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Lent 4: Believers' Blindness

3/22/2023

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​1 Samuel 16:1-13 , John 9:1-41

        There is great truth in the saying, “things are not always what they seem to be.”   Remember the optical illusion we shared in “Not for Children Only?”  Depending on the angle you looked at the picture we see either 3 or 4 bars. Now look at the optical illusion under the sermon title in the bulletin.  What do you see?  How many first saw a duck?  How many first saw a rabbit?  Can you see both? It all depends on how we shift our vision.  There is more than meets the eye. We have to be trained to see what lies beneath the surface.  (NOTE: you can see these optical illusions by going a google search as well).

Sight is a very complex process, the brain is wired in such a way that is able not just see objects, but how to interpret light, understand depth perception, sort out color, and compare these objects with images in our brain’s memory banks. We learn to see through experience.  Dr. Pawan Sinha, a neuroscientist at MIT, describes a video in which a teen-age boy, blind since birth because of opaque cataracts, sees for the first time. The boy sits still and blinks silently, trying to comprehend what he is seeing. Sinha believes these first moments for the newly sighted are blurry, incoherent, and saturated by brightness—like walking into daylight with dilated pupils—and swirls of colors that do not make sense as shapes or faces or any kind of object.  As American educator Steven Covey astutely observes: “We see the world not as it is but as we are as we are conditioned to see it.”  If we are conditioned to see the world as a frightening place, then it is scary.  If we are conditioned to see the world only through a materialistic lens, then we will only see opportunities to exploit and get.  If we are conditioned to see the world through the eyes of God, then we will see the miraculous, the impossible, the beauty, the majesty of the divine at our fingertips.  Look at the ability of animals and other organisms to camouflage themselves and blend in with nature.   The predator sees a stick, not an insect. We see danger, God sees potential.  God sees sin where perhaps we just note the routine, ordinary habits of life.  Because we see the world as we are conditioned to, not as it really is.

There’s a parallel process between our natural sight and spiritual sight, how we perceive the world through our inward eye.  Our inward eye is guided by God’s vision.  However, because of conditioning, we fail to use our inward eye. We can believe in God, know his commandments, but still be guided by worldly sight, completely unconnected to that inward eye inspired by God. God tells Ezekiel that his people "have eyes to see but do not see, and ears to hear but do not hear" (Ezekiel 12:2).  Jesus speaks of this phenomenon in Matthew … ‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving” (Matthew 13:14-16).  Seeing is at the surface level. Perceiving is spiritual sight that sees beyond physical sight to the workings of the hand of God.

          Throughout the bible there are multitude of believers who have a condition known as Believers Blindness.  Their spiritual wiring is off. Their memories how to see deviate from God’s vision. Their conditioning is narrow-minded. They only see the rabbit, or only the duck. They believe but see in a worldly way not a Godly way.  It is a dangerous condition for religious people to have.  We assume our way, most of the time the worldly way, of seeing is sanctioned by God.  The can’t be further from the truth.

In our Old Testament lesson, the prophet Samuel thinks the Lord’s anointed is among the handsomest, tallest and oldest of Jesse’s sons.  But God says no and tells Samuel: “God does not see the same way people see. People look at the outside of a person, but the Lord looks at the heart.”  Jesse brings forth son after son, seven in total. but God said no.  It wasn’t until the youngest, the one out tending the sheep is called for, does God give his approval. Thus, Samuel anoints David as king.  Samuel went from seeing in a worldly to fortunately open to obeying God and shifting his vision to a spiritual way. 

        In our lesson from John, Jesus encounters the blindness of the disciples and the Pharisees. The chapter opens as Jesus and his disciples walk by a blind beggar, “Teacher, they inquire, “who sinned that this man was born blind? A question rooted in the religious conditioning of the disciples: it was a common belief that illness was the result of sin.   Jesus confronts this spiritual blindness.  Through this man, Jesus says the work of God will be manifested, seen, revealed.  Jesus restores sight to the blind man, and the drama unfolds in such a way that we discover that sin and blindness are indeed related. The sin and blindness of the Pharisees are made manifest as they cruelly interrogate the blind man twice, then question his parents, fight with Jesus, and then excommunicate the healed man as he boldly places his trust in Jesus.       
  
Through the blind man, we learn what it really means to see.  The work of God, the passage reveals to us, is for us to confront the blindness in ourselves all the while God offers to us the gift of inward sight, through faith in Jesus.

In the Old Testament, being blind is one of the many metaphors used to describe the condition when people do not live as faithfully as God required.  The problem of such Believers Blindness is that the faithful display an inability to see things in a new or different way, to see God’s redemptive activity is always unfolding in our midst. Just last week we heard the story of the people of Israel, just freed from slavery, quarreling and fighting in the wilderness. They blamed Moses for leading them out into the wilderness to die, despite the fact that God had just liberated them from servitude.   They were conditioned as slaves, and because of this, they lacked the faith in God to provide water for them. The prophet Isaiah speaks to this problem: “I am doing a new thing, now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” (Isaiah 43:19).  Our religious conditioning often makes it difficult if not impossible to see God’s handiwork around us. God wants to move us forward, but all we see is what we know:  the same, old solutions to how church should be and what worked in the past. All we see are the buildings and grounds. All we see are the once great choirs, filled sanctuaries, different fellowship groups that were popular.  The problem is, looking back to what we are conditioned to see makes it almost impossible to catch of whiff of God’s vision for the future. The Aymara people of South America have an interesting feature in their language.  The Aymara have the same word for "front" and "past," and another word that means both "future" and "behind."  This is because, in Aymara thinking, what we see clearly in front of us is the past. It is the future, which we cannot see, that is behind us, which of course we can’t see because we don’t have eyes on the back of our head.  Get it?  That’s the spiritual dilemma we face.

Because of this, it is critical for us to grasp that we can believe, but at the same time be spiritually blind. Many believe in the existence of God without a relationship to God that transforms them inside and out. We lack the ability to see God working in our midst, because it is often different to what we are accustomed to seeing. We can’t identify it. It is only apparent with faith.

This is characterized by the Pharisees treatment of the blind man in our story.  Isn’t it interesting that the miracle itself is not initially what annoys the Pharisees?  The man with the restored sight is brought to them, but instead of rejoicing that a human being is now able to see, they focus on the violation of the sabbath laws.  The Pharisees have grown complacent, confident that they are the authorities to interpreting God’s presence in the world, because that’s the way it’s been for centuries.

The texts show us that we can we believers, we can even be esteemed believers, prophet like Samuel, leaders and elders like the Pharisees and be spiritually blind.  We prefer the old ways we are conditioned to see than confess the handiwork of God that is beyond our control, that moves where it will, that turns our safe, sanctimonious world upside down.   Many times, the Spirit would have us let go, or lead us to consider a troubled situation from a different point of view.  We don’t have to stay in darkness. God wants to bring us into the fulness of light.    

The blind beggar takes that risk.  When Jesus anointed his eyes with clay and told him to wash in the pool of Siloam, he didn’t stop and question Jesus.  This blind beggar had every right to feel ridiculous with mud on his eyes, as he made his way to the pool.  But that’s what spiritual sight risks:  God often lead us to places we don’t know or asks us to do things that we don’t understand?  It takes that inward sight to take a risk to surrender control and to put our lives in God’s hands.  Look at the progression to spiritual sight of this blind man:  he goes from acknowledging that he doesn’t know Jesus, to deciding Jesus is a prophet, to finally worshipping him as Messiah.  He does this as the pressure of the Pharisees grows more severe until they finally excommunicate him, and he turns to Jesus.  He has not only received his physical sight, but inward sight.  The Pharisees can see well, but they remain blind to the handiwork of God. And so, their sin remains, declares Jesus. 

 This Lent is the time where we are called to confront our Believer’s blindness.  We are called to acknowledge our distorted judgments against others. To confess the pride and selfishness that get in the way of treating others with compassion and block our ability to forgive and upbuild others.  To acknowledge that we have failed to celebrate the unexpected, unbidden works of God in our midst.  We resist the new thing God is doing in us, around us, and through us.

Today let God open your eyes.  Let our spirits be rewired, to let go of the past and see the bigger picture God wants to show us.  May our sight be corrected so we can see both the duck and the rabbit in the picture.  May we see all God wants to reveal to us, as confusing, disorienting and blurry as it may be at first, confident through Jesus all will come into focus.  Most of all, may we see and believe in the son of man, the human one, the one who is light, and proclaim as this healed beggar did, “Lord I believe! And worship the one who enables us to perceive the awesome doings of God, taking place right here, right now, in our midst. amen.
 
 
weehttps://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/people-cured-blindness-see
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Lent 3: Jesus, Living Water

3/15/2023

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Exodus 17:1-17; John 4:5-42

Joey Mora, a young marine corporal, was standing on a platform of an aircraft carrier patrolling the Iranian Sea.   Incredibly, he fell overboard.  His absence was not known for 36 hours.   A search and rescue mission began but was given up after another 24 hours.   No one could survive in the sea without even a lifejacket after 60 hours. His parents were notified that he was "missing and presumed dead.” Yet two days later, four Pakistani fishermen found him, treading water.  He was delirious.  His tongue was dry and cracked and his throat parched. He said it was God who kept him struggling to survive. What was the most excruciating thing of all?  Joey said that the one thought that took over his body and pounded in his brain was "Water!"  

         Physical thirst is a terrible thing. Extreme dehydration damages organs, especially the brain, and quickly leads to death.  Water is the main component of our body – about 60%-- and it is involved in its smooth running – to carrying nutrients to and waste materials away from cells to regulating body temperature.  On average, with right conditions, we could only survive 3-5 days, 12 days in extreme cases, without water.  It has been predicted, that with the effects of climate change, water will become more precious than oil, and the conflicts of the future will be over clean, fresh water. According to a United Nations Report – nearly 25% of people in our world lack access to clean water. 7.33 billion people have mobile phones – but only 4.5 billion, 60% - actually have an appropriate bathroom that have the necessary water to flush and a sewage system for waste to be disposed.  Amazing, isn’t it?

         From our scriptures today we see that the need for water is paramount on everyone’s mind - from the people of Israel crossing the wilderness, to Jesus and his disciples traveling through the hostile territory of Samaria.  The people of Israel have just been freed from slavery in Egypt. They’ve reached camp; they are thirsty and there is no water to be seen.  So, they quarrel, and they blame Moses for their predicament. Even Moses fears for his life. Eventually God sends Moses and the elders and commands Moses to strike the rock at Horeb, through which God provides water. This place of strife due to lack of water was called Massah and Meribah which translate as testing and quarreling.  Not an auspicious start for a people just freed from slavery.

       In the gospel of John, again we see thirst.  Jesus and his disciples have been traveling and just entered Sychar, which unfriendly, Samaritan territory. – Samaritans and Jews had centuries of bad blood between them– so there was no welcome party here for the famous rabbi and his disciples.  Jesus was tired from the journey and he was thirsty.  A Samaritan woman happens to come at noon to the well, and Jesus initiates a conversation with her.  He asks her for water. This basic request begins the longest conversation Jesus has with anyone in the gospels. This is a conversation around water, thirst, theology and priorities in life.  All this takes place with a woman with three strikes against her: her gender (no respectable Jew would publicly address a woman); her ethnicity and culture (no respectable Jew would talk to a Samaritan); and her questionable history – the text says she’s had five husbands—and currently living with a fellow without the benefits of marriage. Honestly, we don’t know what’s happened to this woman – it could be she was repeatedly abused; it could be she’s made bad choices and has no clear, good future ahead.  What we do know is that she was ostracized by her village and she was ostracized by the disciples. We also know  that Jesus does not judge her or condemn her. He treats her like an intelligent, worthy human being. Ancient church legend names this woman Photene – meaning the enlightened one -- who engages Jesus in a thoughtful, direct, lively manner. Photene ends up becoming the first missionary to Samaria and she is even considered to be the first disciple to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ. Her intelligence and wit are evident in her comments to Jesus as the conversation turns theological and soon into a testimony. See the how Jesus engages her gently and compassionately; and moves her from an ordinary request for water, “give me a drink,” to giving her the gift of Living Water:  First she says:

“I am surprised that you ask me for a drink, since you are a Jewish man and I am a Samaritan woman”
She responds to Jesus’s proclamation: “Sir, where will you get this living water? The well is very deep, and you have nothing to get water with

She diligently pursues her request: Sir, give me this water so I will never be thirsty again and will not have to come back here to get more water.”

When Jesus points out she has had five husbands – stating what is probably the pain and humiliation of her life, what has keep her down and out. she responds: Sir, I can see that you are a prophet;

Addressing her pain opens her to confesses her faith: “I know that the Messiah is coming.” (Messiah is the One called Christ.) “When the Messiah comes, he will explain everything to us.”

She ends by confesses faith in Jesus: Then to the other villagers: Come and see a man who told me everything I ever did. Do you think he might be the Christ?” 

        Photene came to the well to draw water and left with living water which she generously shared with others in her village. Like Jesus, like the Israelites, like Photene, we become thirsty. We know the symptoms of dehydration: dry mouth, nausea, lightheadedness, weakness, heart palpitations. It is said up the 75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated.  We don’t drink enough water to function at our best. I would hazard a guess that about the same percentage of people are spiritually dehydrated.  What do you think? 

    Just as we forget that our physical body is predominately water and cannot survive long without replenishing that water, so too we forget that we are made of spirit, a spirit that thirsts. A spirit we need to hydrate on a daily basis.  .  Our texts asks us: are we dehydrated today, both in body and spirit?  What signs of spiritual dehydration do we experience, right now? What are signs of spiritual dehydration?  Impatience, irritability, quarreling, gossip, stinginess, bitterness, greed, intolerance?  What symptoms are we experiencing today?

If we don’t take a Sabbath, we become spiritually dehydrated.  If we don’t have a prayer life, we become spiritually dehydrated. If we don’t immerse ourselves in the scriptures, we become spiritually dehydrated.  If we do not practice love, justice, mercy and forgiveness on an ongoing basis we become spiritually dehydrated.  Bottom line, if we don’t have a relationship with Jesus – we are spiritually dehydrated.
Jesus has a different vision for us – he wants to give us living water that will transform us – make us wholly hydrated spiritual persons.  People that can go through the wilderness places, the challenges, of our lives and thrive.  People who can take the steps to be free of whatever enslaves them.  People who do not flee from the uncomfortable territory the Lord leads us through.  People who can engage others unlike themselves -- with respect, with care and with love.  People willing to listen, to change, to share, to help and care. That’s who we are called to be. Spiritually hydrated people – through Jesus, the thirst quencher.

        God’s living water is love, through Jesus Christ we can see and taste.  God’s greatest desire is to love and be loved freely in turn by us.  It is of no surprise to us that among Jesus’ final words on the cross, he says, “I thirst” (John 19:28).   Of course, Jesus may have been physically thirsty.  The greater thirst, however, is the thirst Jesus has for us – to love us, forgive us, guide us to all righteousness – most of all to be connected to us and us to each other by love.  Jesus, the living water, thirsts.  We become thirst quenchers for Jesus.

Our journey through Lent is leads us into a spiritual wilderness – a sojourn to a place that pushes us out of our comfort zone.  Lent is a call to go to the well.  Our experience during these weeks as we journey with Jesus toward the cross awakes our thirst.  What do we thirst for? To be more loving? To be more patient?  To serve more? To be more giving?  To stop fighting so much? To have more faith?  What do we thirst for?  It is God’s desire to give us these things and so much more: as the prophet Isaiah affirms: “The LORD will guide you continually, giving you water when you are dry and restoring your strength. (Isa. 58:11)”

      There is more. God places in us the desire to be the thirst quenchers in the world – not doubt to make clean water available to all. But to bring the spiritual water the world needs – to connect – to care – to love – to share the good news of Jesus Christ, who is Living Water.  In a world where we are surround by wilderness of sin, brokenness, injustice and hatred; in a world filled with stagnant water that brings all sorts of sickness and malaise to people -- we are called to make of ourselves and our church an oasis – that place in the desert where water is found. Because we thirst.

The world thirsts.  T

he world is full of Joey Moras, people thrown overboard by life, people treading to stay afloat, people with parched souls, brains pounding, begging for water, living water of Jesus.  Who fills like Joey Mora today, adrift in ocean of life, lost, struggling to survive?  Today, come to living waters.  Today, drink deeply.  Drink until you are full. Come to Jesus, the thirst quencher,” For as the prophet Isaiah promises us: “With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. (Isaiah 12;3), and Jesus assures us “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink… and rivers of living water will flow from within” (John 7:37-39). Let those living waters flow, in us, through us, around us, and so may the deep thirst of the world be satiated, through Jesus,  thirst quencher.  Amen.
 
 
https://www.bankmycell.com/blog/how-many-phones-are-in-the-world
https://www.unicefusa.org/stories/saving-lives-one-toilet-time#:~:text=Around%2060%20percent%20of%20the,t%20safely%20manage%20human%20waste.
https://www.google.com/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK555956/search?q=massah+and+meribah+meaning&rlz=

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Lent 2: Born Again

3/8/2023

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Genesis 12:1-4a; John 3: 1-17

 
Who here is familiar with the saying, “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks?” Well, I can honestly say, in some instances I’m a case in point.   If I hit the wrong button on the TV/cable remote, I’m out of luck unless one of my kids are around to set it right.   I can’t do dropbox or copy files into the i-cloud unless Forrest is there to coach me on.  Forget about if a virus has infected my computer, something funky happens with email or on occasion the screen goes blank.  I’m stuck until a someone younger can press a few keys to make it all right again.

It's all about handling change. Times marches on. Some of us can keep up with it, most of us struggle to embrace the brave new world.  As the Greek philosopher Heraclitus put it, “the only constant thing in this world is change.”

The scriptures speak to us about embracing change, particularly change that comes as a challenge to those of us set in our ways.  It’s about teaching old dog new tricks.  We can safely say the Bible is a book about change. Of lives being upended. Of new insights gained. Cultures adapting. Tensions flaring between the old way of doing things and the new.  The truths of the bible may be eternal, but every new generation must encounter the challenges of the word of God and how to live out the promises of God, interpret and understand the word of God as it speaks to every age.

Our lessons today are a case in point.  We encounter three old people Abram, his wife Sarai, and the Pharisee Nicodemus.  Each of them is established in their ways.  Abram and Sarai are 75 years old, retired from the hard labors of life.  They have earned their rocking chairs on the porch.  Their routines are predictable.  They are looked up to and revered as the elders of the clan.  They can take it easy; life has settled and is predictable for them.  Then out of the blue, God speaks without any explanation or warning:” “Leave your country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land I will show you.”  Leaving home is hard enough when your young, strong, and full of dreams and energy.  Packing up and saying goodbye is always hard no matter what your age is.  Add to that having to travel hundreds of miles away, learning new customs and new languages?  To not even know the destination ahead of time?  That would be more appropriate for someone on the cusp of adulthood.  God thinks elsewise.  Here, God sends old people to do a young person’s task. God says, I’m not finished with you yet. Old dogs learning new tricks.

 In our gospel lesson, we are introduced to Nicodemus, an esteemed elder and prominent Pharisee. The title Pharisee means the ‘separated one.”  The Pharisees separated themselves from all things considered foreign, all things considered unholy or unclean in order to keep scrupulously every detail of the Jewish law.  The Pharisees believed that only by observing the law strictly could one be deemed righteous, saved, right with God. Only by strict observance of the law could one please God and be justified before God.

What is very important for to know is that they not only strove to the written law, the Torah, but also the oral law which was believed hand down at the same time as the written commandments. The oral law were the explanations and commentary on the law of Moses given to help people understand and obey the commandments perfectly. It was widely believed that two torahs were handed down on Mt. Sinai - the written torah “The Law of Moses” and the oral torah.  The oral torah was also passed down from teacher to disciple from parent to child that enabled the observer to obey the law in its truest meaning.

The  oral torah, which often was stricter or at times even changed the meaning of the written torah often incurred  the anger of Jesus. Take, for example, Matthew 15:36:  Jesusanswered them, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said, Honor your faith and mother, or whoever speaks ill of father or mother must surely die. But you say, whoever tells father or mother whatever support you might have had from me is given to God then that person need not honor the father. So for the sake of your tradition, you make void the word of God.”  Or listen to Jesus in Mark 7:3-4: …Now in holding to the tradition of the elders, the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat until they wash their hands ceremonially. 4And on returning from the market, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other traditions for them to observe, including the washing of cups, pitchers, kettles, and couches for dining.”
 
The oral Torah had laws about daily living with the goal to keep the observant Jew separate from non-observers, sinners and foreigners.  Very often people couldn’t keep the oral torah, and they were deemed unclean. Jesus constantly broke the rules of the oral law, earning him the ire of the Pharisees and elders of the law.

So, the esteemed Nicodemus was a strict keeper of the oral and written laws. No doubt he believed and taught that such strict observance made one right with God, justified by God, pleased in the sight of God.  He followed these beliefs all his life. But now Nicodemus sees something in Jesus.  Nicodemus says, Teacher, we know you are a teacher sent from God, because no one can do the miracles you do unless God is with him.”  Jesus answers dismissing Nicodemus’ honorifics, “I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot be in God’s kingdom.” Born again, can also mean born from above. 
The chapter goes on to depict this prominent and distinguished elder struggling to understand what Jesus was saying.  For Nicodemus and other Pharisees, God’s kingdom was reserved for people who scrupulously kept the law of Moses as well as the oral torah.  Jesus sweeps away centuries of belief by declaring, “I tell you the truth, unless you are born from water and the Spirit, you cannot enter God’s kingdom. …  Don’t be surprised when I tell you, ‘You must all be born again.

With one sentence Jesus cancels decades of Nicodemus’ learning. He blots out centuries of teaching by the Pharisees.   Nicodemus, used to sparing with the best of teachers, struggles to understand Jesus’ “How can this be?” “how can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” he fumbles. He’s an old dog struggling to learn new tricks.

Jesus fundamental teaching is this: bottom line: followings hundreds of laws meticulously doesn’t make you right with God.  The only right that sets us right is  faith in Jesus Christ. Being born again means faith in Jesus which brings the Holy Spirit in our hearts. That alone enables us to enter the kingdom of heaven.

        Jesus describes nothing less than being spiritually transformed and remade by God’s grace.   Through Jesus our hearts are regenerated and we begin to follow the law of love. Through Jesus we are able to follow the paths of righteousness instead of rigid rules and regulations that keep us separate and apart.  Being born again or born from above seeks instead to unite us, to bring us together with others, not keep us apart.
        Being born again, born from above, can happen when we are very young, it happens when we are very old. It happens whenever we set aside human presumptions and judgments and seek to instead seek Jesus only, knowing there is nothing we can humanly do to earn the love and forgiveness of God. It’s there for the asking. We don’t have to follow rules to gain God’s goodness or to please God. We don’t gain righteousness through self-efforts. We gain righteousness solely through accepting Jesus as our Lord and Savior, who in turn enables us to do good works in keeping with the kingdom of God.

        No matter our age, many of us are stuck in our ways. We’ve kept all the rules, did all the right things we were taught, but still feel empty inside.  We still feel like we don’t measure up.  We feel there’s nothing more we can do. Or worse, some of us feel self-satisfied. Some of us think we’re right with God without having surrendered our heart to Jesus. Jesus is clear, as he was with Nicodemus: Nothing we do, nothing we achieve, nothing we gain, nothing we buy, nothing we give away or take, can earn us love. We need to do only one thing this Lent, to open our hearts to the transforming spirit of God, the powerful mercy of God and be born again. 

Accept Jesus as Lord and Savior today. Free your hearts  Cast aside the old: learn something new: Be born again. No matter how many times you have confessed this, confess it again.  Let us pray:
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Lord, we’ve tried it all, but yet we have failed to achieve righteousness. We cling tenaciously to our pride.  Open our hearts today. Touch whoever is present here today and needs to know you exist that you love us, that you forgive us.  Free us from sin and all pre-conceived notions of the truth that we hold onto. Give each of us the grace to turn to you, accept you as Lord and Savior, and be born again through the power of the holy spirit.  Thank you, Lord Jesus, for doing this mighty work in our hearts today. amen
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Lent 1: Confronting Temptation and Evil

3/1/2023

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Matthew 4:1-11






​When I was a graduate student at Fordham University, I had the mad idea that I should take an intensive course in Latin to aid me in my theological studies.  My professor was none other than Fr. Thomas Bermingham, a lively and engaging Jesuit priest.  One of his claims to fame, besides being an outstanding classics scholar, was he was the mentor of William Petty Blatty the author of the best-selling book, The Exorcist.  Fr. Bermingham was also a technical advisor to the 1973 movie based on the book.  Has anyone here seen the Exorcist?  It reportedly sent people screaming out of the theatres, provoked nightmares, vomiting and insomnia; it was controversial for some of the blasphemous scenes contained in the movie. Fr. Bermingham didn’t speak at great length about the movie, but he did speak about the devil.  The main intent of Evil, to paraphrase Fr. Bermingham, is not to frighten or spook people out. The Devil goes for the jugular: to destroy relationships and break human connection in all its forms.  Evil seek nothing else but to mare that image of God imprinted upon the human soul.
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As we begin our journey of Lent, it is important for us at the get-go to understand temptation and the presence of Evil in our lives and all around us.  We live in an age where people have various opinions about evil.  We see Evil’s handiwork around us in conflicts, and wars, in ruptures in our families fighting in our churches, and even in the discord in our very souls. In this modern era, is evil just an impersonal, invisible force operating around us like gravity? Is it the sad by-product of human sin? Or is there an intelligent, cunning spiritual being that deliberately seeks to create havoc and devastation wherever it goes? That delights in our suffering, seeking to obliterate the very image of God etched within us?  Is it a combination of all these things?

However we slice or dice it, evil is a part of this world.  Explain it scientifically, psychologically, metaphorically, or scripturally, the bottom line is that evil exists.  Temptation exists.  Every day we face choices for good or evil, bad or good.  Right or wrong. Every day we have a devil on one shoulder, an angel on the other trying to influence our actions.  In this season of Lent, we are asked to become more conscious and alert to temptation and the presence of evil influence in our lives.   Call him Satan, the Devil, the Evil One,  Lucifer, the Prince of Darkness, Beelzebub, (Revelation 9:11),  the Father of Lies(John 8:44) and Belial (2 Corinthians 6:15) the tempter, the adversary, the ancient serpent, Abaddon (destruction), Apollyon) (destroyer) (Revelation 9:11); the god of this age(2 Corinthians 4:4),  prince of this world (John 12:31). Take your pick. Picture him in the form of a snake, a sea monster, a roaring lion (1Peter 5:8) a dragon (Revelation 12:9), or a red-hued, human-like creature with a sinister smile, horns and a tail, carrying a pitchfork. Demonologists, those folks who study the ways of demons and evil, tell us that Evil doesn’t desire to look scary.  The more respectable and normal the better.  The charismatic pastor. The successful businessperson. The outstanding citizen.  Whatever form Evil takes the results are the same. To destroy human relationships, to sever our connection to God by leading us into sin and rebellion; to break with each other, to crush out goodness within us. The devil seeks to reign as a counterfeit God, ensnaring us, enchaining us, stirring up torment and discord especially under the guise of righteousness.   

Our stories today from Genesis the temptation of Eve, and from Matthew which describe for us the temptation of Jesus, paint a picture of the Evil One’s handiwork.  Our scriptures today give us insight into what the Devil is after, how he goes about doing it, and what we can do to guard ourselves against his attacks.

In Genesis note that the devil, disguised as a crafty serpent, begins his work by asking Eve an innocent, but devious question: “Did God say you shall not eat from any tree in the garden?”  God actually says, “you may eat of every tree in the garden, but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for the day you eat of it you shall die.”  So the devil begins his temptation by twisting the truth, inserting doubt, trying to undermine God’s authority and goodness.  Eve could have corrected the devil and ended the temptation if she quoted God’s words, which Jesus does.  Moreover, she knew how serious God’s command was because she adds “neither shall you touch it.”  Eve knows God has place a boundary they are not to cross and highlights the lethality of the action by even touching the fruit let alone eating it.  To this the devil counters, “You will not die, for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like god, knowing good and evil.”  Bottom line, Satan lies. He contradicts God’s command, plants a seed of rebellion that Eve should be like God, her eyes opened, knowing good and evil.  Look what happens. Eve suddenly sees the fruit as good instead of a danger.  She sees the fruit as a delight to the eyes, no longer something she knows not to even touch.  Worse yet, she sees the fruit as a desire to make one wise.  All these thoughts the serpent manages to stir up in Eve’s mind, with just with a simple lie.  The lie compounds, creating images in Eve’s head so that she ultimately believes something that is wrong is now right.  By this act of rebellion, doing the one thing God asked them not to do, Eve then Adam know evil intimately, and they spiritually die.

There are a couple of things we should note. The devil is clever. He approaches Eve when she is by herself, just like he approaches Jesus alone in the wilderness. It’s the action of predators everywhere:  separate an individual from the flock, where there is strength and protection and attack them where they are vulnerable.  From this vantage point the devil plants the snare with subtle, seemingly innocent questions, in order to implant ideas and thoughts that are contrary to the will of God. “Did God say?”  “If you are the son of God…” The Devil succeeds by carefully twisting the truth, very carefully appealing to human pride and weakness, perverting the good, giving a distorted angle to the situation that opens the door to temptation. 

The devil is planting a thought and a desire for Eve to be wise.  Instead of going to God to ask for wisdom directly or tell him of the conversation with the serpent, she takes matters in her own hands. She relies on her own limited insight and strength. She takes on the role of judge that belongs to God alone. Likewise, the devil tempts Jesus to use his powers to appease his hunger by supernatural means.  The devil tempts Jesus to test and be saved by supernatural powers by throwing himself off a cliff. The devil tempts Jesus to enjoy worldly dominion by just once bowing before him and worshipping him. In each instance however, Jesus doesn’t rely on himself to confront temptation. He resorts to God’s word.

        Doesn’t the devil tempt us in the same way? The devil knows our faults and foibles better than we do. Maybe we don’t want to be wise like Eve did, but maybe we want approval and acceptance.  Maybe we want to be loved.  Maybe we want power and control.  Maybe like Jesus we are hungry for something. The devil says, why wait?  Maybe like Jesus we have certain gifts from God.  The devil says why not use them for our own benefit?  Like Jesus we all have an amazing destiny and purpose.  The devil says I can help you get there faster. I can give you all the power and fame you deserve or ever could ever want.  The devil we should note in his temptation of Jesus, can quote scripture with the best of us.  So let us not be fooled, but be prepared.

Where Eve fails, Jesus succeeds.  Jesus feels all the desires the devil is stirring up, but Jesus doesn’t let it ruminate. He doesn’t engage the images of longing.  Jesus instead uses scripture to counter the attacks.  If only Eve had stayed focused on God’s word and obeyed it, she might’ve avoided a catastrophe.
This is the big takeaway from our stories:  when we are tempted let’s use scripture! Remember what the book of James (4:7) advises: “Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” 1 Peter (5:8) reminds us: “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” 

There is a scripture for every temptation. In this Lenten season, take the time to name faults, to name weaknesses, to name sinful habits and confess them to God.  Let us use our time to do personal bible studies, to research scriptures that respond to our needs and concerns. Find an accountability partner with whom you trust and pray whenever you feel tempted or brought low.  Jesus knows temptation is part and parcel of life.  For this reason, Jesus adds to the prayer he taught us to say:  “Lead us not into temptation. Deliver us from evil.”  In Jesus we have a model of someone tempted in every way, but did not sin (Hebrews 4:15)  He knows our weaknesses and is ready, at the drop of a hat, to intercede on our behalf.

        Remember this: Evil wants to make us feel alone, Evil wants to make us feel worthless and washed up. Evil wants to inflame anger and pride, to eat away at our souls, to break our loving connections to others, to destroy the church, to reduce the world to tears and rubble.  And if he can’t destroy you he will seek to disarm you with feeling miserable and weak all the time.  Temptation and evil are real things in our lives, that touch us every day.  But so is the love, mercy, forgiveness and power of God. The joy of the Lord in our strength (Nehemiah 8:10).  God is love and the foundation of our ties to one another.  God created us for love to love, to be in love.  So, this Lent let us help each other to defeat evil whenever it rears its ugly head. 

Let us overcome temptation. Let us cling to Jesus, cling to each other, cling to the Scriptures.  Let not the cords of love that connect us be broken. Together we are better.  Together we are strong. The saints of old remind us to laugh in the face of the devil, jeer and flaunt him. In the face of temptation and evil we are called to hold fast good cheer: for remember scripture reassures us: “Greater is he in you than he who is in the world (1 John 4:4).”  Amen.
 
 
 
https://www.franciscanmedia.org/ask-a-franciscan/finding-satans-story-in-the-bible/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/chap1/deathof.htm
https://www.history.com/topics/folklore/history-of-the-devil
https://answersingenesis.org/angels-and-demons/satan/what-about-satan-and-the-origin-of-evil/
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/essay/demon-possession/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Bermingham_(priest)
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Discipleship: Being Transfigured

2/22/2023

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Exodus 24:12-18     Matthew 17:1-9
 
        A sign of the times:  I recall when Forrest and I were on vacation in one of the most beautiful places on earth, the Grand Canyon.  We went out to eat at a cozy little restaurant.  Roses graced every table.  Beautiful music enveloped us. But as I looked around, I was stunned.  The place was filled with couples, and most of them, instead of talking with each other, gazing lovingly into the eyes of their date, where instead busy on their phones.  Electronics have weaseled their way even to the dinner table.  Have you ever seen this?  Sadly it’s becoming a more common sight at the dinner table both in and out of the home, in cars, gyms or stores.

        Most parents I know try to consciously monitor iphone use, television, video games, electronics and social media was because we want to limit the messages our children hear from popular culture.  Messages that promote materialism, greed, and violence.  Of course, children are exposed to everything eventually.  But we hope that if the messages came in small doses, maybe they would have less power.  What children hear and see in their parents has the most power and influence over them.  Our hard work, our demonstrations of sacrifice, our love and care. But there are many other messages out there that can have an effect on our lives.
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        What messages and voices do you listen to?  What TV or cable programs fill your day? What influencers on Instagram or TiKTok do you follow?  Secular culture tells us that we need certain things to be happy:  lots of money, a beautiful body, a successful career, bigger houses, fancy vacations and the latest technology.  In politics we hear conflicting voices about every possible issue, from the environment to immigration, health care and the role of government.  What voices do you listen to?  What messages do you believe?   

 In the passage from Matthew we heard today, a voice told the disciples to listen to Jesus.  Jesus had taken three of his disciples up a high mountain.  And while they were there, Jesus was transfigured before their eyes.  His face began to shine and his clothing became dazzling white.  Great prophets of the past, Elijah and Moses, appeared and spoke with him.  A cloud overshadowed them and a voice said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, listen to him!”

        We heard a similar message when Jesus was baptized.  When Jesus came up out of the water, the heavens opened and a voice from heaven said, “This is my son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased” (Matt. 3:16-17).  Today’s story comes in the middle of the gospel, and the voice announced the same thing, with one addition: “Listen to him!”  This message came at a crucial time, because Jesus was just starting to tell his disciples a message they didn’t want to hear.

        Up until this point, Jesus had been healing, casting out demons and teaching that the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand, was right there in their midst.  This was both comforting and exciting, the idea that God’s power was once again active on the earth, and God’s reign of justice was near.  Who could resist such a message?  But in the middle of his ministry, right before today’s story, Jesus asked the disciples who they thought he was. And when Peter said, “You are the Messiah,” Jesus began to tell them that he was going to suffer and be rejected and killed.

        Peter protested and told Jesus, don’t say such things.  In Peter’s mind, bad things were not supposed to happen to the Messiah.  But Jesus rebuked Peter and went on to tell him that “those who want to save their lives will lose them” (16:25).  That kind of message is hard to hear.  But this was a turning point in Jesus’ ministry.  Now he would begin his journey to Jerusalem where he knew he would die.     

        Peter couldn’t listen to him.  He had just confessed that Jesus was the Messiah, but he didn’t really understand what that meant.  And now on the mountain, he again didn’t know how to respond.  The whole experience was terrifying, so he blurted out a suggestion that they build three little structures right on the mountain, one for Jesus, one for Elijah and one for Moses.  But this holy moment did not call for words or plans of action.  It was a vision of who Jesus was and is.  Suddenly they could see on the outside of Jesus what was inside – God’s power and glory shining through.  The disciples were faced with the transforming power of God at work in Jesus.     

        “This is my son, the beloved.  Listen to him.”  That’s God’s message to us. Who do you listen to?  Your husband or wife?  Your parents, or children?  Your friends?  Fox News?  NPR?  It’s not easy to hear Jesus with all these voices vying for attention.  It’s easier just to listen to the adds and go shopping, or just do what our boss or spouse tells us to do.  But when we listen to Jesus, and walk with him, we find life.  We too become transfigured-changed – our true selves, our Christlike nature, becomes visible for others to see.

This Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent, the period of 40 days before Easter.  This is an important time in the life of the church.  During Lent we follow Jesus on the road to Jerusalem, preparing for what is to come during Holy Week, the death and resurrection of Christ.  The message of Jesus’  transfiguration today is a gift of light before we enter the trials and darkness of Lent.  Our scriptures call us to make Lent into a transfiguring time. We frequently say we will give up something for Lent, like candy, meat, or dessert.  How about we deepen our faith life through other tried and true practices?  How can we transfigure ourselves over the next six weeks before Easter?

        We start by asking ourselves, how do we listen to Jesus? How do we listen to someone who lived thousands of years ago and is no longer here in bodily form?  We can start by reading about him in the Bible. 

Every Christian who is able to read, should read the gospels.  Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are the first four books of the New Testament, and they each tell the story of Jesus’ life.  If you have never read one of them all the way through, I encourage you to do it during Lent this year.  If you’ve read them all already, you can read one again.  There’s always something new to discover.  You are invited to join our Bible Study on the “I AM” statements of Jesus during Lent.  We meet on Wednesdays at 12:30 on zoom.  Nothing would delight me more than a request to hold a second session during the week.  Just speak up and let me know.

Another way to listen to Jesus is through prayer.  And if you want help and guidance with that, or just some company when you pray there are many in this congregation that will step forward and be willing to pray together.  Any takers on this?  Again, nothing would make me happier than a Lenten prayer group!

Finally, one more way to listen to Jesus is by listening to other people of faith to hear what they think.  You can listen to sermons or engage in conversations with others.  Listen to religious podcasts or watch YouTube sermons, meditations, bible studies. Binge watch the Chosen, a multi-year series on the life of Jesus. This Lenten season, several local Presbyterian churches will be having Sacred Cinema Film Fests on Wednesday evenings.  We’ll watch a clip of a movie and prayerfully discuss the spiritual message of the clip.  Just join on via zoom.  Or you can read books dealing with faith issues.  Some of us are reading Wholehearted Faith by Rachel Held Evans  - you are invited to read along and join the discussion the week after Easter. There will also be Lenten devotions sent out by email once a week: make sure to read them daily.  Maybe Jesus will speak to you through their words.

By participating in worship, spiritual activities, we aim to change, like what’s been happening at Asbury Theological Seminary in Kentucky.  Since February 8, there has been nonstop worship. Fueled by Instagram and TikTok, people from all around the country have flocked to the university’s chapel, to sing, to pray to repent, some weeping, giving testamonies, being changed.  Called the Asbury Awakening, there is no doubt spiritual renewal is taking place.  Look it up on social media.  Wouldn’t it be great if we could get a taste of that here in our church?

 By listening to Jesus through the scriptures, devotionals, prayer, and deeds of service may we be changed to the vision God has for each of us, and may we begin to change the world into the kingdom of heaven here on earth. Remember the saying:  you might be the only Bible others may read. 

So let us heighten our practice acts of fasting, mercy, forgiveness, kindness during Lent and make it a permanent practice in our religious walk of faith. As we read earlier this month from Isaiah, let us not just fast from food, but from hurtful deeds, harsh words and vengeful attitudes.  May we bring all these changes to others by listening to them, helping them, being in fellowship and caring relationships.  Listen to him.  May that command be the mantra that guides us in our Lenten travels.  May the transfiguring, transforming light of God be upon us, in us and shine through us, in word and deed, for all to see and give glory to our God in heaven.  Amen.     

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Discipleship:  Conflict and Community

2/15/2023

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Deuteronomy 30:15-20    1 Corinthians 3:1-9   Matthew 5:33-37

With Valentine just two days away, here is some wisdom from the mouth of babes regarding this day of celebration.

You got to find somebody who likes the same stuff. Like if you like sports, she should like it that you like sports, and she should keep the chips and dip coming." Alan, age 10

"No person really decides before they grow up who they're going to marry. God decides it all way before, and you get to find out later who you're stuck with." Kirsten, age 10

" Tell your wife that she looks pretty even if she looks like a truck." Ricky, age 10

Valentine’s Day: Over 18 billion dollars will be spent on greeting cards, candy and flowers, not to mention nights out on the town and jewelry.  All this to demonstrate love both for partners and also for family and friends.   Add  todays Super Bowl activities and we have the makings of a three-day frenzied food fest.

While Valentine’s Day has pagan roots, the church has remembered an original 3rd Century Valentine, a priest or Bishop who was martyred on February 14 for marrying soldiers – an act which was illegal according to Roman law.  He also wrote to prisoners and cared for their needs at the time.  While we will enjoy the cards, chocolates, flowers and special dinners, let’s  take in account the religious roots of the holiday.  Our St. Valentine shows us different dimensions of love. A love that is our source of life and transcends ordinary giving and invites us into a love we are called to live day in and day out.   While our lessons today do not mention love, love is the cornerstone of what Moses speaks during his final speech to the Israelites.  Love is the cornerstone of what Jesus speaks of when he speaks of dealing with anger and reconciliation as well as about the roots of lust and divorce. Love is what Paul is aiming as he admonishes the squabbling in the church at Corinth.

As disciples, love must be our focus.  Love like we have been learning about discipleship, however, is not easy.  Whether in a relationship, a family, church community or a larger society, love is often challenged by conflict, misunderstandings, hurts, miscommunications.  Conflict is simply a part of life.  Even in love, hurts will arise. Misunderstandings and miscommunication threaten our connections of love.  As disciples, our job is to create healthy relationships, even in the midst of conflict.

       In our prayer of confession, we hear from Deuteronomy some of Moses’ last words before he died.  The Israelites had been wandering in the wilderness for 40 years and were looking forward to entering the Promised Land.  Moses knew he wouldn’t be able to go with them, so he delivered these words from God, “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses.  Choose life so that you and your descendants may live…” 

According to Deuteronomy, we find life by walking in God’s ways, and observing God’s commandments (vs. 16).   It’s about choosing the “yes” to God.  It’s about loving and being aware and connected to God and God’s creation, being aware and connected to our true selves, and being aware and connected to other human beings.  It’s about practicing our faith, and walking mindfully through life, in harmony with God’s ways. 

Love and blessings are a good and needed foundation for the hard sayings we heard today from Jesus.  While Jesus speaks of the holiness to which disciples are called, his words here are not meant to be taken literally. Otherwise, the streets would be full of mangled faces and hacked off limbs. 

Jesus said these things because he wants us to understand and fulfill the spirit of the law, which is love.  Jesus wants us to live well in community. So, Jesus speaks in hyperbole, a common Semitic trait to get a point across.  According to Jesus, God’s law goes beyond simply behaving well. It is more than a Valentine card.  The purpose of the law is to guide us into the ways of God.  And that involves more than behavior.  It involves what’s in our hearts. At its root it’s about life that embraces the fullness of love.
So, Jesus gives some examples.  The law says, “You shall not murder.”  But if you are angry with someone and you insult them, aren’t you murdering them in spirit, shutting them out, and writing them off as worthless?  The law teaches us not to kill.  But in the Kingdom of God, discipleship is more than simply avoiding murder or physical harm to others.  It’s about treating others with dignity and respect even if there is a difference of opinion.  

The law also says, “You shall not commit adultery.”  That was based on the idea that you shouldn’t steal something that belonged to another man -- in this case his wife. But Jesus asks more of us.  When you lust after someone, you are looking at them as an object to be taken and used for your own pleasure or desire.  Jesus asks us to honor people as real human beings with their own feelings and needs and honor their commitments as well as our own. That’s discipleship, living well in community.
Divorce is another example.  Writing a certificate was legal, but it still allowed men to divorce their wives for frivolous reasons.  Back then a divorce could ruin a woman’s life because women had no way to support themselves.  They were dependent on men, and it was hard for a divorced woman to re-marry.  So, Jesus says, consider the needs of women, and honor your commitments to care for others.  That’s discipleship:  living well in community.

Again, according to the law, a person’s oath or vow was binding depending on how closely it was associated with the name of God.  Jesus said, skip the oath-taking and just tell the truth.  If you say “yes,” mean yes.  If you say “no,” mean no.  It’s about whether or not people can trust you.  Be trustworthy.    That’s discipleship, living well in community.

Jesus took the law to a new level, beyond mere rules and rituals, to focus on relationships, our relationship with ourselves, with each other, and with God.  Jesus is talking about life in community as the fullest expression of love. If you have integrity in yourself, honor and respect God and your neighbor, then you will naturally fulfill the law of Christ.   It means we shall choose life and love to the fullest.

The Apostle Paul puts it to us this way:  are we ready to be fed the solid food, to be mature Christ-followers?  The jealousy and quarreling Paul witnessed among the Corinthians was unacceptable to the teachings of Jesus, and the law of life God transmitted to Moses.  People in Corinthians were choosing factions.  “I like elder X over Elder Y” “Apollo is so much nicer than Paul, and so on. Paul says all this favoritism is nonsense. We must work together, different tasks, all important in building up the kingdom of God – which Paul describes in these terms:” You are God’s field”  “you are God’s building.”  The directives show us how to work together for the greater good.  That’s why rupture in connection – through anger, jealousy, quarreling – is a form of being cursed and causes catastrophes throughout all systems – with a partner, in a family, in a church, in our society, our planet, our every universe. Life is connected, at all levels. 

Damar Hamlin the Buffalo Bills quarterback that suffered a cardiac arrest in the midst of the game on January 2  said  recently as he looked back on the tragedy he faced:  “Everyday I am amazed that my experiences could encourage so many others… encourage to pray, encourage to spread love, and encourage keep fighting no matter the circumstances…(in) .my vision I was about playing in the NFL and being the best player I could be.   But God’s plan was to have a purpose greater than any game in this world.’  God who brought good out of a potential tragedy, acts in exactly the same way with us.  In the hands of God, our difficulties, conflicts and troubles turn into blessings and reconciliation, stronger bonds than ever.  If we only surrender to discipleship.

What conflicts are brewing in our hearts?  What tensions tear at our church community? What problems plague our society?  Conflicts are inevitable, disagreements are common, misunderstandings part and parcel of human life.  The issue isn’t to ignore these situations, to hide them away, but live through and deal with such situations so that love prevails, forgiveness reigns, tolerance and forbearance forge the foundation of our communal life. That’s the task of discipleship for us.  We find blessings in spite of struggle, we discover grace in the midst of disagreements when we seek to follow the principles of life and love that Moses, Paul and Jesus points us too.
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So, friends, when we celebrate Valentine’s Day, let us choose to follow Jesus’ teaching and work to resolve the conflicts in our midst.  Because when we choose love, we choose consciously to forgive, and to turn away from anger.  Let us build the kind of relationships, although imperfect, can stand the test of love.  Let us be disciples of love, and build communities of true love, that shine, warts and all, for all to see and be inspired.  Amen
       

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Discipleship:  Fulfilling God's Fast

2/8/2023

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Matthew 5:13-20; Isaiah 58:1-9a, 

Want to look like Beyonce? Jennifer Aniston? Rihanna? Jennifer Lopez? Jason Mamoa aka Aquaman? Chris Hemsworth aka Thor? Jake Austin?  It’s time to do a 5:2, a diet made popular by Dr. Michael Mosey’s “The Fast Diet” book. The catch is the diet is based on eating pattern of medieval monks and nuns when food was often scarce. They ate simple meals five days a week – fasting (in most cases eating one basic meal of no more than 600 calories) twice a week: on Wednesdays and Fridays. So, what’s your favorite diet?  Intermittent Fasting?  Keto? Mediterranean?  Or my favorite, the cookie dough diet! Or how about the “seafood diet?”  See food, and eat it!

Who would believe that fasting has become fashionable?  In the endless pursuit of the elusive size 000, people are paying thousands of dollars a week to visit health spas where they go without food. One spa in California, is booked months in advance with a clientele that includes celebrities Ben Affleck and Courtney Love. A Venezuelan beauty queen has had plastic mesh sewn to her tongue in her pursuit to stay thin. Fashion designers and mortgage brokers have joined the fasting trend - subsisting on apple-celery cocktails, herbal teas, laxatives, bee pollen, blended soups, and water mixed with squeezed lemons, Celtic Sea salt, and honey. Yummy.

One nutritional consultant organizes four-day fasting weekends for women that include motivational trips to a fashionable department store, to "remind them what it's all for."
Let’s get it straight: Fasting is not about fashion. It was about repentance, purification, preparing for rebirth, or a new stage in life.  Jesus fasted before beginning his public ministry.  Moses fasted before he received the 10 commandments. Daniel fasted and was blessed with wisdom. Esther called for a 3 day fast for all the Jews in her city, who were spared annihilation. Hannah could not bear a child and she fasted. God heard her plea and the prophet Samuel was born.  God called Paul and shared the assignment for his life during a strict fast. Peter was fasting when God gave him a new revelation and called him to take the gospel to the Gentiles. King Solomon fasted and God greatly increased his wealth and wisdom (Kings 3:10-13). After hearing Jonah’s dire predictions, the King of Nineveh declared a fast, even unto the animals, and God diverted the punishment. People may fast for fashion, but fasting is a key tool to spiritual growth and transformation.

Last week, we heard Jesus most famous teaching, the beatitudes – teachings that turn blessing on its head, teaching that causes us to pause, wonder what it means to be blessed in this world of ours.  For the next few weeks, we will hear Jesus expand on his teachings, teachings based in the law expressed in the beatitudes. Teachings that make us reach deep into ourselves, throw some conventional religious concepts on their head -- teachings to wake us up – and understand what it means to follow Jesus.  To be light. To be salt. To be righteous.
Jesus builds on Isaiah’s bold teachin
gs that we heard today. Fasting was part of Jewish life and Isaiah spells out what is acceptable fasting.  What does fasting do for us that is so important?

There’s a story about a wealthy businessman who went to a monastery for a retreat. He wanted to get closer to God. He was brought before the abbot of the monastery to seek spiritual direction. The abbot asked the man if he would like a glass of water. When the man responded with a “yes”, the abbot began to pour him some water. The abbot poured and poured until the water reached the very tip of the glass; but he didn't stop! Instead, he kept pouring and pouring so that the water overflowed ran onto the table; and drenched the expensive suit which the man was wearing.

Jumping up angry, the man yelled at the abbot, “What are you doing? Look at what you did to my suit!” Turning to the man, the abbot said, “You are like this glass of water. You are so full of yourself and of concerns for riches and other anxieties of the world. You are completely full. There is no space for you to hold anything else inside. There is no room for God to come in. Before God can come in, you must empty yourself and make room for Him to enter.”

We are that glass. Fasting, followed correctly, is a tool that we use to detach ourselves from the cares and concerns of this world; and from our own ego and selfish desires. It’s not about how long we fast, how we fast, but that we fast. Fasting isn’t just for lent, Ash Wednesday, or Good Friday. Fasting is part of our regular living. Through fasting, we encounter all the reasons we use food as a way to distance ourselves from our sacred souls – how we hide behind that mars bars and bag of chips to avoid encountering people and encountering God.

True fasting involves abstinence from everything that distances us from God. By emptying ourselves of sin, of gossip, of hate, vanity -- we are cleaned, healed to our right minds. Fasting in this manner, makes us light in the world and salt of the earth – an earth that has lost its flavor through gluttony of attachments to money, power, a false sense of beauty and life purpose.

In the face of the onslaught of the “fast food” of the mind, body and soul we feed upon daily:  Jesus awakens us, tells us that our true purpose is that we are salt and light in the world, and that our righteousness must exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees. The scribes and Pharisees were good people.  They studied the scriptures and tried to follow them with dedication and zeal.  Yet they failed.  The words of the prophet Isaiah are blunt.  They, like their ancestors, comrades of Isaiah, observed the fasts.  They didn’t cheat with extra cookie or slice of bread.   They made their offerings at the temple as prescribed. By Jesus’ day, the Pharisees fasted up to twice a week, Mondays and Thursdays, (Luke 18: 9-14).  Jesus condemned the Pharisees for disfiguring their faces – with ash and dirt -- to alert the rest of the world that they were fasting (Matt 6:16-18).  So, we can fast, and fast well, for all the wrong reasons: like to show off our will power or our slimmer body. If that’s the goal, then the true fast has failed.
It’s time we regained fasting and took it seriously. It is good to fast, even a basic fast.  As a people used to getting what we want, when we want it, both Jesus and Isaiah make it clear that a good fast, an acceptable fast, brings healing, and restoration within ourselves even into our community.

Isaiah raises the following questions:  is a fast a true fast if one continues to oppress their workers while abstaining from food or drink? Or if we quarrel? Or fight? Isaiah says, and Jesus also teaches, that being able to control the hunger sensations of the body means nothing if we are unable to control the desire to be #1, to be in control, to lord over others, to turn away and ignore the hungry, the homeless, the poor – even to avoid our family in need.   What does throwing ash on our heads and wearing sackcloth prove, if we continue to speak evil, gossip, falsely accusing others? 

A Godly fast is a fast from greediness. A fast that curbs our tongue from slanderous speech.  A fast from the gluttony of gadgets we indulge ourselves. Maybe instead of food, we need to fast from pride.  Maybe instead of food, we need to fast from TV, the radio, the computer, the smart phone:  and spend that time with someone who is lonely.  Maybe instead of food, we can fast from eating out, and give that money to a charity. As we enter Black History Month, it’s a time for us to collectively fast from prejudice and racism, and advocate for reconciliation, just practices, and alliances that bridge the races and bring harmony to our fractured society.

  God’s acceptable fast asks us to stop feeding our own wants and desires and redirect our energies to feeding the hungry and helping the afflicted. That is how our light shines in the world. We fast for compassion and connection -- for a world for whom fasting is not an option, but an imposed, inescapable reality. 

We need to empty the glass so we can fill it with God.  We get plugged in. Our light shines.  We act like salt – an essential ingredient, a preserving agent, adding flavor and variety to life on earth.  Those dry and barren aspects of our souls?  They become watered by God’s spirit. Our bones become strong – the frame upon which we build a life -- becomes steady and firm. A Godly fast fixes those broken places, areas in our psyche that are breached by sin and bad habits. Through us God can rebuild the world around us.   We create a foundation for others to build on for generations beyond us. Now that’s a fast.
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It doesn’t matter how each of us fasts.  But fast we should. Whether it is abstaining from meat, from coffee, sugar – a water fast, a juice fast, a fast from electronics, a fast that returns resources to the hungry, needy, holds back smart-alecky responses. Fast – in way that is acceptable between you and God. If only Beyonce, Jennifer Aniston - Gwyneth Paltrow - Phillip Schofield knew the power of the true fast. We can seek that size 0 – but a size 0 in gossip, envy, hoarding, ignoring the plight of the poor. Fast – and let our glass be filled with the Holy Spirit – creating a space for light and salt  --  to bring healing through your righteousness to restore and repair, and fulfill God’s word in our midst. Amen.
 
 
 
https://www.preachingtoday.com/illustrations/2021/june/black-homeowners-appraisal-doubles-after-white-friend-poses.html
http://www.preachingtoday.com/illustration Peter Larson, "Fashionable Fastingthe PRISM E-pistle (9-3-03); submitted by Marshall Shelley, Wheaton, Illinoiss/2003/september/14600.html
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Discipleship: Being Blessed

2/1/2023

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Matthew 5:1-12; Micah 6:1-8
 
        Adapted from “Blessed” Rev. Debra Given, the Presbyterian Church in Leonia, January 30, 2011
* credit to Brian Stoffregen, “Exegetical Notes,”  CrossMarks Christian Resources, at http://www.crossmarks.com/brian/matt5x1.htm.     
                https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/21/us/william-barber-christian-nationalism-blake-cec/index.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/09/opinion/william-barber-selma.html?login=email&auth=login-email
 
        All month long our texts have led us to reflect on what discipleship means.  Discipleship we have discovered, is a Journey to Jesus, a journey with Jesus.  Discipleship teaches us to expect the unexpected.  Discipleship reminds us we often find ourselves taking an unpopular stance, where we are alone, taking the narrow path.  Discipleship calls us to leave behind the past, let go of the familiar and follow Jesus into the unknown.  Discipleship is not for the faint of heart. Discipleship means picking up our cross, being willing to sacrifice, finding joy in the midst of the challenges and opportunities life brings us.  Today we learn that discipleship is also about blessings. 
In today’s gospel, we find Jesus on a mountain, laying the foundation of gospel living for his listeners.  This reminds us of the time when Moses received the ten Commandments on Mt. Sinai.  But instead of commandments, in Matthew we get three chapters of Jesus’ teaching, and we call it the Sermon on the Mount.  It contains some of the most famous and challenging teachings of Jesus.  We’ll be reading a parts of this sermon over the next few weeks, but I recommend you read through the whole thing at home, chapters 5 through 7, in the gospel of Matthew. 

        Today we read the beginning of the sermon on the mount, commonly called the Beatitudes, or blessings, in the first 12 verses.  Now in American culture, we think of blessings as good things that happen to us, or that we have.  To “count your blessings” means to list all the good things in your life.  And we might say things like, “I’m blessed to have my own home and a nice car and good job.”  Or “I’ve been blessed with good health.”  We use the word “blessed” to mean lucky or fortunate. 

        But that’s not necessarily how Jesus used the word.  Being blessed is not about having a bunch of cool stuff or being happy because things are going our way.  In the Beatitudes, Jesus pronounced blessing on the poor and downtrodden.  They are blessed because God’s favor is with them.  They may feel miserable now, but they are not forgotten.  God is paying attention and is with them.  And in God’s kingdom, everything will be reversed.  Humility, meekness, sorrow, inner poverty and purity are not usually things the world seeks after.  But in the Kingdom of God, those who have these qualities will be honored and blessed.

        The Beatitudes have eight blessings, and they are divided into two groups.*  The first group is for those who don’t feel blessed in this world.  The poor in spirit are not just poor financially but are also people who have lost reason to hope.  Those who mourn or grieve find no reason for joy in life.  The meek include not just the humble or gentle, but also those who have been walked on and denied their fair share on this earth.  And those who hunger and thirst for righteousness are also those who are the victims of unrighteousness – those who are abused or trafficked, those who live under corrupt or oppressive governments, victims of prejudice, greed and war. 

        Rev. William Barber II, the minister considered most akin to Martin Luther King Jr. in our day, called a modern-day Moses in a recent NY Times article, is a blessed person according to kingdom values.  If you don’t know who Rev. Barber is, I recommend you look him up. He’s an amazing man, a prophet for our times.

Rev. Barber is riddled with illness and physical pain.  Suffering from a painful form of arthritis, it hurts him just to walk, as he does with an aide and a cane. He lives with constant, chronic physical pain every day. That has not stopped him from being an outspoken national leader, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, one of the nation’s most sustained and visible anti-poverty efforts. He has created a third mode of activism called “fusion politics.” It creates political coalitions that often transcend the conservative vs. progressive binary. Rev. Barber finds inspiration for his activism from Dr. Martin Luther King’s speech in 1968:

“I remind you that starving a child is violence,” “Suppressing a culture is violence. Neglecting school children is violence. Punishing a mother and her child is violence. Discrimination against a working man is violence. Ghetto housing is violence. Ignoring medical needs is violence. Contempt for poverty is violence. Even the lack of willpower to help humanity is a sick and sinister form of violence.”  King ended the passage by saying that “the problems of racism, poverty and war can all be summarized with one word: violence.” Barber is about creating cross-racial, cross-religious, cross-generational coalitions as the only way to confront this violence. We have tragically seen this happen again in the recent and brutal death of Tyre Nichol in Memphis on January 10, due to a brutal beating he received while in police custody.

        The protests of Tyre Nichols’ death speaks to our cries for God’s blessing of comfort and righteousness in the midst of tragedy.  We also see Rev. Barber as such a man who hungers and thirsts for kingdom righteousness.  I don’t know anyone who would call him blessed, in the sense that he was fortunate or happy or pain free.  But he has found blessing in God’s kingdom, because he is faithful to Jesus’ cry that God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven.  People who have been denied justice and their share of blessing in this world will receive mercy and justice, peace and love, because when God rules, things are set right. That’s Rev. Barber’s message to us today. That’s our hope in light of Tyre Nichol’s death, in the deaths of all who are harmed or meet their end in tragic and oppressive circumstances.  It’s our hope when whenever we feel poor in spirit, experience grief, feel low or humble, seek righteousness in our lives.

        The second group of blessings are for those who help to set things right. Those who are merciful are those who care about others and help them.  Those who are pure in heart are single-minded and sincere.  They have integrity, and passion for God’s ways.  Peacemakers actively work to make peace, by helping to create the conditions of a lasting peace: justice, reconciliation and understanding.  Dr. King and Dr. Barber are peacemakers, even though they stir up a lot of trouble.  And those who are persecuted for righteousness sake are those who stay committed to what is right, even through hardship, discrimination and opposition.  

        According to Matthew, the Beatitudes were Jesus’ first recorded teaching after calling the disciples.  He was speaking to the crowds who followed him from Galilee, people who were beaten down and struggling, and looking for healing.  But Jesus was also teaching his disciples the values of the Kingdom, and how to be in the world.  It wasn’t about obeying rules or staying out of trouble.  It wasn’t about gaining influence or power.  It was about mercy and kindness, reaching out to the weak and downtrodden, those who have had a hard time in life.  It’s about participating in the values of God’s kingdom, walking with integrity and standing up for what is right.  And this can take persistence, because God’s ways are not always welcome in the world. 
        Turn on your TV or computer, or just walk down the street and look at the ads or things that are sold in the stores, and you will see and hear messages that tell you how to be attractive and popular, sexy and successful.  And of course, if you are worth anything, you have to be all of those things.  How do we recover from COVID?  Go shopping!  How do we boost our self-esteem?  Buy a trendy new car.  Or lose weight and buy a new outfit.  If you’re not strong enough to make the team, take steroids.  These are just some of the messages of popular culture our children grow up with.  We hear them every day.   

        But Jesus gives a different message.  Jesus calls us to live according to Kingdom values.  It’s what it means to be a disciple: To live in blessing and be a blessing to others. It’s following the teaching of the prophet Micah when he declares how we are to live.  Remember that powerful teaching we heard from Micah today:
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The Lord has told you, human, what is good;
    he has told you what he wants from you:
to do what is right to other people,
    love being kind to others,
    and live humbly, obeying your God.
 
 This is what Jesus means by blessing.  Doing what is right for others.  Love being kind to others.  Living humbly as we walk with God. It’s not the easiest path to take.  It may earn us persecution and hardship.  But it’s God’s way, and it brings us God’s blessing.  Today let us say, “yes” to serve for God’s kingdom of righteousness, peace and justice.  May we pray God’s blessings on all, as we walk together in God’s way in kindness and humility with our God.  Amen.
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Discipleship:  Leaving and Letting Go"

1/25/2023

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Isaiah 9:1-4; Matthew 4:12-23

 
      From the time he was born, Jesus has been prepared for the task of leaving. Remember how Jesus’ life begins when the decree to conduct a census by of Emperor Augustus so Mary and Joseph had to leave Nazareth to be registered in Bethlehem, where Jesus was born. Mary and Joseph fled with the young child Jesus from Bethlehem to Egypt in light of the murderous threats of King Herod.  Only after King Herod’s death were they safe to return back to Nazareth.

Every story we have of Jesus as he prepares to begin his public ministry includes a journey, a leave-taking of sorts. The Holy Spirit led Jesus to the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And now, at the arrest of his cousin John, it’s time again to move on. To leave Nazareth for good which has been his home base for about 30 years.  Jesus realized, and in turn taught, that ministry and discipleship means to leave behind the comfortable, the safe, the familiar and find a new home, a home in the will of God.         
      
     So, Jesus left his home to start his ministry not in Jerusalem, the “it” place where anyone of importance would want to be seen to achieve some prominence --- the text tells us that Jesus left for the ancient tribal territories of Zebulum and Naphtali.  As Jesus traveled those 18 or so miles from Nazareth to the town of Capernaum, surely the history of that area came to Jesus’ mind. The ground he waked on was the stage for brutal foreign invasions over and over again, then as it is now. Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Romans all marched through this pivotal and vulnerable area.  The land was annexed, the people exiled.  The territory was more or less a deportation zone   Defeat hung in the air.  It was a land where over time, the population became mixed, containing both Jewish and Gentile peoples.  The region was looked down upon by the Jerusalem Jewish establishment as tainted and backward.

       Why didn’t Jesus pick a more hospitable place to go? A place that didn’t recall such painful memories of slavery and hardship?  Why a place where families were separated, never to see home again? A place that reminds us even today of the millions of refugees in our world, swallowed up by the storms of life, caught in the middle, conflict, unable to go back, unable to move forward, home lost no place to identify with, nowhere to escape.  Right from the get-go, Jesus doesn’t join up with the safe and secure.   He makes a home with the uprooted and oppressed. In doing so, Jesus tells us something basic and fundamental about God.  We have a who is willing to leave home. A God willing to leave the safety and comfort of heaven to join this messy, sinful, broken life on earth.  God not afraid to wander with us. A God willing to take our sin upon himself. A God who shows us how to leave, how to let go in order to find a bigger world, a better place, a new spiritual home where we can follow Jesus without the past weighing us down. Jesus reveals to us a God who wants to meet us in our places where we have been trampled upon, scourged by conflict and hardship.  A God, who St. Augustine says, is restless until God finds a home in us. And we find our home in God.

Our restless Jesus entered the fishing town of Capernaum on the north west shore of Lake Galilee and carried on where his cousin John left off: “Repent! For the kingdom of Good has come near” Jesus doesn’t baptize like John.  He doesn’t wait by the lakeside for the crowds to appear. Jesus goes to them. He walks up to Peter and Andrew and says, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” He meets up with James and John and they too are called. They hear the summons and they too, leave all they knew, all that was familiar, behind.

    This is how the kingdom of God grows. How true home is found. By leaving and letting go.  By trusting God who leads to the broken and downcast places of the world, where God seeks to use us to bring healing and wholeness to those who are down and out.

        In order to be a disciple of Jesus, we must leave.  To leave behind old ways of seeing the world. To leave what is comfortable and safe behind.  Where we do an about-face.  Where we experience the discomfort of being uprooted, force out of a stuck position.

      It’s not as easy as we think. We have a natural inclination to hunker down with what’s familiar, to cling to the past, to stay comfortable even if what we are comfortable in is a situation we have outgrown, a place is holding our potential back.

        Remember how the people of Israel, living in slavery for 400 years but were freed by the power and compassion of God.   Why did they say once they were barely out Egypt- the dust hadn’t even settled: They were complaining:, “If only we had died by the LORD’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.”  (Exodus 16:3).   We yearn to turn back for one last look, like Lot’s wife, wanting one last glimpse at home.  The consequence of her looking back is that she turned into a pillar of salt.  It’s like when Jesus says in Luke: 9: 62: ‘No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.’”  Jesus is calling us forward, and we can’t move forward safely if we keep turning around, keep pining for the past, if we keep longing for what is long gone.  Remember the words of the prophet Isaiah: “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.  See, I am doing a new thing!  Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?  I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. — Isaiah 43:18–19

        So, our gospel text asks us, as we embrace the mantel of discipleship, what are we being called to leave behind?  Each of us has a past.  A past filled with both successes and failures.  A past where we are both stuck and feel safe and comfortable.   One of my first jobs in ministry was working in a church program with homeless addicts.  Living on the streets, consumed with getting the next high, there’s not much lower than that. Part of our tasks was to instill hope for a better future, to walk through the valleys, the ups and down of pulling a shattered life together.  Like Willie who began as a volunteer in our soup kitchen, was promoted to chef, and eventually became a member of our Board of Directors. He went from a crack addict living on the streets to a college student enrolled in criminal justice studies – in his late forties.  Like Shameik, also an addict constantly chasing that next hit, to becoming a respected drug and alcohol counselor, with the support and encouragement of the church.  Like so many other brave men and women who take a chance on themselves, took a chance on God, and let go, and let God as the saying goes. They learned that looking back at the past, getting stuck in the has been, focusing on the mistakes, was the main obstacle to achieving their dreams, being healed, moving on. The point is, we can never find out the life God has dreamed up for us if are not willing to leave behind the old baggage, the familiar routines, all that weight that is so familiar but holds us down.

        Over the past few weeks, we’ve been learning that discipleship is not easy.  We learn to expect the unexpected from God.  We learn that discipleship is not a popularity contest.  And now we need to let go of the familiar, the comfortable, and be willing to step out into the unknown. A place where scholar Frederick Buechner says ““…God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”  God has a place for each of us that is awesome, beyond our wildest dreams, the best of our best.  To get there, we have to leave and not look back.      

​  As the first month of a new year comes to a close, what is God calling us to leave behind?  What resentments, fears long-dead dreams, do we wear like a well worn jacket, that’s getting too tight?  What arguments and fights do we hold onto, insisting we are right all the time but ending up alone? What is Jesus asking you to leave behind? More important, where is Jesus calling you?  To sobriety? To loving more deeply and honestly?   To a more compassionate, fulfilled life connected to others?  A new ministry of caring that’s been calling but we haven’t taken the risk to venture forth? 

       It is ours for the taking.  Let go. Leave. Close that door. Don’t hesitate or look behind. Become fishers of people, helping others find their purpose, and together let us discover a loving and forgiving God, who meets us in the world’s need. A God ready to take us to places beyond what we can imagine, more than we can comprehend,  an experience of heaven on earth, if we, like Jesus, let go and take the hand of God. Answer the call and move forward and discover that wherever God is, we are indeed home.
 
 
 

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Discipleship: Following Jesus Like Martin

1/18/2023

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​Isaiah 49:1-7; John 1:29-42

 
In 1934 a number of significant events happened in Germany.   The state passed the "Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring" which allowed for the compulsory sterilization of anyone with “questionable” genetic traits – for example, mental illness, blindness, deafness, alcoholism, as well as any number of inherited diseases.

In 1934, in Germany, all the police forces came under the direction of Heimlich Himmler, the leader of the “SS” -- the paramilitary organization of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. 
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In 1934, a minority of German Christian leaders opposing the church’s support of the Nazi movement issued the Barmen Declaration.

In 1934, beginning on June 30, the “Night of the Long Knives” occurred, where Nazi operatives murdered key political opponents. At least 85 people were assassinated in this 3-day purge; some scholars put the total number upwards to 1000.  Shortly after the Night of the Long Knives, on August 2, Adolf Hitler is declared Fuhrer or head of state, as well as Chancellor of Germany.  

     In 1934, the Baptist World Alliance held its conference in Berlin, just shortly after Adolf Hitler rise to power.  Many Baptists spoke boldly against the racism, nationalism and militarism so prevalent in the Germany of 1934. The Baptist World Alliance also passed a strong resolution on the separation of church and state. Others however, praised Hitler. They praised his prohibition of women wearing red lipstick in public. They praised Hitler because he did not smoke or drink. One prominent Baptist leader extolled that:  It was a great relief to be in a country where salacious sex literature cannot be sold; where putrid motion pictures and gangster films cannot be shown. The new Germany has burned great masses of corrupting books and magazines along with its bonfires of Jewish and communistic libraries (Watchman-Examiner XXII 37 (September 13, 1934).

      Present for these deliberations was the Rev. Michael King Sr., Pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, GA.  King, who already had a reputation as a civil rights leader, returned home and decided to change his name, and the name of his five-year old son, from Michael to Martin Luther, the name of the prominent German reformer who sought to purify the church from corrupt practices back in 1517.    So, Rev. Michael King, in the face of Nazism, in the face racism in the United States, renamed himself and his son with the name of a powerful reformer.

        “Little Mike” known to us as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a Baptist minister following his father’s footsteps in ministry and leader in the civil rights movement,  did not know as a six year old the mantel his father placed on his shoulders.   That mantel could be summed up in King Sr.’s address to his colleagues with the words of Jesus, taken from the prophet Isaiah: -- We must not forget the words of God that describe the true mission of the Church: ‘‘The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor.… In this we find we are to do something about the brokenhearted, poor, unemployed, the captive, the blind, and the bruised’’ (King, Sr., 17 October 1940). 

        Today we acknowledge our spiritual debt to King, Sr. and Jr.  Disciples are not born – they are molded by other faithful people.  Disciples are forged in response to the love of God and in reaction to the evils happening in the world around them.   Disciples are called: “Come and see!” Jesus told Andrew and his friend, and Andrew in turn told his brother “Come! We have found the messiah!”

        Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was called to faith by many people, especially is father.  Today, as we remember and give thanks for so many of his deeds and accomplishments in the civil rights movement, we remember one of his most important tasks that remain today.  That task is to call us to come and see, his fellow brothers and sisters, the ministry of righteousness, justice and reconciliation in a world where racism, poverty and war still exist.  Dr. King saw this as a natural, sacred duty that flows naturally from the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

On March 31, 1968, King preached his last sermon at the Washington National Cathedral in Washington DC. It was appropriately titled, “Remaining Awake through the Great Revolution.”  King began his sermon recounting the tale of Rip Van Winkle who fell asleep for 20 years.    When Rip fell asleep the picture of King George the III was on a sign board.  Twenty years later, the picture on the sign board was George Washington.  Rip didn’t know who he was or what had happened.  He had slept through a revolution.  Now King’s final church sermon to those people of faith who came to worship that day was the prophetic message which rings true to us today:

“…one of the great liabilities of life is that all too many people find themselves living amid a great period of social change, and yet they fail to develop the new attitudes, the new mental responses, that the new situation demands. They end up sleeping through a revolution.”

King in his legacy, teaches us to be disciples, true followers of Jesus.  Before he was assassinated, King began to not only see the interrelatedness of all life and the threat of what he called the “the triplet evils of racism, materialism and militarism.”  In his last sermon King reminds us “We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. And whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the way God’s universe is made; this is the way it is structured.”  Our life of faith is molded by others. Additionally, our life is molded in how we respond to others.  So, part of King’s concern was awakening the white conscience – what he called the “the appalling silence and indifference of the good people who sit around and say, "Wait on time."  The time is now to do what is right.

In his last sermon, King explained what awakened his faith to the human revolution taking place.  It was seeing the poor throughout Latin America; Africa; Asia; coming to the realization that God’s children went to bed hungry at night; slept on sidewalks at night. Brothers and sisters of ours with no beds to sleep in; no houses to go in. The vast majority who have never seen a doctor or a dentist.  These people brought him more deeply to faith.

King said, as he noticed these things, something within him cried out, "Can we in America stand idly by and not be concerned?" he started thinking of the fact that in America millions are spent to store surplus food, and he thought, "I know where we can store that food free of charge—in the wrinkled stomachs of millions of God’s children all over the world who go to bed hungry at night."

     In that last sermon King notes that his discipleship was fashioned by 40 million people in our own country that were poverty-stricken. In the ghettos of the North; in the rural areas of the South; in Appalachia – King found deplorable situations that left him crying.  What ate at King’s heart was the knowledge that we have the resources to get rid of poverty. We lack however the will.

King was awakened to the fact that nothing would be done until people of goodwill put their bodies and their souls in motion and became true disciples of Jesus.  Because King noted: “There comes a time when one must take the position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must do it because conscience tells him it is right. I believe today that there is a need for all people of goodwill to come with a massive act of conscience and say in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "We ain’t goin’ study war no more.” 

As we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. with a federal holiday tomorrow, it’s important to remember that back in the 1960s, King had many, many critics. He was considered the most dangerous man in America by the FBI.  Most of the country didn’t like him. He was trashed, rejected, and dismissed.  He was hated and maligned. He would probably be stunned at the turn-around of his image, and he would probably be disturbed, perhaps think his message sanitized for popular consumption. Jesus said in Mark 6:4, "Prophets are honored by everyone, except the people of their hometown and their relatives and their own family." Just as Martin was maligned in his day. we recall that Jesus was also criticized for eating with tax collectors and sinners, he was constantly tested, plotted against and ultimately put to death by the religious and political establishment that felt so threatened and challenged by him. Being a disciple of Jesus, like Martin was, means being willing to stand alone. To take the heat. To be rejected, dismissed, criticized, have people talk behind your back. To plot against you. Discipleship means taking the narrow path.  The hard path.  To carry the cross.

Today, through King’s words that were spoken 55 years ago, we are awakened to faith.  We are called to reform in us what isn’t in line with the gospel of love, truth and righteousness. Like King Sr., who was awakened in Germany as Hitler took control -- we must be awakened in the trials of our time – that very same issues of racism, poverty and warfare.  Will we be like Rip, busy with our technological distractions, and not see what is happening around us?  A revolution of conscience is taking place. It is calling us. Let us hear the call: “Come and see.” Let us take on the mantle of discipleship and follow Jesus, Like Martin – both father and son. Amen.
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http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/599266/us_has_fourth-highest_income_inequality_rate_in_the_world
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/race/news/2012/03/13/11351/the-top-10-most     -startling-facts-about-people-of-color-and-criminal-justice-in-the-united-states/
https://www.uua.org/worship/words/reading/flawed-understanding-martin-luther-king-jr
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