“Bearing Fruit”

Text: Galatians 5: 22-23

 By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, ²³ gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.

 

There are a couple of points I want to make about this particular text; each point carries with it a particular story. The first point is that often we find ourselves in situations where the practical application of this text becomes exceedingly difficult. In other words, it is a hard text to live up to. We don’t always show patience and kindness and self-control to the world. On certain occasions, we let other emotions out that get in the way of these items that are considered the fruit of the Spirit.

When we think about the fig tree, for example, that Jesus cursed because it yielded no fruit and then 24 hours later it had withered to the root, we begin to recognize that bearing good fruit is vital to our human existence. I am not suggesting that good fruit or bad fruit jeopardizes our relationship with God or in any way puts our salvation at risk. What I am suggesting is that bearing good fruit makes our own lives bountiful and abundant, and when we cease to bear good fruit, our lives wither away like the fig tree.

But I also recognize that this is not always easy.

A couple of months ago I attended a Spiritual Renewal workshop in Denver at the Iliff School of Theology where I received my Master’s Degree. It is a requirement of my continuing education that I attend a certain number of credit hours each year, and this workshop in Denver met that requirement plus it was convenient because it was Denver and we could visit our kids, etc.

So Heidi & I flew out of Lewiston this time on Alaska Airlines with a connecting flight on Delta to Denver. Well, to keep things brief we were a little late leaving, we were delayed getting to our gate for the connecting flight and we were changing airlines. By the time we got off the Alaska Airlines flight, we had about 15 minutes to get to a different terminal, find our gate and board the Delta flight to Denver.

As you might imagine, our luggage did not keep up with us. When we got to Denver, it was nowhere to be found. Our luggage claim tickets were through Delta, so that is where we started. They checked the computer and said our bags would be in later that night and they could deliver them to us in the morning. That would be great. Thank you.

The next morning we dressed again in our same clothes as the day before. I had to leave and go to my workshop, so Heidi stayed behind to wait for our bags. Noon arrived and there were no bags, no phone call, no information on-line, nothing. I went to my next session at the workshop which was one of two sessions after lunch and got out around 2:30 in the afternoon. Still no bags, still no phone call, still no information on-line, nothing.

About this time patience and joy and peace and kindness and self-control are not the first things that you think about. Quite the opposite as a matter of fact. Bottom line turned out that the missing bag was at the airport, as it had been since the night before, but for some reason it was stuck in a corner at the Alaska desk and never made it to the Delta desk. It would still be there if we had not driven ourselves back to the airport and physically conducted a search for our bag with the help of some very nice Delta agents.

I didn’t get crazy upset or make a scene or come unglued; but I didn’t exactly exhibit the fruits of the Spirit either. But this experience did remind me of how easily our emotions can overshadow who we are called to be and what our lives our supposed to produce. At this point it would be very easy to get discouraged and begin to think that the idealism of the fruits of the Spirit as outlined in Galatians is really a pipe dream. You will never get there. It is an impossible expectation. The bar is set too high. Life is just too hard sometimes to take this text very seriously.

Well, remember when I said I wanted to make two points about this text and each point had a story? You have heard the first story about how it can be hard to live into the fruits of the Spirit and always respond in ways that are appropriate and mindful of producing good fruit. Now I want to share a second story. This one I heard years ago and can only remember the high points, but essentially it goes like this:

This is an ancient Chinese Proverb about a rich landlord who wanted an orchard on his land, so he hired a gardener to create an orchard for him. The gardener went to work preparing the land and planning the orchard. There were rocks to move, soil to prepare and planning to determine the best location for the trees. At the end of the first year, the landlord called the gardener into the mansion and asked him how many apples the orchard had produced. The gardener answered zero and was fired immediately without having a chance to explain.

So the rich landlord hired a second gardener. This time the gardener received the notes from the first gardener and continued his work. He planted the apples trees in the location suggested by the first, he brought in bee hives to help with pollination, and after actually tasting the soil for nitrogen content and ph balance, he began to treat the soil around the trees to make it the best nutritionally balanced soil for the tree that he could. At the end of the second year, the rich landlord called the gardener into the mansion and asked him how many apples the orchard had produced. When he answered zero, he too was dismissed without having a chance to explain.

Now the rich landlord was getting a little frustrated, but he persisted and hired a third gardener. This gardener received all the notes and comments from the first two and he went to work. By now the newly planted trees had started to grow, but the growth was uneven and sprawling all over the place. So the third gardener spent much of his time pruning and shaping the trees. At the end of the season, the third gardener was called into the mansion and asked how many apples the orchard had produced. Only a half-bushel the third gardener said. Before he could explain about the pruning, he too was dismissed on the spot.

The rich landlord was about to give up, but decided one more time to try again; so he hired a fourth gardener. This gardener tended the bee hives for good pollination. He carried water from the stream that ran through the orchard to make certain the trees received the right amount of moisture. Since the trees had been pruned the year before, they began to produce apples at a great rate. The gardener propped up branches that were in danger of breaking under the weight of the apples. After the harvest the gardener was brought before the landlord in the mansion and asked how many apples the orchard had produced. The gardener told the landlord the apples were like the stars, and hundreds of bushels were in the storehouse.

The landlord was so pleased he said that he was going to throw a party in honor of the great gardener. To show his appreciation for the gardener’s fine work, he was also going to give the gardener a gift; it was to be one of the finest bulls from the landlord’s large cattle herd.

The gardener informed the landlord that he would attend the party and be honored to receive the gift, but he required three bulls and not just one. The landlord agreed and the party date was set.

When the day of the party arrived the gardener was there as were most of the other rich landlords and dignitaries from the town where they all lived. It was quite an event. When the time came for the ceremony of the giving of the bulls, the gardener was called to the middle of the courtyard and presented with three great bulls, just as he had asked for. Then from behind the bushes, the former three gardeners who had been fired emerged. “What are they doing here?” the landlord shouted. “I invited them to attend” the gardener answered. The gardener then proceeded to give each of the three former gardeners who had been fired one bull each, and kept nothing for himself.

The landlord was confused and angry. “Why are you doing this?” he said. The gardener told him that only a fool would judge the success of an orchard by only counting apples. Then he quit on the spot and the four gardeners left together with the three bulls.

When we feel like we have failed to produce the good fruit we are called to produce in Galatians, we need to remember that a lot of preparation takes place before good fruit is produced. When you fall short in life, don’t consider it a failure, consider it preparation. And that is fruit for thought. Amen.

Re-visioning Christianity Part Two

Text: 2Corinthians 5:16

¹⁶ From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way.

I think what the Apostle Paul is talking about here is really important for us to take a minute and understand what he is saying in this text. Of course, there can always be multiple interpretations of a text, but from my perspective what Paul is saying is that the perspective of how he views Jesus has changed. What is important for us to recognize is that Jesus did not really change, but based on circumstances surrounding Paul, the perspective of Jesus has changed.

Now I want to be really clear about this. Looking at the text, Paul says from now on; that implies a dividing line of sorts, we view no one from a human point of view. So, something has happened that creates this imaginary dividing line for Paul. There is the past when he viewed Jesus and other people from a human point of view, but now he says we know him no longer in that way.

Of course, for Paul, I think what we are talking about here is the appearance of Jesus to Paul on the road to Damascus. I think that experience was a dividing line that changed the perspective of Paul and he now saw Jesus in a new way. An important question to ask, however, is did Jesus actually change, or was it just the perspective of Paul that changed? If we can begin to understand this question, then we can begin to understand what has happened to Christianity in the past four or five decades.

Last week I mentioned I was reading this book in which Marcus Borg has written a chapter about re-visioning Christianity. It is packed full of information and we cannot begin to unpack everything that Borg says in a sermon or two. But one of the things which is brought to light in this chapter is that things have changed for us significantly over the last 100 years or so. We are now asking questions that we would not have thought to ask a 100 years ago. We are facing moral and ethical dilemmas which did not exist a 100 years ago and as all of these changes have taken place around us, Christianity for the most part has remained unchanged.

For those of us that grew up with this Christianity, we have managed to work some of these questions out in our own minds. We have perhaps gained a slightly different perspective over the years, without even being aware that our perspective has changed.  We don’t necessarily believe everything that orthodox Christianity teaches, but we haven’t called for a complete overhaul of the system either. I think many of us just sort of give Christianity “a pass” when it comes to the tougher questions.

But here is the problem. Those that did not grow up in the church, when confronted with some of these tougher questions are much less likely to just give Christianity “a pass”; they are far more likely to reject the entire package and look elsewhere for spiritual fulfillment.

There are many different manifestations of what I am talking about and we simply do not have time to talk about them all. So I’m going to pick just one. The inherent doctrine of exclusivity for Christianity has become problematic for the sustainability of our faith tradition. Let me explain.

I don’t think most of us actually believe that Christianity is the only true religion. I don’t think most of us believe in a God that is willing to sentence 2/3 of the world’s population to eternal torment, and I don’t think most of us believe that all other world faith traditions worship false Gods and are evil. I believe that most of us embrace a certain level of inclusiveness, we want to honor other faith traditions and I think we generally feel that if everyone can get along and come together on points where we can agree, everyone will be better off.

Like I said, I believe that most of us believe this to be true. One of the reasons we believe it to be true is that our world has changed. We have become much more aware of other faith traditions, our neighborhoods and workplaces have become multi-cultural and in many cases multi-faith tradition. As we work beside and live next to and learn more about other faith traditions, it becomes harder and harder to believe that a relationship with God is only available through faith in Jesus Christ. It becomes even more difficult to believe that the only path to God’s grace is through Jesus as well. For centuries it seemed that Christians were able to rationalize the hypocrisy in the idea that faith in Jesus alone somehow switches the grace of God into the “on” position. If that is true, then we’re not really talking about grace, but that is another topic.

Because we love the church and we grew up in the church and our attitudes have evolved over a significant period of time, we don’t react negatively to traditional hymns and creeds which reinforce the exclusivity of Christianity. “It’s just the way it has always been” we tell ourselves, or we look past the shortcomings and offer the explanation that “it’s our tradition, no one really believes it.”

While we may have changed over the decades, Christianity has not. The basic core concepts have remained unchanged for at least 1500 years. Perhaps we need a new perspective, a new way of seeing Christianity.

I want to take just a minute and give you another way of thinking about this. I’m going to show you a video of a 3-dimensional sculpture. I’ll tell you in advance what you are going to see. The sculpture is rather simple, it is just wire arranged in a specific pattern. The video begins from one perspective and then the camera moves around the sculpture to view it from a different perspective. Watch carefully to what happens.

Play video

If I were to ask you if what you just saw was a sculpture of an elephant how many of you would say yes? How many would say no? How many of you wouldn’t know how to answer? What if I were to ask you if it was a sculpture of a giraffe? Same problem, right?

How you answer the question depends entirely upon your perspective. We can view Christianity from more than one perspective and not necessarily change it. We can allow the many perspectives to expand Christianity into multiple meanings for multiple cultures. But if we are going to do that, we have to let people know that is what we are doing. Right now, no one talks about this.

I want to call your attention to the photo on the cover of your bulletin. Many of you know that a few weeks ago, Heidi and I were on vacation and we were on a cruise. One of the ports where we stopped was in Guatemala. I have always wanted to see Guatemala, ever since I was a kid. That is because my oldest sister, when I was about 9 or 10 years old, graduated from college and entered the Peace Corps, where she served for two years in Guatemala. There is more to that story, but I’ll leave it at that for now.

If you know about cruises, you know there are shore excursions you can sign up for. Our shore excursion for Guatemala was to travel by boat into the jungle and visit a school that has been established there to help educate the indigenous Mayan people of Guatemala. It was a fabulous shore excursion and I would love to tell you all about the school-perhaps another day.

As part of our tour, we passed a table where the students were displaying some of the things they used in ancient ceremonies and rituals they were learning about in the Mayan culture and history. Many of these artifacts represent customs and traditions that pre-date Christianity by thousands of years. If you look carefully at the objects, you will see masks, and incense burners, different figures of birds and other animals and you will also see a cross.

I asked our guide about how they use the cross in these ancient ceremonies. He said the cross represented an attitude of honoring the many Catholics that are now part of the culture. They know who Jesus was and the cross represents compassion and personal suffering in some of the ceremonies. The students at this Mayan school didn’t see any conflict of faith traditions with the incorporation of the cross as one of many artifacts that are used. For them, Christianity offered another perspective of what they honored as the Divine in their ceremonies.

The school is not as advanced as what we would find here in the United States. We didn’t see any computers or TV monitors. We didn’t see any cell phones or any reference to anything on-line. We didn’t see any video games, we didn’t see any automobiles, we didn’t see much of anything that was modern or techno-savvy. We might say the school was well behind the schools here in the states.

We could say that, but we must also acknowledge that the students in his primitive Mayan school may possess a much greater understanding of inclusiveness and the wonder of multiple world faith traditions than most of the Christians I know. And for me, that makes them very advanced indeed.

Food for thought. Amen.

 

 

“Re-visioning Christianity”

Text: Mark 7: 5-8, 13, Isaiah 29:13

So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not live^[a] according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” ⁶ He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,

‘This people honors me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;
⁷ in vain do they worship me,
teaching human precepts as doctrines.’

⁸ You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.”

thus making void the word of God through your tradition that you have handed on. And you do many things like this.”

The Lord said:
Because these people draw near with their mouths
and honor me with their lips,
while their hearts are far from me,
and their worship of me is a human commandment learned by rote;

I am fascinated with this particular confrontation of Jesus with the scribes and the Pharisees as it is recorded in our text from the Gospel of Mark. I find it so interesting because Jesus seemed to have the text from Isaiah that he quoted right at the tip of his tongue. If the conversation went as it is recorded in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus didn’t have to think about a response, he didn’t have to check his concordance of the Hebrew Bible, he didn’t get on-line and do a quick search for scriptures to rebut scribes and Pharisees with, he just knew right away what he wanted to say and was able to reference it as well. This is a remarkable talent. I guess we shouldn’t be surprised, we are, after all, talking about Jesus.

I also find this text intriguing because it seems to have a timeless nature to it. Timeless in the sense that it was appropriate for the time when it was written and recorded in Isaiah, but also appropriate in the situation Jesus found himself in many years later. I think it is still timeless, because now, 2,000 years after Jesus quoted the ancient text it is still applicable to our situation today. Have we become a collection of “vain worshipers” who abandon the commandment of God in order to hold to human tradition? Jesus said this kind of worship makes void the true word of God. Isaiah said that this style of worship is what you have learned by rote.

This is pretty harsh. To be clear, Jesus was observing some of these symptoms within the practices of ancient Judaism. I believe that Martin Luther may have observed some of these symptoms during the Protestant Reformation. There is a growing number of contemporary theologians who now have observed these same symptoms in Christian worship today.

I am currently reading a book that is a compilation of thoughts by 9 of those contemporary theologians who have observed this behavior with the Christian church. This book, “The Once and Future Jesus” is quite fascinating and may be a subject of a book study later on, so stay tuned for information on that.

I mentioned that there are 9 contributing authors to this book, each theologian has taken a topic and expanded on that topic with their own thoughts and ideas. So by reading this book you are exposed to a lot of different perspectives, writing styles and innovative ideas when it comes to contemporary Christian theology. One of these topics was examined and expanded by a favorite author of mine, the late Marcus Borg. The title of his chapter in this book is what I borrowed for the title of this sermon, “Re-visioning Christianity”.

In his chapter Borg presents some rather important concepts and ideas about the transformation of Christianity that he thinks will be necessary for us to have take place over the next few decades if Christianity is going to survive as one of the major world faith traditions.

Of course, it is necessary for me to say that I believe these changes are important, Marcus Borg believed these changes to be important, but that doesn’t mean you have to as well. You may think that Christianity is doing just fine, just the way we are and nothing needs to change. You have every right to believe whatever you want to about this topic, but I will say that just because you have the right to believe something, doesn’t make it the right thing to do. That statement is also borrowed, but it packs a punch and you might want to think about that for a while. I’ll leave it on the screen long enough for you to make a mental note or jot it down, if you want to.

So what does Borg have to say about re-visioning Christianity? I wish I could condense his chapter in this book to a few sentences that would tell the entire story. Unfortunately, I think that Marcus Borg already condensed his sentences at the time of this writing so rather than condensing the sentences, what we really need to do is unpack each sentence. I hope you don’t have lunch plans.

In all seriousness, I will try to give you a flavor of what I have found to be compelling from Borg in this chapter from this book.

For starters, Borg describes the orthodox or traditional concepts of Christianity to be an “old way of seeing Christianity”. The new way of seeing Christianity has not yet arrived nor has it been fully developed; as a result, the old way of seeing Christianity has “come undone” as he puts it, for many Christians over the last 30-40 years. This has been evidenced by a mass exodus of many out of the mainline Christian denominations. This exodus has not taken place because people no longer believed in God, or no longer felt a need for a spiritual connection, but rather because the Christian faith tradition has “ceased to be persuasive” to millions and millions of people. Borg goes on to state that he believes the re-visioning of Christianity into something that is persuasive is in fact “the most important theological task of our time.”

At this point I want to interject some personal thoughts and perhaps a rhetorical question or two. If re-visioning Christianity is the most important task of our time, as Borg thinks it is, and I would have to agree, why then, is it likely that on this particular Sunday morning that this is the only pulpit in the entire LC Valley that you are likely to hear anything about this? When I was with Habitat I counted about 90 churches here in the Valley. If we are the only one talking about this that gets us pretty close to one percent and I don’t think that is enough. I think we need some help; but that help may still be a few years ahead of us. I’m really not sure.

A second thought I have about this is that I know it is frightening to a lot of people. The “old way” of seeing Christianity as Borg describes it, is in many cases the Christianity that we grew up with. If we were taught as young children and then again as young adults that our faith tradition was the only way for us to enter into the kingdom of God and escape from eternal suffering, then you bet it is scary to start messing with what we have been taught.

And that’s the rub. Rather than face that fear, we remain in status quo. While the rest of the world no longer believes what we might believe, and while the rest of the world is searching for a faith tradition that connects with them and empowers their spiritual lives, we remain in status quo because we are afraid. The result of that situation is where we find ourselves today. Massive declines in traditional mainline denominations, declining numbers even among evangelicals and non-denominational churches and a population of people under the age of 50 that are starving for a spirituality that makes sense to them. I think we can fix this. But it isn’t going to be easy. And for many of us it might be a little scary. But it simply must be done.

I have maybe unpacked the first two pages of the chapter in this book by Marcus Borg; obviously there is much more to come, so let’s call this part one and see where it takes us. Hopefully, what we have unpacked so far has provided enough information to get your curiosity awakened and you will find some food for thought.

Amen.

 

“Earning a Gift”

Text: Matthew 20: 1-16

“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. ² After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. ³ When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace; ⁴ and he said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went. ⁵ When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same. ⁶ And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, ‘Why are you standing here idle all day?’ ⁷ They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard.’ ⁸ When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.’ ⁹ When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage.¹⁰ Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage ¹¹ And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, ¹² saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ ¹³ But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? ¹⁴ Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. ¹⁵ Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’¹⁶ So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

This story sends me back to growing up in Iowa and working on the farms surrounding my hometown in the summer months. When Heidi and I first moved away from the Midwest, we had to learn the language of the new part of the country we had moved in to. As it turned out, we had to make an adjustment in our thinking with regard to what dinner was. In the Midwest, dinner is the noon meal and supper is the evening meal. I don’t really know if it is still that way or not, but when we moved out of the Midwest we would hear about people going to dinner in the evening and it didn’t make sense. It sounded a little foreign. Now, 40 years later, and having traveled quite a bit, I would say that dinner for the evening meal is the standard in most parts of the country and supper is exception rather than the rule. But when we heard it for the first time it did seem a little odd.

In this story of the vineyard, the manager keeps coming back to the town square or the market place as the text calls it. This makes sense to me and it has to do with calling dinner the noon meal and supper the evening meal. Let me explain.

As I was growing up in Le Mars, Iowa, I had the opportunity often in the summer months to earn a little extra spending money by working on some of the nearby farms. Usually this work was pulling weeds in a soybean field, which we called “walking beans” or it was baling hay. I did a lot of baling hay. It was hard work, but the pay was good and so was the food. There was sort of an unwritten rule that not only would you get paid for your labor on the farm, but you would also get fed. I think the farmers figured you would work better on a full stomach. This is how it worked.

The farmer or the manager would cruise through town and pick us kids up early in the morning; sometimes as early as 5:30 or 6:00 at the latest. We would then drive out to the farm and the first thing we did was have breakfast. This was a full meal. Meat, potatoes, pancakes, eggs, juice, bacon, actually almost anything you can think of, it was there for breakfast. Usually by 7 or 7:15 we were fed and ready to hit the fields.

Around 9:30 or 10 in the morning, we would take a break and the kitchen crew would show up out in the field with lunch. At least that is what they called it. Lunch consisted of cold meat sandwiches, chips, fruit and lemonade or cold water to drink. But they brought all of that out to us in the field; we didn’t go back to the farmhouse for lunch.

Then at noon we would stop again for dinner. This was another full meal served at the farmhouse. Just like breakfast, there was almost anything you could imagine. Usually several different types of meat, chicken or ham or beef, with potatoes and salads and fruit and biscuits and you get the idea. We would eat for an hour and then head back to the field.

At around 3 in the afternoon, it was time for lunch again and we got another break. Again, like the morning lunch, this was brought out to the field and we sat around on the equipment and ate our sandwiches and drank our lemonade.

At 6 or so in the evening we would go back to the farmhouse for supper. Another huge meal was prepared and waiting for us there. After supper if there was any clean-up or light chores to do we did that before it began to get dark and then the farmer or the manager ran us back into town in his pick-up truck.

If I remember correctly, by the time I was a junior or senior in high school, the average daily wage for a full day of baling hay was about $15 cash, but with all the food benefits thrown in as well.

As I read this story of the manager of the vineyard, it brings back all these memories. I can imagine him returning to the marketplace, perhaps to buy food for the laborers, and while he is there, he sees more people who need the work. The spacing of the times that the manager returns to the marketplace line up pretty well with my experience working the farms in Iowa as a young man. This might help explain why he kept returning to the marketplace and each time he did he found more people there willing to work in the vineyard.

As the story goes on, each worker in the vineyard gets paid the full amount. This didn’t ever happen to me, but I can just about imagine what it must have felt like for the laborers who had been out there all day. I can tell you that at times it was hard to stay awake during that last meal of the day that we called supper. By the time we rode the truck back in to town, many of us were nodding off and certainly ready for bed when we got home. If someone new had shown up at the 3 o’clock lunch and worked the afternoon and gotten paid the same as the rest of us, it would have seemed a little unfair.

Think about that. I had to be outside at the curb ready to be picked up at 5:30AM and had worked all day. Then some joker who shows up at 3 in the afternoon gets the same pay as I did? Yeah, I would think I’d be a bit upset by that. But as the text points out, what exactly am I going to be upset about? I did agree up front to work all day for the $15 and the food. It was my choice. But I can imagine it still wouldn’t sit quite right with me. Something about it seems unfair.

But that is the point of the story isn’t it? Grace isn’t fair. As much as we want it to be measured out in proportion to how good we have been, grace isn’t fair. God’s grace is universal and it covers all of us regardless of how long we have been in the field. And sometimes that just doesn’t seem right, but that is the way it is.

If you read the history of the Reformation and the inspiration of Martin Luther you might discover that Martin Luther based much of his reformation theology on the writings of Paul. In some of the Pauline letters, you can find the references to “faith alone” as the foundation for our belief and faith in salvation. And that became the rallying cry for Martin Luther as well; “faith alone.”

You would think that Martin Luther would have read this text and realized for himself that the grace of God, the kingdom of God as the text says, is a gift which cannot be earned. It doesn’t matter how many hours you have in the field. It doesn’t matter what time you showed up for the work party. It doesn’t even matter if you worked or not. The grace of God is a gift which cannot be earned.

But I want to take you back to my farm experience. You see, if someone had shown up at 3 in the afternoon, even if he got paid the same amount, he would have missed all those meals. There was the phenomenal breakfast and two lunches served in the field. There was dinner, which was the noon meal, which was a repeat performance of the phenomenal breakfast, but only better. So what if the newcomer gets paid the same amount of money. He missed all the food and fellowship of those other times we have spent together.

In a few minutes we will have the chance to enjoy another symbolic meal together in the form of communion. I realize that sometimes it is taught that communion is a requirement of our Christian journey and through the sacrament of Holy Communion we help earn our own salvation. That doesn’t exactly square with what Jesus said. The grace of God is a free gift and cannot be earned. Communion is the bonus time you get to spend in the presence of the Divine because you had sense enough to show up early.

And since this entire sermon has sort of been about food, it seems appropriate to say it is also food for thought.

Amen.

 

 

“The Revelation Process”

Text: I John 3: 1-2

See what love the Father has given us that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. ² Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.

If you travel to the desert southwest part of this country you will begin to see some unique rock formations and geologic wonders that are fairly common in that particular region. There are a large number of National Parks that celebrate some of these formations, many of them in Utah and Arizona and some in Colorado. You probably could identify many of them on your own, but to refresh your memory, let me mention just a few places; we have Zion, Arches, Bryce, Canyonlands, Grand Canyon and Cedar Breaks National Parks and there are a host of National Monuments, state parks and regional attractions as well.

These are a few images from Bryce Canyon National Park and some of the formations in Bryce are, in my opinion, some of the most interesting in all the region. If you read about the geology of the region, you will discover that hundreds of millions of years ago the area was all under water. This accounts for the vast amounts of sandstone you find in the area. But before the water, there were forests and animals and other forms of life all forming organic material that mixed with the mud and formed some layers of sedimentary rock. This rock is much harder than the predominant sandstone that you find almost everywhere.

Once the water receded and the land dried out some of the land tilted up to form the mountains and hills and valleys we see today. Among all those major land upheavals came some of the sedimentary rock that is much harder than the sandstone around it. Over the years as some natural erosion has taken place, the sandstone is washed away rather easily, while the sedimentary rock which is much harder, is also more resistant to erosion. The mixture of the sandstone and the sedimentary rock accounts for some of the odd rock formations you will see in a place like Bryce Canyon National Park.

I have gone into some detail about this process because I believe that it is a great example of what happens to us as human beings and it is a great example of what the text I read a few minutes ago is talking about.

Let’s talk about the text first. In this text the author tells us that we are already children of God, but what we will become has not yet been revealed. I think the choice of the word revealed is very interesting. It has interesting implications in the English language, but those same implications were also present in the original Greek. The Greek word for revealed is “Apokalupto” and most definitions define this word to mean uncover or to make visible, that sort of thing; about what you would expect. But what I think is really interesting is that apokalupto has a root that is used in many different ways. For example the Greek word used to describe the process of peeling an orange or cracking open a nut have the same root, as does the term used to describe the events in the book of Revelation, which is the apocalypse.

If we begin to think about the use of this word as it applies to our human experience, we may discover that not all of these things are entirely pleasant. As a matter of fact, some of these experiences sound a little frightening. Think about the peeling of an orange for example; I’m not sure how that translates into a human experience, but it doesn’t seem very pleasant. What about cracking a nut open? Same idea. One other definition of apokalupto that I read was to be without covering – which in a human experience can be a little intimidating to say the least!

One of the things which I take away from this text and the example of the rock formations in Bryce Canyon is that the revealing which the text says is on its way, is already in process and it is a process. In other words, I don’t think it happens all at once. One day you wake up and what you are to become is suddenly revealed. I don’t think it works that way, I think that what we become as children of God is revealed to us slowly over the decades as we are formed into who we are called to be. This process is not much different than the erosion that takes place in Bryce Canyon.

Let me explain. If you remember part of the secret to the beautiful rock formations in Bryce Canyon is the fact that not everything erodes at the same pace. The sedimentary rock erodes much slower than the sand stone. If you remember what Jesus said about the man who built his house on the rock rather than the sand, you might get a glimpse of where I’m headed. But it’s not that simple. Sometimes the erosion is difficult, sometimes it is painful and sometimes it is downright confusing.

Just a couple of years ago I was in High School. OK, so more than a couple. But when I was in high school one of the activities of choice for me was to be involved in athletics. I generally played a sport almost every season, but the sport of track I think was my favorite. Within the many opportunities in Track and Field as it is called, my favorite was the low hurdles. Seems I was built to excel at the low hurdles. Turns out being close to the ground helps you in that regard; in case you missed it that was a euphemism for being short. You don’t find many tall guys that ran the low hurdles. Of course all that changed when the topic of the high hurdles came up, but that is another story.

If you want to be fast in the low hurdles you want to spend as little time as possible in the air. You can’t run or accelerate at all when you are in the air. So the time spent getting over the hurdle needs to be kept to a minimum. My legs were just the right length to accomplish this. The more I practiced, the better I got. Back in that time, track and field events were measured in yards, not meters, like they are today and my event was the 180 yard low hurdles. By my junior year in high school I had equaled the school record in the 180-yard low hurdles and I was certain I could break the record in my senior year.

One thing you may not know about the hurdles. There are a specific number of steps you can take in between hurdles; if you take one less or one more you get out of rhythm with which leg you lead with as you step over each hurdle. My magic number was nine. This allowed me to always lead with my right leg and trail with my left leg. It couldn’t be eight and it couldn’t be ten, it had to be nine. When I was a junior I could sprint at top speed and nine steps always came out just right. By the time I was a senior, I had grown just a tiny bit. All of the sudden the rhythm was wrong. When I was at top speed I would cover the distance in between hurdles in about 8 steps. This meant that I had to try to learn how to alternate lead legs; first the right leg goes first, then the left leg and so on. It never worked and I never broke the record. This was one of my first memories of having something in my life erode away.

It doesn’t seem like a big deal now. But it sort of was at that time. My point is that kind of thing happens to us all the time. Sometimes it just happens, but sometimes it is a matter of choice. I have a friend who made the decision to leave the United Methodist Church because he didn’t think the church was on the right side of some issues. That part of his life was allowed to erode away because another part of his life was stronger.

If you think about it in almost every conflict or disagreement there is a process of erosion taking place. Whatever side of an issue you are on, you allow the other side to erode away, because you feel stronger about the side you are on. This happened during the Civil War among family members and during the Civil Rights marches in the 1960’s. It happened when women sought the vote or wished to be ordained as clergy. What you believe to be true or noble or on the right side of history determines what you allow to erode away in your life and what remains to be revealed as the person you truly are.

What the text says is that because we are children of God, what will be revealed, that is what we will allow to be eroded away, will eventually transform us into the likeness of Jesus. For me, this really adds a lot of credence to the familiar saying “what would Jesus do?” When we ask the question, we are essentially asking what would Jesus determine to be the stronger side of an issue. What would Jesus allow to erode from his character and what would Jesus maintain as part of his character? When faced with a question or an issue, what would Jesus determine to be sedimentary rock and what would he consider to be sandstone?

The interesting thing is that not all of us answer these questions in exactly the same way. A little over 100 years ago, some said that Jesus would allow us to own slaves, others said that Jesus would say that owning another human being was an abomination. There has been some erosion that has taken place on that topic. At times it has been painful and not that pleasant. Erosion is a fact of life and it reveals who we are to become. What parts of your life are solid rock and what parts may need to be eroded away?

It’s different for each of us but it is also a necessary part of our Christian journey; and that is food for thought. Amen.

“Be Opened”

Text: Mark 7: 31-37

³¹ Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. ³² They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. ³³ He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. ³⁴ Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” ³⁵ And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. ³⁶ Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. ³⁷ They were astounded beyond measure, saying, “He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”

 

If we look at this text critically I think we find some clues within the story that encourage us to look at this story more as metaphor than an actual event. This is important for us to recognize, as the metaphor of any story can be much richer, much more diverse and longer lasting than any singular event. I recognize that some Christians consider the idea of metaphor an attack of the scriptures, but I don’t look at it that way. I actually believe the metaphorical is richer and offers more abundance than does a literal interpretation. There is also a very real possibility that the metaphorical story grew out of an actual event and has been modified here and there through the oral tradition before it was actually written down.

One clue to the metaphorical is something I was not aware of before I began to study this text in more detail. The opening sentence, it turns out, doesn’t make a lot of sense. I’m not a New Testament scholar by any means, and my New Testament geography is probably in the lower percentile. So I was interested to learn that the outline of the route that Jesus reportedly had taken to get to this area doesn’t make sense. If we were to translate the opening sentence for our local region it would read something like this: “Then he returned from the region of the San Juans, and went by way of Boise, towards the Pacific, and ended in the region of the LC Valley.”

As I mentioned, I was not aware of this strange route outlined in the opening sentence of this story, but it communicates, at least for me, what happens during the years from an actual event to the time the story is finally composed. Another inconsistency that is hard to explain for me, is the idea that in the beginning the man apparently had been deaf most of his life. I say that because often people who have been born deaf, or lost their hearing early in life, have trouble speaking. They have never heard language, and do not know how to form words and speak the way that we speak. With advanced teaching methods, sign language and other tools, the deaf can learn, but I don’t think any of that was available in the first century of the Common Era. So my assumption is the man in the story has been deaf either his entire life, or the vast majority of his life. It is unlikely then that even though his ears were opened at that time, that he would somehow magically learn the language he could not hear all those years and begin speaking “plainly” as the text indicates.

The last point I wanted to call your attention to is in the text, Jesus takes the man away from the crowds and heals him privately. In this setting, without anyone watching, the text tells us that Jesus looked to heaven and sighed. I find that little detail to be quite interesting. When do we sigh? For me, a sigh usually indicates some level of frustration or resistance. Like you sigh before you begin your tax preparation, or you sigh when you need to tell your toddler for the umpteenth time to wipe their shoes on the mat outside, and not inside on the new carpet. You sigh when you are late for a meeting and you’re stuck in traffic. A sigh for me is an interesting observation about this particular scene as it unfolds; why would Jesus sigh?

We will never know why Jesus sighed, if he did, or why this detail was included in the text. But because it is there, we can assume it was written into the story for a reason, but we can only speculate as to what that reason may have been on the part of the story teller. My impression of the sigh, is an indication of Jesus communicating a feeling of repetition; like a non-verbal statement of “here we go again.”

I only say that because that is what fits with my overall interpretation of this particular story when we begin to look at the metaphorical layers present in what actually takes place. I think this story is about our almost universal human condition of not being able to hear, and then once we do, how easily we forget what we have learned. Allow me to elaborate just a bit.

There are a number of points that make sense to me that we find in this story that relate to our universal experience of spirituality or our experience of the Divine. The first point is that enlightenment or true “hearing” as an example, seldom comes to us in a crowd. I think it is much more likely that true insight, or true enlightenment, or true “hearing” to continue the metaphor, comes to us in those private moments of prayer or meditation rather than when we are part of a crowd. In other words, Jesus took the man away from the crowd and worked with him in private, and I think there is a lesson there for us as well. We will be more effective when we approach Jesus, or we approach our own spirituality, in private, rather than part of a group. This is not to say that all group experiences are invalid, but the personal time can be more intense and perhaps more productive.

I also think it is important for us to consider what Jesus says to the man and what a broad metaphorical interpretation is open for us when we consider the words; “be opened”. Of course in the story, we are to assume that Jesus was speaking only to the man’s ears and commanding them to be opened. But what are the metaphorical implications of having our ears opened for the first time? Not only our ears, but our minds, our attitudes, our assumptions, our prejudices, our very disposition are all impacted by the words “be opened”. We can be opened to new thoughts, new understandings, new ways of being and new outlooks on life. To receive the words “be opened” from Jesus, for me, means a whole lot more than simple physical hearing.

Another thought for me that is present in this text, is the idea that the man begins to speak plainly after the healing. Now I have already addressed the unlikely idea that we should view this situation in a literal sense. So we can explore what it might mean for someone to have a personal encounter with the Divine, and after the encounter, what they may have to say begins to make more sense than it did previously. In other words, they begin to speak plainly. What they say has substance and meaning, it is profound or stimulating or makes you think. When we are transformed by an up close and personal experience with God, often our speech is different from that time forward. We speak with greater clarity and with greater substance. We begin to speak plainly.

The last point I have time to make is this idea that Jesus asks the man and those with him not to say anything to anyone. This is a theme that is repeated throughout the New Testament. Often when Jesus did something for someone, particularly a physical healing, he instructs that person not to say anything to anyone. Of course, as is the case with this text, they usually go out and tell everyone they know. There are a lot of theories about this.

The observation I want to make is how quickly after a close encounter with Jesus the people involved forget what he told them. I don’t think the metaphor is actually about telling or not telling others about the healing. I think the metaphor is about how quickly we lose our way; how quickly we forget the instructions of Jesus.

For, me, this is commensurate with the human experience. We find enlightenment in private meditation and then a few hours later we forget our enlightenment and fall quickly back into our old habits, our old ways of thinking and our old attitudes of privilege or non-compassion. This part of the story underscores for me how important it is that we spend time daily if not more often in prayer and meditation. We need to visit the divine often because we forget so quickly. I believe the story carries an important message that we fail to follow instruction regularly and we will probably fail again. True change is slow and methodical and hard work. Even though in our private devotions one day we may see a glimpse of what it means to “be opened”, it takes a lifetime of work and practice to actually live into that high calling.

Food for thought. Amen.

 

 

“Love as a Glacier”

Text: I Corinthians 13: 4-7

⁴ Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant ⁵ or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; ⁶ it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. ⁷ It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

There was a time when if you wanted to get a good look at a glacier you wouldn’t have needed to travel very far. Glacier National Park is about a days’ drive from here, but there are far fewer glaciers there than there once was and the ones that are remaining have receded to the point where viewing them has become difficult. So, the next best option, I believe, would probably be Alaska for viewing glaciers. There are two areas specifically in what is called the inside passage of Alaska, one is called Tracy Arm and there is another area called Glacier Bay National Park. Both of these areas offer great viewing of glaciers, but only from the water, so you have to be on board a ship or a vessel of some sort. Most ships won’t take you extremely close because of the risk of calving, but you can get a pretty good look with a pair of binoculars and there is lots of floating ice to look at as well.

Everything you see glacier wise this morning has come from one of these two areas in Alaska. If you have ever visited a glacier or have witnessed the floating glacial ice, one of the very first things you probably noticed is how blue the ice is. Now this will vary somewhat from glacier to glacier and also vary on time of day and the particular season, but in general, it is safe to say that glacier ice glows blue.

The story behind the blue ice I think is quite interesting. It also applies to the text which I read just a minute ago, so if you can bear with me for a few minutes, I hope to tie all of this together.

If you ask a scientist why glaciers are blue, they will tell you that glaciers are so dense that they only reflect the blue spectrum of light and everything else gets absorbed. The extreme density is caused from the millions of years of pressure from the accumulating snow, year after year, that eventually turns into ice. This pressure compacts the snow and it becomes very dense. Well, for us non-science type folk, that doesn’t really help us understand what is really happening or why glacial ice glows blue. So, I’m going to take a crack at breaking this down for us so we can actually begin to understand what is taking place.

A good place to begin this understanding is with a basic understanding of light. I think most of us know that light that comes to us as white, is really a mixture of many different colors. This is called the spectrum, and it is visible when light is broken up and travels through something which divides the light into each particular color. The rainbow which we see is the most common form of the spectrum; the suspended water molecules in the air, usually from a recent rain or fog, break the light of the sun into the individual colors of the spectrum as the light travels through them.

Within the color spectrum of light, we also know that each color has a specific wave length or angle that it strikes any particular object. The spectrum generally runs from the reds and oranges at one end, to the blues and purples at the other end. The wave lengths of the reds and oranges are longer, that is a greater angle, and the purples and blues have a shorter wave length and so less of an angle.

To understand why the density of glacial ice makes a difference, it is necessary to understand that the light from the sun strikes the ice at different angles within the light spectrum. If we were to enlarge a piece of glacial ice we could think of one layer of ice as a ping-pong table. The next layer of ice is a second ping-pong table, but they don’t line up exactly, one is slightly offset from the other. Now if you were to throw a ping-pong ball onto the lower table at an angle, it would bounce up and hit the table above it, and essentially be trapped in-between the two tables. If, however, you were to drop a ping-pong ball straight down onto the lower table, it would bounce straight back up and miss the upper table.

This is a very over-simplified explanation of that happens to light when it strikes a glacier or glacial ice floating in the ocean. The light which strikes the ice at an angle, that is the reds and orange light in the spectrum, gets trapped in-between the dense layers of ice. The light which strikes the ice more directly, that is the purples and blue light of the spectrum, bounces back out and does not get trapped, so we only see reflected blue light from glacial ice. And that is why they appear to be so blue.

I recognize that I’m taking some time with this explanation, but I think it is important for you to understand, because if my analogy is going to make any sense at all, this background information becomes important to that understanding.

If you remember, I mentioned that light comes to us in the form of a spectrum. Usually, we cannot see the individual colors of the spectrum, but they are all there. The spectrum runs from the reds on one end, to the blues on the other end. I also happen to believe that we as human beings produce a similar spectrum.

If you think about it, we as humans are almost always conveying messages of some type all the time. Those messages can be thoughts, they can be comments, they can be physical body language, and they can be all different forms of energy that we emit constantly. My theory is that this energy which we emit all the time also is on a spectrum. Just as the light spectrum runs from red on one end to blue on the other, I think our energy spectrum runs from love on one end to fear on the other. Now some may want to substitute the word hate for fear, but I’m more comfortable using fear for a number of reasons.

So if you follow my theory and imagine for a moment that I am correct that we as humans are always transmitting energy in a spectrum that runs from love to fear; then it stands to reason that we as humans are always receiving energy from other humans on a spectrum that runs from love to fear. So as we receive this energy, my question becomes what do we reflect back to the rest of the world?

Now I want you to really think about this. There are photographs which exist, which I cannot take credit for, that have been taken inside of a glacial cave. This would be a situation where you are totally surrounded by glacial ice. The only light that is apparent is the blue end of the spectrum, because everything else is being absorbed, or trapped by the glacial ice. The only color is blue. Someone’s red jacket, for example, takes on a completely different look, because of the blue light.

In like manner, what would happen to our world if all of us were able to absorb all the energy of the energy we receive that is from the fear end of the energy spectrum? What would happen if the only energy we reflected back into the world was from the love end of the energy spectrum?

I have often said that there is evidence in our world that informs us about the personality of God. I think glaciers that glow blue is one example of that evidence. If we take another look at our scripture text that I read a few minutes ago, I would like to amend the text at the very end. Instead of the text ending in verse 7 with the statement that “love endures all things”, I would like for us to think about expanding our understanding of this text and adding a verse 7b, which would read after love endures all things, love absorbs all things. Love absorbs all the fear energy and allows us to reflect back into the world only the love energy.

If we could all accomplish that, then the peace which exceeds our ability to understand would certainly prevail on earth. I believe that is what Jesus did, he reflected only love back into the world. I believe that is what Gandhi and Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King did as well, they absorbed all the fear and reflected only love.

I think it is quite profound to realize that the light energy which strikes glacial ice that is in the red end of the spectrum becomes trapped in that ice and is essentially eliminated from our experience. It is gone; never to be seen or heard from again. I believe we have the same power as human beings to absorb the energy that comes to us from the fear end of the spectrum. Love allows us to absorb all things and to endure all things. Love never ends; but fear can.

Food for thought. Go in peace. Amen.

 

“Strangers in Abundance”

Text: Romans 12: 12-14

 ¹²Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. ¹³ Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.

¹⁴ Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.

Quite often as part of my morning routine I try to find a few minutes to meditate. Some would call this time a prayer time, but for me prayer is different than meditation. When I try to meditate, I focus on breathing and make an attempt to not really think about anything. To clear and empty the mind is a formidable task and I am rarely completely successful in that endeavor.

That being said, I was up early one day this week and got comfortable to mediate for a few minutes. Often my mind wanders when I lose focus on my breathing, and it happened again; but only this time I let my mind go because I was intrigued with the thoughts and insights that I was beginning to think about.

Earlier I had been on line searching different Bible passages about strangers and who they are and how we are called to treat them. I was intrigued with my mind wanderings because I was in the midst of forming some new ideas about strangers and was discovering some new ways to begin to think about all the people who impact our lives in different ways that we never think about. As I thought about it in greater detail, I began to realize that a stranger seldom greets us with a sign around their neck declaring to the world they are a stranger. I also began to play around with the notion that to extend hospitality to a stranger, as the text I read a minute ago suggests we do, doesn’t necessarily mean that it always has to be in person or in our homes the way we normally think about hospitality. I think most of us define hospitality in our own minds as welcoming someone into our home, giving them a cool drink or a cup of hot coffee and perhaps something to eat. Great hospitality may even include offering to let them spend the night in the spare bedroom.

But what if we could extend hospitality simply by just recognizing that someone exists that we had not previously thought about or really acknowledged in our own consciousness?  Would it be possible to think about someone we don’t know at all and simply offer a prayer or some positive energy for that person? Then answering my own question, I thought; “Certainly we can do that!”

All of these thoughts rushed through my mind in a flash. I was still in my meditative mode, it was still early and my mind was beginning to explore new ways to think about the strangers in my midst. It was fairly quiet and I began to listen.

Listening to what was happening around me one of the first things I noticed was the rhythmic ticking of a clock on the wall near where I was seated. I listened to the clock, ticking off the seconds one by one. I thought about the clock, it is one that I had made as a gift for Heidi probably 15 years ago. It is a collection of different kinds of wood glued together in a pattern and the clock movement is battery operated and one I purchased in the wood store in Denver.

How many strangers were involved in that clock? Someone harvested the wood that I had used. Most of it probably came from a different country; who was involved in cutting down that tree? Where are they now? Could my thoughts and prayers and positive energy reach them? I believed that they could. I thought about the trip for that wood to the United States. Did it come over here by ship? Who was on that ship? Who loaded the stack of wood onto the ship? Who guided the ship through the ocean waters? All these are strangers who I had never thought about before. All these are human beings with trials and challenges just like the rest of us. Can I extend hospitality to them through our universal human connection? I thought perhaps I could.

I began to think about the battery operated clock movement I had purchased for this clock. Who assembled all those little pieces? Was it done by a machine or was it done by someone in a foreign land being paid 25 cents a day for their efforts? With each tick of the clock it seemed as though I thought of someone new, some other person that was in some way connected to this clock that I thought I had made.

My realization was that I hadn’t made the clock at all. I had lots of help and without that help there wasn’t any way I could have assembled the parts I had been given access to. That clock represented an abundance of strangers that I had not even thought about and yet, they were present, they were integral in the creation of this clock. I tried to extend some hospitality to those strangers, even after all this time, even not knowing who they were, even not knowing where they were. I believe in the connectivity of the human spirit and I believe my hospitality was received.

I listened some more. Way in the distance I heard the rat-a-tat-tat of a jake brake as what I assumed was an 18-wheeler making its way down the Lewiston grade. I thought about the driver of that truck. Was the driver a mother or perhaps a dad? How long had this driver been away from home? Were there kids at home? Did the kids have everything they needed? Was he or she alone or was there someone with them? What was the truck hauling and who had loaded it? Where was the truck from? Who were the people involved in manufacturing that truck? Who was the person that last changed the oil in that truck?

My mind was suddenly filled with the possibilities of an endless stream of strangers that I had never considered before. People without names or faces, but people I knew must exist because I could hear the results of their lives in my ears. It was an endless, steady stream.

I heard the crunch of the cold frozen snow under the tires of the person delivering the morning paper. I could hear the vehicle approach, pause for a minute, and then drive away. How many strangers flooded my mind! Who had taken the pictures in the paper that was being delivered? Were there people in those photographs? Do they need my hospitality at this moment?

I thought again about this text in Romans that suggests we offer hospitality to strangers. My meditation that morning had taken me in a direction I did not anticipate. There was a whole new way of looking at this word stranger and what it meant to offer hospitality to those we don’t know. Of course, if someone knocks on your door and needs help, that is one way to offer hospitality to strangers. But the world is bigger than that; we are more connected than that and we can do better than that.

Extending hospitality to strangers can involve letting your mind wander and imagining all the people who influence your life from a distance. Can you think of them? Who built the chair you are seated on? Who harvested the wood for these beams in our sanctuary? Where did the pipes for our organ come from and who created them? What country was this carpeting manufactured in? Who was involved in that process? We have strangers in abundance; I believe we can extend hospitality through our human connection. As it says in Hebrews, we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. I had always thought about that passage as people who have died; but I now see the cloud of witnesses in everything around us. Everything we see and touch, everything we hear or smell or taste has a human connection in some way. That human connection is an individual that you do not know, an individual that may live half way around the world, an individual without a name or a face. But you can still extend hospitality. You can still identify them in your mind. You can send your peaceful energy and it will be received.

How many strangers can you think of?

Food for thought.

Amen.

 

“Faith to Take the Next Step”

Text: Hebrews 11: 1, 8-9

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. 

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going. ⁹ By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise.

I think I have mentioned before that while I was growing up I spent a number of summers at a campground just west of Boulder, Colorado. My dad was going to summer school at the University of Colorado in Boulder in pursuit of his PhD in physics. For about 5 or 6 summers in a row various members of the family spent the summer at this wonderful campground. It was called Eldorado Springs, and later, after we stopped going there, it became a State Park, called Eldorado Canyon State Park. It is still a great place.

When I was about 9 or 10 a couple of bicyclists came through Eldorado and spent a few days camping there. I was enthralled. Not only had these two guys arrived on bikes from California, they were the coolest guys ever. If I remember right, their names were even cool; they were Brady and Derrick and they had ridden their road bikes all the way from California. They showed me their bikes; they showed me their packs that went on the bikes; they showed me their nylon tents and down sleeping bags that rolled up into practically nothing and they showed me how everything they needed for an extended camping trip they could carry on their bikes. This made an impression on me that was indescribable. I decided that summer that I was also going to get a road bike and that I was also going on an extended trip of some kind.

When I returned home for school that fall I began to research where I might find a bicycle like the one I had seen. There wasn’t even a bike shop in LeMars, Iowa and so the only place to look that was handy was the Sears & Roebuck catalog. I looked up a bicycle in the catalog, but the one I thought I wanted just had a description, but no photo to go along with it. There was a photo of a slightly less expensive and probably more popular bike along with a description of that bike in the catalog and then under that was another entry, and the description of the bike began by saying it was similar to the photo above, but it had some significant differences. A few of those differences were very important to me and I knew what they were and what they meant. One item that was in the description was center-pull handbrakes, I wanted that and knew what it was; another item in the description was 27 inch alloy wheels, I knew what that was and wanted that as well. The description of the bike in the catalog also said it was made in Austria, which I considered to be a good thing, and it had an alloy frame, which meant it was lightweight and that also was very important. The last item in the description said “color” and there was a colon after the word color, and then it said magenta.

What? Magenta? What color is magenta? I wasn’t at all certain about this magenta business.

Now, it is important that you understand I had been looking at this catalog for well over a year. Almost every day I would go get it and read the description and dream about the day I would have enough money to actually place this order. I had been working a paper route delivering papers for over a year as well. On Saturday morning, once a month, I would go to the local newspaper office and settle my account. Then I would take a dollar or maybe a $1.50 out of my earnings for spending money and I would put the rest in a savings account-usually it was about 5 or 6 dollars for a month’s work of delivering papers.  The bicycle I had become fixated on in the Sears & Roebuck catalog cost $80; at $5 a month, it would have taken me 16 months to get there. If I remember right, there were a few snowstorms where I earned some extra money shoveling snow, some birthday money, and a few things here and there, so I managed to be ready to order the bike after about one year of working and saving. But I still wasn’t at all sure about this magenta thing.

I had asked my parents and almost everyone I knew what color magenta was. Some said it was purple; I couldn’t be seen on a purple bike. I had visions of purple fairies and unicorns and so on painted on the bike along with the magenta color. Others said it was more like a wine color, or burgundy. I looked up magenta in the dictionary. I would find other photos of things and bring them to my parents and ask, is this magenta, how about this one, or is it this one?

To order a bike from Sears with $80 of your own money that you have been working for a year trying to save and not know for sure what color it is going to be was a step of faith. For almost a year I had been asking almost everyone I met on the street what color magenta was and no seemed to know for sure. But I ordered it anyway. Magenta was a great color for this bike; it was awesome.

Of course now, with the internet and digital photos and just information overload everywhere you look, the idea of ordering something without an accurate photo can seem really absurd. But in LeMars, Iowa in what was probably 1967 or 1968 that was the fact of the matter. You ordered from Sears on the basis of a written description; a few things had actual photos, many of them black & white, and an even fewer number of items had color pictures. At least I was spared the frustration of having the bike I wanted listed with the color as magenta, along with a black & white photo.

I am taking a little time with this story because I remember it so well. And it was really hard for me to withdraw that $80 from my savings account and order that bike. I’m very glad I did and it was a great bike and I have tons of great memories and I did take my extended camping trip and it’s all good. But it was still hard before I knew any of what I know now.

So can you imagine what it felt like for Abraham? Look again at the text I read a few minutes ago from Hebrews:  

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going. ⁹ By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise.

Abraham took off for a land that he didn’t even know where it was. He set out without knowing where he was going; he set out without a single picture of the land, he set without even a written description of the land. And when Abraham set out, it wasn’t just $80 worth; it was everything. It was his whole life. It was his family, it was all of his belongings, it was all of his animals, it was everything he owned and everyone he cared about. Abraham went all in for a place he knew nothing about. I don’t think he even knew what color it was. And I was worried about magenta.

You know, as I look at life today, it seems we can find out about almost anything. We can Google almost anything and get a description and a picture and it will probably be in color and high-definition. There are fewer and fewer things that simply require faith.

But what if you were called on to take a step of faith? Do we have the spiritual tools to discern what a step of faith looks like? Do we have the spiritual discipline to calm our anxiety and overcome our fears? Do we have the courage, the resolve, the spiritual maturity required to take the next step when our faith calls us forward? In this time of so much certainty, so much information, so many sources, do we have the faith to take the next step when all the information we really have is our faith? Do we have the faith to trust and believe even when perhaps our information says we should not?

There have been a few times in my life when I stepped out in faith. Even though not every time I did so turned out exactly like I had planned, I’m still glad I did. Far and away the most common outcome has been beyond my wildest imaginations; almost always, when I step out in faith, the world and the universe responds.  And I know I was the only kid in LeMars, Iowa with a 10-speed road bike that was magenta!

Go in peace, and go in faith. Amen.

“Knowing You are Right”

Text: Matthew 15: 21-28

 Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. ²² Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.” ²³ But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.” ²⁴ He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” ²⁵ But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” ²⁶ He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” ²⁷ She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” ²⁸ Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly.

I guess I have a little confession to make. Chances are, if you think about it, many of you would have to make the same confession, but I’ll leave that up to you. The thing is, that I’m likely to assume that what I think and what I believe is the correct position. Throughout my entire life, most of the time, I have been right. I don’t think this is really an ego thing, it just is what I have experienced.

I have always done well in school. I graduated with honors from both institutions for my advanced degrees, once for my BFA and again for my MDIV degree. I often have the experience of seeking the advice or counsel of someone who is supposed to be an expert in a particular field, and then after visiting with them for a few minutes, I get the feeling that I know at least as much about their supposed field of expertise as they do; perhaps more. I know a lot of things. I have had the benefit of a good education, exposure to a lot of different cultures, I have traveled in different parts of the country and around the world. All of these things combine to create a situation where I feel like I am well rounded and have solid opinions on any number of topics.

I don’t want to go overboard here. There have been lots of times when I have been wrong. But what’s really interesting, is that in a lot of those situations that I can remember, I’m so glad that I was wrong! It is a great thing to discover the up side of being wrong!

For example, when the first digital cameras came out I was not a fan. I didn’t expect digital photography to ever turn into anything. I thought it was a passing fad. For a long time I felt that if you were a real photographer, you shot film. There just wasn’t any possibility that a computer image could rival what a properly exposed transparency could produce in terms of color saturation, sharpness and clarity. I just didn’t think it was possible. I resisted changing from film to digital for quite a long time.

My first exposure (pun intended) to digital photography was when we decided to purchase a fairly inexpensive point and shoot digital camera for Heidi. At this point digital cameras had been out for quite some time and had already improved way beyond what I ever expected them to become. So we purchased a small, convenient, easy to use digital camera for Heidi. If I remember correctly, it was an Olympus, but that doesn’t matter.

Shortly after our purchase we went on vacation to the New England states in October to witness the fall color that is there that time of year. We went to New Hampshire and Massachusetts, and then went on up north into Maine and visited Acadia National Park. During this trip, I carried all my film photography gear in a large backpack. I was also carrying with me about 50 rolls of film that represented quite an investment and I also carried prepaid mailers with me for the processing. When I would finish a roll of film I would put it in one of these mailers and send it off. That way, by the time we got home, some of my transparencies were already beginning to arrive and I could look at my photos.

The short story about this trip is that I went to a significant amount of effort and expense to produce some of the best images I could of the magnificent fall color of the New England states in October. All this time Heidi kept her little Olympus in her pocket and when something interesting popped up, she would point the camera in that direction and shoot a picture.

Everybody knows what is coming, but sure enough, the images on Heidi’s camera were in almost every way, just as good, if not sometimes better, than the ones I had labored over. That was a wake-up call about how wrong I was about digital photography. Since that time I have abandoned film and educated myself about digital photography to a certain degree. There is still much I don’t know and the technology changes so fast, it is hard to stay current. But the point is that I’m having so much more fun and significantly better results now than I ever did shooting film. I’m so glad I was wrong!

I could tell a lot of stories about how wrong I have been about any number of things in my life. But here’s what I think we should think about. When you believe you are right, and all of us do, all the time, then it is very difficult for us to receive any new information about that topic. When we assume we are correct, it is very difficult to actually listen to an alternative position. In most cases, I think the new information comes to us by accident; sort of like what happened to me on our New England trip.

For example, almost everyone I know who has had a significant change of opinion about marriage equality or LGBT rights has discovered that someone close to them that they have known for years has recently come out of the closet. This new information comes to them by accident, and it changes how they think about a particular topic.

Part of this is just human nature and I think it is a condition from which we all suffer to some degree. But I also think it is getting worse. It seems easier today than ever before to insulate ourselves from any dissenting opinions or information. Consider what has happened to our news industry. We used to simply watch the news on a local channel and they reported what had happened that day. The news wasn’t entertainment, it was the news. But all that has changed, we now have cable news networks that run news 24 hours a day, seven days a week.  Further, we have cable news networks that cater to a particular mindset and particular opinions about how the world works. In other words, we only hear news that agrees with what we already think. There isn’t any new information we are likely to receive.

Social media has also become a great insulator of dissenting information. We can log onto Facebook and scroll through the opinions and information presented there and most of us will ignore anything we don’t agree with. If it gets a little irritating, which for me it often does, it is very easy to unfriend someone or request that we no longer get posts like that.

In our social circles we also tend to hang out with those who think like we do or believe the same things. It has become very easy for us to never have a single instance where what we think or what we believe is ever challenged.

So this leads me to my basic question for today. What are we missing when we are never presented with new information or a new idea? In almost every situation I can remember when I have had the opportunity to change my mind about something, I’m so glad I did. The process of changing your mind is called growth. Our lives get richer; we have more empathy and compassion; we understand the world around us more completely. So with all these positive aspects that come from a new perspective or new information, why do we resist it so much? Why do we avoid it at almost all costs?

I wanted to get back to the text I read at the beginning. Jesus was pretty certain he was right when this woman confronted him. The disciples were people who Jesus had surrounded himself with that agreed with him. Jesus was insulated a little bit in the environment in which he was functioning. The disciples agreed with Jesus that the woman should be sent away; Jesus told the woman she wasn’t eligible for benefits. She was the wrong nationality or the wrong color or came from the wrong part of the world. She simply wasn’t eligible for benefits. The ministry of Jesus wasn’t going to be wasted on people like her.

But the woman persisted and by some miracle Jesus actually heard her. The daughter was healed. The ministry of Jesus suddenly expanded to include others and not just the Jews.

Where would we be today if Jesus had missed this chance to expand his ministry? Where would we be if Jesus had been so convinced he was right that he could not hear this woman? Where would we be if the advice of those surrounding Jesus had been followed and the woman was sent away? What would we be missing if Jesus had not changed his mind?

To be confronted with a new idea or a new thought is not always the most comfortable thing in the world. But sometimes it is the best thing in the world. What are you missing when you know you are right?

Food for thought.

Amen.