Luke 1:26-38: Three Brief Reflections on Joy

REFLECTION ON JOY #1

When I put the question “What is joy?” into my internet browser, the results numbered about 547,000,000. It seems this notion of joy is something that more that the 40+ of us sitting here in church this morning have pondered on occasion.

Here is what one blogger said about joy:

“Joy begins with a choice. Joy surrounds us. We must choose to let Joy in. Too often, we all are tempted to blow right past Joy as we lead our busy lives. And then we miss the moments of Joy!

(However, it does not have to be that way.) Instead, I can choose Joy – choose to let it in. Joy is a state of mind, or mindfulness. Above all – it is an openness to life’s wonderful moments and its treasures, no matter how small or fleeting they may be.” One author wrote: Joy is...a three year old wearing a leotard and tap shoes over her pajamas… and tapping like she knows what she is doing.

Maybe then joy is being present – in the moment – something most of us have a pretty hard time doing when the memories of the past creep in and the craziness of the future bombards us from all sides.

“Joy is the feeling of grinning on the inside.” says Dr. Melba Colgrove. Joy is not something that begins in your mind. It originates in your heart. Joy is usually not a conscious decision. Often, part of the delight of Joy is that it is unexpected.

Perhaps that is what Vicki Pollard had in mind when she wrote: “Joy is about radiance and movement. It shines from the eyes. It moves up and out through the whole body, exuding from every pore. Joy comes from a place deep within. It is about a vitality that is alive, moving in the body. It is the flower blooming. It is the apple appleing. Each of us being fully who and what we are -- that is joy. The opposite of the cold, still, inwardness of winter, joy is like the summer warmth that encourages everything to open fully.”(Did you know that yellow is the color of joy?)

Joy comes from God. It goes deeper than pleasure or happiness. As long as we do no harm to our neighbor and are always ready to help them, our hearts are full of joy. Joy is knowing that you are keeping God's Law and putting into practice the Beatitudes.

 REFLECTION ON JOY #2

Another blogger had this to say about joy:

“So - what is Joy, anyway? Ask ten different people, and you'll get ten different opinions. Some people say it is a deeper (higher) level of Happiness. Some say it's not an emotion at all…Rather, it is a state of being that is outside the emotional realm.

Well, we do know that an emotion is invoked by an event that produces a chemical reaction in your body, and your brain has learned, over time, to categorize and give names to those different chemical reactions. We've come to know what the chemical reaction for anger is, and for happiness, sadness, rage, and so on.

But does JOY really come from an event that produces a chemical reaction, or is it just a natural state of being within us, that is ALWAYS there, always waiting for us to embrace it, to bathe in its exquisite splendor?”

Our Deacons and Council have been thinking about joy this week. Here’s what some of them had to say:

A Definition of Joy - To take pride, pleasure in and to truly love what you do. An unexpected happiness occurring. Sources of Joy - Getting a compliment, Praise.

Seeing someone do something they didn't think they were able to. To share time and a mutual skill with someone you care for. To have peace when doing something.

Joy is that overwhelming, pleasant, and surprised feeling that everything is right. It’s that smile on you face because of the simple fact you know that it’s all good.

You feel joy at seeing people surprised with a random act of kindness, being able give someone something they were not expecting but needed and seeing the smile on their face as they felt the joy of knowing someone cares.

Joy is not what you have materially. It is a spiritual thing. It’s a combination of happiness and contentment. It’s all the other symbols of Advent – hope, peace, and love – woven together.

Joy radiates energy. It is doing things you are good at combined with making others happy. It is freely sharing your gifts and talents to make life better for someone else. Joy is inextricably connected to giving. Joy comes from seeing the other person’s response when you give.

It’s that internal tickle or smile – and whenever you come back to that experience – either in real time or as a memory - it brings out that little smirk again.

Joy can be just a moment in time – like the instant you see a perfect rainbow that reminds you that everything is going to be OK – because whatever happens, it is bigger than just you. Looking back on your life, you will find joyful moments that you carry with you always.

Joy can be a special look from a child – or can involve the people around you. Joy often involves other people – but not always. You can experience joy in solitude, especially in nature because that is where you often feel connected to God.

Joy can create more joy – it’s very expansive. It’s when you make a real difference in someone else’s life. Joy is often magnified when it is experienced with others, bounced off of, and reflected by others.

Joy is a feeling anytime your heart is over flowing with love, or someone has caused me to laugh with wild abandon – Wow this is joy! But, I have always felt “it”, and I mean ever since I was a child, in church at various times but always on Christmas Eve and Easter Sunday morning. It’s not something I can describe accurately except to say that a warm glow seems to flow over me – and it’s joy.

Last but not at all least, that feeling you get after having done something nice for someone else. It’s like a double dose of joy – theirs and your own!

Joyfulness and gratefulness go hand in hand.

REFLECTION ON JOY #3

For me personally, Joy is something that wells up from the very deepest part of my heart and soul. It is most certainly a gift from God. I came across a long list on the internet of sources of joy. Some of them rang true for me – falling in love, laughing so hard your stomach hurts. Doing something you really love and having someone whom you respect tell you that you did a good job. Hearing a child say "I Love You" when you didn't say it first. Watching a sunrise. Watching a sunset. Listening to Louie Armstrong sing "What a Wonderful World” – among other things.

As I think back on my sabbatical/renewal time, three instances of joy stand out for me. One was when we reached the Incan ruins of Choquechirao after an arduous two day trek. It was the kind of hike where you wonder if you made a big mistake even starting and whether you would actually reach your goal.

But we did. We had made it – all five of us (and our 4 Peruvian guides, now also friends) – me with my iffy knees and Joe with his not-so-good hip.

Unlike Machu Picchu where 2000 people are allowed to enter the site each day, we saw perhaps a dozen other people that day. After all, you have to walk (or ride pack horses) to get to Choquechirao. There are no buses to take you up the winding mountain paths to this sacred site.

Choquechirao was so quiet. The day was so clear, and among these ancient stones we could feel the sacred all around us. However, the best was yet to come. You see, we looked up in the sky and saw a condor circling overhead. For native Peruvians, the condor symbolizes the upper world, the world of the spirit. The condor is the messenger of the gods. In traveling to and now experiencing Choquechirao, we had made a mysterious and sacred connection – with God and with one another. This was joy - connecting with the holy right here on earth.

Another time I felt joy was when Joe and I were hiking in the Highlands of Scotland. Though it rained practically every day, this was the day when we were particularly glad to have our gortex parkas and rain pants.

The rain was pelting down on us, and the wind was whipping. The trail was more like a stream bed. And the stream beds that crossed the trail had all but washed it out in many places.

We had just made it across one particularly rushing gushing stream and with three other people had helped a group of Dutch women cross with their guide.

In a cold and wet sort of way, I felt so vibrant, so absolutely alive. There could have been no better place to be at that particular moment in time. For me, joy is intrinsically tied to life – and the sure and steadying knowledge that it throbs within you – and that it and all creation is a sacred gift.

A third time I felt joy was when Joe and I maneuvered the heavy granite stone bench from our car to the hand truck to the center of the labyrinth and finally had it positioned. We sat on the bench and looked out into the woods. I, for one, felt a certain sense of peace.

There is an enormous pine tree not far from the labyrinth – the kind that you can not encircle with your arms because the trunk is way too big. I wonder how long it has been growing there. Anyway, it reminds me that neither height nor depth nor anything in all creation can separate us from the love of God. Surely there is joy in that faith.

by Rev. Nancy Foran, pastor of Raymond Village Community Church, Raymond, Maine
www.rvccme.org

Mark 14:24-37 "Longing"

I was in Home Depot in very early November and was once again flabbergasted (it happens to me every year) to see that the store Christmas display was up and running. The brightly lit and perfectly decorated artificial trees were in their carefully placed rows, and a variety of inflatable holiday characters had sprouted up near by, merrily swaying in the breeze – almost as if they were waving to unassuming customers - each time the exterior doors opened.

I commented to a clerk how odd it must feel to have all that “stuff” around so early in November. She laughed and told me that this particular location was one of the first on the list this year and so had been transformed for Christmas in mid-September.

And so our stores and malls become clogged with wreaths and reindeer. Creche scenes pop up on lawns all over town. Christmas carols begin to fill the airwaves, and once again we all give in to our annual obsession with candlelight. And so Advent begins as we prepare for the birth of that baby in Bethlehem.

However, according to the Gospel writer of Mark, who apparently does not think that the birth of Jesus was worth recording anyway, you can toss out the manger and the star, the angels and the shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night. As James Love, former United Church of Canada pastor, wrote: “When Mark looks into the sky, what he sees are cosmic fireworks: a darkened sun, a dim moon, stars falling from the sky like sparks from a sparkler - and there, in the center of the smoke, the Son of God coming in clouds with great power and glory.”

Each year here in church we begin Advent not in the peaceful oasis of the stable out behind the inn where there was no room but rather in the chaos of what appears to be the end times. In fact, this section of the Gospel of Mark is known in scholarly circles as the Little Apocalypse.

Today, I want to look at this passage of rack and ruin in a slightly different way. After all, the word “apocalypse” simply means a revelation or unveiling. Can we reveal or unveil anything that might cause us to at least consider a different perspective when we begin our Advent journey in the midst of such heavenly induced pyrotechnics?

So - let’s take a moment and look at these verses from the point of view of someone in the first century, someone hearing these words of the Gospel writer for the first time. What meaning would they have had? What was happening in that first century world? What would have prompted the writer to say these things as he told the story of Jesus? What was the historical context of this passage?

The first thing to understand about this Gospel – about any of the four gospels really – is that their authors were not eye witnesses to Jesus and his ministry. The disciples did not write any of the gospels. And that makes perfect sense, when you think about it. After all, most of the disciples were illiterate fishermen who signed their names with X’s – hardly budding authors.

Mark is the earliest gospel to be written, around the year 70 CE, 40 or so years after Jesus preached. This gospel was written about the time of one of the bloodiest and most violent revolts that any Jew could remember. You see, Jewish zealots had occupied the holy city of Jerusalem until Roman besieged it and sacked it, bringing the Jewish population to its knees and destroying the temple, the place where God/Yahweh resided. In the end, it was all a pile of rubble, save its Western Wall, which to this day is still a place of Jewish pilgrimage, known as the Wailing Wall.

The early writer Josephus described the carnage this way: “Now as soon as the army had no more people to slay or to plunder, because there remained none to be the objects of their fury, [Titus] Caesar gave orders that they should now demolish the entire city and Temple…it was so thoroughly laid even with the ground…that there was left nothing to make those that came thither believe it [Jerusalem] had ever been inhabited….And truly, the very view itself was a melancholy thing; for those places which were adorned with trees and pleasant gardens, were now become desolate country (in) every way, and its trees were all cut down.”

Josephus goes on to say, “The slaughter within was even more dreadful than the spectacle from without. Men and women, old and young, insurgents and priests, those who fought and those who entreated mercy, were hewn down in indiscriminate carnage. The number of the slain exceeded that of the slayers. The legionaries had to clamber over heaps of dead to carry on the work of extermination.” Josephus claims that 1,100,000 people were killed during the siege, of which a majority were Jewish, and that 97,000 were captured and enslaved.

That was the world that the Gospel writer of Mark was experiencing – though we do not know for sure whether the gospel was written just before or just after the destruction of Jerusalem. If afterwards, then the writer had seen the rape and pillage, smelled the God-awful smoke from the flames that leapt hot and red high into the sky, heard the terrified screams of the citizenry. If the Gospel was written before the revolt, then the writer clearly saw the handwriting on the wall and articulated it in terrifyingly graphic images.

This was Mark’s world. Roman imperial victory and violence was what he knew and viscerally understood. And frankly, Mark’s experience and the experience of everyone who listened to his gospel just did not jive with all that Jesus had taught. I mean, for all Jesus’ talk about turning the other cheek, loving your enemy, living lives of non-violence where peace came not through military victory but rather through economic justice, it simply was not working. Daily life was still a constant brush with violence. Roman backlash was a drunken officer’s order away.

If this was the kingdom (of God or otherwise) that was among us, then why would any rational Jew ever choose to be a part of it? And besides, Jesus had gone out and gotten himself crucified – and now appeared to have jumped ship altogether.

If that sounds harsh, then think back on all you know about Jesus – “itinerant teacher, provocative preacher, outsider’s choice.”(J.Bell), befriending prostitutes, sharing meals with a tax collector and his cronies, preaching non-violence and economic justice as the way to peace on earth.

And remember what people were really looking for in a messiah – a leader who rode a mighty warhorse, not a peasant who rode sidesaddle on a donkey. As Lutheran pastor Todd Weir writes, “People of Christ's day expected a lot more of Jesus than he delivered. They wanted a messiah to make the world right --by their terms. (And) their terms were limited to narrow nationalistic expectations for Israel, by a sense that God was only concerned about one little patch of land at the junction of three continents.”

Maybe, just maybe, God ought to try again with this savior business and get it right the second time. Perhaps that is what Mark had in the back of his mind when he included this Little Apocalypse in his Gospel. And so we have one possible source of the theology we call the Second Coming.

Maybe, just maybe, God ought to try again with this savior business and get it right the second time. As seminary professor and preacher Fred Craddock commented, “Maybe people are obsessed with the Second Coming because deep down they are disappointed in the first one.”

I understand that feeling, and I bet you do too. We all long for a time when the wolf will lie down with the lamb, when justice will roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream.

I long for a day when the economic gap between the affluent and the impoverished is mercifully shut. I hope that the Occupy movement will gain unstoppable momentum and that it will engage all of us and challenge each one of us to look at our own materialism and values.

I long for a day when we will have no troops in Afghanistan, when the Middle East will be stable, when we as a nation will cut our defense budget before we cut education and social programs, a day when warfare and hatred will cease.

I long for a day when we will not reflexively fear Muslims, when politicians will collaborate, when hunger and homelessness will cease to define our world. But I also know that most of the time, it is really hard to see that ever happening.

But this is Advent, the season of hope and promise. Yet, where is the hope and promise in this world that so much of the time seems so messed up?

For me, it is simply in the fact that the Second Coming has not come. What I mean is that once long ago, God put all those holy eggs in one basket and invested in us – with Jesus as a role model, as the way and the truth and the life for you and me.

And God – apparently - has not given up on us. That is the long and the short of it, and that fact is the most hopeful thing I can think of when all the world seems to have gone awry God has not given up on us.

God still believes that we can transform this world – each in our own little corner of it. Imagine that! God believes in our potential to achieve a higher level of consciousness maybe (That is what the Incas and Mayans would call it anyway.). God believes that we have it in us to really behave as if we were made in God’s image. God still believes in us.

Therein lies the essence of our Advent hope: right now, at least, we do not need a second coming. But more importantly, we can not depend on a second coming. Advent challenges us to live our lives trusting that the first coming, the one in the stable, is enough.

And so each year – and this year is no exception - we make ready. We prepare. We wait for the birth of the child in Bethlehem. We wait for that sign of God’s affirmation in us, in humanity. We place our hope in that sign of incarnation, that sign that God still believes in your innate ability – and in mine - to generate justice, which will someday bring peace on earth.

Rev. Nancy Foran, Raymond Village Community Church, Raymond, Maine
http://www.rvccme.org/

"ROI" - Matthew 25:14-30

Amazing God, when we are perplexed and challenged by scripture, open our hearts and minds to your abundant possibilities. Help us listen for your voice and give us courage to be bold in our response. Amen.

I began this sermon today with a prayer – something I do not ordinarily do. However, as I just confided to God, our quest to understand this Gospel lesson found in both Matthew and Luke deserves a prayer because this parable of the talents is indeed both perplexing and challenging.

Here we have a master, a wealthy landowner, who is on the road, going off – perhaps on an extended vacation, perhaps on a business trip – but anyway vacating his property for a significantly long period of time – so long that he felt compelled to leave his fortune divided unequally among three slaves.

As UCC pastor Hal Chorpenning notes: “Two of them are rabid proto-capitalists and one takes the safe route and takes care of what he’s got. Two are interested in growth and one is interested in security.”

To one of the slaves, the master gives five talents. Now, a talent is a first century unit of money, actually a lot of money. Five talents would be the equivalent of income for about 15 years of labor. In 21st century terms, say that you make $50,000 a year. That would be a cool $750,000.

To another slave, the master gave two talents – worth about what you could earn in 6 years. Using our $50,000 annual income as a guide, the worth of those two talents would be a whopping $300,000. And finally the master gave the third slave one talent, which would be like one year’s earnings – nothing to sneeze at either.

Now in the parable, the guy with five talents invests them handily and ends up with 10 talents (1.5 million bucks, using our equivalent) by the time the master returns.

“Awesome, good and faithful servant,” the master proclaims as he slaps him on the shoulder. “You understand the bottom line. You know how to get a decent ROI, return on investment.”

The two talent slave was equally successful because he also doubled what he had been given, ending up with 4 talents (or about $200,000).

“I am proud of you as well,” exclaimed the master. “You took risks and were not afraid of possible failure. You too understand the bottom line because you brought me a decent ROI, return on investment.”

By this time the one talent slave was a bit uneasy because, though he still had the one talent ($50,000), he did not have a penny more. “But hey,” he reminded himself. “I chose to play it safe, so I would not lose any money. With the economy as shaky as it has been, to me that was undeniably prudent.”

However, as you might have guessed, the master was not pleased. “You lazy you know what! You risk-averse little man! Because of your fear and lack of action, you have nothing to show. Your share goes to the millionaire over here. He deserves it, not you.”

“But wait!” protested the one talent slave. “Is there no place for caution, security, and the status quo in this world?”

When I was riding on the shuttle from the Tampa airport to get set for my breast cancer walk, I ended up talking with another walker from Louisville, Kentucky. She was telling me about her church and a wonderful program that the youth group leaders had initiated. It was called “Homeless for a Night” - and it was a variation on a lock-in, rock-a-thon, or giant slumber party at the church. The purpose of the event was to help these teenagers viscerally understand what being homeless felt like. Consequently, each one who participated was given a large cardboard box to set up in the church parking lot as his or her shelter for the night.

However, those participants who raised $50.00 in contributions (which would be donated to the local homeless shelter) were given a blanket in addition to their cardboard box. Those who raised $75.00 were given a blanket and a pillow. Those who raised $100.00 were given a blanket, a pillow, and a jacket to wear. The more these young Christians invested in the Gospel message and put it into action, the greater their ROI, return on investment.

Father Ernest Ezeogu tells a story about a man who was furious with God. "God," the angry man said, “I have been praying daily for three years that I should win the state lottery. You told us to ask and we shall receive. How come I never received all these three years I have been asking?"

Then he heard the voice of God, loud and clear. "My dear son," said God. "Please do me a favor. Buy a lottery ticket."

"If you wanna win, you got to play."

That is what this parable of the talents is telling us. Father Ezeogu goes on to say that “there are two kinds of people in our churches today: risk-takers and care-takers. The problem with care-takers is that they might show up at the undertaker's with little to show for the lives they have lived.”

There is an element of risk involved in asserting to be a Christian, a follower of Jesus, a proclaimer and liver of the Gospel. A blogger on this Scriptural text put it this way, “God always asks us to step out of our comfort-zone and act out of faith, not fear.

It’s what God expected of Noah when he told him to build an ark and collect animals. It’s what God expected of Abraham when he told him to leave his home…It’s what God expected of Mary when he sent the Angel Gabriel. It’s what God expected of Paul after knocking him off his horse.

Had any of those figures acted out of their fear (What will happen? Will we be safe? Will we have enough money? Will people still like me? Can I accomplish this?) instead of faith, the Bible would be a very different book.”

You see, the opposite of faith is not doubt, but rather fear. That is what this parable of the talents is also telling us. We are called to be people of action, not succumbing to the temptation to bury ourselves within these four walls and play it safe. The time for prudence and security is gone. We are called to be people of faith, not fear.

Too often we get all tangled up trying to interpret this parable. We focus on how to play the market and end up concluding that somehow it is all so grossly unfair. However, whenever we focus on the complexities of a parable, we are at best missing, and at worst avoiding, its point. The point of a parable is never complicated. It is always simple- maybe not easy, but always simple.

And so, this parable is not about good financial practices. Neither is it a celebration of a capitalist mentality.
Goodness gracious, if that were the case, it would be terribly misconstruing of the concept of the Kingdom, which Jesus makes clear is a world where financial calculations are abolished.

This parable is simply about how we are to live in God’s Kingdom – not prepare for God’s Kingdom which will come at some future point but rather live in God’s Kingdom – here, now, this day.

I went to a wonderful lecture series last weekend. It was the Fall Learning Event, presented by the Maine Conference of the United Church of Christ. Martha Morrison was there as well, and the speaker was theologian John Dominic Crosson. He talked a lot about what Jesus really meant by the Kingdom of God.

Though we talk about the Kingdom being among us - in our heart or inside of us, face it, it is far easier to think of the Kingdom of which Jesus spoke as coming somewhere down the line – at some future and glorious point in time when God will finally take the initiative to make all things new.

However, Crosson countered, what if Jesus was not talking about a future kingdom? What if Jesus presented a paradigm shift, a vision that shifted the tradition of first century Judaism?

What if Jesus was offering an alternative to what people believed, an alternative that still has the potential to rock us and shock us even down to the present day? “The Kingdom of God is among us,” he said. It is already here.

Yikes! Imagine that! What if it were true – that all these millennia we have been waiting for God to take some action when in reality God has been waiting for us.

What if the Kingdom is here, but is only visible if and when you and I as Christians collaborate with it. To put it another way, if we do nothing, nothing kingdom-like will happen. However, if we do something Christ-like, then all things are possible.

That is the point at which this parable of the talents dovetails so sweetly. God challenges us with the notion of a bottom line, an ROI, but for us as Christians, that ROI might better be translated “return on the incarnation”.

The coming of Christ is God’s spiritual investment in us – you and me - and it is an investment of immeasurable proportion. In fact, the fate of the world hinges upon that bottom line.

ROI – return on investment: We are called to invest our faith in Christ-like action. That is what the parable tells us. That is what the two favored slaves did in this Gospel story. They took risks. They did not fear failure. They were activists.

ROI – return on investment. I can not put it any better or more succinctly than Desmond Tutu did when he said, “God without you, won’t. You without God, can’t.”

And so I leave you with this question: What is your ROI, return on investment, return on the incarnation?

Rev. Nancy Foran is pastor of the Raymond Village Community Church in Raymond, Maine
www.rvccme.org

Genesis 12:1-4 “Standing on the Promises”

On his first Sunday in the pulpit, the new minister delivered an amazing sermon. The congregation was deeply moved – laughing, crying, filled with awe. At the end of the service, they congratulated him on his wonderful message and congratulated each other on their inspired decision to call this new pastor.

On the second Sunday, the new minister delivered exactly the same sermon as the week before. People were still deeply moved though some wondered what was going on. However, they gave him the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps he had picked up the wrong notes that morning, so they did not say too much.

However, on the following Sunday, the minister once again gave exactly the same sermon for the third time. Now there was widespread consternation. The Church Council called a meeting and asked the minister what was going on.

"Pastor", they said, "The sermon you preached today is a really great sermon, but you have delivered it three times now. Don't you have any other sermons?'

"Oh, yes!” replied the new minister, "I have scads of them, and they are all just as good as the one you heard."

"Well then," replied the Church Moderator. "Why don't you preach one of them next week?"

"Oh,” the minister replied. “I am not going to do that until you start following the message of the first one."

Well, even though today I have a new sermon, its message is an old one that you have probably heard before. It is a sermon about journeys, in this case a physical journey where an ancient family up and moved for no reason other than that the man of the house had started hearing strange and wonderful voices. However, this sermon is also about spiritual journeys, which is precisely what we find ourselves in the midst of each Lenten season.

Though this sermon begins with verses from the 12th chapter of Genesis, it really begins in the very beginning of time as time is written about in this first book of the Bible. And there we find God establishing a master plan in the Garden of Eden. It started out well - until that apple and serpent business - and then, needless-to-say, God was not a happy camper when it came to this order out of chaos business. In fact, God got so fed up with the garden dynamics that the Holy One kicked out the occupants (that would be Adam and Eve).

Things were back on track for a while, but what with the generations coming and going, the parties getting wilder, and the arguing louder until it was little more than a continuous din, all that coupled with the total disregard of the created for the Creator, one day God could not take it any more.

It seemed that everything was evil or on the road to hell, and so God wiped the slate clean. Hoping for the best, God kept one man and his family (that would be Noah) and a bunch of animals to start the world anew.

The saga of this starting and stopping, all of God’s efforts to get the world up and running on an even keel, all these wonderful mythological events with their own inherent truths are found in the first 11 chapters of the Book of Genesis.

Our story for today in the 12th chapter marks a monumental shift and dramatic transition in God’s creating. You see, God takes another tact and chooses a single person (that would be Abram - not Abraham, mind you; his name change comes later on, second only to Moses when it comes to hero status in the Old Testament), and designating Abram as the one through whom the sacred master plan will be jumpstarted and without whom it can not be fulfilled.

To get the ball rolling, God calls on Abram and his barren wife who will later be called Sarah, and his nephew Lot to take a journey into the unknown, into nothingness - for God’s sake.

Now, Abram was no perfect human specimen. He was a commonplace nomad, neither more righteous nor more rebellious than anyone else. I am sure Abram wondered why God had chosen him in the first place, why he had to leave town to get the blessing God promised, and what guarantees had been put in place to ensure that his life would be better for the journey.

And yet, in spite of Abram’s ordinariness and the slew of questions that surely we would have asked too, God tapped him on the shoulder. And it is through Abram’s story that three important Biblical themes are interwoven. These themes encircle and challenge not only this ancient family but also us – down through the ages – so many millennia later in time. The themes are call, covenant, and journey.

The story of Abraham and so the story of Israel, which is really the beginning of our story as well, starts with God’s call: “The LORD said to Abram, ‘Go forth from your native land and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you.’”

What would you have done? I mean, when God calls you into the unknown (which is what God most often does) – into a new ministry, a new relationship, a new way of looking at the world - it is always a difficult choice. And so it must have been for Abram. God directed him to leave behind everything that was most important to him: his land, his birthplace, and the house of his father.

As Old Testament scholar, Wilma Anne Bailey, writes, “In ancient societies, place and relationships were the most important considerations. One’s home and network of family and friends provided support and a means of earning a living. Without the political and economic structures that are in place today, travel beyond one’s homeland was difficult and dangerous.

Interestingly enough, Abram is not promised that life will be better in Canaan…Actually it’s almost guaranteed that at first - when he’s left behind his known language of communication, his reputation, his kin network, his knowledge of a place and how to survive in it - life will be worse.” Calls from God are not always what we want to hear because they usual mean disruption, dislocation, and – dare I say it - change.

However, for Abram, along with the call came a covenant – a kind of generous quid pro quo that God initiated. “By deserting his country he lost his name there: care not for that, (saith God) but trust me, and I will make thee a greater name than ever thou couldst have had there." That is how John Wesley, the founder of the Protestant denomination of Methodism, puts it.

The Message translation of our Bible continues: “I'll make you a great nation and bless you. I'll make you famous; you'll be a blessing. I'll bless those who bless you; those who curse you I'll curse. All the families of the Earth will be blessed through you."

I bet it was the blessing part that gave the Abram the hutzpa to, on a wing and a prayer, up and move his sheep and tents and cooking pots and slaves and servants. After all, he was an old man at the time – and though it was virtually impossible that a blessing upon him and his long barren wife would result in a child, let alone a whole nation – well, it was God who was doing the blessing, and that should mean something.

We often applaud Abram as a man of great faith because he followed God’s call. However, I think Abram was faithful not because he never doubted the call or ever tried to fulfill it on his own terms, which time and time again, he did.

No – Abram was faithful because when the chips were down and, oh, at times they were, when Abram stumbled and fell as he most certainly did, he always got back up and clung to the promises – tenuous as they might have seemed. He held fast to the covenant God had made with him.

It is like when we get that urge to risk ourselves and our way of doing things, to change our perspective, and it all seems quite overwhelming until we realize that the one who is nudging us is also the one reminding us in thirty ways to Sunday that we do not do it alone. God promises to be with us. God promises that Jesus walks beside us and the Holy Spirit leads us. To trust in the covenant makes all the difference – standing on the promises of God.

And so with the call and the covenant in his heart, Abram began the journey, believing in God’s future as it was laid out before him. He believed in the blessing. He also believed that he – even he – was meant to be a blessing too.

And so it is for us – our own journeys. Just as Abram leaves behind the old and moves forward into the unknown, so we journey out of nothingness into something else. We look forward to a future yet unknown. But we do know two things – and maybe this is the old, old message encased in a new, new sermon.

First, God chose an unlikely pair on which to found a chosen people. But with my hair turning gray, I find that both comforting and deeply inspiring. I mean, if God can choose an elderly man and his equally elderly and barren wife to be the ones to begin the process that would bring the holy plan to fruition, then surely there is a role for you and me in this kingdom business as well.

As seminary professor Louis Smedes wrote, “What really matters is not whether Abraham is good or bad or cowardly or heroic, but that God pursues His design for the welfare of the human family with people like that -- in other words, people like us."

Even we who may feel past our prime, believing that there is nothing we can really contribute, we too we have important work to do as we journey toward God’s kingdom.

If we trust in the covenant – stand on the promises – just a fraction of how much Abram did, then I believe that we will have the energy and will to follow where God leads. You see, God lets no one off the hook.

And, second, the journey itself really does still continue, and we are children of that journey. It is up to us now. Abram was willing to take risks and embrace change. Though certainly cowardly at times and no doubt fearful for what might come, he stepped into the journey anyway, a journey that took this 75 year old man far from the old and thrust him into the new.

And so it must be for us. Whether we are twentysomethings or pushing 90 and beyond, God calls us to venture down unknown paths, at the end of which, we will never be the same.

As Methodist pastor, Geoff McElroy claims: “the journey is still before us, a journey to try and make the covenant real in this world, to enact those covenant promises, that we might be blessings ourselves to all the families of the earth.”

So, go. Go this Lenten season. God calls you. The journey beckons you and encourages you to move ahead in faith through the unknown, daring to trust in a greater vision for life – and new life. You are invited on a bold journey of exploration, and you are secure in God's keeping and blessing. (Seasons of the Spirit)

So, go. Follow God’s call, knowing that you are blessed because God blesses you. Go on your journey wherever it may lead because it will end to a place of restoration and newness. Go on your journey, believing as well that you can be a blessing to all whom you meet.

Rev. Nancy Foran
http://www.rvccme.org/

Matthew 5:21-37 "It's All About Community"

"You have heard it said do not murder," Jesus preached.


Yep. Got that. Haven't killed anyone yet. Good for me….

“But I say - do not be angry”….Uh-oh.

“You have heard it said do not commit adultery," Jesus exhorted.

Haven't done that either. I am a faithful sort, so I am totally clean in this regard. Yay, me!…..

"But I say - do not look with lust" …Uh-oh.

Look at these verses, will you! Did you really listen to this third in three weeks excerpt from the Sermon on the Mount that we just read? Murder, anger, lust, adultery, swearing - all lumped together in one scriptural passage!

This is hardly easy material for any pastor or congregation to really delve into on a Sunday morning. Were you expecting to feel so uncomfortable when you walked in the door today?

You might never have been divorced – and maybe you have never experienced lust – and maybe you have never said a swear word – out loud, at least – but surely all of us have experienced anger at one time or another. No, this passage is a very difficult, almost downright scary, one on which to preach – or about which to be preached to.

What is Jesus thinking – laying out these exacting demands which, over the millennia since he spoke them, have formed if not official church policy then surely informal church culture. Are they meant to be taken literally? Are they even really meant to be taken seriously?

There are a couple of notions we must be aware of from the outset as we try to make sense of these verses for our own lives. First, the Gospel writer of Matthew starts with what is known – and that is the Jewish law. You might recall the final verse of Scripture that we read last week. As Jesus finished up talking about salt and light, he said that he had come not to abolish the law but rather to fulfill it.

Though Jesus does not specifically mention the Ten Commandments, he indirectly refers to them and, in doing so, shows the utmost respect for those ten holy phrases. In other words, let’s remember that Jesus’ role was not to replace or belittle or water down the Ten Commandments – the core of Jewish discipline.

Five years ago, when I was called to be pastor of this church and many of you were on the tail end of some pretty destructive theological conflicts, the rumor “out there” was that here at RVCC we did not believe in the Ten Commandments. Now how silly is that?

I like to think that we intuitively understood that living in the footsteps of Jesus involved a moral and ethical code that is not less than the Ten Commandments but significantly more. As Presbyterian pastor Susan Andrews writes, “Jesus is embodying the law, putting flesh on the law, and digging underneath the law in order to find God's deeper values and vision which the law points to….

Then Jesus….makes it concrete, giving…examples of how the (law, the) word becomes flesh in…our everyday lives. And as usual Jesus is neither polite nor politic. He takes on murder, adultery, divorce, lust.” Jesus is not throwing out the Jewish law, but rather he is looking above and below, in and around the ancient words, in order to tease out their deeper meaning about how God wants us to live.

The second thing to be aware of is the historical context in which Jesus spoke these words about anger and lust and divorce. We need to understand a bit about the culture in which Jesus’ listeners lived and to which the Ten Commandments had originally been given.

According to social scientist and theology professor, Bruce Mallina, Jewish society was an “honor-shame” society. It was conflict-driven and centered on a person’s honor, which was to be defended at all costs. Revenge was commonplace and expected.

Individual and family honor could suffer for many reasons - the dissolution of a marriage, adulterous behavior, or even debt leading to loss of land. These discords often led to war-like conflicts.

In fact, Bruce Mallina would say that the historical purpose of the Ten Commandments was to prevent inbred feuding because such community dissension could actually lead to annihilation of that community – not a good thing to have happen to God’s chosen people.

What Jesus offers in these verses from the Sermon on the Mount is a way out of the honor-shame impasses that had long dogged his people – and I would submit to a greater or lesser extent still characterize our world. Jesus suggests a new way of living, one grounded not in retaliation, but rather in reconciliation and restored relationships.

In these highly charged verses, Jesus is speaking to the difficulties of living within a community and to the rigors of maintaining healthy relationships. He does so through the lens of God’s personal code of morality. Without a doubt, it is a radicalized ethic.

As Eugene Petersen writes in his Biblical translation called “The Message,” “Trivialize even the smallest item in God's Law and you will only have trivialized yourself. But take it seriously, show the way for others, and you will find honor in the kingdom.”

Without a doubt, then, these verses surely are meant to be taken seriously. But are they meant to be taken literally? Poking out your eye and cutting off your right hand when you do something wrong seems a bit out of line. Let’s look for a moment at what a couple of these admonitions might have meant to Jesus’ listeners – and what they might mean for us?

First and foremost, Jesus is not in punishment mode. Rather, he is seeking a way to restore relationships. When Jesus uses that common pattern of “You have heard that it was said . . ." contrasted with "But I say to you . . . ." he is focusing our attention, not on the act itself, but instead on the intention behind the act.

In this part of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is grappling with motivation – the reason why someone would commit murder, be adulterous, insist upon divorce or even take oaths. Jesus is focusing our attention on what lies beyond the act itself – and what lies beyond is our relationships and ultimately how we treat one another.

And so, for example, Jesus looks beyond the act of murder to the reason behind it, which, in the end, is anger gone wild - not the occasional burst of ire, but rather the long term brooding outrage that eats away at us like a cancer. Such dark insidious anger is a barrier to restoring relationships. Such fury destroys rather than build ups our bonds with one another.

As UCC pastor, Patricia de Jong reminds us, “Our relationships with each other are crucial elements of our spiritual life. We cannot seek to know and understand God apart from our activity and our actions in human community.” We come to know God and God’s love through knowing and loving one another.

And so Jesus calls us to the radical ethic of reconciliation. He even puts this commitment to healing what is broken before the required temple offerings – and that is huge.

Now, Leigh, our new treasurer, might not be so keen on this – so I will say just imagine not putting your offering in the plate this morning but rather carrying it around with you for this next week, reminding you to consciously seek out peace and reconciliation in your life. Would you be different next Sunday?

Jesus lifts up divorce in the same way, perhaps because it is a most graphic example of a broken relationship. Divorce is a pain-filled acknowledgement that a particular human connection was not as God intended and did not reflect the covenant grounded in love that each one of us has with our Creator.

Divorce is an anguished example of what happens when reconciliation does not work or is not attempted. As Patricia de Jong reminds us, “Jesus is not trying to enhance the pain of divorce, but rather, he is upholding God's intentions for the marriage…covenant, a covenant of love which reflects the covenant between God and God's own people.”

In a way, Jesus shifts our attention from the actions we must avoid to the attitudes we must cultivate within ourselves. And at the root of those attitudes is love, not the Valentine’s Day kind of love that might be born out of in chemistry or mood, but rather the love that goes beyond what seems right according to the letter of the law and enters into the Spirit of what God wants for us, the love that heals and restores others, the love that values others.

When he speaks those difficult verses we read this morning, Jesus is announcing a new ethic. He is challenging us to create human relationships in a cutting edge, state of the art way by striving to express in those relationships the kind of love God has for us – that love which has such patience, such mercy, and such concern for what is best for the other. Jesus sets before us not the prohibitions of the law, but rather the beautiful vision of what is possible – and what will surely be – when we begin to doing our part to usher in God’s kingdom.

by Rev. Nancy Foran
Raymond Village Community Church, Raymond, Maine
www.rvccme.org

Matthew 5:1-12 "The Way Life Should Be"

When Jesus called his twelve disciples, they had no clue what they were in for. We found that out last week when we heard the story of Peter, Andrew, James, and John, the fishermen who dropped everything – nets, fathers, homes – to follow this itinerant preacher whom they had met during a casual encounter on the lakeshore of Galilee one warm summer morning. The four strapping twentysomethings left all they had ever known - on a wing and a prayer – and not much in the way of concrete information.

Put yourself in their sandals for a moment. Imagine how shell-shocked you would have been as the early days of your newfound life stretched into weeks away from home. Picture yourself as they were - on the sidelines, watching Jesus, the man they hardly knew, not only heal the sick and the lame (which was impressive in and of itself), but also empower those who were at the end of their ropes, comfort the ones who had lost everything, and embrace the moments when he encouraged cooperation and brought peace to strained relationships along the way. Imagine the disciples asking one another: What is this man all about anyway?

Perhaps Jesus sensed their bewilderment because, according to the Gospel writer of Matthew, he did not leave the four fishermen and their compatriots in the dark for too long. You see, we find out in the very next chapter of the Gospel of Matthew that one day, though crowds of people followed him, Jesus took his disciples off, “up a hill,” we are told. And there he gathered together Peter, Andrew, James, John, and the others and enlightened them. How fortunate we are – through the Gospel of Matthew - to be eavesdroppers on these ancient teachable moments!

What gist of what he taught them is what we call “The Sermon on the Mount.” These three chapters in our gospel narrative are really a collection of short pithy sayings and insights about life, love, morality, and God.

Most likely, Jesus did not speak all of them at one time or in one place. However, the Gospel writer of Matthew chose to present them to us all neatly compiled – much as the Lucan gospel writer does. However, all that really does not matter because the setting in which Jesus might have actually spoken these timeless words hardly detracts from their beauty and truth.

Jesus begins by teaching his twelve followers about what constitutes true happiness, true joy, and what makes a life truly worth living. We call these first teachings the Beatitudes, and I can not help but wonder whether the disciples were as thunderstruck by what must have seemed like overwhelming demands as we ought to be when we read the plain language of this text.

A few years ago, a Raleigh, North Carolina newspaper published an article entitled: "How Do You Measure Up As A Man?” It was based on a research study that explored the criteria we in our society use to judge the successful – and therefore presumably the happiest, most joy-filled male – the one who knows how to truly live. Here are the top eight criteria:

1. His ability to make and conserve money.

2. The cost, style, and age of his car.

3. How much hair he has.

4. His strength and size.

5. The job he holds and how successful he is at it.

6. What sports he likes

7. How many clubs he belongs to.

8. His aggressiveness and reliability.

Frankly, I find those criteria dreadfully shallow. However, I do think people have used them – or ones similar – going all the way back to Jesus’ time…1. Hs ability to make and conserve shekels, 2. The number of sheep he owns, 3. His place in the temple hierarchy – you get the picture.

Knowing how un-self-reflective people can be at times, we should not be surprised then to read that the core curriculum Jesus outlined for his disciples turned these shallow criteria topsy turvy and instead outlined a completely different way to experience happiness, joy, and a life worth living.

Joyful and blessed by God are those who are poor in spirit, Jesus said, who are not full of themselves and their ability to make and conserve money, but rather have room for God – a lot of room for God – who rely upon the Holy One for direction rather than the values of their culture.

Joyful and blessed by God are those who lament and let go of all that is dead and dying in their own lives – all the ephemeral things – their strength and size, not to mention the people and relationships who sap their energy, and, of course, the old ways of doing things - who also weep over the grief and pain they witness in the world around them.

Joyful and blessed by God are those who are meek – but not in our usual sense of the word, not the weak, the milquetoasts, the mousy, the wimpy – but rather the ones who possess a silent strength deeply rooted in a faith in God, trusting that in the end good will prevail over any evil the world can create, meek like Jesus in the judgment hall before Pilate.

Joyful and blessed by God are those who long for, who ache and agonize for things to be as God would have them be, who will do whatever lies within their power to bring healing where there is hurt, justice where there is injustice, equality where there is inequality, right where there is wrong, who will not simply look the other way.

Joyful and blessed by God are those who have hearts overflowing with compassion, whose souls are moved by pain and suffering, who have the innate capacity to walk in another’s shoes and to understand intuitively that the one who suffers could just as easily be themselves.

Joyful and blessed by God are those who love God more than they love themselves and their possessions, who have the clarity of vision to see that loving God – and allowing themselves to be loved by God - is enough to transform their lives and their world and is more than any amount of money can buy.

Joyful and blessed by God are those who understand that God calls them to bring peace to the world and to their own lives and relationships, but not just the absence of war or conflict. In the end, this peace is the one that passes all our understanding, for it is shalom, healing, wholeness, prosperity, reconciliation, and ultimately communion or oneness with God.

Joyful and blessed by God are those who are willing to pay the price for following Jesus - because there is a price - who commit themselves to honesty, integrity, justice, and healing, understanding that the world will not take to them kindly – but in the end it will all be worthwhile.

“Yikes!” we might say. “I can’t live up to this stuff. These Beatitudes are way over the top. I am out of here.”

But wait! If that is what you think about the Beatitudes, that you better hustle off because you can not live up to them, then you are reading them all wrong. You have not really heard them.

It is like the scene in the Monty Python movie, “Life of Brian.” What did he say?

I think it was “Blessed are the cheesemakers.”

Aha, what’s so special about the cheesemakers?

Well, obviously it’s not meant to be taken literally; it refers to any manufacturers of dairy products.

Really listen to the words here. The writer of the Gospel of Matthew is clear that the Beatitudes are not standards that we are required to reach. They are not conditions or terms. They are simply blessings, statements of fact about what will bring happiness, what will bring joy, what will make life truly worth living.

The Beatitudes are a vision, a beautiful vision of the world with God at the center and God at every turn along the way, urging and challenging us to step deeper into the waters of faith, deeper into the Divine Presence that is all around us. As UCC pastor Susan Blain writes, Jesus is “not demanding of us extravagant sacrifice or liturgical purity… God is calling us to follow Christ into the world to engage in a lifetime of faithful, creative, courageous, community-building love.”

Those of us who are into good grammar might already have noticed that, as seminary professor Mary Hinkle Shore, points out, the Beatitudes are in the indicative. They are statements of fact. They are not demands. They are not conditions. They are not “if you do this or that, then you are blessed.

The Beatitudes are merely a statement of the way things are, “a statement of the world turned upside down, where those who mourn are comforted rather than abandoned or merely pitied, where those who hunger and thirst for righteousness are satisfied, not ignored or shouted down, where the meek inherit the earth rather than being ground into the dust.

"Right," someone will say. Or "Get real." (Life is not like that.

But, wait, suspend disbelief for a moment, and ask yourself this question:) What if Jesus is describing the real world, and we go around all day thinking the other world – the world as we know it - is the (ultimate) truth about us and our neighbors?” What if all along we have been living a lie? What if Jesus really is right?

“The meek, the mourning, the persecuted, the merciful: are they blessed in the present and given a trustworthy promise concerning the shape of the future? Or are they just weak, foolish, and out of touch with reality?...

(I think) the Sermon on the Mount (and most particularly for us this morning, the Beatitudes) is Jesus' Dream Speech of a better way, a better home, and his sketch of what the place will look like when we (finally) arrive.” The Beatitudes are not pie in the sky. They outline the way life should be.

So do not ignore the Beatitudes because you know that you can not live up to them. Do not disregard the Beatitudes because you think they are conditions for God’s blessings.

Rather cherish them – keep them safe in your hearts – so when given a choice – a choice to be:

Full of yourself or full of God

Lamenting the death of the old or embracing the new

Being silently strong or crumbling beneath some cultural expectation

Making even a small thing right or looking the other way

Walking in another shoes or standing on the sidelines in your own shoes

Loving God more than loving yourself

Striving for peace rather than ignoring or inciting conflict

Being willing to pay the price of the Gospel message or deciding it is not worth the cost

When you are given those choices, you can, first, recognize that you have a choice, and, second, you can make an informed decision.

Cherish the Beatitudes, so you can remember just what in the long run brings happiness, brings joy, what makes a life truly worth living, a life which God blesses.