“The King is Dead; Long Live the King!”

This sermon was delivered at the University Retirement Community Vespers Service on Sunday, August 19, 2012.  The sermon opener was inspired by a children's sermon by Rev. Richard Fairchild.

“The King is Dead; Long Live the King!”

Year B Proper 15, I Kings 2:10-12, 3:3-14 and John 6:51-58

Today I want to tell you a sad kind of story.  Once upon

a time a very powerful man who ruled over many countries decided to create

the best people that anyone had ever seen.   They were to be the strongest,

the best looking, and the smartest people in the world.  So this man sent

his servant out all over his empire to find the strongest, best looking,

and most intelligent men and women that they find.  Then he gave orders for

a special home to be built for them and told them that they were to have

babies and that their babies would be highly honored.

So the men and women had babies and when their babies were born they gave

their babies to the Emperor.  He put all the babies in a special nursery

and he ordered that the best doctors and nurses and teachers look after

them.  They were fed the best food in the country - all the things that the

doctors said were good for babies, and they were read the best stories by

the teachers, and they were taught to believe the best things, and they

were kept as clean as clean could be.  They exercised every day, they had

the best toys in the country to play with, and they slept at least 10 hours

every night.  The only thing that these beautiful babies didn't have was

one or two special people to cuddle them and hug them when they felt lonely

or when they got hurt, or when they curled up to go to sleep.

Well it was very sad what happened.  While all the babies had everything

that anyone could ever want, and while they had the best doctors and

nurses, many of them died  while they were very young, and most of the

rest, when they grew up, were very unhappy and all their beauty, and all of

their strength, and all of their intelligence just faded away.

Yes - it was because the man who wanted to make the best people the world

had ever seen forgot the most important thing to give them - he forgot to

give them love.  Thankfully the story doesn't end there.  A few years after

the man died and his empire vanished away all the children who were left in

the special nursery were found and given to people who would love them.

These ones grew up to be happy and healthy - like you and me and everyone

else was grateful that the man who tried to make the best people ever - the

man who was named Hitler - would never be able to hurt anyone ever again. 

Hearing this story again reminds us that shock, awe, and fear are recurring themes in the human

experience.  As we read the newspaper or watch TV we are aware of stories like this one

making appearances on the global scene from many different venues.  They make their way into movies

and prime time programs, too.  Why?

Fear gives us pleasure.  That may be unpalatable to admit, but necessary.  The documented

cases of torture the world over by Amnesty International attest not only to the

universality of human depravity but to the universal pleasure of arousing fear.  Men and

women frighten and torture other men, women, children, animals and things as part of

their everyday life every hour of every day in every city and town in every part of the

globe.  Drill sergeants and teachers and prison guards and professional athletes and

managers and corporations and religious superiors and doctors and parents and teenagers

all attempt, sooner or later, to cow the opposition.  Can you imagine a family anywhere

in which structure has not been maintained or enforced at some point, somehow by its

most fearsome member?

Look at the movies we watch.  Horror and crime films are the most obvious examples.  We

like to be scared and like to see other people being scared.  Furthermore, we respect

somebody who exercises power by fear, whether it is the raised voice, the menacing look,

the glinting gun or the Karate chop.  We find few things more mesmerizing, tantalizing

or fascinating than the one who exercises masterful authority on the basis of just

plain fear.  In 'The Unforgiven', for instance, named as one of the twenty best films

ever, two portraits of fear are stood side by side.  Clint Eastwood and Gene Hackman

are both ruthless killers.  Hackman wears the sheriff’s  badge of office but commands respect by

means of sheer fearsomeness: he is willing to be more brutal than anyone else in town.

Eastwood casts himself as a broken-down pig farmer, a former gunfighter who used to be

even more fearsome and even more brutal than  Hackman.  Now, of course, he is a single

dad who simply wants to ensure some kind of security for his two children.  All he has

to do is to murder two cowboys to do it.  We want to like this guy.  We want to believe

that he is the hero who has come to defend the honour of the town's feisty prostitutes.

But what it comes down to is this.  We are led to want to believe that the only way this

good man can accomplish his good goal is to indulge his brutal past and become even more

fearsome than his fearsome opponents.  "And if any of you (S.O.B.'s) try to take a shot

at me, I'll kill you.  And then I'll kill your wife and your children and all your

relatives and your friends, too!"  You tell ‘em, Clint! 

There are times when we need our wits about us when reading the Bible.  It is just not

enough to use the old Sunday School mentality, however ingrained it has become and no

matter how successfully we retain our childhood religious education.   Take the story of

Solomon, for instance.  It is not a nice little folk tale about how to be wise.   A mere two verses

after today’s reading ends, you can read the famous example of Solomon’s wisdom in the story of the

women whose quarrel the king proposed to settle by cutting a living baby in half.  I don’t even have to

read that story to you, because I know that it’s one that everyone remembers from their childhood.  

The writer of this book want us to believe in Solomon’s wisdom, but, in the final analysis even he could

not cover up the plain facts of history.  The plain fact is that Solomon was the child of that scandalous

liaison between King David and Uriah's wife Bathsheba.  Not a terribly auspicious beginning even if it

wasn’t Solomon's fault.  More to the point, Solomon was brought up in that hot-bed of oriental

intrigue and ostentation that was his father's court.  Not the most conducive environment

for the development of solid, moral character.  To make matters worse, he spent his

formative years under the thumb of his beautiful but conniving mother Bathsheba.  And

when Bathsheba wasn't telling him what career move to make, the prophet Nathan, who by

this time had become as devious and deceitful as the royal crowd he hung around with,

was instigating royal plots of his own to make sure Solomon - and only Solomon - ended

up in the Oval Office.

No sooner was the crown placed on his pampered little head than Solomon was settling

scores for his dear-departed dad.  They were called "blood feuds" in those days, the

thought being that if you didn't get even with an enemy before he died, a curse would

reign down on you and your family for generations.  David issued the orders to Solomon

on his death-bed, and the younger "Don" carried them out with brutal efficiency until

there was nobody left to give him a hard time, not even his older brother Adonijah.

And that was how... the kingdom was established in the hand of Solomon the author tells

us.  That was how "the Lord God of Israel... granted one of" David's "offspring to sit"

on the throne of Israel.  Well, maybe. But my vote says that the good old human power

of "fearsomeness" had a lot more to do with it than "fear of the Lord."

Which brings us to this week's text, which really is a nice story about Solomon paying homage

to  God at one of the many cultic shrines in Israel, high up in the mountains.  Despite the fact that

this was where most of the pagan cults did their business,  Solomon’s plea sounds very pious-not like

asking for three wishes from the genie.  Instead  he asks for one:

    "... Give to your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people,

    able to discern between good and evil . . ."

It pleased the Lord that Solomon had  asked this, the storyteller tells us.  Like being conned into wanting

to believe that the retired gunslinger is not the brutal killer he used to be, we are led to believe that

Solomon has suddenly had a change of heart, that he now wants to become a wise (translate that

"peaceful and compassionate" monarch) who really cares about people.  Well, let's see.

In truth, the facts about Solomon’s reign, if we were to look at all of them, would be shocking and not

a little frightening.  In addition to killing his father’s enemies, his brothers, he had relationships with

hundreds of foreign wives.  His building programs made him the most productive king in all of the

region, but he raised taxes to a crushing level and conscripted thousands of his subjects into forced

labor.  It seems he departed from the wisdom given him by God.

It seems he had even forgotten the Wisdom this  Proverb attributed to him urges: 

A READING FROM PROVERBS 9:1-6

   (NIV)  Wisdom has built her house; she has hewn out its seven pillars.

   {2} She has prepared her meat and mixed her wine; she has also set her

   table. {3} She has sent out her maids, and she calls from the highest

   point of the city. {4} "Let all who are simple come in here!" she says

   to those who lack judgment. {5} "Come, eat my food and drink the wine I

   have mixed. {6} Leave your simple ways and you will live; walk in the

   way of understanding.

The kingdom of Israel rose, fell, rose again, and divided, suffered and faltered under 35 more

rulers before Jesus would arrive to take his place in the succession of the kings.  Roughly a millennium

elapsed from the first glorious days of King David.  But such a king as Israel never imagined!

On that day in the countryside around Galilee, days after the feeding of the 5,000, Jesus  assures his

People of something as shocking, awe-inspiring, and fearsome as any of the most incredible things

that  his forebears had decreed.  Jesus is the very bread and the very wine it takes to give them

life.   It doesn’t matter how many kings have passed on before. 

Jesus does not demand forced labor, burnt offerings, or giving the government our children.  He doesn’t

threaten us with the gunslinger’s retribution.  He offers us the table which we approach and lays himself

upon it for the sustainment of our lives.  He does this without fear and to allay our fears.  He knows the

power of love for it is his nature, his very being.

The love that Jesus brings us along with the bread is the life.  It is the banishment of fear and the

assurance of a healed future, no matter what has gone before.

"Strong to the Finish"

“Strong to the Finish”

Homily for URC Vespers Service August 28, 2011

Revised Common Lectionary Readings for Sunday, August 28, 2011, the Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A)

---

First Reading Exodus 3:1-15

¹Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. ²There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. ³Then Moses said, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.” ⁴When the LORD saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” ⁵Then he said, “Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” ⁶He said further, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.

⁷Then the LORD said, “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, ⁸and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. ⁹The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. ¹⁰So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.&dquo; ¹¹But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” ¹²He said, “I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain.”

¹³But Moses said to God, “If I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” ¹⁴God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” He said further, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” ¹⁵God also said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘The LORD, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you’:
This is my name forever,
and this my title for all generations.”

Gospel Matthew 16:21-28

²¹From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. ²²And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” ²³But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

²⁴Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. ²⁵For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. ²⁶For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?

²⁷“For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done. ²⁸Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”

Sermon Text

Which of these choices is the more frightening: Memorizing the Westminster Catechism or having a colonoscopy? Okay, those two are pretty much a tie. Let’s think about this choice instead: Dying on a cross, despised and humiliated, or watching Popeye the Sailor Man cartoons?

Oddly enough, today’s scriptures have something to do with all of these. They all have to do with human beings staring into the face of fear.

First, I want to invite you to consider Popeye. I’d rather talk about him than a colonoscopy, anyway.

I wonder how many people remember the cartoon character, Popeye the Sailor Man. You know who I mean: the middle-age, squinty-eyed fellow with the outsized forearms who never appeared anywhere without his corncob pipe in his mouth. He was first created by Elzie Crisler Segar, and first appeared in the daily King Features comic strip Thimble Theatre on January 17, 1929. I thought of Popeye recently while wasting time on Facebook, as a couple of old high school friends brought him up in conversation. In between trying to reproduce his unique speech patterns, like his funny little laugh “gak, gak, gak, gak, gak “someone brought up “I yam what I yam and that’s all that I yam”. Someone else observed that God actually said it first; in fact, in today’s Old Testament lesson we hear God give that expression to Moses from the burning bush.

Seems there was some confusion over the origins of the phrase, “I am who I am.”

It was God, not Popeye,noticing the suffering of his people that generated this encounter with Moses, and as God presented Moses with the means of deliverance from their painful enslavement, Moses imagines a choice equally or even more terrifying than continuing in slavery. Moses is terrified by the thought of going before Pharaoh and demanding their release, but he might be even more terrified by the thought of going before the Hebrew people and recounting his audience with God. What kind of bona fides can Moses possibly offer to Pharaoh, what kind of references can he give his kin people, on whose authority will he risk uprooting every Jew in Egypt and destroying the existing economic system of slavery?

God says to risk it in the name of the great I AM. “I AM WHO I AM.”

God gives his name to Moses and says to double down, go all in, put his chips in the pot. Look Pharaoh straight in the eye and hold his cards.

Do you wonder if this made Moses feel any better? Or would you imagine maybe he felt like Popeye in the cartoon strip, limp and floppy as the huge, overpowering Bluto came bearing down on him, going as soft as cooked macaroni as the bigger man grabbed him by the neck and swung him about.

But talk about fear. Coincidentally, this week I’ve been praying for a young woman who was once in my youth group back in Utah, and has now completed college and seminary, who I am proud to say sat for her ordination exams this week. It recalled to my mind the fear of failure and abject humiliation that results when one’s memory lapses or when words fail. How paralyzing it can be to invest so much effort, time, resources, and love into a course of education, and the big day of one’s examination comes. You’ve crammed, you’ve ingested countless cups of coffee, you’ve barely slept.

Who are you to walk into the room, to preposterously announce you are ready to live for God and serve God with your very life? What kind of bona fides can a student offer? On whose authority can she claim to become a spiritual leader in front of examiners twice or three times her own age?

God says to be confident in the name of the great I AM. “I AM WHO I AM.”

God gives his understanding to the pastor-to-be and says to step forward, sign up, and breathe deep. Look the examiners straight in the eyes and say, “Here I am. I’m the presumptuous kid who has been called to become a spiritual leader, in the name of God.”

Do you wonder if this makes a student feel less terror? Or might she still feel like Popeye on the deck of his tiny boat as the Sea Hag blows up a hurricane that threatens to swamp it.

But this fear doesn’t come close to the fear that we each must confront as we consider our Gospel reading for today. In the two examples we’ve thought about so far-Moses and the seminarian-we can easily imagine God’s compassion for us as we stare into the face of fear. However, in the story of Jesus approaching Jerusalem we get a glimpse of God in Jesus facing the same terrifying specter we all fear: our own death. What does God do when God suffers?

In this reading from Matthew we see Jesus give his strongest-ever rebuke to his disciples, using unequivocal language addressed to Peter, Jesus’ friend, who had just gotten a gold star on his report card a few verses earlier for declaring Jesus the Messiah. What was in Peter’s mind that made him consider trying to lead Jesus out of his appointed path so soon? What justified his arguing with the Messiah? What was he thinking to bring down the harshest chastisement ever in any of the Gospels?

I don’t believe he was thinking; I believe he was feeling. He was feeling gut-wrenching, liver-burning, nauseating, paralyzing terror. Personalized fear that translates something like this:

“Jesus is going to die. Jesus, the best person I know, is going to be executed in unbearable agony. It will be humiliating. Being good-being better than any other human has ever been-isn’t enough to save him!

And it gets worse! Jesus is the Messiah! If it can happen to him it can happen to ME.”

It can happen to me, too. And it can happen to you as well.

What Peter could not know and what we can consider with the benefit of looking back on those faraway events, was that God was already at work to turn hurt flesh into a life that lasts forever. The temptation to back away from this work undoubtedly was attractive to Jesus’ humanity. But his divinity clearly responds as he addresses the tempter, not Peter, when he says, “Get away from me Satan!” The transformation of the earthly life into the eternal abundant life is God telling us clearly:

“I AM WHO I AM. In my name, it won’t destroy you to pick up your cross. This is who I AM. I am your God for all time. I don’t end, and you won’t be destroyed either.”

Now, when we try to respond to that, are we as confident as Popeye sucking up his can of spinach? Unfortunately, probably not. We are more likely to still think of death as a dark and scary place. Well, it still is scary. But losing our lives to the great I AM also offers us the light we need to find those lives. Now we probably know what our crosses are and what we need to pick up and deal with. Barbara Brown Taylor puts it like this:

“(but) fear is timeless, and my guess is that each of us has something of which we are deathly afraid. Maybe it is the fear of admitting an addiction that is eating away at your life. Or maybe it is the fear of tackling a memory that still has the power to suck the breath right out of you. Maybe it is the fear of standing up for something you believe in, or telling the truth about who you are to people who are going to damn you for it. Maybe it is the fear of discovering you have an illness that no medicine can cure, or that your child does, or your friend.

Whatever it is that scares you to death, so that you start offering to do anything, anything at all, if it will just go away-that is your cross, and if you leave it lying there it will kill you.”

Let me suggest to you that the muck in the deepest corners of our lives is the stuff Jesus wants to help us get rid of when he encourages us to make his way of life ours. It is in this way that we are the superhero Popeye: strong to the finish!

And what part do the Westminster Catechism and colonoscopies have to play in all of this? Well, you may know that the first question of the Westminster Catechism and probably the only one I can ever remember without looking it up, is: “What is the chief and highest end of man?” and the answer is,

“Man’s chief and highest end is to glorify God, and to fully enjoy God forever.” To fully NOT have the life sucked out of us!

It is this light that shines out beyond the darkness of our fears. It is this promise that Jesus makes as he rebukes Peter on the way to Jerusalem. We are invited to intentionally immerse ourselves in life with and surrounded by God. Our baptism speaks to it! Then we are freed to likewise become intentionally immersed within the joyous state God invites us into. Enjoy! Immerse! Commune! Enjoying God is living a life whose abundance knows no limits.

Who would’ve imagined the choice to pick up our cross would lead to so much fun.

May you be strong to the finish, and enjoy every moment! Oh, and if you’re still wondering about colonoscopies, let’s just say there is such a thing as oversharing.

Amen.

(Please Note: You can comment or quote, but please give credit. Rev. Taylor’s comments are found in her book, Teaching Sermons on Suffering, God in Pain, Copyright 1998.Everyone likes to share, but no one likes a plagiarist. Thanks.)

December 20, 2010

The fourth candle in the Advent wreath is the candle of Love. It is the Joseph candle. For purposes of this study, it is the candle of Promise. A hard thing to do is to wait out the end result of a promise, even a promise made by God.

Fulfillment of any kind of a promise is predicated on the trust engendered in our hearts by that person who makes the promise. If it is a promise set forth by an unassailable source, that's one thing. If it is a promise made by one whose antecedents are questionable, we have room for doubt.

Joseph gets little attention in the story of the Nativity, but he is an important player in this drama. He is the linchpin male character, the Gary Cooper role, the one who moves the action forward on stage. He gets Mary to Bethlehem, he finds the place for her birthing, he stands stalwart beside her and defends her from all ill.

How great a love do we observe in this humble, blue-collar, godly man? Those who wish to see, are permitted to do so. Consider:

Genesis 17:15-22 (New International Version, ©2010)

 ¹⁵ God also said to Abraham, "As for Sarai your wife, you are no longer to call her Sarai; her name will be Sarah. ¹⁶ I will bless her and will surely give you a son by her. I will bless her so that she will be the mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her."

 ¹⁷ Abraham fell facedown; he laughed and said to himself, "Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?" ¹⁸ And Abraham said to God, "If only Ishmael might live under your blessing!"

 ¹⁹ Then God said, "Yes, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac.^[a] I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him. ²⁰ And as for Ishmael, I have heard you: I will surely bless him; I will make him fruitful and will greatly increase his numbers. He will be the father of twelve rulers, and I will make him into a great nation. ²¹ But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you by this time next year." ²² When he had finished speaking with Abraham, God went up from him.

 

We know that Abraham waited decades for the promise of God to be realized for him and Sarah, and can't you just imagine how hilarious their private moments were! Not to mention their times of tears as decades passed and Isaac, their promised one, failed to make his debut?

Yet centuries later Joseph and Mary waited faithfully as Mary's pregnancy passed through its weeks and months, finally culminating as, far away from both of their homes, she and her husband shared in the joy of Jesus' birth. Such love and trust they shared, and how he protected her as she faced the rigors of their journey to Bethlehem!

Night divine, when Christ is born! Thanks be to God. Thanks that we can celebrate together, what a divine gift to open together, in families made possible by God's amazing love. What a promise!

 

Further reading-

1 Samuel 2:1-10

Galatians 4:8-20

R.I.P., Copernicus-Until We Meet Again

Today I read in the newspaper that Nicolaus Copernicus, who was once condemned as a heretic for his theory of heliocentricity, has now been buried with all honor and blessing by the Catholic Church in the church where he once served as canon and doctor. The remains were cross-referenced and identified using DNA samples of bones taken from an ignominious unmarked grave and some hairs found in an ancient book once belonging to the 16th century astronomer.

If the idea of a great thinker whose genius mathematical calculations and painstaking pre-telescopic observation of the heavens is finally being recognized isn't fuel for a sermon in the days of dwindling resources, the threat of economic collapse of the European economy, and nuclear war at the hands of Iran and North Korea, tell me what is.

I am reminded of a time when our youth program was criticized because the group leaders and young people talked about the compatibility of the Creation Story in Genesis with what science teaches us about the development of species and the evolution of life forms, specifically as they lead to the appearance of humankind. We would be appalled at the very idea of mobbing a youth room and condemning free conversation among young folks trying to interpret the holy teachings in light of what we have learned from centuries of scientific exploration and discovery.

Copernicus, unlike his intellectual successor Galileo Lalilei of Italy, worked in relative obscurity without a great deal of confrontation and certainly without the persecution of the Inquisition, having preceded that lovely interlude in history. Still, working as he did as a canon, a position similar to a lay pastor or a deacon today, he was sufficiently visible that his work attracted attention of the most negative sort. In fact, it was enough to ensure that his body was laid to rest in an unmarked grave under the floor of the cathedral in Frombork, on Poland's Baltic Coast, lost until further advances in science gave us the means to search him out and give him the decent burial and observances the church should have rendered to him in 1543.

Please understand, this story didn't make the front page of any newspaper I can name. Perhaps a reason why we should care today about this story, however, is that we would do well to be reminded that those of us who blindly assert that scripture is infallible keep us from seeing that history, context, and progress shine a new light on what we learn in the Bible. Perhaps a reason why we should care today about this story is that we would do well to remember that humankind has always been on a path of becoming more and more aware that God, not ourselves, is the center of the universe.

A reason why we should care about this story is that today, as in the time of Copernicus, Earth and humankind are not the center around which all else revolves. On a personal level, what this might mean to each of us is that we could pause and question, as Copernicus did all those centuries ago, how God might be at work in the universe if indeed he is not working in the manner we would like to ascribe to him.

God is constantly moving, working, ordering the universe and its mysteries. One does not need to be able to explain the answer to every question. Yet, it is in our nature to question, observe, experiment, measure, and calculate just as Copernicus did. In his daily life working in the cathedral, and in his spare time wondering about and positing the theory of a solar system centered on the sun instead of the earth, Copernicus demonstrated that it is not inconsistent for a person of science also to be a person of faith. We may question what the seven days of Genesis mean. We may question how Adam and Eve came to breathe and walk in the world.

As Jacek Jezierski, one of the Polish church bishops who encouraged the search for Copernicus said, "Science and faith can be reconciled."

It leaves the question open for us to explore: Will we be open to the limitless possibilities of a God whose nature is so grand and so universal that that God is unthreatened by our minuscule
explorations using complicated formulas and calculations? Better still, will we as people of faith be able to let go of the need to make a choice between the mystical and the empirical?

Maybe some day we'll get to talk to Copernicus about that one.

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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.