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"Go and Do Likewise"  November 22, 2015

11/24/2015

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 Joel 2:21-27, Luke 10:25-37
​"The Good Samaritan"

 The inflatable boat overloaded with Syrian refugees neared the rocky Greek island coastline shortly after dawn last week; the smuggler revved the motor and hurtled forward. There was panic among the people on board, who shouted to slow down. Instead the boat hit the rocks and flipped over, throwing 14 adults and five children into the sea.
 
      Derar Alzarzor grabbed his terrified sons aged one and three. He knew neither could swim – just like Aylan and Galip Kurdi, the Syrian brothers whose drowning in September provoked a global outcry. But ten-year-old Moaje Saad was less fortunate, trapped beneath the overturned boat for several minutes. ‘Everything was black,’ she said. ‘I was crying and thinking bad things would happen.’
 
Such incidents unfortunately happen every week, to date, 2,600 innocent lives have been lost fleeing the terror of fighting, seeking a better life.  Not to belittle what happened in Paris by any means, where 128 innocent people were killed by terrorism on November 13 – but a case can be made, perhaps ought to be explored, that we have seen on the Mediterranean Seas a case of about 20 Paris’-- a case of ruthless smugglers, preying on desperate people fleeing from tyranny and war, and the outcry simply is not there. Instead what we have seen is the opposite. Nevertheless, the U.S. House of Representatives, believing terrorists are planted among refugees, voted overwhelmingly Thursday to make it more difficult for Syrian and Iraqi refugees to come to America.
 
In addition, more than half of the US’s governors have said they will no longer provide placement for Syrian refugees, arguing that they pose too great a risk to national security.
 
Opponents reminded us: "We face a choice that will echo through history," (Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y.,) who pointed out to lawmakers that the U.S. turned away Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany in 1939. "We must not let ourselves be guided by irrational fear."  The White House said that 2,174 Syrian refugees have been admitted to the United States since Sept. 11, 2001, and "not a single one has been arrested or deported on terrorism-related grounds."  

It is ironic that we are having such debates the week before we gather to celebrate the great American holiday of Thanksgiving.  The story of Thanksgiving forever has imprinted in our minds happy pilgrims and Indians for a cooperative feast in 1621 after a bountiful harvest that came after a nearly devastating time when the settlement lost more than half their members to illness and exposure.  Sadly such cooperation, from the settlers end, would not last.

Proclamations of days of Thanksgiving were common in our early history, as were calls to fast and repent.  George Washington called for a Day of Thanksgiving for gratitude for the nation’s successful winning the War of Independence.  Abraham Lincoln  in 1863, at the height of the Civil War, in a proclamation entreating all Americans to ask God to “commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife” and to “heal the wounds of the nation.” He scheduled Thanksgiving for the final Thursday in November, and it was celebrated on that day every year until 1939, on the eve of war and Depression, when Franklin D. Roosevelt moved the holiday up a week in an attempt to spur retail sales.  Roosevelt’s plan, known derisively as Franksgiving, was met with such opposition, that in 1941 the president signed a bill making Thanksgiving the fourth Thursday in November.

So we talk about national turmoil in the roots of Thanksgiving.  Turn on the radio and we hear heartwarming stories about families gathering, communities sharing, people caring.  Isn’t that what it’s all about. Except we are in the danger of losing  a significant component of the true nature of Thanksgiving.   Giving thanks, reaching out and caring not only when it is easy, but when it is inconvenient, dangerous and hard.

Our gospel lesson is one of the most well-known stories of the gospel--  we famously call it “the good Samaritan.”   Hospitals and Inns and churches all around the world have been proud to be named after this anonymous man.  Jesus is posed a hypothetical question by a lawyer or a expert of the law, “who is my neighbor?”  in response to Jesus’ statement, ”love your neighbor as yourself.”  Jesus describes a man, supposedly a regular Jew,  taking an ordinary trip to Jericho, but falls in to a gang of robbers who beats him into an inch of his life.  

A priest and a Levite, see him and following religious law that presume he is dead or defiled, pass on the other side. Or, perhaps, the robbers are still lurking by waiting for another victim. Best to hurry on. They care more for their religious purity and safety than for the injured man.  It is a Samaritan man, a foreigner who is despised and looked down upon by Jews who takes the time, with no regard to his own being, to come near. The Samaritan when he saw the man is filled with pity, or compassion.  The vast occurrences of the word “compassion” in the gospels are connected to Jesus or his teachings, like here to illustrate the actions of a compassionate person.

Now this is what a compassionate person does.  He goes to the wounded person.  He bandages his wounds, first pouring oil and wine to disinfect them. He places the injured man on his own animal, meaning that he will walk the rest of the distance to Jericho.  He takes him to an Inn to care for him.  Before he leaves, he gives the innkeeper two denarii, two days’ wage and says, “take care of him, and when I come back I will repay you whatever you spend.”    Imagine that.  We don’t even know if these two have talked. If the Samaritan doesn’t even know the injured man’s name.  Yet the Samaritan assumes responsibility to make him well.  The lawyer concedes the Samaritan acted as a neighbor to the injured man because he showed mercy—a Godly strait. 

          It is easy to be good, to be a Christian, to be a neighbor, to celebrate Thanksgiving, when times are going well, we are surrounded by friends and the future is bright and the sun is figuratively shining. How do we celebrate Thanksgiving with a refugee sting of Paris and Beirut still near, the refugee crisis growing deeper, ISIL becoming more belligerent and our response to a hurting world is increasingly to walk to the other side.  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?  Whatever it takes?  Who will show mercy?   Who is willing to celebrate true Thanksgiving – because this is what we were shown.

          Who among us hasn’t been beaten or violated or hurt in body, mind or spirit?  Has anyone here been thrown aside on the road?  Left to die – oh, maybe not physically but emotionally, mentally or spiritually?  Who here has felt the sting of being ignored by the powers that be – as they crossed over to the other side of the street , so that they didn’t have walk near your kind, catch your cooties?  

          The truth is, we’ve all been dealt a blow and if someone had not shown us compassion we wouldn’t be where we are today.  Someone Poured on us the wine of compassion and mercy, someone did not look away.  Someone paid attention. Someone carried us when we were too weak to walk. Someone bandaged our wounds.  Someone got us help, and fronted the money, and said do whatever it takes.  That kind of compassion and caring is basic – Jesus.  If we didn’t get it from a friend, a loved one a family member, from a stranger, than we got it from Jesus, somewhere, somehow, because we are here today. Maybe, maybe, we are here, to get it today, because  we are worth it, and it is our duty, to get out there, and turn Thanksgiving around. 

          In the midst of the adversity and danger of ISIL we still must help the refugees. We must.  It is our Christian calling.  The good Samaritan stopped when the Priest and Levite wouldn’t in spite of fear. He didn’t cross over to the other side. 
          We must turn Thanksgiving around.  Yet all Thanksgivings historically were called after and in times of trial and tribulation, not gloating and prosperity.  I’m not saying we shouldn’t give thanks for good times.  However, we as a nation are getting used to our good times without taking a compassionate view of the larger picture. We are members of a larger family—many of whom are suffering this week – without food or shelter.  Is there nothing for them?  We must have a heart like 7 year old Jack Swanson in Texas who gave his piggy bank to a mosque that was vandalized recently.  Or like Toronto newlyweds Samantha Jackson and Farzin Yousefian, who donated their reception money to resettle Syrian refugees. Or like Highland Presbyterian Church in Kentucky, with the assistance of Kentucky Refugee Ministries, who opened their doors last August to a Syrian family who were homeless and fleeing for two years.
Remember the compassion that someone, that Jesus has had for us. Let it break open our hearts so that we can see.  So we stop.

I challenge our congregation to stop and see the wounded laying at the roadside. And not cross over.
I challenge our congregation to have compassion.

I challenge our congregation to bind up the wounds, to pour out the wine and oil of care and concern.

I challenge our congregation to pick up the wounded refugee and get the m to safety.
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I challenge our congregation to get the wounded refugee to a safe place, to help pay the price, to join with other agencies, to settle the cost.  To make a difference. Yes. I challenge us. Because Jesus says Love our neighbor.  Jesus says, show mercy.   In a world that is filling up with fear and bravado, we must show what Thanks-giving is truly about.

Mercy.  Compassion and love.  All  about what Jesus taught us.

 Remember as Jesus said, Go, and do the same.

          That’s how we turn Thanksgiving around.
Go, and do the same.  

If we do this,  we will never again be the same.
 Amen.



http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3223683/Amid-tears-tragedy-British-Good-Samaritan-IAN-BIRRELL.html
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/11/19/house-passes-bill-bar-syrian-refugees-us-without-more-vetting/76041668/
http://www.history.com/topics/thanksgiving/history-of-thanksgiving

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"Present in Prayer" November 15, 2015

11/19/2015

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1 Samuel 1:4-20;
​Mark 13:1-8
 
Perhaps the Pope said it best - what was on everyone’s mind—after the terrorist attack Friday night in Paris left 128 dead and 352 wounded. After a Beirut suicide bombing left 43 dead. This coming just two weeks after a terrorist bomb brought down a Russian airplane, killing 224 civilians – all alleged traced back to the same group --  The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIS for short.  Pope Francis declared: "This is a piece [of the Third World War being fought at piecemeal, for which there is no human or religious justification.

In today’s gospel’s readings, the disciples are admiring and gawking at  one of the greatest wonders of the ancient world, Herod’s remodeling of the Jewish Temple,  which went on for 46 years. The largest measuring stones were 44.6 feet by 11 feet and weighing 628 tons, while most were in the range of 2.5 by 3.5 by 15 feet, all handled by duly qualified priests.  It was huge and magnificent.   Yet, as Jesus predicted, the Romans would reduce it to rumble during the rebellion in 70 AD in state-sponsored terrorism.  

What took painstaking years to build could be demolished in a matter of months.
This Gospel reading is famously known as the “little apocalypse” – the problem is, the disciples ask for specifics, Jesus when is this going to happen, and Jesus seems to give vague responses that could and do fit every age and era:  “”when you hear of wars and rumors of wars.. nations shall rise up against nations, kingdom against kingdom, earthquakes and famines..this is just the beginning of the birthpangs.” 

The apocalypse  has been a mega business,  and many a preacher, even today, has built a fear-based career promoting  preparedness for the end times, which seem to be happening at every time.  Even now, someone is preaching, about getting ready, the end is near.


In our Hebrew Lesson reading, we hear of a building project, birthpangs,  of a different sort. 
Hannah, the wife of Elkanah, has been barren for years. She prayed a mountain of prayers, begging for a child.  Her co-wife, Peninnah, severely abuses her and mocks her for her barrenness and for the attention that Elkanah still gives her. Peninnah is jealous that Elkannah still loves the barren Hannah, gives her a double portion despite the fact she has produced no offspring.  Peninnah  and Hannah were not happy sister-wives that we typically see on reality TV.

Hannah’s desire for a child is as great and deep and pervasive as Herod’s for a new Temple.  Where Herod has the money, power and political savvy to get what he wants, well, Hannah, as a barren woman can only rely on herself, the wily  advice of the wise women around her, good relationships with her husband, and most of all turning to God. 

Now once more Hannah finds herself at the shrine at Shiloh.  She ate and drank, she got up and presented herself.   How many times had she stood before the Lord and failed?  How many years had she prayed for a child and come away empty handed?  Yet once more, she got up, and she presented herself in prayer.  This was not easy. 

The text says, she was deeply distressed.  Depressed. Crushed in soul. Filled with bitterness and shame borne of the taint of a being a barren woman in a patriarchal culture.  Yet still she presented herself to God once more, distressed, weeping, she made a vow:  that if God would grant her a male child she would raise him a nazirite, one consecrated to the Lord as a priest.  Hannah prays so intensely that Eli the Priest thinks that she is drunk. 

Only twice in the Bible are so intensely praying that people mistake them as drunk: the disciples at Pentecost, and Hannah, here, at the shrine at Shiloh.  Hannah explains that, no she is not drunk, she is pouring her soul out to the Lord, speaking out of her great anxiety and vexation. She is in total prayer.  Hannah is praying for a child. She’s praying from the very depths of her longing. Standing there only steps away from the Ark of the Covenant.

 No, she was pouring out her very being. Her heart. She was communicating to a God she knew and loved, yet was angry and impatient at and felt overlooked Don’t forget me God she said. And, she was bearing a heavy burden, and she was unloading that burden on her Lord.
And, you know what? When you communicate with someone that you know and love, you do so with exuberance and passion.  With anger and rage. With tears of joy and tears of loss.   

So Hannah left after Eli’s blessing and returned to her husband, and was sad, no longer. 
The couple returned home to Ramah and as the text says, Elkanah knew his wife Hannah, and the Lord remembered Hannah.  Hannah conceived and bore a son and she named him Samuel – I have asked him of the Lord. 

Samuel would go on to be one of the first great prophets of Israel.    Hannah’s prayer changed the course of  a nation.  Not bad for a women mistaken as drunk.    

What an odd juxtaposition of texts we have.  We have disciples who take Jesus aside, eager to know when the end is going to happen.  I’m sure there are sermons somewhere in this world who are pointing to the tragedy in Paris, the refugee crisis in Syria, the bombing in Baghdad and Beirut and shouting to their congregation, the “end is near.”  We have a world hurling itself toward destruction. 

Cold-hearted people killing innocent civilians, taking advantage of terrorized, war-torn victims, stealing what little they have, trafficking their young if that’s all they have left.   At the other end we have the institutionalized  violence of income inequality, racism and other forms of violence that make peaceful and just change difficult, even as college students are attempting to organize across the nation.  

Is the “end near?”  Yet – on the other hand, we   are presented with Hannah, the prayer, who presents herself, year after year, frustrated, bitter, depressed, yet determined not to give up.  She goes to the shrine, she does all the things, and tricks barren women are supposed to do to become pregnant.

She prays constantly.   She prays and prepares.  That’s the same attitude Jesus wanted in his disciples.  He didn’t really give them or us a date.  The world has always been filled with the birthpangs of the end times. Our task is to present ourselves in prayer, with the same longing, with same preparededness and demands as Hannah.

Like Hannah, like the apostles, we like in a world that’s missing something. It’s broken.   We’ve grown up with wars and rumors of wars so long it’s old news.  We wonder were the next bombing will be – the next mass shooting – heaven forbid – Like Hannah, it takes it out of you. The stress of it all.  But our faith calls us to live into these times and bring life into them.  So we must pray, in the face of it all. We must pour out our soul. We must pray like we are drunk.

“Prayer,” says Presbyterian author Anne Lamott, “is taking a chance that against all odds and past history, we are loved and chosen, and do not have to get it together before we show up. In fact The opposite may be true.   God loves us where we are and loves us into who we are.    Anne Lamott has written in her no nonsense way that there are only two essential prayers. She says they are “Help me, help me, help me,” and “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

Lamott has added a third essential prayer discovered since becoming a grandmother. The third essential prayer of the Christian life, she says along with “Help and Thanks, is Wow!”  It may all sound trite, but Lamott packs a lot of theology in a few words. Read her books.   You’ll not only learn a lot about spirituality and life, but you’ll laugh a lot in the process.  Not a bad combination.

Hannah’s determined prayer to God to remember her and her request changed a course of a nation. Samuel became the priest-prophet that anointed Saul then David.  Today, as we grieve, as we rage, as we are bone weary from the violence in our world, but maybe we need to learn from faithful Hannah.  To go to God, with all our emotions.  The bitterness. Rage. Weeping. Sorrow. Pouring out our soul. The Vexation and anxiety.  Hannah never let go of her dream, and never let God forget it either. 

In all the weariness, misery and doubt we sometimes feel, may we remember Hannah, who still rose up once more and presented herself in prayer before the Lord.  At the heart of all our prayers should be the one simple prayer, “Remember us,” “ and do not forget us.”

Perhaps we are at the heart of it, the need we all have, to know that we will not be forgotten, that somehow we are not alone in this life that our deepest hopes for peace, justice and greatest needs are heard.  Our passion for justice, righteousness, truth, peace, honesty can leave us barren people like Hannah. So she is our model for prayer and action.   We must pray with our entire being, and we must decide to act as the Holy Spirit guides us. We must not be afraid to pray, even in our anger in tears.

​So pray like our  life depends on it. Pray as if someone is there on the other end of the line. Pray like we expect something to happen. Pray like a fool, like Hannah prayed and count on God’s promise. God will remember, God will not forget.  Pray, because our world depends on it. Amen.

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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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