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"Dawn"

4/25/2019

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Picture
​Luke 24:1-12       
 
It was dark outside, early dawn in fact, when they got up, that group of women which included Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and other women, women Jesus healed, and women from whom had exorcised demons.  Women Jesus loved and treated with respect.   In turn these women loved Jesus and stayed faithful to him to the end.  As Jesus carried his cross to Calvary, the women accompanied him.  They stood watch as Jesus suffered and died, never turning away, even though others did. 
So at early dawn on that third day, the first opportunity they had, that the women prepared the spices to take to Jesus’ tomb and anoint his dead body.
At dawn they found the stone rolled away from the tomb.  At dawn they went in the burial cave and didn’t find the body.  They were perplexed.  Interestingly, this is the same word used by Mary, the Mother of Jesus, when she was perplexed and didn’t understand the Angel Gabriel’s greeting, bringing her news of the conception of a new, Holy life.   So the women are perplexed as these signs of new, resurrected life that they too don’t yet understand.
At dawn the women encounter two men-like angels in dazzling clothes. These two men/angels are the dawn speakers, for they proclaim: “Why do you seek the living among the dead?  He is not here, but has risen.”  They remind the women of Jesus’ prophetic words in Galilee that he would suffer and die, but rise again.  At dawn, the women do indeed remember, and run to tell the rest.   The others, roused from their sleep so early, believe this an idle tale, but Peter ran to the tomb and was amazed to see the linen cloths but no body there.  All at dawn.
        Dawn is a special time of day.  Not night anymore, not quite day, it is an in between time, an in-between place.  Darkness is giving way to light, but the mix of the two is there.  The world for the most part is still quiet, only a few are awake.  Some of us find getting up extra early at dawn to be rewarding.  It is a perfect time to get a head start, to meditate, exercise, pray, attend to a special project without the disruptions of daytime busyness, while the quiet of the night lingers.  
      In the scriptures dawn was a time of spiritual significance, commitment and renewal. Job made it a regular practice to worship God early in the morning (Job 1:5). Such also probably was Joshua’s custom (Josh. 3:1; 6:12; 7:14, 16; 8:10). Indeed, when crucial decisions were to be made or important activities needed to be accomplished, it is often reported that godly people in times of trouble rose early to pray and be with God. When Abraham was tested to sacrifice Isaac.  When God called Moses called to ratify the covenant. When God called Gideon to be a judge over Israel. When Samuel’s parents, prayed for a longed-for child.  The prophet Jeremiah and King Hezekiah of Judah rose early to address their problems and worries with God (Gen. 22:3; Exod. 24:4; Judges 6:35; 2 Chron. 29:20, Jeremiah 7:13, 1 Sam 1:19).   The psalms repeatedly talk about dawn as a time of prayer and encounter with God, as Psalm 5 reminds us:  “In the morning O Lord, you hear my voice, in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation.” (Pss. 5:3; 88:13, Pss. 59:16; 90:2, Ps. 49, Ps. 143:8  Ps. 92:1-2).   It is not surprising then that the gospels remind us that Jesus got up in the morning, while it was still dark, and went to a solitary place to pray (Mark 1:35).  So we too are called to Dawn.
Dawn symbolizes not only darkness giving way to light, but the old making way for the new, fresh beginnings.   For believers, dawn symbolized an eager desire to meet the Lord, serve God, and live in accordance to God’s will.  It is not surprising then that even the word, Easter, is derived from the root-word for Dawn.  Today we celebration dawn.  The divine dawning of God’s holy light in the resurrection of Christ Jesus.
We need the dawn. There are places in the world, where on  this Easter Sunday has shadows of Good Friday clings to our hearts.   We wonder, where is the dawn in a world filled with conflict, suffering and war?  Yet Easter is strong enough to handle all the pain, all the doubt, all the hurt in our hearts.   As dawn surely follows the night, Easter rises from the ashes of pain and sorrow. 
  Easter is our reminder that Jesus rises in our darkness, shows us life in the scarred places and leads us to new possibilities.   However, Easter proclaims that a new life, unknown is on the horizon and beckons us forward…where Jesus is – in resurrection glory. That the place of Dawn.
     Like those women who came to the tomb in the early dawn, let us not be afraid. It is Easter.  Because we see the dawn. At some place on this good earth, it is dawn.  It is always dawning. 
If we follow the example of the faithful we will see: dawn always approaches.   A stone rolled away. An empty tomb. Linens by themselves.  The angels’ message:  He is risen.       It is Easter, and no matter where our lives are, dawn will find us.  Remember Jesus’ words.  His promise.   Because Jesus is risen. 
He is risen indeed.   And so will we.
Amen.
 

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"Family Feud"

4/1/2019

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Picture
  Luke 11b-32
As a family of six, jokes were in abundance.  My brothers would share ones like: “My sister” (me) is so dim she thinks that a cartoon is a song you sing in a car.”   I would retort with jokes like, Mom asked” Why does your brother jump up and down before taking his medicine?  I would respond: Because he read the label, and it said 'shake well before using.”  It is rare to grow up with siblings, no matter the depth of connection and closeness, without some tension, teasing or fighting.
At least 80 percent of Americans have at least one sibling.  Our sibling relationships outlast marriages, survive the death of parents, resurface after quarrels that would sink any friendship. They flourish in a thousand incarnations of closeness and distance, warmth, loyalty and distrust.  Our relationship, or lack thereof, with our siblings has a profound effect on our lives.
Poet Maya Angelou once made the observation: “I don't believe an accident of birth makes people sisters or brothers. It makes them siblings, gives them mutuality of parentage. Sisterhood and brotherhood is a condition people have to work at.”   How true this is.  Growing up with five older brothers, I’ve witnessed the long journey from being siblings in rivalry to growing into brotherhood and sisterhood. 
Over the years, like many siblings, we’ve grown closer, grown to care and love for each other and respect our differences of opinion and celebrate the people we’ve become.  My brother Mike, who still teases me mercilessly, made it a point to say to every perspective date of mine: “You better treat my sister right, because I got a shotgun and a shovel, and I know how to use them both.” (He really didn’t have a shotgun, but I never told.) 
        Our gospel lesson today invites us into a serious family drama. It’s perhaps the most famous parable Jesus told.  A family with two sons.  Often called the “parable of the prodigal son,” it’s the age-old story about siblings struggling with each other – struggling to become brothers in God’s eyes. Both Charles Dickens and Mark Twain called it this parable “the greatest story ever told.”  
     The rebellion and appalling behavior of the younger son toward his father and mother is well known.   The younger son – comes to his senses – repents and returns to the Father. The Father for his turn has been waiting patiently, watching the horizon, and when he sees his son, receives him with arms open wide, and orders a party to celebrate the boy’s return. The end of the story, right? Wrong. It just begins.
The real focus in the story is the tension between the brothers: the older sibling is enraged at how easily his Father received the younger son back, and at how inappropriately his brother took his inheritance, left the homestead, and wasted it on riotous living.  Jesus ends the story with this tension unresolved:  the brothers unreconciled –the older son seemingly unmoved by the Father’s reassurance of his love and his plea to celebrate and rejoice the younger son’s safe return.
        This story has deep roots in the human psyche.  It points us back to the first sibling pair, Cain and Abel. Cain is jealous of Abel’s offering that is accepted by God, while his is rejected.  Cain eventually murders his brother, defiantly asking God, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”  This is first question posed to God – and has echoed down through the ages.  In the scriptures we see the descendants of Ismael (Abraham’s first born) and Isaac, the Arab and the Jewish nations, battling it out.  Jacob and Esau are at each other’s throat.  Leah and Rachel compete with each other for their husband’s love.   Joseph and his brothers are estranged over jealousy of the father’s affections.    King David’s sons scuffled for the throne.  On it goes.  The listeners of Jesus’ tale, the grumbling Pharisees and scribes, would know Jesus is singling them out, pointing them out as the elder brothers, who struggle for power in family, clan and nation.
        The unspoken dynamic in the story of the prodigal son is the place of privilege and honor held by the first-born.   The first-born son held a special place in the family and culture.  The biblical tradition created an elaborate system of redemption, where the parents made an offering to the Temple to “buy back” their child, as in the offering of Mary and Joseph to the Temple of turtle doves.    The firstborn inherited a double portion of his father’s estate, he received the father’s powerful blessing, and had a place of leadership and privilege in the family can system. 
        The firstborn concept spread to biblical theology.  Israel is seen as the firstborn of the nations.  Jesus is called the “firstborn of all creation” and “firstborn from the dead.”   From this context we can understand both the horror and implications of the striking down of the Firstborn of Egypt as the last plague in the Passover story.  This plague struck a fatal blow to Egyptian privilege power, and a taunt to Egyptian deities.
        So the elder brother in our story, just by dumb luck, is in a place of honor and privilege.  Like Cain, like Joseph’s older brothers, he becomes resentful when the younger brother is accorded special honor.  Abel’s offering is received. Joseph gets the multi-colored coat.  The younger son is accorded a place of honor – the best robe, a ring, sandals, and the fatted calf. The established code of honor is disrupted.  The Father (who stands for God) reverses the established human order of privilege.  God does this not to humiliate or drive out the firstborn, but to create balance that includes all people – to make brothers and sisters out of mere siblings, to say, indeed we are each other‘s keeper.
Look at this elder son in the story.  He lived by the rules because they benefited him.  But it nursed in him a demon of entitlement and resentment.  He never left home because his lot is cast.  He blames his father and brother for his dour life – he practically spits – “I’ve been working like a slave for you, you never gave me a young goat that I might celebrate with my friends”.  Maybe he’s even envious of his younger brother.  Indignant at his brother’s failure to follow proper order.  Most of all he’s enraged at how generous his father is. He would have preferred his brother publicly humiliated, reduced to a slave.  He cannot forgive. He refuses to acknowledge kinship with his brother; instead he says to his father “that son of yours” instead of “my brother.”  He clearly does not see himself as his brother’s keeper.  The family feud continues.
         Like the younger son who hasn’t sought love and acceptance in the wrong places? Taken people for granted? Who hasn’t been lost, struggling to find their way home? The bottom line is both siblings need the love and forgiveness of God to become brothers – to know what family is truly like.
        In Jesus in whom we have been reconciled, the answer is yes, I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sister’s keeper. I am your servant. We are called to protect each other, watch over each other. What a different world we would have if we acted as true brothers and sisters – instead of like estranged siblings.  Let us come to our senses. Repent, forgive and join the waiting celebration. Then we will make of this world a true home, where all are brothers and sisters – in Jesus, the Firstborn .   Amen   
       
http://www.searchquotes.com/quotation/Sibling_relationships__and_80_percent_of_Americans_have_at_least_one_-_outlast_marriages,_survive_t/265756/
 

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    Moirajo is a minister, social worker, wife, mother, writer and animal lover. That's just for starters. Join the story, there's so much we can share together! 

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