Easter 5, C
Revelation 21:1-6, John 13, 31-35

In her memoir Out Of Africa, author Isak Dinesen tells the story of a young man named Kitau. He comes to her door one day and asks for a job working as a domestic servant. She hires him and things seem to be going along well enough. About 3 months in, the young man comes and asks her for a reference to work elsewhere. He is applying for a job with Sheik Ali bin Salim. He has worked well. She offers to raise his pay. He explains that money is not the issue. He explains that he decided some time ago that he wanted to become a Christian or a Muslim, but had not decided which. So he took the job with her. Now he had seen the ways of Christian life. He wanted to change jobs because it was time to explore how Muslims lived. The author remembers wishing he had told her that BEFORE he took the job.

How very awkward to suddenly discover that you have unknowingly been appointed representative for all of Christianity, the model upon which it will be rejected or accepted. Kitau knew what Jesus made clear – what we sometimes forget. Our faith may be formulated in the creeds, the scripture, the liturgy. These things give our faith structure and form. But our faith, based in God’s love is made manifest not through creeds or statements, but through God’s own creation, through us. Not the cleaned up, heading for bible study, Sunday morning us, but the everyday sitting in sweats, scratching what itches, unedited, uncensored version of us. That is Christianity.

“By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another”

This conversation between Jesus and the disciples takes place after they broke bread together, after he had washed their feet, after “he had gone out”. By “he” here, we mean Judas. He has gone out to betray Jesus. It is the beginning of the end and time is short. Gone is the time for parables and preaching, explanation and exhortation. There is time left only for a commandment, tenderly delivered. Little children, I am with you only a little longer…I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. One theologian notes “[This] new command is simple enough for a toddler to memorize and appreciate, and it is profound enough that the most mature believers are repeatedly embarrassed at how poorly they comprehend it and put it into practice.” (D.A. Carson, The Gospel According to John)

Church father Jerome tells a story of John the evangelist, author of the book of Revelations and the Gospel of John. Christian tradition says that he lived to a very old age, and remained in active ministry, preaching at Ephesus into his nineties. As he aged, his preaching became more succinct and to the point. As he became more frail, eventually he was simply carried in on a stretcher to preach his sermon. “Children, love one another,” he would say, and then he would be carried out again. The next week up he came again on his stretcher, preached his 4 words, “Children, love one another.” and back out again. According to Jerome, this happened every week for weeks and weeks.

Finally, the congregation, wearying of the repetition, asked him about it. “Master, why do you always say this? “Because,” John replied, “it is the Lord’s command, and if this only is done, it is enough.”

Some piece of us argues. How can it possibly be enough? Radicalized young men cause death and mayhem at the Boston Marathon, Americans continue to fight and kill and die far from home, thousands die in Syrian civil war, millions of dollars are spent in the argument over who should be allowed to own and discharge what weapons, and still we can’t agree that everyone deserves food, water, education and a safe place to be. How can it be enough?

The girls had a chance to play with their cousin this weekend. Happy noises at one point degenerated to screeching, accusations and frustration. By the time the scene included throwing things, my youngest and her 5 year old cousin were separated. In the ensuing conversation, I asked my daughter what happened.

“She wouldn’t share, so I tried to trade.”
What happened?
“She got mad.”
Then what?
“I got mad.”
Then what?
“She got more mad.”
So, she got mad cause you got mad, cause she got mad? What do we do about that?
“Maybe I should get ‘not mad’.” Hmmmm

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

“If this only is done, it is enough.”

It is in the doing that we struggle. How do we love the bombers, the radicals, the unclean, the violent, the “thems”, the “theys”, the “others”? It’s hard enough some days to be tolerably civil to the merely annoying, how do we manage the rest?

When we do a puzzle, or build a model, we follow the picture on the box. Jesus lived a radical, transformative love. He is the picture on our box. “Just as I have loved you, love one another” We are not called to feel love. It’s a spectacular, and actually fairly likely bonus, but we are not called to feel love. Jesus calls us to live the love that transforms the world. Live it knowing that the home of God is among us mortals; God is with us and in us. Live it as if Kitau were right there watching our every move. Live it so that the Kitaus, and the “theys”, the “thems” and the “others” in our lives might someday exclaim with the Reverend Thomas Troeger,

“Unbidden came Gods love,
not rushing from the skies
as angel, flame or dove
but shining through your eyes”

John 10:22-30

Once again this week the country has been shocked by the violence of the Marathon bombings. I’m sorry to say that when I first heard about it my second thought was, “Oh no, here we go again!” I was so afraid we would respond the same way we did after 9/11. By mid-week, I was somewhat reassured because several people, those in Boston and those in Washington had proclaimed that we would go on as before and would not further curtail our open society because of this bombing. I wonder. . .

Let me explain a bit. After 9/11 there seemed to be an aura of fear everywhere. That atmosphere of fear allowed the congress to pass the Patriot Act and the president to authorize the use of torture, something I never thought our country would do. It also created Homeland Security, which might be a good thing, in that the various agencies have to cooperate, but it also created another layer of bureaucracy that will probably never be dismantled in the future.

Remember that huge truck that used to sit outside the jail labeled, City of International Falls Mobile Command Center? “Free” money from Homeland Security – but I never saw it that I didn’t wonder why we couldn’t have had that money for our schools. And where is it now?

One of the things I figured out, somewhere in mid-life, is that there is no such thing as security in this life. Not really and not for certain, no matter what we do to try to stay safe. But the attitudes of our leaders and the 24 hour news cycle after 9/11 made us scramble for safety. And I believe they spent millions of dollars to create the illusion of safety.

I know that many of you remember WWII. Do you remember the Blitz? After 9/11 I said that I was disappointed that we did not respond more like the English reacted to the Blitz. I was with six other educated women, although younger than I by one to three decades. Not one of them actually understood my comment.

So let me explain this too. The Blitz was the sustained Nazi bombing of England, especially London. The purpose was to interrupt production of war materials but mostly was to defeat them by ruining the morale of the populace. Starting in early September of 1940, London had 57 consecutive nights of air raids. This bombing destroyed over a million homes in England; it killed 90,000 civilians, over 20,000 in London alone.

Imagine living there: you come home from work and have supper with your family (your children may or may not have been evacuated to the countryside), then went to bed around ten. The air raid sirens would go off an hour or two later. You’d get up, throw on something over your night clothes, run to the shelter, most likely part of the tube system, where you would try to find a place to get some sleep while the bombs rained down. When the all-clear sounded you went back up to street level and walked home –around fires, rubble in the streets, bodies, – maybe to find everything OK, maybe to find you’d lost everything.

When I lived in England in the early 90’s I had a friend and neighbor, probably in her early 70’s then, who had lived in London all during the Blitz and worked at some government agency. She and her mother were bombed out twice. When I asked her what they did then, she replied, “Well, we borrowed some clothes and went to work!” This said in the most mundane way.

During the time I lived in England there were frequent bombings in London like the Marathon bombing this week. Many times when I was in the city, the tube system would be halted for some period of time, or I’d hear lots of sirens converging on some spot a few blocks away. The IRA were bombing public transport and pubs.

One morning at work, we heard there had been a bombing in Victoria Station in London and when the rail lines where locked down, lots of our people could not get to work. That night I wanted to hear the news because no one seemed to know if this was another IRA bombing or some other group was involved.

I lost track of the time and turned on the telly at five after 10 PM. I listened to 25 minutes of news and not a word about the bombing at Victoria Station that morning. I was astonished! But that’s the English for you. They covered it in the first 5 minutes and then went on to the other news of the day. I never saw an interview with anyone who was in Victoria station that day!

And the following morning everyone went to work as usual, including those who had to go through Victoria Station. I was pretty much in awe of the English public for their refusal to run scared in the face of terrorist threats. Now in their case I doubt that this courage came from their religious views, but more likely from their native toughness.

We, as practicing Christians, should be capable of this same kind of toughness because we have reason for it. We must ask ourselves, do we expect our government to keep us safe? Are we willing to give up our open society and turn it into an armed fortress in order to stay safe?

I say that there is no such thing as security or safety in this life on earth, and to destroy the life we’ve had in the U.S. to try to attain it is foolishness. Even if the government could prevent attacks, like 9/11 or the Marathon bombings, and I’m sure they have prevented some, they can’t prevent tornados, floods, and hurricanes. They can’t prevent cancer, heart attacks, or strokes. They can’t prevent birth defects, miscarriages or death.

Over and over again Jesus tells us not to be afraid. Why? One of the answers is in our text today. “My sheep hear my voice. I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand.” No one!

Can we trust this? Do we have faith in what Jesus promises? What kind of life do we want to live: Do we want to live in fear – building walls to hide behind, circling the wagons to keep US safe from THEM? Or do we want to live as though God’s Kingdom is here now, going about our own business and also God’s business as usual, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, caring for the poor, etc.

Remember the picture from Revelation today – the multitudes from every nation, dressed in white robes, who have come out of the great ordeal? In my mind the great ordeal is this life itself, the life we are given to live on earth. However we choose to live it, it will at many times be an ordeal, but if we live it well in spite of that, it will also be a blessing to many, and we will leave the world a little bit better than we found it. AMEN

Easter 3

Acts 9:1-20, Revelations 5: 11-14, John 21:1-19

“Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, singing, “To the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!” And the four living creatures said, “Amen!” And the elders fell down and worshiped.”

Thus John of Patmos describes the wonder, the glory, the extraordinary mystery that is the risen Christ. A mind shattering, life altering revelation to which, having experienced the risen Christ personally, in close physical contact, Peter, the rock upon which the church would be built responded “I’m going fishing.”

Not catching anything, are you? Try the other side.

Saul had an up close and personal experience with the resurrected Christ. He was going about his daily life. His daily life happened to consist primarily of tracking down and imprisoning the followers of The Way. Well respected, and likely well compensated for following his passion for maintaining the purity of his own faith, everything turned upside down on the road to Damascus. A flash of light and a voice, and he abandoned his faith as he knew it, his social position, everything which had defined him to that point, and turned to follow the light that was Jesus.

From the wondrous to the dramatic to the absolutely ordinary, Jesus is there. It’s the ordinary in this lesson that intrigues me. The commentaries suggest that this chapter of John was not written by the same hand that wrote the rest of the gospel. After all, the story already ended once. At the end of chapter 20 John says, “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.” The End. Done. “You may have life in his name”. A marvelous ending. The commentaries say that this odd after thought of a chapter was added later, and must have been added to fill some kind of need of the nascent Christian community that it served.

I think maybe it was added to fill our need as well. The need of the many who believe, but are waiting. We celebrate Christ’s birth. We wait and we search through the long days of Lent. We marvel at the empty tomb, and feel that there is meaning to be gleaned, and we wait for the big reveal. We wait for the meaning. We wait for the flashing light and the divine voice on our own personal road to Damascus. We wait with great anticipation for the choirs of angels surrounding the throne and the myriads and myriads and thousands and thousands singing in full voice. Then we will know. Then we will understand. Then, surely, we will raise our voices and sing with them and cry “AMEN”.

In the meantime….In the meantime.

What do we do until Christ comes for us? What would anybody do? What did the disciples do? We do our work. We go fishing. We do the safe, the familiar, and yes, the productive, necessary work of living. Of getting from this day to the next day on this earth. We cast our nets into the waters of commerce, competition, nationalism, wealth accumulation or preservation, security, and social place. Like Peter and the rest, we don’t always recognize Jesus when he gently calls to us in these ordinary places we live – You aren’t catching anything there, are you, my children? Try a different way. Cast your net into different waters. There is life abundant. I have sustenance for you.

Because most of haven’t seen the choirs of angels, most of us haven’t haven’t seen the blinding light and heard the voice of Jesus talking to us (and frankly would be afraid to admit it if we had), we find ourselves still waiting. This marvelous John post script lets us know – the waiting is over. Easter has come. The tomb is empty. Christ is risen. Christ is here. Christ is here in the work that we do and the fellowship we share, in the food we eat, in our breathing in and breathing out, in the sunsets and sunrises, in the lengthening days, and yes, yes believe it or not, even in the snowfall that sustains the life of our marvelous summers.

Jesus meets us where we live. That is the beginning of the story, not the end.

“Do you love me?” A great deal of commentary ink is spilled on this conversation. 3 times Jesus asks, and three times Peter answers, if a little testily by the last time through. Some say that he had to answer 3 times to erase the three denials he uttered in the not so distance past. Maybe. Certainly it has a symmetry to it, but that doesn’t somehow make it any more true.

I’m told that the Inuit people have more than 50 words for snow. (Sorry about the snow theme. For some reason it’s stuck in my head…) We don’t have so many words for it – we translate them all the Inuit words for it into the word “snow” (or this time of year perhaps into different four letter words that I won’t elaborate on in church) The Greeks had 3 words for love – agape, philia, and eros. Agape is divine love; unconditional, active, thoughtful, volitional and self-sacrificing. Philia is an affectionate, brotherly love. Something we feel, but don’t necessarily choose. It can connote a very strong non-sexual bond. Finally there is eros – don’t know that I need to elaborate on that one so much – we have a number of words that derive from that. We translate all these words into the word “love” Once you know that, this part of the story gets less repetitive and more interesting.

“Do you love [agape] me?” Do you love me with deliberate, self-sacrificing, chosen love?
“Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” (philia). I love you like a brother.

Let’s try it again. I’m asking something more. “Do you love (agape) me more than these?”
“Yes, Lord; you know that I love [philia] you.”

Ok, I’ll meet you where you are.
“Simon son of John, do you love [philia] me?”
And he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love [philia] you.”

Jesus met him where he was. And gave him work to do.

Jesus meets us where we are. In our work, in our homes, in our lives, in our spiritual journeys. “Tend my sheep.”

He does not ask us to wait for the promised land. “Follow me” Follow me now.

He does not ask us to wait for the road to Damascus. “Feed my lambs.”

All God’s creation needs to know his love, his justice, his compassion. We are sometimes tempted to believe, since we have not been blinded by the light on the road to Damascus that this is not our work. 18th century poet Hannah More said, “We are apt to mistake our vocation by looking out of the way for occasions to exercise great and rare virtues, and by stepping over the ordinary ones that lie directly in the road before us.”

Not finding your individual spiritual catch? Try breaking out of the old familiar and fishing on the other side of the boat. There is life abundant.

May all that is unlived within us blossom into a future graced with love. Amen.(John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us)

EASTER 2

John 20:19-31

I do not doubt that Doubting Thomas has gotten a bad rap over the years. So often this lesson has been used to cast him as the bad guy, the guy of little faith, the guy we should NOT be like.

Au contraire! I say bravo to Thomas. For one thing, he is only asking to have what the other disciples have been given – a chance to see the risen Jesus. Yes, it’s true that Jesus says, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

But notice also that he does not in any way curse those who have to see for themselves. He does not scold Thomas, but instead shows him his wounds and encourages him to satisfy his own doubt.

Before going further, let’s define some terms. In our current culture, belief is assent to one or more statements; I believe in God, or I believe Jesus was the son of God or Jesus is Lord, etc. Belief implies the absence of doubt; disbelief is the opposite of belief. In other words, disbelief is assent to the statement, “I do not believe in God.” Doubt is not being sure one way or the other.

In its Latin roots, ‘I believe’ means I give my heart to. This can be true in spite of doubts because it expresses a willingness to take a leap of faith. It expresses a relationship between the believer and the thing believed in.

Because of the current understanding of ‘I believe,’ it makes more sense for us to talk about faith instead of belief. Faith is more like the old understanding of belief.

Faith is about loyalty and trust. A person of faith is loyal to God, to the teachings of Jesus. Faith, unlike belief, does NOT assume the absence of doubt. Faith suggests loyalty in spite of any doubts that may arise.

In fact, I’ve become convinced that faith without doubt, or without some prior struggle with doubt, is probably not very sturdy. That’s because I found for myself that the struggle with my doubts is what led the way to faith. I think my faith is stronger because of my doubts.

As Fredrick Beuchner says in Wishful Thinking:

“Whether your faith is that there is a God or that there is not a God, if you don’t have any doubts you are either kidding yourself or asleep. Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith. They keep it awake and moving.”

It also seems to me that faith and doubt are like yin and yang, like light and dark, like joy and sorrow. They are opposite sides of the same coin, so that the meaning of each one is partly defined by the other. Without sorrow, how can we know joy? Can anyone who lives in a sunny climate love the warmth and sun of summer as much as we do, who know winter so well?

Do you remember just recently there was an ossuary box found that seemed to have the name Jesus on it? There was quite an uproar about it because if you “believe” in the bodily resurrection, then the tomb was indeed empty and there would be no bones belonging to Jesus to be found. People were claiming that if this box were proven authentic, it would undermine the whole Christian church.

I was astonished! How could one discovery of a new fact topple the whole church? Then I realized that this was the reason I had trouble discussing biblical matters with fundamentalist friends. If I claimed a fact that was not part of their Belief system, they got angry, because it was a threat to their belief in every thing else. I’ve also heard televangelists say that some one piece of information would cause their whole system to crumble.

Not so, if you are a person of faith. What if we found out that Jesus was married? Would that change what he did or what he taught? Not to my mind. If we found out that he did not bodily rise from the grave, would we no longer believe he is with God? Would we no longer believe in resurrection? Would that mean we no longer believe he appeared to the disciples? Of course not.

In any group of 15 adults, I’d bet there are at least two, and maybe more who have experienced the presence of someone dear to them after that person has died. This is not an unusual experience! And it has nothing to do with what has or has not happened to that person’s body.

As Episcopalians, we consider the scriptures to be authoritative, but we also use tradition and reason as our authorities, not scripture alone. We are free to study, question, and try to understand the scripture, using all the techniques available to us from the work of centuries of scholars. We have faith that when we do this the Holy Spirit is in our midst.

According to Urban Holmes inWhat is Anglicanism, reason refers to the power of the human mind to discern truth. He says: “This commitment to reason is perhaps most evident in our attitude toward the ‘free market place of ideas.’ Tests of orthodoxy, heresy trial, censorship of thought and such, are generally alien to the Anglican ethos. Our belief is that a sincere pursuit of truth, done collaboratively, ultimately opens us to the mind of God.”

In the Episcopal Church this pursuit of truth, done collaboratively, goes on in many places: in our local congregations, on our diocesan conventions, in our selection process for clergy and in General Convention. Ask anyone who has attended General Convention if they felt the presence of the Holy Spirit in their deliberations. They may tell you about it for much longer than you want to listen!

Jesus meets Thomas’s doubt with a kind willingness to engage his doubt, to give him a chance to see for himself, to work it out for himself. If Jesus welcomes doubters, who are we to turn them away?

This is why I trust so strongly in open communion. For me real faith came through the practice of a worshipping life. To exclude people who are doubting but still searching seems a cruelty to me. Why not instead welcome them in to a life lived in a worshipping community. Invite them to be one of us, bringing their doubts and their sins with them just as we do – every Sunday. AMEN

Easter Sunday, Year C

Isaiah 65: 17-25, John 20:1-18

(The Sunday school kids processed to the front with the Gospel procession, and were at the altar with the preacher nowhere in sight)

Preacher (from out of sight): Alleluia, Christ is risen!
Kids (and congregation): The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia! (Repeated as preacher came forward from the back)

Kid’s sermon: an interactive discussion on surprise, and the Gospel story.

Whatever the kids have to say, surprise leaves us a little bit ambivalent, doesn’t it? Wonderful as it is to have the kids involved, wasn’t it just the littlest bit uncomfortable when the kids came up, or more to the point when the familiar landmarks were missing? Everything was proceeding as normal today, a little more festive perhaps, but the basics were stable: a song, a prayer or two, a lesson or two, the Gospel, then the sermon. But wait. We sit down when the preacher starts looking like some preaching might happen, but nobody is up there looking preachy, but the kids are but….ach! It’s so much easier if we know what to do and what the responses are and what happens next.

Mary certainly didn’t like her initial surprise that first Easter dawn. Lost, grieving, empty with the loss of her friend, her teacher, she went to the tomb to render to him the only service left in her power, to dress and prepare his body. Things are not as expected. She does what anybody would – she runs to tell somebody else.

The beloved disciple and Peter come to confirm her story – grave robbers are the primary suspect at that point. Next surprise – not only is the tomb empty, but the burial linens are neatly arranged. Grave robbers do not, in general, tidy up behind themselves. This is not life as they understand it. It is not life and death. It is something…other. Scripture tells us that the beloved disciple believes, but he does not understand what it is that he believes. So naturally, they go home. Absolutely classic reaction to surprise – go home and ignore it as best you can. If you surround yourself with familiarity, maybe when you look around again all will be as it was before.

Still grieving over her loss, and over what “they” have done in stealing the body of her friend, Mary stays and searches for answers, apparently too blinded by her sadness to notice that she’s talking to angels in an otherwise empty tomb. She reaches out to the gardener, only to face another surprise, this time a happy one. “Mary” He says. And with that the flash of recognition, the joy of reunion and the next classic reaction to surprise – cling to what you know. But Jesus doesn’t work that way. He didn’t in life and he doesn’t after death. Jesus turns the world upside down and ushers in a new way. He would not let her cling to the old way.

Today is Easter – our Holiest day. It is a day of surprise and wonder. The tomb is empty. Jesus is risen. What does that mean to us? Now.

Jesus came into the world of the disciples as a baby, lived a human life, died a human death at the hands of all too human power seekers whom he dared to challenge. In the Resurrection, His divinity is revealed and new life was ushered in. From our early days, we have heard of the divinity of Christ. Christianity is culturally a dominant force in our society. We know the words to say and when to sit and when to stand. For us, the challenge becomes to remember the intimacy and the immediate reality of the Divine.

He called her by name. “Rabbouni!” Mary answers. It means teacher, but scholars are divided about the significance of the word Rabbouni versus Rabbi. It may be aramaic or a Galilean dialect. Some say it is a form which means “Rabbi of God”, emphasizing Jesus’s divinity. Some scholars suggest that “rabbouni” actually represents an endearment, “my own dear teacher”. (Source information: Rev. Kristi Denham) I don’t pretend to know the answer, but the latter is what makes sense to me. Mary is bereft and bereaved. You can practically feel her joy leaping from the page as she cries “Rabbouni!” She does not yet understand Jesus’s new life or her own, but she knows Jesus. Jesus’s words join human life and God’s own still further, “go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.”

He calls us all by name. He has a job for us to do. He promises new life. I believe there will be a life in Heaven some day, but we can’t sit around waiting for that day. The tomb is empty now. He is risen today. We begin that new life here. Now. Today. And again tomorrow. And again the next day.

John McQuiston said, “I have been brought to this morning by a process that began billions of years ago; I am an amalgamation of stardust that has miraculously been made aware; I am cradled in the hands of God; I am part of the living, conscious expression of the Infinite.”

We live the surprise of God among us, God within us daily. It can be disconcerting. It can be uncomfortable. We can run away from its challenge, back to the familiar, waiting to see how things will develop. We can cling to the stuff we know. Or we can further God’s Kingdom on earth in our words and most particularly in our actions proclaiming with Mary, “I have seen the Lord.”, and rejoicing with Isaiah in the creation of a new heaven, and a new earth.

To quote Barbara Brown Taylor, “In the end, that is the only evidence we have to offer those who ask us how we can possibly believe. Because we live, that is why. Because we have found, to our surprise, that we are not alone. Because we never know where he will turn up next. Here is one thing that helps: never get so focused on the empty tomb that you forget to speak to the gardener.”

Alleluia, Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen, indeed, Alleluia! Amen!

MAUNDY THURSDAY

[The unifying
concepts in this sermon came from the commentary in Feasting on the Word
by Christine Chakoian, Pastor of First Presbyterian Church, Lake Forest, Il]

Is it the incredible speed of change in our age, or the pace of our busyness, or the huge amounts of data available to us now that has made our age so prone to forgetting? Of course, for many of us, our own age makes us prone to that too. In an age when Harvard no longer requires students to take Western Civilization, we seem to have even forgotten why it’s so important to study history.

Tonight, in the midst of this quiet service, we are called to remember who we are and to whom we belong. Each of the readings reminds us of things we can so easily forget or take for granted.

In the first lesson we hear the instructions God gave the Hebrews who were held as slaves in the land of Egypt. They must kill, roast, and eat a lamb, not as a sacrifice to God but to give them sustenance for their coming journey out of slavery to freedom. The blood of the lamb is smeared on their door frames so that the spirit of God will pass over them, sparing them from the death of all first-borns that will descend on the Egyptians.

They are to eat standing up, already dressed and ready to leave, so that when the time came they could hit the road at once. And they are instructed to make this day a day of remembrance, throughout all generations.

To this day, the Festival of Passover is celebrated in Jewish homes and synagogues. The meal is set and all the dishes have symbolic meaning. An extra chair is set at the table and the door is left open for Elijah, should he choose to appear. The youngest child asks a particular set of questions, starting with, “Why is this night different from all other nights?”

The head of the family answers the questions. Thus every generation is trained in the same history of their people. We do not celebrate Passover, as such, but this is our history too, and it is history that we must remember. It is no accident that Easter and Passover happen at the same time of year.

The Synoptic Gospels place the events of this night on the very same night as the Passover. Jesus gathers with his disciples to celebrate the Jewish remembrance of their Exodus from slavery. It is at this dinner that two significant events occur. Jesus institutes Holy Communion and Jesus washes the feet of his disciples.

We hear tonight about the institution of Communion from Paul, who was writing to the Corinthians, in part to remind them of the origin of that practice. They had forgotten, and forgotten badly. Like us, they lived in a time of rapid change and in a place that was a hub of commerce with people arriving from all over the world and bringing their religious practices with them.

The Corinthians forgot that their own private spiritual experience is not the point of faith; they forgot that we do not create our own personalized amalgam of religious practices. As a result of this forgetting, they had corrupted the practice of communion by bringing their own food; the wealthy brought lots and the poor went without. The food was not shared communally.

One of the ways Paul deals with this is to remind them: to call back to their memory the event that created the practice in order to show them how clearly they had gone astray. As in the Exodus meal of lamb, the communion meal of bread and wine is a communal event. Even Judas participated in it. Jesus did not exclude the traitor. We need to remember.

We hear from John the story of Jesus washing the disciples feet. When he is done, he asks them, “Do you know what I have done to you?” No one speaks. Jesus says he has set them an example, and they should do as he has done, to be willing to wash each other’s feet. As usual, Jesus is counter-cultural. No one but a slave would normally wash someone’s feet, but if Jesus was willing to, why not his followers?

Then he gives them a new commandment. “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples. . .” This makes it so clear that the foot washing is the embodiment of this love, the sign of his care for them, his willingness to lower himself to serve them.

We must remember this. If you are like me, it’s easy to forget what it means to love others and to serve others. Oh I’m willing to serve, but I want to pick the people, or I want to only serve those who will serve me back, or those who will be impressed or who will praise me. I know that’s only a form of self-worship and God is long forgotten, but it’s easy to forget and slide back into it.

Instead we must remind ourselves of who we are and to whom we belong. We must remember that being a servant to others is not the same as being a doormat. We must remember that the whole purpose of being a Christian is to bring about the Kingdom of God and that the beginning of that task is to make a better neighborhood and a better community for everyone who lives in it, even the Judas people. We must remember that working for justice and peace in our world is our responsibility, as well as feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, healing the sick, and caring for the widows and orphans.

We must remember that we are all tenants and aliens on the land. We really own nothing, but hold all things in trust for him to whom we belong.

One of the ways we remember, is through our worship and our ritual. That’s why we read from the scriptures at every service. That’s why we celebrate communion every Sunday. To re-enact that last supper and to remember what Jesus taught his followers.

If we remember who we are (Who are we?) Children of God, and we remember to whom we belong GOD, then we can also come to the table each week, knowing that we can leave our worries, our doubts, our sins, our betrayals, our grief on the table. We can leave them behind and go forth knowing we have been fed, forgiven, and empowered to be the person God intended us to be.

Rev. Chakoian puts it this way: “The Passover triggers and forms the memory that they were once bound and now are freed, and that they belong to the God who saves them. So it is for us, in the meal that Jesus offered on the night of Passover, on the night before he was to die. We are invited to remember, not as if we were present at the Last Supper with our Lord and his disciples, but that we were at Table with them. Every time we are at Table, the act of Communion triggers and forms the memory that we were once bound and now are freed, and that we belong to the God who saves us.”

And let me add, we belong to the God who saves us, even when we are far less than perfect. Isn’t that good news! Amen.

PALM SUNDAY

The story of Jesus’s last week is one that is central to our faith, and yet much of it is left untold, or rather is told in scattered pieces during the year. This leaves us with only a partial picture.

Every Palm Sunday we hear how Jesus entered the city of Jerusalem surrounded by cheering crowds. And then we hear all about his passion five days later. The common reason for this is that not everyone can go to Good Friday services and so we have to shoehorn this information into Palm Sunday.

But what I discovered this year is that the story of what Jesus did while he was in Jerusalem is never told during Holy Week. I had thought that the services appointed for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday would do that. But they don’t. They use only John’s Gospel, which includes lots of teachings, but no action.

For a clear picture of action we can go to Mark’s Gospel. Jesus enters Jerusalem (evidently on a Sunday) with the cheering crowds. Then he gets off his colt and visits the Temple. Then he returns to Bethany for the night.

On Monday he returns to Jerusalem, cursing an unproductive fig tree along the way. He drives the money-changers from the Temple, saying, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations, but you have made it a den of robbers.” And the chief priests and scribes start looking for a way to kill him, because they were afraid of the crowds that were surrounding him everywhere. Jesus and the disciples returned to Bethany in the evening.

The next day on their way to Jerusalem they see the fig tree has withered. In the Temple the chief priests and scribes accost Jesus. They ask him by what authority he is doing these things. He confounds them, as usual. And then he tells the parable of the vineyard, where the owner tries to get his share from the tenants and finally sends his son to collect. The tenants kill the owner’s son. Jesus says the owner will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others.

When the authorities heard this, they knew it was told against them and they wanted to arrest Jesus but they feared the crowd.

Then Jesus is accosted by some Pharisees and Herodians, who ask about paying taxes. “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s.” Since by Jewish understanding everything belongs to God, this is clearly subversive, since Caesar actually owns nothing.

Then come the Sadducees with a question about marriage, involving one woman who ends up married to seven brothers.

Then comes a scribe who seems authentic in his questions about which commandment is most important. You may be noticing that all these stories are familiar, but did you know they happened during Holy Week?

These encounters are followed by a series of teachings: beware of the scribes and their hypocrisy, the story of the widow’s mite, predictions that the temple will be destroyed, and Jesus’s response to Peter, James, and John when they ask when these things will happen. By now they are on the Mount of Olives on their return trek to Bethany.

Meanwhile the chief priests and the scribes were looking for a way to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him, but not during the festival, because there might be a riot among the people.

The next day, Wednesday, Jesus has a meal with Simon the leper. In Mark, this is when a woman anoints Jesus with oil, but it is an unnamed woman and she anoints his head. This same day Judas Iscariot makes his deal with the chief priests.

On the first day of the Passover, Thursday, Jesus and the disciples make arrangements for their meal, what is now called the last supper. Here Jesus institutes communion and predicts Peter’s betrayal. After dinner they go to the garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus is arrested. And the rest you know.

Mark’s Gospel was the first one written and is the most narrative one, but Matthew and Luke are very similar. By the time we get to Luke, some of the details are missing, but the story of Holy Week is much the same.

However, when John wrote the last Gospel, all mention of the chief priests, the scribes, and the Sadducees are missing. The clear picture of the days of the week is missing. The timetable is different, so that the Last Supper is clearly not the celebration of Passover.

Also what Jesus does at that supper is wash the feet of the disciples. There is no institution of communion here. And after washing their feet Jesus teaches his disciples through over four chapters before leaving for Gethsemane.

Over the passage of time the conflict with the authorities has disappeared. And when we don’t hear the Holy Week stories in the context of Holy Week, we may miss it altogether.

When we do see this conflict with the authorities, as Mark, Matthew, and Luke present it, we see a Jesus who is deliberately making a whole series of statements and actions that confront the powers that be, both the Roman Empire and the Temple hierarchy.

It would be interesting to consider what we would believe about Jesus if Mark were the only Gospel we had, or what we would believe if John were the only Gospel we had? Did Jesus die because he spoke the truth to power, or did Jesus die because God required it? Why does the lectionary break up the action of Holy Week the way it does?

I have to assume that since the theology of John’s Gospel became pretty much the orthodox theology of the church, there was no reason to tell us of the conflicts with the authorities in Jerusalem. Still, I feel that we were short-changed.

Jesus, who has so often been portrayed as meek and mild, here shows incredible strength and courage, both in confronting the powers of his day and in accepting the consequences of his actions. This is a Jesus who turns the other cheek, but does so not out of fear, but out of courage and conviction.

This is a Jesus who teaches in the Temple, but doesn’t waste his breath defending himself at trial. This is a Jesus who challenges the power and might of Rome and its legions with nothing but truth and righteousness. And then he goes to his death, trusting in his followers to get it, to carry on, to spread the word in speech and action.

This is a Jesus worthy of praise and worship. This is a Jesus worth following. This is a Jesus worth emulating! AMEN

Lent 5 C

Isaiah 43:16-21, Philippians 3:4b-14, John 12: 1-8

I remember the smell of my grandparents’ backyard. They had large evergreen trees. Lots of shade. Years of pine needles, built up and decaying over decades. It was shady back there, and cool. They lived in central Massachusetts, lots of rocks. Did you know granite has a smell? It does when it’s damp and it mixes with the scent of earthy loam that has formed under the pine trees. To this day, any hint of that mixture will transport me back to my childhood and suddenly I am safe and secure and loved.

Smell is the most primitive of our senses. The receptors for smell connect directly to the limbic system, the part of our brains in charge of emotion and emotional memory. Only after being processed there do those signals move on to the more analytical cortex of our brains – the logical, descriptive part of our brains.

What we see going on with Jesus and his dear friends today has nothing to do with logic, and everything to do with extravagant out-pouring of deep, heartfelt devotion. “The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume”.

Jesus goes to Bethany for dinner at the house of his dear departed, and subsequently resurrected friend Lazarus, and Lazarus’s two sisters Martha and Mary. His actions with Lazarus have brought him to the attention of the authorities. There will be repercussions. This is not a benign governmental presence, and it is not good for one’s health to be elevated to the level of “threat”. But tonight, he celebrates. He breaks bread with his dear friends. Lazarus takes advantage of his new lease on life to host a thank you dinner for his cherished friend. Martha expresses herself the the best way she knows how – she prepares, she cooks, she cleans, she serves.

And then there is Mary. Mary listens to the call of her soul. She always has.

Nard, or spikenard, is a flowering plant of the valarian family, grown in the Himalayas. Exotic and pungent, when distilled its essential oil can be used as a perfume, as incense, even as an herbal medicine. It’s aroma is complex: spicy, sweet and musky. Because it is exotic, it is expensive.

Mary has a great quantity of this costly ointment – enough to have cost a year’s wages. Maybe she bought it for her brother’s funeral. For the time being at least, he won’t be needing it. Jesus tells us he has bought it for his burial. But Mary… Mary never says a word. She comes into the room, heedless of everyone around her, bearing the most expensive thing in her home. She pours this abundance of rich, pungent ointment onto Jesus’s feet, anointing him. She lets down her hair, heedless of the presence of unmarried males. That’s hardly shocking in our culture, but was an astonishing abandonment of decorum in an observant Jewish household. She then begins the indulgent, sensual act of wiping Jesus’s feet with her hair. The fragrance of the perfume permeates the entire house, and chases out the smell of death, even as it ushers in the unescapable reality of Jesus’s coming fate.

Now admit it. If you read this passage and replaced Judas’s name with Peter’s perhaps, or Thomas’s, and took out John’s careful reminder that Judas’s intentions were not honorable, would you not have a great deal of empathy with his basic sentiment? One estimate I read said that jar of perfume smeared on Jesus’s feet was worth about 12,000 dollars in today’s money. “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” Why indeed? Working for the poor, the marginalized, the displaced – that is what Jesus’s ministry has been all about, has it not? We are, as Judas was, such very practical people sometimes. Get the most bang for your buck. There’s nothing wrong with maximizing positive impact, so Jesus’s response is a bit disturbing, and seems out of character. “You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.” That response has been historically misused to minimize people’s sense of obligation to the poor and maximize their sense of obligation to the Church – the “body of Christ.” I say “misused” because to interpret Jesus’s words in that way misses the point, just as Judas did.

Jesus was referencing Hebrew scripture in his response, specifically Deuteronomy 15:11: “Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, ‘Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land.” Far from abandoning the poor, he is quoting scripture that specifically demands perpetual care for them. To live a life in the love of Christ demands care of the poor, the sad, the meek, the down-trodden, the marginalized. But Jesus moves beyond the bottom line. Jesus moves beyond the practical, beyond the balance sheet. Jesus opens up a new way.

Saul, before he was Paul, knew how to follow a spiritual balance sheet. He did the right things, followed the law to the nth degree. It meant caring for the poor, the displaced, the widows. That was the law. In doing so one should be rewarded. It also meant persecuting those who didn’t follow the law, who lived life a different way. That was the law. In doing so one should be rewarded and so he was. He was rewarded with the respect of the people, the religious authorities, and one suspects, with a certain sense of self-satisfaction and self-righteousness that he felt was his due. Until Jesus came to him on the road to Damascus. He learned in one fell swoop the overwhelming, extravagant love of God in Christ and suddenly profit was loss, loss was gain, and death meant new life.

“I am about to do a new thing, do you not perceive it?” Isaiah wrote in a different time, of course and knew nothing of Jesus. Still, he spoke powerfully of the old way, our history and our base, and moving on to the new way – a way marked by abundant life, extravagant love. Oscar Wilde once said, “Where there is no extravagance there is no love, and where there is no love there is no understanding.”

Mary never says a word, but Mary understands. Wordlessly, she communicates with Jesus, offering Him a tiny taste of extravagant love before he offers himself, a fragrant offering for all. Susanne Guthrie imagines their wordless conversation: Applying the rich perfume to Jesus’s tired feet, Mary’s actions say, “I know.” Briefly relaxing into her ministrations Jesus answers silently, “I know that you know.” Wiping his feet with her hair, Mary weeps, “Now I know that you know that I know.”

“Love’s deep silence surrounds their mutual understanding – a sphere unshattered by words. Only love and only prayer can enter the soul’s darkness with such intimacy.” (Suzanne Guthrie, The Edge of the Enclosure) “The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.”

Jesus invites us to share in God’s extravagant love. To experience that love means to share that love. It is an active process, not a passive sentiment.

Let us pray:

Holy and loving God,

As we travel through this day, this season, this life, may we breath in the extravagant perfume of your love and breath out your peace and justice to all. Amen

LENT 4 C

The parable of the Prodigal Son only appears in the Gospel of Luke. In the opening lines of Chapter 15 we hear that tax collectors and other sinners were gathering around Jesus. The Pharisees and Scribes, who were also gathering around, were grumbling because Jesus welcomed the sinners and even ate with them. Eating with people who are unclean, makes Jesus unclean according to the religious rules of the time.

So, in answer to their grumbling, Jesus tells three stories: the Parable of the Lost Sheep, the Parable of the Lost Coin, and the Parable of the Prodigal Son. This last parable is significantly longer and more fully developed than the other two.

The Prodigal Son is probably familiar to all of you. The younger son demands his inheritance while his father is still living. In those days this was a terrible insult, implying that the son was wishing his father’s death. Still, the father agrees and we can only assume that he had to sell half of his land or some other assets to give to his younger son. There is nothing in the story about it, but one has to wonder how this division of assets would impact his future earnings.

No surprise – the younger son blows all his money in a city far away and winds up feeding the pigs for a gentile farmer. He decides instead to go home and beg his father for a job as a farm hand.

As he is walking the last bit of road to home, his father sees him, and forgetting all the rules of dignity for a head of household, he runs, flapping his robes up over his knees to give his lost son a hug and a kiss of welcome. He cuts off his son’s speech of repentance, tells the servants to bring the young man a new robe, a ring and sandals. Then he orders them to kill the fatted calf in order to have a party to celebrate, because what had been lost is now found.

So far, this parallels the previous stories of a lost sheep and a lost coin. The basic point is how God rejoices when a person who has gone astray or been lost, repents and returns to God. In fact, in the sheep story Jesus says, “Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.”

Enter the elder son! He is the one who stayed home, worked the farm with his father, followed the rules, did what was expected of him. Now he is furious! His wayward brother comes home and gets new clothes and a banquet. No one has done that for him! IT’S NOT FAIR!”

He refuses to take part in the celebration. When his father comes out, he expresses his feelings in no uncertain terms; “I have worked like a slave for you and I have never disobeyed your command. But when this son of yours came back (notice, not my brother, but THIS son of yours!) you killed the fatted calf for him!”

The father replies, “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.” Notice that the father turns it around to “this brother of yours.”

Now, I don’t know about you, but I find this a rather annoying end to the story. Did the son relent and go in to the party? If so, were the two sons reconciled? If not, what must life on the farm have been like in the aftermath?

Why does it seem more appealing to imagine myself as the younger son rather than the older one? Which one would you rather be? Ah, yes, and which one is most like you?

I suspect that most of us are more like the older son. That cry of ‘that’s not fair’ rings rather close to home for me. There was a time in my life when I worked very hard to be the older son, to follow all the rules, to obey my parents’ wishes for me, to make them proud. And I would have reacted exactly the same way the older son does in this story! It doesn’t seem fair that the older son is so taken for granted by his father.

And yet, Jesus tells us this is how it is. How can we come to grips with the implications of such a tale? Several encounters I’ve had come to mind. One was a conversation with one of our team members about the concept of universal salvation. (This is the notion that, in the end, everyone will be ‘saved’). She relayed that someone she had discussed it with reacted just like the older son. Basically she said, “It’s not fair that people who have been terrible and evil should be saved when I’ve tried all my life to follow the rules and be good.”

The second encounter was on the same subject. I said rather casually that I was beginning to believe that ultimately we would all be saved. My friend came right up out of her chair to say forcefully, “Oh no, there MUST be judgment!”

I know in her case enough about her childhood to understand why she felt that way. She had been raised very strictly with punishment for bad behavior. And she devoted herself to avoiding that by following the rules and doing what she was told was right.

It seems to me that the distinction implied by the inclusion of the older son in the story Jesus told, has to do with why we do what we do, rather than just what we do. The younger son learned from his experience that he had blown things and he repented. He was prepared to bow down and beg his father for forgiveness. He was prepared to live out his life as a hired hand.

The older son is so proud of himself for following the rules, that he has no awareness of his own sins, whatever they might have been. He is self-righteous. In fact, he is the image of the grumbling Pharisees and Scribes in this piece. It seems that following the rules for their own sake is not good enough for Jesus. One’s heart must be in it as well.

As you all know, one can follow the Ten Commandments and still do nothing to help others. You don’t have to kill someone to hurt them. Sometimes ignoring people is worse. Jesus calls the Pharisees hypocrites – following the rules just for show.

The questions this story forces me to ask myself is this: do I follow the rules, do I try to live a righteous life because I want to be seen as such, or do I do it because it’s the right thing to do? Do I follow the rules because I’ve been promised heaven or because I want to make the world a better place? Do I follow the rules because I’m afraid of not conforming or because I know the rules help me be a better person?

These are very uncomfortable questions, but asking them of ourselves and trying to answer honestly can be useful in enriching our spiritual lives. Take some time this Lent to reflect on your own life in relation to this story. This is NOT an exercise in blame and shame, but is instead an opportunity to consider more closely what kind of person you want to become and move in that direction. Maybe we can all move from running on the rules towards running on authentic kindness and mercy. AMEN

LENT 3 C

Luke 13:1-9

Do you remember how some preachers blamed hurricane Katrina on the “sinfulness” of New Orleans? Others say the increase in bad weather events is due to our acceptance of gay and lesbian people.

In other words, God is punishing people by murdering others. In today’s Gospel Jesus clearly says NO to such logic. People may use disasters to serve their own agendas, but God does not step into the natural world to punish sinners with bad weather, economic failure, illness, or death.

You remember Job’s story. When he has lost all his wealth and his wife and his children, his friends who have known him for years, claim he must have done something wrong, because clearly God is punishing him. While this was and still is a popular understanding, the implications of holding such a view is horrible. It means that God intentionally killed Job’s family just to punish him. What kind of a God is that? Talk about collateral damage!

It’s one thing to accept a God of judgment, but something else to believe he murders people. How could a God of love and mercy do such a thing to his own children?

Today’s lesson unfolds while Jesus is teaching a large crowd of gathered people. Someone tells him about Galileans whom Pilate had murdered as they sacrificed.

Certainly Pilate killed many Jews, but this story adds the horrible detail of doing it while they were at worship, which would also defile the temple. This is comparable to the murder of Thomas a Becket or Oscar Romero – both bishops who were murdered in their cathedrals.

The crowd would have expected horror and condemnation of Pilate from Jesus – or at least some sort of “ain’t it awful” response. Instead, Jesus projects his response back on the storytellers, essentially calling them to account and telling them to repent. Instead of railing at Pilate, he rails at them, a typical Jesus maneuver.

He also confronts directly the unstated question of the crowd, a question that we all share with them across the centuries. Why do bad things happen to good people? Why does tragedy strike one person and not another?

The OT tradition usually associates bad events with sin. It’s amazing that Jesus says NO to this connection, given the culture in which he grew up – but he says it clearly.

NO! The people murdered by Pilate were no worse than others. Likewise, those who died in a building collapse were no worse than others. Some tragedies come by chance. All the more reason to put things right with God by repenting. If you never know when the end might come it’s best to be prepared.

Certainly we do know of tragedies that are the result of sin. Drunk drivers kill people. Abusive parents maim their children. These could be avoided had the perpetrators repented and changed their lives.

When Jesus says, “No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did,” he is not speaking literally. It’s just that we are all subject to death one way or another and we must be prepared.

Keep in mind that the subtext of the crowd’s question is not just why do bad things happen to good people, but what can I do to keep it from happening to me? And Jesus responds to this unspoken fear.

Jesus essentially says that you can’t avoid random tragedy, but you can avoid being the person who causes tragedy. And you don’t have to die with bad deeds on your conscience. You can’t control what others may do or cause, but you can control your own actions. You can choose repentence.

When Jesus turns to the parable of the fig tree he is moving from the personal to the national, at least in part. The fig tree is planted in a vineyard, and a vineyard was a common metaphor for the nation. The fruit God expects from the nation of Israel is godly living.

The fig tree may represent the leaders of the nation – the scribes and the priests. If so, the crowd would have had a good laugh about the “gardener” throwing manure and water on the tree.

The owner wants to cut the tree down, but the gardener pleads for one more year. What a great metaphor for the working of God’s grace. We’re given another chance, but we never know when it may be the last chance to repent and live righteously.

Isn’t this the ultimate good news/bad news joke of life? The good news is – we always get another chance; the bad news is – we never know which one is our last chance. While Jesus may have been directing it at the leaders and the whole community, doesn’t it apply to us and our community as well?

Another piece of this parable I really like is that the gardener will do all he can to help the tree bear fruit. In other words, we’re not in this alone. If we want to change, either individually or communally, we can count on Christ, our gardener, to help us, support us, encourage us, and provide what we need to accomplish it. The will to change, the commitment to change must come from us.

The lesson in this Gospel is central one, I believe, for our lives as Christians and as ministers to each other. As we take care of each other or reach out to others in crisis, it’s important to remember this lesson. How often have you heard someone say, "Oh God must have wanted Bobby in heaven” or “This is all my fault; if only I had left sooner.”

Reread this lesson from time to time to remind yourself NOT to say such things. A God of love does not snatch children from their parents. A God of love does not blame us for accidents. And no matter what public pronouncements you may hear from Washington, a God of love neither starts wars nor wins wars for one group of people over another. There are saints and sinners on both sides, so that all stand in need of repentence. God always gives us another chance, but we cannot know when it will be our LAST chance.

I found a poem in an on-line sermon service that pretty well wraps up the connection between the two pieces of today’s lesson.

God has not promised skies always blue,

Flower-strewn pathways all our lives through.

God has not promised sun without rain,

Joy without sorrow, peace without pain.

But God has promised strength for the day,

Rest for the labor, light for the way,

Grace for the trials, help from above,

Unfailing sympathy, undying love.

Thanks be to God.