Scriptures

1 John 4:7-21 (NRSV): Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because he first loved us. Those who say, ‘I love God’, and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.

 John 15:9-17: As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.”

When the first of my friends became a father while still in seminary we gave him a “Baby Bonder”; it is a bra like contraption that men can wear which have two containers on either side, of course, with nipples attached which fathers can use to experience the kind of bonding that occurs during breast feeding. We gave it to him as a joke but we also recognized that fathers do miss something because we can’t breast feed our children.

Apparently TIME magazine has a “controversial” picture of a nursing mother on its cover this week with a child which according to Kenneth looks four year old. (Why do 13 year old boys know these things?)

I’m not saying anything about how long one “should nurse”. What I do believe is that Baby Boomers like me were raised during the formula phase in parenting which may say something about why we have abandonment issues. I think I should suggest that Oprah take this one up. We also told our new father friend that we gave him the “Bonder” for spiritual reasons too, suggesting that the experience of bonding would become an opportunity for the Holy Spirit.  But he didn’t believe us. By which he meant that he did not “agree” with us,  that is he didn’t “think” that was correct.

In my mind, one of the worst affects of translation of the Bible is how the Greek word pistus has been rendered as “belief”; when it actually may have more to do with the baby bonder. When the King James Version of the Bible was written belief meant something different than it does to us today. It was more like “to love and hold dear” so at that time “belief” was a good word to use. However, “belief” has come to mean something quite different today. In the wake of the Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution it has changed into a thinking word rather than a feeling word. It means something like: assenting to a rational proposition. One can readily substitute “think” for “belief”.

I believe/think that the sun will rise tomorrow.

• I believe/think the Big Band is the best explanation  for the creation of the cosmos.
• I believe/think the Bible is inerrant.
• I believe/ think Jesus in the Son of God.

But the truth is the meaning of pistus is closer to trust than to think. I invite you all to read the Gospel of John again and everywhere “belief” appears substitute it with “trust” and see how different it feels.

“Let not your hears be troubled, believe/trust in God and believe/ trust also in me”  (14:1)

 “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son so that whoever believes/trusts in him should not perish but have eternal life” (3:16)

 Because of this mistranslation we have come to misunderstand The Gospel of John completely.

 Another word that John uses frequently is meno which is usually translated as “abide”.

 “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you will and it shall be done for you.” (15:7)

 “As the father has loved me, so I have loved you, abide in my love”

 “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love”

 Salvation is an abiding experience – at its core it isn’t assenting to a rational proposition;   the Greek word most often translated as “saved” can also be translated as “healed”. It would be truer to say that I am saved because I have been healed regardless of what I think.

John Wesley’s “heart was strangely warmed”. He was healed of the anxiety he felt about his salvation, the thinking came later!

I shared with the confirmands that salvation is about the depths of our souls and addresses our greatest anxieties whatever they may be. Decision is involved in faith but it is much more than agreeing to a good idea because of the many connotations which surround words like “saved” and “believe”.  I have tended to avoid them.

 I often find myself saying,

 “I experience being connected to God in Jesus Christ.”

As you can see, I really like the word “connection” but it isn’t a very dramatic or affective word! I went to the thesaurus to see if there were other words:

• linked
• joined
• attached
• united
• tied
• coupled
• perhaps the best is… bonded

There did find a better word for the “connection” I feel to God in Christ. In Japanese, and it relates to the baby bonder

Psychologist Takeo Doi long ago wrote a book The Anatomy of Dependence in which he claims that the root of Japanese psychology is the word amaeru which is rooted in the act of breast feeding. He says Japanese people are forever trying to create relationships in life that replicate the feeling of breast feeding.

Catholic novelist, Shusaku Endo claims that one of the reasons Christianity has had trouble becoming rooted in Japan is because of using the image of “father” for God.

There is a proverb in Japanese:

 Jishin, kaminari, kaji, oyaji                  

Earthquake, thunder, fire, father

The supreme deity in Shinto is the Sun Goddess when Buddhism came to Japan one of the most popular Buddhas/bodhisattvas – Kannon was feminized – changed from a man to a woman. Mary was at least as popular as an image of devotion as Jesus was. I try to imagine what would have happened if the missionaries had translated faith and belief as amaeru!? I try to imagine how our faith might be transformed if we were to begin to ‘believe’ that “belief” was much more an “abiding” experience than a thoughtful one.

Jesus did not ask the crowds to “agree” with him! At the end of the Sermon on the Mount he didn’t say, “Does that make sense?”

He asked them to follow him and have faith and to “believe” in him. If that means to abide in him, trust in him, and to give him our hearts; so that they can be strangely warmed. It means to have amaeru with him!

Paul says that Jesus Christ is the one in whom we live, move, and have our being. That sounds a lot like amaeru!

I am proud of our United Methodist Church for being one of the first denominations to ordain women and not only ordain them but because of our appointment system – send them to churches that otherwise would not choose a woman. All boys clubs should always be suspect particularly in matters spiritual.

There was a time when the Annual Conference and the General Conference were “boys clubs”. That has changed! We have made progress and we still have a long way to go! A number of quadrinium ago my friend Bob Hoshibata would not have been elected bishop. I opened up the streaming link to General Conference one day seriptisiously to find Bob/the bishop preaching. He was straining to be heard; perhaps because it was a big facility but I also think it was because he was tired. actually, he was grief stricken. It was a essentially a sermon I had heard before both when I was an intern at Blaine United Methodist Church and he was the pastor, and at Annual Conference when he was a District Superintendent. The title of the sermon at Annual Confrerence was  Love, the Bottom Line. Bishop Hoshibata believes in a Hermeneutic of Love. A hermeneutic is a way to interpret anything. A Hermeneutic of Love is when everything we say, do, or believe, must be about love and if it is not, then we do not accept it.  It can be applied to our values, politics, actions and our interpretation of the Bible.

I believe that Jesus interpreted his Bible (the Hebrew Bible – Old Testament) using a Hermeneutic of Love.

“You have heard it said, (OT) You shall love your neighbor and  hate your enemy but I say to you, Love your enemies…”

 “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels,   but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging symbol”

 “This is my commandment, that you love one another”

 “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God and God abides in them”

 I, too, believe that love is the bottom line in a Hermeneutic of Love, a hermeneutic of amaeru! That we must use a Hermeneutic of Love when we deal with:

• Gay marriage…. But not just that
• Economic policy
• Healthcare
• Even, guns

My life has been transformed because I was able to do something that my father did not – spend a lot of time with me as a child, growing up. I didn’t get myself a baby bonder but I did just about everything else! One cannot care for infants and toddlers and not be changed, not learn something more about what love is.  An infants needs are non-negotiable and totally irrational. One can’t say:

“Can you hold onto to that meltdown, it’s the bottom of the ninth!”

I learned that physical presence is vital in parenting and quality time has nothing on quantity time!

We are blessed right now with having a number of babies in our congregation and I love to watch all of you respond to the babies. I see many who want to hold them. I’ve heard people say, “I need my baby fix!” that feeling of touching lips to the soft hair on a baby’s head and the smell of them, touching the vulnerable soft spot – a very physical love. That’s amaeru!

I believe that’s how God loves us and I believe abiding in that kind of love is what salvation is all about. I believe in a Hermeneutic of Love and that love is the bottom line and that’s what living a Christian life is all about.

Believe what you want!

Amen.

What happened to the power of critical thinking? It was the task of systematic theologians to create a belief structure in which ideas were consistent. If one believes that God is all powerful to every occasion then God must know everything too; if God knows everything God must know what will happen; if God knows what will happen God must know whether we are saved or not, and thus was born the “theory” of predestination. John Calvin was a systematic theologian so his theology matched up with his soteriology (big word for theory of salvation). Today people think willy nilly whatever they want and are as consistant as Mitt Romney is on healthcare.

It bothers me that people who defend thier views on homosexuality use Leviticus 18 to support thier views. Can you hear the cry, “God calls it an “abomination!” Well, read a little more of Leviticus and apparently God also thinks it is an abomination to eat shell fish – do we set up guard outside of Ivar’s? And there are some really interesting things in Leviticus about what women must do at that “time of the month.” I’d like to see how that goes across. In Romans too, the other big text that supposedly condemns homosexuality for all eternity, what about all the other sins in the rest of the chapter? (I could say much more about this but will save it for another time.) What about Jesus command for the rich man to go and sell all he owns? We can ignore that one but the Bible is clear about homosexuality? And why are the people who claim to be the most biblical seem to be the most cruel – missing the point of the Word of God which is that love is the bottom line? Why do Christians who claim the bible is inerrant and that evolution is a falsehood live not by love but by survival of the fittest?  Just sayin’

 Scripture: John 15:1-8 (NRSV)           

‘I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-grower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.’

Does everyone know what the largest living organism is? It’s not a plant or an animal – it’s a fungus!

The honey mushroom in Eastern Oregon covers 2,200 acres! It’s 3.5 miles across and covers 1,665 football fields. It is also around 2,400 years old and it’s all connected!

I wonder if Jesus had known about the honey mushroom whether he wouldn’t have used it instead of the vine to illustrate our relationship to God in Christ? (Jesus the True Fungus….?)

Everything is connected… we have come to know again that reality is not like billiard balls hitting up against each other but an interweaving of elements and events that relate to each other not externally but internally. Planets and animals, ecosystems and particles, human beings and communities, and even fungus are not essentially isolated realities that can exist on their own. We are interdependent like a huge fungus!

In John, when Jesus uses the vine as an image of our relationship to God through Christ he assumes understanding of reality that we have lost based on an agrarian existence that understood that all things are essentially connected:

• Crops were dependent on weather.
• Animals fed off each other = circle of life. (Mufasa)
• Plants need the sun.
• And people cannot live alone.                                                                        

This way of viewing faith was a part of my “conversion” to Methodism. I was attracted to our “connectional system”.

Historically, Methodists value and encourage connections with other churches not only in our community but around the world; this connectionalism is lived out in Annual Conference. As clergy, we see each other every year, we know about the churches in the Annual Conference. It is lived out at District events and retreats. It is lived out in the payment of apportionments. It is lived out in our focus on community and our practice of holy conferencing.

In our culture “non-denominational” and “independent” are seen as good things. Many churches do all they can to hide their denominational affiliations on their websites because they don’t want people to think that they are either dependent or obliged to anyone else; but in our tradition is it assumed that we are both – dependent and obliged to others; not only because it is biblical but because it is simply the way things are. Everything is connected!

As you may know, General Conference has been meeting in Tampa and it also is an expression of our connectionalism and my response to some of what has happened there is frankly, I feel like disconnecting! Once again I am disappointed because the General Conference has voted not to change our position on homosexuality; which is that it is incompatible with Christian teaching.

Yesterday, Paula and I got into a discussion of forming a Methodist Church for the Western Jurisdiction. Lutherans have the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod – why shouldn’t we have the United Methodist Church Western Jurisdiction? But that wouldn’t make much sense unless we drop the “United”, would it? But aren’t there enough “separatists” in the world?

We in the United Methodist Church are at a disadvantage compared to other denominations because of our connectional system. Denominations that are less connectional can offer regions freedom to do what they want. If we were Presbyterian we could be given the freedom to ordain gays and lesbians in our jurisdiction and remain United Methodists; the ordained clergy could not serve outside this jurisdiction but at least they could be ordained openly. Ironically, in our region the local Presbyterian Synod is known to be conservative and if a person was looking for a church that is open to gays and lesbians it would be a better bet to seek a Methodist Church than a Presbyterian one! Also, we simply do not have the numbers, delegates and money to bring change to this issue in our church!

There are over 7.5 millions United Methodists in the United States of America and 4.4 million in Africa and the Philippines, the Southeast Jurisdiction has two hundred some delegates and so does Africa, our Western delegation sent thirty two delegates to General Conference. Also, because of our lack of resources, human and financial – we could not live on our own… so to speak. We are dependent on the connection. Which means, effectively,  we are dependent on them… ouch!

Apparently one of the messages being conveyed to our delegation is to:

“Put up or Shut up!!”

They are the ones who are growing, not us…so? So, we are stuck with each other.

Remember, there are plenty of United Methodists who would be just fine if we became the United Methodist Church Western Jurisdiction, to them it would be like getting rid of an irritant. But I intend to continue to be the horsefly buzzing around the backs of their intransigence!

Connectionalism is not easy, by any means, it is often inefficient and burdensome in practical terms and also in theological terms.

We believe in prevevinient grace that God loves all, that we are called into community and connectionalism, that we do not exclude or dismiss anyone.

So, who are we if we decide to dismiss the Africans and Filipinos? It is culturally acceptable to dismiss what one does not like. Connectionalism is counter-cultural too it goes against the grain of our cultural values:

• Freedom
• Independence
• Self-reliance
• Individual rights
• Self-esteem

But these are a part of our tradition. This is who we are. It is biblical and more in line with our vision of The Kin-dom of God.

Connectionalism is not simply how we happen to be organized it is a part of our identity.

It is a practice and expression of our faith..It is a part of our vision of the Kin-dom of God. It is what Jesus wanted for his disciples when he had to leave them.

So I will remain connected and I will be a horsefly on the backs of ignorance.

But staying connected does not mean shutting up we have to be much more intentional about claiming who we are that we really DO believe in – Open Hearts, Open Minds and Open Doors….and we also believe in connectionalism. Remaining connected does not mean saying “it doesn’t matter” or that we should all just cool it and try to get along. For us it means just the opposite, it means claiming our voice even more!

I am tired and too old to try not to offend – I feel righteous indignation! I feel like  Martin Luther standing before the Diet of Worms (1521) accused of heresy who said, “Here I stand, I can do no other.” 

It doesn’t mean to ‘shut up’, but it does mean to ‘put up’ I want our righteous anger to be transformed into energy and passion for what we believe to get us out of complacency and ‘the cult of nice’ which sees faith essentially getting along with others. We must put up – which means to stand up! Here we stand! We can do no other! It means to claim who we are and who we are not and it means to evangelize our message of God’s love, no matter what! It means to make more members, to create more delegates, to transform our Church and to transform the world! It means being missional and inviting people into this community.

People who would say,

“I didn’t know there was a church like this.”

In the end, I believe that we will overcome! Our time is not God’s time. Many abolitionists did not live to see the Emancipation Proclamation but in the end God’s love will win and I see so many signs of hope – a confirmation class for whom homosexuality is a non-issue; they feel incredulous about the Church’s position and who do not hesitate to say, “Well that’s hypocritical!”             

I received a stole of sorts that was worn by people at Annual Conference as a means of expressing acceptance of gays and lesbians from the secretary at Ronald United Methodist Church who is a Filipina.

I think about the fact that if we had only 32 delegates that means a lot of people from all over America were voting to change our policy, maybe even a few from the Southeast or Africa?

I see the power of conviction in this congregation a growing unity of spirit!

• I am proud to be a United Methodist… still!
• I am proud of our openness – of our open table
• I am proud of prevenient grace; of our belief that God loves all and will always love all!
• I am proud that we are a missional church; that we see our mission to feed the hungry, clothe the naked and set the prisoners free.
• I am proud of our emphasis on sanctification or growing spiritually and living a Christian life.
• I am proud of our intellectually, curiosity and integrity.
• I am proud that we honor tradition.
• I am proud that we are inclusive…almost
• And I am proud of our connectionalism!

 Here We Stand, We can do no other! We must be that church that no one thinks exists, we must be patient, but not silent and we shall overcome.  Amen.

Scripture: Psalm 23 (NRSV)

 The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.  He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul.  He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake.  Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff— they comfort me.  You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.  Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long.

Math has changed over the years. They teach math differently than when I was in school, there’s a lattice kind of thing they use now for division that I just don’t get and if I try to do it the old way I get, “you can’t do it that way, that’s not how the teacher taught us how to do it!” This then can be followed by some disparaging comment about my age!

In education there was a time when a great deal of stress was placed on memorization and religious education was no different – Bible verses were memorized! It used to be that a few things everyone knew by heart; the most obvious is the Lord’s Prayer, but also the Ten Commandments and as a Presbyterian the Nicene Creed and The Creed of 1967 (which I can’t remember!)

And then there was Psalm 23 – how many still remember Psalm 23 by heart?

If I share this with young people today they are likely to say, “Why do that when you can just download it on your I-phone?”               

We lose something when we no longer memorize. There is something about taking the words into our heart that has power in memorization but it only works if we also know what we are saying when we memorize. Do we know what “hallowed” means?

At memorial services I sense a real power as people recite Psalm 23. The recitation brings a great deal of comfort to people. It is an easy way to pray when one is so overcome by grief that one doesn’t know how to pray. And, it is a good thing once in a while to reconsider what the Psalm actually meant to those who first sang it and that is what I want to do today.

The Lord is My Shepherd

As I shared with the children, this is “Sheep Sunday”. Every fourth Sunday in Easter is a part of John 10 which is all about the Shepherd and sheep; clearly the metaphor of God as our Shepherd was seen as vital to those who formed our lectionary. But for us preachers, who preach for years we come to this Sunday each year and want to say, “Do we have to talk about sheep again? BAAAAAAA Humbug!!”

Let’s face it, we don’t know much about sheep any longer. I grew up living by sheep at the OSU Agriculture Farms but I don’t know much about them.

The Lord is My Shepherd doesn’t really mean much to us not in the way it struck the people on antiquity.                    

The Shepherd was LIFE for a sheep!                   

We can think of other metaphor – the Lord is my coach or teacher… employer even, but those don’t get at the absolute dependence of sheep and shepherd. The closest I can think of is a parent of a young child – a guardian! 

Have you ever seen a toddler lost in the Mall amongst all the coat racks? That’s what we’re talking about without the shepherd the sheep is lost it would shrivel up and die; the shepherd LIFE for the sheep!

Can we understand such absolute dependence? In our world where we prize independence and self-reliance? 

Sometimes I think our image of Jesus degenerates into that of a personal trainer.

When they said “the Lord is my Shepherd” they meant I am nothing without the Lord, and I can do nothing without the Lord and when I try to do things without the Lord – I transgress against the Lord

The Lord is my Shepherd…

I Shall Not Want

I shall not want” gets by us pretty easilywe don’t think much about it but if we read a few of the more modern translations:

• I lack nothing  (New Jerusalem)
• I don’t’ need a thing  (The Message)

Because the Lord is my Shepherd, I don’t need anything….I don’t want anything! What if we were to recite:

“The Lord is my Life. I don’t want anything else”?                                                                                                                          

The first two of the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism are:

• Life is suffering.
• Suffering is caused by desire by wanting. 

The vision of an enlightened person in Buddhism is one who is free because he/she lacks nothing and wants nothing to put God at the center of our lives  -  The Lord is my shepherd and if the Lord IS my shepherd I will want nothing.

•  a new car
• house
• I-phone
• a plasma TV as big as the Jones’
• a trip to Cancun
• straight A’s
• donuts for Breakfast Club every week…
• a different life
• Why am I here?
• What decisions did I make to get me to this place?
• I want my youth back.
• I want my own life prequel.

 Spiritually, it isn’t WHAT we want that is the problem it’s THAT we want.

 Every enduring world religion espouses living simply curbing our desire and giving to others!  Which is in conflict with our world which contains advertisements like one I saw on TV offering a cross with a real gem stone at the center that illuminates the Lord’s Prayer for only 19.99 (a $50 dollar value  –  that’s yours, so call now!)

Can we do this? Even if it goes against our culture, our economy, our way of life?

The Lord is my Shepherd…

I shall not want…

He makes me lie down in green pastures…

He leads my beside still waters…

Restore Our Souls

These things are connected, you know – the Lord is my life, I don’t want anything and then my soul is restored. Our souls are restored when we acknowledge our absolute dependence on God as we do not want.

Green pastures and still waters. In the New Jerusalem Bible there is the word repose which means: peacefulness, tranquility, calm, the cessation of not only desire but agitation, anxiety and worry.          

When do we feel repose in our lives? What I see around me is a lot of disquiet, fretfulness and angst. The modern world is so full and fast and furious it is a fearful thing- school, work, losing a job, hating a job, troubles with children, finances, taxes, relationships – your best friend re-gifting you a cross that aluminates the Lord’s Prayer. It’s all stress! 

The default mood in our world is to feel overwhelmed is a normal response to the world we live in. We speed read, speed type, speed on the freeway, speed eat (that’s why it’s called “fast food”). We even speed date! Why not speed pray too? A quick little prayer and then we are off to the game. But deep down we yearn to feel repose, and God gives us repose but not without some effort on our part. Slow down…take a walk… a long walk to put God at the center of our lives and to curb our desire and we need the repose of God if we are to be God’s servants!

 He Leads Me In Paths of Righteousness For His Name’s Sake

Not for our/my sake, let’s take note of that right away! The mission here is not for me but for God’s Justice! Paul talks a lot about righteousness which can also be translated as “justice”. Paul uses the word dikaios (righteousness) about six times as often as soteria (salvation) as a matter of fact, to be saved for Paul was to be made righteous right before God. It was a state of being and the essence of that state of being was for us to get out of ourselves and into God. Not for our sake, but for God’s sake. How would our lives be different if we lived them for God’s sake rather than just for our own? 

Even Though I walk in the Darkest Valley I Fear No Evil 

I know many people don’t like that translation. It’s supposed to be ‘through the valley of the shadow of death”. This stanza is why Psalm 23 is used so often at memorial services. Even in the face of death, I am not afraid, knowing that God is with me; but the “valley of the shadow of death” is not just about death. It refers at least as much to the gloom of life as to the end of life. It is about all the deaths there are in life – the shadows of death:

• Loss  -  of job or relationship
• Depression
• Loneliness           

It is proper to read/recite Psalm 23 at memorial services but it is also proper to read it on other occasions. Like a wedding!  There are plenty of dark valleys in a marriage, are there not? Psalm 23 may be more biblically appropriate to a wedding than I Corinthians 13 given what Paul thought of marriage and the fact that I Corinthians 13 is about community!           Think about it – the couple getting married pray together saying:                       

The Lord is our Shepherd.

We will not want – be consumer driven, feel entitled.

Or be too possessive.

He makes us lie down in green pastures.

He is the one who brings calm to our life.

He leads us in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

When we follow him together we will live morally.

And no matter what dark valley comes.

We won’t be afraid. 

I think it would be a good prayer for people getting married! 

Then Surely Goodness and Mercy Will Follow Me All the Days of My Life and I will Dwell in the House of the Lord Forever 

Actually the Revised Standard Version says “my whole life long” rather than “forever” as it is in the King James Version. We want Psalm 23 to be comfort and specifically comfort that there is an afterlife. It is that, and should be used in memorial services but it is much more than that. It is about life and death,; about living to the Lord as if one is going to die, as if one were dead to anything else in life that we may want that would replace our devotion to God. 

So here’s the Psalm 23 game plan…

• First, do everything in our power to put God at the center of our lives in order to recognize and remember that we are like sheep amongst the wolves; toddlers lost in the clothes racks of life.
• Second, stop wanting so much! Curb our desire and live more simply remembering that it’s not about me and what I want it’s about God’s righteousness. The Bible tells us so!
• Third, then, be open to the still waters of God that defy the world, the freedom that comes not with fighting but with letting go; repose, where we fear nothing in life or death. Then, ironically, our cup will overflow. 

Amen.

Scripture: I John 3:1-7          

 See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure. Everyone who commits sin is guilty of lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. You know that he was revealed to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. No one who abides in him sins; no one who sins has either seen him or known him. Little children, let no one deceive you. Everyone who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous.

I have always thought movies about heaven as kind of silly. What can we know about what afterlife is like and what do we gain by spending a lot of time imagining it?

I recently watched a Japanese movie entitled Heaven’s Bookstore. With a title like that, who can resist?  Except Heaven’s Bookstore didn’t really have much to do with a bookstore that was only the place where the protagonist has a part-time job in heaven; it was about a pianist who died without finishing her opus the end of which was aptly entitled, “Eternity”. The story was really not about what heaven is like, but about this life and resolving the problems of this life.

The same is true of movies like Defending Your Life (Albert Brooks) where a man must go to trial to convince the “judge” that he lived a good enough life.

In What Dreams May Come the protagonist played by Robin Williams loses his two children in a car accident, dies himself in another car accident, meets Cuba Gooding Jr. who tries to explain everything to him including that since his wife committed suicide. She is in hell and he will never see her again. Let’s see, first she loses her two children, then her husband – she commits suicide and she goes to hell for that?

Who wrote this stuff?  Certainly not a United Methodist! Again the movie is more about this life than the next!

The only way to talk about heaven is to talk about what we know. That is – to talk about life!             

Conversely, the only way we learn anything about heaven is to focus on life!

The irony is, the more we live our lives in the spirit of Jesus Christ the more we will experience heaven and the more we think about heaven at the expense of living a Christian life the less we will know about who we are, what we are about, and where we are going.

The Easter issue of TIME magazine = “Heaven Can’t Wait: Why rethinking the hereafter could make the world a better place” by Jon Meacham features Anglican theologian N.T. Wright’s recent book, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, The Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church.

“Heaven, in the Bible, is not a future destiny but the other, hidden dimension of our ordinary life – God’s dimension if you like.”

 Meachem also quotes mega-church pastor John Blanchard of Rock Church International saying,

 “Heaven isn’t just a place you go – heaven is here – how you live”

 Meachem points out that,

 “if heaven is seen as  life’s ultimate reward,  then ones’ vision of paradise shapes how one lives…If you believe the world will be destroyed at the last day while the blessed look down from a disembodied heaven, then you are most likely going to view the thing of this world in a different light…”                                                                                                                                   

Back in the 80’s then Secretary of the Interior, James Watt said,

 “I do not know how many future generations we can count on before the Lord returns…”

 He was also purported to say:

 “When the last tree is felled Christ will return”

The policies Watt endorsed were considered the most anti-environmental in recent history and they reveal a worldview that did not hold the creation in high regard – as a mere temporary manifestation. Why care about the earth when it will end soon? When our ultimate home is not on earth but in heaven? This is a worldview justified by his Christian faith. I can still remember my father responding to this – at the time my father was teaching a class entitled Religion, Ethics and Human Ecology and it really angered him that such a person was responsible for public lands!  Really!? To him, religion was something that should encourage us to care for the creation no matter what our tradition. How could one claim to be Christian and have so little regard for God’s creation?

At that time I was in college and just beginning to understand that there are two Christianities in America. I was a part of one, and people like James Watt are a part of another.

I was quite upfront with the confirmation class about these two Christianities in America because I know that far more than knowing what a Lutheran or a Presbyterian is that what will matter in their understanding of a church is understanding whether the church is Evangelical/fundamentalist or Liberal/Progressive regardless of the denomination!

• Evangelical Churches focus on the Bible as the inerrant words of God and Progressive Churches focus on the Bible as that which reveals the Word of God who is Jesus Christ our Lord.
•  Evangelical churches focus on having a “personal relationship with Jesus Christ” which affords a person the assurance of personal salvation. Is the meaning of which is going to heaven; the focus is on afterlife. 
• Progressive Churches focus on the revelation of God in Jesus Christ, the Son of Man and the exemplar of human existence and on the coming Kin-dom of God. 
• Evangelical Churches focus on evangelism on saving souls for the next life. 
• Progressive Churches focus on mission and social justice in the life that we know.
• Evangelical Churches therefore could care less about global climate change. 
• Progressive Christians cannot imagine following Jesus and not caring about what climate change will do to the world and the lives of so many.
• Evangelical Christians are waiting for heaven. 
• Progressive Christians believe heaven can wait!

 The epistle text for this Sunday from the lectionary will be recognized by anyone who has ever attended Annual Conference. It is the source for the words of the Bishop’s Hymn sung at every Annual Conference and known by heart by most members.

 Beloved, Beloved, we are the children of God

And it does not het appear what we shall be

But we know, that when God appears

But we know, that when God appears

We shall be like God

We shall be like God

We shall see God face to face 

For John Wesley salvation was not complicated, nor restricted! It could be difficult but that’s because we humans can be so stubborn not for anything God is doing. God loves us preveniently, that is always….always offering us grace and salvation! All that is required of us is to say yes to God’s yes to us!

While the focus of Evangelical churches is the question of salvation for Methodists is it almost as if one were saying:

“So accept God already so we can get on to the real business at hand”

The real business being: going on to perfection; growing in grace, maturing in faith, essentially becoming more like Jesus in this life.

What good does it do God if we spend our lives waiting around for the end of the world or for heaven? And once again, the irony – that we learn more about heaven by following Jesus in this life than by speculating and focusing on the next. We will know more about God and God’s kin-dom by caring about the poor and oppressed, than by dismissing them as the “left behind”. I have said it once and I will again, my image of Jesus would stay with the “left behind”!

We will know God better if we care for God’s creation rather than be looking forward to exiting it.                                                                                                                           

In our tradition this Sunday in the Church year has two designations one is a general designation shared by most Progressive Churches and the other is particular to our denomination.

•  The first is Creation Sunday – the Sunday each year that falls closest to Earth Day. 
• The second is Native American Sunday – a day to celebrate the gifts of Native American culture and to support ministries to Native Americans.

 James Watt was also known to have said,

“If you want to see the failure of socialism just look at Indian reservations.”

What we know is that we are Children of God. We do not know what will be but we know that we will be with God! We claim the promise of eternal life in Christ Jesus but we don’t live there. The focus of the tradition of John (gospel and letters) is on what is called realized eschatology; which is a big word for the eternal now or what N.T. Wright calls “God’s Space”. For Wright heaven isn’t simply a category of time

but it is like a different dimension that can be now. Just as it can be then! We know the eternal, through the power of the Holy Spirit NOW! It isn’t something that is only yet to come. Just as we pray, “on earth as it is in heaven”.

We are not called to live in heaven while we are here on earth but to live on earth as if heaven were already here to live in the resurrection NOW! To live in God’s Space, God’s dimension, now!

What we know is that we are children of God, shouldn’t that be enough? Heaven can wait!

In the movie Heaven Can Wait (1978 – Warren Beatty) a football quarterback is in a car accident and a newbie angel plucks “him” from his body too early. He should have lived longer and now his body has been cremated so he can’t be put back into his old body; his football career is over so he convinces God to put him back into another body – that of a wealthy industrialist who proceeds to buy the then Los Angeles Rams and plans to be quarterback himself; a plan that does not go over well with the coach or the team!. Another movie about heaven that has everything to do with this life…

What if we all felt that way – please don’t take me to heaven! Heaven can wait, can’t it? But instead of, “I still need to get a Super Bowl ring!” we say, “There is still so much I have to do for God!” That’s what I’m talking about!

On earth as it is in heaven…

Amen.

Scripture: John 20:19-31 (NRSV)       

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’ But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, ‘We have seen the Lord.’ But he said to them, ‘Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.’ A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.’ Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’ Jesus said to him, ‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.’ 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. 

Sermon: 

Yesterday’s topic in confirmation was The Church and its Mission; part of that is a little bit of Church history.

 I believe in transparency, but it is difficult. How much do I share about how the Church was formed?      Do I tell them about the battles and persecutions?

Fortunately there isn’t enough time for the Crusades! Will the truth really set them free or only jade them about the Church? Who likes to know that people fought and died over things like whether the Holy Spirit emanates from God and Jesus, or God alone?

Some time ago I saw a movie set in Alexandria in modern Egypt during the decades after Christianity became the religion of the Empire a time of councils and struggle and plenty of blood; the movie, Agora, was about pagans, Christians and Jews around the year 390and the Christians did not come off looking too good. (As aside, one must always remember when watching a movie about history that there is a present agenda about the present  movies about the past say more about the present than they do about the past.)

The good guys in Agora were the philosophers. Specifically, Hypatia – a woman who taught at the elite school in Alexandra she was busy trying to figure out the movement of the planets while the pagans, Jews and Christians fought in the streets.   She was eventually killed by a mob of Christians who were incited by the new bishop, Cyril. One thing that I think the movie got right was the portrayal of Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria as a man hungry for power at all cost!

I have the advantage of having read this history, so when Cyril took over as bishop in the movie I knew bad things were going to occur. How much of this story do we want to know not just the confirmands but all of us?

It would be comforting to believe that when these early Christians gathered to discuss and make decisions about important theological issues, like the nature of God and Christ, that they were civil and dialogued with each other. That when they went about the task of deciding  which books would be included in the Bible and which would not that they used a consensus model for decision making. Somehow I don’t think kidnapping your opponents qualifies as working toward consensus.

Peter Jenkins in his book Jesus Wars offers a modern day image:

• English and African Anglicans gathering over a soccer match (apparently different sides to these theological debates did have sports teams and colors).
• The archbishop of Canterbury and Bishop Akinola of Nigeria using megaphones to incite the crowd.
• On opposite sides of the grounds they yell at each other – exchange taunts, call names, throw empty beer bottles!
• “God was in Christ!!!” shouts the one side.
• “Christ was fully divine!!!” screams the other.
• Until eventually they run at each with clubs and knives

 Bishops were poisoned if they disagreed. When a new bishop was to be elected it was normal for people to get killed in the process. Aall so that it could be decided that there was only one way to view things theologically and only one Bible  -  books were either in or out.  Period!

It has always stressed me some that I often found myself liking the losers in these battles over theology and belief and I don’t like that it seems as though the losers were more humble.

It really troubles me that men like Cyril of Alexandria won and that the faith written into the Nicene Creed was formed by people like him – a bully and a tyrant. Who was made a saint. Do we want to know this stuff?

In 1945, a shepherd boy was wandering around the desert in Egypt when entering a cave he came across a bunch of papyri, being a little cold he started a fire with it; which turned out to be tragic because what he found was a collection of ancient Christian writings – most unknown; the most significant of which was The Gospel of Thomas.

The Gospel of Thomas has many sayings with parallels in Matthew and Luke and it also has sayings of its own. It is clear now that this gospel was suppressed hidden away by those who won the battles. This brings us to the scripture for this morning from the lectionary about the Doubting Thomas.

Scholars believe that Thomas represents the community of Thomas those who eventually wrote the Gospel of Thomas and that John’s community was in grave disagreement with Thomas’ community.

Therefore, in John’s gospel Thomas doubts and Jesus says, “Blessed are those who believe but have not seen.” Stupid Thomas! Thomas is getting dissed here!

Elaine Pagels wrote a book, Beyond Belief in which she essentially claims that the context for the writing of the Gospel of John was in opposition to the community of Thomas. John Thatcher says much the same thing in his book Why John Wrote a Gospel? because there were elements in John’s community that were becoming more and more like Thomas Christians and had to be stopped.

One of the primary differences between these two communities of John and Thomas was how we know God:

• For the followers of Thomas one could know God through personal spiritual experience.
• For the followers of John thought that was too dangerous everyone would be running around saying he experienced God and knew the truth.

It’s bad enough that we have different communities. If everyone has his own truth how do you build a church around that?

The early church claimed what was called Apostolic Succession – that authority was passed down from the apostles to the bishops and the priests. Therefore, God speaks through the bishops and priests (otherwise known as pastors in our tradition).

How do we know what God wills?  The Church knows.

Remember Jesus saying in John, “Blessed are those who believe but do not see”; which is to say, blessed are those who believe what the Church tells them, even though they don’t have direct experience of God, like those dangerous followers of Thomas.

One more revelation – you may remember last week I said that there was an addition to Mark’s gospel? Well, there was an addition to John’s too.

Notice in the text read for today it 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…

Did you all catch that? It doesn’t take a scholar to see that one says this at the end of the book and so everything after this was added on later. Even more important listen to what it says:

 Jesus did more things than are written in this book.

You mean we don’t have the whole story? We don’t have everything Jesus said and did? There could be more?! And if there is more, could Jesus have said something that was important and we didn’t get it?!

Something maybe that Thomas remembered but others didn’t? For example: 

Jesus said, “I am the light that is over all things.  I am all from me all came forth, and to me all attained.Split a piece of wood; I am there. Lift up a stone;and you will find me there.

 We don’t have the complete picture?! Well, that’s unsettling! It’s much easier to know it all, isn’t it? Then it also says that the purpose for writing the gospel is so that people will believe, not so that they get the whole story, not so that we will have all the facts, not so that we can be absolutely sure  and cut out any other truth but so we can have faith; the gospels aren’t meant to tell us what happened they are supposed to evoke faith.

I have said it before and I will say it again, “The Bible is not meant to be definitive but generative.” It isn’t meant to define and limit truth, it is meant to generate truth, through faith!

My difficulty with the process of forming the Creeds at the councils with historical figures like Cyril of Alexandria in addition to the demonic need for power and the violence is that they were trying to define things rather than generate anything. Their purpose was to place limits on where God could speak because if there were no limits. There would be too many voices, too much diversity – not control and eventually not central Church of the Empire. I have trouble when limits are placed on where God can speak.

I believe in an open perspective on the words of God and would rather deal with the ambiguity of that than living with the closed and cold limits on Church authority on biblical authority.

If I had been involved in the process of choosing the books of the Bible I would have let The Gospel of Thomas in. Actually, if I were involved in this process I surely would have been killed early on in the process. I don’t think God stopped speaking when the canon of the Bible was formed. I am open to reading as spiritually authoritative that which was written after the Bible was formed equal to what is in the Bible; the doctrine of the Church is that God inspired the early Church Fathers – NO mothers – to decide what was to go in the Bible and what wasn’t and then to tell the world that’s all SHE wrote (so to speak). But knowing about early fathers like Cyril of Alexandria, I simply do not trust them.  It’s a good thing that I’m a United Methodist at this point and not a Roman Catholic or Southern Baptist!)

I believe that God equally inspired medieval Dominican Monk Meister Eckhart when he wrote such words as:

If one says only one prayer in one’s life and it is thank you ,it is sufficient. There is nothing in all the world that is more like God than stillness. Whatever God does, the first outburst is compassion. When we are full of things we are empty of God; when we are full of God we are empty of things.

You all know that I am very fond of the motto of our denomination:

• Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors

But I also like the motto of the United Church of Christ:

• God is Still Speaking

I don’t believe our task in reading the Bible is to define the only truth to frame the limits of God’s Word so that we can control it and club others who we think get out of line. I believe we read the Bible to meet the Word of God who is Christ Jesus our Lord and so that it will generate us to ask “Where is God speaking today?”

Meister Eckhart also wrote:

Only the hand that erases can write the true thing.

Where is God speaking today?

Date: Easter Sunday, April 8, 2012

Scripture:  Mark 16:1-8 (NRSV)     

When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They had been saying to one another, ‘Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?’ When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them,”Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified.He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.’ So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

 Sermon:

I read an article recently in the New York Times magazine about marketing strategies at Target (In fairness, the author Charles Duhigg said that these strategies are used by most retailers, but Target tended to be the best at it.)It has to do with the cards we all carry for Safeway, QFC, and so on that are ostensibly given to us to get a discount but are really given to us to get information. I thought they used this information in a general fashion to track trends in the whole population in order to stack their shelves. But no, they track people personally and will even send coupons according to what they have learned about us. The example Duhigg gives has to do with a woman getting pregnant – when a woman does get pregnant her buying habits change (more lotion, no more feminine hygiene products, inexplicable increase in the purchase of pickles and ice cream.)  So if they know a person is pregnant they send coupons for baby items  -  cribs and car seats. Studies show that if a person starts shopping at a particular store they are likely to keep shopping there so getting the jump on expecting parents is crucial.

 He tells a story of a man going to a Target store very angry that Target had sent his daughter coupons for baby clothes. “Are you trying to encourage her to get pregnant? She’s in High School for goodness sake!” Only to go back home and discover that indeed, his daughter was pregnant.                                                                                                    

Gee, shouldn’t the Church get in on this? I don’t think cards would work – we don’t even have a place to swipe them. But I did read an article in the UM Reporter about a pastor in Columbia, MO who allows people to use Twitter in worship! Maybe that would be a way to collect information a running record of what people like and don’t like. Then we could mold the service to everyone’s liking. We could even make it personal. We could send out cards and emails:

“This hymn is just for you, Edna”.

Who knows, maybe we can even find out when someone is pregnant and we could send materials on baptism!

 We have become Entertainment junkies consider how much time we spend engaged in something that is somehow entertaining us TV, Games, YouTube, movies, Facebook,     The Internet is an entertainment jungle. We are ever being lured to the next link. Our lives are full of apps and if there isn’t an app for that, why bother with it? Anything that wants to catch and then keep our attention must be entertaining

 Consider the news – editors choose what to include in the news not based on how critical it is but based upon whether we will find it appealing. That is, whether it entertains us. Why broadcast a story on famine in Africa when Lindsey Lohan just got another DUI?

Even worship must entertain – or that’s what we are told during our preaching class in seminary our professor took us on a field trip to amateur night at The Comedy Store in downtown LA. Of course we have to be engaging but when do we cross the line from engaging to entertaining? John Wesley preached sometimes for hours and he never told a joke.

Mega churches don’t give people cards to swipe but they do “Target marketing”. They focus on providing the “best worship experience possible”!

Saddleback Church has services called:

• Worship Center
• Traditional
• Over Drive Rock
• Gospel
• Family
• and something called Ohana Island Style Worship!

The danger I see, from my introverted, intellectual perspective is that we associate truth with entertainment; that which is true IS that which entertains. If something doesn’t entertain us, it can’t be true! That which does not entertain doesn’t get attention.

But the Truth isn’t a Blockbuster  -  and I’ve never seen a movie about Jesus that I can say I really liked. The Resurrection was understated! God didn’t do market research on the crowd.  The first symbol of the resurrection is the Empty Tomb and in Mark’s gospel that’s it there ain’t no more! The gospel of Mark actually ends midsentence –

 There was the empty tomb

 And the women ran away in fear

 The other gospel writers have cool stories of the appearances of the Risen Christ, but not Mark. Some of the followers of Mark added a longer ending to the gospel probably because it ended to abruptly or maybe because it wasn’t very entertaining. In the added account there will be signs that will accompany those who believe; they will heal, exorcise demons, drink poison and not be hurt and handle snakes and not be bit! Gee! That would make our worship entertaining – bring in a few rattlers, pass them around; or is that something only clergy would get to do?

 The Resurrection is not supposed to be entertaining. It is not molded to meet us at the point where we choose what we like and don’t like. I told the confirmands when we were talking about Jesus and being saved through Jesus Christ the gospel speaks to the core of our souls to our most vulnerable and insecure places to our weakness and our fear not to our preferences and inclinations.

I know I have said this, and I know I will say it again,I think the phrase “Jesus died for our sins” is over used to the point where it is abused.      Yes, in Jesus Christ we experience forgiveness for our sins we are reconnecting to God through that forgiveness but sin isn’t the only way we become separated from God.“Jesus died” for our brokenness, isolation, apathy and loss of hope,for our grief, our fear of nothingness, our depression and our failure.

There are many ways to feel anxious. Being afraid that God will judge or condemn us is one. The gospel isn’t a good idea to believe in so we can go to heaven.It is the action of God in Jesus Christ to save us from anything and everything that separates us from God

…neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers,nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God, in Christ Jesus our Lord.    Romans 8:38-39 

Neither depression, nor death, nor brokenness, nor nothingness, nor meaninglessness, nor hopelessness, nor loneliness, nor failure, Nor guilt or remorse, neither trauma or addiction, nor anything else in all creation!

The Resurrection is the gift of new life in the midst of all that makes us fearful and anxious and insecure about our lives!

I think Mark was very purposeful when he ended this gospel with them running away in fear because that is exactly where Jesus is ready to meet us. But in order for Jesus to meet us we have to let go of wanting to be entertained, amused, distracted, occupied, let go of what we think we like and be willing to go to our most vulnerable places, the depth of our soul

Roman Catholic author, Flannery O’Conner once said of communion, “Well if it isn’t the real thing then you can have it!” If the Resurrection doesn’t touch the deepest parts of ourselves our greatest vulnerability then you can have it!                                                                                                                                       

Well, I heard on NPR that the Pope has an official scent. The Vatican contracted with perfumers for a particular scent to be the official smell of the Vatican. I would have thought the scent would resemble incense that would seem most appropriate but according to the story it has suggestions of lime and pine since the Pope likes the out of doors.

One can’t help but wonder what other denominations would choose as their “official scent?”

• Lutherans would have a more musky scent, I think.
• Anglicans and Episcopalians would be Old Spice.
• Pentecostals, Fresh Scent
• and we Methodists, the alluring smell of potluck!

An official scent?  REALLY? (It smells like “teen spirit”) But that’s all just entertainment -JUSTentertainment – entertainment hides the truth more than it reveals it!                  

Lent and Holy Week are meant to open us to our own vulnerability; to our fear, our weakness and our insecurity, our innate discomfort with death and meaninglessness because that is where God is reborn in us! That is the place God reaches us in Jesus Christ! If all it does is make for a great movie, you can have it!  Thanks be to God it is much more than entertaining! It is the power of God for healing, salvation and transformation and so when we come forward to receive communion today, let us let go of all that preoccupies us and entertains all that we think we like, open our selves – the depth of our souls to the power of God in Christ Jesus that gives New Life. 

Amen.

Our Former District Superintendent and now Bishop Elaine Stanovsky posted on Facebook a picture of herself wearing a hoodie; in response, of course, for the killing of 12 year old Trayvon Martin in Florida some weeks ago.

The story is not entirely clear; young black man, Trayvon went to the store and was returning to his father’s house carrying tea and a bag of Skittles.  A man on Neighborhood Watch thought he was suspicious so he called the police and followed him.  Police told him not to follow him but he continued to. He was concerned that he was holding something suspicious in his hand. There may have been some sort of scuffle the result of which was that Trayvon was shot and killed.

This is a tragedy, but what really bothered me – was Geraldo Rivera saying that he shouldn’t have been wearing a hoodie? Implying that if he was wearing a hoodie he was inviting trouble? Even if one were to concede a minor point, it was insensitive and it was a trivialization of the event.

What is human life if a man wearing a hoodie is reason enough to be killed?

I have an image of a modern day Palm Sunday where Jesus is coming into Jerusalem riding a bicycle and his followers are all wearing hoodies; they take them off and spread them on the ground before Jesus.

You know that the gospels differ on the details of the triumphal entry into Jerusalem:

• In Mark and Matthew, the crowd lays their coats and leafy branches on the ground ; no mention specifically of what kind of branches. (There is not apple in the Adam and Eve story either.)
•  In Luke, they just lay their coats down.
•  In John, they are carrying leafy branches but there is not mention of what they are to do with them

 So it would be just as biblically correct if we celebrated “Coat Sunday” today instead of “Palm Sunday”; which makes the “hoodie” biblically appropriate. (Could this be “Hoodie Sunday”?)

 The feel one gets when one imagines the crowd spreading their hoodies on the ground in front of Jesus is that it was a kind of protest which is exactly what it was – Jesus came to Occupy Jerusalem!

 Marcus Borg in his book The Last Week imagines that there were two processions entering Jerusalem that day. One was Pilate who always came to Jerusalem for the Passover; otherwise he liked to stay away. Of course, this triumphal entry was very different than Jesus’.  While the Jesus crowd was waving leafy branches, (I concede it makes for a better celebration to wave them!) Pilate is surrounded by banners and flags regaling his power! The “Jesus Crowd” had hoodies, the Romans had armor. Jesus road in on a donkey, Pilate on a white stallion, for sure! Jesus came in on a dirty, muddy road, thus the coats and branches and Pilate road in on the main street. By coming into Jerusalem on the Passover, Jesus was making a statement of resistance to Roman power and all their Jewish cronies and that got him into trouble; and they killed him for it! It didn’t help that one of the first things he did was to go to the Temple and turn over the tables of the money changers.

I was sharing with one of the groups I have been leading (probably confirmation) about the story of “turning the other cheek”. The way we hear that is as passivity! Someone hits you once, don’t fight back, don’t resist – almost cower. In the Roman world, the way to hit a slave was with the back of one’s hand. One strikes one’s equal with the palm of one’s hand.  By saying, “strike the other cheek” Jesus was saying, don’t get violent revenge but don’t just be passive. If you strike me you will have to strike me as an equal. Likewise, Roman soldiers were allowed to force anyone to carry their pack for one mile only any farther and he could get into trouble. Jews wore two garments so when Jesus says give your second garment to the soldier he would be naked and thus shame him.

 In each case there is resistance – it was almost “in your face!”

 Jesus came to Occupy Jerusalem…to make a statement and to resist the evils of those in power who used their power to subjugate the people.

Martin Luther King Jr. occupied Washington DC one day and told America that he “had a dream”; a dream, perhaps that we need to hear again?

Gandhi occupied the whole of India; walking to the ocean to make salt and turning plenty of cheeks but with dignity

One of our confirmands asked about how we respond to evil. I shared with them three options to consider:

1. One was the passivity of the Amish and Mennonites – violence is never acceptable!
2.  The second is non-violent resistance that of King and Gandhi.
3.  The third is “Just War Theory” first presented by St Augustine in the Fifth Century in which certain criteria must be met for violence to be justified:

•  Comparative Justice
• Competent Authority
• Right Intention
• Probability of Success
• Last Resort
• Proportionality        

Which means that more suffering should not be inflicted than is already occurring; none of which were met in the invasion of Iraq – Just sayin’

There were two Processions that day in Jerusalem. One was a spectacle – a demonstration of power! The other was humble and carried the truth on the back of an ass.

How can we Occupy Jerusalem today? Maybe we should all take pictures of ourselves with hoodies and post ourselves on Facebook?! OCCUPY FACEBOOK! But then I would have to learn how to post pictures on Facebook!

I recently purchased a book co-written by clergy member of our AC and president of the Starr King seminary, Rebecca Parker in which she says that our churches should be “communities of resistance”. Where we preach non-violence but do not sit idly by when people are hurt or abused or left out. Where we are not conformed to our world but offer an alternate vision exemplified in a different parade.

Wherever we welcome people into our church and in confirmation (which will be coming soon) and when we baptize – we ask those involved and responsible to profess their faith.

The second question we are asked to Profess our Faith in the United Methodist Church is: Do you accept the freedom and power God gives you to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves?

Do we?

What in God’s name is “the order of Melchizedek?” Did you hear that at the end of the reading?

           …and being made perfect he became the source of eternal salvation

to all who obey him, being designated by God a high priest

after the order of Melchizedek.

 Is this something we should expect our confirmands to know? Has anyone here, besides George, heard of it before?

 In confirmation class yesterday, we learned about the Bible and when we do this, I am always overwhelmed. There is simply too much for them to learn in a short time. And today, after looking at the Bible for 2 ½ hours, they may know more about the Bible than many others!

 We cannot expect for confirmands to know about the order of Melchizedek, or what an “Ebenezer” is, or about the story of the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8. We can hope to introduce to them both an interest in the Bible and tools for knowing how to read it.

 Our Confirmation is not Catechism. While I did not grow up Roman Catholic, and therefore did not experience catechism, I have heard about it from many former Roman Catholics, of which we have a fair number in our congregation.

 In Catechism a question is asked, and then an answer is given, and the point is to remember the answer. In our confirmation class, they are encouraged to ask questions. It is about learning how to think and communicate about our faith, rather than telling them what they must believe. We want them to consider why we believe what we do, and to connect those beliefs to their lives.

 The author of Hebrews is writing to a community of Early Christians, for whom the Jewish tradition is still dear and authoritative. Therefore, he is using words, ideas and images that would be meaningful to them, in such a way as to convince them to become a part of the Christian community.

 One of those idea/images is “the order of Melchizedek” which was the order of the priesthood, and the letter of Hebrews is a presentation of Jesus as the High Priest. He is creating, therefore, an image of Jesus that would be meaningful to those particular Early Christians.

 Therefore, we can add Hebrews to the images of Jesus that we already have in the gospels. Mark, Matthew, Luke and John present Jesus very differently. Particularly, John.

 For Mark, Jesus was human enough to pray to get out of the deal at the Garden of Gethsemane, while for John the whole thing was planned by God beforehand and Jesus knew all about it.

 John’s Jesus is like God wearing a robe. Now we have Jesus as the High Priest. There is also Jesus the Suffering Servant. Paul really likes this one. Or the Cosmic Christ, which can be found in Ephesians and Colossians; not, by the way, written by Paul.

 With all these images of Jesus in the Bible, shouldn’t our question be, “What is our image of Jesus?” rather than demanding that they believe that Jesus is the literal “Son of God?”

 “Son of God” is one of many metaphors for Jesus in the New Testament. It isn’t even the most common, which is “Son of Man,” a Jewish image that means something like the exemplary human being.

 “Son of Man” is used for a more Jewish audience, while “Son of God” is meant for a Greek audience because Caesar Augustus was called “The Son of God.” Therefore by using this name, the Early Christians were saying that Caesar was not God’s Son, rather Jesus was.

Can you see how differently we can read the Bible if we have the right tools and insights?

There are two “Christianities” in America today and they are not Protestant and Catholic. Rick Santorum and Stephen Colbert are both Roman Catholic; so are Newt Gingrich and Nancy Pelosi. George W. Bush is a United Methodist, as is Hillary Clinton, although Hillary is from birth and George married into the UMC.

Nonetheless, the divide isn’t a historical one any longer, but breaks on how we read the Bible.

There are those who believe the Bible is inerrant; that is without error and must be read at face value. Otherwise known as “literally” – “The Bible says what it means and means what it says.”

The other Christianity, of which we are a part, uses our minds to learn about the Bible in every way possible        in order to understand it better, believing that to do anything less is abusive. We believe that the Bible must be interpreted; that it is always interpreted – even by those who claim they don’t – and that interpretation is in the Bible itself. Therefore interpretation is the only way to be really biblical.

The author of Hebrews was interpreting the meaning of the order of Melchizedek, which is found in the scripture, which we call the Old Testament, when Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount (or plain, depending on whether one is reading Matthew or Luke), that even to look at a woman lustfully is to commit adultery.

He is actually not being more strict. Taken at face value, that’s pretty tough, isn’t it? But as an interpretation of the commandment in the Ten Commandments not to commit adultery, it means something quite different.

Because men were following the letter of the Law, but finding ways to slip through the cracks, since a slave was not really the same as someone else’s wife, one could use one’s slave all one wanted and not technically commit adultery. Men were finding ways to continue to abuse women and be able to say technically that the Law wasn’t broken.

To which Jesus is saying, the Law is not about technicalities, rather it is a matter of the heart. The only way to get to that more profound and less judgmental meaning, is to accept that interpretation is a part of the Bible itself.

 he first form of Christianity, those who read the Bible literally are quite clear about their understanding of the Bible, and very active in both claiming it and evangelizing it.

The second form of Christianity, of which we are a part, is a bit unsure about the Bible, and we often would rather ignore it; at least if we find ourselves in a conversation with those other Christians. They know their Bible, even if they don’t know how to read it, and we are intimidated, aren’t we?

One of the claims of Progressive Christianity is that we read the Bible seriously, not literally. The implication, a correct one I think, is to read the Bible literally is not to take it seriously. I believe in this understanding of the Bible. The problem is not with the idea, but with its application, because we don’t really take the Bible seriously, do we?

The Conservative/Evangelical critique of us mainline, progressive churches is essentially twofold:

• One is that we believe in relativism, which is a dirty word to them.

• Second is that we lack commitment.

As for the first criticism, I claim it and proudly. But rather than using the word “relativism,” which is a pejorative word for apathetic, I would simply say “relative” or relativity, implying an understanding of both truth and reality as relative – made up of relations – and, I would say, not to see the things this way is an avoidance of truth. But that topic will have to wait for later. 

As for the other criticism, they have a point.  We aren’t as committed as they are, are we?  We need to take the Bible more seriously, first for ourselves, some of the most profound passages in the Bible; and also so that if we ever find ourselves in a discussion with someone who reads the Bible literally, we have something to talk about, and we don’t relinquish the Bible to them so they can abuse it. 

We need to embrace our way of reading the Bible and we need to evangelize it. We need to claim how we see the Bible and why we need to try to persuade them to change how they read the Bible. That ought to be a part of our mission! 

One of our problems with engaging literalists on the issue of Homosexuality is that they use the Bible and we don’t. We assume that they must know what the Bible says. Perhaps we have read the passages they mention and not knowing any other way to read it. 

We abdicate and let them have the Bible and argue with them from a different standpoint which won’t get us anywhere, since to them the Bible is the sole authority for life and faith. 

I will not allow for them to have the Bible and to use it as a club to abuse and persecute anyone! I will not stand for use the Bible to do the very thing Jesus said not to do: To ostracize, outcast and dismiss anyone! 

You may remember a few weeks ago I preached about anger that it is important to get angry about injustice. Well here we are; people are getting hurt. We need to be mad about it! As you can imagine, I can say much more about this. And I will be glad to at another time; but I’m getting close to the time limit for sermons in the 21st Century. 

I will simply share with you an anecdote that I may say to people who are arguing about this point. There is also the story of Jesus telling the Rich Man to go as sell all he owns and giving it to the poor. “So, how much did you get for your house and which charity are you giving the equity to?”

As I said, it may be that after yesterday the confirmands know more about how to read the Bible than many of us. 

I have wild dreams for our youth. I dream that our youth will go into the world prepared to claim their faith and claim the Bible; and to be prepared to dialogue with both atheist and evangelical if they go to college. You can bet it will come up!

I dream that they will feel confident and committed, open to asking questions, but grounded in who they are, and what they believe and why. 

I want them to be proud that they are United Methodists!      And I want them to feel connected to this Church, so that they know that they are loved not matter what; and that they can come back here anytime to ask us questions and to be supported. 

But then that means, we will have to be able to help them. For that to happen, we will have to be confident and grounded; open to questions, yet committed to our faith; assured about how we read the Bible; how we talk about science and religion; who we are as United Methodists in particular; what our image of Jesus is; and be poised to share about it. 

The Bible is not a book or instructions, codes, or a recipe for life. It is the story of God and the People of God. It is our story. It is about who we are and we must claim it to be who we are and who God calls us to be. 

And more than that…. Once we get out of thinking simplistically that the Bible “means what is says and says what it means,” the Bible is there to challenge us, fascinate us; and finally lead us to redemption in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Not too long ago a fellow parent in our community said to me, I never knew parenting would be so hard. That could have been any one of us – who have children.

Before we have children we think of children in general but we never get general children. They are all specific children.  Special – Barney taught us to call them!              

Every child I’ve ever known has unique gifts but also has specific problems; which we could never anticipate when we were dreaming of general children.

A child who can eat only 6 foods till he is 4!

What’s up with that?

That isn’t what I ordered!                             

Doesn’t God give us a warranty for children?

From the start it is hard work… and then it gets worse when we have to help them adjust to the world!!!

The world likes those general children. The general child in our culture is:

• Attractive and can read by the time he/she is 4 years old.
• Athletic and gets good grades.
• Has problems – but only of the general kind, problems that everyone has and grows out of.
• Acts juvenile, but only as a juvenile.
• Does not have any learning disabilities.

 There isn’t much worry about dealing with insurance companies because our general child is healthy. He/She may get mono, but everyone gets that, and that’s simply a sign that he/she is dating,which means he/she is popular!

 The general American child is particularly good at:

• Math and science.
• He/she plays an instrument, of course – but isn’t so foolish to see that as a career.
• He/she will have good marks on the SAT.
• Has a high IQ.
• And get scholarships to go to a reputable college.
• He/she will get a career ideally in some technological field or another well respected and high paying job.
• Earn enough money to support a spouse and at least a couple of children.                                          

General children of course they will even have a general dog and there will always be enough money to go to Disneyland. This image is called conventional wisdom. A picture of how life is supposed to go – should go.

All of us, before we are gifted with our specific/special children have this image in our heads because culture recognizes and rewards certain qualities and not others. It starts in preschool when every parent wants their child to be the one who knows their ABCs first! We choose IQ over EQ, reason over intuition and math over art.

Our culture does not lift up and praise the person who has a special sensitivity to the needs and feelings of others. This is particularly true amongst boys who, if they show any sensitivity, are called gay; which is an insult to gay people and to boys. So we have many doctors who are very smart but don’t have such good bed side manner and all of us would rather have the child who becomes a doctor than a mere nurse.

Remember the movie Meet the Parents where Gaylord Focker is dismissed because he was a nurse rather than a doctor? No, worse, he was a murse!

Parenting is difficult not only because children are not at all Easy to Assemble. It gets worse when we have to help them live in the world of conventional wisdom, that’s part of why middle school is hell!

When Paul talks about the wisdom of the world this is what he is talking about. He is not talking about the intellectual elite. Whatever that is! This is not about philosophy,it is about how a culture or the world views what one’s life should be.                                                                                                   

What do we think of when we say that someone is accomplished? As I believe I have pointed out to you before there was a time when pastor would come to mind but this has changed.

Pastor’s Kids are often not enthusiastic about telling friends what they parent does.

Really?

Isn’t that kind of nuts?

 Much better to say that my parent is the CEO of an Internet start up.

 In the Message, Eugene Peterson translates this passage in this way:

 The Message that points to Christ on the Cross seems like sheer silliness to those hell-bent of destruction, but for those on the way of salvation it makes perfect sense.  This is the way God works, and most powerful as it turns out.  It is written:  I’ll turn conventional wisdom on its head; I’ll expose so-called experts as crackpots.

 There was a time when Paul was very accomplished, in the eyes of his world – of Jewish Culture when he studied the Law and followed all its precepts, when he was a Pharisee recognized by the culture as the best performers. It was also the time when he watched Stephen get stoned to death.

For Jews, at that time, conventional wisdom was to study the Law and follow it.

The Greeks were a bit more like we are today; the accomplished person was the person in power, a person of influence and wealth. Forget the Greek philosophers – they wanted their children to be rich!

Paul stands all of it on its head! The Cross is nuts – by the standard of any conventional wisdom!

How do we translate the Cross into a way of living that will be successful?

Paul is trying to get us to see a different kind of wisdom than conventional wisdom. Paul is not offering another way to success but is saying throw out success altogether.

• Forget about economic security.
• Forget about achievement.
• Forget about getting into the prestigious college and stop thinking about that general dog! We will have someday go down to the pound and get a mutt.
• Forget about the Law and power and influence.                            

The Cross is like a big Koan (that is a irrational question in Zen Buddhism).

What is the sound of one hand clapping?

That is not meant to be figured out so we can get control of it and use it to be successful in life.    It is meant to shock us out of conventional ways.

We have tried to live: success, knowledge, skill sets, prestige, wealth, alacrity at sports, recognition – all, out the window!          

The Cross is not a new way to succeed it is a challenge to success itself.

In the next chapter of I Corinthians Paul extrapolates a little on what this Cross initiated Divine Wisdom is:

Yet among the mature we do speak wisdom, though it is not a wisdom of this age or the rulers of this age, who are doomed to perish.  But we speak God’s wisdom, secret and hidden which God decreed before the ages for our glory.  None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory….these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.  For what human being knows what is truly human except the human spirit that is within?  So also no one comprehends what is truly God’s except the Spirit of God.  Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God, bestowed on us by God.  And we speak of these things in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual things to those who are spiritual.

If you feel confused – it’s OK.

How does one talk about what is mysterious without sounding – mysterious?

It’s like Paul wants us to enter into a totally different world, another dimension. One in which the Spirit reigns in which none of the values and expectations of conventional wisdom apply.  Where grades are less important than kindness; where achievement, success, wealth, having a high IQ – all are sidelined (it’s kind of like Linsanity!); where economic values do not dominate and all people are specific and still loved.

The Wisdom of God is about letting go of the question itself – what is accomplished in life? Where the murse is equal to the doctor and  getting into Stanford doesn’t drop jaws.

It’s like getting totally new glasses! Before we saw gain and money and triumph now we have a what? Crosses to bear?

The problem is I’m still a parent. We still live in this world of conventional wisdom. I still worry about my children succeeding at least in terms of getting a job and not being homeless.I even dream once in a while that they will be able to support us in our retirement. Fortunately, neither son has express aspirations to be a pastor.                                                                               

God also knows, I want much more for my children than conventional success. I want them to live in the Spirit, to have just as good an EQ as IQ – even if they are not rewarded for it.

The world will never reward us for our growth in the Spirit. We rarely are recognized for love and kindness for having an open heart and a strong sense of justice, these attributes are actually liabilities on Wall Street. Isn’t there at least a part of us simmering inside that wants to let go of the path of conventional wisdom and to follow the path of God’s wisdom; as stupid as it seems to the world around us?

You did what?   You went to medical school only to decide to become a murse because you have more time to spend comforting people.  Are you nuts?!

Are you kidding me?  You decided not to have your own children so you could spend your life being a foster parent?!

You worked your whole life in order to retire and now you want to go into the Peace Corp?  Are you crazy?!

You want to become a monk? Oh my God!!!

Your kid was accepted into Stanford but you let him became a social worker instead?! Jesus Christ  – Jesus Christ…indeed!!

You really believe all that stuff about the Cross?ARE YOU NUTS?!

 Before I became a parent and was dreaming of general children – who just might go to Stanford some day.  I didn’t know how hard it would be to navigate them through a world of conventional wisdom and still live lives in the Spirit. But, of course, this isn’t just about being a parent – parenting is a part of life and this is about life.

 How do I feel accomplished?

 What dimension am I living in?

 To what… to whom to I give my heart?

 Paul says:

We do speak of wisdom, though it is not wisdom of this age…these things are revealed to us through the Spirit, we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God, not taught by conventional wisdom, but by the Spirit…                                                                                                                                          

Amen!