, we notice that Mary’s son is not actually named Emmanuel, which means God-with-us, but Jesus, which is related to the Hebrew word Joshua and means Savior. Jesus, the “new deliverer represents not only God’s presence, but also God’s solution for the problem [of sin] which had led [Judah] into conquest and exile in the first place.”[3]

Today, I notice one more connection between these two stories, and that is the issue of trust. Ahaz was unwilling to trust God, not even enough to ask for a sign. The story that Matthew is telling in the very first chapter of his gospel seems to hinge on trust. Joseph’s trust in Mary, his trust in God, perhaps even his trust in himself. So, now, finally, let us look at that story.

The story is familiar to most of us. Joseph and Mary are betrothed. Betrothal was legally binding, in a way that contemporary engagements are not. To break a betrothal required a divorce. Mary is pregnant. Joseph is not the father. The penalty for adultery is stoning, or at least public shaming. Matthew tells us that Joseph is righteous, and that he wants to keep things quiet, to divorce Mary as privately as possible, to help her avoid disgrace. Scholar and pre-eminent preacher Fred Craddock said, “When he decides to protect Mary from humiliation and punishment, he does so contrary to the law, and he does so because he is just (righteous).”[4] The traditional interpretation is that Joseph is working hard to do the right thing, which is to protect Mary, even though it violates the law, and righteous people generally keep the law. But then the angel comes to him in a dream and tells him not to be afraid, but to continue with his plans to marry Mary. And he does, because that is the most righteous action in the circumstances.

This is an interpretation we have heard often. It is familiar and persuasive. It might even be the best interpretation. But I read another possibility this week which is worth considering. This one depends on how we understand the last part of verse 18 which says “but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.” We, the readers, know that this child is from the Holy Spirit, but does Joseph know that? It says “she was found to be with child”. Found by whom? I think whether Joseph knows or not is ambiguous. One commentator believes that Matthew is saying that Joseph knows about the Spirit’s involvement from the outset, and that unfaithfulness is not the reason he wants a quiet divorce.

“If Joseph thinks Mary has betrayed him, we might expect the angel in his dream to say, ‘do not be angry’ or ‘do not be heartbroken’ – [instead of] ‘do not be afraid to marry her.’ And on the other hand, in many scriptural stories, being afraid is indeed the first human response to divine presence, so it would make sense if Joseph’s first reaction to Mary’s divine-and-human pregnancy was fear. From this angle, we shouldn’t translate the angel’s message to him as, Hey, the child is from the Holy Spirit, not another man, so don’t be afraid to take Mary as your wife..., but rather: Hey, don’t let the fact that the child is from the Holy Spirit make you afraid to take Mary as your wife…’”[5]

That’s an interesting angle, isn’t it? If Joseph is not afraid that Mary has been unfaithful, what might he be afraid of? Perhaps he is afraid of getting in God’s way, of messing up what God is doing. Maybe he feels unworthy of being the stepfather of God’s child. Perhaps he is simply unnerved and bewildered and downright afraid that God has come so unimaginably, intimately near. [6]

I’m intrigued by this new-to-me interpretation. It puts Joseph in a parallel position to Mary, being given a choice about whether he will accept the role God is inviting him to step into or if he will let his fear control the decision.

Whichever interpretation you prefer, either way it seems to come down to trust. Will Joseph trust Mary’s faithfulness? Will Joseph choose to trust that God is really speaking in his dream or will he claim that it was just a nightmare from the anchovies on his pizza right before bed? Will Joseph trust himself to welcome this child, to name him and raise him as his son? Will he add his lifelong support to Mary’s courageous yes?

The issue of trust is an important link between Isaiah and Matthew. Matthew’s appeal to the Hebrew scriptures is a reminder that God is trustworthy, even when humans are not. Matthew has also just finished listing all of Jesus’ ancestors. That long list of names would have triggered memories of God’s faithfulness and of those ancestors who accepted a call from God to do the unexpected. In other Advent seasons, we have noted that Matthew includes 4 women ancestors, each of whom is associated with some scandal, not usually of her own making. He is setting up the expectation that Mary and Joseph’s apparent scandal will be used by God for God’s purposes just as those were.

Joseph wrestles with his options. He wants to do the right thing, the best thing. It makes me think of the well-known prayer written by the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr in the 1930’s. Often called the Serenity Prayer, it simply says, “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Serenity is another word for peace. This could be called the peace prayer. It also speaks of the courage necessary for change, and so it could be called the courage prayer. Of course, this prayer wasn’t circulating in first century Judea, so Joseph wasn’t saying these particular words. But surely, it reflects his quandary. What could be changed about his situation? What must be accepted? Where was the wisdom?

In his dream, the first words the angel says are “do not be afraid.” It’s what angels always say, isn’t it? It seems that wisdom is found in trust, that peace and courage are the result of not giving in to fear. Roy Bennett has a collection of inspirational sayings. One of them is “Don’t be pushed around by the fears in your mind. Be led by the dreams in your heart.”

“Don’t be pushed around by the fears in your mind. Be led by the dreams in your heart.”[7]

That is what Joseph does. Facing the fear of potential disgrace and shame and scandal, the total messiness of human life, Joseph is led by God’s dream, of strong love in the midst of harsh realities, of serenity fueled by trust. He chooses to trust that Mary is faithful, that the angel is really speaking to him. He believes in a baby named Savior who comes as a sign of God’s presence, Emmanuel. This is the path of wisdom and courage and peace that leads to joy. May it be so for you and me. Amen.

[1] John Holbert at https://www.patheos.com/progressive-christian/2013/12/young-woman-bears-john-holbert-12-16-2013

[2] Sharon Dowyd in Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship, Year A, Volume 1 Joel Green, Thomas Long, Luke Powery, Cynthia Rigby, Carolyn Sharp, Editors, (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2019), p. 51.

[3] Sharon Dowyd, p. 51

[4] https://www.christiancentury.org/article/2010-11/sunday-december-19-2010

[5] Courageous Love: SALT’s Lectionary Commentary for Advent Week 4, https://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog/2019/12/16/courageous-love-salts-lectionary-commentary-for-advent-week-four

[6] Courageous Love

[7] Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart, Amazon Digital Services, 2016.

12/15/19 - Hopes and Fears of All the Years - Isaiah 35:1-10; Luke 1:46b-55

Hopes and Fears of All the Years

Isaiah 35:1-10

Luke 1:46b-55

December 15, 2019

Emmanuel Baptist Church; Rev. Kathy Donley

Note: Photo credit to Chayene Rafaela, image at https://unsplash.com/photos/FIEc0HdCfZs

Many of us have either heard Handel’s Messiah performed so often or sung it ourselves that it may be impossible to read Isaiah without creating musical echoes in our minds. The reading from Isaiah 35 is one of those. It is a poem of joy and restoration, of homecoming and celebration. The song almost bursts off the page.

What is not so musical are most of the events described in the previous chapters. It is the time in history when the Assyrian Empire was on the rise. As it gained power and influence, it took over smaller nations on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, including Israel. The first part of the book of Isaiah offers images of doom, destruction and slaughter. There is anger, violence, catastrophe, much of which is attributed to God’s fury at the nations for their disobedience and injustice.

Scholars believe that what is now the book of Isaiah is a compilation of material from two or three different times in history. First Isaiah, chapters 1-39, is the time of the Assyrian empire’s subjugation of Israel, eventually taking the people into exile in Assyria. Second Isaiah, chapters 40-55, shifts its focus to the southern kingdom of Judah which was also taken into exile, not in Assyria, but in Babylon. This was 100 years later when Babylon had replaced Assyria as the dominant empire. Second Isaiah offers hope to those living in exile that they will return home soon. Some scholars refer to chapters 56-66 as Third Isaiah and see it addressed to a third group, those who have finally returned and are doing the hard work of reconstruction.

The point is that chapter 35 is out of place. It describes return from an exile that hasn’t happened yet, that won’t even begin for another 100 years. In chapter 34 we read, “The streams of Edom shall be turned into pitch, and her soil into sulfur; her land shall become burning pitch…Thorns shall grow over its strongholds, nettles and thistles in its fortresses.” Then, without a break and without explanation, Isaiah 35 interrupts devastation and despair:

“The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad. The desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing…

Lutheran minister Barbara Lundblad says, “This poem comes too early. Who moved it? Some things even our best scholarship cannot explain. The Spirit hovered over the text and over the scribes: “Put it here,” breathed the Spirit, “before anyone is ready. Interrupt the narrative of despair.” So here it is: a word that couldn’t wait until it might make more sense.[1]

A word that can’t wait until it makes more sense. How we need such words! When we seem surrounded by sadness and sighing and devastation, when the pronouncements of those in authority are unjust and cruel and illogical, when children’s desperate pleas for help before they die are considered unworthy, when what is proclaimed into microphones or tweeted into cyberspace is the exact opposite of truth, how we need a word like this, a word out of order, a word that interrupts despair, a word that can’t wait for a better time.

Such words are spoken by prophets. Scholar Patricia Tull says that the vision of Isaiah 35 is for the future “when justice and only justice inhabits the road” and also for right now, “when we carry the insistent vision of what is meant to be.”[2] The word that is out of place interrupts the narrative of despair and insists that a different future is possible.

Sojourner Truth was a brilliant and indomitable enslaved woman who could neither read nor write but who was passionate about ending unjust slavery and second-class treatment of women – a word out of order in her time. At the end of one of her antislavery talks in Ohio, a man came up to her and said, “Old woman, do you think that your talk about slavery does any good? Do you suppose people care what you say? Why, I don't care anymore for your talk than I do for the bite of a flea.”

“Perhaps not,” she answered, “but, the Lord willing, I'll keep you scratching.” [3]

The word from Isaiah says “strengthen the weak hands, make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who are afraid, ‘be strong, do not fear.’” Yes, beloved ones, this is a word we need today.

“Do not be afraid” is what the angel said to Mary, announcing news that would turn her world, and ours, upside down.

Of course, Mary was afraid. Even before the angels’ news, her life was hard. She was a poor adolescent girl in a village on the outskirts of the Roman Empire. Her best hope would be to marry someone who could provide for her. Her highest aspirations were probably to bear children who lived, to have enough to feed and clothe them, and to live long enough to see her grandchildren. Her fears were those of poor people everywhere: poverty, hunger, sickness, violence, widowhood and death.

And then the angel said that she would have a special baby. Didn’t her hands go weak, didn’t her knees tremble? Didn’t the adrenaline rush through her system? What would Joseph say? What would her family do? Would she be stoned to death for adultery? Would she die in childbirth? Who was she, to be singled out, chosen for this?

In spite of her very reasonable fears, she said yes, yes to the choice of God, yes to a different future than she would ever have imagined, yes to the possibility of joy.

And then, she goes to see Elizabeth, because the angel tells her that Elizabeth is also pregnant. She goes to find companionship and community, to offer strength for Elizabeth’s weak hands and find a steadying of her own trembling knees. There on Elizabeth’s doorstep, she bursts into song, the song we call Magnificat because that’s how it begins in Latin. It’s a song of justice, where the hungry are full and those who abuse their power are brought low, and the oppressed and abused are raised up. She sings of faithfulness and restoration and liberation.

It is a word out of order, a song that can’t wait for a better time. It is improbable that these earth-shattering words would come from a young peasant girl who held no power or authority in the world, but here they are.

A couple of years ago, Pope Francis did a TED talk. Here is some of what he said,

“Hope is the door that opens onto the future. Hope is a humble, hidden seed of life that, with time, will develop into a large tree. . . . And it can do so much, because a tiny flicker of light that feeds on hope is enough to shatter the shield of darkness. A single individual is enough for hope to exist.”

“And that individual can be you. And then there will be another "you," and another "you," and it turns into an "us." And so, does hope begin when we have an "us?" No. Hope began with one "you." When there is an "us," there begins a revolution. … The future is in the hands of those people who recognise the other as ‘you’ and themselves as part of an ‘us.’ ” [4]

Hope begins here with one individual, with Mary of Nazareth who says yes. But Mary also recognizes herself as part of an ‘us’. She sings that God’s mercy is great towards those who fear God from one generation to the next. She locates herself as someone who has been taught the faith from the older generation. At this point of potential crisis, this defining moment in her personal life and in the life of the world, she speaks from within her faith tradition. She speaks for herself, yes, but her words are echoes of the prophets’ proclamations and the prayers of ancient grandmothers, and so she speaks for all of us.

One of the most succinct poetic lines of all the Christmas carols is from O Little Town of Bethlehem where it says “the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.”

That sums up the arrival of the Messiah. It also sums up Mary’s song. She is singing of the old hopes and fears of Isaiah’s Israel under Assyrian subjugation and of her own Israel occupied by Rome, the hopes and fears of all who have ever sung that Christmas carol, your hopes and mine, the highest hopes and deepest fears of human beings, passed from one generation to the next.

Mary of Nazareth is one individual who makes a place for hope to exist, long enough for an “us” to form, long enough to join God’s revolution where justice and only justice inhabits the road. Mary’s song is good news because it enables us to know where to align ourselves, our time, talents and resources. It is good news for us because we do not have to rectify all that is broken, because God is present and active, carrying out redemption. It is good news of hope in seemingly hopeless situations.

In their book on Protestant perspectives on Mary, Beverly Gaventa and Cynthia Rigby say this, “Mary is who we are. She is a person of faith who does not always understand but who seeks to put her trust in God. She is one who is blessed not because she sins less or has keener insights into the things of God. She is instead blessed, as we are, because she is called by God to participate in the work of God . . . To call Mary blessed is to recognize the blessedness of ordinary people who are called to participate in that which is extraordinary.”[5]

The Christmas song “Mary, Did you Know?” questions what it was like to be the mother of God incarnate and anticipates the events of Jesus’ life. Jennifer Henry is the director of KAIROS, an ecumenical social justice organization in Toronto. She has written alternative lyrics to that song, asking if Mary imagined the impact of her song on future generations. I invite us to listen carefully to these lyrics and respond in turn, with the words that will appear on the screen.

TL: Mary did you know,

that your ancient words would still leap off our pages?

Mary did you know,

that your spirit song would echo through the ages?

GS: Did you know

that your holy cry would be subversive word,

that the tyrants would be trembling when they know your truth is heard?

Mary did you know, that your lullaby

would stir your own Child’s passion?

RS: Mary did you know,

that your song inspires the work of liberation?

Did you know that your Jubilee

is hope within the heart of all who dream of justice,
who yearn for it to start?

*Congregation:

The truth will teach,

the drum will sound, healing for the pain
The poor will rise, the rich will fall. Hope will live again

KM: Mary did you know,

that we hear your voice for the healing of the nations?

Mary did you know,
your unsettling cry can help renew creation?

*Congregation:

Do you know, that we need your faith,

the confidence of you,
May the God that you believe in, be so true.[6]

Beloved ones, the wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom, for the Mighty One has done great things. Therefore, strengthen the weak hands, make firm the feeble knees, Be strong, do not fear. The Lord is come. Amen.

[1] http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1941

[2] Patricia Tull, Isaiah 1-39 (Macon, GA: Smyth and Helwys Publishing, 2010), p. 519

[3] https://www.childrensdefense.org/child-watch-columns/health/2013/we-must-never-give-up/

[4] Pope Francis in a TED Talk, 2017 http://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/messages/pont-messages/2017/documents/papa-francesco_20170426_videomessaggio-ted-2017.html

[5] Beverly Roberts Gaventa and Cynthia Rigby, Blessed One: Protestant Perspectives on Mary. (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2002), p. 5.

[6] https://holytrinity.to/author/jennifer-henry/

12/8/19 - Reclaiming Repentance - Isaiah 11:1-10; Matthew 3:1-12

Reclaiming Repentance

Isaiah 11:1-10

Matthew 3:1-12

December 8, 2019

Emmanuel Baptist Church, Rev. Kathy Donley

When we think of John the Baptist at Christmas, we might imagine a baby about three months older than his cousin Jesus, the pride and joy of his aged parents, Elizabeth and Zechariah. But if we think of John the Baptist at Advent, it is always the thirty-something, unshaven, street preacher in the wilderness, the one coming to public awareness just a little ahead of Jesus. Luke is the only gospel that mentions the circumstances of his birth. In Matthew, he bursts onto the scene as a fully formed prophet.

He is in the wilderness. In Israel’s history, the wilderness is the place of spiritual formation. It is where their ancestors spent years after the Exodus, learning how to be God’s people. The wilderness is therefore a sacred place, a formative, liminal space. In the first century, travel was dangerous and considered deviant behavior, unless there was a good reason, like holidays, visiting family or business. The wilderness was a deviant destination as well, because it was beyond the structure provided by cities and towns. It was the place where wild animals and demons lived.[1]

John wears rough clothing – a garment of camel’s hair tied with a leather belt – and eats wild food – honey and locusts. That is pretty much the standard picture of John the Baptist in Advent. But before John, that was the standard description of the prophet Elijah. For centuries, people have been expecting God to send a Messiah, someone who will put things right and restore Israel to its former glory. One of the signs that the Messiah’s time is near, is the return of Elijah. So, when John dresses and acts in a way to call Elijah to mind, he conveys a message before he ever opens his mouth.

John the Baptist invokes the memory of Elijah as signal that all that Israel has been living toward, the best of its faith and tradition, their deepest hope is about to come to fruition. The Rev. Tom Long suggests that it “would be as if Abraham Lincoln should suddenly reappear to speak to Congress, or if Dr. King should return to lead a civil rights march. . . . When one who represents the very spirit of the movement appears, the air bristles with the possibility for renewal.”[2]

John’s message is “repent”. We are not surprised. That’s what we expect street preachers to say. If you grew up in certain streams of Christianity, like I did, your first association with that word “repent” might be with judgment. Because of that some of us think that “repent” means “be sorry or else”. And because it’s a Bible word, a church word, it means to be really, really sorry or else the wrath of God is going to come down like a ton of bricks.

But really, to repent means to change. Repentance means to change direction, to turn around, to start over. One theologian says “to repent is not to feel bad, but to think differently and therefore to act differently.”[3] Repentance is the kind of change that happens when we realize that the way we are headed is not going to get us to the vision of wholeness and peace that God intends.

So John is out in the middle of nowhere saying “Look, the kingdom of heaven is arriving! Turn around or you’ll miss it!”

Looking like Elijah, he reminds them of the best of their prophetic traditions and he gets up their hopes about a Messiah and so, they break social norms and flock out into the wilderness to hear him. His popularity suggests that there is a yearning, a deep hunger for a spiritual truth that they haven’t found in the safety of Jerusalem or the towns around the Jordan. It is perhaps a need so intense that they are willing to brave the deviant, dangerous wilderness to find it.

Matthew says that many Pharisees and Sadducees were coming out with all the others. They represent the religious and political elites from Jerusalem. To embrace John’s proclamation would mean an about-turn; it would involve embracing a new world-view. For these pillars of society, it would mean turning their backs on everything in which they have been participating and from which they have been benefitting.[4]

And so, I notice that Matthew says “many” of them are coming out. I wonder if they have the same yearning for something deeper, the same need to find God beyond the institution that they serve.

This gets my attention because the Pharisees and Sadducees are politically involved religious leaders – I guess if I need to find myself in this text, that’s the shoe that fits best. Also, because this scene, as described by Matthew, seems to capture a moment of crisis for institutional religion and for political leaders, a moment being felt by the general population. Perhaps the world experiences a lot of those moments, but certainly I think it describes our own time as well.

As I was beginning sabbatical last spring, the news was breaking of the death of Rachel Held Evans, at age 37. Rachel was a best-selling author and speaker who wrote about faith and doubt in our current moment. On her blog, she described how her understanding of God had changed and how she could no longer be part of the church which had nurtured her for so long. What she wrote resonated. She heard back from her readers. One said she had left her church because she was banned from serving in their feeding ministry after she wrote a letter to the editor supporting marriage equality. Another left after being molested by a minister while the congregation refused to take action. One father of a newborn daughter said, “I don’t want her to ever know that God, the God we grew up with, the one the church at large preaches. I don’t want her to grow up with the crap we did. I want her to know God, but not that God. Never ever that God.” And an anonymous pastor said, “I go to church because I’m paid to be there. I’m scared to tell anyone that, deep down, I’m not sure I believe in God.” [5]

I wonder if those people pouring out into the wilderness were anything like those today who are leaving church or never entering it in the first place.

I’ve read the rest of Matthew’s gospel. I know that the Sadducees and the Pharisees are going to oppose Jesus. They’re going to get him killed. So, of course, they’re the ones who need to repent. It is so easy to see when others need to change. But since it is the most likely place for me to find myself in this text – might that suggest that maybe I, as a church leader, am one who needs to change? I raised that question at a clergy Bible study this week. The first response of the other pastors was to define the religious elites of our day – predictably the first targets were the pastors of mega churches and the evangelicals who seem to have aligned themselves with political power. Conveniently, no one in the room thought that any of us were among today’s religious elites, so we were off the hook. But I’m still wondering about that.

Something else about the Pharisees and Sadducees – they’re usually on opposite sides of political issues and religious questions. “They represent different classes, different institutional loyalties, different intellectual traditions, different theological heritages.”[6] Think fundamentalists and mainline Christians, Republicans and Democrats, Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland. So why would they be coming together for baptism?

It turns out that the phrase “coming for baptism” can also mean “coming against baptism”.[7] The same preposition can mean both “for” and “against” especially “if the feelings are of a hostile nature”. John’s reaction to the presence of these religious leaders certainly indicates hostility. It seems likely that they have come to oppose John’s baptism and to persuade others not to participate. These intense rivals, these most unlikely partners, are united by one thing – their shared resistance to the coming kingdom of heaven.

One scholar writes “This is a lesson worth remembering in a church and world divided into different parties. We are so busy vilifying our enemies that we seldom see the ways in which we have become comrades in hostility to God’s kingdom. We imagine that our enemies are also God’s, never recognizing that both we and those we oppose may be equally distant from God’s kingdom (and equally close.) . . . Perhaps the church is in such a state because each is committed to its own party’s victory rather than the reign of God.”[8]

You and I are all too familiar with churches and denominations divided into factions, vilifying each other, winning or losing our skirmishes, while the world looks on and shrugs or walks away, seeing no evidence of God’s reign among us. “Comrades in hostility to God’s kingdom” is a powerful, apt description.

This sermon is not sounding very joyful or loving, is it? You may also be thinking that it isn’t even truthful. You might be thinking that Emmanuel is not like those churches abandoned by Rachel Held Evans’ readers. We are actually not like the leaders John condemned – those who upheld and oppressive social structures to their own benefit. I know that you are a generous and compassionate congregation, that you support each other in joy and in suffering, that you reach out with gifts of money and time and energy to express the love of Christ to strangers in tangible ways. I know that you do justice and love kindness and seek to walk humbly with God. I really do know that.

But I keep picturing that crowd moving further away from the big church in downtown Jerusalem, going out to the margins, to stand on the bank of the river and listen to an unknown, uncredentialed, unconventional preacher. I imagine them embodying a mass yearning for meaning, an eagerness to receive the Spirit of God who is on the move again. I see them and I blink and the image comes into new focus and I’m aware of so many today with a similar yearning, the same deep need to connect with the Divine.

And I have to admit that the institution of church, as it exists now, seems divided and broken. Maybe in some places, it is actively hostile to God’s purposes. Maybe in others, it is just increasingly indifferent and irrelevant to them. For years, there have been voices, in the wilderness and the not-so-wild places, calling out for repentance, for change, Rachel Held Evans among them. And to your credit, Emmanuel, you have been listening. You have sought ways to bring the best of our faith and tradition to bear, to share the gospel meaningfully in this current moment. Next month, a new Vision Committee is forming, to explore what God is calling us to, how to turn to realign our communal life with Christ’s life. I am excited about this, but also, I’m a bit apprehensive. I’m hoping that we will be open to real repentance, but if we are, that means that I might have to change. I’ve been ordained for 24 years this month. I feel like I’m just starting to get the hang of this pastor thing and the thought that something new might be required, well that’s a little scary.

But friends, this is where love and joy finally come in. Love because it is the most powerful force there is. Love is the energy that motivates change and sustains us when it is harder than anticipated. Love is the power that allows for failure and forgiveness and second chances and trying again. Stock up on love, because if we engage in real repentance, together, we are going to need it.

And then alongside it, comes joy. It is the joy of vocation, of being used for a purpose. I always think of Frederick Buechner’s saying that “the place God calls you to is the place where your deepest gladness and the world’s deepest hunger meet.” That intersection is called joy.

Love and joy. “Beloved ones, look, the kingdom of heaven is arriving! Turn around or you’ll miss it!”

[1] Bruce Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh, Social Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels, 2nd edition, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), p. 31

[2] Tom Long, Matthew: Westminster Bible Companion (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997 ) p. 26

[3] John Howard Yoder, The Original Revolution (Scottsdale, PA: Herald Press, 1971), p. 31

[4] Raj Nadella in Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship, Year A, Volume 1 Joel Green, Thomas Long, Luke Powery, Cynthia Rigby, Carolyn Sharp, Editors, (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2019), p. 29.

[5]Rachel Held Evans, Searching For Sunday: Loving, Leaving and Finding the Church, (Nashville: Nelson Books, 2015) p. 82-83

[6] Timothy A. Beach-Verhey in Feasting on the Gospels, Matthew, Volume 1, Cynthia Jarvis and E. Elizabeth Johnson, editors, (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2013) p. 40.

[7] Warren Carter, Matthew and the Margins: A Sociopolitical and Religious Reading, (Maryknoll, NY: Obis Books, 2000), p. 96

[8] Timothy A, Beach-Verhey, in Feasting on the Gospels, Matthew, p. 42

12/1/19 - Hope for the Long Haul - Isaiah 2:1-5; Romans 13:11-14

Hope for the Long Haul

Isaiah 2:1-5 Romans 13:11-14

December 1, 2019

Emmanuel Baptist Church, Rev. Kathy Donley

The architects of Advent and Christmas lived in the northern hemisphere.  They did not choose to celebrate Jesus’ birthday in the midst of winter because of any evidence that Jesus was born in December.  They chose to celebrate it then because other people in northern latitudes had already figured out that long dark winters needed an infusion of light and cheer if they were to be endured.  Those ancient peoples knew that hope was essential to the survival of the human spirit.

Most of our hymns are written by people who live in the northern hemisphere and so they reflect the same worldview.  I appreciate the lyrics that we sang in our second hymn “In deepest night, Christ’s coming shall be, when all the world is despairing.”   “When all the world is despairing” . . .  many of us have deep concerns about the all the world right now.  We could easily name places and people and animals and ecosystems in every part of the planet that are in danger from violence and greed and cruelty and indifference.  We are aware of the potential for despair.  But if the ancient people could hope for the return of the sun, with no understanding of the solar system, then we, who have the gift of the gospel, have so much more reason for hope, and for joy which is strong and loving and fearless.

Isaiah wrote in the midst of war.  The people who heard his message had no good reason to hope for peace, no expectation to believe that the weapons of war would ever be transformed into tools for the community.  Yet, they yearned for the promised transformation when God’s reign will be established for all to see.   It is a deep hope which persists despite all evidence to the contrary.  Someone must have believed Isaiah, because they preserved his message.

The Christians in Rome had expected Jesus’ imminent return, but as the years passed and the older generations began to die, they might have thought their hope was misplaced.   Paul himself believed that Christ would return in his lifetime.   That did not happen, but theologically Paul was not wrong.  “He was right to believe that every moment in time is rich with divine possibility.  He was right to urge his readers to “wake up from sleep” – to pay attention and be alert to the imminent inbreaking of eternity.”[1]

We, who live on this side of resurrection, live in the anticipation of the next thing God will do.  Confident that history’s final outcome is safely in God’s hands, we have hope for the long haul. Despite what is happening at the moment, a day of justice and kindness and mercy is coming.

Hope is perhaps better caught than taught.  When we are tempted to despair, we may lean on the hopeful strength of others.  So, today, let me simply offer three images of hope.

Most of us are angry and heartbroken over the situation at our southern border.  The militarization of that border, the systematic separation of asylum-seeking families, the detention of children for profit occurring simultaneously with the deportation of some parents, and now the remain in Mexico protocols – these all seem to be actions of a government impervious to its own citizens’ demands for compassion and justice.  It would be easy to lose hope, but we cannot, especially because those right in the thick of it have not.

There are many volunteers on both sides of the border.  They work to relieve the suffering of those stuck in refuge camps waiting to cross and of those who make it through the detention process and are released with little information and very few resources. The fact that individuals are banding together and stepping up to attempt to meet needs that governments are choosing to ignore – that right there is evidence of persistent hope.

But here’s the image from the border that I’m loving right now.  It is people playing on see-saws that transect the border. It finally happened in July, but the two artists who put it in place had been working on it for a decade.  They designed the pink steel beams which were installed through a part of the border fence that separates Juárez, Mexico, and a desolate area of Sunland Park, New Mexico.  They asked for permission, but never received an answer. Finally, they decided that it was not illegal and they just did it.  It was only in place for about 45 minutes, but both US Border Patrol and Mexican soldiers came by to observe.

Teeter-totters can symbolize issues of inequality, of balances, of separation. Using one can also speak to sharing, community, and collaboration. There is give and take.  The actions that take place on one side have a direct consequence on the other.  The pink color was chosen because in Juárez, it is used to remember women who have died from violence since the early 1990’s.[2]

The children and adults bobbing up and down on them probably didn’t think about all that stuff though. For them, it was a rare moment of shared play with people from the other side. And for those looking on at the time, or in video, it is a moment of resistance, a point that celebrates the humanity of people of all nationalities, an image of childlike joy infused with hope. 

The second image of hope comes from our sister E.  E is dying.  She is quite upfront about that.  E lived almost all of her 88 years on the same street.  She grew up in the house her parents built and then, when she married, they built their own house two doors down. But she is dying in a nursing home an hour from her lifelong home and most of her friends.  That distresses me, but if she is distressed, she doesn’t show it.   That is just part of the courage with which she faces this final chapter in her life. 

Every evening, when the nursing home staff put her to bed, they slide a foam wedge under her.  It’s a way of treating her bedsores.  The wedge keeps her facing in one direction.  She asks them to place it so that she faces the interior of the room.  Then, after shift change, sometime in the middle of the night, the new staff will come to check on her.  They will help her to turn over and replace the wedge so that she is facing the window.  She has told me several times that she asked for this.  She says that she often cannot sleep in the wee hours.  She asks to be facing the window because, if she cannot sleep, she wants to watch the sky as it gradually, imperceptibly gets lighter and lighter, until the full dawn comes with the sunrise.  E knows that she is dying.  She is weak and doesn’t feel well most days.  And yet, she positions herself to see the sunrise.  She inspires me and makes me hope that when my time comes, I will meet it with courage like hers.    

Hope in the image of a see-saw and a sunrise, and one more image of hope for today.

In the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, there was a bakery owned by a man named Yankel.  Yankel survived the Holocaust.  He once said, “You know why it is that I’m alive today? I was a kid, just a teenager at the time. We were on the train, in a boxcar, being taken to Auschwitz. Night came and it was freezing, deathly cold, in that boxcar.

The Germans would leave the cars on the side of the tracks overnight, sometimes for days on end without any food, and of course, no blankets to keep us warm,” he said. “Sitting next to me was an older Jew – this beloved elderly Jew - from my hometown I recognized, but I had never seen him like this. He was shivering from head to toe, and looked terrible. So I wrapped my arms around him and began rubbing him, to warm him up. I rubbed his arms, his legs, his face, his neck. I begged him to hang on. All night long; I kept the man warm this way. I was tired, I was freezing cold myself, my fingers were numb, but I didn’t stop rubbing the heat on to this man’s body. Hours and hours went by this way. Finally, night passed, morning came, and the sun began to shine. There was some warmth in the cabin, and then I looked around the car to see some of the others in the car. To my horror, all I could see were frozen bodies, and all I could hear was a deathly silence.

Nobody else in that cabin made it through the night – they died from the frost. Only two people survived: the old man and me… The old man survived because somebody kept him warm; I survived because I was warming somebody else…”[3]

Three images from different times, different places.  One thing they have in common is that they involve action. Each situation has its own swirl of ideas and feelings, but the hope comes through most strongly because it is enacted.

To live in hope is to act on it, to throw ourselves relentlessly into the struggle for the realization of that hope.  The more we trust the God of the future, the more we will be awake to the present.  German theologian Jurgen Moltmann wrote, “faith, when it develops into hope, causes not rest, but unrest, not patience but impatience.  It does not calm the unquiet heart but is itself the unquiet heart in us.  Those who hope in Christ can no longer put up with reality as it is, but begin to suffer under it, to contradict it.” [4]

John Lewis often says, “Make good trouble.”  Hopeful people are troublemakers in the world, the hope that is within us is our source of joy, energy, courage and life itself. May it be so for you and for me.  Amen.

[1] Joanna Adams, in Feasting on the Word Year A, Volume 1, David Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, general editors, (Louisville:  Westminster/John Knox Press, 2010), p. 15.

[2] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/pink-seesaws-at-the-border-wall-showed-that-play-is-a-form-of-protest?fbclid=IwAR1svrxf2x-OTDWb-zFH0c9lS5zVkYeoIysuUg8L_cJi51pURZl2Q4Vf01M

[3] http://kippahdesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/yankel.pdf

[4] Jurgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope:  On the Ground and Implications of a Christian Eschatology (New York:  Harper and Row, 1967), p. 21



11/24/19 - Doxology - Psalm 100; Philippians 4:4-9

Doxology

Psalm 100, Philippians 4:4-9         

November 24, 2019

Emmanuel Baptist Church; Rev. Kathy Donley

The Rev. Tom Gordon was a hospice chaplain in Edinburgh, Scotland for decades.  He had end-of-life conversations with countless men and women, but one in particular stands out.  An elderly man said he served as a sailor in the Second World War on ships in the North Sea. Through his tears, he shared an event that had haunted him throughout his life. He had been on shore-leave before his ship was due to sail. Two days before he was expected to join his ship in the Orkney Islands, he fell ill and was told by the doctor that he was unfit to travel. During his recuperation, word came that his ship had been sunk and only a handful of sailors survived. In between wiping his eyes he asked two questions. First, he asked: Why was I spared when others died? He had wrestled with this question for years and concluded that it was random chance. God had not spared him while condemning others. His second question was the one that still rocked his soul. He asked: Have I been thankful enough for the life I’ve been given? He knew that if not for a timely, microscopic virus, he most likely would have never survived his early twenties. He would have never experienced a million things he encountered over his long life. As the end approached, he wondered if he had sufficiently expressed his gratitude for the many extra years he had been given.[1]

People who live through an event in which most others die often experience survivor’s guilt. It can be a heavy burden.  I appreciate that this sailor mostly chose to turn his survival into an occasion for gratitude.

Gratitude for surviving adversity, gratitude for getting through a hard time and experiencing a lessening in the level of difficulty – this is not an unusual reaction.   This week, we remember our national story of Thanksgiving.  Those who had endured their first brutal New England winter and had been taught how to cultivate food and fish in local waters by the indigenous people rejoiced when they had crops to sustain them through the next winter. The story says that they expressed their gratitude to the Native Americans who assisted them as they celebrated together in October 1621.

There is also another American Thanksgiving story.  Instead of British pilgrims, this one involves Spanish explorers. In 1598, the last conquistador, Juan de Oñate led an expedition from Mexico northward.  His party included 500 people and 7,000 head of livestock.  It was a 50-day march which included seven consecutive days of rain followed by extremely dry weather. They ran out of food and water five days before reaching the Rio Grande, whose water saved them.  After recuperating for 10 days, Oñate ordered a day of thanksgiving for their survival.  The event included a feast, supplied with game by the Spaniards and with fish by the local people. A member of the expedition wrote of the original celebration, "We built a great bonfire and roasted the meat and fish, and then all sat down to a repast the like of which we had never enjoyed before. . .We were happy that our trials were over; "[2]  The site of that Thanksgiving is now the city of El Paso, Texas.

Gratitude for deliverance and survival and an end to hardship seems to be a kind of universal human response.  But if we have been spared that kind of difficulty, it may be harder for us to practice gratitude.  We may fail to notice so many good things because we haven’t recently been deprived.  Some of us don’t appreciate clean water coming from our faucets because we haven’t recently had to walk miles to the river to haul it or we haven’t had to fight with our government for years to get it lead-free. Some of us throw away food that went bad in the refrigerator before it could be eaten without much thought for the absurd daily abundance that makes that possible. 

Maybe I’m just preaching to myself here, but I think there is an underlying truth about gratitude and noticing.  What we are accustomed to, we don’t notice and what we don’t notice, we won’t be grateful for.

In the letter to the Philippian church, Paul says to pray with supplication and thanksgiving.  Supplication suggests humility.  Thanksgiving suggests gratitude. Paul is prescribing a spiritual practice – regularly asking God for what we need with humility and with gratitude. The fruit of this practice seems to be joy and peace. 

The setting of Psalm 100 is often assumed to be that of a company of worshippers in front of the gates to the sanctuary, being summoned to enter a service of thanksgiving to God. Praise, thanksgiving, gratitude – the people of Israel were regularly called to these practices, to remember God’s steadfast love. 

Some of us have been through hardship and we have come out with gratitude.  Others of us have learned to practice giving thanks as spiritual discipline.  And some of us would like to do this better. In practical ways, we would like gratitude to be a bigger part of our days. (Hold that thought for a moment.)

You’ve probably heard of the author Kurt Vonnegut.  His best-known novel Slaughterhouse Five came from his experience as a POW in World War II. He was incarcerated in a miserable slaughterhouse five stories beneath street level during the Allied firebombing of Dresden. He and a few other prisoners emerged safely the next day to survey the utter devastation. That had a profound influence on his writing which expressed a deep appreciation for the gift of human life and the uniqueness of each person.

In his later years, Vonnegut often spoke on college campuses.  In a presentation at the University of Wisconsin, he told the audience about his late Uncle Alex. He described his uncle as a graduate of Harvard who was an honest life insurance salesman in the Midwest. He was well-read and wise, and his principal complaint about people was that they so seldom noticed when they were happy. Vonnegut said, “So when we were doing something such as drinking lemonade under an apple tree in the summer, and talking lazily about this and that, Uncle Alex would suddenly interrupt and exclaim, ‘If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.’”

Vonnegut said to the college students, “Please notice when you are happy and exclaim or murmur or at least think to yourself: “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”

Then he asked the students if they ever had a teacher who made them happier to be alive than they previously

believed possible. Nearly every student’s hand shot up. Vonnegut said, “Please say the name of that teacher out loud to someone sitting near you.” For a few moments the room was a cacophony of names. When the din of all those voices died down, he said, “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”[3]

How very much there is to be grateful for – fresh air to breathe, clean water, a landscape of beauty with mountains on the horizon, stories that inspire, antibiotics, friends who lend courage and comfort, laughter, music, prophets who gave their lives to bring a better world for others, sunrises and starlight, the moon on snow.  So much beauty and goodness all around.

Yet, what we are accustomed to, we don’t notice and what we don’t notice, we won’t be grateful for.

Perhaps if we want gratitude to be a bigger part of our lives, then we can start by making a habit of noticing.  We are about to enter what is for many, the busiest month of the year.  It coincides with the season of Advent and this year, at Emmanuel, our focus will be on Joy.  But it often happens that we rush through the season preoccupied and overscheduled.  In our busyness, we fail to notice the goodness, the surprises, the moments of wonder, which could bring joy, and we miss it.  So here is an invitation for this moment, today, before we plunge into that season.

I invite you to pause right now and consider what you want to notice. There are index cards in the baskets at the ends of the rows.  Would you please start passing those? As it comes to you, take a couple of index cards and a pen if you need one. 

Most of us have lived through a December or two.  We have an idea of what events or activities are likely to be part of our schedules.  Think about that for a minute and note for yourself what you want to be sure to be present for. I don’t mean just physically present, but what do you want to be so fully engaged in that you might have reason to say to yourself “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”  We’re going to take some silence and think about that for a bit.  If you choose, you might take one of those index cards and write down those thoughts about what you want to pay attention to this Advent.  Another way to phrase this question is what are you looking forward to?  What are you excited about?  I encourage you to be as specific as you can. If it’s a party, what about that party is exciting to you? If it’s an outdoor activity, name the sights or sounds or feeling of the activity.  Gratitude is specific, so anticipation can be specific too.  We’re going to keep silence together and do this for 5 minutes. Then I’ll call us back together.

* * *

During our closing hymn, we will pass offering plates.  I invite you to place your index card in the offering plate, as a step toward increasing the intentional practice of gratitude.  If you share your card in the plate, I will attempt to compile a list of all our intentions and get them into the newsletter which is going out this week. That will be a way to remind ourselves to practice gratitude and choose joy for the season.    You don’t need to put your name on your card, but please try to write clearly so I can read it to reproduce it.  You are welcome to use as many index cards as you need if you want to keep a copy for yourself and put one into the plate.

I’d like to close with one more reading of Psalm 100. This translation is the work of the professor with whom I studied the Psalms, Dr. Marvin Tate.[4]

A psalm for thanksgiving.

Raise a shout to Yahweh, all the earth!

Serve Yahweh with gladness;

Come before him with joyful songs.

Acknowledge that Yahweh, he is God.

He made us, and we are indeed

His people and the flock he shepherds.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving,

His courts with praise;

Give thanks to him, and bless his name!

For Yahweh is good; his loyal-love is forever,

And to generation after generation is his faithfulness.

Amen.

[1] . Tom Gordon, “Gratitude,” Look Well to this Day, (Glasgow, Scotland: Wild Goose Publications, 2014), p.234.

[2] https://texasalmanac.com/topics/history/timeline/first-thanksgiving

[3] John Buchanan, “This Our Hymn of Grateful Praise,” November 18, 2007. http://www.fourthchurch.org/sermons/2007/111807.html

[4] Marvin E. Tate, Word Biblical Commentary: Psalms 51-100, (Dallas:  Word Books, 1990), pp 532-533.

11/17/19 - Small Acts of Courage - Luke 21:5-19; Isaiah 65:17-25

Small Acts of Courage

Luke 21:5-19

Isaiah 65:17-25

November 17, 2019

Emmanuel Baptist Church, Rev. Kathy Donley

The reading from Luke takes place in the last week of Jesus’ life. He makes the outlandish claim that the temple will be destroyed. The temple is one of the wonders of the ancient world. It is Herod the Great’s massive building project, begun before Jesus was born, an enlargement and renovation of the temple built after the return from Exile some five hundred years earlier.  Herod’s Temple is still under construction in Jesus’ time.  The first century historian Josephus described the temple like this: “The sacred edifice itself . . .was approached by a flight of twelve steps. The façade was of equal height and breadth, each being a hundred cubits [that’s about 150 feet], . . . The first gate. had no doors, displaying unexcluded the void expanse of heaven; . . . the exterior of the building wanted nothing that could astound either mind or eye.  For being covered on all sides with massive plates of gold, the sun was no sooner up that it radiated so fiery a flash that persons straining to look at it were compelled to avert their eyes, as from the solar rays.”[1]

Those within earshot were likely incredulous at Jesus’ prediction that the temple will cease to exist.  It is not just an impressive building.  It is the place where God and humans meet.  One scholar says that the temple is “the moral center of the universe, the source from which holiness and a terrifying justice radiate.”[2]    We are familiar with the destruction of buildings by dynamite or bombs, but imagine the loss of meaning if, say, the Lincoln Memorial in Washington were to be no more. Or the White House.  Jesus’s words are alarming and unreal to those who hear them.

But by the time Luke writes his gospel, the beauty of the Temple is only a memory.  Luke is probably writing about 55 years after Jesus, about 15 years after the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD.  Luke’s audience likely pricks up their ears to hear what Jesus will say next.  You see, they are living through massive upheaval.  Trusted institutions have collapsed. Religions have to invent or re-invent themselves to survive.  The political landscape is a turmoil.  Jews and Christians from Jerusalem have scattered as refugees all over the known world. Add in the earthquake at Pompei and the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and it seems that the world is really and truly coming apart.  Those who are reading Luke’s gospel then must be hanging on every word. 

I often try to avoid this kind of text because it seems to belong to end-of-the-world, doomsday preachers, but this year, I’m resonating with Luke’s first audience. 

Religious institutions collapsing while some religious leaders support the status quo – check. 

Political landscape in turmoil – check.

Refugees scattered all over the world – check. 

Glaciers melting, songbirds going extinct, clearcutting of the Amazon, raging fires in Australia, flooding in Venice, the world really and truly coming apart – check. 

Jesus warns of impending doom, but not for the purpose of alarming people.  What he offers is a path of hope and trust in the midst of destruction and great difficulty. 

This week many of us saw the movie Witness at Tornillo.  It is about the activism of Joshua Rubin and those who joined him to protest the separation of families and the detention of children and teenagers. On a chain-link fence near the facility in Tornillo Texas, groups of protestors had mounted signs which said things like “free them” and “let my people go”.  The authorities did not like these signs and eventually got them removed, using the pretext of a law against advertising. Joshua was there when county employees came to take them down.  He talked to the employees, reading each sign out loud to them, explaining that one in particular had been created by a group of children who put it where the children being bussed in to the detention center could read it.  He pointed out that it was hand-made and kind of fragile.  The employee who took it down gave it to Josh for safe-keeping.  Ultimately, they gave all of the signs to him, clearly disobeying their own bosses in doing so.  Joshua described this disobedience as a small act of courage. 

For the people of Luke’s time, these words of Jesus strengthen their faith and enable their own small (and large) acts of courage.  Perhaps they can do the same for us.

When the people in the Temple ask about the destruction that is coming, Jesus’ first warning is about leaders who will come in his name and claim to have the answers.  Jesus says not to follow them.  Such people are still among us. This warning is still necessary.

Then Jesus says “do not be terrified.”  We have often remarked that the angels always say “Do not be afraid” as a standard greeting.  I’m struck that Jesus amps it up here and says “do not be terrified.”  And its just like when the angels say it – what comes next is actually terrifying.  Jesus speaks of persecution, betrayal by friends and family, arrest, imprisonment, even death.  These are real possibilities for his followers in the first century and in every century.

Baptist scholar Alan Culpepper says,

“Following Jesus always exposes the faithful to opposition from the authorities. If in every generation, there are those whose religion is simply a form of escapism into the fantasy of futurism, every generation has also had its courageous and prophetic visionaries who devoted themselves completely to Jesus’ call to create community, oppose injustice, work for peace, and make a place for the excluded.  Every generation, therefore, is called back to the teachings of Jesus by the examples of those who have suffered persecution and hardship . . .”[3]

If Jesus is offering spiritual resources to cope with adversity and hardship, what should we make of verses 16 and 18?

Verse 16 says “they will put some you to death,” but then verse 18 promises “not a hair of your head will perish.”  If both of these statements are to be true, then Jesus’ reference must be to something deeper and greater than physical death. His meaning seems to hinge on verse 19.

Verse 19 can be translated “By your endurance you will gain your souls.”  Many in Luke’s audience will die as martyrs, beginning with Stephen stoned to death in the book of Acts. For them, these words indicate that faithfulness to death will lead to life eternal.

Verse 19 may also be accurately translated “in your endurance, you will save your lives.”  We remember that the Jewish people of this time did not have a robust concept of the afterlife.  The Greek word Luke uses here would have been stand-in for the Hebrew word nephesh which means self or life.  It refers to the essence of a person which is inextricably bound up with the body.  It is not the Greek concept of an immortal soul which endures beyond the death of the body. 

And so, if we read, “in your endurance, you will save your lives” what we understand is that Jesus is saying, when you are faithful to me, you are also true to yourself.  By standing fast, you maintain your integrity. You hold onto what makes you you and gives your life meaning.

Faithfulness to Jesus will save your soul and your life.  Both translations are true.  Faithfulness to the gospel has resulted in death in every generation, even now.  We could easily name so many contemporary martyrs.  I think of MJ Sharp, the 34-year-old Mennonite man, who was building peace in the Congo.  Over the course of several years, he and his team had persuaded about 1600 people to lay down their weapons, which had an impact on some 23,000 family members.[4]  He was shot to death in two years ago, while investigating the use of child soldiers by a militia group and governmental massacres of unarmed civilians.  One of his long-time friends said “I felt he just had a strong sense of duty and commitment, probably fueled by Menno[nite] life, intrigue about complex situations, and didn’t mind the edge of danger,” she said. “Which means, if all of us travel along what makes us truly come alive, who knows where we’ll be? Not necessarily in the DRC, but definitely standing in our own God-given power and brilliance.”[5]

I think of Sister Dorothy Stang, a Catholic nun who spent her life among the poor in Brazil.  Her ministry included advocating for peasant farmers and against the deforestation of the Amazon. Her work was opposed by the powerful.  In spite of death threats, in spite of the knowledge of a bounty on her head, she did not stop.  In 2005, as two gunmen approached her on a dirt road, she took her Bible from her bag and began to read the Beatitudes: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.  Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice.”  The gunmen listened and then, when she was done, they aimed their pistols and killed her.[6]

Christians are still persecuted for their faith, or more accurately for what they do because of their faith.   By their endurance, Dorothy and MJ and countless others gave their lives but gained their souls.

You might notice that these two examples involve political actions.  It is not often that practicing your faith in private gets you killed. True persecution happens when your faith compels courageous actions which make a difference.  Let’s not diminish the deaths of the faithful by claiming persecution because someone wishes you Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas.

American Christians are not typically at risk for the kind of persecution that ends in death. But there are still consequences for following Jesus  I think of Diana Butler Bass whose brother has not spoken to her since she spoke out against white nationalism after the events in Charlottesville, Virginia.[7]  I think of people who risk symbolic arrest to call attention to injustice and of those who serve time in prison because they obey the dictates of conscience rather than unjust laws. 

I just heard about a man named Doug Stephens.  As a federal employee, it was his job to interview asylum seekers and then send them back to Mexico under the current protocols.  He did five interviews and then refused to do any more. Knowing that it would cost him his job, he told his supervisor that he would not be part of implementing this immoral policy.  He said, “You’re literally sending people back to be raped and killed. That’s what this is.” [8] When disciplinary proceedings were begun against him, he decided to resign, but first he drafted a memo outlining why he believes the Remain in Mexico policy violates the law.    He sent it to everyone in the San Francisco Citizenship and Immigration office as well as agency supervisors, his union and a U.S. Senator. He lost his job, but remained true to himself.  He gained his life. 

Some of us are terrified, or at least anxious, about the state of the world, the status of our democracy, the precarious position of the church. Some of us are heartbroken and outraged.   And we have been feeling this way for a long while.  In times like ours, Jesus offers very practical counsel.  He says to stand firm and testify.  Testify – speak the truth. Opening our mouths, letting the truth come out in love and power, that’s one small act of courage we can attempt in this time.

In forced retirement, in 1970, Maggie Kuhn founded the Grey Panthers, an organization that worked to end age discrimination and to provide care for the elderly.  I love the way she echoed Jesus’ words. She said, “Leave safety behind. Put your body on the line.  Stand before the people you fear and speak your mind – even if your voice shakes.  When you least expect it, someone may actually listen to what you have to say.  Well-aimed slingshots can topple giants.” 

Beloved ones, this week, this very week, may we commit small acts of courage. Look for an opportunity to testify.  An opportunity to save your soul, a chance to gain your life. Let us speak the truth, even if our voice shakes.  Amen.

[1] Josephus, The Jewish War, 5:207-208, 222, trans. H. St. J. Thackeray, LCL (Cambridge, MA; Harvard University Press, 1928), 263, 269.

[2] Jon D. Levenson, “The Temple and the World,” The Journal of Religion 64 (1984); 298

[3] Alan Culpepper, The New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. IX, (Nashville:  Abingdon Press, 1995), pp 402-403.

[4] https://themennonite.org/daily-news/one-year-later-mj-sharps-parents-reflect/

[5] http://mennoworld.org/2017/03/29/news/sharp-pursued-peace-around-the-globe/

[6] https://www.deseret.com/indepth/2019/11/12/20950149/amazon-rainforest-nun-protect-war-anapu-brazil-deforestation-vanishing-jungle-class-blood-war-death

[7] https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/20/opinions/god-of-love-had-a-really-bad-week-bass/index.html

[8] https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2019-11-15/asylum-officers-revolt-against-trump-policies-they-say-are-immoral-illegal

11/10/19 - Coming Up Short - Luke 19:1-10

Coming Up Short

Luke 19:1-10

November 10, 2019

Emmanuel Baptist Church, Rev. Kathy Donley

You never know what a pastor’s kid will hear and remember. Both of my children have strong connections to the story of Zacchaeus.  Erin remembers that she loved to sing the song about Zacchaeus, the wee little man.  Every once in a while, she’ll ask me when I’m preaching about Zacchaeus again.   Molly remembers a detail from a sermon I preached at least 15 years ago.  That detail is found is verse 3 which says, “He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature.”  The word “he” appears three times in that sentence.  The last “he” refers to the short person, but there is nothing to tell us whether it means Zacchaeus or Jesus.  You see, the rest of the story works equally well regardless of who is short.  If Zacchaeus is short, he can’t see Jesus because of the crowd.  But if Jesus is short, he can’t be seen because of the crowd around him. It works either way.  Molly heard that throw-away detail in a sermon once and for some reason, it delighted her and continues to do so.

The question of who was shorter – Jesus or Zacchaeus – doesn’t seem very important. It’s not. But I bring it up to point out how very well we think we know this story.   What if we have it all wrong and we should be singing about the wee little man Jesus? I wonder if there might be other things in the story, more important things, that we also have understood incorrectly. 

By way of introduction, Luke tells us Zacchaeus’ name, his occupation and that he is rich.  His name means “clean” or “innocent”.  Perhaps we could pause to wonder whether his name is accurate or ironic, but the next two descriptors “rich” and “tax collector” quickly consume our attention.

Jesus passing through Jericho, on the last trip he will ever make to Jerusalem. Zacchaeus is the last individual with whom he will have a one-on-one encounter before Jerusalem.  The rich have not been presented favorably in Luke’s account of Jesus’ ministry.  “Jesus pronounced woes on the rich [in the Sermon on the Plain].  God called a rich famer a fool and required his soul of him.  The rich man went to Hades while Lazarus [the beggar] went to the bosom of Abraham and Jesus observed how hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God.” [1]  There is no reason to suspect that Zacchaeus will fare any better than the rich people who came before him.

On the other hand, he is a tax collector.  We have heard about Jesus and tax collectors before.  We know that Jesus was unpopular with the clergy of his day because he associated with them.  Levi, the former tax collector, was among his twelve disciples.

So, Zacchaeus is rich and a tax collector which makes it harder for us to predict which way the action will go. How will Jesus respond to him?

The common stereotype about rich tax collectors is that they are greedy and dishonest and you can’t believe anything

they say. Walter Brueggemann describes tax collectors as revenue men for the Roman Empire.  He says, “The purpose of that empire, like every empire, whether Babylon among the Jews, Rome in the time of Jesus, or the US empire . . .is to coercively extract wealth for the sake of the center.  Zacchaeus served such a regime. . . Zacchaeus was an agent of the violence of the empire.” [2]

When we think of tax collectors today, we might picture an IRS agent, someone wearing business clothes and good with a calculator. If that person is auditing us, we might be nervous around them, but we probably would not immediately jump to the conclusion that they are corrupt and greedy and not to be trusted. As long as we think of Zacchaeus like an IRS agent, we will have a hard time understanding the intensity of this story. 

We probably need to look elsewhere for a contemporary parallel. If, as Brueggemann says, Zacchaeus was an agent of the violence of the empire, then who embodies that role today? Is there a category, an occupation that we associate with corruption and dishonesty and greed, persons who carry out the violence of the empire?  I thought about this for a while. I came up with two possibilities. By now, you know my biases, so it might not surprise you to hear that I thought of Border Patrol agents and the owners of private prisons.  You might have other ideas.  You can feel free to tell me why I’m wrong later.  For now, let’s hold onto the image of Zacchaeus as a Border Patrol agent.  BP agents are generally unpopular in our culture right now.  Jim and I toured part of the San Diego/Tijuana border with BP Agents who told us how hard it is to identify their occupation to strangers.  One of them said, “We are not the monsters people think we are.”  The suicide rate among BP agents is higher than other branches of law enforcement which is higher than the general population.   Family members of BP agents report very high levels of stress in working for an agency which overlooks the humanity of the agents.[3] That sounds to me suspiciously like empire looking out for itself.

So, if you would humor me for the moment, imagine Zacchaeus in a Border Patrol uniform.  Imagine that the crowd in Jericho includes citizens and descendants of immigrants and perhaps even some undocumented folks who are following Jesus.  Everything is going fine until Jesus stops and looks up into that sycamore tree.  Down comes Zacchaeus and Jesus invites himself to his house.  Jesus will bring honor to whatever house he enters. By inviting himself to Zacchaeus’ home, he gives him an opportunity to be recognized prominently before the whole community.  The implication of table fellowship is that Jesus accepts him as someone who shares his values. 

And now we understand why the crowd grumbles.  What are they supposed to do?  They want to be with Jesus, sure, but they can’t pretend the Border Patrol agent shares their values.  To go to his house is to imply that they are like him, corrupt, greedy, exploitative, violent.   Someone like him is not supposed to respond to Jesus, anyway, not genuinely.  Surely, this is just another PR stunt. Why doesn’t Jesus see that?

Maybe some people are secretly hoping that Jesus does see that. Maybe they think that Jesus is going to publicly put him in his place – wouldn’t that be delicious? 

If so, they are even more dismayed at what comes next.  Zacchaeus acts as though he belongs with Jesus.  Of course, Jesus would choose to go to his house. Zach is aware of what the people think of him, of course, so he takes the opportunity to tell them about himself.  He says it to Jesus, but everyone can hear. In verse 8, he says “Behold, Lord, half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.”  The verbs in that sentence are in present tense.  He is describing what he already does, not something he is going to start doing from this point on. 

But that’s not how we usually hear the story.  Just as we usually assume that Zacchaeus is the short one, we usually assume that this is a story about his repentance, that as a result of this encounter with Jesus, he is going to start making restitution. That’s the traditional interpretation.  It’s influence is so strong that most translations make the verbs future tense “half of my goods I will give to the poor; I will pay back four times.”  Translators call this a future present tense.  This is the only place in all of scripture where they claim to find this verb tense.[4]  I suspect that their interpretation of the story is influencing their translation, instead of the other way around. 

If we can allow ourselves to challenge the traditional interpretation, then maybe we can take Zacchaeus at his word, which Jesus seems to do.  And then we can recognize that this is not a conversion story, but a healing story.

I say this is a healing story because of what happens next.  After Zach describes his customary practice, Jesus says, “Today salvation has come to this house.”  And he calls Zacchaeus a “son of Abraham”. Earlier, Jesus had healed a woman in the synagogue, a woman who had been bent over for 18 years.  When he did that, he called her a “daughter of Abraham.”   Her illness had kept her isolated from her people, her community.  Her healing restored her to that community, the sons and daughters of Abraham.

Similarly, Jesus is restoring Zacchaeus to the community which has rejected him.  They have accepted all the stereotypes about him without question. They think they know who he is. “Rich tax collector” tells them everything they need to know until Jesus replaces that with “Son of Abraham.” Which means “one of you”.  Someone just like you, who shares your values, who is generous and cares for the poor.  If I am still imagining Zacchaeus as the BP agent, then instead of “Son of Abraham” I might hear Jesus say “Child of God.”

Jesus’s announced mission is to seek and to save the lost.  He has told stories about the lost sheep, the lost coin, the lost sons.  Zacchaeus is lost to his own people until Jesus calls him down out of the tree.

Who comes up short in this story?  Not Zacchaeus.  Not Jesus.  If anyone comes up short, it’s the townspeople whose ability to love is stunted by their prejudice and preconceptions about who Zacchaeus is and who they will allow him to be. 

This is a story about opportunities for salvation and healing, for Zacchaeus and also for the people of Jericho.  That is the intensity of this story which still resonates, in a time when we are so polarized, so quick to judge each other, so quick to assume we know all about someone because of their occupation or political affiliation or a comment on social media or which church they do or don’t attend.  Maybe we can see that one way that Jesus goes about saving us, restoring us, healing us, is by seeking to destroy all of our stereotypes, all of our carefully set up and well-crafted assumptions about “those people” too.[5]

What did the people of Jericho do?  Did they welcome Zacchaeus into their midst or did they cling to their resentments of the past?  The Bible doesn’t tell us.  It leaves it open, asking the same question of us – will salvation and healing come to our house as it has come to the house of Zacchaeus?  Or will we stop short of the fullness of love Jesus intends?

[1] Alan Culpepper, The New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. IX, (Nashville:  Abingdon Press, 1995), p. 357

[2] Walter Brueggemann, “Vision that Trumps Violence” in The Collected Sermons of Walter Brueggemann, Vol 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox, 2015), p. 235.

[3] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/border-patrol-suicide-rate-spikes/

[4] https://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=1556

[5] Shannon Kershner in her sermon “Jesus Makes Things Complicated” http://www.fourthchurch.org/sermons/2016/031316.html

11/3/19 - It's a Wonder-full Life: Practicing Gratitude - Acts 4:32-35

Practicing Gratitude 

Acts 4: 32-35

November 3, 2019

Emmanuel Baptist Church, Rev. Kathy Donley

The Rev. Brett Younger is a Baptist pastor now serving a church in Brooklyn. He went to my alma mater, Baylor University, although we were not there at the same time.  

In his first year there, when Parents Weekend came around, a letter went out to all students explaining that there would be a picnic on the quadrangle on Friday, except for those whose parents were not coming.  Those orphan students were to go to the cafeteria as usual. Brett’s parents lived in Ohio and they weren’t coming to Texas for the weekend. Neither were his roommates’s parents.  They thought it was hugely unfair to be left out of the picnic. So, they decided to go anyway.  But, by the time they got in line for fried chicken, they were terrified that the kitchen workers were about to catch them.  Brett said, “I imagined a woman in a hairnet shouting, ‘where are your parents?  Your parents aren’t here.  Security.’”

“So I decided to outsmart them.  Just before I was given a drumstick, I shouted to no one at all, ‘Mom, I’ll be right there.’  That is when the most surprising thing happened.  A woman I had never met shouted back, ‘I’m over here, son.’” 

What would possess a stranger to claim him as her son?  She turned out to be another student suspiciously there without her parents.  Her name was Ashley.   Brett and Ashley have been friends for decades now. For all that time, he has been calling her “Mom” and she has been calling him “Son.” [1]

There are probably many reasons why their friendship has endured, but I think a big factor in its beginning was gratitude. Gratitude for another person who gets your sense of humor and shares your willingness to break social norms.  The kind of gratitude that comes from a shared experience can be a powerful bond.

The early Christian community was bound together by their shared experience of the risen Christ.  At the start of his ministry, Jesus’s personal mission statement was a quote from Isaiah which began, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.”  As Jesus’ followers continued his mission, the most dramatic sign of resurrection power was a community in which there was not a single needy person. The transformation bought to the world, brought to their own lives by the life and death and resurrection of Jesus, drew from them a response of wonder and awe and gratitude.  They created a community of sharing.  Their faith in God was characterized by boldness and mutual generosity.

Last week, I spent a lot of time talking about what happened in Gander, Newfoundland on September 11, 2001.  I talked about how the residents of that area provided extravagant hospitality for thousands of people who were stranded at the local airport when US airspace was closed. Every need – for food, shelter, medication, access to e-mail and telephones – every need you can imagine, was provided for, at absolutely no cost to the recipients.  We can only imagine how grateful the plane people were.  Of course they said thank you at the time.   They also expressed it in many other ways.  When they made it home, they sent back gifts and notes and money.  One of the first notes to arrive was a fax, sent by Werner Kolb after he reached his home in the Netherlands. He said, “It is not possible for me to tell you how I felt during my stay with you.  Only once was I treated in a similar way. This was when I was a child. I was liberated in Holland in 1945.  You wonderful Canadians have not changed.” [2] Some plane people formed lasting friendships with local folks and returned to the area for frequent visits.  One organization said thank you for the use of a school’s computers by entirely replacing and upgrading the school’s computer lab.  On one departing plane, the passengers who knew that the local high school drop-out rate was high, agreed to set up a scholarship fund.  Every adult on the plane signed a pledge form to donate.  By the time they landed, they had $15,000 towards a fund which is now called the Lewisporte Area Flight 15 Scholarship Fund. It is now worth over $2 million and has provided almost 300 college scholarships.[3]

Gratitude is powerful.  You should know that Emmanuel evokes gratitude. Some of the best God-moments I experience are when gratitude for this congregation is expressed to me.  It’s one of the privileges of being pastor.  Sometimes I receive the gratitude of strangers, like the time the Fellowship Fund paid for work boots so a man could get a paying job.  Or when a newcomer thanked me, with tears in her eyes, for the worship experience on a Sunday morning. She was thanking me for my words in the sermon, but also for some very specific acts of hospitality that some of you had extended.  Gratitude is not just limited to strangers and newcomers.  I also regularly hear it from long-time members who are going through a particularly hard time and are grateful, in ways that cannot be easily expressed or  measured, for the support and care you offer.  When we receive sincere gratitude, especially from someone who cannot pay us in any other way, especially from someone who really needed what we shared, it is its own reward. It can transform us into people who want to do more for others because receiving gratitude is so powerful.

Gratitude is also transformative when we are the ones who offer it.  John was the senior pastor in a church where I served as associate.  Every time we celebrated the Lord’s Supper, after the elements had been distributed, he would lift the cup and say “Drink and remember and be thankful.”

Every time, I would hear that part “be thankful”   and it would hit me in all the wrong ways. Internally, I would think “Well, I can’t just make myself be thankful.  That’s not how it works.  John shouldn’t say that like it’s a command.” And by the time I finished my internal conversation, communion would be over and I would have basically missed the moment. Back then, I thought that gratitude could only occur spontaneously, when the circumstances were right. But I have come to realize that thankfulness can be learned. We can choose gratitude by focusing on the good gifts around us, instead of primarily attending to the hard things.  We can practice being gratitude. 

In her book, Grateful, Diana Butler Bass writes:  If you choose ingratitude, I cannot help you. But most of us do not willingly say, "I have decided to live my life free from thanksgiving.” . . . Even at ungrateful moments, we feel the tug toward something else. But it can be hard to get there. Ingratitude often results from misunderstanding the nature of thanks, failing to see the larger picture of our lives, or forgetting to nurture a spirit of gratefulness. . . .But when, if even for a little while, we choose gratefulness, that choice builds on itself and begins to create a spiral of appreciation. The first choice . . . sets up the next choice, and the next, and the next one beyond that. To choose gratitude is not an act of dogged determination. To choose gratitude is to hear an inner urging toward thanks, to be aware of the grace in life, and to respond. For whatever reason, we turn and reply to an invitation for a deeper, better life.”[4]

It turns out that we can “be thankful” on command if we practice it.  And the more we practice it, the more natural it will become.

In this season, we have sought to cultivate wonder in our worship because wonder can lead to appreciation which can lead to gratitude.  We have taken a look at the larger picture of our lives, examining the messages we’ve absorbed about money and responsibility and scarcity and enough.  We’ve attended to scripture passages which encourage us to put our trust in God, to seek the things which are ultimate, rather than the illusory security of wealth and possessions.  Our intention is to become more joyful, less anxious and more generous with our time and energy and money.  Our goal is to let our faith shape and even transform our economics. 

Today we come to an annual milestone in this faith community.  Today we make a commitment of our financial resources for the next year.  It’s a commitment we make to God’s work in the world through the mission and ministry of this church. 

We do this every year. Some of us respond out of duty or maybe even guilt.  We give because someone taught us we should.  We give a certain percentage of our income because it seems like the responsible thing to do. On the other hand, every year, some of us give out of gratitude. We give in thankfulness for the good gifts in our lives. We give with a sense of wonder about what God has done and what God might yet do within us and among us. Now, when the pledges are received, when the financial people crunch the numbers, the $100 given from guilt looks just like the $100 given with gratitude.  It all goes into the budget the same.  But I think there is a difference. The difference is that the gift given with gratitude is more satisfying.  The difference is that the gift given with gratitude brings more joy to the giver.  So, beloved ones, may God transform our guilt and fear and duty into awe-inspired wonder and gratitude so that we may give with joy. Amen.

[1] Brett Younger in his sermon “Living with the Spirit”  published at goodpreacher.com, April 20, 2011

[2] Jim DeFede, The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland, New York:  HarperCollins, 2002, p. 221

[3] https://www.recordcourier.com/news/local/9-11-survivor-shares-experience-of-landing-in-newfoundland/

[4] Excerpted from Grateful: The Transformative Power of Giving Thanks.  Copyright © by Diana Butler Bass. Published by HarperOne, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Excerpt found here: https://day1.org/articles/5d9b820ef71918cdf2004236/diana_butler_bass_choosing_gratitude_as_a_way_of_life

10/27/19 - It's a Wonder-full Life: The Good Life - 1 Timothy 6:17-19

The Good Life

I Timothy 6:17-19

October 27, 2019

Emmanuel Baptist Church; Rev. Kathy Donley

“Take hold of the true life,” this letter says.  A few verses earlier, it said “take hold of the eternal life to which you were called.”  This passage is not about a futuristic goal.  It is not about a heavenly existence after we die. This passage is about how people who follow Jesus are to relate to other people and to money and possessions in the here and now.

The Greek word that is translated “take hold” means “take hold of, grasp, catch, sometimes with violence.”[1]  This passage is about seizing the true life, the best life here on earth.

The Harper Collins Dictionary describes the good life as “living in comfort and luxury with few problems or worries.”  The good life as the world understands it, the pursuit of ease and pleasure, is not the true life, the best life understood by the author of this letter.  As one scholar reflects, “Living the good life and living a good life pull in opposite directions.  One cannot serve both God and wealth.”[2]

Living a good life seems to begin with putting one’s trust in God and allowing that trust to shape everything else, including our attitudes towards money and possessions.  Many of those in the early church were materially poor. Those who were rich were strongly encouraged to share.  Sharing is at the heart of our faith.  It is the demonstration of the self-denial Jesus described when he said, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up the cross and follow me.”  The mission and ministry that Jesus left in the hands of his disciples depends on the financial resources of those willing to share them.  So, we read that those who have wealth  “are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous and ready to share.”

Every once in a while there is a human experience or interaction that captures my imagination.  Every once in a while, we humans get it right and the kingdom of God among us becomes bold and visible, and the rest of us bear witness to the life that is really life.

I’m thinking today of what happened in Gander, Newfoundland in September 2001.  Many of you know this story.  I’ve been talking about it recently with some of you.[3]  Whether you hear it today for the first time or it is already very familiar, I invite you to listen to it as a parable, a real-life application of the instructions in this letter, about grasping the life that is truly life.

On September 11, 2001, after three commercial airlines had been turned into weapons of mass destruction, American air space was abruptly closed. Flights were cancelled all over the world. But hundreds of planes were still in the air bound for airports across the nation.  Those flights had to be diverted.  Many planes landed in unanticipated places. They landed in several Canadian cities.  Thirty-eight planes were making routine flights from places like London and Paris, Dublin and Stuttgart to places like Houston, New York, Charlotte and Nashville when they were ordered to land in Gander, Newfoundland.  There was so much fear and anguish that day.  Fear could have driven everything that came next, but it didn’t.

The planes landed and parked on the tarmac with some 6700 passengers on board.  That’s almost as many people as live in Gander.   At first, they thought that US airspace would re-open soon, so no one was allowed to get off. Everyone stayed on the planes on the runways.  Imagine that reality.  You’ve already been on the plane for hours flying over the ocean and now you’ve landed in an unknown place for reasons that no one is telling you and they won’t let you off the plane. For hours.  When they finally did let people off, each plane deboarded in order. Some folks were trapped on their planes for almost a day.  For claustrophobic people, that’s your worst nightmare come true. And for  people addicted to nicotine too.  One of the first things ways that Gander cared for the passengers was by emptying the pharmacies of all the nicotine gum and ferrying it out to the planes.

The fear must have been palpable.  People feeling trapped on the planes.  People at the airport wondering just exactly who was out there on the runway. No one knew how many more terrorists might still be part of the plot for the day. What if they were on these planes? After they landed, at first five of the 38 planes didn’t respond to hails from the control tower.  What if they weren’t responding because something terrible was happening on those planes? Fear could have ruled the day, but it didn’t.

What happened instead is that the people of Gander and several other towns recognized that the people on the planes were going to need lots and lots of help.  By the time the passengers were allowed off the planes, Gander had mobilized to provide for them. They closed all high schools, meeting halls, lodges, and any other large gathering places. They converted all these facilities to mass lodging areas for all the stranded travelers. The local radio station ran public service announcements asking for donation of food, spare bedding, extra clothes, anything the passengers might need.  At the community center, the line of cars stretched for two miles as people brought sheets and blankets and pillows from this homes. Nothing was labelled with the owner’s names.  Later a passenger asked a local woman how people would ever get their own sheets and towels back.  The woman said, “It doesn’t matter.”

The town’s bus drivers were on strike, in the middle of negotiations with city officials.  But, when they learned that almost 7,000 people had to be transported from the airport to various shelters within a 40-mile area, they put down their picket signs and got behind the wheels of the buses. 

On those planes were people from about 100 countries.  They included those who didn’t speak English and people who needed a Kosher kitchen and two children who had been on their way to Disney World through the Make-A-Wish foundation. There were parents bringing home a daughter they had just adopted from Kazakhstan, who were also anxious to get home to where the grandparents and older sibling were waiting. There were people of Middle Eastern origins who was as angry and outraged by the attacks as everyone else.  The passengers came from all walks of life, spanning the spectrum of religious and political outlooks.  They included the frantic parents of a NYC firefighter, whose whereabouts were unknown for the duration of their time in Gander, and a man from London and a woman from Houston who fell in love in Gander and got married the next year, and a gay couple who worried about whether a small town in Canada would welcome them.  It did. 

The people of Gander cooked. A lot. Grocery store shelves went bare. The town’s hockey ring became the world’s largest refrigerator.  Pharmacists worked overtime to fill prescriptions for passengers whose medicines were stuck on the planes in their checked luggage. Elderly passengers and others were offered beds in private homes. Some home owners did laundry all night long and left their doors unlocked with an open invitation to plane people to come in and take showers. A family that lived across from a 24-hour urgent care took in a woman who was 33-weeks pregnant.  Everyone who needed it had access to computers for e-mail and telephones to call home and tell loved ones they were safe.   The details of how the town responded to meet the physical and emotional and spiritual needs of all these guests go on and on. 

I’m sure the people of Gander are like people everywhere.  They can be cranky and self-centered, guided by greed or ambition or fear, but when the need arose, they rose above all of that. For a few very intense days, they recognized and attended to what really mattered. They offered compassion and hospitality, generosity and care.  For those few intense days, they took hold of the life that really is life. They were, in the words of our letter, “rich in good works, generous and ready to share.”

Every once in a while, we humans get it right and the kingdom of God among us becomes bold and visible.  It happens here too.  It happened last month when you heard about 3 Karen families who lost their homes and everything else in a fire.  You gave $1500 plus clothing and furniture and household goods to help them start again. It happened last week, when together we celebrated the life of Audrey Ford with laughter and tears and wonderful music and a feast shared with friends.  It happens in big and small ways in what we do as individuals and what we do as a community. 

Hospitality, compassion, generosity—these are words that describe the people of Gander and Emmanuel. It is who we are and who we want to be.   The true value of our wealth is not to accumulate possessions so we can live in luxury with no worries.  But if we have wealth, it can enable generosity.  As we said last week, our hearts and our treasure go together.  As we look out at the world, as our hearts go out to the needs of the world, we can direct our treasure to follow.

This community of faith wants what God wants for the world. We want kindness and justice and sharing of resources so that everyone has enough.  We seek to embody Christ in this place, among these people.   We don’t do it perfectly, not by a long shot.  But we are practicing to get it right. 

This week you should receive a letter in advance of Pledge Sunday next week.  If you think you are not on the mailing list and you want to be, please drop your address into the offering plate or call the church office tomorrow.  This is the time of year when we ask ourselves to make a financial commitment for the next year.  It’s a commitment we make to God.  We don’t give to support the budget. We give to God, through the ministry and mission of this church, because within this congregation, we experience the fullness of the love of God.  In this congregation, we find a place to stand, trusting in God more than any of the other trappings of the good life the world supposedly offers.  This body of faith helps us to identify a courageous vision fueled by love and not by fear.  And so we will become rich in good deeds, generous and ready to share, so that we may take hold of what really matters and seize the life that truly is life.  Amen.

[1] Stephanie Mar Smith in Feasting on the Word Year C, Volume 4, David Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, general editors,  (Louisville:  Westminster/John Knox Press, 2010) p. 110.

[2] Tom Long,  Matthew: Westminster Bible Companion (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 1997 ) p. 75.

[3] The summary of the events at Gander related in this sermon are based on my reading of The Day the World Came to Town:  9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland by Jim DeFede, published by HarperCollins, New York, 2002.

10/20/19 - It's a Wonder-full Life: Treasure - Matthew 6:19-24

It’s a Wonder-full Life:  Treasure

Matthew 6:19-24 

October 20, 2019

Emmanuel Baptist Church, Rev. Kathy Donley

Where your treasure is, Jesus says,  there will your heart also be.  Where you put your money, that’s what you will value.  If you buy an expensive piece of furniture, for example, you will value it, take care of it, protect it. I remember a formal sitting room in a friend’s house where we teenagers were not allowed.  The carpet was not to be walked on, the furniture not to be sat upon – at least not by us. I expect that my friend’s parents put more money into furnishing that room that they had into the basement where we hung out, and it showed.

They treasured that room as place to entertain adult company.  There is nothing wrong with taking good care of your possessions.  Nothing wrong with having some things that get saved for special occasions or furniture that teenagers are not invited to use.   I’m not making a moral judgment, but only trying to apply this saying, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”  When you have invested hard-earned money in something, then you care for it.  Whatever your put your money into, your heart will follow. 

This is one of those sayings that can work in the opposite direction too.   If we turn it around so that it says “Where your heart is, there will your treasure be also,” it is also true.  I think of collectors.  Someone who loves art or guitars or cars or books. It doesn’t have to be a high end collection, but if you love something, you generally end up putting money into it. And often, if you have one of the things you love, you buy another one and another one.  (Don’t ask me how many feminist theology books I own.) Where your heart is, there will your treasure be. 

Here is a literal translation of verses 19-20  “Do not treasure up treasures on earth where moth and eaters  can consume and thieves can dig through and steal. Rather treasure up treasure in heaven where these things cannot happen.”[1]

“Treasure up treasures…”Treasure is used as a noun and a verb.  To treasure something is to value it, to consider it precious and valuable, to love it.  And, of course, as a noun, treasure is something that is valued or protected or loved.

Jesus is saying that human beings are always going to treasure treasures, but not all treasures are equally worthy.  Earthly treasures are temporary. They can be eaten by moths or rust or mold.  They can be broken or stolen.

We know this. None of us in this room loves money for its own sake. We don’t love the paper and ink of dollar bills or even of $100 dollar bills.  What we value about money is what it can purchase.  Money can buy necessities, to keep us alive. Money can buy luxuries, things that make life more fun, more enjoyable. Money, given away, can provide unimagined possibilities for someone else.  Our conflicts with money are generally about how to use it well, and that is a question of what to treasure.

Middle-class and upper-class people are taught certain ideas about money. We’re taught that responsible people store up money for the future. We save for retirement or for children to go to college or for some unforeseen crisis.  All of which are good things, right?  But remember, where your treasure is, there’s your heart.  So, if you have a retirement fund or a college fund or a rainy day fund, your heart is there too. 

Richistan is a book written about 12 years ago. In it, the Wall Street Journal columnist Robert Frank studied the lives of ultra-rich Americans.   He interviewed them and learned that many of them were highly anxious, so much so that they had formed self-help support groups.  When he pressed them about the source of their anxiety, he learned that these multimillionaires and billionaires couldn’t sleep at night because they were worried, worried about running out of money. [2]

In one study, these ultra-rich people were asked “how much money would you need to feel financially secure?”  The results were very interesting.  Those worth $1 million said they needed 2.4 million. Those worth $1.5 million said they needed $3 million.  Those worth $10 million said they needed $18 million to feel secure. In every category, the answer was always about twice as much as they had. [3]

It is probably easy for us to think that these millionaires and billionaires are treasuring the wrong treasures. Easy for us to think that they have lost touch with reality. But, are we ordinary folks so very different from them?  Haven’t most of us thought, at one time or another,  that we would feel secure if we had just a little more?  If there were just a little more in the rainy day fund, we would breathe easier. If there were just a little more put away for retirement, we wouldn’t worry so much.

Some of you have learned to be content with whatever you have, and good for you, but for those of us who haven’t learned that yet, it often seems that our heart follows our money.  If we want to change something about our money, then perhaps the key is in changing our heart.

Changing hearts is super hard work.  Jesus was all about that transformation, so what he says here is pivotal. He says, “The eye is the lamp of the body.”  Today, we would say that the eye receives light, but in the ancient world, they thought the eye was like a lamp, an instrument that projects light onto objects so that they may be seen.[4]

All of that suggests to me that the way to change hearts, including our own, is to change what we look at, to change our vision.  Presbyterian minister Tom Long says that the decision about which treasures to treasure is a question of vision and freedom. He says, “If a person see life as a gift from God, a bountiful outpouring of God’s providence, then that person is free to hold possessions with a light grasp and to be generous towards others.  On the other hand, if life is seen as a competitive struggle between winners and losers over limited resources, then one  [will be captive] to that struggle.[5]

Our vision, our outlook on life in general, affects our heart, but so does the specific stuff we look at.

Sometimes we have been looking at the same things for so long that we no longer recognize how they affect us.  I remember a woman whose husband was seriously ill. Her life was a daily round of caring for him.  Then one day, her parents asked for help with an urgent matter. She wanted to help them, but she was caught up attending to her husband, and so she told her parents she could not help.  Later, after the crisis had passed, she realized that, at the time her parents needed here, her husband was in the hospital.  He was being well cared for. She could have left for a few hours to tend to her parents. In the midst of it, she couldn’t see it, but later she said it was obvious.  And she felt she had let her parents down when they needed her.

This is often how we make decisions about our time and our money. We are trying to do the best thing, but our tendency to see just what is right in front of us or what we have been attending to or what is familiar, that is the tendency that makes it hard to change our hearts.

If we really want to follow Jesus, in the matter of treasure, then I suggest, we have to take steps to change what we see.  If we can change what we see, then our heart may change and our treasure will follow our heart.

For some of us, this shift in perspective has happened on mission trips. Seeing other people’s realities has helped us look at our own in a new light. For others of us, it has happened in crisis.  A health crisis, a relationship crisis, a financial crisis – a major event that interrupted life as usual and helped us see with more clarity than ever before what was really most important. Some of us were blessed with parents or mentors who taught us from a young age about how to treasure what was truly important.

For different reasons, some of you have found ways to align your financial practices with your deepest values.  On a regular basis, in at least some arena of life, you lead with heart and let the treasure follow. 

Oseola McCarty was an African American woman from Hattiesburg, Mississippi. She left school after the sixth grade to care for a sick relative and she never went back. For seventy-five years, she washed and ironed and folded the laundry of the bankers, lawyers and doctors in town.  She earned just pennies, but she tried to save what she could and eventually she started a little savings account.  She lived a simple life.  Her earthly treasures were few.  *She lived in a modest house just blocks from the campus of the University of Southern Mississippi. She did not get an air conditioner until she was well into her 80’sand then she only turned it on when she had company. She never owned a car.  She walked a mile each way to and from the grocery store. She went to the Friendship Baptist Church every Sunday, carrying a Bible held together with Scotch tape. When she was 87, Oseola retired.

In 1995, the development office of the University of Southern Mississippi received a phone call from a local bank. The bank had a check for the university from Oseola McCarty for $150,000. No one at the university had ever heard of Oseola McCarty.  She had never set foot on campus.  This washerwoman who had never been to high school, let alone college, gave away sixty percent of her life savings she had for a scholarship fund for minority students.  (She also gave 10% of her net worth to her church, by the way.)  

You’ve probably heard that story.  It made national news. She was invited to the White House and received an honorary degree from Harvard. Today I’m wondering what Oseola saw.  What did her life illumine for her? She saw people who had much more money than she did. Did she pay attention to what they treasured and whether those treasures increased their joy and love?  She had ample opportunity to notice disparities between rich and poor, between those with the opportunity for education and those who lacked it. It seems like her heart was with those who didn’t have that opportunity, and her treasure followed her heart.   

Shortly before she died, someone asked why she did not spend her hard-earned money on herself.  She smiled and said, “I am spending it on myself.” [6] 

Beloved ones, may we wonder at God’s gift of life so that we live in the freedom that enables generosity and our treasure resides with our hearts. Amen.

[1] Ben Witherington, Smyth and Helwys Bible Commentary: Matthew, (Macon, Georgia: Smyth and Helwys Publishing, 2006), p. 149.

[2] Robert Frank, Richistan:  A Journey through the American Wealth Boom and the Lives of the New Rich (New York:  Crown Publishers, 2007), p. 203-218

[3] Robert Frank, Richistan, p. 50

[4] Eugene Boring,  New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. VII, Matthew,  (Nashville:  Abingdon Press, 1995), p. 210.

[5] Tom Long,  Matthew: Westminster Bible Companion (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 1997 ) p 74.

[6] As told by Wallace W. Bubar in Feasting on the Gospels, Matthew, Volume 1, Cynthia Jarvis and E. Elizabeth Johnson, editors, (Louisville:  Westminster/John Knox Press, 2013)   p. 138.

10/13/19 - It's a Wonder-full Life: Looking Back - Matthew 22:15-22

It’s a Wonder-full Life:  Looking Back

Matthew 22:15-22 

October 13, 2019

Emmanuel Baptist Church, Rev. Kathy Donley

What does a coin tell us about who we are?  If you pull out any American money you happen to be carrying, you might see that it says “In God we trust.”  I wonder how often we notice that.  When I stop to think about it, it seems strange for money to be the medium that carries that message. 

I heard about someone who was challenged by his pastor to make the sign of the cross in marker on his most frequently used credit card.   He did that and then, he said for the next several months, it was nearly impossible to buy something and not ask himself whether his purchase aligned with his faith.  As we move through this worship series on money and meaning, some of us might try that exercise too.

But I mention it because if having a cross on a credit card would make us more self-reflective, I wonder what meaning there is in having the motto “in God we trust” on our money.  This week I learned that the phrase was first added to coins  in 1863, at the urging of a Baptist pastor from Pennsylvania. At least part of the motivation then was to declare the God was on the Union side of the Civil War.   Mark Twain said “it always sounds well  -- In God We Trust. I don’t believe it would sound any better if it were true.” He said the slogan would be more truthful if it designated the paper it was written on as ‘the god we trust in’.[1]

Then in 1956, Congress declared “In God we trust” to be our national motto.  After that, the words appeared on paper money.  At that time, the motivation was to distinguish the USA from godless communists during the Cold War.

So, if I have it right, then, this motto appears on our money more as a statement about power, especially political power, than about theology.  And I tend to think that Mark Twain is right, that American’s trust in money is right up there with our trust in God.

We are not the first to intertwine money and politics and theology.  That’s the crux of the scene with Jesus in our gospel reading. Some Herodians and some Pharisees try to trap Jesus with this question about money. The Herodians and the Pharisees are political opponents. The Herodians support the reign of the Herod family, which ruled Israel under the over-arching reign of the Emperor.  To support Herod was to support Rome and the tax.  The Pharisees are the liberal religious leaders of their day.  They are committed to the idea that every person could faithfully observe the traditional religious practices that were part of the covenant with God.  This intense religious practice enhances Jewish cultural identity and is in its own way, also a form of resistance to Rome.  The Herodians and the Pharisees do not agree on almost anything, but apparently they do agree that Jesus is a threat.  So they ask him “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”

Jesus responds by asking them for a coin. What does a coin tell them about who they are?  Having to pay the tax to Rome is a painful reminder that they are occupied by a foreign power who worshipped false gods. The tax could only be paid with Roman coins, which are also pieces of propaganda. Most of the coins contain an image of the emperor proclaiming him to be divine. [2]

The silver denarius, represents a day’s wages for a laborer.  One side of the coin proclaims the Emperor Tiberius as a "son of the divine August," while the other side honors him as the "Pontifex Maximus" or "chief priest" of Roman religion. The two sides of the coin confer absolute religious and civil authority on Tiberius.

The Herodians and the Pharisees don’t care what Jesus really thinks about paying the tax. If he says “Yes, it is lawful,” he will be seen as a traitor to his people, and lose the respect of many of his followers.  If he says, “No, it is not lawful”  he will give the Romans reason to arrest him.  They think they have him right where they want him—either answer will work to their advantage.

Only Jesus does not say “yes” or “no”.  His answer might be his best-know sound bite,  “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.”  The coin bears Caesar’s image – therefore it is Caesar’s, so give it to him.  But then what belongs to God? The answer must be whatever bears God’s image. Genesis affirms that humans are made in the image of God – therefore human beings belong to God. Jesus’ response challenges his questioners about where their deepest allegiance lies.  Jesus’ answer is a soundbite for the ages because it recognizes the moral ambiguity that permeates human existence.

In the first century context, this particular tax was a tribute paid to support the occupation of Israel. The Jewish people had to financially support their own oppression.  It’s a moral question about what to do money.  Jesus’ answer is a clue that financial decisions are always moral decisions. 

In our context, as consumers we make choices about where and what to buy, how much to spend, how much to save.  We can make the effort to purchase clothes and shoes not produced in sweatshops, but it does require effort. We can choose to pay more for products that are manufactured and packaged in ways that care for the earth and natural resources.  If we have financial investments, rendering to God involves knowing the practices of the corporations that our money supports. 

The more we think about this, the more we recognize that everything belongs to God.  If we take seriously the idea of giving to God that which belongs to God, we are required to reckon with how all-encompassing that category is.[3] 

Politics, money and religion are all jumbled together in this teaching of Jesus.  Politics, money and religion are all things many of us have been taught not to talk about, although I think it is more socially acceptable now to talk about politics and religion than about money.

We do tend to talk about money with our families.  Or to be more accurate, we tend to learn about money within our families, but sometimes what we’re taught is not to talk about it.  That is one of many messages we might absorb.

Proverbs says “Train up a child in the way she should go, and when she is old, she will not depart from it.”  This verse is often quoted as a positive – teach your children well so they will live well.  It is a true saying and it is also true in a negative direction. The things we learn in childhood, for good or bad, are not easily unlearned.  Because money is often a taboo subject, it seems that we often learn about it at home or we absorb messages from the wider culture.

Messages like:

Money doesn’t grow on trees.

Always save for a rainy day.

A fool and his money are soon parted.

There’s no such thing as a free lunch.

You can never be too rich. More is always better.

How much money you make determines your self-worth.

If you have money, God has blessed you.

If you don’t have enough money, you’ve sinned or you don’t have enough faith.

Many of these messages might be offered from a place of love and concern.  They are intended as guidelines for living well, but they have a shadow side.  Sometimes we internalize good messages in ways that

only the shadow side is evident.  For example, “there’s no such thing as a free lunch” can easily establish itself as inherent distrust of other people’s generosity.  Or “always save for a rainy day” might create such fear that the other shoe is about to drop that we would hoard our money and refuse to spend it in ways that might actually create joy in our own lives or for other people.

Jesus said that the greatest commandment is to love God with all our heart and soul and mind.  We are to be all in, loving God with everything we’ve got.  Loving God with heart, soul and mind means examining the money messages we live by, even critiquing the money messages that came from those we love.  It means reckoning with the morality of our financial decisions.  It means rejecting practices that don’t enhance our love of God or neighbor and embracing those that do.   

When Lynn Twist was the director of the Hunger Project, she went to an African-American church in Harlem to make an appeal for a project in Africa. She said it was raining and there were buckets all around the room to catch the water leaking through the ceiling.  She knew that the people in this church did not have much to give. When it came time to ask for donations, her palms were sweating and she began to perspire all over wondering if it was the right thing to do. She went ahead and made the request, and the room was absolutely silent.

After what seemed like a long, long time, a woman named Gertrude stood up. In her late sixties or early seventies, she had gray hair and when she stood up she was tall, thin, and proud.
She said, “I ain’t got no checkbook. I ain’t got no credit cards. To me, money is a lot like water. For some folks it rushes through their life like a raging river, but the money comes through my life like a small trickle. But I want to pass it on in a way that does the best good for the most folks. I see that as my right and as my responsibility. It’s also my joy. I have $50 in my purse that I earned from doing a white woman’s wash and I want to give it to you.” [4]

I love that Gertrude understands the use of money as a right and responsibility, but also as joy.   Using the money that flows into her possession in ways that do the most good.  That is her joy. 

All that we are and all that we have and all that we hope to be belongs to God.  We have been imprinted with the image of God. The ways we spend our money, our time, our resources, our life energy, all impact the ways we bear that image.  So beloved ones, this week, may we bear the image and share the joy. Laugh. Dance. Love. Help. Breathe the cool fall air and wonder at the beauty around us. Critically examine one money message you live by.  Spend money to bring joy.   Make a child giggle. Have a long talk with someone – really listen to them and enjoy their company.  Give money to ease someone’s pain. Keep giving to God all that is God’s. Amen.

[1] William E. Phillips, Mark Twain's Religion. (Macon, GA:  Mercer University Press, 2003), p. 157.

[2] Brian Stoffregen at http://www.crossmarks.com/brian/matt22x15.htm

[3] Matthew Skinner, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/christian-economics0matthew-22-15-22_b_1006128

[4] Lynne Twist “Money is a Lot Like Water”  http://www.awakin.org/read/view.php?tid=2096

10/6/19 - A Wandering Illinoisan was my Ancestor - Deuteronomy 26:1-11

A Wandering Illinoisan was my Ancestor

Deuteronomy 26:1-11

October 6, 2019

Emmanuel Baptist Church, Rev. Kathy Donley

My parents were both raised on farms in rural Illinois. My mother was one of 10 children.  There were 5 in my father’s family who lived to adulthood.   They met in college and because of my father’s apparent desire to see the world, they have now lived in 5 countries on 3 continents.

When I was 22-months-old, they took me to Ghana, West Africa.  We stayed there until I was in the third grade. Life there was decidedly different than what I would have known if my parents had not wandered so far from home.  My childhood immunizations included all the ones American kids get, plus a yellow fever vaccine.  On an infrequent, random basis, I saw wild elephants or crocodiles or baboons. 

Regularly, I played with chameleons or hedgehogs I found in the yard or with Oscar, our pet monkey. The family rules included a stern requirement that we only drink water from the tank where it was boiled and that we always be on the look-out for snakes which were all poisonous. One missionary family’s yard included the grave of their four-year-old who suddenly didn’t feel well one afternoon.  He laid down for a nap and never woke up.  What my parents told me about that grave taught me that life was precarious and that some families’ sacrifices were much greater than ours.

Air conditioning was unknown in that place near the equator.  We had electric fans, but the electricity went off every night and stayed off until morning, unless the generators got turned on for an emergency surgery at the hospital. Another nightly ritual was my mother lighting the mosquito coil in my bedroom because mosquitos carried malaria.  In spite of that, everyone in my family got malaria at least once and typhoid too, one Christmas.  As a child, I knew people who had lost fingers and toes to leprosy, and I often heard big words like “onchorceriasis” and “schistosomiasis”  which are tropical diseases never ever found in Illinois. 

My parents’ wandering shaped my life.  From third grade on, we lived in the United States, but I carried within me a internal frame of reference which always reminded me that things are not the same all over the world. I struggled to come to terms with some aspects of American life, especially in social studies classes where my class-mates always seemed to be smugly superior about people in places they had never been.  For a long time, I thought that I would become a doctor and return to Africa when I grew up.  I did apparently grow up to be a wanderer. Our current home is the eleventh place that Jim and have lived in 32 years of marriage.

My parents’ wandering shaped my life.  It is why my ear is tuned to the accents of West Africans which I’m delighted to hear often in upstate New York.  It is probably part of the reason I live 800 miles from my parents – if they don’t like that, they have only themselves to blame.  It might be a factor in my ever-present concern for refugees and immigrants. 

I was shaped by my family.  You were shaped by yours.  So many things go into making us the people we are, living the lives we choose, but the events of the past and the ways we attend to them are definitely important meaning-makers.  

The covenant people of Israel were shaped by the wandering of their ancestors. Our reading from Deuteronomy provides instructions to keep alive that memory and to engage it meaningfully on a regular basis.  Every time they made the harvest offering, they were to recite the story that begins “a wandering Aramean was my ancestor.”  Interestingly, here the reference is not to Abraham, but to Jacob who journeyed back to Aram, when he fled from his brother Esau.  The land of Aram is now called Syria, by the way. 

The offering-givers are to identify with their ancestors, so much so that the speaker is to use first person language.  The Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, . . . therefore we cried out to God, God heard us and saw our need and delivered us and gave us this land.  The people recall the past as if those exact events happened to them and then situate themselves within the covenant with their last words, “and now, behold I bring the first fruits of the ground which you, O  LORD, have given me.” 

“A wandering Aramean was my ancestor.”  That word wandering can also mean perishing.[1]  Israel’s wandering ancestors were landless, threatened,  fearful, victims of other nations and at risk of perishing. The offering-giver remembers the hardship of the past, as if it were his/her own, and gives thanks for life in the present.

A more modern sounding version of this creed might go like this:

“We were at-risk Syrians;

We were exploited as cheap labor;

We were delivered by the wonder of God;

We were brought to a place of abundance;

We enact our gratitude to the God who has saved us.”[2]

There was a possibility that memory would fade, that the harshness of slavery and the lessons learned in the wilderness would be forgotten. There was a danger that the wanderers would settle for something less than the vision of liberation and justice that sent them forth in the first place. [3] And to be sure, that did happen from time to time. But the memory was kept alive in Holy Scripture and in the enactment of gratitude.

With gratitude, they were to bring the offering and tell the story.  But that was not all. Verse 11 reads, “Then you and the Levites and the foreigners residing among you shall rejoice in all the good things the Lord your God has given to you and your household.”  Acting out gratitude was more than something done with ritual words and offering. The next part was to celebrate with two specific groups of people.  They were to celebrate with the Levites,  the priests who depended on the offering gifts because they had no land of their own, and with the foreigners, the immigrants, those who lived among them and might not have the means to make their own offerings or celebrations.  It says “Together with the Levites and the foreigners you shall rejoice”. Celebrate and be grateful, together.

The Bible repeatedly warns the Israelites not to oppress the stranger because they were once strangers who were oppressed.  This story has continued to shape Jewish identity for millennia.    

When the US government separated children from their families at the border, one of the first places they kept the children was in Tornillo Texas.  Joshua Rubin, left his home in Brooklyn and went to Tornillo and lived there for 3 months to protest that oppressive treatment of foreigners. When Tornillo closed down, the child prison at Homestead, Florida opened. Martin Levine began his own protest and public witness outside that facility.  Martin did not know Joshua at the time. Martin and Joshua are both Jewish. 

When the Gethesemane Karen Baptist Church wanted to buy their own building, I called Bill.  Bill is my realtor friend.  He is a member of Congregation Beth Emeth.  The first time we all went to look at a possible site, Bill and I stood to one side talking while the Karen church leaders wandered around, inspecting the building.  Bill said, “Who are these people?  What’s their story?  How do you know them?”

I said “They have escaped attempted genocide in their homeland. I know them because they came to my church. They’ve been coming to the United States for about a decade, and because most of them are Baptist, they are re-invigorating Baptist churches across the country. “

When I said that part about escaping genocide, Bill said “These are my people.” 

This narrative summarized in Deuteronomy shaped the covenant people of Israel thousands of years ago and continues to shape us. And, unfortunately, more recent history does too.   The evil and suffering of the Holocaust is never far from mind.

 It was the focus of one of the most significant moments of the Emmy Awards Ceremony two weeks ago.  Alex Borstein won for her role in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.  It’s a show about a woman in the 1950’s who breaks with social custom when she pursues a career as a stand-up comic.  Alex Borstein accepted the award with thanks to her mother and her grandmother,  who are immigrants and Holocaust survivors.   She said, “My grandmother turned to a guard… she was in line to be shot into a pit and . . . she said, ‘what happens if I step out of line?”  and the guard said, ‘I don’t have the heart to shoot you, but somebody will,’”  Alex said,  “and she stepped out of line, and for that I am here, and my children are here, so step out of line, ladies.  Step out of line.”

Alex knows the story of her ancestors.  It shapes her identity.   She recites to her children with gratitude.  She tells it to strangers to inspire us to courage.

I’m telling all these Jewish stories and you might be wondering where the rest of us fit in.  We who identify as Christian also follow a wandering Aramean. You might remember that Jesus spoke a language called Aramaic.  He was descended from Jacob, that earlier wanderer. He wandered all over Galilee, which was the area of ancient Israel full of foreigners and the landless poor.  For three years, he wandered, healing, and teaching, reminding his people about the God who loved them. He spoke of mercy and inclusion. He demanded justice, welcomed the outcast, and embodied love for his enemies. 

We follow Jesus who knew the story of his people.  He was one who identified with those who had been oppressed and also with the God who delivered them from oppression. He lay down his life to liberate us from the bondage of sin. And he left us a way to remember, bread and wine shared together, received in memory and gratitude.  

[1] John Holbert at https://www.patheos.com/resources/additional-resources/2010/11/sacred-thanksgiving

[2] Walter Brueggemann, “Remembering Who We Are” in The Collected Sermons of Walter Brueggemann, Vol 2, (Louisivlle:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2015) p 44.

[3] Heidi Neumark, “Aliens Welcome:  Deuteronomy 26:1-11, Luke 4:1-13” The Christian Century, February 6, 2007

9/29/19 - The Journey - Exodus 1:8-14, 3:7-15

The Journey

Exodus 1:8-14, 3:7-15

September 29, 2019

Emmanuel Baptist Church, Rev. Kathy Donley

“Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.”  The first chapter of Exodus picks up the storyline from the end of Genesis.  The history of the people of Israel continues to unfold, but this simple sentence alerts us to a major plot twist.

We remember that Joseph was the favorite son of Jacob, the one who had first been taken to Egypt as a slave. But, as he spent years working for the Pharaoh, he earned a place as his second-in-command.  By having the foresight to store surplus crops in the years of abundant harvest, he protected the Egyptians from famine. As the famine went on and people had less money with which to purchase food, Joseph, on behalf of the Pharaoh, accepted their livestock and their land in exchange for food – adding substantially to the wealth of the already rich and powerful king.   When Joseph’s father and brothers and their families fled their homes in Canaan because of the hunger there, there were 70 people who came to Egypt as resident aliens.   The grateful Pharaoh rewarded Joseph by providing them a holding in the best land in Egypt.  These immigrants gained a certain favored status because of their relationship to Joseph.  

But time has moved along and now a new king is in power, a king who did not know Joseph.  A king who did not know his history.  A king who found it convenient to forget the terms that Joseph had negotiated for the welfare of the Hebrews as resident aliens.  A fearful king who thought that the Hebrews posed a threat to the Egyptian way of life.   

In this part of the story, the word Hebrews is used instead of Israelites.  The term Hebrews is more of a social category than an ethnic group.  It is related to a word used outside of the Bible that means “dusty” or “dirty” and is applied to people described as rebels, outlaws, raiders, servants, slaves, and laborers. Hebrews “refers to any group of marginal people who have no social standing, own no land and endlessly disrupt ordered society.   They are ‘low-class folks’ who are feared, excluded and despised.” [1]

Perhaps you can think of some similar social categories, of devalued persons who are seen as a threat or inconvenience to established power. Perhaps you can think of someone like a king who doesn’t know history, someone who, say, has no idea of the Refugee Resettlement Act of 1980 which was intended to provide flexibility to respond to rapidly changing humanitarian crises around the world.  Someone like a king who wants to receive no more than 18,000 refugees from desperate situations across the globe in next year, someone who must not know or care that the lowest number we have ever received is 27,000 and that was in the year following the attacks on September 11. Perhaps you can think of someone like a king who found it convenient to forget the terms negotiated for the welfare of foreign children, laid out in a document called the Flores Agreement.  If you can think of someone like that, then you will understand this story very well.

In the midst of this tremendous on-going suffering, a Hebrew baby is born. He is descended from Abraham and Sarah, the great-great grandson of Jacob.   The baby is Moses.  He will eventually lead the Israelites out of captivity in Egypt. 

We know the end of the story, but what I’m most interested in is what it’s like at the beginning or maybe the middle of the story.  What is it like when you don’t know where you are in the story and how or when it will end?

That’s where we meet Moses – in the middle of the story. He was born as a marginalized Hebrew, but rescued by the Pharaoh’s daughter.  He grew up in the royal household, with most of the attendant privileges.  But one day, as an adult, he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew and he intervened and ended up killing the Egyptian.  Pharaoh heard about it, so Moses fled, to the neighboring area of Midian. 

At the well in Midian, he defended some women from the shepherds who tried to push them aside and take their turn first.  Later, one of those women told her father that it was an Egyptian who defended them.  He must seem more Egyptian than Hebrew to her. 

We picked up the story where Moses is married to that woman and they have a son named Alien.  Moses has settled into life as a resident alien in Midian. Maybe the Midianites aren’t sure whether he is Egyptian or Israelite, but he has settled in Midian where he is safe.  He has a family and a livelihood as a shepherd.  His life in Egypt is long ago and far away.  It seems to be over, as far as he is concerned.

Until the day that God gets his attention through a burning bush.  Some might say that’s when the story starts.  But I wonder.  We tell this long story of Moses and the Exodus as if it’s a fast-action thing, but really there are years and years where nothing happens.

Moses is 80 years old by the time he tells Pharaoh to “let my people go.”  He was just a young man when he identified with the marginalized, when he chose to intervene on the side of the less powerful, those victimized by Pharaoh’s brutality.  Why didn’t the Exodus begin back then? Why did it take so long?

What I’m most interested in is what it’s like when you don’t know where you are in the story and how and when it will end. The word for this place is liminal. It is not a word that I use every day.  It comes from the Latin word limen, which means threshold. Liminal space is the space on the threshold, the time of transition between one thing and the next.  It’s the space in the doorway, the space between moments, the space between before and after.  Liminal space is that place in the doorway.   In a lot of ways, that’s where I find us these days.

You’ve probably seen this image of Greta Thunberg from a year ago.  She’s on strike from school protesting for protection of the environment outside a Swedish government building. A year ago, she was alone. 

Last week, hundreds of thousands of people all over the world joined her cause.    If we look at just that slice of history, it might seem like there was a lot of progress in just one year.  But if we remember that Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring in 1962 and people like her have been urging care for the creation for decades, then we might ask “why is it taking so long?”

Most of us have now heard the idea that every 500 years, the Church goes through a rummage sale where it cleans out the old ways of ordering spirituality and replaces them with new ones.  It’s a way to describe the huge shift we are experiencing in churches, the shift that has been happening for a while now. Phyllis Tickle published that idea and made it popular in 2008, eleven years ago. That might seem fairly recent, but come on, how long does it take to put on a rummage sale?

Every day, it seems, we hear new stories of human desperation and exploitation, of terror and violence, of systematic cruelty, corruption, and indifference.  It happens at our borders and within our neighborhoods and in war zones and places of relative peace, and we wonder how things will ever change.

In so many ways, we find ourselves in liminal space.  And most of us, as we stand in the doorway, we want to know what it will take to move across the threshold.

What did it take for the Israelites? The book of Exodus highlights two things.  First, the people cried out to God.  In their suffering, they groaned and cried out for help and God heard their cry.   It is Israel’s voice of hurt and rage that sets things in motion. Walter Brueggemann says “it is difficult to imagine a more radical theological statement that this; it is voiced grief that mobilizes God to act in saving ways.”   He goes on, “against an etiquette that prefers peaceful waiting, Israel is vigorous and bold, insistent and importunate.  Israel shatters the docile silence, asserts its hurt and its hope. In doing so, it not only terrifies the empire, but it mobilizes holiness on its behalf as well.”  [2]

And so, I wonder as we stand on the threshold, can we hear the insistent cries of those who suffer, the voiced hurt of victims of gun violence, and weary migrants with no safe place to rest, and people of color in a racist world, and those traumatized by one calamity after another?  Do we hear the pain of those who have lost faith because of the church’s failure to love? Do we perceive the groaning of all creation? Like the ancient Israelites, can we hear the lament and raise our own voices, troubling heaven loudly, boldly, vigorously, until we mobilize holiness to action? 

The second thing that moves the Israelites into Exodus is Moses. Moses attends to the bush which burns but is not consumed.  Moses takes off his shoes because he realizes he is standing on holy ground.  Moses listens and hears the voice of God, the voice of the God of his ancestors, the God of his oppressed and marginalized people.  Not the people of Midian where he now lives.  Not the elites of Egypt, the residents of the palace where he grew up, but the people with whom God has been in covenant for generations. The second thing that moves the Israelites across the threshold is that Moses takes up his true identity.  Moses does not do that easily. He resists God’s call and makes excuses.  I don’t blame him.

I’m reading a book called How to Lead When You Don’t Know Where You’re Going by Susan Beaumont. It was just published a week ago.  Too late for Moses, which is too bad, because I think the title sums up his predicament.  What God is calling him to do is completely unknown and seems impossible.   This brand-new book, just published, is intended for church leaders as we stand on the threshold right now.  The title alone explains so much.

The book also offers another image of liminal space. Instead of a doorway, it suggests the image of a trapeze.  Liminal space is “a time when you’ve let go of one trapeze with the faith that the new trapeze is on its way.  In the meantime, there’s nothing to hold on to.”[3] 

I’ve only read the first quarter of the book.  So far, it is more descriptive than prescriptive, but I have found one useful idea, which is the concept of surrender. Now, in everyday use, surrender often means to accept defeat, to give up, to give in. It’s not a term we usually embrace.  It doesn’t seem especially helpful when you’re free-falling from the trapeze.

But Susan Beaumont is writing as a spiritual director and she says that in the contemplative spiritual tradition, surrender means something else. “To surrender is to yield, to submit to the powerful reality of what is, to take a long loving look at what is real, to welcome the situation in front of you. Surrender means accepting the past for what it was, embracing the present reality, yielding to the mystery of the future and the mystery of God in that future.”[4]

I think surrender is a great description for what Moses eventually does.  He takes a long look at the burning bush and submits to the powerful reality of God, the great I-AM, the One who is and has been and will be.  He accepts the past for what it was and yields to the mystery. 

Beloved ones, it seems we stand on several thresholds.  Maybe it even feels like we have let go of the trapeze and there’s nothing to hang onto.  Perhaps we can hold onto this: 

“At the heart of our tradition is the radical idea that God calls God’s people into a new future, that God is the one who agitates and disturbs us and makes us uncomfortable with the status quo.”[5]  May we surrender to that call, accepting the past, submitting to the powerful reality of what is, yielding to the mystery of God with courage and commitment.  Amen.

[1] Walter Brueggemann, New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume 1, (Nashville:  Abingdon Press, 1994), p. 695.

[2] Brueggemann, p. 707.

[3] Susan Beaumont, How to Lead When You Don’t Know Where You’re Going: Leading in a Liminal Season, (Lanham, MD:  Rowman and Littlefield, 2019), p. 12

[4] Beaumont, p. 43.

[5] This beautiful sentence is from a sermon by the Rev. John Buchanan, also called “The Journey”  http://www.fourthchurch.org/sermons/2005/091105.html

9/22/19 - Sibling Keepers - Genesis 37:17b-36

Sibling Keepers

Genesis 37:17b-36

September 22, 2019

Emmanuel Baptist Church, Rev. Kathy Donley

The first account of a murder in the world is the story of Cain killing his brother Abel.  Afterwards, when God asked Cain where Abel was, Cain said, “I don’t know.  Am I my brother’s keeper?”   That question, about how much responsibility we bear or should bear for our brothers and sisters, endures throughout the Bible and continues to be one we ask ourselves.

Before soap operas were invented, before moves or TV, before plays were ever written or performed on stage, there were stories.  Some of the world’s most ancient stories are found in Genesis, and let me tell you, soap operas and stage dramas have nothing on Genesis.  Today we come to Joseph, the great-grandson of Abraham.  Joseph’s story includes betrayal, sex, political intrigue, dysfunctional family dynamics, famine, imprisonment, revenge and forgiveness.

Joseph’s brothers did not kill him, but they don’t win any prizes for their treatment of him either. Joseph is the bratty younger brother.  He is a tattle-tale and a braggart and the older brothers cannot put him in his place because he is their father Jacob’s favorite. Quite simply, they cannot stand him.

Then comes the day when they are all far from home, tending the sheep.  Without Jacob around, Joseph is at his brothers’ mercy.  They see him coming from a distance and they plan to kill him. Rueben, the oldest, persuades them not to kill him with their own hands. He convinces them to put him in a pit and leave him there to die, but Reuben has secret plans to deliver him later.

The pit is a cistern, a deep hole dug into the ground to catch and store rainwater.  It is dry when Joseph is thrown into it.  The word translated as pit or cistern also means prison.  We might remember that after Joseph gets out of this pit, he will be imprisoned by Potiphar in the land of Egypt.  In the Psalms, the pit is a place of utter desolation. Psalm 69 says “Do not let the flood sweep over me or the deep swallow me up, or the Pit close its mouth over me.” And from Psalm 88, “For my soul is full of troubles, and my life draws near to Sheol.  I am counted among those who go down to the Pit; I am like those who have no help,”

The pit is the Biblical term for a place of despair.  It may be the place we find ourselves when we are exhausted from trying to do the right thing but never succeeding, or the place where our own dysfunctional family dynamics catch up with us.  The pit of poverty or addiction or grief may threaten to swallow us on a regular basis.   It may be the place we reach after unending bad news about hurricanes and floods and our governments’ refusal to grant protection to those fleeing them. The pit is a place where escape seems impossible and death is surely imminent.

Joseph’s brothers throw him into the pit. Generations later, the prophet Jeremiah was also imprisoned in a cistern pit.  That was at the time of the exile to Babylon, the years during which these stories took their final form.  So, the cistern, the pit, the place of desolation, becomes a link between the suffering of the present and the suffering of the ancestors.  The people in exile remember that Joseph suffered great injustice and torment, but that God ultimately delivered him and used him for the deliverance of more of God’s people. That link between their time and their ancestor provides hope for their own survival and deliverance.[1]

 Joseph’s brothers throw him into the pit.  Except for Rueben, they all want him to die, in what will surely be a slow and terrifying process.  Rueben secretly plans to come back and rescue him.  Rueben has the instinct to be Joseph’s keeper, but he lacks the courage to stand up to his brothers.  The others seem to feel no shame about what they’re doing. They calmly kill a goat and use its blood on Joseph’s special coat to support the lie they tell their father. 

There are already layers to their cruelty, but then Judah takes it to another level.  He is the one who suggests that there is no profit in murder.  Why kill Joseph when they can sell him? So, Joseph is hauled up, money changes hands, Joseph is carted off to Egypt as a slave and the brothers carry home to Jacob a grief he will bear for the next 22 years.

I am reading these stories through the lens of migration. Joseph’s parents and grandparents and great-grandparents had all been wanderers at various times in their lives, but in Joseph’s story, there are so many elements common to future human migration patterns.  One that jumps out right here is the idea that being cruel is not enough, evil also makes a profit. This echoes for me in the humanitarian crisis that is our immigration system. Our system currently criminalizes asylum seekers who cross the border. Desperate people fleeing violence, persecution and poverty are being detained by the thousands in private for-profit prisons.   When I went to the child prison in Homestead, Florida, I learned that it is paid $775 per child per day. There were about 2700 teens detained there in June, which rounds up to about $2 million tax dollars flowing into the coffers of the private prison owners every day.  That’s just for one facility.   It is not enough to separate families and terrorize desperate people, some people have figured out how to turn that cruelty into a profit.

“Am I my brother’s keeper?” whined Cain.  The question continues to reverberate through time.  None of us here would throw our brother or sister in the pit.  None of us would seek a profit from the suffering of others. But some of us feel like we’re in the pit ourselves and how much responsibility can we be expected to bear for our fellow human beings?  

When the Hebrew people were in exile, and they asked similar questions, they found some encouragement in the model of current prophets like Jeremiah and some hope in the old stories like this one.

I wonder if we might find similar hope and encouragement. We don’t have to look too hard to find contemporary prophets.  Two days ago, thousands of young people all over the world took to the streets to demand that we all step up and take seriously our responsibility for the well-being of the planet which is one of the most fundamental ways we can care for each other. 

Last Sunday, several of us delved into the story of Pia Klemp.  She is a 36-year-old ship captain who spent months on two ships in the Mediterranean Sea.  She and her crew have saved the lives of several thousand migrants, literally pulling them from the water off the coast of Libya.   She and 10 others are now facing trial in Italy. Charged with aiding in illegal immigration, they could serve 20 years in prison if convicted.  Pia feels that far more important than what they’re being subjected to is the fate of those who are completely deprived of their rights, those who continue to die every day as they’re trying to reach safety.    

Born in Germany, she says, “I'm part of a generation that grew up asking their grandparents, 'What did you do against it?’  And I've come to realize that I'm part of a generation that will have to answer the very same question to their grandchildren."[2]

When we were in Copenhagen this summer, our tour guide told us a bit about Denmark during World War II.  He said that when the Nazis first occupied Denmark, at first, they were not as harsh as in some places and Jewish people were left alone.  But by 1943, the Nazis dissolved the Danish government and established martial law.  And then the Jewish population was in danger.  A German official leaked the news that the Gestapo was coming to arrest and deport all Danish Jews within the next 1 or 2 days.  The chief rabbi was alerted and he interrupted Shabbat services to warn people to flee or hide. 

Hundreds of Danish Gentiles helped them.  Mendel Katley was a 36-year-old factory worker with a wife and two children.  When he heard the news, he rushed home to get his family.  Taking the tram home, he saw the same conductor who had been punching his ticket every day for years. The conductor asked why he was going home early.  Mendel told him that of the Germans’ plan. “That’s awful,” the conductor said, “What are you going to do?”

Mendel said he didn’t know, that they needed to find a place to hide. “Come to my house,” the conductor insisted.  Get your family and bring them all to my house.”

Mendel was stunned, “But you don’t know me.  You don’t even know my name and I don’t know yours.”  The conductor held out his hand and introduced himself. Mendel was no longer alone.

Similar acts happened across Denmark.  One well-known physician remembered that a woman he had never met approached him, introduced herself, and said, “This is my address and here is the key to my house if you should ever need it.”  After the war, another woman heard that story and said the same thing happened to her.  At one point, she had keys for 4 different people’s homes. 

Ordinary citizens hid Jewish people until they could get them onto boats and smuggle them by sea to Sweden, which was willing to grant asylum. Over 7200 people were smuggled out of Denmark in a short period of time. Ninety-nine percent of Danish Jews survived the Holocaust.

Our tour guide said that some years ago, he saw an interview with a woman who was a young girl in 1943.  She said that at the time, she had recently been given a doll.  It was new and precious to her, but when her family fled, she had to leave her doll behind.  In this interview, she said that they went to Sweden and stayed there for some years, returning to Denmark only after the war had ended. When they came back to their home in Denmark, they found that a neighbor had taken care of their home for them.  As a child, she came back to her home and walked into her bedroom and found her doll on her bed, just as she had left it.   

Twenty years after the war, a Copenhagen housewife said, “We helped the Jews because they needed us.  How could anybody turn their backs and not do everything possible to prevent the slaughter of innocent people? . . . By saving Jews, we saved ourselves. We kept our integrity and honor. We struck a blow for human dignity at a time when it was sorely lacking in the world.”[3]

Joseph’s story is long and we didn’t get to hear all of it today. Some of you will remember that in Egypt, he is imprisoned after false accusations but later he is helpful to Pharaoh. So helpful that he becomes something like Pharaoh’s Secretary of Agriculture.  When famine strikes the region twenty-two years later, his brothers come to Egypt to buy food. They don’t know who he is, but he recognizes them.  He has the opportunity to take revenge, which he does, in some petty ways. But when it really matters, he provides abundantly for all of them and forgives them and is reunited with his father in the final years of his life.

Ultimately, Joseph chooses to be his brothers’ keeper.  He says, “God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors.”

Sisters and brothers, I offer these accounts of contemporary prophets and stories from recent history not to be discouraging, not to suggest that we should be doing something more or different, but to encourage us all in what feels like a long hard time.  Like the exiles in Babylon, may we remember those who have acted courageously and faithfully before us and may we also trust that within us and around us, in ways we may not yet see, God is at work for our deliverance.  Thanks be to God.

[1] Kathleen O’Connor, Jeremiah:  Pain and Promise, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2011) p. 154

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7V1zNNfc_Q

[3] https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-kindness-of-strangers

9/15/19 - Running for His Life - Genesis 27:41 - 28:22

Running for His Life

Genesis 27:41-28:22  

September 15, 2019

Emmanuel Baptist Church, Rev. Kathy Donley

Every wanderer, every immigrant is a unique person with his or her own story.  That is probably obvious, but with so many people being forcibly relocated in the world now, we often hear about migrants in groups.

Millions have fled the war in Syria. Thousands have traveled from Central America to arrive at our southern border.   The images in the media are of too many people in too small boats coming ashore in Greece or of an ever-growing walking caravan making its way north to Tijuana or El Paso or Nogales.  The images in our minds tend to be of migrants as a large group, not individuals. When we learn the story of an individual migrant, it is usually because something tragic has happened to them.  The large groups of people are on the move for the same reasons – war in Syria, violence and grinding poverty in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, but before they were migrants, they were farmers or fishers, seamstresses, musicians, grandparents, teachers, or children. Every migrant has a story that is larger than their status as a displaced person.   

I realized that particularly this week as I read the familiar story of Jacob.   Pretend for a minute that all we know about Jacob is the part that Barb just read for us.  If we met Jacob for the first time at this point, we would know him as a wanderer, as someone running for his life, someone beyond the protection of his family and country, someone who would likely be killed if he was forced to go back right then.  Someone has said that at that point, Jacob’s existence was in a “world of fear, terror, loneliness, and, we might imagine, unresolved guilt.”[1]  That sounds a lot like the experience of migrants and refugees all over the world right now – fear, terror, loneliness, and quite likely, unresolved guilt over decisions made when there were no good choices and actions taken out of desperation.  So, if all we knew of Jacob was this part of the story, he might seem to have a lot in common with wanderers from other times, including our own.

But we know much more about Jacob.  And that is a reminder that there is more to know about every single person who also happens to be an immigrant, on the move at this moment in time.

Jacob’s story begins in the womb.  He and his twin Esau were so active inside their mother, Rebekah, that Rebekah asked God about it.  God told her that she was carrying two nations and that one would be stronger than the other and that the elder would serve the younger. Jacob is the younger twin.  This word, given to Rebekah before he was born, does appear to come true.

Now some of us are not very comfortable with a God who plays favorites. We don’t like the idea that God would choose one brother over the other.  If this one is hard for us, we have to remember the world into which Jacob and Esau was born was governed by a system of favoritism.  The system is called primogeniture and it means that the firstborn son inherits everything.  No one questioned this; it was just the way things were.  But this word from God inverts the assumed natural order of things.  Hebrew scholar Walter Brueggemann says that “It affirms that we are not fated to the way the world is presently organized.”  This oracle “expresses a scandalous decision on the part of God . . .   Esau is not judged or condemned, but the accident of his birth is not a title to privilege.” [2] 

“We are not fated to the way the world is presently organized.”  This is true then and now.  True when chattel slavery was or is part of the world’s organization scheme.  Or when children were or are laborers, or when women were or are assumed to be subordinate to men, or when heteronormativity is or was the law of the land.  “We are not fated to the way the world is presently organized”  is true for people born on a certain side of geographical boundaries, into a system that assumes they will be part of the collateral damage of war, or that they will join the gangs that serve the empires of powerful drug cartels. Mass migration is one way that powerless people can reject the way the world is presently organized.  And like Esau, those of us who happen to born within different geographical boundaries are not more entitled to safety and peace than those who currently wander.

Jacob and Esau grow up at odds with each other. Esau loves the woods and hunting.  Jacob is a homebody.    Esau shares his love of the outdoors with his father, while Jacob is his mother’s favorite.  The dividing lines are drawn from early on. Some siblings squabble all through childhood, but as they grow up, they become friends. Not these two. They are adults, in their 40’s, when Jacob does the worst thing ever. He steals something precious that rightfully belongs to Esau.  He tricks his father into giving him the blessing meant for the oldest son.

Esau’s anger at Jacob’s deception drives the brothers apart for the next 20 years.  Jacob runs for his life, like so many leave home today under threat of genocide or starvation or to escape unending war. Using the pretext of needing to marry someone from his own ethnic group, Jacob runs to his mother’s brother, his Uncle Laban.  Earlier, Laban and Rebekah had been identified as Arameans.  It is here that Jacob becomes known as the “Wandering Aramean”.

The journey to Haran is 400 miles, which he makes all alone, on foot.  He spends more than one night in the pitch dark, without a tent, without a blanket, among the stones.

It is then, when Jacob has settled into an anxious sleep that God comes to him in a dream.  God makes the same promises that God had made to his father and his grandfather, promises of land and descendants and blessing.  God also makes a promise that is unique to Jacob, that God will bring Jacob back home.   In that time, gods were associated with a specific place or land.  Jacob has gone beyond the boundary of where he believes God lives, but this God will not be limited to one time or place.  This God will be with Jacob wherever he goes.

Mevan Babakar and her parents fled Iraq in the early 1990’s after Saddam Hussein’s brutal crackdown on the Kurdish population, including a gas attack on a village near their home. For five years, they moved through Turkey, Azerbaijan, Russia, and eventually to the Netherlands for a year before moving on to London.  Her short life had been a series of moves to new places where she was always the foreigner. At five years old, she lived in a refugee camp in the Netherlands.  That year, a Dutch man who worked in the camp bought her a bicycle.  Mevan is now 29. Looking back on that incident she said, “I remember feeling so special. I remember thinking that this is such a big thing to receive, am I even worthy of this big thing?  This feeling kind of became the basis of my self-worth growing up.”[3]

Mevan was one of many people in that refugee camp, but she was treated as an individual.  Receiving that bike made her feel like a real person, someone who was worthy of having a bicycle, someone not fated to live in the world as it was organized at her birth.

Mevan’s experience of getting a bike and Jacob’s encounter with God are not parallel experiences, except that perhaps each one created a fundamental shift in their self-perception.  Perhaps Jacob thought he was unworthy because of his second-born status.  Maybe he thought he would only ever get the good stuff through deception.   But now he knows that he is worthy enough that God will come to him in the middle of nowhere and promise him what he most fervently wants, a chance to go home again.

It does happen.  He does go home again, but not for another 20 years. The physical separation with his brother becomes permanent, although there is reconciliation.  God changes Jacob’s name to Israel and he becomes identified with that nation. Esau, is also known as Edom which is a reference to his red hair and his descendants are known as Edomites. The Edomites and the Israelites will continue to be neighbors in the land for generations. Sometimes their relationship works for their mutual benefit and sometimes they act as enemies.  By the time of the exile, the time when the book of Genesis was written down, Edom is considered the epitome of evil and betrayal.

I point this out because the past is always working in the present. Jacob is the ancestor of Israel, the spiritual forebearer of Jews and Christians. Esau is the spiritual ancestor of Muslims. The separation between Jacob and Esau has personal and political and religious consequences which continue to this day.  One of the fears we hear now is that Muslim migrants are coming to take over, to change our way of life.  It is one more of the anxieties about difference being used to stoke fear and division.

Here’s the surprising, hopeful thing that this ancient book of Genesis can offer.  By the time the book is written, the people of Israel associate Esau with evil.  They have more history, more events upon which to base their evaluation of Esau’s descendants than just the story of two fighting brothers.  But if we were to read all the chapters about Esau in Genesis, we would see that he is presented sympathetically. At the time of Jacob’s deception, Esau is the one wronged, Jacob the one doing the harm. When they are reconciled, Esau conducts himself nobly, not requiring anything from Jacob in return for what he stole. And perhaps most surprising is that chapter 36 is an entire chapter devoted to preserving the names of Esau’s descendants.  Those in exile might easily have discarded Esau’s genealogy. Those people are the enemy – why should we care about their ancestors?  But perhaps they are retained as a reminder that those people used to be family. 

Walter Brueggemann says this so well: 

“The Bible chooses to follow the Jacob line.  But that makes the Esau story no less legitimate. We are required . . . to recognize the large vision of Genesis.  This book of gracious beginnings belongs to Muslims (children of Esau) as well as to Jews and Christians (children of Jacob.)  . . . [Genesis] does not pretend that the one line of Abraham’s family is all there is. The memory has not been purged or revised to exclude the others. This awareness has important implications for the faith community in the context of the human community.  While God has a particular and precious relation to this chosen community, it is not the Lord’s only commitment. In other ways and on other grounds, these others are also held in [God’s] care and kept in [God’s] promise”[4]

“In other ways and on other grounds, these others are also held in God’s care, kept in God’s promise.”

“We are not fated to the way the world is presently organized.”  We do not have to accept the inevitability of war and violence.  We do not have to bow down to the gods of consumerism and convenience and corporate greed at the expense of God’s good creation.  We do not have to submit to mistreatment of anyone at any arbitrary border just because that is the way the world is presently organized.

Sisters and brothers, let us remember our connection to the large vision of Genesis.  As Barbara Brown Taylor sums it up, “We are the dreamers of the promise, set apart to bless all the families of the earth. It comes when all our conniving has blown up in our faces and our luck has run out." This is "where the dream touches down, reminding us that we sleep at the gate of heaven, where it has pleased God to be with us, . . . where the bright rungs of God's ladder touch down on our own ordinary pieces of the earth."[5]

Thanks be to God.

[1] Walter Brueggemann, Genesis: Interpretation A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching, (Atlanta:  John Knox Press, 1982),  p. 243.

[2] Brueggemann, p. 216-17

[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/14/world/europe/refugee-bike-search-mevan.html

 [4] Brueggemann, p. 287

[5] Barbara Brown Taylor, Gospel Medicine (Lanham, Maryland:  Cowley Publications, 1995), pp. 115-116.

9/8/19 - Blessed to be a Blessing - Genesis 11:30 - 12:20

Blessed to be A Blessing

Genesis 11:30-12:20  

September 8, 2019

Emmanuel Baptist Church, Rev. Kathy Donley

In her picture book, The Blessing Cup, Patricia Polacco tells a wonderful family story.[1] It is the story of Anna, a young Russian girl and her family The story centers on a beautiful china tea set that had been a wedding gift to Anna’s parents.  The set had come with a note from Anna’s great aunt. The note said “This tea set is magic. Anyone who drinks from it has a blessing from God.  They will never know a day of hunger.  Their lives will always have flavor.  They will know love and joy and they will never be poor.”  Every so often,  Anna would ask her mother to tell the story about the tea set and the message in the note. And even though there was never enough money, they believed they were rich because they had each other.  Before their evening meals, Anna’s mother would say “So that our lives would always have flavor.”  In this way, the tea set and its message shaped their lives.

Then one day, the family was forced to flee, because the czar ordered all the Jews to leave.  As they moved across the land, Anna’s father got very sick and the family ended up living for a few months with a kind doctor who helped him get better.  When they were forced to  leave again, the doctor purchased traveling papers and passage on a ship to America and took them to the train himself.  When he returned home, he was astonished to find their tea set in his dining room.  Anna’s mother had left a message with it “Always remember, dear friend. You are the bread that fed us. You are the salt that flavored our lives. You are the love and joy that held us together. Your golden, kind heart makes you rich indeed. You shall never be poor!  I am leaving our precious tea set in your good keeping.  We kept one cup so that we can still have its blessing among the four of us.” 

The one cup survived the ocean-crossing.  On every family occasion and holiday, they drank together from the cup and told its story.  It was passed from generation to generation.  Anna gave it to her daughter Carle.  In 1938, Carle gave the cup to her daughter.  In 1962, Mary gave the blessing cup to her daughter, Patricia.   Patricia kept up the family tradition, sharing tea from the cup and telling the story to her children. And in 2013, she shared the story with the world in her book.

The cup is part of the story.  But as the cup travels from one generation to the next, it also shapes the story.  The story of the tea set received as a wedding gift becomes the story of the tea set given to someone else in gratitude and the memories formed around celebrations where the one remaining cup was shared.  It is always a story about identity, but the version of the story you heard would depend on where you were in history when it was told. 

There are parallels between the way that story worked in Anna’s family and the ways the stories in Genesis shaped and were shaped by the history of the Hebrew people.  The stories in Genesis are stories about the ancestors, about the covenant that God made with Abraham and Sarah,  Isaac and Rebecca, and Jacob and Rachel and Leah.  They are stories about who and what and where.  Who were our ancestors? What did they do?  What are the names of the places where they lived? Those stories got told over and over again, just like Anna’s mother told her the story of the tea set that had been a wedding gift. 

But then something happened to the Hebrew people. They were captured by an enemy and taken away to a foreign country called Babylon.  They were no longer in the land of their ancestors, no longer in the place where they believed God lived.  It made them question their identity – how could they be Israelites if the country of Israel had been destroyed?  How could they keep the covenant outside the Promised Land?  How had their ancestors done it?  They looked for answers in their family stories, and they told those old stories in ways that answered some of their current questions. Scholars believe it was when they were in exile that the stories were written down as we have them now.  So the experience of exile shaped the identity of the people of Judah, perhaps like giving away the tea set shaped Anna’s family identity, and the new shape became  part of the identity going forward.

The stories we will read this month are likely very familiar to many of us.  It may be helpful to hear them with new ears if we consider how they would have been heard by those in captivity in Babylon.

We begin in chapter 11 with what Walter Brueggemann calls “the most incredible announcement in the tradition of Israel.” [2]  The transition from chapter 11 to chapter 12 is the transition from the history of the world to the history of Israel, or theologically, from the history of the curse to the history of the blessing.   If we had been following along, we would have heard a long genealogy naming generations of Abraham’s ancestors, setting his story in its context.  We might expect the genealogy to continue with the names of his descendants, but instead it abruptly reports “the name of Abraham’s wife was Sarai . . . she was barren.”

We all know people who longed to have children, people who would have been wonderful parents, but people who for a variety of reasons were never able to conceive or adopt children.  Despite the advances of medical technology and reforms in child welfare laws, infertility and the inability to adopt are brutally painful experiences of our time.  We have this in common with Abraham and Sarah.  They have no children and it is brutally painful.

“Now Sarai was barren” sums up a situation of hopelessness.   “This family has played out its future and has nowhere else to go. There is no foreseeable future.  There is no human power to invent a future.” [3]

The history of the people of Israel begins like this, in utter despair.  Imagine how those in captivity would have heard this. They are in a parallel place, of metaphorical barrenness. Without offspring in their homeland, they have no future as a nation. After invasions and deportations, they face the possibility of extinction or of absorption into other nations.  A future life seems impossible, but they realize that it once seemed impossible for Abraham and Sarah too, and their interest is sharpened.

The way out of hopelessness, the path through despair is not created by humans, but by God.  God speaks to Abraham. It is the word of God which has the power, the power of life over death, of hope over despair, the power to make a way where there is no way.

The first thing God says is “Go.  Go from your country and your family to an unknown place that I will show you.”  The goal in their culture was to accumulate enough property and livestock that you were secure,  so you didn’t have to move again. Abraham and Sarah have done that.  They are settled, but God tells them to pick up and go, to venture into the unknown . . . and they do.

Abraham is the spiritual ancestor of three world religions.  For Jews, Christians and Muslims, which make up more than half the world’s population, he is the first model of trusting obedience to God.  God says “Go” and Abraham does.

He was working the plan, moving on by stages.  When you are a wanderer, an immigrant, you may or may not have a plan, but even if you do, it often seems that you have little control over your life, chaos threatens all the time. It quickly threatens Abraham and his family in the form of famine. 

So he diverts from the plan, temporarily, to go to Egypt where there is food.  They are foreigners in Egypt, at risk of being mistreated as foreigners often are. So Abraham gets Sarah to lie about their relationship, to say that she is his sister. He does this as self-protection.  Because she is beautiful, men will want her and will kill him if they know he is her husband. He is correct; a powerful man does want her. She is forcibly taken into the Pharoah’s house where she becomes a part of his harem.  Today we would call that trafficking.  Women and children are still the most vulnerable people within groups of migrants.  Among those moving north from Central America through Mexico, it is estimated that as many as 60% of women and girls experience sexual assault during the journey.[4]  And that experience does not necessarily improve when they cross the border.

When this story was repeated in Babylon, I wonder how it was heard? Perhaps there was some anger at Abraham for failing to protect Sarah.  There were undoubtedly women who could identify with Sarah’s helplessness.  One scholar suggests that Abraham’s trickery could have made him a folk hero.  He writes, “People who find – to their own cost – what powerlessness means, are very well aware of the fact that trickery often is the only, thus legitimate, option for survival.  They sustain each other by telling stories about the inventiveness of their heroes and heroines.” [5]     

The first readers of this story may appreciate Abraham’s capacity for deception as a means of survival, but the message of the story is that God does not approve. The message is that God cares for the most vulnerable, and so God intervenes to rescue Sarah.  They leave Egypt and return to Canaan, back on track in obedience to God’s purpose.

This is the first of many journeys that Abraham’s descendants will make, back and forth to Egypt. Egypt is the world power, the place with resources and jobs, the place where foreigners go when disaster strikes, when the food runs out.   It seems that human migration has always happened like this. When events in one place like famine or violence push people out of one place, they move to another place drawn by the opportunity for work or relative safety. In case I’m being too subtle, let me suggest that this push-pull migration happens in many places in the world.  The closest one to our experience is the movement across the border between Mexico and the USA for the last 200 years.  And guess what --  the world power that parallels Biblical Egypt is the USA.

Abraham is model of trusting obedience in three of the world’s religions. He is held up as an example for all who would be faithful in surrendering our will to God’s.  Knowing his story encourages us to respond with similar courage and willingness to go where God directs. But, there is a second response that Abraham’s story elicits from us [6]—which is empathy towards his situation.  First, we say “That’s supposed to be me. I should be obedient like that.” And then, our next realization is  “That could be me.  I could be the foreigner, wandering without a home, vulnerable and at the mercy of strangers.”  And so the second response which this story seems intended to evoke is a concern for foreigners and strangers, those who might be dependent on our kindness for their very survival. 

The patterns of human existence that surface in these stories – patterns of hopelessness and despair, of faith and trust in God’s purpose, of being sent on a mission into unknown territory and of receiving those who find themselves forced to rely on the love offered by strangers – these are the patterns which began in earliest human history which continue into our own time.  May we hear them with the ears of faith, tuned to places of hopelessness, with heightened awareness of the vulnerability of all migrants and particularly the women and children among them. May we recognize our kinship with Abraham and Sarah, and know ourselves blessed to be a blessing to others. Amen.

[1] Patricia Polacco, The Blessing Cup, (New York:  Simon and Schuster for Young Readers, 2013).

[2] Walter Brueggemann, Genesis: Interpretation A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching, (Atlanta:  John Knox Press, 1982),, p.116

[3] Brueggemann, p.116

[4] https://www.amnestyusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/amr410142010eng.pdf

 [5] Fokkelien van Dijk-Hemmes, “Sarai’s Exile,” in A Feminist Companion to Genesis, ed. Athalya Brenner (Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993), p. 229

 [6] Timothy Simpson at https://politicaltheology.com/the-politics-of-immigration-genesis-121-4a/

9/1/19 - Philoxenia - Hebrews 13:1-3, 15-16

Philoxenia

Hebrews13:1-3, 15-16

Emmanuel Baptist Church/FOCUS Joint Worship

September 1, 2019

Rev. Kathy Donley

It was 4:00 in the morning. I was in a hotel and I couldn’t sleep.  Looking out the window, I saw people working in the kitchen of a restaurant across the street.  The streets were dark, but the kitchen was lit up and inside it, people were active.   They were preparing breakfast for the strangers sleeping in those dark buildings.

My family and I got to visit  Europe back in May.   We did a lot of touristy things – museums and cathedrals and monuments.   We quickly learned to find the pamphlet racks.  Every major attraction provided printed material to explain and interpret the history or to point out various details about it.  And we learned to look for the English version, because it would be available in about a dozen languages.  On sightseeing busses and canal boat tours, there were guides who spoke English or we were offered headsets translating the narrated guide into our language.   I went to a lot of places.  Places where street signs were often confusing and the money was different and the landscape unfamiliar. My journeys were made easier by the preparations that others made on my behalf.  Preparations that included developing printed materials in multiple languages and  working in the kitchen overnight so that breakfast would be ready when I needed it.

Many people practiced philoxenia on my behalf, although I doubt they called it that.  That’s the Greek word hidden in our Scripture reading today.  It’s in verse 2, but let’s start with verse 1.  “Let mutual love continue.”  The Greek says “Let philadelphia continue.”  We are familiar with Philadelphia, the city of brotherly or mutual love.  The author of Hebrews instructs an early Christian community to keep loving each other, to keep on caring for other members.  In a world which was often hostile to the faithful, mutual support and love was essential for survival. 

Then verse 2 says in English “do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers”.  The Greek word, philoxenia gets translated as hospitality to strangers, but it literally means “love of strangers.”   Taken together, the two verses say “Keep on loving each other and don’t forget to love strangers too.”   

“Keep loving each other and don’t forget to love strangers too.”  I was the stranger this summer, in foreign countries and several American cities and also in a number of churches.  And I have to say that it was the churches that seemed to need to hear this the most.  No one was ever mean or even rude, but in several cases, it just did not seem that they had prepared to receive strangers. Often the only person who spoke to me was the pastor and sometimes that happened only because I took the initiative.

When you visit a church, you are keenly aware that you are the stranger. It feels as though everyone is watching you, but few people are talking to you. You are self-conscious about whether to sing or not to sing, about taking communion in the style of this community and whether you will break some unspoken rule that all the insiders know.  It takes a lot of courage to set foot in a church community when you are the stranger. 

It takes a lot of courage to set foot in a church community when you are the stranger.  Some of you know this very well, because you have done it in the last few years, when you joined this church or another FOCUS Church, and we are richer for your presence with us. Some of you may have done it just today, and if we don’t recognize you as a newcomer, its because we think you’re a member of one of the other churches.  But I want to acknowledge how hard this is and how important it is for churches to love strangers. Can we offer a round of applause for newcomers who have had the courage to show up among us?

There’s Biblical precedent for being the stranger. Luke’s gospel records the time when Jesus sent seventy people out of their comfort zones into unknown, sometimes unfriendly, communities to seek welcome there, to be an active part of God’s unfolding love.   What Jesus modelled is this:  “They were not called to welcome the stranger; rather they were to be the stranger seeking welcome.” [1]

Did you get that? The early disciples were to be the strangers, the ones relying on the hospitality of others. We have lost that. Instead now we mostly try to be a friendly church, expecting strangers to come to us.  Becoming the stranger ourselves is not necessarily something we embrace, but maybe we should.

I was the stranger, outside my comfort zone, in need of welcome, when I went to Homestead in June. Homestead, Florida is the site of our largest child detention facility. In June, it held about 3000 teenagers who had been separated from their adults when they crossed the border. I went to bear witness.  I went as one seeking to welcome those strangers, but what I experienced was far more than that.

There are two main areas outside the child prison.  One is a gathering space with two awnings as shield from the weather. In this space, people hang out and talk with each other, or attempt to engage the employees, or hold up protest signs. 

The other area, 300 yards down the road, has stepladders where witnesses stand to see over the fence into the yard where the teens come outdoors. They wave and hold up hearts, never protest signs, in their own effort at philoxenia – sending love across the road and over the fence to those traumatized captive strangers.

On my first day, I took my spot on the stepladders.  For about an hour, it was just Mary[2] and me.  When there were no children outdoors, we talked.  Truthfully, Mary mostly talked and I mostly listened.  But then she got to the part about her Baptist relative who was completely opposed to what she was doing and pretty much everything she stands for.  I realized that I had already told her traveling companion that I was a Baptist pastor.  I figured she would hear it anyway and best to hear it from me. Now, you probably don’t know this, but Baptists as a group don’t always have the best reputation. (Before you laugh too hard, I’ll remind you that Christians as a group don’t either.) 

When I said I was a Baptist pastor, I thought she might fall off the stepladder.  She pretty much thought she knew all there was to know about Baptists and little of it was good. Plus the words “Baptist” and “woman pastor” just did not belong together in her universe. But you know what --  she held back her preconceptions and she asked thoughtful, loving questions and allowed herself to accept me for who I was.  By the end, she shook my hand and thanked me for being “real clergy” and “an authentic follower of Jesus.”  I told her I just keep trying to show up.

The second day, I met Becky.  Becky, was a former journalist who recorded mini-interviews with various people on site on her phone.  Late in the day, on camera she asked me how I came to be there and how it related to my work as a pastor.  When she turned off the camera,  she said, "off the record, would you answer another question?"  She said she grew up in Mississippi and she had heard me say earlier that I was a Baptist pastor, and she was having a really hard time believing that could be true.  So, I tried to give her Baptist history and polity in 100 words or less, assuming that I would bore her to death.  But then she  asked if I would say all that again on camera, because otherwise her friends would never believe her. 

Two days in a row. My only two days there so far.  I might have felt like a true Oddball Baptist, a real outsider, but instead I was invited to be myself.  With love and openness, Mary and Becky set aside their own negative experiences with members of my tribe and welcomed me as an individual.

At the end of that second day, one more thing happened. I had met Susan,  but just briefly.  I was heading for car to go home for the night, when Susan asked if she could have a private word with me. We took several steps away from the rest of the group and she hesitantly asked if I would say a prayer for her.  She said that she had only recently become "open to the Holy Spirit" and since she had heard I was a pastor, was it ok for her to ask and would I pray?  So of course I  did, and what a privilege that was!  I do know that when I pray for someone, it’s supposed to be about them, not about me.  But when I thought about this later, I realized that I had been welcomed to the point that my vocational gifts were also sought after by the community.  Loving the stranger also means inviting and accepting what they have to contribute. 

There are a lot of ways to greet people.  We might say “Hello.”  Or “Good Morning” or “How are you?”  In South Africa,  a standard greeting goes like this:

The first person says “I see you.” 

The second person responds, “I am here.” 

“I see you.”  “I am here.”  Isn’t that just lovely?  When we show up as a stranger, isn’t that what we want – to be seen, to be recognized as ourselves.  And to respond “I am here.”  I am fully present, with all my strengths and weaknesses, bringing my whole self into this place. 

“I see you.”  “I am here.” 

There are always strangers arriving at Homestead, some from the next town, some from across the country, and they are always received with love.  The local witnesses are prepared – they provide cold water and sunscreen and a lawn chair and or a stepladder. They patiently answer the same questions they have answered a hundred times. 

On the 123rd day of the witnesses being present at Homestead, something remarkable happened. About 30 teenagers showed up on a mission trip.  Every single stepladder and a few milkcrates were pressed into service, but still not everyone could see over the fence.

So they climbed up onto plastic barricades that stand in front of an unused parking lot.   The teens on the outside of the fence held up hearts and posters and waved to those inside the fence.  They yelled what the witness usually yell.  In English and in Spanish, they said “We see you.  We love you.”  They wanted to do more. 

One of the chaperones brought their van to the stepladder area and blasted the car radio. Soon youth on both sides of the fence were dancing.  Then some got the idea of climbing on top of the van to dance there.  (These were Presbyterian youth.  Go figure.)

And then this happened. [3]

They are yelling, “No estan solos”  “You are not alone.”

Right after this, it started to rain.  The teens on the inside of the fence knew that they would be moved indoors.  So they rushed to get as close to the fence as they could and they yelled and waved back to the teens on the outside. They were ecstatic at the engagement with people their own age.  The skies opened up and it poured, but the youth group stayed at their posts until everyone else went inside. Then youth moved on to their next appointment, but the local witnesses continued to talk about that morning. 

The story was told and retold to every person who arrived for the rest of the day.  Marty, the very first Homestead witness who spends hours there every week, said, “I now know to a certainty that the daily love and encouragement that we shower on our precious children inside the fence has a positive effect. Those kids came all the way from Colorado just to send love to other kids.” Charley is a young woman who left her job to be at Homestead every day.  Charley said, “This is the greatest thing I’ve ever witnessed here.”

The local witnesses had been loving strangers on multiple levels for months.  Some were probably tired of newcomer’s questions.  Some were weary and discouraged, verging on burn-out. But they provided hospitality anyway.  I cannot tell you what a morale boost the presence of those Presbyterian teenagers was for them. It was almost as if they had entertained angels.

Sisters and brothers, let us keep loving each other and don’t forget to love strangers too.  Amen. 

[1] Beth Ann Estock and Paul Nixon, Weird Church: Welcome to the Twenty-First Century, (Cleveland:  The Pilgrim Press, 2016), p. 18

[2] Some names have been changed to maintain anonymity.

[3] (At this point, we played a short video clip. It showed a line of teens and sponsors, standing on the plastic barricades and on the roof of the van, repeating one in line in unison, over and over.)

8/25/19 - Perfectly Suited - Jeremiah 1:4-10; Luke 13:10-17

Perfectly Suited 

Jeremiah 1:4-10, Luke 13:10-17

August 25, 2019

Emmanuel Baptist Church, Rev. Heather Kirk-Davidoff 

During my second year in Divinity School, I had an internship with the Massachusetts chapter of CURE, Citizens United for the Rehabilitation of Errants, a national organization that lobbies for prison reform.  The previous year, I interned in a prison chaplaincy program and had learned a lot of disturbing things about sentencing and incarceration in this country. I was passionate about the need to improve prisons so the working with CURE seemed to be logical next step.

My boss was a Dominican nun named Dot.  I had never met a Catholic nun like her—she wore jeans overalls and lived in an apartment in my neighborhood with another Catholic sister. Sister Dot had been a high school art teacher for many years.  Messy and expressive and easily sidetracked, she fulfilled many of my stereotypes about artists. After retiring from teaching, she went to lead Massachusetts CURE, but to help pay the bills, she also worked a “Color Me Beautiful” consultant.  Do any of you remember “Color Me Beautiful”? It was a system for figuring out what color clothing a person should wear that grouped people into four seasonal types, each with its own sets of preferred colors.  

Sister Dot was a true believer in this system.  She told me at my first supervision meeting with her, “If you’d like to stay a bit late one day, I could drape you.”  I wasn’t really sure what this meant—for all I knew, it was something Catholics did—but I eventually found out that this was the process by which she would diagnose which season I was.  As it turned out, draping was unnecessary. One time, I was sitting in supervision running through my work from the previous week when she suddenly interrupted. “Stop right there,” she said.  “I can’t listen to another word. That sweater is a terrible color for you. Give it to me right now. You are a fall for goodness sake, NOT a spring!”

Sister Dot was not the most likely candidate to lead a statewide lobbying group, and she admitted as such.  She had spent a fair amount of time in prisons and had a very open heart to prisoners and their families. She was passionate and compassionate, but she wasn’t particularly organized or strategic. To her great credit, she knew her limitations.  And yet, she believed that her work with CURE was something God had called her to do. She was convinced of this, not because the job was a good fit for her gifts and aptitudes, not because she was the best person for the job, but because the job was important, that it needed to be done, and she was there to do it.

I didn’t learn a great deal about lobbying that year, but I did learn a LOT about my previously unexamined beliefs about call.  You see, I thought that the way you figured out what you should do with your life, the way you discerned your call, was by figuring out what you were good at doing.  I had taken any number of aptitude tests in school, tests that were designed to identify our strengths and then match those strengths to a series of possible jobs. If you were good with numbers, you were supposed to be an accountant.  If you were good with children, you were supposed to work in a daycare. I understood “call” in the same way. God gave each person gifts. Our call was to use those gifts to do God’s work in the world. Pretty straightforward, right? So, when I encountered someone who really believed she was called to do something she wasn’t particularly expert at, it kind of shook me up.  

Sister Dot is hardly the only one with this experience.  If you read the Bible, you'll discover that just about everyone who gets a call from God feels like there must be someone else better suited for the job.  And here’s the thing: they aren’t speaking out of false modesty. They are being honest with God about their limitations and God doesn’t disagree.  

Consider Moses, for example.  Moses tells God that he can’t be the right choice to challenge Pharoah to free the enslaved Israelites because he has a speech impediment.  God responds by promising that he’ll send Aaron along to help him communicate. Notice that God doesn’t fix Moses speech problem. Nor does God argue with Moses saying, “Oh no, your speech really isn’t all that bad.”  God calls Moses even though Moses won’t perform the task perfectly.

Jeremiah argues God out of calling him to be a prophet.  What’s his excuse? He’s too young. God has such a heavy, serious message for him to deliver to the nation of Israel. Shouldn’t God send someone with more innate authority, someone with a bit more gravitas, someone with a long gray beard and big, shaggy eyebrows?  Jeremiah is sure he is exactly the wrong person for the job, but God calls him anyways. And that story is repeated again and again in the Bible. God’s call is not a reward for a high score on an aptitude test. God’s call will ALWAYS mean facing into our inadequacy--and trusting that God can and will use whatever we have to offer. 

Emmanuel Baptist Church, may I be bold and suggest that your call from God follows this highly recognizable pattern?

There's a statement that often appears in your bulletin and is on your website that says you come together not only to celebrate, struggle and serve, but also to tell the Good News of God's love in the Capital District and around the world.  Really?? Isn't that biting off a bit more than you can chew? I'm not sure how many members you officially have but unless I'm mistaken this is a congregation of around 70 or 80 people. On any given summer Sunday, there are about 40 or 50 people in worship.  And this isn't 40 or 50 people who have a lot of time on their hands. Unless I'm missing something, this congregation doesn't seem to be composed of millionaires. And to complicate matters further, you don't all speak the same native language or come from the same culture.  

And then there's this building--it needs work, Emmanuel, so much so that it could easily consume all of your financial and emotional resources.  The sound system is touchy and the organ occasionally conks out in the middle of a hymn. And then there's your denominational affiliation--here in the Northeast, just about everyone assumes that Baptists are fundamentalists.  All summer, I've had to explain to people who've asked me where I'm working that you're "not that kind of Baptist". I don't mean to be rude, but let's face it: you have issues.

 And yet, it is completely clear to me that you are perfectly suited to tell the news of God's love in the Capital District and around the world.  In fact, I can't think of any group of people better suited to that task. You simply cannot pretend to have it all together. So there's room for the rest of us to fit in between the cracks.  You can't do everything and so there's room for me to step in and offer my own talents or ideas. You haven't worked out all your differences and so there's room for me to be different and still be okay.  These aren't just features of being a small urban church--they are ways to tell the Good News of God's love. They are ways to embody the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  

Friends, I know that there are a lot of times when it just feels like too much.  I know there are times when you wonder how to keep this place running given limited time, money, energy of the congregation.  I know that struggle not just because I've gotten to know you, but because that is my personal struggle as well. But as your neighbor, as a citizen of the Capital District and the world, let me just say, please keep it going.  We need you in this city, in this world because we desperately need imperfect people and imperfect buildings and imperfect groups to proclaim God's perfect love.