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H1N1 Flu: A Guide for Community and Faith-based Organizations

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The Lion King

The lion brought his fist down on the desk before him with a resounding slam that shook the Senate chamber's rococo plaster medallions enough to shower a soupcon of white powder from the high ceiling. It was 1978 and Edward Kennedy's initial grand rhetorical statement on the rights of all people in this country to equitable access to quality health care.

Today the voice of the old mighty lion has been silenced by cancer. The last of the old pride is gone, and it is left to the post-mod's to grasp, if they can, the elegance and breadth and scope of the old reformers' huge beliefs in possibilities. Don't get me wrong; these old graymanes weren't seduced by illusive concepts tied up in chimeric perfection. They cut deals, compromised, and lived lives more closely allied with the sinners than the saints.

But they held that labor agreements arrived at through collective bargaining should be honored. They authored legislation that raised the quality of living for those whom Jesus called "the least of these". And they upheld the concept that all Americans have the right to an unobstructed pathway to education and self-improvement.

As my son and I raise our glasses in a champagne toast, we salute the old lions. You young ones, you who would strive for the leadership of our pride, listen. Can you measure up?

The hope rises again. And the dream lives on!

Good night, sweet prince.

If There Were Real Rum in Rum Raisin Ice Cream, Would Jack Sparrow Like It?

"31 Flavors, 12 Tribes, 1 Shepherd"

Easter 4, May 3, 2009, Covenant Community Church

John 10:11-18

    After that thought-provoking look at world mission by JoAnn Neal, I want to invite you into this scripture today from a different perspective. We know that when Jesus uses an "I am" statement as he does here in the gospel of John, it's a metaphor for a theological truth he is trying to convey to the disciples and other listeners. Today we'll use that metaphor in a different way, so I invite you to imagine that you are taking part in the story, and you can be any character that you like. You can be one of the ones mentioned, or you can create a new one as if you were a screenwriter bringing a beloved story to life through film, and need to write a whole new character to help develop it.

So just relax, maybe let your hands just rest in your lap, you may even close your eyes. I will read the passage twice, with a short silence between the readings. If everyone is ready, let's listen for God's word for us today. (Read John 10:11-18, silence, repeat)

    Now, in your mind, perhaps some of you identified with the shepherd, some with the chosen sheep, maybe some with the "other" sheep from "other" flocks. Maybe some identified with the hired shepherd who did a good job until the going got tough, then took off running. It could even be that you identified with the wolf who stirs up trouble in the sheepfold!

    Others of you might have created a new character to help flesh out the story in a new way. Did anyone imagine themselves to be a sheepdog? I imagine it would be terribly hard work to be a sheepdog. You'd have to be alert and full of extraordinary energy at all times. You would have to know the sheep's temperaments and keep them in their proper boundaries at all times. I think the hardest part might be obedience to the shepherd. No matter what your own instincts told you, you would have to stop when he said stop, go when he said go. That would be hard.

    Here's another idea for a character. What if you were an ice cream seller? Since we're being creative, let's be really creative. Think of it. It's a hot, dry, dusty afternoon outside Jerusalem. All the sheep are finally tucked in at the end of a long day. What could be better than a cool, delicious Ice cream? And not just any ice cream. It would have to be the right ice cream. But what? You'd probably have one of those little carts with the bell, and couldn't take much with you. So you'd have to take the kind most people wanted or you probably wouldn't do much business. It would really be hard to decide what flavors to stock.

    This presents some intriguing possibilities. I researched Ben & Jerry's, Haagen-Dazs, Baskin-Robbins, Blue Bunny, and Dreyer's. By my count, from these five makers alone, you can get over 300 flavors of ice cream! And that doesn't even include Baskin-Robbins' "retired" flavors-they ones they have relegated to their "Deep Freeze". You can get the major tribes: vanilla, chocolate, and berry, in practically any permutation and combination of extra-creamy, low-fat, slow-churned, no sugar added, low carb, "lite", or "natural". You can get ice cream for the lactose intolerant. You can even get ice cream that isn't-if you want to enter the realm of frozen yogurt, sherbet, sorbet, and gelato, but we won't go there.

    Ice cream itself is sufficient for the purposes of our discussion, especially when you consider you can satisfy almost any taste there is with ribbons of exotic flavor, chunks of candies, nuggets of fruit, indeed any kind of sweet imaginable. You can get seasonal offerings only at certain times of year, like "Love Potion" around Valentine's Day and "Eggnog" at Christmastime. And did you know that there are different flavors depending upon regional preferences? True. Oregon Blueberry and Mississippi Mud don't sell too well in the Northeast. Rum Raisin is only available in the Northeast.

I'm told Gilroy offers garlic ice cream and Stockton has asparagus, but as Californian as I am, I can't quite get my taste buds around them. Being of the tribe of fruit and chocolate lovers, I prefer Cherry Garcia.

    All this might help us a little when we are confronted with the fact that there are so many different types of sheep represented in this metaphor that John's gospel presents us with. It is like the Christian world today. Depending on whose count you're going by, there are some two billion Christians scattered over the world today. And although this number fluctuates, there may be as many as 122,000 denominations which those 2+ billion souls call their spiritual home.

    Take out your sermon inserts if you will. One thing we know we cannot expect is for each person to want to be the same sheep as the sheep next door. We cannot expect the congregation of the Tongan American Episcopal Methodist Fellowship in Salt Lake City, Utah, to have the exact same understanding and practice of Christianity as the Pole Line Baptist Church in Davis, California. They come from different tribes. Yet is this difference a bad thing, or even unfortunate? No. Jesus expects that his sheep would "know" him and be "known by" him. There is no particular label required, no special ability, and no secret knowledge.

    There is nothing new about this. God divided the Hebrew people into 12 tribes back in the early days, each with its unique characteristics and purpose. There were many "right" ways of being Hebrew, and today there are many "right "ways of being Christian. This means that it is possible for Christians of many different understandings to be embraced in the flock. Loving God and trusting him to conform us to Christ means we become as one with Jesus. Being in relationship with the Good Shepherd means the shepherd and the flock are one. The shepherd who would lay down his life for his sheep is one with them. Being in relationship with the Good Shepherd means the shepherd and the flock are one.

    Secondly, it's good to have personal differences. It's desirable. Let's go back to the Rum Raisin ice cream for just a minute. In the first place, whoever thought it was a good idea to take a gorgeous, plump, succulent fruit like a grape and intentionally dry it out until it was all shriveled and wrinkly-I just don't know. As Johnny Depp said of raisins in the movie "Benny & Joon", raisins are "just humiliated grapes, really," a line he reprised as Captain Jack Sparrow several movies later. Wine I can understand, but raisins, I'm not so sure that's a good grape substitute. However, there are many who would point out it's good we have raisins. Drying fruit is a time-honored way of storing food for future consumption. Those same twelve tribes thrived on food like raisins and shepherds were undoubtedly glad to have them in their lunch boxes. I say let them eat raisins. I'm glad I don't have to.

    But in Christianity we are asked for more than a mere "live-and-let-live" attitude toward one another. If we want to be one with the Good Shepherd, true religion leads to harmony. Our religion is based upon the teaching of love for one another, and coming together. The very word "religion" is based on the Latin "re-ligare" or "to fit together", and strangely enough the word "harmony" comes from a Greek term for "to fit together". So while we honor our uniqueness, in faithful response to our shepherd we should be seeking ways of coming together. True religion leads to
harmony.

    Finally, a true Christian flock celebrates its uniqueness yet lives in harmony. (repeat) Rev. Phyllis Zoon, a Presbyterian minister from New Jersey, offers insight on the subject of world mission. She invited Bob Dunsmore, who had been a mission worker in Bolivia for 9 years to speak about his experiences in the mission field. When Dunsmore began to explain that the glaciers in Bolivia that provide water for millions of people would be gone within ten years because of global warming, Zoon experienced a moment of remarkable insight and clarity.

"Bob told us that what we can do to help our brothers and sisters in Bolivia the most is not writing a check or even sending clothing or medicine," she said. "Their biggest request is that we drive less. Our partners in Bolivia say that what they most want is for us to change the way we live so that we can at least mitigate the effects of climate change. It's a whole new way of doing mission because it asks us not to give so they can live like us but to change, to transform our lives so they can live."

Zoon's perspective enriched and her spirit profoundly moved by the Bolivian partners' specific request, Zoon immediately set out to change her behavior. "Their appeal that we change ourselves changed me," she said. "I have started putting fewer pollutants into the air, I buy less stuff, and I've gotten more involved in local initiatives and in the environment than ever before. I'm preaching the message broadly throughout the presbytery that the small changes we can each make in our own lives can have a big impact."

    I tell you this to give you just one example of how Christians can respond uniquely yet harmoniously in just one area although there are several: mission. Mission is a global purpose of the church and it's easy to engage in something that inspires us without stepping on the hooves of the sheep next to us. But here is where the road gets a little rockier, if you will.

    It's much easier to accept Rum Raisin when it's in the big freezer case at Baskin-Robbins where it can be passed over in favor of the 30 other flavors I find preferable. But if Rum Raisin is one of only two kinds of ice cream in my small kitchen freezer at home, I'm less likely to be sanguine. And if it inconveniently falls out of the freezer and hits me on the head while I'm searching for the Cherry Garcia, I am far less accepting.

    Put another way, it's easier to accept differences, whether they are cultural, theological, racial, gender or economic when there is a comfortable distance between us. Then we can be theoretical and convince ourselves that we are much more tolerant. It is so much more challenging when the person who is different or disagrees with us is seated next to us in church! We are quick to back away. We are hesitant to engage that person in conversation. Yet the gospel of John convicts us.

    Jesus says, "I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd."

    More than anything, being one with him demands that we allow ourselves to be conformed to him, to know him and the sound of his voice. The good news is that he loves us so much as to lay down his life for us, and all he asks is that we listen. So ask yourself these questions today: Do I trust him to shepherd me? Do I want to hear him calling me? Am I ready to invite him into my heart today?

    If you answer yes to any of these questions, then the good news for you this day is that there is an abundance of opportunity to personally transform your life in a way that also brings transformation to the world. Friends, our mission in the world as Christians can be all about youngsters who need a second chance at a healthy, peaceful existence. It can also be about making the kinds of personal changes that lead to preserving glaciers in Bolivia that supply drinking water. It can be on bringing a friend who has just lost his job with you to Family Movie Night for a free evening out. On a personal level, loving our shepherd and being one with him means living in a way that brings transformation in the world.

    It doesn't matter what tribe you're from. It doesn't matter whether you're an angora sheep or a lop-ear. It doesn't matter if you like slow-churned, low-fat, or no-sugar-added ice cream. All you have to know is the sound of the shepherd's voice.    All you have to do is listen to it.

 

 

The End is Here

I'm just learning how to do this, so please forgive me! The end line of the Lent sermon is supposed to be:

"Because then, friends, once we step through the crucifixion of our old nature, he doesn't leave us in death. He promised to walk beside us, remember? And he will walk us right into the resurrection with him."

Pardon My Lenten Smile

"Pardon My Lenten Smile" Lent 3 March 15, 2009 for Covenant Comm. Church Scripture: Matt.6:5-18

I don't know how familiar most of us here are with the practices that traditionally accompany the season of Lent. For that matter, I don't know how many of us here are familiar with the season of Lent, period. I know for some of us, if I were to say, "It's Lent!" you might say, "What did you lend? To whom? And for how long?"

So it might be useful to start with a little review. If this seems too elementary for some of you, you have my permission to doze off now. Just make sure to have your neighbor poke you in the ribs when I get to the good part, about sin and stuff like that.

This season of Lent developed gradually in the church. From what historians can tell, one of the earliest pre-Easter traditions was fasting for the 40 hours between Good Friday and Easter morning. Folks understood that Christ was in the tomb for 40 hours, so a period of fasting and remembering the sacrifice he made for us became part of the observance. Over time, the fasting was extended from 40 hours to all of Holy Week (only one small evening meal per day would be eaten). Then, as time went farther on, the practice of observing a period well beyond Holy Week developed, and by about the year 400, the church decided on a season of Lent lasting 40 days. The way of totaling the days was unusual - Sundays were not counted, since each Sunday was considered a mini-Easter celebration. Lent would begin on Ash Wednesday and end on Holy Saturday.

Other practices during Lent were established early in the church's history, too. Putting ashes on the heads of sinners, for instance, marked them during the period of Lent and banned them from entering the church until they had performed some prescribed penitential act. They could only return on Maundy Thursday and be reinstated into the church's good graces once the penance was accomplished. Later, in about 400 A.D., as it was realized that all people are sinners and have fallen short of grace, all believers participated in the imposition of ashes and the race for piety was on!

When I was a child our backyard had a chain-link fence down the side, and an alley adjoined it. In the afternoons I could see the little Catholic girls and boys in their school uniforms walking home from St. Phillip's, with smudged, dirty foreheads. Please understand-In our family, we were a very conflicted bunch of Protestants and Catholics – two or three generations had bucked the system and for whatever reasons we had many interdenominational marriages which led to all kinds of misunderstandings about the beliefs and practices of whichever "other" religion happened to be under discussion at the time. Some of the explanations I got about sin and the ashes were along the lines of the medieval banishment and so on. It made me wonder what other little kids just like me could've done that was so wrong that they'd be marked like that. So I don't imagine it's any wonder that Lent as a season gives some of us the willies.

In the words of that great theologian, George Carlin, Jesus didn't come to give us the willies. The public face of piety is what Jesus was talking about in the preaching recorded in Matthew 6. He mentions spiritual disciplines, not absolution from sin. You might want to poke your sleeping neighbor in the ribs now, because I'm going to talk about sin now. If we are praying loudly before others, hoping to become prayer celebrities in the eyes of other Christians, we are not using prayer to enter into a deeper relationship with God. We are putting on a theatrical production. And if we go about moaning instead of shaving, showering, and putting on a smile while we fast, we're not fasting to turn our attention toward God. We're merely dieting! Who are we fooling? Any of these things are destructive to our relationship with God and with others because they focus attention on ourselves, not on growing closer to Jesus, which is the entire point of such disciplines.

The word Lent comes originally from "lengthening" and speaks to the season of spring with its longer days and fresh weather. It doesn't mean that we lengthen our faces and invite our friends to admire how repentant we are! Far from it! One way to think of it might be to imagine ourselves spiritually "lengthening" our stride in order to try harder to keep up with Jesus, as we remember his approach to Calvary. Jesus is constantly on the move, and even though he always promises to walk beside us we have to pay attention or we are apt to lag behind.

Fortunately, in Matthew, Jesus gives us tools we can use in spiritual practices that keep us moving right along and help us to lengthen our stride. The ones from our passage today are prayer and fasting. If you read the surrounding texts, you will also discover his teachings on almsgiving and setting spiritual priorities.

Let's think about prayer first.

Anybody who is serious about walking with God comes to see that prayer has to be the main business in life, because it is through prayer that we are in communication with God and become increasingly sensitive to God's will. Of course prayer can be abused: it can be a showy public display of piety or a means of self-deception as we try to convince ourselves that our selfish desires are really God's doing. But abuses do not negate the practice. "In the morning, while it was still very dark," we read in Mark 1, "(Jesus) got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed." When the apostles were tempted to invest their time and energies in other very necessary and important tasks in the exciting days of rapid expansion in the Jerusalem Christian community, they determined to give themselves continually to prayer and the ministry of the word (Acts 6:4). And Martin Luther, when asked how he managed all his affairs, declared, "I have so much business I cannot get on without spending three hours daily in prayer." John Wesley spent two hours per day.

Obviously this investment in prayer is not just to praise God although it is for that; nor is it simply to ask God for mercies, while that clearly is important as well. Perhaps the most important part of prayer is to listen in God's presence, to be molded and formed by God so that we come to be more the person God intended us to be. This can bring genuine liberation and peace of mind to us. It also lays great responsibilities on us as we become more attuned to God's will for us. It can then be said that prayer keeps us in right relationship with God.

But then what about fasting? In our culture where the landscape is dotted not with shrines of Baal nor temples of Aphrodite but by Golden Arches, or Starbucks, fasting certainly seems out of place. Jesus says that fasting is not to be a show. It's not dieting, either, which has a physical motivation. It's not a hunger strike which has a political or public relations focus, nor even a planned famine to raise money for the hungry, all of which are good things, but not fasting. Fasting, which is found throughout the Bible, is to abstain periodically from food in order to focus one's time, energy, and being more fully on God. But because fasting involves a sacrifice, not of time, like prayer, nor of money, like almsgiving, but of food it does put us more in tune with our bodies, our inspirited selves. It reminds us of what we need, as opposed to what we want, and of what is good for us rather than what tastes good.

When we look at these disciplines, which Jesus assumes believers will practice, we cannot but be struck by something. Almsgiving brings us in right relationship with other people; prayer brings us in right relationship with God; fasting brings us in right relationship with ourselves, our own bodies. Does that remind you of any Bible passage from Sunday School days? How about Mark 12:29-31: "Jesus answered, 'The first (commandment) is, "Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength." The second is this, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." There is no other commandment greater than these.'"

The fact that virtually anyone who even toys with the idea of Christianity -- and many who do not -- recognize these words as the two Great Commandments but are uncomfortable with the traditional spiritual disciplines of almsgiving, prayer, and fasting shows the extent to which our Christian faith has become very superficial. We think that we can assent to the Christian ideal without living it; that we can affirm the need to be in a right relationship with God, our fellows, and ourselves and not do anything about it. Not so, says Jesus. "Whenever you give alms, whenever you pray, whenever you fast." He didn't say, "If you give, if you fast, or if you pray." He assumed that we would-because he did, and we would want to be like him.

This scares Christians and non-Christians alike, you know. Consider this: we are looking at Lent from a long history of thinking in terms of self-denial, repentance, and gloom for the most part. And if we think of following the practices of Jesus, doesn't that mean we are following him right up to the cross? Friends, I believe that the idea of walking right into the crucifixion with him frightens more of us than we are willing to admit. It would certainly explain why many Christians live out only a superficial faith. Because to do more, to really attempt to live into his will for us, means that a part of us dies-the sin which we love so much dies. The desires, the indulgences, the things we really don't need-all those things that get in the way of loving God and loving others and being truly good to ourselves, they die.

So my question for us all is this:

What if we viewed Lent as a time of taking on those characteristics of Jesus that Matthew described? What if we really made it our business to grow closer to God during this season and what if, just if, those changes were so good, so positive, so rejuvenating that we get excited – so excited about being in right relationship with God, so excited about being in right relationship with each other, so excited about being in right relationship and in touch with ourselves…that we wouldn't want to stop after forty days? Wouldn't they be worth making lifetime changes?

What if Lent became a time when all people think of giving up is fear? And self-centeredness? And anxieties that we can't do anything about anyway?

What if it were transformed into a season of taking on? Taking on energy, and new life, taking on lengthening strides and a lighter step? What if instead of living in fear we lived in trust? Joy? Peace? Love? What if we faced the cross with Jesus?

Because then, friends, once we step through the crucifixion of our old nature, he doesn't leave us in death. He promised to walk beside us, remember? And he