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"Faith on Parade"

3/28/2018

Psalm 118: 1-2, 19-29; Matt: 21:1-11; 2-17; 23-27;26:1-16

          When my children were much younger, and still liked to go places with me, I would often take them to the St. Patrick’s Day Parade down Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. We’d watch the pipe and drum corps from high schools and volunteer fire departments file past. We’d note the Ancient Order of Hibernians from various New York counties decked out in glory. Maybe it was those tartan skirts, the plaintive cry of the bagpipe but I’d always find my eyes brimming with tears as the melody of “Danny Boy” drifted over the crowd. It brought back long buried memories of an Irish-Catholic childhood, of dead parents, and grandparents and the saga and struggles of the Irish as it filtered down through the O’hearnes, the Hennessey’s, the Samson’s and the Smith’s clans, to which my family belongs.

That is the power of a parade, a march or a procession. They pull us into a collective history. They give voice to a common pain or a common joy. From the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade to the West Indies Labor Day Parade – to the March for our Lives event against gun violence held yesterday at over 820 sites across the world. People gather to march, to proclaim, to protest, to lift up a heritage or show pride in one’s identity -- they generate power to draw people together and rekindle hope and vision.

This Palm Sunday, we join with Christians all around the world in reenacting the excitement of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. In our songs, our readings and waving of palms and processions, we too invoke that age-old story of how Jesus entered the Holy City one last time. We remember that dream for deliverance the swelled the hearts of those people who lined the dusty road that Jesus took. Their hope is our hope.

We follow in the footsteps of the people of Israel, who knew how to put on a stellar procession. It is said some thirty thousand men accompanied King David to bring the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem. Vigorous dancing, songs, lyres, harps tambourines, castanets and cymbals; with a myriad of burnt offerings were all part of the pageantry. The people sang the popular psalm 118: “Open to me the gates of righteousness, that I might enter through them and give thanks to God.”

In this spirit, Jesus embraced the parade. He knew what it meant to the people. And the crowd sang songs, their equivalent to dear old “Danny Boy.” They sang out psalms of a common struggle, psalms that recorded the pain and promise of the Jewish people. “Hosanna to the Son of David” and “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” they proclaimed, as they once did for King David, centuries earlier. They pegged Jesus as the new king David, a conqueror king. Yet Jesus deliberately entered in on a donkey instead of a war horse. Riding on a donkey would signal that Jesus chose peace over conquest. Still, as the events of the week played out, the crowd and the leadership clearly did not to understand Jesus’ mission of salvation and goodwill.

No doubt Psalm 118 dominated the procession. This psalm is a key processional psalm in the scriptures. It’s a parade song. People sung psalm 118 during major festivals and processions in the life of the Jewish community. The crowd sang such songs because they were filled with longings for a conquering messiah along the lines of a triumphant roman general, a mighty King David. They thought Jesus just might fill the ticket.   Some “paved” the road with their garments which was a sign of submission before a dignitary (2 Kgs 9:13). Others threw down branches from the trees, most likely palm branches, where were symbols of victory and deliverance for the Jewish people (Suetonius, Caligula, 32).

Thus, began the collision course that would culminate on Good Friday. Our procession of texts read from Matthew today depict that not everyone was happy with the parade. Matthew tells us the whole city was stirred up, used also at Matthew 27 to describe how the earth shook at the moment Jesus died – it is a word related to seismic – describing how the earth shakes and moves violently during an earthquake. Jesus’ presence clearly shook people down to the core of their being.

It gets worse. As we heard, Jesus got into a confrontation with the money changers in the temple, and the leadership were indignant that children were continuing to sing the song of the parade, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” which connects the acts of Jesus to Israel’s most famous king. The next steps of Jesus’ parade took him to a heightened confrontation with the chief priests and elders of the people who question Jesus’ authority.

Jesus’ final step--before his procession to the Last Supper and the Cross --finds him in Bethany, a few miles outside Jerusalem at the home of Simon the Leper. The leadership actively plot his death. An unknown woman-prophet anoints Jesus on the head, an act that acknowledges someone as a prophet, or a king. The disciples fail to see the prophetic action. Instead they see focus on the extravagant cost of the perfume – which coming in at about $3,000 an ounce, was about a year’s worth of wages. As a result, Judas Iscariot sings his traitors song and betrays Jesus for 30 silver coins – about five weeks wages -- the cost of a slave. So, the cost of anointing was too much; the cost of betrayal was acceptable. Jesus’ parade of faith forced a confrontation with people, with temple moneychangers, with the leadership, and within his very core of disciples.
Through the unfolding of Holy Week, we see the real parade of faith emerge for Jesus. The one that leads to Golgatha, where he is crucified. Jesus remains on parade and true to himself and his mission. Jesus in fact picks up the quotes the parade psalm, psalm 118, to those plotting to arrest him: “Have you never read the scriptures,” he told the chief priests and elders, “the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone?”

Likewise Psalm 118, the parade psalm was on Jesus’ lips the night before he died. As part of the ancient Passover ritual, Psalms 115-118 were sung at the conclusion of the meal.   It is speculated that Psalm 118 just might have been the final song Jesus and the disciples sang as they left for the garden at the Mount of Olives. “I will not die but shall live and recount the deeds of the Lord…” was likely the last line Jesus sung before his arrest. I’d like to think that Psalm 118 was Jesus’ “Danny Boy” that song that Jesus kept close to his heart, that kept him going, as darkness descended Maundy Thursday night. Jesus will be betrayed, denied, abandoned, tortured, and publicly humiliated, but Jesus will not waiver. “The Lord is my strength and my might; he has become my salvation.” A parade song that sustained Jesus, even when he felt deserted by his Father.
This is why it is important that we begin Holy Week with the power of processions and parades. It reminds us of the living journey of our faith. This is the week our faith is on parade. Will we follow Jesus through that lonesome valley? Will we share that last supper with him? Will we stay awake with Jesus as he prays so earnestly in the garden? Will we remain steadfast as darkness descends or will we follow Jesus on that Via Delarosa to the cross at Golgotha?

Through the pain and sorrow that Holy Week evokes, I hear my grandmother singing:
Oh Danny boy oh Danny boy I love you so
But when ye come and all the roses falling
And I am dead as dead I well may be
Go out and find the place where I am lying
And kneel and say an ave there for me

As death’s dirge approaches, and the roses fall, the parade of faith summons us to kneel and pray. It calls us to remember the songs and scriptures once more. It calls us to remain faithful and steadfast in the parade of faith this Holy Week. It calls us to our common experience of suffering, and vision for a better life. A life that Jesus went to the cross for.

So today we begin the parade of our faith: the parade for our lives. May these comforting words from Psalm 118 touch us in our darkest moments this Holy Week: “Give thanks to the Lord for he is good, his love endures forever.” Let us add, hosanna, hosanna, to the Son of David. Amen.

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"Your Hour Has Come"

3/20/2018

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Jeremiah 31:27-34; John 12:20-36

        When my children were younger, they loved animals. Not to say that they don’t love animals now -- my son works at one of Long Island’s finest veterinary hospitals -- but when they were children they really loved all sorts of animals. We had the standard collection of cats and dogs. They chased after pigeons in the park. Dinosaur figures and stuffed animals threatened to over-crowd our modest Manhattan apartment. They never met a spider they didn’t like. The Natural History Museum, petting zoos, the aquarium, were all favorite haunts. They were glued to the penguin exhibit at Central park zoo.

One of their favorite movies was The March of the Penguins. We have never forgotten the story how penguin eggs would rest on their father’s feet as the male colony huddled for months in almost total darkness – with temperatures dip to 60 below, winds whip up to 125 miles an hour. No food, just survival off of body fat. There is little room for error. If the egg falls on the ice for just a few seconds it perishes. Moms, who have been away gorging themselves on fish, must arrive within a few days of the chick’s birth, or the babies will starve.

How the timing works in all this is an incredible testimony to the innate power of life. Over the years we learned about the miraculous, yet at times unforgiving forces of nature. It is a story that reverberates across the entire tree of life on earth. This creative and generative instinct is encoded in all of life, from the tiniest microbe to humankind – to the very cosmos we are a part of.

It is the very story inscribed in a single seed. Jeremiah speaks of the days that are coming, when the seed of humans, and the seeds of animals transform into a new creation from God’s very law, God’s covenant is engraved on our very hearts. Jesus tells us how a grain of wheat must fall into the earth and die if it is going to bear fruit. Jesus gives us this illustration to describe the purpose of his impending death. Jesus is the grain of wheat – whose death and resurrection will bear fruit. Fruit that will change forever the course of human history.

The story of a grain of wheat is as fascinating as the story of the birth of a penguin chick.   When a grain of wheat is planted, at about 40 degrees, and is underground for about 40 days, some sort of internal switch activates. It doesn’t happen if the temperature suddenly plummets, to say, 20 degrees. It doesn’t happen in two weeks’ time, or three months’ time. But if the conditions are right, the hard-outer shell of the seed softens, the embryo instead the seed grows, and both the roots and shoots develop and break through the seed shell. The shoot continues its fight against gravity and works its way upward to break through the earth that covers it. The plant continues to grow, provided conditions are right, and produces a crop of at least 20-fold.

        Jesus faced the same saga throughout his life. The gospel of John is especially attuned to Jesus’ life’s mission found in his death and resurrection. Jesus speaks of “his hour,” or “his time” 19 times in John. At the Wedding in Cana, Jesus said to his mother “My hour has not yet come” (2:4). To the Samaritan woman at the well, Jesus told her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem” (4:21), and that the hour had arrived when true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth (4:23).

Jesus, confronted, teaching his adversaries, “Very truly, I tell you, the hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live” (5:25); followed by “Do not be astonished at this; for the hour is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice” (5:28). Jesus, continued to teach another time, saying “My time has not yet come” (7.6), then added “… I am not going to this festival, for my time has not yet fully come” (7:6). Later the Jewish leadership tried to arrest Jesus, but they couldn’t, because John tells us “his hour had not yet come” (7:30). In the next chapter, John spoke again that Jesus wasn’t arrested in the temple, for “his hour had not yet come.” (8:20). Finally, in today’s lesson, Jesus replies to his disciples, Andrew and Philip, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified” (12:23). The shift has occurred. Jesus’ hour had come.

     As a result, Jesus’ soul is troubled because the conditions out of his glorification would emerge were brutal beyond imagining. Jesus’ body would be assaulted and destroyed much like the land and people and temple were in Jeremiah’s time. Of course, Jesus was troubled. The conditions were now ready. Jesus had to trust that the power of God’s love and the power of the resurrection life planted as a divine seed by God into Jesus would withstand the fury of the cross. Jesus could have said no. He could have said, God save me. But he didn’t.
Everything has its hour. Just like the writer of Ecclesiastes reminds us “to everything there is a season, to everything a purpose under heaven (3:1).” Our hour has come, like it did once for Jesus. We are seeds in the hand of God, planted in this configuration of time, history, locality, to produce the fruit God desires for the world. Are we not called, as the old saying goes, “to bloom where we are planted?” We are amazing seeds, but God can bring forth from us different crops, of loving-kindness, mercy, caring, preaching the gospel with our words and our life. At different times, for different reasons. When the conditions are right. When our hour has come.

Think of one seed that died this week. Stephen Hawking the prominent astrophysicist at Cambridge University and perhaps the most intelligent man on earth, died on the anniversary of Einstein’s birthday. He advanced the general theory of relativity farther than any person since Albert Einstein. Unfortunately, Hawking was afflicted with ALS Syndrome (Lou Gehrig's disease). He has been confined to a wheelchair for years, where he can do little more than sit and think. Hawking has lost the ability even to speak, and now he communicates by means of a computer that is operated from the tiniest movement of his fingertips.

He was too weak to write, feed himself, comb his hair, fix his classes--all this must be done for him. Yet this most dependent of all men has escaped invalid status. His personality shines through the messy details of his existence. He wrote in his acclaimed book, The Brief History of Time, in his quest for a comprehensive theory of life of the meaning of life. Although he did not believe in God, he said “ If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason—for then we would know the mind of God."

Professor Hawking was a seed God planted that rose up through from adversity and produce knowledge that has advanced the role of astrophysics.

However, we don’t need to be geniuses delving into the theories of black holes, to be planted by God to advance to kingdom of heaven on earth.

This past week thousands of students walked out of school or demonstrated last Wednesday, like students have done for ages in the face of injustice, advocate for gun control. Last year, a five-year-old girl from Michigan emptied her piggy bank. Her grandmother watched as the little girl but the money in her backpack. What are you doing? Grandma asked. The little girl, responded that her friend Layla in kindergarten couldn’t afford the 45 cents that the milk cost during snack time. About half the children could not afford the milk. It would cost about $700 to make sure all the kids had milk for quarter.   Grandma went on Facebook, and then started a GoFundMe page, and thousands of dollars were raised for just for poor children to get a carton of milk during snack time. Incredible.

We are seeds in the hands of God. Each of us produce abundant, overflowing gifts of love, of faith, of caring – we produce miracles in the lives of others – if we just let ourselves be planted in the soil God prepares in the circumstances of our lives. We can face the adversities, those challenges, those barriers. We can bloom through the cracks, bloom through the acts of injustice, bloom in spite of conditions that seek to limit our spirit and humanity. God will see to it that we rise, we rise above it all carrying the Good News with us as we serve, care and follow Jesus.

Your hour has come.   Be planted. In the amazing, even difficult conditions of life, God will bring forth the miracle that is you. You will impact the world you are in. So, let not our heats be troubled. God will see to the growth. We just need to be planted, like Jesus was. The time is now. To assure the children, all the nations of this good earth that love can triumph, we can know God in our hearts, and see the good deeds grow and multiply, and turn us into children of the light. amen

NOTES
http://www.sermonillustrations.com/a-z/e/expectation.htm

https://www.ministrymatters.com/all/entry/8872/thank-you-stephen-hawking

https://www.today.com/video/little-girl-empties-piggy-bank-to-give-friend-milk-money-1075919939656

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"Snakes on the Plain"

3/13/2018

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Numbers 21:4-9; John 3:14-21
Freeport March 11, 2018

There’s a story about a monk who took a vow of silence. After the first ten years his superior called him in and asked, “Do you have anything to say?” The monk replied, “Food bad.” After another ten years the monk again had the opportunity to voice his thoughts. He said, “bed hard.”

Yet another ten years went by and again he was called in. When asked if he had anything to say, he responded, “I quit.” At which the superior retorted, “It doesn’t surprise me a bit. You’ve done nothing but complain ever since you got here!”

Six words over thirty years, that’s all the monk said. But they were enough to brand him as a problem. The Israelites voiced three complaints at one stop in their journey. “Why have you brought us out of the land of Egypt to let us die in the wilderness? There is no food, no water!” We detest his miserable food!” Seemingly innocent complaints. Who wouldn’t grumble when a journey that should have taken two to three years max, stretched out to, four, then ten, then an unbelievable 40 years. Today’s lesson is the 14th time the scriptures record the people of Israel’s complaints during their sojourn. Complaining didn’t make the journey easier. Instead it made their trek harder and longer. The closer they drew to the Promised Land the more obstacles there seemed to be in the way. By the time they reached the land of Edom, a territory southeast of the Promised Land, they again were fed up. So, once more they start to grumble. As a result, God punished them by sending poisonous serpents that bite and kill.

When does complaining cross the line, and go from voicing legitimate concerns to be a symptom of a lack of gratitude and faith? Yes, times were hard. Yet despite the hardness of the journey, God was always there, God always provided, year in and year out. God led the people in a pillar of smoke by day and a pillar of fire by night. God gave the people of Israel an identity and a compass to live by through the Law. God raised up leadership in Moses, Aaron and Miriam. God faithfully send manna and water. Yet the people were constantly pulled back to a spiritually dark place and they lost the greater perspective – through it all God provides. God loves. God restores.

So, the complaining went deeper than just the bad food. The complaining signaled a spiritual habit present in them from the very beginning soon after they crossed the Red Sea. Remember soon after their liberation they pined away for their fleshpots of Egypt? It never stopped, not matter what God did. No wonder the snakes bit: they were encountering snakes along their way: those snakes of resentment. The snakes of grumbling, the snakes of griping and groaning. The snakes of whining. The snakes of self-pity. The snakes of bitterness. The snakes of doubt. The snakes of fear.

Of all the animals God would send to teach a lesson it would be the serpent. Remember what happened the first time the serpent encounter people? It was in paradise and the cunning serpent tricked Eve into taking fruit from the forbidden tree. God’s judgment on the serpent was that there would be enmity between the snake and humanity. And so most people cringe at snakes—even the ones that are harmless. Those snakes on the wilderness plain are a reminder to the people that they were being tricked into doubt and disobedience all over again.
God sent a message through the serpent on the pole: even in our broken nature God brings forth healing, grace and goodness.    It is God’s greatest desire to extend forgiveness and hope. Therefore, God said, just look at the serpent lifted up on the pole and you shall live. Just look up. That’s all you have to do. Nothing elaborate or fancy. Just look up at the serpent on the pole. And the people who obeyed this command were healed.

The experience of healing from the serpent on the pole became such a powerful memory that people actually began to worship it instead of God. According to the scriptures, eight centuries after that the incident of the snakes in the wilderness plain, King Hezekiah of Judah-- in the 7th century BC -- had to remove the bronze snake on the pole from the temple in Jerusalem…because down through the ages people continued to burn incense to it instead of to the living God (2 Kings 18:4).
Fast forward another seven centuries or so after King Hezekiah, Jesus would identify himself with this serpent. Our reading today from John follows Jesus’s conversation with Nicodemus. Nicodemus was a leader but was afraid to show his approval of Jesus publicly. He feared he would criticized by his colleagues. Nicodemus was drawn to Jesus but would come to talk with Jesus only in the dark. Although a distinguished teacher – he addresses Jesus three times in John – and each time he struggles to grasp the truth of faith – just like the people of Israel struggled with their faith in the wilderness. Jesus tells Nicodemus: “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?”( v. 10) Jesus explains as clearly as he can: “just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.”

Jesus would take on the sin of humanity and be lifted up on the cross, because that is what love does. In turning our eyes toward Jesus, we are born again by the power of the Spirit. We are healed.

We are saved not by anything we do but by the faith in the one who is lifted up. Just like God forgave and healed by commanding the people in the wilderness to look up at the serpent on the pole. Our task is to keep our eyes on Jesus and do what he does. It is the power and will of God to redeem sinful situations and transform the negative to positive. To change the bad into good. God calls us to live in the presence of snakes but not be poisoned by the snakes’ venom. We can do this by staying focused on the cross.
Moses models how to act in the midst of snakes of life. The complaining that bites, the fear that bites, the hardship that bites, the worries that bite, the temptation that bites, the sin that bites.   Remember Moses when God first called him? How reluctant he was? Send someone else Lord, he pleaded. Despite all the hardships and setbacks over the years, Moses is the only person in this passage who is not complaining.   Moses learned he couldn’t change the people. He couldn’t change God. So, he changed himself through prayer, listening and obedience. The people asked for prayer, so he prayed. “God said, “put a snake up on a bronze pole and anyone who has been bitten will live.” Moses did as God commanded, not knowing if he would be bitten in the process. He didn’t understand what God was doing, just like the renowned teacher of Israel, Nicodemus, didn’t.   Moses obeyed, and God stopped the tragedy. God turned the sickness into healing – just as through Jesus’ suffering on the cross God conquered the kingdom of sin.

Which way shall we turn? It reminds me of a story about a woman whose husband had Parkinson’s disease. Struggling with her fears, she boarded a plane to Cleveland. She noticed something peculiar. From her window she could see only a dark and threatening sky – but on the other side of the plane was a beautiful sunset with gorgeous colors.

At that moment the woman sensed the Lord telling her that only she could determine her perspective. You can dwell on the gloomy picture, or you can focus on the bright things in your life and leave the dark ominous situations to me. But no matter which window you look through, the plane is still going to Cleveland. Your final destination isn’t changed by what you see or feel along the way.

        Our scriptures in these final weeks of Lent encourage us to focus on Jesus lifted up on the cross and be born again from above. To look away from those snakes that would bite and kill our spirit. To shed of that skin of complaining, negativity sinful habits. Let us choose the grace to pray, the grace to listen, the grace to obey the One lifted high. And God who has the power to change us, heal us, offer us eternal life in Christ- will see us to our journey’s end. Amen

Notes:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Exodus
https://onelordonebody.com/2014/02/27/how-israel-complaining-14-times-mirrors-your-christian-journey/

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"Overturned"

3/3/2018

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Exodus 20:1-17; John 2:13-22
Freeport, March 4, 2018

A farm boy accidentally overturned his wagon-load of corn in the road. The farmer who lived nearby came to investigate. “Hey, Willis,” he called out, “forget your troubles for a spell and come on in and have dinner with us. Then I'll help you get the wagon up. ” “That’s mighty nice of you,” Willis answered, “but I don't think Pa would like me to.” “Aw, come on, son!” the farmer insisted. “Well, okay,” the boy finally agreed. “But Pa won't like it.”

After a hearty dinner, Willis thanked his host. “I feel a lot better now, but I just know Pa is going to be real upset.” “Don't be foolish!" exclaimed the neighbor. "By the way, where is he?” “Under the wagon.”

        Life has a way of overturning us. People protest and lobby to get unjust laws overturned. Investigations cause decisions and protocols to be overturned. Life events, both good and challenging, overturn us – force us to change our way of life, reconsider our point of views, to see things from a different perspective, to move in a new direction.

Jesus’ outburst at the temple from John’s gospel is a prophetic act of overturning. Done during the Passover, the sacred feast of liberation of the Jewish people from slavery, Jesus overturns the table to reveal the true identity of the Temple.   God’s house is not a marketplace but a house of prayer for all people.

It took a lot to get Jesus angry. Jesus debated fiercely. Jesus confronted the religious leadership frequently. However, in our reading today we witness a Jesus who takes aggressive action. Jesus observed that being a faithful Jew had become an expensive proposition. First there was the Temple tax, required of every Jewish male every year at Passover. The tax was the equivalent of two days wages.

  The kicker was, this tax had to be paid in Temple money -- not the secular money imprinted with an idolatrous image of Caesar -- which to the Jewish sensibility violated the second commandment: “Thou shall not have graven images before me Ex.20:4.” As a result, a class of unscrupulous money-changers emerged.   They would charge a fee to convert the secular, scandalous currency to acceptable Temple money. For their efforts of course, they charged a hefty fee, equal to a day’s wage to convert the money. So, the hapless believer ended up paying three days wages-- which included that 50% exchange fee.

But the gouging didn't stop there. Worshipers at the Temple often needed to bring an animal sacrifice, and the sacrifice needed to be without blemish. (Deut. 17:1; Lev. 22:20-24). If your animal was judged to have any defect at all, it was not acceptable. If the one you brought with you was found to be defective, guess what? The Temple just happened to have some perfect ones for sale, in temple money, for another whopping fee. Animals bought outside the gates were frequently found imperfect and taken away. What the hapless and harried believer didn’t see was a system where their “so-called” defective animal were frequently recycled and sold to other unsuspecting folks on the Temple grounds – for you guessed it, a markup.

Scriptures give implicit instructions that mercy was to be shown to the poor. Those of means were required to bring a sheep or a goat or an ox...a substantial sacrifice. But the poor were allowed to bring much less...just a pair of doves. When Jesus was born, and his family went to the Temple to make their sacrifice, they brought doves...a sign that Jesus came from a poor family. The Gospel account makes a point that Jesus specifically went after the sellers of doves.

         Jesus saw this corrupt system and the heavy burden placed especially on the poor, within the very house of God. Jesus saw how the intent of God’s laws were overturned in the name of greed. Jesus sought to overturn the wickedness and the spiritual malaise and call people back to a worship rooted in right relationship modeled in the covenant embodied in the “ten commandments.” The commandments describe faithfulness, justice and peace in action. When we have a right relationship with God, it naturally flows into our souls, within our families and our larger communities.

      Jesus’ ministry was a ministry of overturning – overturning illness, overturning evil, overturning spiritual ignorance, overturning sin, overturning those cheating tables. Jesus turns the tables so that in God’s eyes, the poor are uplifted, the eyes of the blind are opened, the imprisoned set free, the crippled can walk, the crooked ways are straightened, sin is forgiven and faith is restored.

For me, the issue of overturning obstacles hits home in a very personal way. I remember a time when my daughter wanted to discuss some fears. During our conversation I noticed she had a tattoo on the side of her wrist. It was an arrow piercing a diamond. I asked her what it meant to her.   She said since diamonds were the toughest elements on earth, it represented having the courage to move straight through the hardest times in your life.   I listened as she talked about her struggle about feeling different: different in the sense that she has significant learning disabilities and health issues that always placed her at the bottom of the class. She felt stupid and out of place. Information moved too fast for her.   She was alternatively pitied or laughed at for choosing the wrong answer.

However, it wasn’t until mid-high school that she was placed in an alternate learning environment. Finally, a switch turned on. Information was presented in way that she could assimilate it and learn. She began to strive. She learned she wasn’t dumb. She was differently abled. In fact, gifted. I shared with her that diamond comes from an ancient Greek word meaning “unbreakable;” I reminded her that she was, in fact, is and always has been a diamond. She just needed to learn to overturn how she saw herself.

That’s our call to faith this Lent.

To help people to overturn and fear and doubt in order to see the diamond in themselves that God created. So today we worship and seek to follow the God who overturns: slavery to freedom, prejudice to acceptance, greed to generosity, despair to hope, lies to truth, unbelief to trust, evil to goodness, apathy to love. God overturns wickedness to create us to be living temples. As we join in overturning all the obstacles in our life, we discover underneath it all the call to worship freely, care abundantly, the power to restore God’s intentions for this earth. We discover within ourselves, the precious faith and commitment, hard as diamonds, sets on the journey with Jesus, holy and made whole. Amen

Notes:
https://www.gotquestions.org/temple-tax.html
https://www1.biu.ac.il/indexE.php?id=14574&pt=1&pid=14417&level=0&cPath=43,14206,14374, https://books.google.com/books?id=nmnvmS7SPtUC&pg=PA151&lpg=PA151&dq=sacrifice+two+turtle+doves+cost&source=bl&ots=v7CxrmFry2&sig=NBwm3kPuiDRz_cuNkEetr4IEXKA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiis6DHyc7ZAhXsx1kKHVw-B8I4ChDoAQhSMAo#v=onepage&q=sacrifice%20two%20turtle%20doves%20cost&f=false14417,14574#_ftn3

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"Faith on Parade"

"Your Hour Has Come"

"Snakes on the Plain"

"Overturned"

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