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Change the Gauge!

8/29/2017

Acts 11:1-18; Revelation 21:1-6

       Here is one of my all-time favorite tall tales that I never tire of sharing, and from which I have learned a lot.

        Did you know that the standard United States railroad gauge, the distance between the two rails, is exactly 4 ft. 8.5 inches? This is an odd number. Do you know how this gauge was determined? The people who built the first railroads in the United States were English expatriates, and that was the gauge used in the first railroad system back in England.

        OK. So why was this gauge, 4ft. 8.5 inches first used back in England? Because the people who built the first railroads in England were also the same folks who built the first tramways, or streetcars. Why was that gauge used on those tramways? Well it turns out that the gauge on the tramways also happened to have the same wheel spacing of wagons and carriages.   So why did wagons and carriages have that peculiar gauge of 4ft. 8.5 inches?

        The wagons and carriages had that wheel spacing because if they didn’t, the wheels would break on the old, long distance English roads. Those old roads had wheel ruts that measured 4 ft. 8.5 inches. So who built those old rutted roads?

        Those first long-distance roads were built in Europe and England by imperial Rome for travel by their soldiers. These roads have been used ever since. What explains the ruts on the road and that odd gauge? Roman war chariots made those ruts. So why did Roman war chariots have that odd specification? 4 ft. 8.5 inches, was the approximate width of two yoked horses used in Roman war chariots. And there you have it. The general measurement of two yoked horses has been the key determining factor in the construction of our principal means of mass travel for over two thousand years. There’s even a cosmic twist to this tale. There were two rocket boosters that sit on the side of the fuel tank of the old space shuttles.   They are not built to optimal capacity, according to the engineers who designed them.   They should be wider, but can’t be. And do you know why? Because the only way the factory in Utah, where they are made can get them down to Florida, is by railroad. And the railroad passes through mountain tunnels, which as we know by now, were made only slightly larger than the width of two yoked horses.

        What starts out as perfectly functional, that 4 ft. 8.5 gauge, can over time become constricting, ineffective and counterproductive. Our needs change over time. Our horizons shift. Our capabilities develop, grow and deepen. New doors open. In midst of all this, Jesus, our Divine gauge, calls us to love one another, to even love our enemies, and to do good to those who persecute us. If we want to stay on track with Jesus, we have to be willing to change our gauge.

      Most of the ruts we fall into are troubles we have to shift our hearts and our attitudes. If we want to follow the gauge Jesus set forth, say, for example, in the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son, in those words of forgiveness from the cross, we must commit ourselves to change our gauge to He who is Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.
        Our readings today reveal two powerful visions of God changing the gauge for us. In our Acts text, Peter is recounting his experience of change at a meeting called by Christian leaders. Although still a part of the Jewish religion, the early Christian movement had grown and was accepting many non-Jewish converts in to membership. There were many who believed that these new members should first convert to Judaism, which meant circumcision for the men and keeping the kosher dietary laws.   Others, like the apostles Peter and Paul, had been led to believe that converting to Judaism was not a prerequisite to be a follower of Jesus.

        So Peter gets up and shares the vision he had. A vision of the heavens opening up and he sees all kinds of four-footed creatures, reptiles and birds, animals unclean by Jewish dietary law, being lowered on a large sheet. Peter is told, get up, kill and eat. This vision happens three times to Peter. Peter is scandalized -- he has always kept kosher. What is God doing? Next Peter is led to visit, then eat and drink with Gentile Christians. This creates an uproar, and Peter was criticized by other believers. But Peter responded, “Who was I to stand in God’s way?” Peter’s recommendation was ultimately accepted, and the gauge was widened, forever changing the course of the Christian movement. They praised God, because God changed the gauge - so that even Gentiles received the repentance that leads to life.

        The text from Revelations gives us another stunning vision, a vision received by the exiled seer, John, toward the end of the first century.   Revelations covers a time when the Christians are in the midst of terrible tribulation. The fall of Jerusalem has happened. Christians have been excommunicated from the synagogues, persecution is widespread. The visions in the book tell of horrific battles and great suffering, and ultimate conquest -- but here in chapter 21, the vision shifts. Out of the heavens comes a New Jerusalem- not the Jerusalem where conflict still rages between Jews and Muslims and even Christians. There is a vision of new heavens and new earth – this earth where Satan has spread oppression and sin, and humankind has filled the air and land with poison and corruption — God brings forth a new earth, where death, sorrow, crying and pain pass away. This new earth is where God makes his home among humanity; God is with his people and is their God. The old order has passed away. Behold I make everything new! Says the triumphant Lord.

        The gauge has again changed. A gauge widened to Alpha and Omega – from A-Z. From beginning to End. Jesus, the gauge, encompasses the totality of the cosmos and all creation. This text invites us to open our hearts to be to the Lord who declares: “Behold I am making everything new!” As Peter invites us to proclaim with him: Who am I to stand in God’s way?

        The visions of the scriptures depict a God who is constantly widening the gauge so we might journey out in faith, risk deeper intimacy, and find greater integration in our life as followers of Jesus. The gauges of a Roman war chariot are too little for the life of faith. We are called to follow the divine gauge, Jesus.

        We are a part of a church that struggles to be faithful in the context of inclusivity. So the Spirit reminds us when it gets hard, change the gauge!

We are faced with welcoming the immigrants and those who are different in our midst. Let us change the gauge!

We see the need of the poor and vulnerable. Let us change the gauge!

The lonely and lost! The Addicted and ill. The forsaken elderly. Let us change the gauge!

We hear hate speech and prejudice that divides our country. Change the gauge!

We live in this world where communication and travel connect us across the globe faster than ever before, yet our moral gauges are not wide enough to keep pace with the technological and economic changes. We still allow people to suffer famine and disease, children to go uneducated and unloved. We still let people go without medicine and treatment when it’s there. We allow people to earn less than a wage that’s sustainable for life. The world’s moral gauge is still based on those Roman war chariots. As disciples of Jesus, we got to work to the change the gauge!
That is the moral and spiritual task that lies before us. To love one another, Jesus commanded, as he loved us. Because Jesus is our gauge, a gauge he created in his life and teachings, his death on the cross and through the power of the resurrection. The new gauge is there, if we just align ourselves to it.

        This is the vision God is giving us today. The old labels, of conservative, liberal, evangelical, Presbyterian, Catholic, Orthodox, Baptist, Lutheran, Anglican, on and on, are less important than following the gauge of Jesus. All around us we hear voices telling us the church is dying. But that’s the church of the roman war chariot.   The church of the gauge of Jesus, now that is a church open to the vision of the new heavens and a new earth. It’s the gauge that the Holy Spirit is working to straighten our lives - to broaden our circle, to teach us to love, forgive, to be tolerant and have mercy – with Christ as our gauge, we can become one human family.

        We are the church of the new gauge. Isn’t that the life to which God is calling us, one much bigger, more holy, more whole than we can imagine? God has something new planned. Your life, my life, needs this bigger gauge, one of healing, redemption and transformation, one only Jesus can provide.

        This is the Gauge of Jesus: where God lives with us and works through us–to lay the tracks of love, righteousness and justice across the world. We are the gauge changers of the new world.   Let us retire the gauge of the war horses once and for all. Let us turn to the gauge of Christ. In doing so, may we find ourselves changing from being self-centered to Christ-centered, and other-centered: and together make of this old world a new world. For who are we to stand in the way of God? Amen.

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All Things New

8/8/2017

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Acts 11;1-18; Revelation 21:1-6;

        There are some stories that are so interesting it doesn’t matter whether they are true or not.

        Did you know that the standard us railroad gauge, the distance between the two rails, is exactly 4 ft 8.5 inches? This is an odd number. Do you know how this gauge was determined? The people who built the first railroads in the United States were English expatriates, and that was the gauge used in the first railroad system back in England.

        OK. So why was this gauge, 4ft. 8.5 inches first used back in England? Because the people who built the first railroads in England were also the same folks who built the first tramways, or streetcars. Why was that gauge used on those tramways? Well it turns out that the gauge on the tramways also happened to have the same wheel spacing of wagons and carriages.   So why did wagons and carriages have that peculiar gauge of 4ft. 8.5 inches?

        The wagons and carriages had that wheel spacing because if they didn’t the wheels would break on the old, long distance English roads. Those old roads had wheel ruts that measured 4 ft. 8.5 inches. So who built those old rutted roads?

        Those first long distance roads were built in Europe and England by imperial Rome for travel by their soldiers. These roads have been used ever since. So what explains the ruts on the road and that odd gauge? Roman war chariots made those ruts. So why did Roman war chariots have that odd specification? 4 ft. 8.5 inches, was the approximate width of the rear ends of two horses used in Roman war chariots. And there you have it. The general measurement of a horse’s derriere has been a key determining factor in the construction of our principal means of mass travel for close to two thousand years. There’s even a cosmic twist to this tale. There were two rocket boosters that sit on the side of the fuel tank of the old space shuttles.   They are not designed to optimal capacity, according to the engineers who designed them.   They should be wider, but can’t be. And do you know why? Because the only way the factory in Utah, where they are made can get them down to Florida, is by railroad. And the railroad passes through mountain tunnels, which as we know by now, were made only slightly larger than the width of two horses’ behinds.

        Isn’t that quite a story? It’s been demoted to urban legend status – before the Civil War the US had any number of railroad gauges. Our story, however, carries an important lesson that would do us well to pay attention to.

What starts out as perfectly functional, an excellent idea, a brilliant plan, can over time turn out to be constricting, ineffective and counterproductive. Our needs change. Our horizons shift. Our capacities deepen and other doors begin to open. The old fades away, things become new. Our journeys take new twists and turns. If we want to stay on track we have to be able to change the gauge. Most of the ruts we fall into are not on the side of the road. Most of the ruts we have trouble with are in our hearts and in our attitudes. And if we want to follow Jesus’ command to love each other, we have to be willing the change the gauge.

        Our readings today show us two remarkable visions of God changing the gauge. In our Acts text, Peter is recounting his experience of change at the first serious meeting called by Christian leaders of Jerusalem. Although still a part of the Jewish religion, the Christian movement had grown and was accepting many non-Jewish converts in to membership. There were many who believed that these new members should first convert to Judaism, which meant circumcision for the men and keeping the kosher dietary laws.   Others, like the apostles Peter and Paul, had been led to believe that converting to Judaism was not a prerequisite to be a follower of Jesus.

        So Peter gets up and shares the vision he had. A vision of the heavens opening up and all kinds of four-footed creatures, reptiles and birds, animals unclean by Jewish dietary law. Peter is told, get up, kill and eat. This vision happens three times. Peter is horrified -- he has always kept kosher. Peter is led to visit, then eat and drink with Gentile Christians. This created an uproar, and Peter was criticized by other believers. But Peter responded, “Who was I that I could hinder God?” Peter’s recommendation was ultimately accepted, and the gauge was widened, forever changing the course of the Christian movement.

        The text from Revelations gives us another vision, a vision received by the exiled seer, John, toward the end of the first century.   As we discussed last week, Revelations covers a time when the Christians are in the midst of terrible tribulation. The fall of Jerusalem has happened. Christians have been excommunicated from the synagogues, persecution is widespread. The visions in the book tell of great battles and suffering, but here in chapter 21, the vision shifts. Out of the heavens comes a New Jerusalem. A new heavens and new earth. Death, sorrow, crying and, pain, have passed away.

        The gauge has changed. God has conquered death. God is the one who makes all things new. How could these suffering believers come to grips with this amazing vision? Are our hearts wide enough to accept this vision? We don’t understand. But we recall Peter’s words: Who am I to hinder God?

        That’s the problem with gauges. They work well for a while.   Then they no longer work so well. Who goes around on war chariots and wagons? The tracks have been laid. It is costly, time consuming and disruptive to widen the gauges to make them work for a new age. So we try to make do.

        We do this all the time. God calls us to journey out, to risk, to deeper intimacy, to greater integration. Life is getting too big for the gauges of a Roman war chariot.
        We face challenges no less daunting than Peter, Paul, and John. We are a part of a church that struggles to be faithful in the context of inclusiveness with the LGBT community, and understanding the work of the Holy Spirit in other cultures and faiths.
We live in a world where communication and travel connect us across the globe faster than ever before, yet our moral gauges have not widen enough to keep pace with the technological and economic changes. We still allow people to die of hunger, children to get sick from contaminated water when it is needless. We still let people go without medicine when it’s there, at the drugstore shelves. Families sell their children into slavery, education is forgone, because we allow top salaried CEOS to earn almost 300 times the entry-level worker, let alone what is earned in developing countries.

Our moral gauge is still based on Roman war chariots. We got to widen the gauge. That is the moral and spiritual task that lies before us. To love one another, Jesus commanded, as he loved us. That’s our gauge. And it is a gauge wider than the mountain ranges, deeper than the oceans, farther than the stars in the sky. And we have a ways to go.

        That the vision God is giving us today. The old labels, of conservative, liberal, evangelical, Presbyterian, Catholic, Orthodox, Baptist, Lutheran , Anglican, on and on, are going the way of the Roman war chariot. Those gauges aren’t worth more the width of two horses’ you know what. All around us we hear voices telling us the church is dying, the church is irrelevant. But that’s the church of the roman war chariot.   Worship, Sunday at 11:00a.m., may be giving way to worship on different hours or days of the week, to different ways and places of worshiping, serving, sharing. The church of Jesus’ gauge, that makes all things new, now that’s the vision we need to seek.

        Like Peter and John, we are recipients of a new, great vision – what God has declared clean, you shall not declare profane. Like John, God’s home is among God’s people. And it is God’s will to dry the tears of those who suffer. And there’s a vision ready for us, knocking at the door of our hearts waiting for us to open the door – to begin to comprehend the great thing God is about to do. Some practices may go the way of the dinosaur -- but not God’s Holy Spirit – Not the movement of Jesus Christ – which is making all things new.

        We are the church of the new gauge. Isn’t the life that God is calling you, calling us, much bigger, maybe overwhelming, but more exciting than you can imagine? Our world has become too little. God has something new planned. Your life, my life, needs a bigger gauge, one only Jesus can provide.

        We are the people of the new gauge, building a gauge wide enough so we can take this journey together, no one left behind. This week is the 50th anniversary of the Children’s March in Birmingham, AL – when a new gauge was laid.   This was a brave, risky move of the civil rights movement. Children marched for civil rights. They were arrested. They returned to march. They were blasted by high-pressured water hoses. They were clubbed. Police dogs were set loose on them. Pictures of children being attacked outraged a nation. The actions led to desegregation of downtown stores, and threats to expel the students met with a resounding condemnation.   Rev. King said of this march: “Don’t worry about your children; they are going to be alright. Don’t hold them back if they want to go to jail, for they are not only doing a job for themselves, but for all of America and for all of mankind.” They opened a wider gauge. And that’s what we are called to do. Widen the gauge. With love, caring and commitment we see the journey has just begun.

This is the Gauge of Jesus: A New heavens, and a new earth—where God lives with us – drying our tears, transforming our suffering. We are the gauge changers of the new world.   We make all things new – in the name of Jesus – through the power of the Holy Spirit. And so we rise from the ruts – to see a new heavens and a new earth. Amen.

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Our Real Name

8/4/2017

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Genesis 32:3-31; Matthew 14:13-21

Charles Belk, a 51 year old Harvard educated television producer was in Beverly Hills for a pre-Emmy dinner when he excused himself to check the meter for his car. Before he knew it, he was surrounded by six police cars, searched for weapons, handcuffed, left sitting on a curbed for 45 minutes before being transported to police headquarters. There he was fingerprinted, put under $100,000 bail and accused of armed robbery. He was denied a phone call; explanation of charges put against him; being read his rights and being able to speak to his lawyer for “a lengthy time.” All he was told was that he fit the description; of a robbery suspect: a tall, bald, black man. Belk was held for six hours before the police reviewed the tape proving Belk’s innocence. He was released and the department released a regret explaining the circumstances. It was a case of mistaken identity.

        Mistaken identity can be as benign as calling someone by someone else’s name. Mistaken identity can plague our lives – we live out the life our parents have laid before us or that social media deems best. We place labels on others that have nothing to do with whom they are. Who are we created to be? What have we been created to do?

        Today we visit with one of the Bible’s best identity thieves: Jacob. We first we hear of Jacob in the book of Genesis 25.   He is wrestling, struggling with his brother Esau in his mother Rebekah’s womb, causing his mother no end of discomfort. And today we find him wrestling with an unknown being all night. From the womb Jacob was not at peace with who he was. He was born second – grapping at his brother’s heel, ready to pull him back and take his place as the first born. Hence his name in Hebrew – Jacob --- which in Hebrew sounds like “heel” – and “grabbing the heel” was idiomatic way of saying “tricking someone.”

Jacob lived up to his name. He manipulated his older brother Esau’s birthright from him in exchange for a bowl of stew – a birthright that entitled him, among other things, to double his parent’s inheritance. With mother Rebekah as an accomplice, Jacob deceived his father, Isaac, and stole Esau’s blessing; a blessing reserved for the first born. This theft of the blessing was the last straw. Esau was ready to murder him so Jacob was sent into an exile that would last 20 years.

        Those 20 years were not easy. Jacob found his comeuppance in his uncle Laban. Jacob was tricked by the older man into marrying both of his daughters, Leah as well as Rachel, whom he really loved. Jacob struggled for six years to build a flock of his own from his uncle’s flocks. Ultimately Jacob was successful and managed to build a flock even greater than his uncle’s: it infuriated Laban and enraged his cousins who claimed “Jacob has taken away all that was our fathers, and from what was our fathers he has acquired all this wealth.” For the guilty conscience of Jacob, this must have been an echo of Esau’s fury, whom he defrauded 20 years earlier. So again, Jacob must flee, but he cannot avoid confrontation. Jacob is going home.

Jacob left empty handed.    He returned however with two wives, two concubines, 12 children, servants and numerous flocks. He returned with something more – Jacob had learned to love and to care. Because of this, Jacob was filled with anxiety about his past. He heard Esau was meeting him with an army of 400 men. Jacob struggled with what to do. First he strategically placed his family to keep them out of harm’s way.
So on the evening of meeting with Esau, Jacob finds himself alone. In the dark, Jacob has a strange encounter. He wrestles all night with a “man” a being, an angel; we don’t know exactly who this mysterious being was, but it ends up wounding Jacob in the hip. Wounded, dawn approaching, Jacob does what he knows, he holds on, refusing to let go until the being blesses him. It was a stolen blessing that got him in trouble in the first place. Maybe this blessing will make it right. And the man/being does something interesting. He asks Jacob his name, and then he renames Jacob – Israel, from the Hebrew, “prevails with God”

     Jacob tried to steal a name and an identity that wasn’t his own. God, through this Man, blesses Jacob /Israel with a new identity. A God-given identity of purpose, insight, an identity forged from struggle and woundedness, strength and love.

        Isn’t this what Jacob was after all his life? An identity of his own   --- an apart from Esau? An identity that comes from God. Something deep down he struggled to have all his life – a true identity not based on birth order, on marriage, on prosperous he was. An identity not based on favoritism. It is with this true identity, given him from God based on faithfulness to one’s struggle. With this new identity he can now face Esau, and reconcile.

        Like Jacob, Jesus faced the approaching night wanting to be alone. Earlier in Matthew, we learn that Jesus was rejected by his native town because of his unique identity. His village neighbors wouldn’t believe Jesus could become anything different than the carpenter boy they’d known for decades. Moreover, the religious establishment were calling Jesus “Beelezub,” a devil. And King Herod believed Jesus to be John the Baptizer resurrected.

        What was Jesus to do in the face of all these mistaken identities? He could give up. Tone it down. Give in. Jesus knows what it’s like to have others dictate to us who we are. Jesus probably understood the struggle of Jacob, and all of us who feel insecure, labeled second best. Jesus needed to go off by himself to a deserted place, to gain perspective. What did he find? The crowds followed him. Not his village neighbors. Not the Pharisees and Torah scholars. Not King Herod and his retinue. The crowds. The average person, the person ignored by the religious, economic and political elite. The crowds followed Jesus and affirmed his identity. Because once the great crowds came to Jesus, Jesus of course gets it. He experiences their need, their pain and their confusion about who they are.   And Jesus has compassion on them. He heals the sick. He teaches – for hours – and the crowd is riveted to him.   We don’t know what Jesus taught them all that day. We could hazard a guess and say Jesus taught them what the Law really stands for: what it means to love God and neighbor. Jesus taught them about their worth in the eyes of God.

But according to our passage, the great lesson was yet to come. Soon it was evening--- and the disciples were nervous. These people were hungry. What should they do? So the disciples came to Jesus with the logical solution – send them away, let them take care of themselves, let them get something to eat in the near village. But Jesus says no. You give them something to eat. All the disciples were able to suss up were five loaves and two fish.    Jesus doesn’t criticize this meager offering. Instead he takes it, blesses it, and transforms it. Somehow, there was enough to eat.

        It isn’t important to figure out how Jesus did this miracle. It isn’t important to know who exactly Jacob was wrestling with. What is important to see is that Jesus and Jacob both prevailed in seemingly impossible circumstances. They didn’t succumb to fear. They stayed in the struggle. And Blessing came out of both struggles – their identity became clear. Jacob became Israel. Jesus became Divine Compassion in flesh; and what’s more Jesus taught his disciples, as he teaches us—that we are not to send people away—but to struggle to meet the needs of the hungry, the lost, the hopeless, the ill. That’s where we will find our true identity – our true calling in life: We are created as children of God, created to make a difference, created to bring about miracles of loving, being, and transformation of souls and in the communities in our midst. Let’s not make a mistake: that is our identity first and foremost.

        We struggle to find our place in this world. It is easy to get lost and act out, like Jacob, in identities that are not really ours. It is easy to become victims of the mistaken identities others project on us. Like Jesus, we need to sift through what others say about us. Like the disciples, we have to learn to know our true identity through having our ideas challenged, facing obstacles that seem insurmountable. We too can find ourselves awake at night – struggling, or called to be alone to figures things out.

The most important work we have before us is claiming our God-given identity: that God has a place for us in the world and God loves us through Christ our Lord. We are freed and made whole in God’s image. So we must put aside any mistaken identity, false identities, and claim our true identity as children of God.

We are created to love, be loved and connected and to create a loving world. That is what the world is truly hungry for. It is what we are truly hungry for, deep down. Embrace the struggle. Let us find our real name. Let us find ourselves in God’s love – and be blessed, and be the blessing we are meant to be. Amen.

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Change the Gauge!

All Things New

Our Real Name

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