RVCC Spirit

Revelation 21:1-5 "The Eagle and the Condor"

2012-01-01T17:54:00.000-08:00

Joe and I enjoy swimming laps at St. Joseph’s College in Windham a couple of times a week. Throughout eleven months of the year, there are generally 3-4 people at any given open lap swim. I like these numbers because usually everyone gets his or her own lane, so only rarely do I have to share a lane.

However, the month of January is different. At the beginning of each calendar year, the pool is crowded with folks we regulars have never seen before. I know those of you who frequent Planet Fitness experience the same phenomenon.

For three or four weeks, you share your gym space or pool lane with men and women who have made a New Year’s resolution to loose weight and get fit. It generally all passes within a couple of months, and the gym and the pool are then back to normal. I find New Year’s resolutions to be both funny as well as a little bit sad. For most of us, they are made to be broken – and often are broken by Valentine’s Day.
When you think about them, most New Year’s resolutions are self-centered, that is, they focus inward, on oneself. I will lose 20 pounds. I will stop biting my fingernails. I will drink less coffee. I will eat more fruit. I will change my diet, change my physique, change my job. There are few of us who resolve on New Year’s Day to change our world.

However, there is something particularly compelling about doing just that on this New Year’s Day. I am referring, or course, to all the hoopla about 2012. Perhaps you have read or heard about its significance for many people around the world.

December 21, 2012 marks the end of the Mayan calendar. It is also the predicted year of a Galactic Alignment, which is when the winter solstice sun aligns with our galactic equator, the midline which runs down the Milky Way, dividing our galaxy in two. This alignment happens about every 26,000 years. And, of course, there is the perspective taken in the apocalyptic film “2012”: that this is the year when the world will end. In general, there is an overwhelming sense of unusual things about to happen in 2012.

Undoubtedly, as the winter solstice comes closer this year, there will be those who will give up all hope for the world, presuming its climactic finale, Armageddon, doomsday. In fact, you can go onto the internet and find all sorts of websites detailing how to prepare for the impending catastrophe.

However, there will also be those who see this year of 2012 as symbolic of a great hope, a hope that humanity will finally begin climbing out of the dark abyss it finds itself in and emerge in the sunlight of a new and higher consciousness – we becoming more each day as God wants us to be – children of light, people of justice and compassion – people like Jesus.

Indigenous communities, from the Incans in South America to the Mayans in Central America to the Hopis in our own Southwestern United States all hold this common prophecy, and the year 2012 lies at its heart.

Joseph Robert Jochmans summarizes the gist of it this way: "…the Hopis and Mayans (and the Incas) recognize that we are approaching the end of a World Age... However, the Hopi and Mayan (and Incan) elders do not prophesy that everything will come to an end. Rather, this is a time of transition from one World Age into another. The message they give concerns our making a choice of how we enter the future ahead.”

The Incan prophecy says that “now, in this age, when the eagle of the North and the condor of the South fly together, the Earth will awaken…Now is the time.

(We are in the midst of) an era of light, an age of awakening, an age of returning to natural ways (in order to) understand the message of the heart, intuition, and nature…When (human) consciousness awakens, we can fly high like the eagle, or like the condor…” (www.incaprophecy.com)

Now whether you believe in prophecy in general or non-Christian prophecy in particular is irrelevant here. What is important for us to consider on this New Year’s Day 2012 – even as Christians - is what is articulated at the heart of this prophecy – and that is the concept of change. What is important for us to come to grips with is whether we believe that transformation of our world is even possible and whether we – specifically you and I – play a role in that transformation.

When I heard Christian theologian, John Dominic Crosson, speak this past fall, he said that, at its heart, Christianity is all about transformation. I agree with him. For me, of all the agents of change in all of human history, Jesus is the person who has most influenced – directly or indirectly - our growth as human beings.

Even our own Bible speaks of change and transformation:

"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away…And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people…for the old order of things has passed away…Behold! I am making everything new!”

Do you believe in the possibility of change? Do you believe that this world can be made new? Do you believe in the Biblical truth of transformation? Do you believe that it might just be happening now – or do you believe that change is something God will unleash in the distant future?

The Incans called this period of transformation that they believed we have entered “Pachacuti” which means “great change.” They would say that now is the time in which the world will be turned right-side-up, so that harmony and order can be restored.

At their core, these ancient prophecies that swirl about the year 2012 are optimistic. Rather than being a time for the world to end, they refer instead to the end of time as we know it — the death of a way of thinking and being, the end of a way of relating to the earth and to one another.

This dying away of the old is a significant part of the Apostle Paul’s theology. He used the metaphor of dying and rising in Christ to talk about ending the old ways of living and being reborn into lives of loving service to the earth and to one another.

Do you believe in the possibility of such change? Do you believe, as Paul did, that the old can die away and something new can take its place? Do you believe in the Biblical truth of transformation? Do you believe that might just be happening now?

According to the ancient 2012 prophecy, the pachacuti, or great change, has already begun. Now is the time of the great gathering and reintegration of people from of the four directions – north, south, east, and west - the building of a truly global community. Now is the time that “munay,” love and compassion, will be the guiding force of this great gathering. Perhaps as Christians we might say that now is the time for Jesus’ great commandment: Love one another - to take hold in the world.

The 2012 prophecies also speak of tumultuous changes happening (not only) in the earth, (but also (and perhaps more importantly)) in our psyche, redefining our relationships and our spirituality, offering us an opportunity to redefine ourselves not as who we have been in the past but rather as who we are becoming. Now is the time when we have the potential to become a new kind of person. As our own Biblical Book of Revelation reads, “Behold I make all things new.”

Do you believe in the possibility of change? Do you believe that we can be made new? Do you believe in the Biblical truth of transformation? Do you believe that might just be happening now?

The Q’ero tribe, who are the modern day keepers of the Incan prophecy in Peru, believe that the doorways between the worlds are opening again. And here lies the special significance of 2012. Holes in time that we can step through and beyond, where we can explore our human capabilities, where we can once again become children of the light – that light that shines in the darkness, and the darkness will not overcome it.

Do you believe in the possibility of change? Do you believe that this world can be made new and that we can once more shine brilliantly with the light of God? Do you believe in the Biblical truth of transformation? Do you believe that might just be happening now?

The ancient 2012 prophecy would say that rekindling this light is a possibility today for all who dare to take the leap – and, as a Christian, that is what I find so hopeful and so exciting about the year ahead.

The Andean shamans say, “Follow your own footsteps. Learn from the rivers, the trees and the rocks. Honor the Christ, the Buddha, your brothers and sisters. Honor the Earth Mother and the Great Spirit. Honor yourself and all of creation…Look with the eyes of your soul and engage the essential.”

As Christians, we call this period of transformation the coming of the Kingdom, and Jesus’ message is that you and I are instrumental in its unfolding. “The Kingdom of God is among us, within us,” he preached. “Thy Kingdom come, they will be done on earth (here, now) as it is in heaven,” he prayed.

f the ancient prophecies of the Incas, the Mayans, and the Hopi have any relevance for us as Christians, it is because their essence is so similar to Jesus’ Gospel message. And if this year of 2012 will have any special significance for us, it will be that we will make the commitment to be the agents of change that I believe we are called to be.

The time is now. The place is here. The people are us. Will this be the age when the eagle and the condor fly together? Will this be the age when we really see more than just glimpses of the Kingdom of God among us? Will this be the age when humanity exercises its potential to be transformative? After all, as Gandhi once said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

I believe there is a new world about to unfold. For me, this is a time of great high hope. And so I must ask these questions: What do we want this new world to look like? How do we want it to be when it is finally transformed? What can we do to begin that change, that transformation?

Here are a couple of broad themes to think about:

1. Building community globally – What is one thing you could do, one action you could bring to fruition, that would build up relationships between different cultures and peoples?

2. Building community locally – What is one thing you could do, one action you could bring to fruition, that would build up relationships between people or generations in this church and between this church and the Town of Raymond?

3. Building collaboration - What is one thing you could do, one action you could bring to fruition, that would foster collaboration rather than conflict, that would enhance discourse rather than argument, that would bring individuals, groups, or political parties together rather than polarize them?

4. Building a viable earth – What is one thing you could do, one action you could bring to fruition, that would help to ensure that you are passing on a livable earth to your children and grandchildren?

I truly believe that in this year of 2012, we can be agents of change and transformation. And I hope that I have convinced you to at least entertain that possibility.

Working against that hope, we are going to take some time now to come up with a

2012 resolution – just one resolution – a specific action you commit to take that reflects one of these themes that are so essential to the transformation of our world.

For the next 10 minutes right now, using the insert in your bulletin as a reference, think about what you will do to help in this pachacuti, this time of great change, the coming of the Kingdom. This is not a test. Nothing will be collected, and no one will see what you write down. However, this is an opportunity to take concrete action in 2012, to help the eagle and the condor to fly together and to usher in the Kingdom of God.

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

2011-12-27T12:47:00.000-08:00

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"

2011-11-28T13:46:00.000-08:00

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

2011-11-14T18:15:00.000-08:00

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”

2011-03-25T07:40:00.000-07:00

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"

2011-02-18T08:47:00.000-08:00

"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"

2011-02-02T13:44:00.000-08:00

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.

Revelation 21:1-4 "All-Saints' Remembrances"

2010-11-11T06:32:00.000-08:00

Revelation 21:1-4

Robert Benson is an author who writes books that explore the question of just how the holy or sacred is found in the ordinary, every day part of our lives. Here is what he said about saints in a book entitled Between the Dreaming and the Coming True:

"All of the places of our lives are sanctuaries; some of them just happen to have steeples. And all of the people in our lives are saints; it is just that some of them have day jobs and most will never have feast days named for them."

And so it is for the saints we have known and whom we honor during these All-Saints’ Remembrances today. These are the people in our families and in our congregation who passed away during the last year. They are men and women. They are old and young. They are the ones who really did not take us by surprise when they left this earth for whatever it is that comes next. They are the ones whose death shocked us to the very core. They are the ones we loved, and we still feel lost without them. They are the ones whose memories we will always hold dear and whose legacy has been passed on to us. The best of who they were will live on in us – in our courage, our conscience, our caring for one another.

KENNETH A. BERRY – Catharine’s husband of 51 years. He sat right back there and also faithfully prepared the Weathervane for mailing each month – even after he became ill. Ken was an extraordinary carpenter and craftsman who could spot a roof or a kitchen counter that was not square a mile away. He built the home he and Catharine shared. Frugal - always looking for a bargain – and most of the time finding ones he could not resist. Hard working, kind, and generous. A soft-spoken and gentle man. He loved his gardens and “The Three Stooges. He adored his grandchildren. He never officially joined this church, but, oh, he was a faith filled man. The day before he died, I was talking with him at home. His eyes were closed, and I whispered to him, “Ken, everything is going to be OK, you know.” He opened those eyes wide and looked directly at me. “Oh, yes, Nancy, I know that,” he replied emphatically.

MABEL FRANCES CROCKETT – Mabel used a walker up until two days before she died. That is no mean feat when you live to be 105 years old. With her husband, she owned and operated Migis Lodge for 24 years. Born in Nova Scotia, she came to the US when she was 17 to go to secretarial school in Boston, where she graduated first in her class. Independent, resilient, and feisty.

A wry sense of humor and a never ending smile. Always busy – never walking but rather “trotting.” A lover of horses, an active supporter of the Raymond Library, and a member of the Raymond Semicircle, a women’s group loosely affiliated with our church. Hardworking, honest, and straightforward. Mabel followed her own path –driving until she was 89, living in her own home until she was 90, and winning a pool tournament in her retirement community when she was 96.

HELENA THORNTON MAKER DICKINSON – mother of Nancy Yates. Loving, kind, generous, and selfless. Tireless with unending energy for her family. Frugal – oh, could she ever stretch the few resources she had – able to make so much out of so little. But then, how could she not have had all of those traits in spades? After all, she raised ten children – beginning at age 18 with Nancy – and for many of those years, with no one to ease the burden!? An excellent cook – she did not fall back on all the easy TV dinners and processed food. As Nancy told me, “The taste of her homemade bread and beans, potato salad and johnny cake will live on in our memories.” Helena made the holidays special with memorable feasts – good food and good family. Again, as Nancy said, “Of all the many oft-remembered treats, we will especially miss her cherry walnut cake, for which, regrettably, we have no recipe.”

HOWARD M. DODGE – brother of Bernie Dodge. Retired from the Air Force. Also served in the Army Reserve. Worked in a bank and as a taxi driver before he found his niche serving customers in the U.S. Postal Service for 30 years. Howard was devoted to his wife and his family. Known for his boundless love and generosity. A devoted member of St. Boniface Parish in Cold Spring, Minnesota, a church and community volunteer through the Catholic Order of Foresters, Knights of Columbus, Catholic Aid Association, and the American Legion. Bernie wrote this about his brother: “My strongest memory or admiration of Howard was the fact that he rose from a childhood of no positive fatherly influence or training to become a loving father, sometimes working three jobs at a time and with his wife Darlene raised seven successful children.”

JENNILEE LAMBERT – Dan Lambert’s daughter by birth, but Lori will always consider Jenni to be her daughter as well. Jenni would have been 29 this month but lost a battle with an illness she did not even know she had. Jenni was energetic, courageous, and a marvelous lover of life. She was a beautiful young woman inside and out. Lori described her as a person with “a kind soul and a caring heart.”

The ways of God are mysterious, and Jenni left this earth with so many questions unanswered – why her? Why now? We can only pray that because she is at peace, we too can find peace in knowing that for now, there are no satisfying answers. Jenni was the middle child between two brothers, but for Lori’s and Dan’s daughter, Kaleigh, Jenni epitomized what it meant to be the “big sister.” Leader, listener, confidante, and the one who made things happen, Jenni shined in that role like the sun. As Lori said, “We miss her devilish grin and unique sense of humor, which would sometimes have her saying things like ‘I come with my own background music; can you hear it?’”

WILLIAM H. PARKER – husband of Ginny Parker for just over 64 years. Always ready with a smile. Caring, gentle, kind, and a wonderful community volunteer. Bill was a man who loved working with his hands, and so he enjoyed his time as an electrician, building inspector, volunteer firefighter, and even a voting machine mechanic. Loved boating, loved summering at his family cottage in Rhode Island, loved retiring to Raymond where he became a stalwart and much admired volunteer for the Fire Department here in town. He particularly enjoyed those times when he was head of the Fire Patrol, and a lot of those Fire Lane signs around here were kept accurate by Bill. Bill loved Tara, that little dog of his, and disliked vegetables. Diane said of Bill, “As long as Bill could stand-up, he showed up to help!” He was always ready to lend a hand,

Ken, Mabel, Helena, Howard, Jenni, Bill – They have left us with a lot, you know. They have given us rich memories that will never be taken away. They have presented us with a legacy of faithfulness, independence, selfless love for family, strong work ethic, unique background music, and devotion to community. May we take up that legacy and carry those qualities - not only in our hearts but also in the way we choose to live our own lives. After all, in the end, our saints live on in us.

But what about them? What is in this for them? Well, we as Christians trust that they now rest in the arms of God, in the eternal love and peace of the Holy One. It is all a mystery we can not understand but can only trust. It is like this story that I know some of you have heard entitled, “The Dragonfly.” It is a children’s story: that is true. However, sometimes we can see the mysteries of life more clearly through a child’s eyes.

Once, in a pond, in the muddy water under the lily pads, there lived a little water beetle in a community of water beetles. They lived a simple and comfortable life with few disturbances and interruptions.

Once in a while, sadness would come to them when one of their fellow beetles would climb the stem of a lily pad and never be seen again. They knew when this happened; their friend was dead, gone forever.

Then, one day, one of the little water beetles felt an irresistible urge to climb up that stem. However, he was determined that he would not leave forever but would come back and tell his friends what he had found at the top.

When he reached the top and climbed out of the water onto the surface of the lily pad, he was so tired, and the sun felt so warm, that he decided he must take a nap. As he slept, his body changed and when he woke up, he had turned into a beautiful blue-tailed dragonfly with broad wings and a slender body designed for flying.

So, fly he did! And as he soared, he saw the beauty of a whole new world, so different but so much better than anything he had eve known existed.

Then he remembered his beetle friends and how they were thinking by now that he was dead. He wanted to go back to tell them and explain to them that he was actually more alive than he had ever been before. His life had been fulfilled rather than ended.

However, his new body would not go down into the water, and so he could not get back to tell his friends the good news. But he also knew that their time would come, when they, too, would know what he now knew, a time when they would all be together again. So, he raised his wings and flew off into his joyous new life!

May it be so for our saints! Fly Saints, Fly!

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

Luke 18:9-14 "Conundrum"

2010-10-28T16:54:00.000-07:00

We in the 21st century are not all that different from those men and women in the 1st century who sat at Jesus’ feet, listening to him teach with parables. One similarity across the millennia is that whether we live today or whether we lived 2000 years ago, most of us prefer to see the world in black and white.

There are good guys and bad guys, heroes and villains. For us, there is Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, Cinderella and the Wicked Stepmother, Barack Obama and Glenn Beck, the Tea Party and the Liberal Establishment. For Jesus’ listeners, there were the one God Jews and the Zeus loving pagans, the Jewish peasant class and the Roman Emperor himself.

And yet, we will discover that this parable about the Pharisee and the tax collector praying next to each other in the synagogue is not black and white at all, but rather many shades of gray.

Presbyterian pastor and seminary professor Victor Shepherd tells the story like this: “A Pharisee and a tax-collector go to church together. The Pharisee is morally circumspect. He’s squeaky clean, consistent in it all as well. He’s a genuinely good man. There’s nothing deficient or defective in his religious observance or his moral integrity. There isn’t a whiff of hypocrisy about him. As soon as he gets to church he reminds God how circumspect and how consistent he is.

(The) tax-collector, (however, was part of the) most despised group in Israel. (Tax collectors) made a living collecting taxes for the Roman occupation…This branded them publicly as exploitative, ready to “fleece” their own people, greedy, and heartless concerning the kinfolk they kept impoverished.

The Pharisee looked at this one tax-collector in church, looked away and then looked up, nose in air as he said “God, I thank you I am not like other men. They are extortionists, unjust, adulterous. I’m none of this. I am not like them. I’m not at all like this creep standing beside me.” The tax-collector, we’re told, made no religious claim at all. He simply cried, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner.’”

Now, at first glance, the tale may look black and white. However, when you closely observe the two characters in the story, this simplicity rapidly disappears.

The parable presents a conundrum, a puzzle, a brain teaser, a mind boggler. The Pharisee or the tax collector? Who does one identity with? Jesus’ listeners would not have enjoyed being associated with either one. There is no good guy in this parable. There is no hero.

On the one hand, Jesus was perpetually in conflict with the Pharisees. They were the religious hierarchy and way too tight with the Roman government. Pharisees dictated the nits and nats of Jewish holiness and considered themselves to be of that righteousness.

However, Pharisees also had the reputation of being religious hypocrites. Because they were generally well off, they had the financial means to observe all the complexities of the Mosaic law, down to the tiniest nit or nat, something impossible for most of the Jewish populace. Those who followed Jesus had no love for the Pharisee in our parable.

Yet, on the other hand, a tax collector was the scum of the earth. As the author of a blog entitled “Magdalene’s Musings” wrote, “If Pharisees were models of holiness and righteousness, tax collectors were models of a different kind: they were mostly thought of as models of greed, uncleanness and dishonesty,…working on behalf of the enemy,… making themselves rich off the misery of their own people.

Tax collectors were traitors.” Those who followed Jesus had no love for the tax collector in our parable either.

That is the conundrum. Who does one identify with?

The Pharisee was not a bad person. His religion was his passion. He would be the one in church every Sunday without fail. He loved the Bible, and its literal teachings dictated how he lived his life. He was a good upstanding Jew.

In fact, he lived in exemplary fashion, going above and beyond the minimum requirements for a good religious life. He fasted regularly – and he tithed on everything he acquired, even down to the herbs in his garden. He invested 10% of his treasure where his heart was – and looking at it from the perspective of this day and age, that is nothing to sneeze at. The Pharisee had religious zeal. Seen from this perspective, the Pharisee is no villain.

Of course, Jesus points out that he does have this shortcoming when it comes to his prayer life. His prayers seem less about God and more about himself – though all he was doing really was offering prayers of gratitude – thanking God that he was blessed in not being like the tax collector who prayed beside him.

Now, the tax collector – well, he is a different story. Not a paragon of good solid ethics, he would never be elected church treasurer. As United Church of Canada pastor David Ewart notes, “Not only does collecting taxes make one very unpopular, it also makes one unable to live according to the teachings of the Bible because one must constantly be in contact with ritually unclean people and goods. And taxes paid for the Roman armies and elites that were occupying the Holy Land.” Seen from this perspective, the tax collector is no hero.

However, when it comes to his prayer life, this fellow got it right. His words may not have been very articulate, but they were to the point. He asks for mercy and throws himself upon the grace of God. And in the long run, Jesus seems to say, his seeking of forgiveness in the face of tremendous odds counts for something.

Who does one identify with? It is a conundrum. The pompous prig of a Pharisee who deeply loves his God and his church? Or the irreligious, morally bankrupt tax collector who throws himself on the mercy of Yahweh? It is a puzzle, a brain teaser, a mind boggler.

As I thought about the parable this week, I wondered if perhaps there is no black or white answer to that niggling question of who we identify with – Pharisee or tax collector. Perhaps Jesus did not mean for there to be a clear right or wrong. Perhaps we are meant to learn something about prayer from both the tax collector and the Pharisee. Perhaps we are not meant to judge either one of them but simply to acknowledge that, if we look closely, we will see ourselves in the eyes of both of them.

Take the prayers of the Pharisee. They were prayers of thanksgiving – and surely there is nothing untoward in that. So often we come to God with a list of demands. We want healing for him, luck in the job search for her. We want some sort of holy intervention, so that we will sell our house or our child will travel safely back to college.

But we seldom actually thank God for that child in the first place – or even for another blessed day of life itself. Where the Pharisee went astray was not in being grateful to God, but in holding up and thereby judging the tax collector as his spiritual opposite. And when he did that, he was no longer praying but comparing.

But haven’t we all done that on occasion? We hear of mudslides in Guatemala and thank God that it was them and not us. We read in the newspaper of children killed in a car accident on prom night and thank God that our own children came home safely. We have all done it. We are all like the Pharisee.

Take the prayers of the tax collector. In spite of the fact that he was morally bankrupt, a deeply flawed human being, he understood his relationship with God clearly enough to be ever so humble in his prayers, thereby setting up a marvelous teachable moment – and that is this:

We too must be self-reflective enough to acknowledge to God our sinfulness, our shortcomings – even as count our blessings and present our list of demands to the Almighty. We too must trust enough to openly share our deepest and darkest secrets with God. Admitting out loud his deep need for God was what justified the tax collector.

And just as we are all like the Pharisee, so we are also all like the tax collector. Face it – we may not be cheaters and chiselers like he, but we all have something deeply sorry about our lives. From the tax collector’s experience, we are assured that owning up to the bad and ugly things about us will be OK – and indeed will serve to cement even more our relationship with the Almighty.

The parable is surely a conundrum, a puzzle that has no black and white solution. However, I think that the interplay between the Pharisee and the tax collector is a way for Jesus to remind us just how important prayer is in our relationship with God.

Surely it has the potential to help us discover more of who we are and who God is – even if we at times stumble in our attempts to pray properly.

Martin Luther King, Jr., [said] “to be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing.” This parable teaches us that "prayer is the occasion for honesty about oneself (but also) generosity about others…(For Jesus’ listeners and so for us) prayer is not a last resort when all the plans and programs and power plays have failed; prayer is, rather, the first and primary task of Christians" (Charles Cousar) – even though, as the Pharisee and the tax collector illustrate for us, we have not yet perfected the technique.

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

Luke 18:1-8 "Live Boldly"

2010-10-28T16:48:00.000-07:00

“You see,” Jesus said as the peasant entourage of listeners settled down at his feet for a good story, “there was this widow, and she had been wronged.” And the audience clucked and whispered and nodded their heads. They knew what “being wronged” meant. It happened to them all the time – being cheated, getting the short end of the stick. They knew from their own experience that it was not a good place to be.

Why, the dear old soul really had nothing going for her. She was powerless because when she had buried her husband, she had buried her identity as well. She was a nobody because that was just the way it was with women who were not associated with a better half, a better half who could be depended upon to speak up in times of need.

She was poor – because all the widows of whom Jesus ever spoke were poor – and because she was poor she had no money with which to grease the wheels of justice. She could not have put up a bribe even if she had wanted to. When you lined up all the things that worked against her, the chance of her wrong being righted was virtually nil.

“And then,” continued Jesus, “there was this judge - and the judge was corrupt.” And his listeners knowingly nodded their heads once again. Judges like that were a denarius a dozen. They knew that taking bribes was probably so commonplace in that judge’s book that he had most likely rationalized that it was best for society if he filched a shekel or two from the poor whenever he could.

The audience could picture that judge. He was calloused and had long ago mastered the ability to simply look the other way when it suited his purposes. He was condescending – adept at staring through those wire rimmed glasses he wore down the length of his pointy nose to whoever groveled at his feet.

They just knew that he was the kind of judge who ordered his assistants to bribe the riffraff outside of the Tent of Justice, so only those with the ability to pay were prompted to plea their cases. And the shekels came rolling in – even if true justice slipped out the back door.

“So,” said Jesus, “There was this widow and there was this judge.” But that is where the stereotypes ended. Because the widow was not like the usual run-of-the-mill widows the judge was used to. This one was persistent. This one just did not give up.

Every time the judge turned around, there she was – giving him that look and shaking her finger at him. She rattled the tent flaps, and he could hear her arguing with his bouncers as he shuffled papers around on his desk.

She found him at the café on Main Street in the morning just as the waitress brought him a platter of steaming eggs and sausage – and well before his second cup of coffee.

She was right there when he snuck out of his flimsy Tent of Justice for a cigarette. And when all he wanted was a few minutes of quiet in the mid-afternoon for a cup of tea and a biscuit – there she would be. She badgered him all the way home – night after night.

He even dreamt about her. It was the same dream every night, one of those recurring things. The widow would be following him down a long darkened tunnel that seemed to go on forever, her high pitched voice bouncing off the floors and ceiling, echoing up and down the ancient passageway and rattling interminably inside his head -

- Until he could stand it no longer. “Leave me alone!” the judge shouted one day at the widow in broad daylight. “I give up. You can have what you want. Just get out of my life. Just leave me be.” And she did. And he did. And the parable ended.

An assistant manager of a large department store saw a boy standing at the bottom of the escalator one day. The assistant became suspicious. He watched the boy for a while. The boy had his eyes glued on the moving handrail. Finally the assistant approached the lad and questioned him.

"Something wrong, young man?" he asked.

"No sir," replied the boy, not taking his eyes off the handrail, "I'm just waiting for my bubble gum to come back."

Persistence - that is what this parable is about. As a prelude to the actual story, Jesus tells his listeners that this tale is about prayer and its link to the kind of perseverance that the old widow demonstrated. And most sermons I have heard on this passage focus on just that – on how we need to be persistent in our prayers, how we need not be alarmed if our prayers are not answered in our own good time, how we need to be conscious of what many see to be the causal relationship between prayer and faith.

And those are certainly worthy topics to spring from this parable in the Gospel of Luke. However, I keep thinking that prayer is not (or at least should not) be something we do in a vacuum, closed off from the world. I am reminded of Frederick Douglass when he said, “I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs.”

To be truly efficacious, prayer necessarily involves action on our part. And so, it would seem to me that if Jesus is telling us to be persistent in our prayer life, then he is also implying that we must be persistent in all of life as it unfolds before us. And when we think about the parable from this wider perspective, suddenly it becomes both a daring call to action and a profound word of hope.

Just as the old powerless widow was as feisty as could be, just as she was persistent to the point even of obnoxiousness, just as she never gave up when the world around her was probably snickering behind her back or laughing out loud in her face, so I believe that we are called to do the same. We are not pawns in this world, being moved around by some Higher Being. No – we are powerful – masters of our own destiny.

Live boldly this parable is telling us. Figure out what your passion is, where your heart lies – and act upon it. As Episcopal priest, Barbara Brown Taylor, noted about the widow: "She is willing to say what wanted – out loud, day and night, over and over – whether she got it or not, because saying it was how she remembered who she was. It was how she remembered the shape of her heart…" Live boldly.

God did not put us on this earth to be wishy washy, to take whatever comes our way. Though that is sometimes mistakenly called meekness, it is in reality lack of conviction. God put us here to be agents of change and transformation, to live with passion and conviction.

Along about Saturday afternoon last weekend, at mile 15 of 23 miles, I wondered why I do these 3 day, 60 mile breast cancer walks. Oh, it is fun to wear pink, but the mobile showers are not the Ritz. Trying to get your 40 winks in one of literally a thousand cheap pink pup tents inches apart from each other gets old after the first year or so. Getting dressed in your sleeping bag so you can stay warm at 5:30 A.M. is not something I would want to do every day either. And a weekend of porta-potties? Need I say more!

And yet, there is something about 2700 people – walkers and volunteer crew – coming together not only with a common commitment to rid the world of cancer but also with a marvelous love for life itself, all of us participating in this event because of a strong belief that everyone deserves a full and rich lifetime and no one should have to endure months and years of surgeries and chemotherapy treatments -just to be able to be there when a toddler grows old enough to start kindergarten.

There is something about 2700 people coming together with a shared passion - albeit edged with blisters and ice packs – and a commitment to live that passion, walk that conviction, even if you are hobbling a bit at the end of the day but still trusting that tomorrow you will not be so stiff and so you will go on – and on – and on.

In a world that is too often jaded and cynical, apathetic, inert, and focused on what we can not do, there is something about 2700 people coming together to be what Leonard Pitts, a fellow walker and syndicated columnist for the Miami Herald wrote last Wednesday, to be like ants. “Ants don't know about inertia,” Pitts writes. “They have a goal: to build and expand their underground cities. And they do achieve this by working cooperatively, moving earth one grain at a time.”

This parable is about persistence. It is about having the widow’s hutzpah to keep nagging the judge even when it seems pointless to continue to do so. It is about putting one foot in front of the other when what you really want to do is take your shoes off and put your feet up. It is about looking deep inside of you and discovering what means the most to you – whether that be a cancer-free world, simply another day lived, or something in between.

This parable is about persistence, but it is also about realizing that if you live persistently, as the old widow did, you will also live boldly as she likewise did.

If you consciously and persistently pursue your passion, whatever it may be, you will live boldly. It can be no other way. And when you live boldly – oh, the things you will do, the ways the world will change.

When you live boldly – oh, what you will realize about life itself. That it is not about challenges that are too big, problems that are too complex, difficulties that can not be handled, or dilemmas that can not be untangled.

No – when you live boldly, you will realize that life is indeed a journey and it is what we – each one of us – will choose to make of it. It is an adventure – one to be enjoyed, to be savored. And in the end, it is for living. Live boldly!

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

Psalm 137 "Love and Anger"

2010-10-06T08:28:00.000-07:00

Psalm 137

If you attended Sunday School as a child, you probably learned that the Book of Psalms in the Old Testament part of our Bible is really a collection of songs, traditionally said to be written by King David. I have a vivid image of a long ago square paperback children’s book whose cover featured a very sweet-faced, Caucasian looking young David at the feet of Saul (the first king of Judah). David was playing his harp – or lyre – presumably composing all 150 psalms as he sang.

Though it makes for a lovely scene, the book’s illustrator was historically grossly inaccurate. You see, most modern Biblical scholars attribute only 73 of the psalms to David, and the likelihood that he wrote them as a youngster is slim to none.

The remaining psalms, such as the 137th, which we just read, were composed much later in Jewish history. We know that to be true because psalms like the 137th reflect devastating events that were unimaginable during King David’s glorious reign.

I think that this 137th psalm is one of the most powerful psalms of all. You see, it is an immense outpouring to God of all the sorrow and all the anger with its irresistible thirst for vengeance that overwhelmed the Israelites – understandably so - at the time the song was written.

Last week here in church, we talked about the prophet Jeremiah intuiting the inevitable fall of Jerusalem in 588 BC and the subsequent loss of the Jewish homeland to the Babylonians. As Jeremiah predicted, the Holy City was destroyed, and the temple lay in ruins.

For a people who had understood itself to be chosen by God, these circumstances were pretty hard to fathom – and that is why the psalmist sang about them. He was trying to make sense of these events that made no sense.

According to Walter Brueggemann, “The political-military experience…(was) effectively transposed into a deep theological crisis.” As UCC pastor, Kate Huey, speculated, “This disaster shook the people to their core (where trust in God lives), and drew from them questions, cries of anguish, and a thirst for vengeance.”

The Babylonian army had brought the Israelites to their knees, but the worst part was that much of the population was forcibly exiled to the far side of nowhere, there to become strangers in a strange wasteland – physically separated from families and communities, not to mention that Holy of Holiest place where God resided.

“Alongside Babylon's rivers we sat on the banks; we cried and cried, remembering the good old days in Zion” - Jerusalem.

Their lives and culture had fallen apart. What had happened to them? How had they gotten here, where, as Kate Huey writes, the “past was separated from the present by the ashes of destruction, by miles of desert traversed under duress, and by the scenery of a land foreign and strange?”

These years of exile were a time of barrenness, bitterness, brokenness – and homesickness beyond measure. Yet, as painful as it was to remember Jerusalem, it would be even worse to forget. The experience of being taken captive and forcibly relocated led to decades of trying desperately to keep the ancient story alive – yet fearing that someday their children would not remember, that someday a future generation would be assimilated into this pagan culture and would lose its own identity, lose its God.

“If I ever forget you, Jerusalem, let my fingers wither and fall off like leaves. Let my tongue swell and turn black if I fail to remember you..”

It was a time of tears, and that is part of what the Psalmist is telling us. It was a time so sad that the Israelites could not even sing –

“Alongside the quaking aspens, we stacked our unplayed harps.”

It was impossible to play a single note even when the soldiers who stood nearby mockingly demanded a song. “Hey, Jewboy, sing us a song. Sing us a song about your happy homeland so far away.”

But beyond the sadness, it was also a time of great anger coupled with a deep seeded wish for revenge, and that is also what the Psalmist is telling us.

“GOD, remember the ruin of Jerusalem…And you, Babylonians—ravagers! A reward to whoever gets back at you for all you've done to us; Yes, a reward to the one who grabs your babies and smashes their heads on the rocks!”

Wow! Now that is pretty harsh! And yet, as the Psalmist sings to God of all the vengefulness and grief and anger and fear and homesickness and abject sorrow, in doing so, he invites the Holy One to embrace that which lies deepest in his heart and in the hearts of the exiles.

It is not a pretty sight for Yahweh/God to behold. The psalmist know that but through his song prays that God will not turn away in disgust and displeasure but rather will accept the invitation and enter into the bleakness and ruin of their lives.

Sometimes I think that today we have homogenized our relationship with God. Our prayers are composed and controlled and seldom are a groaning cry. Our hands are neatly folded and are not often raised in an angry fist shaking in the direction of the Almighty.

We tell one another that there is a good reason that we are under terrible financial stress, that our spouse was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, that our seemingly happy marriage ended in shock and pain – and if we do not really believe there is a reason, we convince ourselves that there must be, but we just are not good enough or faithful enough to see it clearly. And the anger and sadness we feel is heaped upon our spouse or child or the ones we love – rather than upon the shoulders of the one who has always understood the depth of our pain.

Human emotions are powerful and real. Sometimes we feel like crying. Like the Israelites, we too hurt and bleed and despair. We find ourselves exiled, strangers in a strange wasteland of grief and sadness.

Alongside Babylon's rivers we sat on the banks; we cried and cried,

Sometimes we do not feel like singing. There is nothing to sing about, and the words will not come. We wish we could go back to the way things were before but know we can not. And the pain squeezes our heart, and the anger engulfs us – and paralyzes us.

“Alongside the quaking aspens we stacked our unplayed harps.”

And sometimes we even feel like hating. We feel like putting a fist through a wall, lashing out at the spouse who did not ask first but deputized us as a cancer caretaker. We feel like damning the collection agencies that haunt us and getting back at the one who walked out on us and our marriage. There is nothing to build up. All that is left is to destroy.

Psalm 137 taps into those potent emotions. It can be a scary song because if we listen carefully to its words, they become our words too. The anger, the sadness, the vengefulness - these painful emotions – are at one time or anther - our emotions.

However, it is this naming of the deepest parts of our humanity that makes the psalms so powerful. They voice those deepest, most painful realities and trust that “God loves us as we are.” (Huey)

The anguished questions, the angry fist shaking, the eyes dimmed with weeping, the pillow wet with tears (Kathy Galloway) are all part of a truly honest relationship with God. You see (and this is the Good News), God accepts all of us – the sadness, the anger, even the thirst for vengeance. That is what the Psalmist is saying to us.

He is not whining or simply bemoaning the fact of the exile, but through this song, he is taking it all to God. He is praying his experience. Surely Walter Brueggemann is right when he says: “It is an act of profound faith to entrust one’s most precious hatreds to God, knowing they will be taken seriously.”

Pray your sorrow then. Pray your anger and your stress. Pray your despair and even your wish for vengeance. Cry out to God whatever lies deepest in your heart, trusting that the love which passes all our understanding is so profound that God will hold us close through it all – weeping with us, maybe even sometimes getting angry alongside us, but surely in the end bringing justice, healing, wholeness, and hope to us and to the world.

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

Jeremiah 32:1-3, 6-15 "Buy!"

2010-10-02T08:16:00.000-07:00

One of my all-time favorite movies is “Gone with the Wind.” I love the opulent costumes, the dramatic storyline, and the marvelous insights into Southern plantation life, all set against the backdrop of the Civil War. Over and above all that, of course, Rhett Butler is not so bad either – especially when he picks up Scarlet O’Hara and carries her up that long staircase for a night that is probably best left to our imaginations.

Now that Joe and I have our little farm in Naples, the ending of “Gone with the Wind” makes a lot more sense to me. Perhaps you recall the last scene when Scarlet is silhouetted against the Georgia evening sky, holding the red earth of Tara, her beloved plantation, in her hands, finally understanding something her father had told her years before. She might have lost her husband, lost her daughter, lost all the wealth she had grown accustomed to, but she still had the land – and from that she could forge a future.

Both the real and symbolic significance of land – real estate – goes back to the very beginnings of Biblical lore – stretching all the way in history to God’s promising land to Abraham – and the journey the old nomad and his family undertook to reach that Promised Land.

However, just as Moses died before he set foot on the land God gave to the Israelites, so Abraham never got there either. By the time he died, the only land he owned was the cemetery plot he had purchased for Sarah, his wife. It would be many hundreds of years later that Abraham’s descendents led by Joshua would finally take possession of the gifted land, only to lose it time and again as one empire or another overran the tiny Jewish nation.

The significance of land is a recurrent theme in the Old Testament – and so we should not be all that surprised to find real estate the topic of the passage we just read. Here, embedded in the book of Jeremiah, is a strange little story about the prophet purchasing utterly useless land on a real estate tip from God.

The year is 588 B.C. - five hundred and eighty eight years before the birth of Jesus. The city of Jerusalem is under siege, and the vast army of Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, is camped at its gates. Jeremiah is the top dog prophet of Zedekiah, the current King of Judah.

And Jeremiah knows what is going to happen. He is not called a prophet for nothing. Resistance is futile, he realizes. The Babylonian armies will prevail, the Holy City will fall – and, for the Israelites, all will once again be lost. And, being the good prophet and servant of Yahweh/God, Jeremiah told the King and the royal military commanders exactly that.

Well, you can imagine the impact of such an announcement on the morale of both the troops and the civilian populace. Not surprisingly, King Zedekiah was exceedingly displeased with the prophet’s report. As kings in that day were wont to do when they did not like what they were told and because Jeremiah was so maddeningly persistent in his prophecies of doom and gloom, King Zedekiah imprisoned Jeremiah, placing him under house-arrest as a traitor.

And there, while Jeremiah was in jail, something very unusual happened. God gave the prophet a real estate tip. "Your cousin is going to offer to sell you some land. When he does, buy it."

How crazy is that! The land is going to be overrun by the Babylonian army any minute now. The Jews will be ousted – and God says “Buy!”?

Jeremiah is in prison and will never see the land. The mightiest empire in the world will occupy it anyway. No one in Jeremiah’s generation will ever inhabit the land, much less prosper on it – and God says “Buy!”?

Vandals are camped outside the Holy City walls. The people inside are starving, sick, and desperate – unable to tend the land outside the city anyway. And everyone knows that being in a battle zone wreaks havoc on real estate - and God says “Buy!”?

Buy? When the land is useless, worthless, and a horrible reminder of everything that has been lost? This is like buying stocks when the market is crashing, or purchasing a home even as you watch it disappear down a sinkhole (Scott Hoezee).

“Yes,” God says to Jeremiah. “Buy.” And being the good prophet and servant of Yahweh/God, Jeremiah does just that. The old prophet buys the land from his cousin – and even makes quite a public display of his outrageous and seemingly foolish decision by making sure that the purchase is witnessed and registered. Then he buries the deed in an earthen jar to preserve it.

What a marvelous Biblical scene this is – and such an insight into Jeremiah’s relationship with the Almighty. Jeremiah’s trivial action of purchasing this worthless piece of real estate is a mighty and highly visible symbol of faith in God and hope for better times ahead.

When Jeremiah seals the deed in an earthenware jar, he provides the nation of Judah with a potent reminder that, all rationalism aside, the future is in God’s hands, not the hands of the Babylonians.

Through this real estate deal, through this seemingly bad investment on Jeremiah’s part, God is telling the people that the horrific circumstances in which they now find themselves is not the end.

There is a future – a good future for them – so good that God’s prophet himself is investing in it. There will come a time when the Promised Land will have value once more – when it will be economically worthwhile for everyone to buy and sell. Though it may be impossible to fathom now, one day the people of the covenant will again have the land because that is what God has always promised. God has not sold Israel. One day, the Jewish people will return.

In a way, Jeremiah’s very act helps to create that future for the Jewish people and challenges them to once again dream God’s dreams, invest in God’s future. Jeremiah puts his shekels where his faith is – and that is in the power and promises of Yahweh/God.

Like the ancient Israelites, you and I do not live in easy times. The economy hardly seems to be recovering. You may be worried about getting a job, keeping your job, selling your home, or making ends meet. You may feel overwhelmed by the poverty statistics nationwide – 1 in 7 people in our country living below the poverty line. As the talk of election and re-election heats up, you may wonder if real change is ever possible – or if it will always be the same old political bluster.

But remember Jeremiah’s real estate deal. Remember that in the midst of whatever our circumstances are, just as for the people of ancient Judah, there is good news for us too – and that is that this God of Jeremiah – this God of hope, this faithful God – is our God as well. It does not mean that all our problems will be solved. It does not mean that you will sell your house tomorrow or finally find a job. It does mean, however, that there is something to be said for trusting as Jeremiah did that a better future lies ahead.

Hold fast to that hope, tenuous as it may seem at times. Carve your future out of the sure and steadying knowledge that just as God had something better in mind for the Israelites after they were exiled to Babylon, so it will be for us.

Though it may be different than we expect, life will persist and somehow flourish. The future is worth investing in. As Walter Brueggemann once wrote: “The threats do not wane. The dangers are not imagined, the power to undo is on the loose…." God's word, however, "cuts the threat…siphons off the danger…tames the powers," and tells us, "do not fear."

United Church of Christ pastor Thomas Warren notes that “in January of 1943, three months before he was arrested and subsequently killed by the Nazis, Lutheran Pastor and Theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote these words about Christian hope and faith when times are dark: "There remains for us only the very narrow way, often extremely difficult to find, of living every day as if it were our last, and yet living in faith and responsibility as though there were to be a great future. It is not easy to be brave and keep that spirit alive, but it is imperative."

And so Jeremiah buys the land – when investing in land is illogical – because he trusts in the promises and goodness of God. And so we struggle in our own dark times to live in the great hope of tomorrow – as individuals and as a community of faith – because we too trust in the promises and goodness of God.

Perhaps that is one of the most important things we can do as a faith community – be a source of that hope for Raymond and beyond. As Thomas Warren explains, we “build up the church, build up God's kingdom, build up God's reign of justice and righteousness and peace. (We) invest in and prepare the ground for the future. (We) show the world that God's spirit is alive and well here on earth - no matter the cost, no matter the risk, no matter the bad news of the day. Indeed the future of our lives, the future of our churches, the future of our world is not pre-determined; the future hangs in the balance.”

This is the kind of radical hope – and the outlandish investment style - that is required of us, we who are the Jeremiahs of our day.

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

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1 Timothy 2:1-7 "Kings and Rulers, Premiers and Presidents"

2010-09-22T14:02:00.000-07:00

Last week, here in worship we looked at the very beginning of this letter written in Paul’s name to Timothy, that struggling young pastor of a small church community near Ephesus in modern day Turkey. You may remember that those verses were a personal confession of sorts, and we concluded that their purpose was to establish the author’s credibility, so that Pastor Timothy and his congregation would give him their full attention.

Since this letter was most likely written several generations into the life of the early church, we know that modern scholars believe that Paul himself did not write the letter, but rather the real author used Paul’s name because Paul was a well-respected leader and scholar that people would listen to.

We learned that such a practice of using a pseudonym or ghost name was very common in antiquity and does not diminish the authenticity of the letter. Almost two thousand years later, the words to Timothy still speak to our church in a deeply meaningful and profound way.

This week, now that the author’s credibility is established, we will focus on a nitty gritty detail of the letter, which is the protocol for worship, in particular how and why we pray. But first, let’s figure out the historical context of this letter, which is important because the author had a particular group of people at a particular time in mind - and knowing that setting will shed some light on how we might interpret the author’s advice.

UCC pastor Kate Huey tells us that “If this letter to Timothy was written in Paul's name late in the first century, a generation or two of early Christians had passed from the scene. Jesus had not returned as expected before the apostles themselves died, and persecutions and trials and resistance, including expulsion from the synagogues (remember that many of these early followers of Jesus still considered themselves to be Jewish), had been part of the Christian experience for many years.

Even when the emperors weren't actively persecuting and executing Christians as Nero and others did, they were nevertheless pagans, and the Roman Empire itself was thoroughly pagan. It was clear, too, just who was in charge of earthly affairs, with troops, money, and power of every kind in the hands of those pagans.”

Pastor Timothy’s house church struggled to survive in the midst of a mighty non-Christian empire where money talked and military power threw its ample weight around, getting its own way through coercion and fear. No wonder he struggled to bring hope and a viable path forward to his congregation.

And yet, the author of this letter reminds Pastor Timothy of something very important – in Rev. Kate Huey’s words, Pastor Timothy needs to reaffirm “just who was really in charge of everything. In such an age, not unlike our own, earthly rulers might have been awed by their own power and might, and their subjects might have cowered, too, and wondered where to place their trust.

(The author) writes to his beloved colleague clarifying things. (Timothy, he seems to say, remember that) there is only one God, not a bunch of competing ones, and there is such a thing as truth, and you can count on it because we have received it from the One true mediator, Jesus Christ.”

And in the meantime, the in between time, before this truth of Jesus, this Gospel Message, supersedes the political messages of the day, the author of this letter instructs the congregation in Timothy’s care (and us as well, I would submit) to pray.

Pray always, and pray for everyone – not just for our friends and family, not just for those living with cancer and other health concerns, not just for those we personally know who are facing challenging financial times, but everyone – including kings and rulers, premiers and presidents – even if we do not agree with their policies.

God of our many understandings, we pray that you will…

Bless us with tears – for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women from many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.

Bless us with anger – at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Bless us with discomfort – at the easy, simplistic “answers” we’ve preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about ourselves and the world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.

Bless us with patience – and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be “fixed” anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.

Bless us with humility – open to understanding that our own needs must always be balanced with those of the world.

Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance – replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences, and an understanding that in our diversity, we are stronger.

Bless us with compassion and generosity – remembering that every religion’s God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable in the human community, whether across town or across the world.

And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States.

We in the moderate church have always been a bit leery about praying for our leaders, about bringing the political into the religious, about melding Capitol Hill with the Church. Oh, on Inauguration Day, it is alright to pray as Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson did in the prayer we just heard – but on an everyday basis, that gets a little dicey because if we pray in that way, we open ourselves and our churches to embracing politics with its undeniably messy reputation. When we begin praying for our rulers and kings, premiers and presidents, church is no longer about us and our needs and our personal relationship with our savior, but it is about something else – and that something else can get very uncomfortable at times.

And yet, if religion and politics do not confront each other here in the church, then I believe that something is desperately and pathetically wrong. As Presbyterian pastor, John Wilkinson wrote, “When someone tells you that we should not get involved in politics (and) that we should stick to religion, that's often a good indication that the particular moral issue on the table - from war to education to poverty - is in fact precisely the kind of political and ethical issue that calls for a religious response.” It is not a new idea. Another Presbyterian pastor and peace activist, William Sloan Coffin, noted that the confrontation between religion and politics dates back as far as when Moses asked Pharaoh to let the Hebrews go – and Pharaoh said no.

And the mission of Jesus is no less politically neutral. The Gospel message of compassion and reconciliation, of standing with the victims of this world, of taking the side of the least of these is a powerful political tool. In fact, I believe that it is the ONLY political tool that in the end will remake our world.

Yet, for the Gospel to be truly transformative, we in the church must act upon its potential and its power. You see, Jesus’ message was never meant to be domesticated and confined to the synagogues. It was never meant to be only about families and friends. It was never meant to be a neutral message. In contrast, it challenges each one of us to strive to stand with those God stands with.

How do we know that? We look to Jesus – the mediator, the truth which the author of this letter to Timothy alludes to. And when we do, what do we find?

First and foremost, we find that Jesus did things that might make us uncomfortable – like not just preaching about social justice, but mixing it up with tax collectors and Pharisees and deliberately putting himself in harms way by taking on the political power of Rome itself.

It is in light of all those disagreeable parts of Jesus’ legacy that the author of this letter we read tells Pastor Timothy to get his congregation praying – praying even politically, praying for kings and rulers, premiers and presidents, even those they despise.

And so it is for us. As seminary professor and elder of the Free Methodist church, Rob Wall, notes: “The public prayers of the Christian community (should) hardly reflect a program of social domestication…but (rather) a Christian mission that boldly evangelizes…It's perhaps another way of being leaven, (of making a difference), no matter how small and seemingly powerless you may be.”

So – I implore you to take the author’s advice to Pastor Timothy seriously and pray. Pray often:

Pray very hardy. Pray for republicans. Pray for democrats and for those without a party

Pray for the vain ones. Pray for the weak. Pray for the bold ones and for those who seem quite meek.

Pray for the old, for the young, and in between. Pray for the kind and even for the mean.

Pray for happy. Pray for the sad. Pray for the angry, the confused and the glad.

Pray for the healthy. Pray for the sick. Pray for the slow. Pray for the quick.

Pray for the quiet ones. Pray for the talkers. Pray for the runners and the skippers and the walkers.

Pray for the big ones. Pray for the small. Pray for the hairy and for those whose heads are bald.

Pray for the curly. Pray for the straight. Pray for the early and for those always late.

Pray for the rude and for those who say please. Pray for the proud or those who pray on their knees.

Pray for Americans. Pray for Caucasians. Pray for all colors, Indians, Africans, and Asians.

Pray for the athletes. Pray for the artists. Pray for the talented, the dullest, and the smartest.

Pray for the hardy. Pray for the faint. Pray for the atheist, the sinner, and the saint.

Pray for the he’s. Pray for the she’s. Pray for the picky and those who are pleased.

Pray for all people even those who disagree with our standards and our morals or beliefs that we decree.

Each one is God’s creation. Judging’s not what we’re about. Just pray and love them all and let God sort them out.

And who knows, if we do, then as Kate Huey mused, “perhaps it won't be so hard to get along with one another, and with our rulers and kings (and presidents and premiers) as we make our way toward the truth” – the truth of Jesus, the truth of the Gospel.

…..And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States.

Give him wisdom beyond his years, and inspire him with Lincoln’s reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy’s ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King’s dream of a nation for ALL the people.

Give him a quiet heart, for our Ship of State needs a steady, calm captain in these times.

Give him stirring words, for we will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead.

Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States.

Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.

Give him the strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters’ childhoods.

And please, God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we’re asking FAR too much of this one. We know the risk he and his wife are taking for all of us, and we implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe. Hold him in the palm of your hand – that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity and peace. Amen.

Rev. Nancy Foran is pastor of the Raymond Village Community Church, Raymond, Maine

http://www.rvccme.org/

1 Timothy 1:13-17 "Scorpions"

2010-09-22T13:57:00.000-07:00

Being a pastor is not always an easy job – especially when you are starting a church from scratch! The Apostle Paul understood this fact of life – which was why he took the time to write to one struggling young church leader in Ephesus named Timothy. Actually, it was why Paul wrote numerous letters to those nascent faith communities that he had nurtured in his extensive travels throughout Asia Minor, and many of these letters that have survived make up the bulk of our New Testament.

You see, the Pauline epistles take up more word space than any other group of writings in this Christian part of our Holy Scriptures – more than the Acts of the Apostle, the Book of Revelation, and even the Gospels.

However, did you know that many modern Biblical scholars do not believe that Paul himself wrote each and every letter included in our Canon? Their research into everything from vocabulary and literary style to comparative theology would indicate that the later letters were written by people who took Paul’s name as a respected and honored teacher to boost their own street cred, a common practice in antiquity. By using Paul’s name, these later authors simply hoped that people would actually read what they had written and take it to heart.

This letter to Timothy that we are focusing on this morning is one of those later epistles – probably not written by Paul himself but still a remarkable look into the life of an early Christian church community. As U.C.C. pastor Kate Huey wrote, “After (Paul) (and, in this case, “Paul” in quotes) left a church behind, he wrote letters back to it, offering advice and encouragement, and today our churches hear these letters as if they were written to us as well.

Once a church is planted and attracts enthusiastic people, there's work to be done to help them thrive, to grow in God's love, and besides, you know how people are: every time we come together, whether we form a book club or start a religious order, organize a softball league or get married--dare we say, "establish an institution"--there are going to be matters to be handled, questions, challenges, and of course a few rough spots along the way.”

Rev. Huey continues by pointing out that “Paul is writing back to his young friend to encourage and guide him, and he begins his letter of instruction by establishing his credentials, or at least his credibility, by reminding Timothy that he, Paul, was "the foremost" of sinners, and yet one whose life was transformed by the power of God's mercy and grace.

Everyone knows his story, when Paul--a man of deep and sincere faith--was so sure of himself and the rightness of his cause, back when he was persecuting Christians, and yet God knocked him off his horse and blinded him until his heart and mind were opened to the grace of Jesus Christ in his life. That call on the road to Damascus, the experience of life-changing grace and his response to it, gives Paul authority to write the things he is about to tell Timothy.”

But today – this morning – we are not going to look at the nitty gritty details of the letter, such as protocol for church worship, expectations for church leadership, qualifications for helpers in the church, and admonitions against false teachings – all of which are found in later chapters of this epistle.

No – today we are going to simply rest for a few brief moments in this beautiful Pauline personal confession that we just read and be soothed by the acknowledgement of God’s grace that flows from this passage. “The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.” Surely – if you have ever examined your own life to any great extent and acknowledged your foibles and petty failures - it can not get much better than that!

There was once a school teacher who, for reasons of her own, asked the children one day: "If all the bad children were painted red and all the good children were painted green, which color would you be?" One very wise child answered the teacher: "Striped.” Surely, as that child recognized, even we who have done pretty well for ourselves, even we are in need of God’s abundant love and mercy overflowing.

You see, each one of us is a curious combination of black and white, right and wrong, dark and light, lost and found. As United church of Canada pastor Richard Fairchild reminds us, “Rarely are we completely lost. And rarely are we completely found. There is always a part of us that needs to be dragged and cajoled into the light, and there is always a part of us that is already there. (However), the wonderful thing is that the lost part of us (the black part, the wrong part, the dark part) is as valuable to God as the found part, (the white part, the right part, the light part). God wants to bless us - all of us.”

Dutch Reformed pastor and professor Henri Nouwen told a story once about an man who used to meditate each day on the Ganges River in India.

One morning he saw a scorpion floating on the water. When the scorpion drifted near the old man he reached to rescue it but was stung by the scorpion. A bit later he tried again and was stung again, the bite swelling his hand and giving him much pain. Another man passing by saw what was happening and yelled at the old man, "Hey, stupid old man, what's wrong with you? Only a fool would risk his life for sake of an ugly, evil creature. Don't you know you could kill yourself trying to save that ungrateful scorpion?"

The old man calmly replied, "My friend, just it is in the scorpion's nature to sting, that does not change my nature to save."

And so it is with God – and us. It is in God's nature to save - because it is in God's nature to love. It is what God does – seeking, healing, forgiving, offering hope to you and me, to all of us who at one time or another in our lives have been – or will be - in need. It is what God has promised us. It is what the story of the cross is all about.

And just as important for us here today who have chosen to spend an hour or so sitting in these wooden and somewhat uncomfortable pews, it is the story of what the church is all about too. You see, it is not enough for us to somehow understand our sacred transformation to be complete simply because we believe that we are saved or that we have a personal relationship with Jesus. That alone does not exempt us from responsibility for the world around us.

Because we are the church, much more is required of us. You see, as Christ did for Paul, so we are called to do for those around us: to see the Christ potential in everyone we meet and then to be a community of Christ that is open, inviting, and welcoming – none of which is particularly easy.

However, that is our calling. It is who we are as the church. It is why we do missions. It is why we fling open our doors to everyone – even if they are odd or different or make us feel fearful and uncomfortable. You see, we are called to consider the ways in which we grow in faith….We are invited to think about our responsibility to nurture the gift of God's love in our lives and in the lives of others.

Our role as the church is to find that Christ-like potential in everyone we encounter, from young to old, from friend to stranger. And to do so in gratitude - because God’s love and mercy has indeed saved us – saved us from ourselves.

Rev. Nancy Foran is pastor of the Raymond Village Community Church, Raymond, Maine

http://www.rvccme.org/

Luke 12"13-21 "Money Makes the World Go Round"

2010-08-04T13:08:00.000-07:00

If you are going to take the Gospel of Luke seriously, then you had better be prepared for some lessons in economics. I know that Jesus did not probe the depths of Keynesian theory, nor did he lecture on supply and demand, capitalism, or socialism.

However, as a Jewish rabbi, Jesus - more often than we sometimes care to admit – did discuss economics from the perspective of the God’s kingdom. Through parable and sermon, he taught his listeners about how money and possessions relate to God’s purposes for the world and humankind.

It is in the Gospel of Luke that we encounter so many stories about the haves and the have nots. Each of the other three Gospels certainly has a few such passages, but in Luke they abound.

It is in Luke that we find not only stories and sayings shared by the other Gospels, such as the Widow’s Mite and references to selling all you have and giving it to the poor. We also find stories unique to Luke, such as the Rich Man and Lazarus and today’s Scripture reading, the Parable of the Rich Fool. The writer of Luke seems at times almost obsessed with the theme of wealth and how we choose to handle our money and finances.

So, you see, you can not get through Luke’s gospel here in church without talking about money. You just can’t! The Gospel writer would be terribly frustrated to learn that in many congregations, the only time we mention the “M” word is when the stewardship pledge campaign rolls around each fall, and all good pastors realize that their salaries may be in jeopardy if they do not talk about money. Money and our use of it is about as integral to the Gospel of Luke as money and our use of it is integral to, well, to our every day lives. Talk about the Bible being relevant!

So do not blame me that on this lovely summer Sunday we are focusing on a particularly uncomfortable story that begins with a random question on property inheritance, a question raised by someone in the crowd who in his quest for an answer interrupted Jesus as he taught. I mean, here was the rabbi talking about spiritual things, eternal things, when this young man, who clearly had more temporal things on his mind, shouted out, “Teacher, tell my brother to divvy up the family inheritance. Believe me when I say that I did not get my fair share.”

“Hey,” said Jesus. “I am not a property attorney. Nor am I a mediator. And I am certainly not an economics teacher – at least not your brand of economics.

All I can say is this: beware of greed, for it leads to a dangerous path. It is insidious and eats away at you. Let me give it to you straight: Life is not defined by what you have – your possessions - even when you have a lot. Now – I am not saying that possessions are bad. They just do not say anything about who you really are.

It may seem like money makes the world go round, Jesus continued, but it really does not. Trust me when I say that there are more important things to have a lot of – like compassion, like the courage to see that justice prevails, and, most of all, like love.

And the people in the crowd shrugged their shoulders and scratched their heads and looked genuinely confused – mostly because they did not have many possessions to begin with and also because everything around them seemed to indicate that money, in fact, did make the world go round.

So, as he was wont to do to make his point clear, Jesus told a story and, in the telling, artfully moved from talking about money (which the young man in the crowd was concerned about) to discussing attitudes about money (which the young man should have been concerned about).

The story featured a farmer who finally had a good year. The rains had fallen. The sun had shone. The harvest was a bumper crop. As he looked out over his amber fields of grain, the farmer rubbed his hands together gleefully because all his hard work had finally paid off. He was genuinely happy because the life of a farmer is hard and so dependent on factors – like weather – outside his control.

Proudly, he thought to himself – my barn is not big enough to hold all of this grain. What to do? What to do? I know. I will tear down the old one and build something bigger to store it all – maybe a warehouse even. I can put a lot of stuff in a warehouse. Whoopee! I have got it made in the shade for the next few years. Time to kick off my shoes, put my feet up, eat, drink, and be merry!

However, in spite of the farmer’s good upstanding Protestant work ethic, God – who interestingly enough never speaks out directly in any of Jesus’ parables in this Gospel – called the man a fool. God did not say that he was bad, mind you, because he was dishonest. Nor did God say that he was morally corrupt because he was insatiably greedy.

God called him a fool. Why? Perhaps because the farmer did not realize how empty and lonely his life really was – all stored away in his warehouse. Perhaps because, as the old saying goes, you can not take it with you – so why treat it like you can.

It is like a reporter who asked a young Wall Street broker on the fast track what his chief goal was in life.

"To make my first million dollars by the time I am 28," was the answer.

"Then what?" the reporter continued.

"Well, I suppose I would like to become a multi-millionaire."

The reporter pressed on. "Then what?"

Beginning to get a bit irritated, the broker said, "I want to have a family and enough money to retire at 40 and travel around the world."

"Then what?"

Exasperated, the would-be multi-millionaire said, "Well, like everyone else, I guess someday I will die!"

Like the rich man in Jesus' story, the difficulty with the young broker was not that he desired to have possessions -- it was that his desire for possessions had him. He wanted more of what, by any reasonable standard, he already had enough of. And, besides that, everything was mine, mine, mine. My barn, my possessions, my first million.

Jesus' warning is strong. "Watch closely! Be on your guard! When your desire for things gets its claws into your life, it can lead you down a very dangerous road!"

Advice that perhaps we should at least take note of since the fastest growing industry in our country is the storage industry – warehouses, just like the ones the farmer intended to build to hold all his stuff.

And then Jesus summed it up by saying that those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich in the things of God in the end are, indeed, fools.

Fools for believing in a culture that regularly tells us, as Luther Seminary professor David Lose writes, “that we don't have enough. Television commercials, billboards, and the internet all not only tell us that we are insufficient, incomplete, and not quite right on our own, but they also promise us that if we only buy the product they're pushing – be it a tube of toothpaste, new laptop, or better car – then we will be complete. Our culture unequivocally equates consumption with satisfaction, possessions with happiness, and material wealth with the good life.” And that, says God, is foolish.

What is wise is to remember this:

God won't ask what kind of car you drove - God will ask how many people you drove who needed a ride.

God won't ask the square footage of your home - God will ask how many people you welcomed into your home.

God won't ask what social class you were in - God will ask what kind of "class" you displayed.

God won't ask what your highest salary was - God will ask if you compromised your character to get it.

God won't ask what you did to help yourself - God will ask what you did to help others.

God won’t ask how many times your deeds matched your words - God will ask how many times they didn’t.

The truth of this parable lies in a profound recognition of this viral wisdom. When all is said and done, money does not make the world go round.

A very rich man died and left his inheritance equally to his two sons. Now one son had married young in life and had a large and happy family. The other was still a bachelor.

The night after the division of the estate the single man sat thinking in his living room. "Why did my father make such a mistake? Here's my brother, with all those mouths to feed, so many to provide for. While I'm quite comfortable, I've got more than I could ever use. Why divide the estate equally?"

The other brother, when the children were tucked in bed, mused: "Why would my father divide the estate equally? Here I am, surrounded by a loving family, while my brother sits alone over in his house. I have my family to care for me, while he will need financial security for his future. Why divide the estate equally?"

So each man resolved on that very night to place the majority of his inheritance in a suitcase and hide it where the other brother would find it. And in their random act of kindness, they met between their two homes and, realizing what each had intended, fell into one another's arms, meeting in love as their father had hoped they might.

I have a small plaque in my kitchen that I bought at Weston Priory many years ago. It says, “The best things in life aren’t things.”

And we know that. We really do. We know that money alone does not make the world go round. We know that love and compassion and justice lie at the root of God’s economic system. We know all that – but sometimes, through a parable like this one about the Rich Fool, it helps to be reminded.

Rev. Nancy Foran is pastor of the Raymond Village Community Church, Raymond, Maine

http://www.rvccme.org/

Luke 10:38-42 Either/Or? Both/And?

2010-07-14T08:30:00.000-07:00

When our children were young, I marked time by the weeks between school vacations and long weekends. There was the start of school and Labor Day in September, Columbus Day in October, Veterans’ Day and Thanksgiving in November, Christmas in December, New Year’s and Martin Luther King’s Birthday in January, winter vacation in February, spring vacation in April, Memorial Day in May, and school was out before the end of June. The only month that had nothing to offer was March. The mud month seemed to stretch on far longer than its 31 days.

The church calendar – or liturgical calendar – is organized much the same way. We delight in the high holy days of Christmas, Easter and Pentecost. The seasons which precede or follow (Advent, Epiphany, and Lent) ebb and flow like the tides. Each one has its unique time-marking traditions - candles lit or extinguished, special songs.

However, there is are those many weeks - from the Sunday after Pentecost in May until the beginning of Advent after Thanksgiving – when not much happens. Like March, they seem to stretch on forever.

The church has a name for that period of time. It is called most fittingly “ordinary time.” It is the time when we go about our lives as Christians – day by day by day – uneventfully incorporating the message of the Gospel into our comings and goings. Without its own brand of fanfare, it is very ordinary time.

Our Scripture lesson this morning, the almost parable-like story of Martha and Mary, gives us an important insight on how to spend that ordinary time, a most important consideration since ordinary time makes up a large portion of the church year.

Martha and Mary were sisters, and in this brief passage we see clearly that they expressed their devotion to Jesus very differently.

Because this story comes on the heels of the Parable of the Good Samaritan with its lessons of hospitality and neighborliness, we can hardly fault Martha for her initiative in welcoming Jesus and his disciples – 13 guests in all – into her house.

In the Greek, the word the Gospel writer uses for Martha’s hospitality means “to receive.” In short, Martha opened her home to these men, which traditionally meant concocting a no holes barred soups to nuts dinner.

After all, one can not serve a famous rabbi and friend hotdogs or bologna sandwiches. Jesus was coming to dinner – and his presence called for a special meal!

Lutheran pastor Edward Markquart describes the scene this way: We can imagine Martha going to market the day before the feast to get the freshest food available. She may have found…fish that had been brought in from the Jordan River (as well as) dates and pomegranates and figs and raisins and nuts - and (of course) the finest wine.

What a shopping spree that was, and the next morning, Martha was a flurry of activity, busy cleaning the house and the yard before she began to prepare the feast for Jesus…She set the table with her finest, bringing out her brass menorah…for a candle light dinner and her favorite pottery ware.

(Soon) Jesus knocked on the door, and everyone was excited to see (him). They laughed and chatted and Jesus noticed how clean and prepared the house was, and Martha was pleased. Then Jesus sat down on a pillow in the front room and started to teach. Being a rabbi, he talked about God and love and prayer.

However, soon Martha was out in the kitchen, so busy with her last minute preparations, and irritated that she couldn’t hear the conversation between Jesus and her younger sister in the living room. (The Greek word for Martha’s predicament means literally dragged away from. Because of her kitchen tasks, Martha was pulled away from hearing what the rabbi had to say. So it is hardly surprising that) the more she worked, the more frustrated she got with her sister.

So Martha started to send signals to her sister, banging the pots and pans so that the noise would bring Mary into the kitchen. It didn’t work. Then Martha walked into the living room with the hors d’oeuvres, the wine, the cheese and crackers. As she walked by Mary, she gave her the eyeball roll in the direction of the kitchen. But Mary wasn’t looking.

Then Martha returned to the living room to pick up the leftovers and gave her sister another signal, this one the rolling shoulder motion, again in the direction of the kitchen. Once more, Mary did not respond. She was still focused on Jesus and his words.

Martha finally stood in the kitchen door way, and her anger could be contained no longer: ‘Jesus, would you tell Mary to come into the kitchen and help me with all this work? She is taking advantage of being the youngest again, so as to get out of doing her share. Would you tell her to come into the kitchen and help with this meal?’

Jesus spoke to Martha calmly, ‘Martha, Martha, don’t be so upset. You are busy and distracted with many things. Mary has chosen the better portion, listening to me, and this will not be taken away from her.’

Martha put her hand on her hips, said ‘hrumpff,’ and stomped back into the kitchen to put the finishing touches on the main course.

Baptist pastor Don Fortner notes the not so subtle differences between the two sisters. “Martha was an active, impulsive, strong-willed, hard-working woman. She spoke her mind openly (and was) a woman truly devoted to Christ.

Mary was a quiet, contemplative woman, more easy-going than Martha, but no less firm in her convictions. She felt things deeply, but said far less than she felt – a woman genuinely devoted to Christ!

Martha, when Jesus came to her house, was delighted to see him and immediately began to make preparations in most lavish manner she could, so that he would feel welcome.

Mary also rejoiced to see the Lord coming into their home, but her first thought was to sit at his feet and hear his word.”

If we were to look at this story as a parable, we would conclude that Martha’s discipleship is grounded in action - welcoming and hospitable activity - while Mary’s discipleship reflects contemplation – listening to and reflecting upon the words of Jesus.

I think we would all agree that both action and contemplation are equally important aspects of the Christian life. Yet, so often when we hear this story, we insist that one of the sisters is right, and the other is wrong. Martha was out of line, and Mary is to be applauded.

That seems harsh because, I do not know about you, but for my part, I am terrific in the role of Martha – and a bit lacking on the Mary front. Give me a task to do – and I’ll do it. Is there a celebration to prepare for? Just call on me.

You should see me before Christmas – and I know I am not the only one in our congregation like this. I bake dozens of cookies and whip up needhams and other candies. Yikes! There are the plum puddings to steam, pumpkin bread to bake – and let’s not forget the presents and stockings and decorating the house, etc., etc. etc. Though I am less frenetic than I used to be, Advent is still a whirlwind of activity.

Now, I am not saying that this is wrong or inappropriate. After all, we would be lost without the Marthas. Marthas are the keepers of Christmas. They also keep the church going. Without the Marthas, there would be no coffee hour, no Sunday School, no public suppers. I am grateful for all the Marthas around here. However, I do think this observation points to the fact that most of us make far better Marthas than we do Marys.

And yet, Jesus seems to be holding up Mary as the exemplar. Think about it – Mary was the one who shirked her kitchen duties, stood by as her sister freaked out over meal preparations, and who by traditional standards was really a selfish slacker. Can we reconcile these two approaches to discipleship because, as we said initially, both Martha and Mary were devoted to Jesus?

I think their approaches are really two sides of the same coin. What I mean is this: Usually we contrast the sisters and create an “either/or” scenario, so that we can logically conclude that only one of them can be right. Either Martha is right or Mary is right.

However, if we can shift the paradigm and see the situation as “both/and”, we can come to a different conclusion. I think the truth of the story is that both Martha and Mary are right. If we reflect on the story as a parable, then its truth is that we need both activity and contemplation to live an enriched Christian life.

We need times of activity – opening our church and ourselves to the community and the world. We need to do public suppers and Monday meals. We need to weatherize our neighbors’ homes, so they stay warm in the winter. We need to work in our community garden, so we can donate fresh produce to the food pantry. Those activities define us as an important force for God’s good. We need to be Marthas.

However, because we do all this activity in Jesus’ name, because it is our faith in the Gospel message that motivates us, we also need to be Marys. We need time to reflect on Jesus’ message and to hear the old, old stories reminding us why we have chosen to oftentimes run counter to our cultural norms – being hospitable, being good neighbors, being peace makers, and being justice instigators.

That is why worship should be so important to us. Worship is our Mary time. These are our moments of contemplation to listen to the teachings of Jesus, to be empowered once again by his message, and to be strengthened by this community of committed men and women.

Worship should not be discretionary. If we are committed Christians, worship should be a high priority – not something we do when it is convenient or the karma is right. And if worship does not figure importantly in our lives, then we need to engage each other and find out why. Of course, I am really preaching to the choir – but all of you who are here can tell those who aren’t about this insight!

Jesus understood this symbiotic relationship between activity and contemplation – mission and worship – and that is why he encouraged Mary. He understood that we are first rate at the activity business. We make wonderful Marthas.

However, he also understood that we find the contemplation piece, the worship piece, the Mary piece a bit more problematic. That is what the Gospel writer is trying to tell us in this parable of Christian living: Martha/Mary. Activity/Contemplation. Mission/Worship. Not either/or, but both/and. In the end, in order to be truly effective followers of Jesus, we have to be both a Martha and a Mary too.

Rev. Nancy Foran is pastor of the Raymond Village Community Church, Raymond, Maine

http://www.rvccme.org/

2 Kings 5:1-14 Little Voices

2010-07-09T09:37:00.000-07:00

This is a story about voices. It is a story about big voices – loud and authoritative voices proclaiming and directing and ordering people about – and it is a story about little voices – barely heard and quavering voices whispering in darkened hallways and speaking gently out-of-turn.

But the voices are just a way understanding what the story is really about – and that is power. It is the story of the power of those people on whom we most often bestow power – rulers and military commanders – and it is the story of the power of those we deem to be powerless – servants, slave girls, and messengers.

This is a story about voices – and power behind those voices. It is the story of the great Syrian generalissimo Naaman and how he was healed of a terrible skin disease, commonly known as leprosy.

We hear Naaman’s story only once in the three year cycle of the lectionary. Who was he anyway? If we were ancient military historians, then surely we would know all about him. After all, he had proved himself on the battlefield time and time again. Why, it was his army that had brought down powerful King Ahab with a well-placed arrow.

His own Syrian king had great respect for Naaman and held him in the highest esteem. After all, Naaman’s uniform was weighted down and decorated with various medals of honor, distinguished service medals, and purple hearts.

He had everything going for him – well, just about everything - until that evening when he felt the first sensation of numbness in his right hand – his sword hand - and he noticed a small patch of redness and those telltale tiny raised pustules.

“How can this be? Where is the fairness in my plight?” He shouted in his loudest and most powerful generalissimo voice. And he lay awake all that night until dawn - the refrain of “Untouchable! Untouchable! -” knitting together his terrible nightmares.

As author and seminary professor, Barbara Brown Taylor, noted, even the simplest of everyday encounters would inevitably change for Naaman. The powerful generalissimo knew that there would soon be a time when his success and fame and power would mean very little.

Instead there would be the awkward discomfort of someone who might not want to shake his hand or who could not help but stare too long at his disfigurement.

Needless to say, his wife was distraught as well, and his entire household stood by, horrified at the grisly news of Naaman’s dreadful but sure demise.

As the fingers of dawn first began to part the night sky and before the sun arose, one of Naaman’s war trophies, a little nameless slave girl went to Naaman’s wife, her little slave girl voice quavering as she whispered to her mistress in a darkened backstairs hallway. “The prophet in Samaria – Naaman should go to him. He could heal my master.”

When Naaman heard these whispered words of hope, he went to his king who, of course, would do anything to save the powerful generalissimo. And so the powerful king of Syria wrote a most powerful letter of introduction to the equally powerful king of Israel: This is to inform you that you must cure my most powerful generalissimo of his disease.

Figuring that perhaps a letter might not be quite enough to sway an equally powerful king, the Syrian monarch also sent along thirty thousand pieces of silver, six thousand pieces of gold, and ten fine changes of clothing rich in brocade and of the best fabric – powerful gifts from one powerful king to another on behalf of a powerful soldier.

Not surprisingly, the king of Israel wanted nothing to do with the situation – in spite of the silver and gold and ten new brocaded outfits. Wary of a trick or some sort of political high jinx, he was all ready to send Naaman packing when the prophet Elisha stepped in.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Elisha said to the king of Israel for whom he prophesized. “Just send Naaman to me. I will cure him – and in doing so show him how powerful a real prophet – a prophet of Israel – can be.”

And so the most powerful generalissimo gathered up his most powerful gifts of silver and gold and brocaded outfits and knocked on Elisha’s door. Fully expecting that a powerful military commander of his stature would be greeted by the powerful prophet himself, Naaman was a more than a little taken aback when a servant – again with no name – bowed before him, bringing only a message from Elisha.

What moxie this prophet of Yahweh had in the face of such political and military power! Imagine - Elisha staying inside and sending a messenger boy instead.

“Elisha says to wash seven times in the Jordan River, and you will be healed,” the young servant said in a voice barely above a whisper.

“Take a bath? He wants me to take a bath? I came all this way to have him tell me to take a bath? In the muddy Jordan River, no less?” Naaman shouted in his most enraged and powerful voice even as he loudly dissed the Israeli watering hole. “When I have got far better and cleaner rivers back home in Syria than any river I could possibly find here in Israel? Do you know what they DO in the Jordan River? Laundry, that’s what. And who knows what else. Swimming in the Jordan River? Your prophet has got to be kidding. I am out of here.”

And the most powerful generalissimo began turning the horses and mules around, his loud voice still muttering expletives and critiques. And once again it was the small and powerless voices of servants – Naaman’s this time - who saved the day. Imagine – servants telling their masters what to do.

“Oh, most powerful generalissimo,” his servants whispered in quavering voices. “If Elisha had told you to do something hard or dangerous or expensive, you would have obeyed. Just dunk yourself in the Jordan River. Just try it. Just do it.”

And Naaman the powerful generalissimo – in spite of his injured pride - took the advice of the powerless ones – and dipped himself into the muddy Jordan. One, two, three, four, five, six – and a seventh time. And lo and behold, just as Elisha said, Naaman was healed.

This is a story about power. It is a story about those people we have bestowed power upon and those we have deemed to be powerless. It is a story of the power of kings and generalissimos and that of slaves and servants.

But it is also the story of mega-churches – and small membership congregations. It is the story of Washington - and the man on the street, Walmart and the small business person. It is the story of Wall Street -and Main Street, agribusiness and local farmers. It is the story of us – you and me - and the power that we in fact do have even we when are deemed – or feel ourselves to be - powerless.

All the power of the King of Syria and all the power of Naaman could not cure the generalissimo of his leprosy. All of their shouting and loud voices, their orders, proclamations, and directives could not restore his health.

It was the little voices – the whispering of the powerless ones – that made the difference: the slave girl’s quiet suggestion in the hallway to send Naaman to Elisha in the first place, the shy voice of the messenger speaking the words of the cure, the reticent servants pleading with their master to just take a swim in the Jordan.

When you really think about it, even the power of God channeled though Elisha would not have made a whit of difference had it not been for the slave girl, the messenger, and the pleading servants. It was they – the powerless ones – who in the end played the most important role in the story – and made all the difference.

I have to tell you. I find this tale personally very empowering. You see, I do not think we are like the Kings of Syria and Israel. Neither are we like the generalissimo Naaman. I see us more as the slave girl and messenger and bevy of pleading servants. At least, that is how I see myself.

And yet, there is power within us - a power to love, a power to commit ourselves to economic and social justice, a power that is the powerful message of the Gospel.

I believe that if we choose to wield that power, like the powerless ones in our Scripture lesson, we can make a difference. We can be a catalyst for healing – for the healing of the whole world.

Now, because today is Independence Day, I would like to leave you with something to carry with you to all your parades and celebrations – and that is this.

We in this country are NOT exceptional people. We are not the Naaman’s and the Syrian Kings - though we have certainly done our share of proclaiming and directing in loud and authoritative voices. We have bestowed a power upon ourselves and deemed others to be powerless.

No - we are not exceptional people – but our style of government is exceptional and the fact that our democracy has remained in tact for over 200 years is exceptional. That each one of us can exercise the power within us to make a difference is exceptional. That the little voices – when they choose to speak out - are honored is exceptional. That Margaret Mead’s observation has the potential to be so true in our nation is exceptional: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

Let your little voice be heard, for therein lies its power!

Rev. Nancy Foran is pastor of the Raymond Village Community Church, Raymond, Maine

http://www.rvccme.org/

2 Kings 2:1-14 A Double Dose

2010-07-09T09:33:00.000-07:00

Apparently the old prophet Elijah understood that his days in this world were numbered. He seemed to have an inkling that it was his time to leave this earth for whatever it was that would come next for him. I can imagine that he was fatigued enough – even spiritually depleted enough at least some of the time – to sense in a distant corner of his ancient heart that his work was done.

As one of the most noteworthy prophets to the kings of Israel, Elijah had always been devoted to his God, Yahweh. He had championed this Holy One – even under the most difficult of circumstances: Like the time he had to break the news to King Ahab of a multi-year, country-wide drought. And the reason for the extended dry season was because Ahab had insisted upon looking the other way when his wife, Jezebel, and a majority of the people in his kingdom insisted upon worshiping in their curious cults, worshipping pagan gods like Baal rather than the one true God of Israel, Yahweh.

That particular disagreement between Elijah and Ahab had climaxed in a fiery display of Yahweh’s power at a good old-fashioned theological showdown between the true prophet, Elijah, and the 400 lesser prophets of Baal.

Elijah remembered the afternoon vividly - how Yahweh’s altar was consumed in miraculous flames from heaven while Baal’s altar was left untouched. No one could argue after that display that Yahweh was clearly the winner.

Oh, Queen Jezebel had been furious, so angry that Elijah had no choice but to flee the country and live as an exile and refugee for years until it all blew over. Oh, yes, Elijah had tried to keep King Ahab in line, but a prophet’s life is not an easy one. That was for certain.

We should not be too surprised then at this morning’s tale of Elijah trying so hard to meet his Maker – but all the while his A-one follower, Elisha, being unwilling to leave his side and let him go. The story is at once poignant and hilarious.

“You stay here,” Elijah had said. “I have to go to Bethel.”

“Oh, no, no, no,” Elisha replied. “I am sticking with you – like glue.”

“You stay here,” Elijah tried again. “I have to go to, ah, Jericho.”

“Oh, no, no, no,” Elisha replied with unstoppable youthful exuberance. “You can not trick me. I am sticking with you – like glue – and I will follow you not only to Bethel but all the way to Jericho as well.”

Even the local prophets and soothsayers who watched the antics of the one old and one young Jew pulled at their beards and shook their shaggy heads. They finally pulled Elisha aside and said to him, “Elisha, this is hardly rocket science. You do not have to be a prophet to understand what is going on here. It is time for Elijah to go to his God – and you simply can not go with him.”

“Yes, I know,” Elisha replied evenly. “But I do not want to talk about it.”

“You stay here,” Elijah tried one last time. “I have to go to the Jordan River.”

“Oh, no, no, no,” Elisha replied once again as 50 of the most curious local prophets and soothsayers followed and looked on, tut tutting and clucking as only local prophets and soothsayers can.

“You are not getting off the hook that easily. I am sticking with you – like glue – even if I have to cross the mighty Jordan River to do it.”

“Fine,” Elijah replied in a tired and cranky voice.

And so the leader and his A-one follower continued walking together all the way to the Jordan River. Elijah must have figured that Elisha was bound and determined to stick by him - like glue - because when he got to the river’s edge, instead of arguing one more time, Elijah simply snapped his cloak over the waters, and the waters parted – like other waters had parted so long ago for Moses and the Hebrew slaves - and the two prophets – old tired Elijah and young energetic Elisha – crossed over together to the other side.

Then Elijah turned to the young upstart beside him. “Elisha, Elisha,” he queried. “You have followed me and learned from me. You have taken all that I can give to you. You have not left my side. You have stuck to me like glue – even when I did not want you around – to Bethel, to Jericho, and now to the far side of the Jordan River. What is it that you want from me?”

And Elisha looked with great love and deep respect into the old clouded eyes of his mentor. “I want to be a holy man just like you.” But he wanted more than that really. Elisha knew he had a tough act to follow. He knew he needed what amounted to a first son’s share of the inheritance, and he so asked for it.

“Let me inherit a double dose of your spirit,” Elisha begged. “Let your spirit have double force in me because of these dangerous times. Let me have the most of you – more than any other prophet.”

There, it was out - in the open – all the hopes and fears of Elisha, who deep down inside knew that he was to be the next spiritual leader of his people.

“Oh, Elijah,” he continued. “Your sandals are too big for me to fill. What am I to do? How am I to follow someone like you? How will I face what is ahead when I leave the banks of this river? I need to know what to say when people ask me about my faith, why I do what I do, why my God is so important to me. Oh, Elijah, I need your spirit. Because I am half the man you are, I need a double dose of it if I am to do the work Yahweh has called me to do.”

“That would be difficult,” Elijah replied. “But not impossible.”

And then a great wind came, whipping up and frothing the waves of the Jordan. And out of the wind came a chariot that was consumed in fire, and suddenly Elijah was not there anymore. Not really dead apparently – simply taken up to finally meet his God.

For Elisha, the afternoon’s event was both dramatic and devastating – his mentor gone – this time for good - the aloneness and inadequacy already seeping into the very core of his being.

There is a story about a famous preacher who was a bit of a fraud. You see, his sermons were astounding, but no one ever realized that they had all been written by a staff assistant. Finally the assistant’s patience ran out, and one day the preacher was speaking to thousands of expectant listeners and at the bottom of page two read the stirring words, “And this, my friends, takes us to the very heart of the book of Habakkuk, which is…” only to turn to page three and see nothing but the dreaded words, “You’re on your own now.”

That was how Elisha felt. He too was on his own, knowing full well that he would never see Elijah again. The only piece of his mentor that remained lay on the ground – his cloak, his mantle. Elisha picked it up and pressed it close to his face, breathing deeply of the human odor that was so “Elijah” even as he sobbed, even as the feelings of aloneness and inadequacy flooded his heart.

And when he could weep no longer, feeling more lacking than ever in his ability to fill Elijah’s sandals, Elisha wiped away his tears and put the cloak – the mantle - over his shoulders.

And lo and behold, when he did, he seemed to stand a little taller. And the road looked a little straighter. And the world appeared less daunting.

Could it be that in picking up Elijah’s mantle, Elisha had also picked up his spirit, a double dose of his spirit? Could it be that the spirit was there all the time, but he had to pick up the mantle to know that? Could it be that he first had to say yes to becoming Israel’s next great prophet (symbolized by putting on the mantle) – and only then did he discover that he had that double dose of Elijah’s spirit, the double dose he needed to be the leader he was called to be?

I think that is part of the truth of this passage. Elisha had to say yes to his call – even though he felt inadequate to the task - and only then did he receive the Spirit necessary to fulfill that call.

And so it is for us, I think – you and I – in our calls to ministry….Oh, Jesus, your sandals are too big for me to fill. What am I to do? How am I to follow someone like you? How will I face what is ahead when I leave this place of worship and go out to be your Body in the world? I need to know what to say when people ask me about my faith, why I do what I do in your name, why God – and church – are so important to me. Oh, Jesus, I need your spirit – all you can spare – if I am to do the work you have called me to do.

Pick up the mantle, I think Jesus would say. Be like Elisha, and pick up the mantle. Just do it. Say yes to your calling to be my disciple. Have faith enough to first say yes, trusting that if you do, the spirit – the courage and strength – will come. But you have to pick up the mantle of discipleship first – mo matter how inadequate to the task you may feel. First pick up the mantle and then you will receive your share of the spirit you need to fulfill your call.

Elisha knew he had received a double dose of Elijah’s spirit only when he put on his mentor’s cloak or mantle. I think it might be the same for us.

First, we make a commitment to the way of Jesus by saying yes to justice, yes to peace, yes to loving our neighbor as ourselves – all the while, like Elisha, not knowing how in heaven’s name we are ever going to actually transform our lives, ever going to actually walk the way of justice, of peace, of loving our neighbors as ourselves.

Then, when the commitment is made, when all we really have to rely on is faith – and grace – only then will we know that the Spirit has come to us as it did Elisha.

Rev. Nancy Foran is pastor of the Raymond Village Community Church, Raymond, Maine

http://www.rvccme.org/

1 Kings 19:1-4, 8-15 In the Silence

2010-06-22T16:58:00.000-07:00

Because we have not used the lectionary to choose our scripture reading for the past couple of weeks – what with Children’s Sunday two weeks ago and then a guest preacher last week – today we find ourselves thrown into the middle of the story of one of the earliest and most famous of all the Jewish prophets, Elijah. Let’s take a moment to catch up on what the Biblical writer has told us so far about this man in this first history book about the Kings of Israel.

Now, if we were to go back a couple of chapters, we would find that Elijah began to strut his stuff as a prophet on the day he confidently proclaimed to the currently reigning King Ahab and his queen, Jezebel, that there was simply no way around what was going to happen.

Elijah told them in no uncertain terms that they better get used to the fact that Ahab’s kingdom would soon be consumed in drought. “There won’t be a drop of rain – or even dew for that matter – for the next two or three years – in fact, the drought will not end until I say so,” Elijah announced. Pretty heady stuff for a rookie prophet!

But lo and behold, that is exactly what occurred. The grasses started to wither and die. Ahab could not help but begin to fear that there would not be enough grain to feed the horses and mules - let alone enough to feed the people.

Now, being a prophet and harbinger of bad news to boot is not an easy task. It is little wonder then that Elijah decided he would be better off keeping a low profile – staying beneath the radar screen - for the next three years.

However, grudges die hard, especially in the face of a major drought. Surely then, Elijah should not have been surprised even after all that time that Ahab’s first words to him when he presented himself in the royal court were “So there you are – the worst troublemaker in Israel.”

“Hey!” Elijah responded. “Do not shoot the messenger. I am not the troublemaker. You are – what with you and Jezebel encouraging everyone to worship all those idols of Baal (one of the local pagan cults) instead of our God, Yahweh.”

Ah, here was the crux of the matter. Yahweh or Baal? And because these ancient peoples were not particularly drawn to civil discourse as a way to resolve their disagreements, this difference in religious perspective led to an impressive theological showdown – kind of like a spiritual shootout to determine who was the real God – Baal or Yahweh? UCC pastor Joe Dunham describes the scene like this:

“On one side were 450 prophets of Baal, and the 400 priests of Asherah, and, on the other side, Elijah. He has an altar built for each side, each laid with wood and a bull cut up and put on each altar but no fire started.

So (Elijah) invites the prophets of Baal to call on their god to consume their offering. They pray and dance. Nothing happens. They chant and cut themselves. Nothing happens.

Then Elijah begins to taunt them: Maybe your god is day dreaming and you need to try harder to get his attention; maybe he is off relieving himself (yes, that is in the Bible story), or maybe he has gone on a trip! Maybe your god is asleep--shout louder!

(Now) Elijah has water poured on the altar in front of him. He prays and fire descends from the sky and consumes everything--meat, wood, water and rocks! It's quite a fireworks display. (And then) at Elijah's urging, the people seize the prophets of Baal and put them to the sword.

(And) the rain begins to fall to break the drought. Ahab rides off in his chariot and Elijah runs ahead of him all the way back to the city….

(Now, back at the palace) Jezebel is not pleased with the news about what Elijah has done…(After all, Baal was her god and those 400 plus prophets all reported to the queen). (In fact), she seethes with anger and sends the message to Elijah--"I'll get you for this!"… (Knowing enough not to trifle with a woman like Jezebel), Elijah beats it out of town.”

It is here that our scripture for today begins – and we find our prophet under a royal death sentence, now a refugee fleeing the northern kingdom of Israel, half starved, ready to give it all up under a miserable old broom tree, a bush hardly able to shade a bird, much less a man, and surely asking himself where Yahweh was whom he had so recently championed in such a spectacular way. Where was God now that Elijah himself really needed the Holy One?

And so we come upon Elijah walking – really more symbolically than literally – walking in the wilderness for forty days until he reaches Mount Sinai, the holy mountain of Moses, and there he crawls into a cave for the night.

Perhaps he thought that surely he would confront God here in this most sacred of Hebrew places, for it was at precisely this locale that Moses long ago had encountered Yahweh in the earthquake, wind, and fire on the summit.

The words of the ancient tale came back to Elijah vividly as he lay curled up in his cave: “Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke, (he remembered) because the Lord descended upon it in fire; and the smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain quaked greatly. And as the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him in thunder.”

Surely, Elijah thought, he too – being a prophet as well – would have a similar experience and be reaffirmed of God’s presence in his life in the form of some pyrotechnic display of power.

But, no, that is not what happened to Elijah. Unlike his illustrious ancestor, Elijah was chilled by the mighty and furious wind that split the nearby hills and shattered the rocks about him – but God was not in the wind.

Elijah felt the earth shake, rattle, and roll beneath his feet as he wondered whether the cave he hid in would collapse around him – but God was not in the earthquake.

Elijah felt the scorching heat of fire erupting and consuming everything in the near vicinity of the cave – but God was not in the fire.

And then - and then - there was silence – absolute silence. And out of the silence came a whisper no louder than the sound of butterfly wings – and, in that silence, Elijah found God. When all the sound had drained away, when and where he least expected it, physically fatigued, mentally frazzled, spiritually fractured, Elijah found God – and a fresh start and a new beginning.

We live in a world of sound, you and I. We have created a culture of noise. We are hooked up to our Ipods, listening to the thousands of songs we have downloaded. We keep our television sets on - blaring out the news, The Bachelorette, and Grey’s Anatomy - even when we are not watching them. We talk on our cell phones as we hurtle down the interstate at 70 miles an hour.

We go to sleep to the sound of white noise – the whoosh of waves hitting a beach on some island paradise. And we wake up to the sound of birds merrily chirping in our clocks or maybe the alarm just incessantly ringing.

There is a movie with Gina Davis entitled “The Accidental Tourist.” In it, she plays an extremely extraverted receptionist who works in a veterinarian’s office. One afternoon, she is carrying on a very one-sided conversation with a man attempting to pick up his dog.

After she has rattled on about everything and nothing, she pauses and poses a question to the man. “Don’t you sometimes,” she asks, “just like to pick up the phone and call someone – just to talk?”

We surround ourselves with people – and we talk – at parties, in bars, on airplanes. We talk with people we know and to people we do not know. We fill all our lives with words and noise. It is almost as if we are shoving the silence as far away as possible, constructing walls and barriers of noise to keep the silence at bay.

Why? I think maybe we are afraid of silence, afraid of what we might find if we intentionally push away the words and noise and let the silence seep in. Will it be scary? Will it feel empty? Will we be lonely? Will it be more than we can handle?

And yet, most people will claim that their deepest spiritual moments, those times when they have felt God most acutely and vividly, occurred when the noise around them finally subsided. Maybe it happened in the silence of a rainbow or a sunrise.

Maybe it happened in a hospice room as a beloved gently and quietly moved to whatever it is that comes next. Maybe it happened when a hand was held in silence because words were not necessary in the presence of the Almighty.

There is something to be said for the silence that we all so studiously avoid. Oh, it is true - sometimes we will find God in the fury of the wind, the quaking of the earth, and the pyrotechnics of the fire – but not always.

Elijah discovered that fact as he stood in the mouth of a cave on Mount Sinai, so sure that God would come to him in the same way God had once come to Moses. Sometimes we find God in the noise, but always, if we are patient, mindful, and intentional, always we will find God in the silence. I think that is at least part of the truth we can glean from this story of one of Judaism’s most powerful prophets.

And so your challenge this week is to be like Elijah in that cave. You see, too often we, like the prophet, expect “God to be present in dramatic manifestations and astounding miracles. And so God is, sometimes. But to a prophet at the end of his tether, drained of strength and wishing he were dead, it is not supernatural displays of power, but God’s whispered word that will speak to him at his time of crisis.”

Maybe it can be that way for us too. And so my charge to each one of you is to intentionally push the noise away and rest for a while sometime this week. Make the time to let the words that define your life fade away for awhile.

Breathe deeply of the silence – and you too may be as surprised as Elijah was when, in that silence, when he least expected it, the ancient prophet found God – and a new beginning. May it be the same for you. In the silence, may you hear the gentle whisper of God, speaking not even words, but simply encouragement and, most of all, love and a peace which passes all our understanding.

Rev. Nancy Foran is pastor of the Raymond Village Community Church, Raymond, Maine

http://www.rvccme.org/

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31 What is Wisdom Saying to Us?

2010-06-22T16:51:00.000-07:00

Though it is not unique in the totality of the lectionary, it is a bit unusual to encounter the Book of Proverbs as a scripture for worshipful reflection. If you are like me, you think of Proverbs as that book of almost quaint Biblical one-liners with some plain commonsense nuggets thrown in – like “Pride goeth before the fall” or “Drinking too much makes you loud and foolish” or “If you tell lies in court, you will be punished.”

But did you know that there is a preface to all these little rules for better living, something to start them all off? The verses we just read are part of that preface and are not anything like the adages attributed to King Solomon that follow.

Instead, these verses are part of a beautiful poem in praise of wisdom – not simply knowledge, mind you, but wisdom. To be more precise, this poem is an accolade to God’s wisdom, with a capital “W” - and yes, this sacred Wisdom is personified as a “she.”

In this ode to Wisdom – Sophia, in the Greek – we discover that Wisdom was made in the very beginning, before the world was born. She was there before the oceans, before the mountains, before the fields and forests.

She was there before the sky was set in place, before the clouds. Wisdom was there when God laid the earth’s foundations and birthed the first peoples. You see, Wisdom is the innate order of the universe – the rules of nature – the way God organized all that is.

In short, Wisdom embodies God’s intent for the world. Wisdom is God’s holy imagining about the world at its very best. Wisdom is God’s sense of the meaning and purpose behind life on this sacred earth.

And down through the ages, since before the very beginning of time, Wisdom has spoken – and continues to speak. Wisdom utters words of direction and counsel. She speaks through the prophets and most certainly through Jesus.

Even today, in the midst of all the progress we have made, sounding through all our advanced technology, whispering in and around all our intellectual gymnastics and prowess, Wisdom has a message for us, and it is a message that we need to hear. No matter who we are or where we are on our spiritual journey, Wisdom still tells us what we need to know in order to live our lives as God intended.

What then is Wisdom saying to us?

Oh, lots of things, I suppose – though in the end they all have to do with simple concepts like love and reconciliation – neighbors helping neighbors even if one of them happens to be Samaritan, a ne’er do well brother welcomed home with a fatted calf and a warm bed in spite of his profligate and checkered past, banquet tables where rich and poor, beggar and prostitute, Israeli and Palestinian, American Christian and Muslim for once all sit down together and join hands and hearts in grace.

Surely that is how God imagines the world at its best.

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

What is Wisdom – God’s Wisdom - saying to us?

The prophet Isaiah would tell us this: “They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.” (Isaiah 2:4)

Arline, my dearest –

Today is our 20th day in action, yet it seems like years. What has happened to me and my Battalion would be scoffed at, even in a ten cent novel, as being impossible. Why the few of us left alive – are alive – is something to figure out in church.

I’ve seen so many of my very best friends killed beside me. I just can’t believe it is all really happening. I never in my wildest dreams knew such terror could grip your very soul. The night we jumped – D-Day –was the pay off night. My chute was on fire from tracer bullets when I landed - right in front of a machine gun emplacement. I cut out of my harness and crawled for a couple of hours with bullets whistling past my ears coming from seemingly every direction. I can’t tell you what else went on.

My darling, I love you more than life itself – I’ve realized that many times these last 3 weeks when I thought I was going to be killed and always the regret of missing seeing and marrying you were topmost in my mind at the time. Goodbye for awhile – George.

Parachutes ablaze, bullets whistling past, gut-wrenching terror - this is not God’s intent. This can not be how God imagines the world at its best.

So then - what is wisdom – God’s Wisdom - saying to us?

The Apostle Paul would say: “Return no one evil for evil...live at peace with everyone” (Romans 12:17)

Dearest wife,

Many times like tonight – I have nothing to do but lay here and think- why I am here as well as all the men in my platoon – age makes no difference – there are very few kids over here – a few yes but they grow up fast or get killed. Why I have to watch a man die or get wounded – why I have to be the one to tell someone to do something that may get him blown away – but if I don’t we might all get blown away.

Babes, I don’t know what the answer is. Being a good platoon leader is a lonely job. I don’t want to really get to know anybody over here (in the rice paddies) because it would be bad enough to lose a man- I damn sure don’t want to lose a friend.” All my love always, Dean.

Such abject loneliness, that fear of getting too close to anyone, this is not God’s intent. This can not be how God imagines the world at its best.

So then - what is wisdom – God’s Wisdom - saying to us?

Paul would go on to say: “God has called us to live in peace…The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world.” (1 Corinthians 7:5, 2 Corinthians 10:4)

Dear Mom and Jim,

I went to work on the 17th of January at midnight. One hour later our commander told us it was time. Jet after jet screamed off into pitch black night loaded to the hilt with bombs bound for Iraq. The ground trembled for nearly half an hour until the last jet lifted off. And then it was quiet. Almost six months wondering which would prevail. Peace or war. Now I know. I stood there and felt sorry that it had come to this…. God forgive us.

It was daytime when the jets began to come back, and we counted them as they appeared off in the distance and landed. They all made it. We loaded new weapons, fresh pilots were brought in, and the jets were off again.

I can’t see how Iraq can take this pounding 24 hours a day for much longer. I hope it ends soon. Love, Frank

The jets screaming, the bombs pounding relentlessly, this is not God’s intent. This can not be how God imagines the world at its best. So then - what is wisdom – God’s Wisdom- saying to us?

Jesus summed it all up: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.” (Matthew 5:9)

Memorial Day Sunday is an odd sort of day in the American church. The church bulletin companies would have us believe that we are both irreligious and unpatriotic if we do not have the cross wrapped in the American flag, emblazoned on the front of a special bulletin cover.

There are those who would question our patriotism as well as the strength of our Christian beliefs if we did not set aside this Sunday to honor not only the dead but also the surviving who have lived a soldier’s life - because either way, the rationale goes, they have sacrificed great things for the glory of their country.

And there are those who would say that, on this particular Sunday, at the very least the church ought to provide a balance between an emphasis on striving for peace and remembering those who serve.

However, from my perspective, that is not the role of the church. The church is not about striking balances. Surely Jesus made that startlingly clear in his ministry – and living out the courage of that conviction is part of what lead to his untimely death.

No – the role of the church is always, always to look at the world through the eyes of Sophia, through the lens of God’s Wisdom that has been here since before the beginning, and then to have the courage if its convictions to tell the world in no uncertain terms what it sees.

And so the church looks at the typical American soldier in the tribute in the insert and generalizes it to include other young men – and women – from around the world. The church listens to the war letters we read this morning counterpointed by the Biblical calls for peace-making.

And the lens of Wisdom brings it all into focus. Wisdom tells us that war is not what God had in mind. Wisdom tells us that since the dawn of time, all of humanity has strayed from what God intended.

The realization of this squandered legacy is what the American church faces on Memorial Day Sunday – and it is both touching and terrifying. You see, it is not about patriotism. It is not about being appropriately religious and balanced. It is about Wisdom.

And so, in the end, with tears in our eyes, we do honor those who died at war. However, here in the church we honor them not as an assessment of our patriotism and not as a manifestation of our ability to balance the diverse political views within our congregations.

Here in Christ’s church, we honor those who died at war because their deaths – every last one of them – are tragedies.

Elsewhere we may honor the fallen ones for their heroism or their own brand of patriotism or for the medals of honor they received. But here in the church we weep for them because they are a tragic reminder of who we really are:

Women and men as God intended, daughters of Adam, sons of Eve

Children of earth loved by their maker, those only heaven could conceive

Yet in our loving we are not one with heaven’s deep intent. We are not as God meant.

Ours in the shame, ours is the story, ours is the squandered legacy

Fallen from grace, fearful of glory

Lost is our true humanity.

(John Bell)

Letters from War Letters by Andrew Carroll

Rev. Nancy Foran is pastor of the Raymond Village Community Church, Raymond, Maine

http://www.rvccme.org/

Acts 15:9-16 Life in a Community Church

2010-05-19T12:51:00.000-07:00

For the past few weeks we have been reflecting upon the beginnings of the Christian church – those early years after the resurrection of Jesus. We have witnessed this time mostly through the experiences of Paul, the church’s first missionary, as told by the author of the Book of the Acts of the Apostles.

Now, when you come right down to it, this particular Biblical narrative is quite the adventure story. It has its share of prison escapes, church fights, grisly executions, and a good dose of circumcisions and healings thrown in for good measure.

Today’s story, however, has none of the swashbuckling elements that we have come to expect in the Book of Acts. In comparison, it is a tame piece of prose, a blip on the radar screen. Like a snapshot, it is a story so brief that it would be easy to skim right by it – onward to the next stoning or shipwreck.

However, I think that this little vignette about Paul and Lydia is worth stopping for, worth savoring for a few minutes because its message is terribly important to the Christian faith and particularly to a community church like we are.

The tale begins with a vision which Paul had in Troas, on the shore of the Aegean Sea, in what is now modern day Turkey. Now, in Paul’s day, the Aegean Sea was acknowledged as the boundary between East and West, for on its far coast lay Macedonia in what we now call Greece. So there was Asia on the Turkish side and Europe on the Greek side.

Anyway, here we have Paul enjoying the sunset one balmy evening, dabbling his feet in the briny water. Then, quite unexpectedly, our missionary experienced another one of those pesky visions. This time he witnessed a man standing on the far side of the Aegean Sea, pleading with him, "Come over to Macedonia and help us.”

Having learned to take these spectacles seriously after his experience on the Damascus road, Paul immediately scrapped his idea of heading east into Asia to spread the Gospel message and instead sailed west and arrived in Philippi, a city about as close to being the capital city of Macedonia as you could get.

There he and Silas and his other missionary buddies hung out for a few days until the Sabbath rolled around - and, like most preachers on that seventh day, Paul had the urge to – well – you know - preach. Whether he could not get top billing at the synagogue in the city or whether there were not enough religious males in Philippi to even have a congregation, we do not know.

However, what the author of Luke/Acts does tell us is that Paul ended up outside the city gates down by the riverside that Sabbath morning with a bunch of apparently well-organized women no less who looked for leadership to Lydia, herself not a Jew but still well versed in the Torah (a God worshipper, one translation calls her).

Apparently, these women met regularly in a small house to pray, preach, sing, and praise God. Now doing all this without the men folk was in and of itself quite unusual. Added to that was the fact that the women obviously welcomed newcomers and strangers because Paul and his friends were gladly received and made to feel at home in this small Gentile faith community. Such a welcome was not commonplace either as Jews and Gentiles did not mix freely.

Well, Paul must have preached a heck of a sermon that morning because, when all was said and done, Lydia first and then her whole community were baptized (each and every one of them), and she invited Paul into her home to rest up and stay a while.

Lydia then holds the distinction of being the first Gentile in Europe to be converted to the Christian faith. She is an interesting woman, and we know little about her except that she was in the business of purple cloth, a color of fabric associated with royalty and wealth.

Now we do not know if Lydia used the expensive method of dying her fabric (That would have been by utilizing mollusk shells, a real breach of Jewish kosher dietary regulations), or if she dealt with the knockoff version of purple dye based on a plant derivative.

But either way, it was physically demanding and dirty work and so generally would have been relegated to what the rich folk might have referred to as society’s riffraff. In short, Lydia was a blue collar worker, economically probably smack in the middle of the middle class, like a lot of us.

However, I am not concerned about her socioeconomic status this morning. What I find intriguing about Lydia is her unwavering commitment to hospitality. In a time when welcoming Christians into your home could be pretty dicey (what with all the persecution going on), Lydia opened her doors and her heart to Paul, paving the way for – and here is the interesting part for us - the notion that the church should be a diverse faith community where strangers with their sometimes strange customs and traditions are embraced.

There is a lesson here in Lydia’s little snapshot story. And it is a lesson that we as a community church really need to take to heart. But first, let’s talk about what a community church is – that is, what we here at RVCC are called to be.

My definition of a community church is a faith community that is rooted in the secular community. It arises out of the community itself as the community’s sacred place. When I read Ernie Knight’s history of our church, I found out that is exactly what occurred here. That long ago Ladies’ Mite Society did not set out to create a denominational church. They set out to build a church for their community here in Raymond.

Now we happen to be affiliated with the United Church of Christ, but we are first and foremost a community church. And that means one of our defining qualities is our diversity.

I mean, if you walk into the First Methodist Church or St. Someone or Other’s Episcopal Church, you are going to find a gaggle of Methodists or a passel of Episcopalians. The worship will be pro forma because in a Methodist church you will use the Methodist hymnal and in an Episcopal church you will use the denominational Prayer Book.

However, when you walk into a community church, it is not that straightforward. Because not everyone in Raymond is the same, it would follow that we can not expect everyone in our church to be the same. We come from an enormous spectrum of theological and political beliefs. We grew up with a variety of worship styles that we bring with us here because those rituals and traditions are an important part of who we are.

This inbred and inescapable diversity can be our greatest strength, or it can be our most profound weakness. It can be a source of unending excitement – or potentially destructive conflict.

But the lesson we learn from Lydia and Paul is this: diversity is good. We are called to welcome the politically conservative Baptist stranger and the theologically liberal unchurched newcomer – and so we are called to, maybe not like, but still embrace those rituals and traditions that they bring with them – because their rituals and traditions are as much as part of them as ours are of us.

And I believe that, as a community church – particularly in this day and age of growing narrowness and parochialism – we are called to unceasingly expand our notion of community. As our bulletin reminds us, we are “ministers to the world.”

Think of it this way, if Paul had not preached to the Gentiles with their different customs and strange dietary laws, you and I would not be sitting in these pews today, and Christianity would most likely have remained a sect of Judaism.

So what does all this embracing diversity and welcoming other traditions mean for us? First and foremost, it goes without saying that racism, sexism, ageism – all the isms have no place here. And, for me, as your pastor, it means that I can not possibly please everyone all of the time.

Hey – it is a fact! Someone is not going to like a sermon because it is not inspiring enough – or it is too liberal – or not liberal enough. Someone is not going to like the musical responses because they are in a foreign language or because they have African roots or call for a drum. Someone is not going to appreciate a new hymn when the hymn supplement is filled with the old ones he or she grew up with. And for some of us, the hymn supplement is filled with music we never heard before we came here because those songs were not part of our church tradition.

Sometimes, as your pastor, I feel like I am doing a carefully orchestrated balancing act, seeking to proclaim the Gospel by weaving with Donna between hymnals and musical styles, seeking to proclaim the Gospel by threading my way through ritual and tradition, on the one hand, and new ways of looking at our ancient stories, on the other hand. But as Paul and Lydia would surely agree - this is good – and it is energizing – and it is fun.

In many ways, a community church like ours is similar to Maine weather. You know how the saying goes: if you do not like the weather in Maine, then wait five minutes. Well, if you do not like what is going on in worship or education or mission, wait – it will change. We are a community church – and nothing is written in stone.

I believe that as long as we keep talking with the appropriate people about what we like and not just dissing the music or the sermon or the worship style or the curriculum or whatever we do not like – but instead offer suggestions to make those aspects of our community life more meaningful, our diversity will be the most wonderful source ever of creative dynamism and life.

It may not always be comfortable for everyone all the time here, but a community church is not supposed to always be comfortable. It is supposed to be a place where we can experience God and deepen our spirituality in different ways. Sometimes those styles are well within our comfort zone, but sometimes they are strange or just rub us the wrong way.

But, hey, that is the nature of the beast. That is life in a community church which values openly sharing our faith journeys – different as they may be - , which values being assured that if we stray into narrowness or any of the isms, someone will be there to beckon us back to the openness and acceptance that Jesus expects from us who call ourselves his followers.

Rev. Nancy Foran is pastor of the Raymond Village Community Church, Raymond, Maine

http://www.rvccme.org/

Revelation 21:1-6 God's Dream

2010-05-05T09:06:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week, while she was volunteering in the Church Office folding your bulletins and inserts, Frances saw the Scripture reading and commented that she had never heard anyone preach from the Book of Revelation and did not know that any verses were even included in the lectionary.

In fact, there are just a couple of passages from this strange narrative in our three year cycle of readings – perhaps because the creators of the lectionary intuitively understood that the Book of Revelation, this last book in our Bible, is one that most of us who inhabit staunch New England Protestant churches would rarely touch with a ten foot pole.

However, even if we have never ventured to read it from start to finish ourselves, we have certainly heard tell that Revelation is filled with exotic and incomprehensible symbols and psychedelic images of seven headed beasts and seven seals and brides and cities and angels and archangels and warfare and absolute destruction.

The Book of Revelation is that piece of canonized writing that can make us who are theological moderates feel pretty uncomfortable. It is difficult not to associate it with modern day doomsayers who point to chapter and verse as evidence that the end of the world is imminent.

Everything from the creation of the State of Israel in 1949 to the destruction of the World Trade Center in 2001 point to nothing else, they say. No wonder some of those folks railed against President Obama recently when he brought world leaders together to discuss nuclear disarmament. They claimed that the President was inhibiting the inevitable Armageddon by restricting the way we might go about destroying ourselves.

However, in spite of theologically conservative protestations to the contrary, like all of the books in our Bible, Revelation was written at a particular time to a particular group of people who had a particular history and culture and set of issues. As Christian theologian Marcus Borg wrote, like the Bible as a whole, the Book of Revelation needs to be taken seriously, but not literally.

In order to understand the significance for us of this particular passage that we read, we must understand its historical context. And so we begin by acknowledging that the author wrote this passage not for us as a manifesto outlining the sequence of events leading to the end of the world, but rather for a group of early Jewish Christians during a time of significant crisis in the early church.

The Book of Revelation is really a letter to seven churches, and it is written in the apocalyptic style. The community of faith that first heard it probably felt like they were living in some sort of end times – perhaps like you felt after September 11, 2001 or December 7, 1941.

It was as if your world was suddenly and forever changed. It was different and frightening, and you had all sorts of questions that no one seemed able to answer. Would you be safe? Would your family be safe? What was going to happen now?

For the Jewish Christians to whom this letter was written, two equally traumatic events had occurred. First, Roman armies had destroyed Jerusalem and leveled the Temple. The Holy of Holies was no more. All that was left standing was part of a single wall, where Jews today still congregate and wail.

But it was not only the physical razing of the Temple that was so terrifying. It was also the symbolic destruction of more than 500 years of sacred ritual and prayer. It was the death of a way of life. It was the loss of a place that had been central to Jesus and the culmination of his ministry.

And, second, in the aftermath of the destruction, Rome had singled out followers of Jesus for persecution. Jewish Christian men and women throughout the Empire faced social exclusion, economic embargos, and politically motivated religious harassment.

It was within this context of fear and loss that the people of the seven churches heard these marvelous words of hope that we read this morning. You see, the Book of Revelation – and this passage in particular – challenges us to call up our imaginations in even the worst of times.

Just imagine, the author seems to say, a world whether evil does not win. Just imagine a world that is not scary and lonely and out-of-control. Just imagine a world where our reason for being is grounded not only in the future, but also in the present. Just imagine that in the midst of all the evil, all the malice, all the pettiness God is creating a scenario where heaven and earth co-mingle. Just imagine a world where hope is the last word.

Too often our theology limits itself to hope in heaven only, and the earth is left behind or deemed irrelevant. But that is NOT what the author of Revelation tells us. Rather, he says that “God has moved into the neighborhood, making his home with men and women!”

As Church of the Brethren pastor, Peter Haynes, writes, “Here (HERE) then is God’s home, the home which God is even now in the process of making, not in some far off, ethereal never-never land, but here. A new heaven, a new earth, together.”

The passage that we just read is a dream. It is God’s dream, and it is a dream for this earth, not for some future world. And for the author of Revelation (as it should be for us), it is the only dream worth dreaming.

After all, it is what the Gospel is about. Remember how we marveled at Christmas time that the Word – God – had become flesh and was dwelling among us, full of grace and truth. We focused on a baby then. But, oh, the dream is so much bigger than that.

The Word has become flesh and even still dwells among us. And surely, if God is here, dwelling among us, God is in control. So, if nothing else, take comfort that our world – our lives – will not spin off into chaos.

You see, our most profound hope lies with the one who is in control, the one who will make all things new, the one who has been here since the beginning and who will always be here, the one who promises to wipe every tear from our eyes. In the end, we can only stake our lives on that kind of hope and the love it generates – because, in the end, little else will really matter.

The truth of this passage is not that the world will explode in some fiery Armageddon before God’s Kingdom comes. This vision in the final chapter of the final book of our Holy Scriptures is not about an ending. It is about a beginning.

God is at work in our world – creating and re-creating. “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth – as it is in heaven.” It is a cosmic joining, an eternal intermingling.

And you and I are somewhere in the middle of this great unfolding drama, and our task is to live faithfully into the vision of the author of Revelation. Can we permit ourselves to "see" the unseen, to conceive of the good news of a new heaven and earth, to continue to long for a time of healing when the tears are finally wiped away from our eyes? That is the question.

Can we put to rest all of our pain and loss – as individuals and as this church family - for even a little while, long enough to breathe in the Spirit and trust in the One who makes all things new?

Not new things, by the way, but all things new. God does not start over. Rather God takes what it here and transforms it. God takes our lives and heals them. God takes all the broken pieces that are us and makes them whole once more. That is the big picture – even when the details are devastating.

I read a blog this week entitled “Magdalene’s Musings.” Its author writes that this passage in Revelation “beckons us to that place where we can find that we are already part of a new heaven and a new earth. (And that is why we share in communion together.)

When we gather around the table to break the bread and to take the cup, we are gently reminded that even painful memories, even our most devastating losses, can be gathered together and made holy in community.

They are made holy because, as Revelation reminds us, the home of God is among mortals. That is what our communion is about: we do this in remembrance of the One who suffered… who we lost… but who was raised again, and who lit for us the path to new life, life even after loss, life even after death.”

“God has moved into the neighborhood, making a sacred home…with us.” Thanks be to the Holy One!

Rev. Nancy Foran is pastor of the Raymond Village Community Church, Raymond, Maine

http://www.rvccme.org/

Acts 9:36-43 Resurrection Legacy

2010-05-02T14:55:00.000-07:00

Call her Tabitha – or call her Dorcas, if you happen to favor the Greek. Whatever name you use, understand that she was a pillar of the early church in Joppa, a town which was about 30 miles northwest of Jerusalem. Tabitha was greatly loved and respected by her congregation and by others whom she served throughout the community.

It has been said that “many are full of good words, who are empty and barren in good works; but Tabitha was a great doer, no great talker." (Matthew Henry) Tabitha must have had seemingly unending energy, for her ministry was a broad one.

This woman (who incidentally is the only female in the New Testament to be explicitly called a disciple), this woman felt called by God to a life of simply “doing good and caring for the poor.” Apparently, she was particularly sensitive to the abject poverty and significant needs of widows in her society.

There is evidence that she was exceedingly generous with her time – and with her resources. As the Gospel writer of Luke/Acts notes, Tabitha fashioned tunics and other garments for those in need, be they the beggars who wandered the streets or the widows who ate at the soup kitchens and inhabited the homeless shelters of Joppa.

As Presbyterian pastor, Laurie Anne Kraus imagines… “A child, dressed in a gown Tabitha had made, glowing with pride as she lifted her face for the water of baptism…..A poor man, rags discarded, clothed in sturdy homespun, standing straighter, his dignity restored….. Extra food, slipped onto the church's common table-always without a word…. Packets made up and slipped into the bundles of the widows who were too proud to beg, but whom, everyone knew, had too little to live on.” That was Tabitha. She noticed enough to care about everyone.

And then one day, Tabitha fell ill. Her body just gave out on her, and she died. Maybe she had been sick for a long time and just had not told anyone. Maybe she was worn out from all her caring. Maybe she was just old. But she died – and everyone in the Joppa church was in mourning.

The children wept in their baptismal gowns. The poor men sobbed in their homespun. The widows carried the coats and dresses she had made for them in their arms – almost as if by doing so they carried a piece of Tabitha close to their hearts – and they cried too.

Tabitha was so generous that her death first rattled and then devastated the little Christian community – as deaths of church pillars often do. Who would help the many widows of that city, the ones she had cared for? How would they survive now with her gone?

And in the midst of all the grief and the guesswork, someone must have figured that Joppa needed a grief counselor, and so two of the men in the community travelled the distance to Lydda and found Peter, the recognized leader of the nascent Christian movement. “Please hurry and come to us,” they implored. And Peter did.

But when he arrived, Peter did not sit down with the widows and children and poor men whom Tabitha had served. He did not ask them how they were feeling and encourage them to express their sadness even more openly. No – Peter sent them all away from the room where Tabitha lay in state. And what followed was a powerful and empowering moment.

Peter shut the doors and knelt by the dead woman’s body and prayed. You can almost hear the quiet because the author of Luke/Acts does not include any long winded and theologically complicated prayers. In fact, we do not know what Peter prayed about. We can only speculate – give me courage, give me strength, I do not know if I can do what I sense you want me to do, I do not know if I really am filled with your Holy Spirit and can do all the things you ask me to do in your name.

But whatever Peter prayed, he eventually came around to whispering “Amen.” Then he looked down at the still form of the saintly woman. “Tabitha, get up,” he said – simple words – and most definitely to the point – words that echoed the ones that Jesus had once said to the daughter of Jairus, lying years before on another deathbed. “Get up.” And Tabitha opened her eyes and did just that.

And we are left to wonder – and UCC pastor, Kate Huey, does “what went through Peter's mind, what was in his heart, what memory and what hope gave him the audacious confidence that he could say two words, and then count on God, right then and there, to do something so astonishing. In this Easter season, perhaps we don't really have to wonder long, and Peter's confidence is testimony to the power of God in his life, the things he has seen and experienced, and the effect all of it has had (on him).”

Then, without a word, Peter offered his arm to Tabitha as any gentleman would do to such a great and well-respected lady and helped her up. He opened the door and took Tabitha out into the sunshine and her mourners saw her alive once more.

Told in the style and even using some of the same vocabulary as similar stories in the Gospels, this tale of Peter and Tabitha harkens us back to the ministry of Jesus himself. It reminds us – as well it should – of stories such as Jesus bringing Lazarus back to life and raising the daughter of Jairus. Yet, here, in our tale this morning, it is not Jesus who restores life but Peter – and this fundamental difference is significant - for us and for the church.

As United Methodist minister, Daniel Hilty, notes, “You know, it’s a funny thing: before Easter in the Bible we’re only told about Christ himself doing this kind of work that Peter and Tabitha do in our Scripture reading today.

Before Easter it was Christ who went around bringing the dead back to life, it was Christ who brought hope and compassion to the poor and the forgotten. Sure, the disciples gave it a try too from time to time, and every now and then they’d do OK, but most of the time they’d fall flat on their faces, or they’d miss the point.

But all of that seems to change after Easter. After Christ’s resurrection things are different. Suddenly, folks like Peter are bringing life to the dead. Suddenly, people like Tabitha are offering hope to the widows and outcast.

Something seems to change at Easter: it’s almost as if Jesus’ work and power have been passed right along to the folks who came after him. After Easter, there’s a cosmic shift. Things are different because Christ has conquered the grave, and after that all other obstacles seem small by comparison.”

Belief in that “cosmic shift” lies at the very core of the church and its ministry – our ministry. This story of Peter healing Tabitha presents the apostle in the role of continuing the ministry of the risen Christ. This story would demonstrated to the early church – and should demonstrate to us - that Jesus is alive and still ministering to the world – through the apostles, through the believers, through the church.

You see, the church is so much more than dutifully sitting here on Sunday morning – though being here as one body and one community is important and not to be taken lightly. Here we are restored each week with strength and courage to go forth and minister in Christ’s name. However, that is a sermon topic for another time.

Today, if you leave this place with nothing else, carry with you a belief in the power of this faith community and the power of us as individuals within the church. Trust that within us – even you and me - is the same power that allowed Peter to bring new life to Tabitha and Tabitha to bring new life to the children, the poor, the widows she served.

As Biblical scholar and theologian, Walter Brueggeman, writes, “Clearly the narrative attests that Peter—the church—is entrusted with the resurrection power of Jesus who himself carries the force of the creator God. The church is entrusted with the power to create new life. . .bodily, concretely, locally.”

Because we are the church, you and I are resurrection people – like Peter and Tabitha. And that is both exciting and daunting. You and I have been touched by the Spirit and like our forebears in this story are capable of creating new life around us.

Oh, we may not do the laying on of hands thing and be quite as dramatic as Peter was, but surely we have it within us to minister with the depth and compassion of Tabitha. Through our efforts and the power of the Holy Spirit, our little corner of the world really can be transformed.

You see, the resurrection legacy has been passed on to us – to you and to me. We are what make the resurrection real in this crazy world we live in. We have been given the tools to dispense the miraculous power of life.

Those tools are in our hearts. They are in our hands and feet as we forge a strong commitment to go about – not thinking about or talking about - but actually doing the works of love and reconciliation to which the Gospel calls us. As Francis of Assisi once said, “Preach the gospel, and when necessary, use words."

Because you see, in the end, the Gospel is not about words. It is not about the words that say that what is most important is the personal relationship we may claim to have with Jesus. It is not about the words that point only to the future and where we fit into all eternity.

The Gospel is about doing. It is about action, about loving acts now, in this world. "The good news is about bringing life where there is death, love where there is hate, healing where there is brokenness.” (William Loader)

If Easter taught us anything, it should have taught us that the story is not over. The story is never over – because, as Peter and Tabitha illustrated in this little tale in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, the power of the resurrection has been handed on to us – it is our legacy.

Rev. Nancy Foran is pastor of the Raymond Village Community Church, Raymond, Maine

http://www.rvccme.org/

Acts 9:1-20 "Get Up And Go"

2010-04-25T16:12:00.000-07:00

For some of us, the story of Paul’s conversion stands out among all the Biblical narratives. If we attended Sunday School as children, the beginning of today’s Scripture passage includes some of the oft times remembered verses. They are right up there with the story of the birth of Jesus, the empty tomb, the 23rd Psalm, and the Parable of the Good Samaritan.

For those who might be new to this story or who might be a bit rusty on the details, Saul (which was Paul’s name before he was baptized) experienced a vision while en route to Damascus. His name change was an important symbol and signified that he was a new man, transformed, a different person.

At the time, Saul was carrying arrest warrants, a list of those people - all followers of Jesus – that he was bent on eliminating. Before his dramatic encounter with God when sacred light literally blinded him, Saul was at the forefront of the Christian persecution movement.

He was a rising star in formative Judaism and a multilingual scholarly rabbi. Saul was born a Hellenistic Jew in Tarsus and was a Roman citizen. He considered himself to be a strict Pharisee and so was part of the majority party or sect operant in first century Judaism.

Saul was passionate about his religion and devastated to see it being tainted by what Pharisaic Jews considered to be the unorthodox theology of Jesus’ followers. Saul was on a personal vendetta to stamp out the heresy he saw springing up around him.

He went to Damascus with one purpose in mind - to nip this heretical teaching in the bud. Saul did not see Jesus’ teachings as a new religion but rather as a wedge being driven into his Jewish heritage.

Saul spared no effort to stifle the spread of the Gospel. It was he who had initiated and carried out the grisly instances of religious persecution in Jerusalem and who intended to stop this perturbation of Judaism in the Holy City.

From overseeing the stoning of the apostle Stephen to, as the Gospel writer of Luke/Acts narrates, “just (going) wild, devastating the church, entering house after house after house, dragging men and women off to jail” with fire in his eyes, Saul went above and beyond the plain language of his Pharisaic job description.

And yet, even as Saul persecuted the believers, as the author of Luke/Acts calls the followers of Jesus, those believers scattered to far off lands – and, horror of horrors to someone like Saul, continued to preach and heal with even more vigor and vitality.

Saul was loath to see heretics bastardize his blessed religion, and so he pursued them. It was then that the incident on the road to Damascus happened. Out for the kill, Saul “got to the outskirts of Damascus. He was suddenly dazed by a blinding flash of light. As he fell to the ground, he heard a voice: "Saul, Saul, why are you out to get me?"

He said, "Who are you, Master?"

"I am Jesus, the One you're hunting down. I want you to get up and enter the city. In the city you'll be told what to do next." (The Message)

And the rest, of course, is history. Paul was struck blind and was led by the hand into Damascus where he did not eat or drink anything for three days. However, before the week was out, he was no longer Saul but Paul, and he was preaching the Good News of Jesus the Christ.

Paul would go on, of course, to become Christianity’s first missionary, traveling throughout Asia Minor, first beginning and then visiting churches in Corinth, Philippi, Thessolonika, Ephesus, and elsewhere.

We remember him best however for the letters he wrote to those churches – letters of encouragement, letters discussing polity and procedural issues, letters expressing his version of the meaning of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Many of Paul’s letters are the earliest written material we have about the Christian church and are dated even before the Gospels themselves. Writings by Paul and his associates make up more than half of the canon of our New Testament.

However, our view of Saul/Paul is one of 20/20 hindsight. From our perspective 2000 years later, we can understand his radical transformation and its impact on our own religious heritage. We can see that of all the people God could have chosen to spread the Good News of Jesus, Paul was an excellent pick. He was intelligent, educated and literate, and above all passionate beyond measure.

Paul loved God and God’s work in the world more than anything else. He was willing to travel – and ultimately would suffer and face imprisonment for his convictions. We know that God chose Paul for his passion and simply gave him an opportunity to focus that passion in a positive way.

But Paul is not the only character in this story. The other one, Ananias (already a Christian), does not get much press. Paul is the big cheese, and Ananias is a side light. However, he, like Paul, also had a vision – but unlike us did not have the benefit of 20/20 hindsight – and that is important in understanding Ananias’ significance.

"Get up and go over to Straight Avenue (as we read in The Message translation of this story). Ask at the house of Judas for a man from Tarsus. His name is Saul. He's there praying. He has just had a dream in which he saw a man named Ananias enter the house and lay hands on him so he could see again."

Ananias protested, "Master, you can't be serious. Everybody's talking about this man and the terrible things he's been doing, his reign of terror against your people in Jerusalem! And now he's shown up here with papers from the Chief Priest that give him license to do the same to us."

But the Master said, "Don't argue. Go! I have picked him as my personal representative to non-Jews and kings and Jews.”

And you have got to hand it to Ananias. He had probably lost family members and friends already to this murderous man, Saul. This was highly irregular from his perspective, and it is easy to understand his reluctance.

However, he did as God told him and laid his hands upon Saul’s eyes. The author tells us that something like fish scales fell to the floor (what a marvelous detail!), and Saul regained his sight. Ananias baptized him, and as we have said, the rest is history.

Ananias intrigues me much more than Paul does in this story because Ananias forces us to ask that difficult question: What would I have done in his shoes?

When God said, “Get ready and go” - would I have trusted my rational intellect that was screaming no, no, no – this man is dangerous, and I would be foolish to get within a mile of him? And besides, he deserves to be blinded for all the evil he has done.

Or when God said, “Get ready and go” - would I have trusted that little voice in me that was pleading that I put my faith in the Almighty and trust that good could somehow come from even this evil?

Oh, you and I will probably never have anything quite as dramatic as a vision like Ananias did. We will probably never be put into his difficult position of having to trust that God was indeed speaking to him in a circumstance that held the lives of hundreds of people in the balance.

However, surely each one of us will be – or has been - called to put aside our rational selves and to trust in a power greater than our own – as, in the end, Ananias was called to do. Let go, and let God, so to speak.

Maybe the world will hurl insults at our idealism, but we will hear that little voice inside of us whispering “Get ready and go” – make a difference, one school kit, one health kit, one heifer animal at a time. Trust that change can come out of the world’s irresolute cynicism.

Maybe the world will turn its back on us and we will feel so very much alone and ready to pack it all in, but we will hear that little voice inside of us whispering “Get ready and go” – go back into the world and you will find people to care for and people to care for you. Trust that community can come out of the world’s worst loneliness.

Maybe the world will flatten us with a loss so devastating that we will feel we have been stripped of everything we ever loved, but we will hear that little voice inside of us whispering “Get ready and go” – for you are not alone, for I am with you always, in all your struggles, in all your losses. Trust that life – new life – can come out of death, any death.

And above all, trust – as Ananias did - that in the end good will emerge out of what we can see now as only evil – for in the hands of God, all things are possible. In the hands of God, we are meant for change, for love, for life.

Rev. Nancy Foran is pastor of the Raymond Village Community Church, Raymond, Maine

http://www.rvccme.org/

Acts 5:27-32 "Where is the Evidence?

2010-04-14T08:36:00.000-07:00

It was important to the High Priest that he maintain control in Jerusalem, especially during Passover when thousands of Jews were descending on the Holy City. After all, the Roman authorities expected as much, and, besides, the provincial governor, Pilate, was in town.

That was why Jesus had to be done away with. He had been a troublemaker from the moment he had staged that ridiculous parade through the secondary city gate. Everyone knows that parades lead to crowds that at some point become uncontrollable.

And, of course, that spectacle was followed by his rampage in the temple atrium – overturning tables and angering the sacrificial dove vendors. And who can forget Jesus’ showing up the temple Pharisees, beating them at their own intellectual game of theological cat-and-mouse.

Getting rid of Jesus was the only option. Burying him was surely the best solution. Then the High Priest would be done with the latest possibility of civil unrest and could set aside his deep fear of a mob scene.

And besides, he had the specter of Rome to consider. You never knew when something like this Jesus thing might draw the attention of the Emperor himself – and nothing good ever came from being anything other than far below the radar screen. And so, by means of a monkey trial and a series of complicated finger pointing, Jesus was executed – and all was quiet once more.

How disappointing then for the High Priest that the calm which always followed such gruesome crucifixion incidents only lasted three days. You see, those disciples of Jesus then came out of hiding and proclaimed that he was here once more – come back from the dead – raised to new life – resurrected.

The High Priest was currently in a peck of trouble since that first resurrection proclamation several months ago. Deterring the disciples (now called apostles) from preaching, healing, and teaching Jesus’ message was impossible. The one named Peter was the worst by far. Was there no understanding of the predicament the High Priest and his holy underlings faced?

As Church of the Brethren pastor, Peter Haynes, writes, “Jerusalem was dangerous enough as it was. Zealots were all over the place, people sick of Roman domination - ready to die in some holy war at a moment’s notice. With the benefit of history, we know that a generation down the road the fires would erupt among the people, and Rome would crack down with an iron fist, tearing apart the city brick by brick, so that all that would remain of the Temple would be one wall at which Jewish believers today still gather and wail, praying through their tears….Jerusalem was a powder keg ready to explode.”

Who were these blasted disciples – these ignorant men who dared to stand up to the vast intellectual capabilities and spiritual skills of the Jewish temple leadership? “Everyone said they were just fishermen and tax collectors - ignorant Galileans who ought to be frightened out of their wits by a show of power. They should have learned their lesson at Calvary.” (Haynes)

Peter, who all his life had led with his mouth – right up until the end when he had three times denied even knowing Jesus – Peter had already been jailed once for witnessing to Jesus and his message and for preaching an alternative and contrary Jewish theology. Then he had broken free and went back on the streets to tell the story of Jesus to as many people as he could before he was rounded up again.

This is where our Scripture lesson picks up. Hauled in before the Sanhedrin (the Jewish Council), Peter faced a High Priest who did not mince words. “Didn't we give you strict orders not to teach in Jesus' name?” the High Priest queried. “And here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching.”

Impassioned by the Gospel message, Peter courageously responded with a confession of faith so bold that it angered the Jewish Council beyond measure. More thought out than his spontaneous outcry at Caesarea Philippi when he was first proclaimed Jesus as the Messiah, Peter spoke this time with a hint of steely resolve in his voice, “It is necessary to obey God rather than men.”

And if that was not confrontational enough, Peter went on to accuse the High Priest of killing Jesus, whom God had raised from the dead, pointing out explicitly how God’s power was more effective than the High Priest’s. “And we are witnesses to these things,” he finished triumphantly.

“You can imagine the uproar this must have caused in the high court: Pandemonium. A gavel banging repeatedly, drowned out by the roar of voices from the bench calling out in protest. A chorus of voices demanding the deaths of these people who were thumbing their noses at the legal system, even blasphemously daring to claim the authority of God for their actions and words.”

Here was a new Peter, a transformed Peter. This was not the Peter who, along with the other disciples, had been clueless about their calling for the three years they had tagged along with Jesus. As Presbyterian pastor, Heidi Petersen writes, “That was before: before Jesus’ crucifixion, before Peter’s own denial, before Peter saw the risen Christ, before the church received the gift of the Spirit. At this point, when the High Priest forbids Peter to witness, he might as well have been forbidding Peter to breathe.”

Of course, none of the apostles had started from this posture of astounding belief. They had all run away when Jesus was arrested. They had watched the grisly scene unfold from a distance – or not at all. Peter had not even believed when he saw the empty tomb. In one way or another, they had all been afraid, but not any more.

Now – with one another, in community - they stood up for Jesus, proclaiming his message and witnessing in his name.

This is surely a real swashbuckling tale of courage and resolve and standing firm in the face of tremendous odds. But what could it possibly say to us? After all, we are not likely to be brought before the Supreme Court to defend our Christian beliefs. So how does this story touch our lives?

You know, as I read the Scripture for today earlier this week, I thought that this text is really too good to be read the Sunday after Easter, when attendance is back to normal, and all the Easter church goers are doing what they usually do on Sunday mornings.

Would it not be fun some year on Easter to substitute this reading for the traditional empty tomb story? We could still have lilies and spring flowers. Scott could still play the trumpet. We could even sing the usual Easter hymns. But the scripture would be something like this passage from the Book of the Acts of the Apostles – because this is what is really important about Easter – and the Easter church goers never hear this part of the story.

They never hear specifically how encountering the Living Christ resurrects something deep inside you – how being part of a like minded community makes you foolish like Peter was in proclaiming the message of Jesus even when it flies in the face of cultural norms.

They never hear specifically how encountering the Living Christ transforms your life – how being part of a like minded community makes you courageous like Peter was in proclaiming the message of Jesus and going out to change the world, one healing at a time.

You see, this passage in Acts illustrates beautifully what is supposed to happen when we know the story of the empty tomb. In short, we are challenged to harness that Easter joy and faith we felt so deeply last week – and do something with it.

The author of Luke/Acts calls this “doing” “witnessing.” That is what Peter was up to when he challenged the Jewish authorities. Academic professor Kevin Wilson defines it like this: “Witnesses are not simply passive observers of an event; they must actively make known what they have seen."

You and I profess that we have encountered the Living Christ. You and I say that we are witnesses to this extraordinary event. That is why we are part of the church, part of this like minded community.

That being said, then I think that you and I are supposed to be courageous like Peter when it comes to being a Christian - whether we are in the pulpit or the pews. We are to try for that steely resolve.

I think you and I are meant to share our faith in words as well as deeds because doing so is the cost of discipleship, the cost of following Jesus, the cost of participating in the resurrection – even when Jesus’ vision, clashes with the cultural norms that remind us day in and day out that might makes right, that it is better to be safe than sorry, that we must first take what we need because there is not be enough to go around.

Witnessing as Peter witnessed means living as men and women who understand the sacrifice Jesus made on tour behalf and who respond with the love he called his followers to practice in his name, who both believe that the love of God in Jesus has overcome every barrier between them and God, and who react by proclaiming that forgiveness and love to all who will listen.

There was once a popular bumper sticker that read: “If you were charged with being a Christian today, would there be enough evidence to convict you?”

It is an intriguing question that bears serious thought – particularly right after Easter when we like the Easter church goers are sucked back into the ho hum of our lives. Yet, for us who have chosen to be part of the church, part of this community of like minded people, it is not that easy because now we have seen a glimpse of what Easter is all about, witnessed through the lens of Peter’s outspoken resolve.

“If you were charged with being a Christian today, would there be enough evidence to convict you?” Think about it.

Rev. Nancy Foran is pastor of the Raymond Village Community Church, Raymond, Maine

http://www.rvccme.org/

John 20:1-18 It's Not About Us

2010-04-09T09:27:00.000-07:00

It did not begin with the light we associate with joy. It did not begin with a chorus of alleluias. It began in darkness. It began with tears. And it began with a string – ludicrous almost – a string of muddled mistakes and misconceptions.

First of all, Mary thinks Jesus’ body has been stolen, carried off by grave robbers, so she ends up with swollen eyes, crying a river of tears because the body of her Lord and Teacher is gone, vanished.

When Peter arrives on the scene, he has the hutzpa to actually venture into the tomb, but he sees only emptiness and absence and the linen wrappings set in a crumpled pile with the cloth which had covered Jesus’ face folded neatly at the back of the cave. All Peter can muster up is a shake of the head and a thoughtful pull of the beard. He does not have a clue what is going on and so just turns around and goes back home to bed.

Peter’s unnamed buddy only sticks his head into the cave, maybe because he was overwhelmed by that creepy feeling you often get when you enter a cemetery in the dark. Yet, for some reason he believed (though John never tells us exactly what he believed). However, he sees no reason to stick around either, so he also goes back to bed - or maybe just ventures out to get his morning coffee.

So Mary ends up – again - in the garden alone while the dew is still on the roses. Well, not exactly alone because there is someone else there. It is Jesus – we know that – but she thinks he is the gardener. Then when she figures out who the stranger is, she throws herself at him, bent on an enormous bear hug, and he puts out his arm to fend her off, telling her she can not touch, she can not cling.

When you come right down to it, the whole empty tomb story is a pretty inauspicious and fragile way to begin a religion that has ended up lasting over 2000 years. I mean, the four canonical gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) can not even agree on what happened that morning. I mean, if you lined up all the versions side by side, you would see a whole bunch of conflicting details.

And yet, each Easter, we insist upon focusing our energy on that pile of rocks in the garden. As Episcopal priest and religion professor, Barbara Brown Taylor writes, our concern is “on that tomb, on that morning, on what did or did not happen there and how to explain it to anyone who does not happen to believe it too.

The resurrection is the one and only event in Jesus’ life that was entirely between him and God. There were no witnesses whatsoever. No one on earth can say what happened inside that tomb, because no one was there. They all arrived after the fact. Two of them saw clothes. One of them saw angels. Most of them saw nothing at all because they were still in bed that morning, but as it turned out that did not matter because the empty tomb was not the point.”

It is a waste of our energy to try to rationally figure out this resurrection business. So if you came here wondering if (or maybe even hoping that) I would have some new insight into constructing a logical synthesis of that first Easter morning, then you will be deeply disappointed. For myself, I fall back on the whole faith thing – though I know for at least some of you, that does not cut the mustard.

But you are here. You chose to be here. You could have stayed at home and enjoyed another pot of tea and a second hot cross bun. Ok – maybe you felt pressured by tradition or a spouse, but you exercised your free choice and came to sit in these not always comfortable pews this morning. In the end, the story means something to you – even if it is only a large question mark in your psyche.

So – if the empty tomb is not the point, then what is? Well, unfortunately, most of us get our second go at the story misconstrued as well because we keep trying to squash it into some conventional box, and it just will not fit. We end up thinking that the resurrection has something to do with us – and where we will end up spending eternity.

And so we listen to this story of the empty tomb and manage to catapult ourselves out of the present, out of this world, and into another place where we will someday not be dead – maybe thirty pounds lighter with washboard abs, blond or at least with a full head of hair – but not dead.

And lo and behold, the story of the empty tomb – the resurrection - becomes not about Jesus, but rather about us. And I do not think that is what the Gospel writer of John had in mind. That may have been a theology that developed in the early church, but the plain language of the text is not about our resurrection.

So, if the empty tomb is not the point, and our own twisting of the story to make it about us in the eternal future is not the point, then what is the point?

New Testament scholar and Anglican Bishop of Durham in England puts it this way. “The point is…(that) Easter has burst into our world—the world of space, time, and matter, real history and real people and real life.” If Easter is about us at all, it is about us in the here and now, in this world – not in the next.

Maybe that is why the Gospel writer of John chose to set his story in the garden with a weeping Mary – to remind us that Jesus lives in THIS world, in OUR world which, when you come right down to it, is not all that different from Mary’s world. There is fear. Sometimes there is only emptiness and absence. Everyday people cry a river of tears over one thing or another.

You see, the profound hope of the resurrection is that not only did Jesus die in this world but Jesus lives in this world too. However, that being said (and as Jesus told Mary), we can not cling. We can not hang onto the hem of his robe and hope that he will fly us away to some better place.

Because, you know, the Risen Christ has places to go and people to see – here, in this world. The One who Lives is among the living, loving the living. The question that should stump us at Easter is not: Do you believe in the doctrine of the resurrection?

The question that is really raised in the Gospel narrative is: Have you encountered a Risen Christ? Have you encountered Love – with a capital “L”? You see, because if you have encountered the latter, then you have encountered him.

In the Gospel of John particularly, the writer goes to great lengths to tell stories of Jesus appearing to his disciples – in an upper room in a house in Jerusalem, on the beach, over breakfast cooked on an open fire – and each time, as Barbara Brown Taylor notes, his friends “became stronger, wiser, kinder, more daring. Every time he came to them, they became more like him.”

And, that is the only proof of the resurrection that we can offer. When we live as Jesus challenged as to live, when we live in loving community, when we forgive, when we become reconciled with those who have pushed us away, when we practice compassion, when we are advocates for justice, something happens to us. The sum of the parts seems to be greater than the whole.

And (and this is the secret, the mystery, the miracle of Easter) the sum of the parts is greater than the whole – because He is present. He is present in the love, in the forgiveness, in the reconciliation, in the moments we fought for justice. Maybe we do not see him (chances are we will not), but by golly, if we allow ourselves to indulge in something beyond the rational, we will feel his presence – because he lives. Because there were no grave robbers. Because he was in that garden. Because He is risen. He is risen indeed.

Rev. Nancy Foran is pastor of the Raymond Village Community Church, Raymond, Maine

http://www.rvccme.org/

Isaiah 55:1-9 "Taste and See"

2010-03-19T13:21:00.000-07:00

The first thing we need to understand about the ancient Biblical prophets is that they were not like Edgar Cayce, Jean Dixon – or even Sybill Trelawney in the Harry Potter series. Above all, they were not predictors of events far into the future.

As far as we can tell, though they used some divination tools like astrology, they did not spend the vast majority of their time staring into crystal balls or reading death threats on the palms of your hands in a darkened classroom like one might find at Hogwarts.

The role of prophets, both the major ones like Jeremiah and Isaiah (whom we read this morning), and the so-called minor ones like Amos and Hosea was far more nuanced and multi-faceted.

Among other responsibilities arising out of their call from God, Biblical prophets provided political and even military advice to kings and rulers. Should they go to war? Should they negotiate a treaty? Such advice was sometimes straightforward and other times was presented in wonderfully vivid imagery such as Jeremiah described in going down to the potter’s house to watch him work at his wheel.

Ancient prophets also provided warnings when Israel strayed from their God, Yahweh, (which became a familiar circumstance), and so a prophet might articulate a reversal in expectations, weaving together poetic and fiery words and vivid images of the destruction of Zion should behaviors not change.

Biblical prophets also provided tremendous comfort to the Jewish people in times of enormous upheaval and distress. They planted seeds of hope as they spoke of lions bedding down with lambs, rough places becoming smooth, and water gushing from the deserts and flowers blooming in the sand and heat.

Above all, in one way or another, Biblical prophets reminded primarily Jewish leaders time and time again of the ancient and abiding covenant God had long ago established with them. This covenant, of course, describes God’s relationship with Israel and the terms by which Israel fulfills its responsibility to be a holy people. “I will be your God, and you will be my people.”

The task of keeping up their side of the covenant was never an easy one for the Israelites. They were constantly falling short – from the first time they danced around with that golden calf at the foot of Mount Sinai while Moses was in the clouds and thunder picking up the Ten Commandments to all the ways they doubted the goodness and abiding love of God and all the times they figured it would be a lot easier to go it alone and do it their way. Yet, though a mystery as to why, God never gave up on them. God always keeps God’s side of the bargain. And that surely is the foundation of a theology of grace, amazing grace.

Our passage this morning is a part of an ancient document emerging from a time nearly 600 years before Christ. Scholars date it about the time of the Edict of Cyrus, approximately 539 B.C.E.

Now here is your history lesson for the morning – and it is important for understanding the meaning of our Scripture. The ancient Middle East was a world characterized by warring tribes and nations, and often the Israelites ended up as pawns.

For example, Nebuchadnezzar conquered the Kingdom of Judah and used a common tactic to ensure submission. He deported or exiled the Israelites to backwater Babylon. However, when the Persian Empire overran Babylon some 70 years later, Cyrus, the Persian emperor, granted the Israelites the right to return to their homeland.

This Babylonian Exile was the second significant exile in Jewish history, the first one being the years spent in slavery in Egypt. This time around they were deported in two waves, first the rulers, priests, and elites followed later by the common masses.

In short, they were forced from their homeland, and, more importantly, their temple where God resided was in ruins. Consequently, their concept of worship was in shambles, and their way of life was destroyed.

In a cosmic sense, they had ended up in the Babylonian backwaters in the first place because God just got fed up with their endless shenanigans over keeping up their end of the covenant. But now, as they are about to go back home, Isaiah speaks and reminds them that this all-important covenant with God has been salvaged once again by God’s grace.

Come home, God says. All who are thirsty for me, come and drink clear and cool water even in a land that has no water. All who hunger for me, come and eat, even if you have nothing to give in return.

God is making a lasting covenant commitment to you, Isaiah says, the same one that God made with David: sure, solid, enduring love…Come back to God, who is merciful, come back to our God, who is lavish with forgiveness. (from “The Message).

As United Church of Christ pastor, Kate Huey, writes, “We know that a prophet speaks sternly to the people when they need it, but also knows how to speak tenderly, to convey God's great love and mercy… And this prophet knows that the people are hungry for a message of hope, a message that promises an end to their captivity and a different way of life, back home, where they can be who they are called to be, and faithful to the God who has made an everlasting covenant with them.”

When the prophet asks the community, “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread?” he is really asking, “Why are you wasting your industry, your wealth and your life’s work in a place which will never be your home?”

If you are thirsty, if you are hungry, all you have to do is return to the place God has set aside for you and there…God will sustain you…Trust in God and in God’s plan for your lives, instead of pinning your hopes on your own designs.

The covenant has been restored, O people of Israel. The covenant has been restored by the grace of God alone. So, come home, now. Come home.

Such beautiful words – but the loveliest part of hearing Isaiah speak them today is that these words of welcome were not whispered once in a moment of ancient time – said and forgotten. The words are meant for us as well.

As Church of the Brethren pastor, Peter Haynes reminds us "Originally addressed to those who have been torn from their homeland and forced to live in exile in Babylon, this "word" (of Isaiah) is still alive and active for any exile who longs for home, for those who hunger and thirst for righteousness..." And I would say that includes each one of us.

Come home. The ancient covenant has been restored by the grace of God alone – and as Christians, we believe that through Jesus, God has extended that covenant – that special relationship - to us Gentiles. We have a new relationship with God – a new covenant - because of the death and resurrection of Jesus.

INVITATION TO COMMUNION
Come back to God and to the source of what will really satisfy your souls. Come all you who have settled so comfortably into a routine and worldview that keeps you so busy and distracted that you have lost touch with your deepest selves, made in the image of God. Come share in the feast because your spirits are thirsty, starving, and homesick, even if you can not name those feelings on your own. (Kate Huey)

Come all of you who may not be immediately aware of how you have wandered away from God – how life has lost its meaning in pursuit of a promotion or raise, how you have gotten buried under the demands of economic and social status. (Daniel Debevoise)

No one goes hungry at the table of life. Taste, oh taste and see. Take nourishment in the covenant and in the promises of a God whose love will not fail us.

Rev. Nancy Foran is pastor of the Raymond Village Community Church, Raymond, Maine

http://www.rvccme.org/

Luke 13:31-35 "Trash Talking"

2010-03-03T13:52:00.000-08:00

The fox went out on a chilly night,

He prayed for the moon to give him light,

For he'd many a mile to go that night,

Before he reached the town-o, town-o, town-o,

He'd many a mile to go that night,

Before he reached the town-o.

He ran ‘til he came to a great big pen,

Where the ducks and the geese were put therein,

"A couple of you will grease my chin,

Before I leave this town-o, town-o, town-o,

A couple of you will grease my chin,

Before I leave this town-o."

Many years ago, Joe and I would read the story of that old fox or sometimes sing the folk song to Heather, Paddy, and Tim, and that is the first connection I made when earlier in the week I read our Scripture passage.

I thought of Herod - like that old fox –out to get what he wanted:

Then old Mother Flipper-Flopper jumped out of bed,

Out of the window she cocked her head,

Crying, "John, John! The gray goose is gone,

And the fox is on the town-o, town-o, town-o!"

Crying, "John, John! The gray goose is gone,

And the fox is on the town-o!"

I thought of Herod - like that old fox - cunning and oftentimes cruel:

He grabbed the gray goose by the neck,

Throwed a duck across his back,

He didn't mind their quack, quack, quack,

And their legs a-dangling down-o, down-o, down-o,

He didn't mind their quack, quack, quack,

And their legs a-dangling down-o.

Yes, I though of Herod - like that old fox - not letting anyone or anything stand in his way:

Then the fox and his wife without any strife,

Cut up the goose with a fork and knife,

They never had such a supper in their life,

And the little ones chewed on the bones-o, bones-o, bones-o,

They never had such a supper in their life,

And the little ones chewed on the bones-o.

Herod Antipas was not someone to be trifled with. He might have been a puppet ruler of Judea, under the thumb of Rome, but he was the king. He tightly held the reins of power in and around Galilee. There were no two ways about it.

It was this Herod who had executed John the Baptist over a disagreement about the nature of divorce and had presented John’s head with a flourish on a silver platter one night at dinner at the request of his lovely wife, Herodias.

It was the father of this Herod who had ordered all the littlest children in Bethlehem slaughtered when he got wind of a newborn king in the area.

It was this Herod who, at his father’s death, mass murdered men, women, and children in the nearby city of Sepphoris in order to quell a Jewish urban revolt. No – King Herod Antipas was no one to be trifled with.

The Pharisees realized that, and some of them even told Jesus to put a cork on the message he was sending out and tone down the healings and exorcisms he was doing left and right. Did he not understand that he was drawing way too much attention to himself – and that was not good?

"Run for your life!” They urged. “Herod is on the hunt. He is out to kill you!" They seemed close to a veritable panic. After all, the last thing anyone wanted was some sort of peasant uprising.

This Jesus – no matter who he thought he was – just should not be talking about the last being first, and the first being last. As United Church of Christ pastor, Kate Huey reminds us, “Did he not understand that none of it sounded like good news to those who thought they were comfortably (if tenuously) ensconced in the places of prestige and power?”

Oh, that Jesus! He was a bad boy. Maybe he was naïve about just who and what he was dealing with. Maybe he was too young to know just how close he was walking the line. Maybe he was merely cocky, or maybe he was inspired by something that even those most devoted to the Torah could not understand. Because, you see, rather than heeding the well-meaning and sensible advice of the more politically savvy Pharisees, instead, Jesus trash talks the king!

“Oh, that old dragon breath! He is nothing more than a horse’s ‘you know what’. Tell the old fox that I have no time for him right now. Today and tomorrow I am busy clearing out the demons and healing the sick; the third day I will be wrapping things up. Anyway, everyone knows that it is not proper for a prophet to come to a bad end outside Jerusalem. Bring it on, Herod, bring it on.”

Clearly, Herod’s threats did not seem to jeopardize Jesus’ sense of mission in the least. The king’s intimidation did not even affect its timetable, which was defined by someone greater than this two bit puppet ruler.

Who is this man, Jesus? Who is this trash talking upstart rabbi who says what he means and means what he says, who refuses to listen to anyone or anything except the voice that speaks from his heart?

Who is this man who heals the sick, gives sight to the blind, causes cripples to throw away their crutches, and sends demons off with a roar and a groan?

Who is this man who willingly sets out on a journey of conflict and tension that will eventually take him to Jerusalem, the seat of religious and regional political power? And that, for the Gospel writer of Luke, is terribly important.

As Episcopal priest, Barbara Brown Taylor, comments “Nothing that happens in Jerusalem is insignificant. When Jerusalem obeys God, the world spins peacefully on its axis. When Jerusalem ignores God, the whole planet wobbles.” It is hardly rocket science to know that when Jesus stirs things up in the Holy City, there can not possibly be a good end for Him.

United Church of Canada pastor, James Love, puts it this way: Jesus “is moving out from his ministry on the margins of the empire in Galilee and moving towards the center of power, Jerusalem; the big city; the place where the Great Temple stands; but also the centre of Roman regional control…Jesus (seems) to know that…when centers of power have the truth proclaimed in them and to them, they often respond with violence…He seems to know (too) that (his) Good News will cause the powerful to feel threatened.

Who is this man who intuitively understands that Herod’s words are nothing when they stand in the face of the power of the Word of God?

Jesus is a mystery. He is the Great Mystery. One moment we think we know him as the macho trash talking young rabbi, but in the very next verse in Luke’s Gospel, we see someone completely different. It is almost as if we glimpse the raw essence of his soul. Maybe without even thinking, he shares a metaphor for his ministry and his purpose that is so achingly beautiful, so gentle, and, above all, so daringly feminine.

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings.” (KJV)

Jesus likens himself not to a lion, for he is not – and never will be - the King of the jungle. Neither is he swift like the cheetah nor strong like the ox or the bull. He is so much less – and yet so much more. He is like a barnyard chicken, a mother hen.

Jesus will cry out again for Jerusalem as he sits upon a donkey on the hill outside the city before his triumphant entry on Palm Sunday. That time just seeing the Holy City laid out before him will reduce him to tears.

But for now, it is only a heartfelt lament – almost like a love song. You see, if Jesus had his way, he would gather together all of his people in Jerusalem – all the peasants and the shopkeepers and the scribes and the elders and the Pharisees – and one day even Judas – all of them. He would gather them like a mother hen and protect them under fragile wings.

It is like Barbara Brown Taylor noted. “If you have ever loved someone you could not protect, then you understand the depth of Jesus’ lament. All you can do is open your arms. You cannot make anyone walk into them. Meanwhile, this is the most vulnerable posture in the world --wings spread, breast exposed -- but if you mean what you say, then this is how you stand.”

Once there was a firefighter who came upon an eagle’s nest after a devastating forest fire had ravaged the landscape. The eagle, of course, was dead – charred and stiff now – lying upon her nest. The firefighter kicked the bird away, and all of a sudden peeping filled the air. The chicks had all survived the terrible fire because the mother had spread her wings and lay on top of them. She had given her own life to save them.

Jesus seems to know that his days of trash talking are numbered. He will never be the kind of ruler that anyone expects – or maybe even wants. In his book, the last will always be first, the gentle will inherit, and the peacemakers will end up on top.

And in the end, he will be little more than a chicken – no fangs, no talons, no massive and imposing physical presence. As Barbara Brown Taylor writes so poignantly, all the chicken has is “her willingness to shield her babies with her own body. If the fox wants them, he will have to kill her first.

Which (the fox) does, as it turns out. He slides up on her one night in the yard while all the babies are asleep. When her cry wakens them, they scatter. She dies the next day where both foxes and chickens can see her -- wings spread, breast exposed -- without a single chick beneath her feathers. It breaks her heart, but it does not change a thing. If you mean what you say, then this is how you stand.”

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

Luke 5:1-11 "Speaking The Truth To Power"

2010-02-25T13:50:00.000-08:00

There was once a woman who went on a shopping spree and purchased a very, very expensive dress. When she got home and modeled it for her husband, he was horrified when he saw the price tag, and he asked her why she had bought it. He said, “You know we can’t afford that.”

She smiled shyly at him and said, “Well, honey, the devil made me do it. I was trying it on in the store, and he whispered, “I have never seen you look more gorgeous than you do in that dress.”

Her husband listened open-mouthed and then responded, “Why didn’t you just say, ‘Get behind me, Satan?’ ”

The woman paused, looked pensive, and replied, “I did - and the devil said, ‘It looks great from behind too.’ ”

Today begins the season of Lent, and so this morning we focus on the same Biblical story that crops up every year on this particular Sunday. It is the story of Jesus spending forty days in the desert or wilderness, all the while being tempted by Satan or the devil, call it what you will, being tempted by the personification of evil – a lust for material goods, a greed for power, and a deep felt need for protection, for being in complete control of your own destiny.

This story is told in magnificent detail in only two of our four Gospels – Matthew and Luke. The writer of the Gospel of John does not mention it at all, and in Mark, the entire experience is summarized in two sentences.

In our reading today, the Gospel writer tells us that Jesus had been filled up with the Holy Spirit at the time of his baptism, and it was that selfsame spirit that led him on this wilderness quest in the first place. One does get the feeling, however, that Jesus did not have a whole lot of choice in the matter – or time to prepare.

As Episcopal priest, Jason Sierra, speculates, “Jesus didn’t strike out into the wilderness with a stack of scriptural commentaries…we might assume he left in a bit of a hurry: his wallet, cell phone, and keys still on the nightstand. His journey into the wilderness was a test in a way. And like most tests, he couldn’t use his notes.” It was just himself – and the Spirit – and the core of a message and a ministry held deep in his heart and in his soul.

Of course, what happened out there in the wilderness, no one knows because all three synoptic Gospel writers make it clear that Jesus was alone. There were no eye witnesses.
However, I do not believe that the Gospel writer of Luke envisioned pitch forks, horns, long pointy tails, and red long johns when he personified the essence of evil. I understand the encounter more as a dialogue going on inside Jesus’ head – ideas flowing in and around, creating various scenarios about how best to do this ministry to which he had been called. How could he be most efficient and effective in this important task?

I imagine the counterpoint to be a seductive voice, soft and sensible, offering alternative strategies – plausible ones that on some level really made a lot of sense. At one point, Evil even quoted Scripture, no less, which proves one thing for sure.

Evil was biblically literate and knew exactly where to find the passage needed to really put Jesus to the test. As United Church of Christ pastor, Kate Huey, notes, this facility with Scripture “just shows how easily the Bible can be, and has been, used for entirely wrong purposes.”

First, Evil bribed Jesus with bread, and oh, was Jesus famished by that point. How many days had it been since he had sat down to a good meal?

“More bread, more food; that would be tasty right about now,” Evil cajoled. “Here – smell this, fresh out of the oven! It is more of what you need to keep you going in the proper and refined way to which you could so easily become accustomed.”

More steak. More Big Macs. More exotic fruits transported in from the other side of the planet - come on, make your life worth living. But, Jesus answered, we can not live on bread alone. More is not the answer.

Then, Evil showed Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and all the wealth that went along with it. They were stretched out, glittering in the sunlight, farther than the eye could see.

“This could all be yours,” Evil softly said. “It would be that easy. You could be king of the universe, the most powerful guy around. People would listen to you then. You can be sure of that. The world loves the trappings of power and prosperity.”

Bigger houses. Bigger cars. Bigger toys, whatever they might be. Then wouldn’t people stand up and take notice? But, Jesus answered, there is more to life than power. Bigger is not the answer.

And finally Evil whispered ever so softly. “If you threw yourself off this highest point on the Temple, would anyone care enough to save you? Do you think those angelic body guards would really come to your rescue? Or would you have to figure out how to protect yourself halfway down?”

More military firepower. More elaborate defenses. Increasingly de-humanizing technology. But, Jesus answered, don’t force God’s hand. Self-protection at all costs is not the answer.
And then Evil took his bag of bribes and tricks and left Jesus alone – for the time being at least.

Like Jesus, we all face temptation at one time or another. That is a given. How we define it and handle it is what is important and is certainly one truth we can derive from Luke’s narrative.

There was a young man who was sent to Spain by his company to work in a new plant. He accepted the transfer because it would enable him to earn enough to marry his long-time girlfriend. Their plan was to pool their resources and put a down payment on a house when he returned.

As the lonely weeks went by, she began expressing doubts that he was being true to her. After all, Spain is populated by beautiful women. The young man declared that he was paying absolutely no attention to the local girls. "I admit," he wrote, "that sometimes I'm tempted. But I fight it. I'm keeping myself for you."

In the next mail, the young man received a package. It contained a note and a harmonica. "I'm sending this toy to you," his girlfriend wrote, "so you can have something to take your mind off those girls." The young man wrote back that he was practicing on the harmonica every night and thinking only of her.

When the young man returned home, his girl was waiting at the airport. As he rushed forward to embrace her, she held up a restraining hand and said sternly, "Hold on there. First I want to hear you play that harmonica!"

How we define and handle temptation is worth considering, and I believe this passage in Luke can help us do just that. You know, in the face of all of those manifestations of evil that Jesus faced, the one thing he did each time was to speak the truth to power. He spoke the truth with power, to be sure, but he also spoke the truth to power.

That is, he was fearless in confronting head-on the overwhelming and powerful tide of evil. His actions are remarkable really, and they set the bar high for the rest of us. After all, the easy message of this passage for us is that we, as followers of Jesus, are obviously called to do the same. Speak up. Speak out. It is that simple.

Or is it? This is where these verses on temptation are difficult for me. If more is not the answer, and less seems impossible, then what is the answer? If bigger is not the answer, but smaller just does not work, then what is the answer? If self-protection at all costs is not the answer, but being a doormat appears the only viable alternative, then what is the answer?

I do not know for sure what the answers are, perhaps because the questions are seldom put to us so starkly. However, I do know that we as humans have an extremely well-developed facility to rationalize the world around us – to see a good side to everything.

Driving a Prius saves gas – even if we still commute to Portsmouth or Boston. The tobacco industry employs a good number of people – even though it compromises the lives of many more. A “just war” is surely within the scope of being a peacemaker.

Where are these voices coming from anyway? Sometimes it is hard to tell, but, as followers of Jesus, that is an important question to answer because we have to decide whether we are listening to the voice of the world or listening to the voice of God.

And the tempting voice of the world can make a lot of sense. More may not be the answer, but there is a lot to be said for a growing economy. Bigger may not be the answer either, but surely there is a good side to being the most powerful and the one to call the shots. Self-protection at all costs may not be the answer, but it sure beats living in fear, doesn’t it?

Who is speaking to us? The voices are all muddled and confusing. Is this the voice of the Spirit or the voice of the tempting world? When we try to go about doing God’s work, how do we know if we are doing it the world’s way – or God’s way? It all makes my head spin, so stop – I need some quiet. I need to begin to figure this out.

You know, maybe that is the point of this Lenten journey stuff. Maybe if we stop long enough and mindfully listen to our hearts enough, in the silence of these 40 days, maybe we will hear the voice of the spirit – and even be led by that selfsame spirit.

Maybe these next 6 weeks are a time to go into the wilderness – led by the Spirit, just as Jesus was – wrestle with the voices in our heads over the big questions– just as Jesus did – and when we come to the other side do the courageous thing and choose death – death to all the old ways of looking at the world – just as Jesus did – only in the end to find life, real life – just as Jesus did – and finally, finally, speak the truth to power.

Luke 9:29-36 "Listen To Jesus

2010-02-25T13:41:00.000-08:00

Today we have come to the end of the Epiphany season. For the past few weeks, we have reflected upon the ways in which God is made known in our lives and in the world. Throughout January and this first part of February, we have pondered the significance of the Light of the World, come at Christmas, and how our lives have been influenced and impacted as a result.

The season of Epiphany began with light – the light of a dazzling star that led the Magi to Bethlehem – and the season also ends with light – the blazing light of the transfiguration that fairly burst the seams of the old ragged robe that Jesus wore.

Epiphany is the season of revelation. It is the season whose focus is God being revealed to us. It is the season of light bulbs going on when we think we “get it.” How fitting then that, symbolically, Epiphany is the season of light.

Of course, Peter, James, and John had no clue that the light of this particular day would be different from any other. The light of the sun had awakened them as usual, its pink and rosy fingers spreading across the dawn sky. The light of the breakfast fire was bright and lively and meant that their second cup of coffee would be steaming hot after all.

Who knows whether these faithful (if sometimes clueless) followers would have an inkling that, before the sunlight had faded first into twilight and then into darkness, they would be catapulted into a sacred moment so powerful that it practically blew their socks off when Jesus invited them to come along while he prayed that morning?

Surely Peter, James, and John made some association with the fact that Jesus was leading them up a mountain when he could have simply walked a couple hundred yards from their campsite to do his private devotions. After all, as obedient Jews, they viscerally understood the significance of mountains and mountaintop experiences, for they towered in the Hebrew imagination and in the sacred writings of the Torah.

It was on a mountain that Abraham chose faithfulness to God over everything else and would have killed his son, Isaac, had his God not intervened with a well-placed ram in a nearby thicket to sacrifice instead.

It was on Mount Sinai that Moses encountered God, with the thunder growling and lightning flashing, and eight days later retraced his footsteps from the midst of the holy black clouds to the Hebrew people who were cavorting in the valley below with their golden calves and graven idols. It was said that Moses’ face glowed like the sun that day of his return, and in his arms and in his heart he carried the Ten Commandments.
But then again, maybe Peter, James, and John made no particular association with the mountain because the writer of the Gospel of Luke tells us that no sooner had Jesus knelt before the Almighty than the disciples fell asleep in the sunshine. And when they awakened, they were smack in the middle of a holy moment like none other they had ever known. This event trumped the water into wine thing, any of the healings they had been privy to, and even that calming the storm bit.

Of course, because the three of them had been snoozing, they missed the part when Jesus actually became transfigured or changed. They simply saw the result: their rabbi bathed in dazzling white, his face shining with the same glorious light that Moses once had glowed with in antiquity.

Jesus was sparkling and those not educated in the sacredness of this story might liken – not him for certain but his sparkles - to Edward Cullen when the sunlight briefly caught him on the plaza in Volterra, Italy, in the recent movie, “New Moon.” And please know that I am not comparing Edward to Jesus. I am comparing their sparkles in order to give you a visual. It was as if Jesus had caught fire from within, the spiritual embers that could not be quenched finally bursting forth with explosive and creative energy.

And to top it all off, Moses the great Lawgiver himself had also made an appearance. He stood on one side of Jesus, and Elijah the most respected Prophet of them all was posed on the other, the trio glowing, their radiantly bright faces glistening. They had clearly been talking with one another, and the disciples caught the last bit of their conversation, something about Jesus’ departure, his own personal exodus, the one he was about to complete in Jerusalem.

But who cares what they were talking about? Peter had bigger fish to fry. Here was a chance to be helpful (and faithful) – and Peter always sought to be helpful (and faithful).

How could he memorialize this magnificent event? How to keep this going was Peter’s chief concern, in spite of the fact, that, as Baptist pastor, R. Alan Culpepper writes, “Faithfulness is not achieved by freezing a moment but by following on in confidence that God is leading and that what lies ahead is even greater than what we have already experienced.”

However - “Booths! Tents!” Peter fairly babbled. “How about building little shrines…”

But before he could finish blurting out his big idea, he was interrupted by a cloud - a cloud and a voice that completely overshadowed him. “This is my son, whom I love – listen to him.”

And that was it. Moses faded back into the deep mists of time along with Elijah, and Jesus looked just like he always did – dressed in the same beige robe with the torn hem and the grease spots where he had wiped his hands after dinner the night before.

You know, we read this story annually on the Sunday before Ash Wednesday. The writers of Matthew, Mark, and Luke all include it in their Gospels, so we hear it from slightly differing perspectives in a three year lectionary cycle. But no matter whose version we read, every year too many of us get all tangled up in exactly what happened rather that what the story means.
Was it a factual and historical event that you could have filmed on your cell phone and then posted on Facebook? Was it a vision? Was it a story created by the early church to teach that the messiahship of Jesus was supported by the law and the prophets? Or, in the end, does it really matter because the truth of the story lies in its meaning and not in its historic literalness?

Oh, we could take this story in so many directions, for its symbolism is rich and deep. We could reflect upon the astounding similarities between this event at the end of Epiphany and Jesus’ baptism at the season’s beginning. At both times, God’s voice proclaimed Jesus to be his own and so affirmed and confirmed his ministry and his message.

We could point out how Passover that year would not be over before Jesus would climb another mountain, this time carrying his own ignoble cross, there to be executed for stirring up the mob and freaking out Pilate and the Roman authorities who just wanted to keep order in Jerusalem. Not glowing then, Jesus was bleeding and weighted down by the sin of the world – the pettiness, the malice, the betrayal, the cowardice. Yes - mountains figure prominently in the Jewish psyche.

We could ponder the idea of Peter, James, and John obediently following Jesus up the mountain that day, not really knowing what they were in for – and ask ourselves (for we proclaim to be followers too) how obediently we follow, knowing full well that following leads only to the cross, to the death of our old selves. How much do we trust the meaning of the transfiguration? How much do we trust the meaning of Easter?

With that thought in mind, we could also focus on the close connection that Luke outlines between Jesus and the Hebrew tradition of Moses. And that is where I want to briefly go this morning.

The literary similarities are several. First of all, the climax of both narratives happens on mountaintops – Moses on Sinai and Jesus on what we have come to call the Mount of the Transfiguration. In addition, both stories point to an encounter with God that was dazzling and spectacular. Over and above the burning bush thing, Moses returned from Mount Sinai with a face touched by the glow of the Almighty. And at the moment of his transfiguration, Jesus too glowed, but not just his face, his whole being.

However, there is a significant difference between the two encounters with God. As Lutheran pastor, Anne Svennungsen, points out, "On Mt. Sinai, Moses received Ten Commandments (no murder, no adultery, no coveting, you know them) – (but) on the Mount of the Transfiguration, the disciples received only one commandment – listen to Jesus." And surely those latter words have echoed through the millennia to us here this morning.

Listen to Jesus….
Blessed are the poor, the ones who have lost it all. God's kingdom is there for the finding. Blessed are those who are ravenously hungry now, for they shall be filled with food and even with a Messianic meal. Blessed are those who mourn, whose tears flow freely because, for them, joy comes with the morning. Count yourself blessed every time someone cuts you down or throws you out, every time someone smears or blackens your name to discredit you.You're blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That's when you discover who you really are, and your place in God's family.

Listen to Jesus….
Love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer for that person…If someone grabs your shirt, gift wrap your best coat and make a present of it. If someone takes unfair advantage of you, use the occasion to practice the servant life. No more tit-for-tat stuff. Live generously. Listen to Jesus….Love your enemies. Help and give without expecting a return. You'll never—I promise—regret it. Live out this God-created identity the way our Father lives toward us, generously and graciously, even when you’re at your worst. Our Father is kind; you be kind.

Listen to Jesus….
Don't pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults— unless, of course, you want the same treatment. Don't condemn those who are down; that hardness can boomerang. Be easy on people; you'll find life a lot easier. Give away your life; you'll find life given back, but not merely given back—given back with bonus and blessing. Giving, not getting, is the way. Generosity begets generosity.

Listen to Jesus….
Don’t judge….It's easy to see a smudge on your neighbor's face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own. Do you have the nerve to say, 'Let me wash your face for you,' when your own face is distorted by contempt? It's this I-know-better-than-you mentality again, playing a holier-than-thou part instead of just living your own part. Wipe that ugly sneer off your own face and you might be fit to offer a washcloth to your neighbor.

Listen to Jesus….
You're here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We're going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don't think I'm going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I'm putting you on a light stand. Now that I've put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives.

Listen to Jesus…
And don't say anything you don't mean….You only make things worse when you lay down a smoke screen of pious talk, saying, 'I'll pray for you,' and never doing it, or saying, 'God be with you,' and not meaning it. You don't make your words true by embellishing them with religious lace…When you manipulate words to get your own way, you go wrong.

Listen to Jesus….
Let me give you a new command: Love one another – all your neighbors. Love everyone – and remember that everyone – everyone in the whole wide world is your neighbor. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other and for all God’s children.

Listen to Jesus…..

(Biblical quotes are from "The Message")