​
Genesis 15:1-6, Luke 12:32-34

 
If you were to examine your checking account, your bank statement, your log of spending, or how you spend your time, what would it say about your values?   Some of us may have a mountain of receipts from Starbucks, eat outs like Dominos pizza, taco bell, or McDonalds.  Perhaps that would tell us you like prepared food in your diet.   Some of us have a cleaning service, spend hours a week straightening up the apartment or house.  You value tidiness and cleanliness.   Some of us rack up bills every month on clothing items, accessories, new shoes.  You like to have a great wardrobe.  Some of us pore over our investments and are on the phone or computer tweaking stocks and other financial products.  You value saving and increasing wealth.  Maybe your records show you tithe, contribute to charitable organizations, spend time watching over neighbors and others in need, go to church regularly and read the Bible and pray every day.  Church and giving back are at the top of your list. 

Conversely, churches that are seeking to revitalize  or initiate change are do a self-study, or called a plumb line study in our Presbytery, that includes among other things an examination of the budget and the annual reports from recent years.  Such a study reveals the values, strengths and weaknesses of the congregation.  We discover what percentage do we spend on Christian Education? Mission? Programming? Property and grounds?  Staff to carry out our vision and goals?  Such an analysis, done on a personal or church level, is a starting point to show ourselves our priorities.   The big question then becomes what do we make of our priorities?  Is God calling us to change, or set new priorities in order to become a more vital congregation, a more committed follower of Jesus?

Where your heart is, there is your treasure, Jesus declares.   That which we treasure we naturally invest our time and resources in.  A person’s heart is tied to what they value most in life.  Ideally our goal in life should be that our heart is in synch which that which gives the most value. Our balance statement, as Christ-followers, should reveal a preponderance of heavenly over earthy treasure.  There is nothing wrong with earthly treasure as long as we understand it is temporary. What we share and do on behalf of others and God’s kingdom endures.  Jesus tells us we do this when we seek treasure stored up in heaven, treasure that is of eternal value, that does rust, that can’t be stolen from us, that moths cannot come in and destroy.  Love, faith, service, caring for others, builds up lasting treasure. As Jesus tells the rich man:  “If you want to be perfect (whole, complete), go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me” (Matt. 19:21).   Jesus describes how we ought to prioritize the things in our lives with this parable, “Again the Kingdom of Heaven is likened to treasure that was hidden in a field which a man found and hid, and for his joy he went selling everything that he had and he bought that field. (Matthew 13:44).”

The first mention of treasure in the gospels is actually n the story of the wise men in Matthew’s infancy narrative.  The wise men from the east, probably Persia.   They belonged to most highly esteemed caste of their society, yet they personally leave their homes an arduous journey, to follow a star that would lead them to the King of the Jews.  They could have stayed home. They could have send their assistants on their behalf. But they took time out of their lives, at least 4-5 months.  When they found Jesus they were overjoyed, emptied their treasures of gold frankincense and myrrh.  Except for perhaps gold, this may not sound so treasurey. Yet it is their devotion to find the King of the Jews, their grasp of his mission that prompts them to give gifts that symbolize the kingship, priesthood and sacrificial death of Jesus.  This thoughtfulness is also a treasure.  The gift and application of their knowledge, their investment of time, their devotion to Jesus and expression of joy are also treasures that we can emulate in our lives.

What did Mary, the mother of Jesus, think of these exotic foreigners and their gifts?  Although Matthew doesn’t say it, I bet she treasured this experience because Mary is the one person we are told by bible translators as someone who treasures the events in Jesus’ life.  Luke tells us of the time when Mary hears the witness of the shepherds who tell of the angels giving glad tidings of the birth of Christ the Lord.  The gospels often translate Mary’s response to this as “Mary treasured and pondered this things in her heart (Luke 2;19).” Some verses later we hear of how Jesus, Mary and Joseph traveled to Jerusalem to the Temple and Jesus got lost.  On their return, they find Jesus sitting with other wise men, these wise men are not foreigners from Persia, but teachers of the Jewish faith.  Mary observes Jesus listening and answering their questions.  Mary sees how everyone is amazed at Jesus’s depth of understanding and answers.  The text tells us again that Mary treasured and pondered these things. (Luke 2:51)

  So, Mary is a model of how we treasure Jesus in our hearts, his example, his teachings, and like Mary, humbly follow Jesus.  To treasure like Mary, we protect, keep safe, and preserve the message we receive.   To treasure like Mary means Jesus is our primary focus, and his teachings are the foundation and guide of how we prioritize our time and resources. 
​
As we continue our journey to become a vital congregation, to be vital followers of Jesus, let us take the time to examine our spiritual balance sheets.  How are our treasures adding up? How can we increase our heavenly treasure?  Look at Abraham and Sarah, who faithfully waited 90 years, for the treasure God promised, a son Isaac, from whom came descendants more numerous than the stars.  May we be as devoted as Abraham and Sarah, as the wise men, as Mary.  It is never too late to reprioritize. We can make Jesus the center of our lives. For he is truly meant to be our heart’s treasure. May we give up all that gets in the way to claim one as number one in our hearts. amen.
 
https://www.sermoncentral.com/sermons/treasure-in-heaven-jim-keegan-sermon-on-greed-256103?page=1&wc=800
 

 Luke 12:13-21

 
They say that everyone has a price.

        Judging by the recent skyrocketing Mega Millions jackpot this past week the dream of easy money has led to the sales of more than 6000 tickets a minute as of Thursday night.

A recent survey unearthed unsettling images of what people would do for fast money.  Perhaps people are exaggerating but the thoughts are disturbing:

• For $10,000,000?  They would abandon their entire family, abandon their church; would give up their American citizenships or leave their spouses; would withhold testimony and let a murderer go free.
• for $100,000? They would forge a signature or steal from a restaurant or hotel. And for that same amount,  they would enter into a sham marriage, perform a sexual act on a stranger, evade taxes or snatch a purse.
• For $10,0000? They would flash a stranger or steal a street sign, or shoplift; would lie under oath, steal a bike or knowingly spend counterfeit cash for the same price.

For better or worse, money is one of the main motivators in life and not always for the good.  The truth is there are people who would do these acts, other sins or evil for even less money than reported.

Today Jesus is approached by a man motivated by money, he asks Jesus “Teacher tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.”   The man is making an ordinary request of a rabbi, who often intervened in family disputes.  The Hebrew Scriptures refer to inheritance over 200 times, and situations could get complex and family relationships turn sour or divisive.  We probably all know of a situation where an inheritance situation caused a family rift.  Even one of Jesus’ most famous parables, the prodigal son, is about inheritance laws and how they can drive family members apart.   
 
Yet Jesus is reluctant to be a judge or arbitrator in this case. Instead of addressing the case straight on, he takes a different tact.  Jesus instead wants to address the underlying problem that drives most cases like this: greed.  We need to be on guard against greed, wherever it crops up; in an inheritance situation or simply in the abundance of possessions we can accumulate in life.

To get this point across, Jesus tells the story about a fellow who becomes rich and whose crops produce abundantly.   What a lucky man! His lands are fruitful. There is little he has had to do personally. The crop is a gift.  He’s so rich he thinks he has to build even bigger barns to hold all excess grains and goods.  Isn’t he exactly the kind of guy we admire? He’s successful and is able to upgrade to a one of these new mini mansions, a fancier bigger ultra-SUV car, designer suits, luxury vacations, all the trappings of the good life.   Isn’t this what our culture teaches us - to make enough so we too can relax, eat, drink, be merry?

Yet the individual who is so admired, perhaps to a degree by us, if not by a lot of people is called a fool by God.   “You Fool!  God says.   This very night your life will be required of you.” The Greek word for “required” is a legal term that implies a loan that has come due.  Jesus implies here that life is a gift, a loan to us. God gave us this gift of life to invest ourselves in the world and each other. Life, in God’s eyes, is not about getting or consumerism.  Life is not for us to squander but for us to engage, to find and express God’s will. The loan of our life is to create a rich relationship with God and with each other not to surround ourselves with riches for our own exclusive benefit.

The absence of family and friends in the rich fool’s life is striking.  Whose life has the rich fool prepared and made better from all his work? There is no one. In his conversation, it’s all about me, myself and I.   When at last he has built his bigger barns to last him many years, he does not envision a better future for anyone but himself.  He has not used his excess grain to feed the hungry, or his goods to help the needy.  God asks the rich fool a piercing question, “These things you have prepared, whose will they be?”  There is no one.  It is all for naught. 

The rich fool’s focus on accumulation of wealth was the ultimate purpose of his life, just like what is pursued by millions of Americans with a dollar and a dream, as the lottery tells us.   Our lives, loaned to us are meant for activity that is redemptive and other focused.  This is the reason for the loan of our lives.  We are meant to use our resources, our money, our treasures, to make the world a better place to live, starting with our neighborhood.

        When I think of a life loan well invested, I can’t help but think of my mother. When I was baby, my mother ran for public office in order to bring some positive change into the community.  My mother had campaign literature printed with my baby mug on it that said, “Time for a new change.”    She ran up against a powerful incumbent, and rumors were even spread that there might be a Vatican infiltration in Strongsville, Ohio.  My mother lost that election, but she didn’t stop fighting to make her corner of the world a better place.

        Unlike the rich fool, my mother, barely had proverbial two coins to rub together.     Her barn was never full.  She understood her life was a loan from God and she was her to prepare something better.  Among the things she did she created a neighborhood watch group that provided loans and grants for home improvement to families of modest incomes.   She always found time to help home-bound people get their shopping done.  She made and delivered care packages to disabled veterans.   She could not pass by wounded animals: she would take the creature to the veterinarian and pay the expenses out of her own pocket.   She was not rich like the man in the parable, but she was rich in how Jesus wants us to be rich:  to help others. To better the world. That’s what it makes to be rich to with God.

        Sadly, our world has reversed these priorities and our culture teaches us to focus on ourselves.  Look at our Old Testament lesson from Exodus.  The Egyptians enslave the people of Israel to build up an empire for themselves. In this scenario, the enslaved Israelites are just a commodity.  Enslaved to their dreams of wealth, they impoverish others.  Sadly, that about sums up the current state of affairs in our world.  2,100 people control more wealth than the bottom 4.6 billion.

        For everything there is a price.  For us, Jesus paid that price on the cross.  As we seek to revitalize our lives and our churches, let us remember all we have is a loan from God to enable us to be givers, not getters. To help others. As Matthew 25 reminds us: to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, to clothe the naked, to visit the sick or imprisoned.  To put God first in all we do. As we put God first, our lives naturally overflow to embracing others, and we too are blessed as a result.  Let us ask ourselves: how’s our loan doing? What does our investment strategy have to say about us?  When that loan comes due, what will we have to show for it? The things we have prepared, whose will they be? Remember the saying, you’ll never see a U-Haul behind a hearse. Let us take that loan and transform our energy and resources to building a more just, righteous world. And that would be an inheritance worth sharing.  Amen.

​https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/10-americans-porn-1-million-article-1.2493861

• James Patterson and Peter Kim, The Day America Told the Truth, 1991
• https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-07/pandemic-is-golden-age-for-billionaire-wealth-piketty-lab-says#:~:text=The%20share%20of%20global%20wealth,said%20in%20a%20report%20Tuesday.

 

Luke 11: 1-13; Genesis 18:20-32 
 
Based on a sermon by Scott Hozee: https://cepreaching.org/commentary/2016-07-17/luke-111-13/

As we cruise through our summer season, renewing our bodies and spirits through rest and warm weather, we continue our reflection on spiritual renewal of our church body our individual spirits through biblical concepts like being a good neighbor, through the practice of holy hospitality and sacred listening.  Today we add the linchpin of prayer.  What it means to pray like Jesus. To pray with shameless persistence, as the gospel tells us.
The Lord’s Prayer is hands down one of the most famous prayers ever.  It is recited millions of times a day, in hundreds of different languages.   For a prayer of such importance, it has ordinary, humble roots. Luke very casually says that when Jesus uttered this model prayer, it happened “one day” “in a certain place.”  One disciple, who’s name we do not know, saw Jesus praying, and said, “teach us to pray, like John taught his disciples.”  Spiritual teachers like John or Jesus had unique habits that set them apart from other groups.  So, the Lord’s prayer sets us apart as Christ followers. It is a map to the values to a life rooted in Jesus.

Luke records nine prayers of Jesus, more than the other gospels. Jesus prayed ceaselessly, to use Paul’s teaching in 1 Thessalonians 5:17.  Moreover, according to our gospel passage, we are to pray with shameless persistence.  To prayer boldly for our needs. Prayer for Jesus was like breathing, it was woven into his very being, and formed the foundation from which all he did flowed.  Ceaseless prayer, shameless persistence prayer, is a hallmark of a vital spirit, a vital congregation.  So how does the Lord’s prayer transform us?  The prayer we call the Lord’s prayer is really the disciples’ prayer, it is a guide we should follow.

We can divide the disciple’s prayer into two parts; the first part of the prayer reveals our relationship with God, and the second part describes the foundation of faith we need to lift up on a day-to-day basis. The disciple’s prayer reminds us:  our relationship with God is intimate: We come to God with the utmost confidence that we would approve a loving father. Note it is not my dad, not your dad, but our dad.  The disciple’s prayer is communal, it includes all people. While each one of us prays alone or privately throughout the day, prayer is more than a solitary act. We are also called to pray together and pray for each other.  We connect to a God whose name is Holy, adored, worshipped, exalted. And before this Holy and precious Father, we claim the realm of God, God’s kingdom, and God’s will, as our most ardent desire. All prayer flows from this foundation. So, our primary orientation in prayer and the life of faith, a vital life, is to lift up God and his purpose for our lives. There is no finer prayer than to say, “thy will be done,” Isn’t that what Jesus prayed in the garden of Gethsemane?

The second half of the disciple’s prayer establishing three interesting spiritual needs.  We pray for our daily bread (actually for all the sustenance we need, perhaps strength of character, the resources to live out and nourish our day).  Second, every day we need forgiveness and to forgive. That is a major teaching of Jesus. To remember we are fallible, we make mistakes, and we need to own up to them. Because by the measure we judge, Jesus reminds us, so we are judged.  Third, we pray to be delivered from evil, because the truth is that the Evil one is always, constantly looking to pull us down, as God is always striving to pick up us. Peter reminds us that the adversary, the devil, is like a roaring lion, seeking to devour us (1 Peter 5:8).  The disciple’s prayer begins connecting us to God’s love and will for our lives, roots us in the present, while the pray ends reminding of the reality of evil that tries to subvert us away from the daily resources that we need, to keep us from forgiving and being forgiven, and to ignore the evil in the world, evil that seeks to supplant God’s will.

 While the content of the disciple’s prayer is important for us to meditate on and live out, Jesus stresses the shameless persistence of prayer as vital as well.  Prayer should be ceaseless, imbedded in every thought and deed we do. The two brief parables examples that Jesus includes teaches us about the persistence in prayer.  “The “Friend at Midnight” story reminds us that prayer pops up all the time and does not wait for convenient seasons or moments. The word “impudence” here is better translated as “shameless persistence.”  If someone gives bread at midnight as the annoying persistence of a friend, how much more will God supply our needs?

“What about the father-son (parent child) analogy with which Jesus shares? As any parent can tell you, a son or daughter who asks for a fish or an egg is unlikely to make such a request just once. If anything kids are doggedly persistent.  “Are we there yet?”   “Can I watch TV now?” and so forth. “There are those times when, after being asked by your daughter for the fifteenth time in a row if she can have just one more cookie—and after your having said “no” to this request fourteen times in a row—sometimes even good, conscientious parents will finally throw the cookie at the hapless kid. “There! Eat it! You happy now?!” Our patience can wear thin.”  For the cat lovers among us, who hasn’t dealt with a feline who walks on our face, meowing insistently at 5:00 am for breakfast?   Shameless persistence!  So like our child, we too are to practice ceaseless prayer, shameless persistence.”  If we fallible human beings end up doing right by our badgering children, how much more attentive with God be?  God welcomes our onslaught of prayer.  Because God answers prayer in God’s time and in God’s way, not our time, or perhaps not the way we want it to be answered; we need to maintain courage, shameless persistence, hope in all we ask, in all we seek and every time we knock.

Look at the conversation between Abraham and God about the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham repeatedly goes after God to spare Sodom and Gomorrah. This illustration is a blueprint for prayer.  We talk with God like Abraham does, perhaps more irreverently, when we are praying.  It’s what God wants from us.  To bring to him all our joys, concerns, troubles, thoughts and cares, over and over again.

       Praying like Jesus, we become one with him and each other, and we awaken the Holy Spirit to bring us new life. That’s the purpose of prayer; not to change God, but to change us, so we pray above all things that God’s will be done, with shameless persistence and ceaseless effort.  Such is the hallmark of a vital life, a vital congregation – to pray shamelessly, ceaselessly, boldly for our needs, hopes and for Holy Spirit power, trusting that it is our loving Father’s deepest desire is to grant us what we need, to protect us from evil, and in doing so, to bring about the kingdom of heaven in our lives as it is in heaven.
 
https://biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/scripture/52_115.pdf

Genesis 18:1-10a, Luke 10:38-42

 
        Last week we began a time of summer reflection on what it takes to create a vital congregation; a congregation that is spiritually renewed, turned around, full of the life and the Holy Spirit.  We discussed that at the core of a revitalized congregation is the practice of neighboring (to borrow the phrase from our congregant, Diane Wood)  – acting as a good neighbor, like the good Samaritan was, fulfilling the Great commandment to “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Even if that neighbor is difficult, oppositional, negative, perhaps even enemy material.  Today our scriptures invite us to look deeper into the process of neighboring.  Today we see that at the core of neighboring is the practice of sacred hospitality and holy listening.
​
        I remember a conference Forrest and I attended a few years back, when we were co-pastors at the Community Church of Little Neck, in Queens. We belonged to the International Council of Community Churches, formed by the historical joining of a black and white association back in 1950, long before desegregation took place.   So racial unity and cooperation has been at the forefront of the ICCC these 60 plus years.  

The year of that particular conference racial tensions have been ongoing in our country, and it was a particularly acrimonious summer. The conference paused its usual workshops and took a time out. It called all the members, of all races to sit down and talk together about what was on their hearts in light of the racial conflict.  African American members, pastors and high-ranking lay leaders shared their experiences, concerns and hurts. White leaders strove to listen in the presence of the pain and hurt in the room and shared their responses. The racial tension in the room, like in our country seemed an impossible divide.  While we were far from resolving the tension, I witnessed a sacred practice of listening to each other, and the healing power of acknowledging each other’s pain and point of view, even in the -presence of differences.   The gift of listening and sharing is an incredibly hospitable act. It is an act of neighboring. It is an act revitalization.

        Our lessons today seem to present us with impossible situations as well.   Abraham and Sarah offer traditional hospitality to three strangers are reassured of God’s promise of a son.   How impossible is that?   Abraham would be 100 years old, and Sarah 90 years when this prediction came true.  How could this dream, that has filled their hearts all their lives, led them to leave their homeland some 25 years earlier, ever come true?   Yet during the hospitality, the listening, a promise is given, a miracle happens.  A year later, a son is borne.

        For Jesus, if there ever was an impossible situation it was dealing with the two headstrong sisters, Martha and Mary.  Although they have a brother, Lazarus, he doesn’t figure in the story, which is striking.  He should be the one welcoming Jesus into the home.   Yet it is Martha, who is named first.  Martha is busy with the rites of hospitality, which are sacred and not to be ignored, unless shame be brought upon the household.   Yet she is pulled in many directions, the demands of preparing meals, worry that everything will work out, and most of all why her supposedly younger sister isn’t obeying her and helping her get things ready?  

Mary herself is in a culturally impossible situation:  she is bucking the system that would relegate her to preparing the meal and service and choosing instead to sit at the feet of Jesus, in the position of disciple.   Finally Martha, pulled in so many directions, demands that Jesus send Mary to the kitchen to help her. 

 Jesus listens carefully to Martha. However, Jesus defends Mary, as he will again when Judas makes criticisms when Mary anoints the feet of Jesus with a costly nard the week before his death.  Yet Jesus gently lets Martha know it’s not the hospitality that’s the problem; it’s the distractions that are pulling her in many directions that are the problem and making life unmanageable.   Jesus points out that Mary’s focused discipleship is better than distracted and resentful service that results in bitterness and breaking of relationship.  So, Jesus defends Mary, but he reaches out to Martha as well, to heal her spirit, and also preserve the family relationship. Martha’s and Mary’s hospitality, demonstrated in different ways, demonstrate how the church should demonstrate hospitality by balancing action and listening like Abraham and Sarah do. Such hospitality  leads to communication  and connection, which is at the heart of a healthy spiritual life, a renewed life, a revitalized life.

We find ourselves daily in impossible situations that call for us to choose the better part. We find ourselves embroiled in impossible situations as citizens of a polarized society. We face challenging health matters, or family predicaments with Mary and Martha conflicts, or persistent longings of Abraham and Sarah.  All impossible to solve on their own.  We need God’s help to choose the better part.

At that conference I attended, leaders were pleading for direction out of the impossible. For answers.  What do we do next?   How do we get to that better part?   Lots of ideas come forth some conventional others challenging.   Pray and fast. Encourage community development and conversations that includes police departments.   Develop stronger ties between churches of different races, encourage pulpit swaps. All pieces of the puzzle that can help make the impossible possible if we get involve and serve and be hospitable.   So, Jesus calls on us to choose the better half—to do our part in the impossible situations we face.  That’s how we become a revitalized people.  We face the impossible with hospitality and listening to each other.  We take the time to be together in fellowship, away from the business and busyness of church life that distracts us from our true purpose:  a relationship with Jesus Christ grounded in prayer and worship, expressed in hospitality and service of our neighbor.  We may not see eye to eye, but we can, through Jesus, connect heart to heart.  That connection with one another is the foundation of a renewed congregation.

Toward the end of the conference, a long-time youth leader got up and shared.   She shared her observance of groups of youth, black and white, weren’t mingling.    So, she decided to work with them.  She had them write out what they had heard about the other group.  On the list from black a youth commented :“white churches are so quiet” because once at a white church he wanted to applaud a powerful performance, but was stopped because no one else did.  On the list from the white youth was written “not interested in college” The leader probed further.  A white girl began to cry.  She said it wasn’t true, what she was taught.  At the conference she met many black youth very interested in college.  The group discovered they had learned things that were stereotypes.  There was more to the story, the youth learned. It took spending time together to learn what was true.  

Ultimately, each family, each church, each community, must figure out is the better part to what God is calling us.  The 225th General Assembly of the PCUSA, meeting in Louisville KY, in the listening process on race relations, has  recently issued a formal apology for the sin of slavery and its legacy, with a commitment to repairing the breach caused by the ongoing effects of racism.  We have chosen the better part.

To what acts of hospitality and listening are we being called to do so that the love, mercy and justice of God in Jesus be manifest in our midst?   Surely, we can reach out with food like Sarah and Martha did, it’s one of our most common forms of hospitality.  However, like Mary and Abraham, we can be hospitable by listening, listening to the stories that others need to tell.  As we get involved in each other’s lives, from this group here, to all the groups out there, we learn what we once considered impossible becomes possible through the power of divine love.  That is the practice of neighboring. That’s how we begin the process of congregational revitalization, of spiritual renewal of our own souls. 

Abraham & Sarah’s hospitality made possible a new generation to be born. In Mary and Martha’s struggle, a community is born guided to always listen to each other, to balance our differences to serve one another.  In these impossible times, let us choose the better half, found in the practice of hospitality.  This summer, let us begin the process and reach out and get to know each other’s stories.  Can we do this intentional act of hospitality? For this is how we begin to renew, heal, become vital:  through hospitality and listening, loving our neighbor as ourselves.  Just select someone in the congregation that you don’t know well.  Go out for coffee and get to know each other. Give the gift of time to someone and see what a difference it makes in your life.  So by sitting at the feet of Jesus, may we learn to listen and to choose the better part. Amen.

Amos 7: 1-8; Luke 10:25-37


​Sermon inspired by:
https://www.sermoncentral.com/sermons/the-good-samaritan-edward-hardee-sermon-on-missions-170309
https://www.sermoncentral.com/sermons/the-good-samaritan-marty-baker-sermon-on-jesus-teachings-55905?page=3&wc=800

This past week, Forrest and I had to take our beloved dog, Betty, whom some of you know, to the vet’s office in Plainview for a post-surgery visit.  While at the vets we ran into car trouble and had to call for a tow.  Andrew was in the midst of a final and could not be reached.  While we were sorting out our options, a couple of people expressed sympathy, but when on their way.  Then a couple, a husband with a scruffy beard and loaded with tattoos, cuddling their pouch, Rambo, came over and offered us a lift. They lived in Shirley, so Freeport was not exactly on the way.  We didn’t want to put them out, so we initially declined.  After another ½ hr., with their offer still in place, we gratefully accepted.  They refused any gas money, and we had a wonderful conversation about dogs and life. 

We live in a day and age where the need is great yet it’s hard to accept help.  We are raised to be rugged individualists, not reach out for help, and not put anyone out of the way.  It’s hard enough to accept help from someone we know well.  Imagine accepting help from a stranger, or worse, someone we dislike intensely, perhaps even consider an archnemesis, or an enemy.  Imagine being at the giving end of things.  We can probably be persuaded to give to someone we know and like. But to someone we despise or feel negatively towards?

Our gospel lesson places such an issue before us. Jesus tells a parable about an injured man who is helped not by a fellow Jew, but by a hated Samaritan.  Jesus is clear:  we too are to help. We too are to give. Even if it’s an enemy.  Jesus is clear and tells us pointedly: 27 “But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you” (Luke 6:25). Paul in Romans 12:20 reinforces this teaching aby admonishing us: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.”  Helping our neighbor, even if an enemy is the plumb line of faith, the gold standard, as the prophet Amos would put it.  A neighbor isn’t just someone who lives near to us on our block.  Neighbors aren’t, as the people of Jesus’ day thought, just fellow Jews.  A neighbor is anyone in our proximity with whom we can share God’s love. Even if an enemy.
This gospel lesson is one of the most well-known stories of the gospel-- we famously call it “parable of the good Samaritan.”  Jesus is posed a hypothetical question by a lawyer or an expert of the law, about how to gain eternal life.  When Jesus responds, “Love your neighbor as yourself” the lawyer presses him further: “who is my neighbor?” 

So, Jesus describes a man, supposedly a regular Jew, taking an ordinary trip to Jericho, but falls into a gang of robbers who beats him into an inch of his life.  

The first person to come by the crime scene was a Priest. He faced an enormous moral dilemma. His office required him to remain ritually pure. If a priest came in contact with a Samaritan, a Gentile, or a dead person, he would be considered ritually defiled. As a result, he would have to go through an extensive purification ritual to be restored so that he could perform priestly duties again.  Not wanting to risk defilement, he doesn’t even investigate if the man is alive or not. So, the priest plays it safe, crosses the road and passes by.  His conduct was acceptable, following the law.

The next person on the scene is a Levite. The Levite was of the tribe of Levi, the tribe from which the priests came, but this Levite was not a priest.  Levites would follow the same ritual law of not touching a dead body.  He looked at the man lying there and he too, walks on by. His conduct was acceptable, according to the law.

If we were in Jesus’ audience listening to this story, we would be anticipating the next character. Jesus started with the priest, and the the Levite, and next in line will be an ordinary Israelite.

Jesus, however, introduces a radical twist to the story. The next character is not an Israelite but a despised Samaritan! The Jews considered the Samaritans as half-breeds, dogs, and the lowest of the low.  If anyone were expected to avoid an injured Jew, it would be a Samaritan.  But not so in Jesus’ story.

The Samaritan came upon this injured man and is filled with pity, or compassion, a feeling usually reserved to describe Jesus in the gospels. The Samaritan stops. He draws near. He kneels and takes wine and oil and applies it to the injured man’s wounds. He then places the man on his own donkey, inconveniencing himself.  He takes him to an inn to recover.  He pays the bill and promises more on his return.  The Samaritan goes up and beyond the call of duty, breaking the taboos that surround the interactions between Jews and Samaritans.

As Jesus comes to the end of this story, he asks the lawyer, "Which person proved himself to be a neighbor?" The lawyer has to conclude, "The one who showed mercy." Jesus commands, "Go and do likewise.”

        It is easy to be good, to be a Christian, to be a neighbor, when times are going well, and the people who need help tick off the boxes as deserving. Down through the centuries the church and larger society made distinctions between the deserving and undeserving poor; people who are not lazy or shiftless, they are old, infirm, or disabled.  Jesus, who teaches us not to judge, asks us in this parable: Who will stop and see?   Who will bandage and pour oil and wine on the wounds?  Who will carry the victims?  Who will find the Inn?  Who will pay the price?   Who will show compassion?   A neighbor is someone near us. Period. Even if we consider them an enemy.  If we are to follow Jesus, we must be willing to turn the law on its head and be willing to help and get involved.  Even if it puts us out of our way and demands our resources, our time and effort.

        As a congregation, we are beginning a process of discerning what it means to be a vital congregation. This parable today is the most appropriate example of what we need to do to turn our church around.  It is easy to be trapped like the Priest and Levite, who are by the way, good people, but stuck in the box of thinking what is the right way to be and do.  Our very religious conditioning traps us and keeps us from transformation. It is only when we are willing to stop, be moved by compassion, help outside the box, even if its somebody who is a stranger, someone we are opposed to. Jesus tells us that is what being a neighbor is all about. That is what we as Christ followers are called to do. Being a neighbor is the key to turning our lives, our churches around. We have to follow the example of the Samaritan in the story.  To become a vital Christ follower, to become a vital congregation, we got to think and act in new ways, foreign ways, perhaps in ways we think are religiously unacceptable.  If we want our church to survive, if we want to thrive, we need to become neighbors. Not just to those we like or approve of, but to all that cross our path. Jesus says, we need to learn to act like Samaritans – the people who didn’t follow the law properly, the people considered impure, half-breeds.  Even undeserving, using the terms of church and society.

We need to challenge ourselves to stop and see the wounded laying at the roadside. And not cross over. We need to challenge ourselves to have compassion.

We need to challenge ourselves to be in the business of binding up the wounds, of pouring out the wine and oil of care and concern. We need to challenge ourselves to get the wounded to a safe place, to pay the price.  To make a difference.  Because Jesus says Love our neighbor.  Because while we were sinners, Christ loved us and he died for us, so we too should love our neighbor. No matter who they are.

Let us love our neighbor. No matter the color of their skin. No matter if they are immigrant and speak a different language. No matter if they are disabled.  No matter if they are religiously different, if they are LGBTQ, if they are of a different political party or social class.  Love that neighbor.

Love will turn everything around. It will make us vital Christians, a vital congregation.  It’s as simple as that.      Go, and do likewise Jesus commanded us.   So let us love and thrive. Amen.

2 Kings 5:1-14; Luke 10: 1-11; 16-19
J
 
    Happy early Independence Day! On this 4th of July weekend, we celebrate how a scrappy, unorganized, underfed, undertrained army took on the world’s finest fighting force, best equipped navy in the world, and succeeded in spite of all cost.

        War is nothing new in history; battles are nothing new in the bible. Battles for land – to capture or defend territory or resources; or battles for the kingdom of God, spreading the good news of the gospel as we see in our gospel lesson with Jesus sending out the disciples on a mission on behalf of the kingdom of God.  Soldiers of the cross, as the old hymn puts it.

In our Old Testament lesson, we have a story of humor, healing, redemption, of God’s compassion intervening between archenemies, Israel and Aram (or modern day Syria).  The Arameans, trace their lineage back the Noah’s son Shem.  Abraham and Sarah, come from Aram.  Isaac was sent back to Aram to find his wife, Rebekah, and then their son Jacob spent many years in Aram, working for his wives Leah and Rachel and building his wealth, so that the phrase “A wandering Aramean was my father” is a common declaration of  faith, in the Old Testament, highlighting the nomadic roots of the people of Israel, as they travelled ultimately to Egypt and then back again to the promised land. 

Aram, however, became an enemy of Israel, and battles between the two nations raged for centuries.  Naaman, the 5-star army commander of Aram.  He conquered. He set villages on fire. His soldiers pillaged, ransacked and killed. They stole anything of value, including taking survivors into slavery.  There was no stopping Naaman and his war machine.  

There was only one thing in Naaman’s way. Leprosy – the dreaded skin disease. While the text could just mean a skin condition or rash, actual leprosy was feared. There was no cure for leprosy, and death was often slow, painful and frightfully disfiguring. People with leprosy were ostracized by the community. And as we see, in our readings today, leprosy struck the rich as well as the poor.

Naaman, the mighty warrior was used to giving orders, taking prisoners. Now he found himself a captive – a prisoner to a deadly disease determined that could take his life.  Naaman, was saved in the most unlikely of ways – through a young girl captive, taken in a raid into Israel.

This young girl, taken from her family – probably saw them killed before her eyes -- separated from her homeland, from her culture -- forced into servitude; willing shares with her captors. “If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria!  He would cure him of his leprosy.”

This girl's actions ran totally counter to our expectations. Instead of taking satisfaction for her captor’s suffering, she was filled with compassion – like Jesus was when faced with people in need. Although a captive, this young girl, has not been conquered by hatred or fear.   She shares the healing power of her faith and its resources with a man who did her great harm.     

Naaman takes this information to official channels. He elicits the help of his king. So, King Ben-Hadad sends to the King Johoram of Israel ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten sets of garments -- the equivalent of $700,000 dollars – along with a letter which reads, “When this letter reaches you, know that I have sent to you my servant Naaman, that you may cure him of his leprosy.”  The King of Israel is terrorized; he sees this as a guise for more military intervention from Aram.

 The prophet Elisha caught wind of the request. So, Elisha sent a message to the king saying, "Why have you torn your clothes? Let him come to me, that he may learn that there is a prophet in Israel." Relieved, King Johoram obeys.

We can only imagine the following scene. Here comes the mighty warrior, one of the most important men in Aram, bringing his whole entourage with horses and chariot right up to the modest door of the prophet from Israel. How does Elisha react? Does he appear and accept the deference of the mighty man from Aram? Incredibly, Elisha doesn’t even bother to meet Naaman.

Elisha sends his servant to Naaman saying, "Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean."   Naaman is offended. As an important man, he was not used to being treated so dismissively.  Naaman says, "I thought that for me he would surely come out and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God and would wave his hand over the spot and cure the leprosy!"  Naaman was expecting a show, befitting his rank. What was this, washing in the disgusting, muddy Jordan river! Why Damascus has more impressive, cleaner rivers to bath in! How insulting was that! So Naaman is about to leave in a huff with no intention of washing in the filthy waters in Israel. But another nameless servant arrives on the scene. One of Naaman's servants speaks up, "Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more when all he said to you was, 'Wash and be clean?'”? Naaman reluctantly obeys and lo and behold, he is made well.

         It is ironic that Naaman, the great commander, must take orders from servants to become well.  First the young, captive girl. Then Elisha’s messenger. Then his servant who coaxed him to follow Elisha’s advice.  Naaman finds healing in a land he conquered, in a river he distains, from people he considers beneath him. Obedience to a foreign God – conveyed by no-name servants, a prophet with a bad-attitude, standing in muddy waters healed Naaman. The God of Israel has mercy on a ruthless conqueror. What kind of God is this?

We face Independence Day in deeply uncertain and troubling times.   It is imperative more than ever to stand up to evil.  We as Christians are called from our place of brokenness to remember, like a little girl, where our source of hope and strength lie.  Like her, like Elisha we are called to help our enemies, whomever they may be.

We are called to share the goodness we know and point the way.   Because there is a healing river, there is a God of love who has taught us in Christ and gives us the grace to not return evil for evil, to point others to blessing and wholeness, even as we suffer.  There is a God, whom Jesus revealed, who gives us grace to not be captive to fear while we live in uncertain times.   There is a God, who this young captive, girl gave witness to, that even if we are stripped of our family, our land, forced into some kind of exile, there is a God who stays with us and gives us the power to be a voice for healing and wholeness.   

As we celebrate freedom, let us especially celebrate freedom from hate. Let us choose to be made clean -- clean from fear, from animosity, from violence. Let us choose to give voice to what we know like the young captive girl did.  To the freedom we have in Christ. Let us be confident that even in our own woundedness, God will use us to point the way to wholeness for others.  What a blessing, we can be.  Amen.

 
 
 

 
John 10: 22-30; Acts 9:36-43; Rev. 7:9-17
 
So which team are you routing for?  Team Kelly Clarkson? Team Blake Shelton?  Team Ariana Grande or John Legend?   Some of us may – or may not -- have recognized the trademark names of the reality TV series, “the Voice,” which, like the widely popular shows like America’s Got Talent and American Idol, seek to bring the best and brightest talent, the next singing sensation, the greatest singer, to the American audience.  

Whether you watch these shows or not, we are in a season of discerning the voices.  No matter where your politics lie, we have been listening to various public opinions on abortion, gun control, economic insecurities, runaway crime, climate change, among others.   This church is in a season of discernment.   Where is God calling us? What shall we do with the resources at hand?  Each of us must discern our faith journey and how we devote our time, energy and resources. 

The challenge for us is to discern God’s voice among all the voices we hear.  There are a lot of voices out there telling us who we are, what we should want, who we should be.   What voice, whose voice are we listening to?

There are voices telling us to do this, don’t do that.  In honor of Mother’s Day here’s a list of things mothers tend to say to us; Eat your vegetables!  Because I said so, that’s why!  Shut that door, you weren’t born in a barn!  And the most common of all - I love you!  I am proud of you!

In our gospel lesson, a Jewish faction gathers around Jesus and asks, “tell us plainly, are you the Messiah? “Jesus doesn’t answer them directly because he knows they aren’t true believers.   They would just use his words against him. So instead, Jesus tells them: “My sheep hear my voice.  I know them, and they follow me.” 

If we are Jesus followers, we will know his Voice, and be able to pick it out from the din that surrounds us.  What a powerful, comforting thought.  Scientists tell us that newborns know their mother’s voice from the womb.  Doctors also tell us that the last sense to leave us is hearing and encourage us to speak gently and lovingly to a comatose patient.   So, we, from birth to death, are shaped by the life of faith, through baptism, anointed by the Holy Spirit, to know The Voice of Jesus.

We know the voice of Jesus, but it can get muffled by the sheer variety of voices and messages we hear.  We can even listen to our own voice and confuse it with God’s.  It is difficult to tune out all other voices to discern the voice of Jesus speaking to us.  We can get to the place where we are not aware of our lack of hearing The Voice.

I came across a humorous example that spells out this point.  A man decided his wife was getting hard of hearing. So he called her doctor to make an appointment to have her hearing checked. The doctor said he could see her in two weeks, but meanwhile there was a simple, informal test the husband could do to give the doctor some idea of the dimensions of the problem.

“Here’s what you do,” he said. “Stand about 40 feet away from her, and speak in a normal conversational tone and see if she hears you. If not, go to 30 feet, then 20 feet, and so on until you get a response.”

That evening his wife is in the kitchen cooking dinner, and he’s in the living room, and he says to himself, “I’m about 40 feet away, let’s see what happens.”
“Honey, what’s for supper?” No response.
So he moves to the other end of the room, about 30 feet away.
“Honey, what’s for supper?” No response.
So he moves into the dining room, about 20 feet away. “Honey, what’s for supper?” No response.
On to the kitchen door, only 10 feet away. “Honey, what’s for supper?” No response.
So he walks right up behind her. “Honey, what’s for supper?”
She turns around and says, “For the FIFTH time, CHICKEN!!!!”

        The man learned he was the deaf one after all.  If we are not hearing God it is not because God is deaf.  We need to get closer to God.

Our texts today help us with how we are to listen to the true Voice.  It is the actions and the scriptures that accompany the voice that tell us the identity of The Voice, and whom we should follow.  The actions in the scriptures confirm The Voice.

In our reading from Acts, Peter raises from the dead a beloved follower named Tabitha, or Dorcas, who cared for the widows of Joppa.   The word widow in Hebrew comes from a root that means “mute,” or “silent.”  It aptly describes the status of widows in the ancient world: powerless, defenseless, vulnerable, most often poor and destitute.  So, Tabitha had a ministry with widows, those who were silenced.  Peter, after praying, tells Tabitha to get up.  Tabitha hears Peter, speaking with the authority of Jesus. Peter takes Tabitha by the hand and helps her up.  Tabitha is alive again.

We know The Voice of Jesus because The Voice originates from the care of those who are powerless and most vulnerable in our world.  We know The Voice of Jesus because it tells us, like Peter did, to get up. The Voice of Jesus raises those aspects of us that have been long dead and buried back to life.  To dream. To hope.  The ability to forgive and move on. The ability to see with new eyes. All brought back to life.  The Voice of Jesus takes us by the hand and helps us up, and restores us to life.  

The actions in the scriptures confirm The Voice.

Ultimately, we find the beautiful, ancient yet ever new voice of God in the acts of caring for others.  Do we want to be sure that we hear God?  Let us listen to those in need: whatever the need, within our congregation and in our larger community.  This is where we will hear God speaking.

Let the actions of God speak to us so we will listen with full attention.  Let us tune out the voices of despair, of judgment and fear.  Instead let us listen to The Voice. 

The Voice that cared for widows. The Voice that says, “get up.”  The Voice that reaches out a hand and helps up.  The Voice that can summon the dead to life.

The Voice that nourishes, restores, leads and protects, that voice that feeds through affliction and blesses.  The voice that breaks through the confusion of our day.  The Voice that praises through suffering.  Do we hear that voice?  Let us get close to it. 
 
That is the Voice of Jesus.  It will become our voice too, if we listen faithfully to it.  It will become our voice too if we act, like Peter, seeking the voice of God, because we belong to Team Jesus!
Amen.
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

​Acts 9:1-20; John 21:1-19

 
Back in 1901, Andrew Carnegie was the wealthiest man in America, in not in the world. At the height of his wealth, Carnegie had the equivalent of $308 billion in today’s calculations. At one time he had forty-three millionaires working for him. In those days a millionaire was a rare person.  A reporter asked Carnegie how he had hired forty-three millionaires. Carnegie responded that those men had not been millionaires when they started working for him but had become millionaires as a result.

The reporter's next question was, "How did you develop these men to becomes so valuable to you that you have paid them this much money?" Carnegie replied that people are developed the same way gold is mined. When gold is mined, several tons of dirt must be moved to get an ounce of gold; but one doesn't go into the mine looking for dirt and mud; one goes in looking for the gold.

Our scripture lessons today tell us the stories of two men, whom Jesus mined:  Peter and Paul.  Together they built the foundation of the early Christian church as we know it.  Peter, a humble Galilean fisherman, was declared by Jesus the rock on which the church would be built.  Peter was the patriarch of the Jerusalem church, eventually moving to Rome and becoming an influential and revered figure there. 

The spread of the gospel throughout the Greek speaking Roman Empire is largely due to the tireless efforts of the apostle Paul. Paul a Roman, Greek speaking citizen and highly trained Pharisee, a “Hebrew of Hebrews” in his own estimation.   Two men with a zeal and love for Jesus and his gospel.  Two men specifically chosen by Jesus to establish his divine purposes on earth.  Two unlikely men; yet with one thing in common:   To reach the gold in each man, Jesus had to mine through a lot of dirt.  Reach gold, however, the Lord did.

In our story from John, we find the disciples traveling back to Galilee to go fishing.   Here, on the seaside with a catch of 153 fish, Jesus feeds his disciples. Jesus is concerned with feeding people, body, mind and spirit.  Unlike the last supper, we could call this the first breakfast, for these are the two meals that bracket Jesus’ death and resurrection.   At the last supper, after they had eaten, Jesus spoke of a new commandment for his disciples to love one another (13:34-35).  That they should be recognized as disciples by their love.  Peter unfortunately failed to show his love for Jesus at his darkest moment.  Instead, Peter denied Jesus three times.

Here, after they had breakfast, Jesus takes Peter aside and asks him three times, “Do you love me?”   A startling question that Jesus asks no one else, not his mother, or the beloved disciple, of Thomas or Mary Magdalene.  Just Peter.  The Lord, who knows all hearts, knows that Peter loves him like all the rest.  The most likely question is that Jesus is excavating through the dirt and mud.  Peter undoubtedly experienced a great deal of shame for denying that he  knew Jesus.  So, Jesus, never vindictive, wants to clear the mud of the guilt and shame Peter feels.  Jesus wants to remind Peter of all he taught about love, that night of the last supper.   A new commandment I give to you, to love one another as I have loved you.    If you love me you will obey what I command.  If anyone loves me, she will obey my teachings. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love.   Three times Jesus emphasized love in his last discourse.  So now again, he emphasizes it with Peter.   To heal Peter.  To help Peter find the gold within.   So, he says, when Peter says of course I love you:  Feed my lambs.  Tend my sheep.  Feed my sheep.  

Peter, Jesus says, I believe you.  You have the gold of love in your heart.  Now use it to care for others. Once more like at the beginning of his ministry Jesus issues the command: Follow me.   The next thing we hear of Peter is on the day of Pentecost when he is boldly preaching outdoors to the crowds of Jerusalem.

With Paul, the encounter is no less dramatic.  Paul has been successfully persecuting the growing Christian movement, with encouragement from the high priest in Jerusalem.  Acts tells us that Paul, originally named Saul, fixed to destroy the church (Acts 8:3). He dragged people off to prison and approved the stoning of the first martyr, Stephen.

Paul, with great missionary zeal, is armed with letters to arrest Jesus followers in Damascus.  Jesus intervenes with Paul as he does with Peter.  With a blinding light that knocks Paul to the ground, Jesus asks Paul one question, “Why do you persecute me?”  There were many who persecuted Jesus in his life and afterwards, but it is to Paul that Jesus appears and pointedly asks the question, “Why do you persecute me?”  Jesus wants to find the gold in Paul.  He doesn’t condemn Paul or damn him to hell.  He wants Paul to think of the people he is hurting, to truly understand his actions, and to know who Jesus really is. So feared is Paul that a Jesus follower, Ananias, is troubled by the Lord’s instructions to go to Paul.   Jesus reassures calls Paul, “my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel. v. 15.”  Underneath the dirt and the mud, Jesus knows that gold is there.

       Jesus’ faith in both Peter and Paul pays off.  Before long, Paul has done a 180 and is proclaiming, “Jesus is the Son of God.”  Close to 1/3 of the New Testament is attributed to Paul’s writing or influence.   Jesus knew there was dirt in both men’s lives.  However, Jesus also knew there was gold, gold that would change the world. Jesus was willing to dig for it.

We all sit here together, and we know there is probably plenty of dirt in us and around us.  However, there is gold.  Our task is to not be afraid of digging through the dirt, not to be deterred by failures and setbacks, knowing underneath it all there is precious gold. Jesus sees it. Jesus says we are worth the work.

We may not be figures like Peter or Paul.  However, we can relate to because they somehow got beyond the dirt and let the gold in their life shine.  They were able to do this because Jesus believed in them and commissioned them to serve.  Jesus believes in us – in each of us.  Jesus says we are each worth the digging to extract that which is precious.

What dirt and mud do we have to get rid of?  Pride? Jealousy? Resentments? Gossip? Hatred or contempt of someone?  We may feel trapped in sin, trapped in something painful, fallen and struggling to regain composure. We may think we have gone too far, lost too much. Have nothing more to give. Perhaps the weight is so heavy that we are unconvinced that there is anything good buried under there. But that’s not so.  Jesus sees what we can’t see. That we are precious in God’s sight.  God has a plan and a purpose for our lives. We are gold in God’s eyes, meant to shine.  Your gold is priceless and needed for God’s realm on earth to flourish. Like Peter and Paul, let us open ourselves to the excavation of the Holy Spirit.  Be cleansed of the dirt so that clings to us. So that that nugget of gold will emerge, and like Peter and Paul, become a cornerstone in the realm of God here on earth.

Source: https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Gold
http://www.sermonsearch.com/sermon-illustrations/3766/andrew-carnegie/

John 20:19-31
 
Let’s state the obvious, even in the midst of the season of Easter:  We live in a wounded world.  The war in Ukraine is dragging on. Climate crisis goes unchecked. Interwoven into these concerns is the fall out of the pandemic – economic problems, inflation, high gas prices, supply chain issues, levels of gun violence that we haven’t seen in years.  40.3 million victims of human trafficking. 26.6 million refugees worldwide. And not least of all, let us not forget 175,000 people who have on average who have died of hunger and hunger related disease this past week.  That doesn’t even touch upon the wounds carried by communities. The wounds passed down by families.  The wounds carried in the bodies and spirits of individuals. Wounds are everywhere. What wounds weigh on your soul?

The wound that ravaged my family is a common one: alcoholism.  It was a wound that destroyed my parents’ marriage, left us briefly homeless and financially unstable.  For years my four older brothers had morning and evening paper routes around their school schedule to help put food on the table.  Alcoholism was a contributing factor in two of my brothers’ deaths. My eldest brother, Sean, died when I was 15 due to an overdose in the midst of a drunken stupor. Another brother, Chris, died a year later, in an automobile accident in which alcohol played a factor.  I am positive that each person here could tell accounts of wounds endured during a lifetime of living.   Is there honestly anyone present that hasn’t face a trial or tribulation that hasn’t left a mark on your soul? Anyone? I didn’t think so.

For this reason, I treasure the passage from John that we have read today.  Because of the trauma of life, the disciples lock themselves up, for fear of the Jewish leaders.  They saw how these leaders brutally treated Jesus and got him sentenced to death.  It is natural for them to think that they were next to be disposed of. These religious leaders were not going to stop at anything.  They were intent on annihilating the Jesus movement once and for all.  They were a wounded group. They felt the pain of Jesus’ death.  They felt the guilt of their lack of bravery in the hours that Jesus needed them.  They were confused at the reports from the other disciples who proclaimed that Jesus had been risen from the dead, the stone was rolled away, the tomb was empty.  Never a shaken up, wounded bunch had been seen.  Yet in this dark hour, Jesus appears, bringing peace. Neither locked doors or locked hearts cannot keep Jesus away. Jesus doesn’t bring reproach. Jesus doesn’t criticize. Jesus doesn’t dwell on their mistakes.  Jesus brings peace.  But Jesus brings another thing.  Jesus, in his resurrected, body, brings his wounds.  Through his wounds, Jesus brings life.

Thomas was not with the other disciples when all of this occurred, so they report to him what has happened using the same language Mary had earlier used, “We have seen the Lord.” But Thomas declares: “I won’t believe it unless I see the nail wounds in his hands, put my fingers into them, and place my hand into the wound in his side.”   Frankly, who among us would react differently? 

We first hear from Thomas, called the Twin, toward the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry at the time that Jesus goes to Bethany to raise Lazarus from the dead.  The religious leaders, react in rage to Jesus’ miracle and redouble their plans to kill Jesus. On that occasion Thomas said to his fellow disciples: “Let us also go, that we may die with him” (Jn 11: 16). His determination to follow Jesus reveals his total readiness to stand by Jesus.
A second comment by Thomas is recorded at the Last Supper. On that occasion, while predicting his own imminent departure, Jesus announced that he was going to prepare a place for his disciples so that they could be where he is found; and he explains to them:  “You know the place where I am going” (Jn 14: 4). It is then that Thomas intervenes, saying: “Lord, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?” (Jn 14: 5).  Jesus responds with his famous declaration: “I am the Way, and the Truth and the Life” (Jn 14: 6).

I don’t know about you, but Thomas comes across as a straight shooter, grasping and assessing the situation accurately. So, today for the third time Thomas speaks, saying, “Unless I see.” He is just stating that he wants to see what the rest of them saw:  the wounds in Jesus’ hands and side.  He is the one who was ready to die with him.  The one wanting to know the way.  He just wants to know the way.  Thomas knows the way to Jesus is through his wounds of the cross. Jesus very much obliges and appears the next time when Thomas is with the community.  See and believe, Thomas, Jesus says. At this point Thomas goes further than any other disciples by confessing, “My Lord and my God.”

Our passage today tells us that we must not be afraid to touch our wounded places for these are precisely the places where Christ is most clearly revealed.  Jesus choses to be found in wounds.  After all, Jesus could have easily chosen a resurrected body free of wounds.  A whole body in its prime.  But Jesus chose instead that his wounds be visible.   The scarred Jesus does not wait until we’re all beautiful and ready for church to meet us. He chooses to come to us in the midst of pain, illness, and injury.  We find him in the wounds of life. He is with the abused, the hurt, the refugee, the grieving, the lost, the struggling.  Unless we see Jesus in the suffering of the world, we will not find him. For that is where Jesus wants us to find him. 

Not in the corridors of power but in the homeless shelter.   Not on the red carpet, all coiffed and buffed, but in the hospital bed, the prison cell.  Not at the Met Gala overflowing with riches and fancy foods, but at the soup kitchen.  Not in some mansion filled with all the wonderful amenities of life, but in your broken heart and mine.  This doesn’t mean that Jesus doesn’t want us to have the good things of life and be happy.  Jesus just knows that the loneliest place, the most isolated place in life is the wounds we fear to reveal, those wounds that hold us bound, keep us locked.

The Jesus who walked on this earth did not see himself as set apart from the world. Rather he willingly entered into the pain by extending his hand to those hurting, by living among us, and then dying. Jesus was fully human and experienced the pain of living in a fallen world. Peter teaches us that Jesus carried in his own body the sins we committed. He did this so we might live in righteousness, having nothing to do with sin. By his wounds we are healed (1Peter 2:24).

Do you know the sign language for Jesus? It is this: put your finger into the middle of the palms of each hand moving back and forth…from first one hand and then to the other. Jesus is known by his wounds.  So where are you feeling wounded today?  Where is fear keeping you locked down?  Where do you need peace?  Let Jesus touch those places.  As you feel Jesus’ touch, allow the healing power of the Risen Lord to fill you. Then in turn touch others. Let our wounds become the conduits of grace to others, signs that no matter what we have gone through, we can heal, we can be healers, because Jesus, Our Wounded Healer, stands in our midst, and because of this, we have life in his name. Amen
 https://seedbed.com/emily-matheny-touchremember-john-2019-31/
https://pcpe.smu.edu/blog/preaching-john-20-19a-31-in-the-midst-of-the-pandemic

Isaiah 65:17-25; Luke 24:1-12

 
Christ is Risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

We have been following the events of Jesus’ last week of life for the past two Sundays.  Just two weeks ago we encountered the powerful tale of how Mary of Bethany signaled the descent into Holy Week by anointing Jesus with a precious, expensive perfume made of pure nard.  It was one of the most beautiful things anyone had done for Jesus and foreshadowed the anointing he was to receive upon his death.

Today, we hear the account on how the faithful women disciples, with spices in hand, make their way to the tomb of Jesus.  The gospels tell us how they fretted and worried how they will get past the stone that was in front of the entrance of the tomb.  My guess is that they hedged their bets that the Roman soldiers placed there to guard the tomb from raiders. No need to worry. They found the tomb open and empty.  Two men, identified as angels in other accounts, and appear like angels, ask the women, why there are seeking the living among the dead? Remember what he said to you back in Galilee?  The women remembered and believed.  The next thing we see is that they report back to the eleven disciples what they witnessed and heard. They disciples respond with one word.  In Greek, it is the word Leiros.

Leiros. The only time the word Leiros appears in the Bible is here, in Luke’s account of the resurrection of Jesus.   At the root of the word is the English word “delirious.” And so, what the men were really saying was that the women were out of their minds, crazy, spouting nonsense.  It is most often translated politely as “Foolish Talk,” an idle tale,” “a silly story,” or “a foolish yarn,” “utter nonsense” or even garbage or trash.  Scholars tell us that the word in question is quite offensive and vulgar, more fitting for a locker room than an Easter Sunday worship service with everyone at their finest.   Now, I’ll admit I’m tempted to actually come out and say the bad word, but then I will have planted it in your head and now you won’t be able to get it out.   So, I’m not going to say it, I’ll leave it to your imagination.  Let’s just say the “G” rated version is “you’re full of baloney!”  I think you got it, right?   This bad word accurately describes the most common worldly response to the good news of Jesus’ resurrection. Jesus raised from the dead?   Leiros!  

That’s exactly what happened that first Easter morning. The women, the first to proclaim the Good News of the resurrection and the male disciples say to them: “Leiros!”  To add weight to the disciples’ off-color remark is the Jewish legal stance that a woman’s testimony was unacceptable, inadmissible in a court of law. It’s all leiros the men declared.

So, the most sacred, most holy, belief which is front and center to our faith, the resurrection of Jesus, is met by the disciples with foul language.  The same disciples who fled from Jesus, who denied him, who hid behind locked doors in fear.  How can we appreciate how far that first Sunday is from where we find ourselves today? Look around and we see and smell beautiful spring flowers. We hear amazing music, shouts of alleluias, people dressed in their finest. Today we do not experience fear, but joy;  and heaven forbid nary a vulger word on our lips.   Jesus risen? We shout alleluia - not Leiros like the first disciples did.

The Easter message challenges us. It defies human logic. It stretches our reason. It questions everything the world would hold acceptable. After 2000 plus years we have tamed the gospel into a complacency that has taken the teeth out of the good news.  The Easter message says, Yes, death is real, but it is not the final word.  In raising Jesus from death, God changes the rules of the game. Death is defeated, life has the final say.

Easter turns everything upside down. Easter comes in the most unlikely of times: war, supply chain problems, economic worries, a pandemic that won’t go away. Easter teaches us is to look for God where we least expect God to be. To anticipate God using people we wouldn’t dream of God associating with. To get used to God surprising and even overturning our expectations.  Scandalous. It upends it all. And that is the cornerstone of our faith – that God’s good news choses the unexpected, the least trustworthy, the most unrespectable of people and situations to reach us.  God reaches us in our weakest, most vulnerable places of our lives, the mess and muck we make, and turns us around in the most unimaginable, incomprehensible shocking ways possible. God finds us in our weakest state and brings the death and brokenness of our reality to resurrected life. God is not put off by the leiros  of our lives and the leiros around us. In Christ God turns us around, to find life where there once was no life. 

      The Apostle Paul reminds us that if the resurrection didn’t occur, if it’s all just a bunch of leiros, then we’re all just a bunch of pathetic people, our preaching is fake news and our faith is a joke (1 Corinthians 15:13-15).  We celebrate today because we declare that the tomb is empty, Jesus is vindicated. Jesus promises us a new life, a life that doesn’t need to be based in just foolish talk, idle tales, silly stories, stupid yarns.  Love is our destiny, hope our gift, joy our heritage peace our legacy.        Today’s story is a down to earth account of real people like us coming to terms with greatest message to ever grace the world.  It encourages us to tear away the pious masks we wear around each other.  To be real people in a broken world.  It is OK to be ourselves. It’s in fact vital that we be our true selves, so our testimony of how has transformed us can truly touch other people’s life and make sense to them.   God finds us as we are, warts and all.  God hears our doubts, the careless, harsh and even nasty words that cross our mouths and accepts us. Jesus died for us, he rose for us in the messiness and contradictions of life.  We are sinners redeemed, not by anything we have done, but solely through the grace of God in Jesus Christ.

This is the greatest news we can ever receive, because the tomb is empty, the stone is rolled away – we find the Risen One right here in our broken human lives that yearn for change, that seek to be better. That hopes to make a difference.  It’s not leiros, people. It’s not foolish talk. It is truth.  Let us proclaim it:  Christ is risen!  Christ is risen. Indeed!  Alleluia!

​amen.https://www.wpc.org/uploads/sermons/pdf/April21Jones2019.pdf
http://www.fellowshipreformed.org/sermons/2018/4/9/the-journey-all-glory-laud-leiros
https://broadwayucc.squarespace.com/sermons/2019/4/22/idle-talk-amp-other-good-news
1Anna Carter Florence, Preaching As Testimony (Westminster John Knox Press, 2007) p. 119.
2The Mishna states, “From women let not evidence be accepted, because of the levity and temerity of their sex.” Thomas G. Long, The Christian Century, April 4, 2001, p. 11.
https://sermonwriter.com/sermons/luke-241-12-an-idle-tale-london/