God's Gifts - sermon from September 21, 2014. Parable of the Landowner.

Jesus has just had an encounter with a young rich man asking Jesus "How can I be perfect?" Jesus tells him that he (the young rich man) must sell all he owns and give it to the poor. The young man walks away, sad. We never know if he follows Jesus' instructions or not, but we do know that Jesus immediately launches into this parable in which he compares the Kingdom of Heaven to a landowner who pays all his workers a full day's wages, whether they started work in the morning or in the late afternoon. 

It will be helpful to read the scripture lesson first (available in the link just below).

What do you think of a "Kingdom of Heaven" as being like a landowner in which all are paid a day's wages? Would you like to see that manifest today in our world - and if so, what would that look like? Please offer your thoughts and ideas in the comments section below.

“God’s Gifts!”

Sermon, Year A, Proper 20, September 21, 2014

Plymouth United Church of Christ, Eau Claire, WI

© Rev. David J. Huber

Focus Scripture: Matthew20:1-16

God is a generous God. A God of giving. A God who is generous beyond what is sensible. In the benediction we will use the phrase “God’s strange generosity”. I used that in the Greetings today as well. God’s strange generosity. It is generosity at a level to which we often fear to trek. Which we are often afraid to achieve, or hesitant to strive for.

We hear about God’s generosity in this passage. I think we also hear Jesus talking subtly here about gratitude as well. But I am talking about gratitude today, but talking about God’s generosity. We read this parable last Lent when we had our Soup and Scripture series on Wednesday nights, when we were talking about parables of the Kingdom of Heaven (which is the phrase that the writer of Matthew’s Gospel uses), or Realm of God, Commonwealth of God, whatever you want to call it. So think of these parables as Jesus saying also, “This is what God is like. This is God’s vision of what a right and just way is of forming community. This is what a godly world looks like.”

In this one, it’s a community of generosity and abundance. Of enough for everyone. We live in a world of abundance. We often talk about scarcity and not enough resources, but it’s a world of abundance! There is enough for everyone. We just don’t distribute it as well as we could, or as well as we should. We live in a world of abundance because it is God’s world, and God is a God of abundance and generosity.

“I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you.” There is abundance in that phrase. There is enough for everyone. But also in this is not a call for excess. Or that prosperity belief. I think there is in this parable a kick in the teeth to the prosperity gospel. God doesn’t just keep heaping riches and wealth upon us at the expense of other people, or because we please God. But we are in a world of abundance. This is also a kick in the teeth of our American capitalist Protestant work ethic that says “Work, work, work, earn, earn, earn”, but God works on a mantra of “No, it’s about give! Give, give, give, be generous, give.”

We see it in the Exodus story that we read as well. God provides the meat and the manna. Provides enough for everyone. And only enough. Just enough. God doesn’t allow people to take too much, and doesn’t allow people to take too little. Those who take too much end up with their excess being spoiled. We didn’t read that far into the story, but those with excess manna wake up the next day to find that the excess has spoiled. “Worms in the Bread.” Those who take too little find that their jars are filled until they have enough. And the employer in the parable here offering a day’s wages. That’s enough money to exist for a day. To eat and maintain life for one day. He pays that to all the workers whether they worked a full day or a partial day. He gives them a full day’s wages regardless of how much they worked. Because no matter how much they worked, for them to survive for that day, they need a day’s wages. So they deserve to live for that day. God’s world is one in which no one goes hungry, no one is homeless, no one goes without, no one suffers from lack of resources. This is the God who, on the night before we crucified him, said “This is my body, given for you. This is my blood, shed for you.” That is not a god who withholds, but one who gives! Who gives far beyond what is sensible.

This generous God. God is a giving God. That’s God’s nature. Giving manna in the wilderness. Love and grace through Jesus. Giving us the Holy Spirit. And what God does in our daily lives. Making the corn, the wheat, the cranberries grow. Makes flowers grow and bloom and give us beauty. Makes the cattle give milk, and give birth to other cattle. All other animals giving birth. Giving children to us. All this generosity of God. And also in that generosity is that every 24 hours God gives us another gift: a new day. A brand new day. Morning has broken. It is a new day. A chance to start over. A new beginning. A new opportunity. The mistakes, failures, the pain of yesterday is all in the past. Let it go. God gives us a new day to become a new person. God gives us this gift of a new and fresh start with a chance to try something new or readjust our lives. We always have this new day. This new chance to embrace God’s gift of life. Abundant life. Grace and love.

And to know that God doesn’t care so much if we arrived very early and have put in a full day’s work and with our lives in order, living good and well. Or if we have come late to the field. Or even if we haven’t gotten that far yet. Wherever we are on our journey – came late, came early, haven’t started at all yet – God loves us all the same amount. God’s love for everyone is equal. God loves us equally. “I choose to give this last the same as I give to the first.”

It is a reward... well, let’s not say that. I don’t like the word “reward” because it implies that we’ve earned it, that we’ve done something to gain it... so let’s say, “God loves us equally, and that’s God’s gift. God’s gift.”

It is not our reward, it is God’s gift to us. That’s the radical nature of God’s love. God’s generous gift to us. God’s strange generosity is that we are loved as we are. Equally. And with all of creation. All that God has made, regardless of the awful things we have done, and also – and I think is the radical break with tradition that Jesus often makes, the bold step that Jesus makes – is also that God’s gift of love comes to us regardless of the wonderful things that we have done. Regardless of the awful things we’ve done, regardless of the wonderful things we’ve done, God loves us. Because God is generous. God’s love, manna from heaven, all that we have, the fruits and vegetables of the earth, the water that we drink, each new morning... is a gift! Not a reward, not a pay off, not a payment, not a salary, not a wage, not an enticement. Just... a gift. Because that’s who God is, and that’s how God is. God is generous, giving, loving.

A gift.

Today I woke up. What a gift! A chance to start over and let go of whatever pain we might have, or suffering, guilt, shame, whatever it is. Today, I woke up! What a gift.

Today is a new day. Morning has broken. Great it with hope. A tabula rasa, an empty page to begin again. “I choose to give to the last the same as I give to you.”

Amen.

God's Realm is Built Out Of Forgiveness

My sermon from Sunday, September 14. The scripture lesson from Genesis was Joseph forgiving his brothers, and the lesson from Matthew is Jesus answering Peter's question about how many times a person needs to forgive another. I touch on the importance of us offering forgiveness - especially to ourselves - but most of this sermon explores the idea that Jesus is also talking very much about what God is like. Jesus never tells us to do something or live in a way that is not being modeled already by God. 

What do you think of when you hear the word "forgive"? How forgiving do you think God is? Are there things that we can do that are unforgivable, either by another human, or perhaps even by God?

“God’s Realm is Built of Forgiveness”

Sermon, Year A, Proper 19, September 14, 2014

Plymouth United Church of Christ, Eau Claire, WI

© Rev. David J. Huber

Focus Scripture: Matthew18:21-35 

After reading this scripture lesson, which is definitely about forgiveness, I don’t want to go off in the direction of saying that this is all about how YOU have to offer forgiveness for everything. Although I do think forgiveness is a very good thing and is important for us to do. Part of our vocation as followers of Jesus is that we are to forgive. It is one of the more important things that we do, and I challenge you to be more forgiving. And often, forgiving has more to do not so much with releasing the burden from, say, someone who has hurt you. But forgiveness is good for the forgiver: to let go. To take the pain or anger or whatever out of our hearts and say, “I’m not going to live with that any more. I’m going to let that go and move on.”

But if there can be forgiveness with reconciliation, with a spouse, parent, child, co-worker, fellow church member... if there can be reconciliation than that’s even better. To come back into relationship is a wonderful thing. But sometimes that can’t happen. Someone has abused or hurt too much that maybe you don’t want to be in a relationship with that person any more. Or if the person who hurt you is dead and there can’t be reconciliation. Forgiveness is a way of saying, “I’m not going to live in the past any more. I’m not going to carry that baggage and let it rule or control my life any more.”

And especially so if the person that you need to forgive is yourself. To not live in the past. To let it go. God forgives you, so let it go.

There is that lesson in this scripture passage that I read. But what I am really thinking of today is not so much our own responsibility or our own call to be forgiving people. Sometimes to tell people that they ought to be more forgiving is a way of piling on guilt as well. It can be an unforgiving attitude.

What has hit me, and what I have been thinking of as I have read scripture this week, is this way of living that Jesus sets up here. Not just saying “YOU have to forgive”, but that Jesus is offering us a way of life. He sets up an incredibly radical rubric of a life based on forgiveness. Even just to say that you should forgive is a pretty radical kind of statement. We don’t like to talk about forgiveness in our greater society a whole lot. We like to talk about retribution, punishment, holding on to anger, being self-righteously right. So even if Jesus had said to forgive once, that would have been pretty radical. But he doesn’t say that. He doesn’t say forgive once. He doesn’t say to forgive twice. Or to forgive seven times. He says to forgive 77 times, or we could also translate it here as 7 times 70 times. Jesus says to forgive 77, or 7x70 times.

When Jesus is talking, whether it be forgiveness in this case, or feeding the hungry, or showing mercy, or serving the poor, or healing people. He’s not just saying what we HAVE to do. He’s not just saying, “YOU have to do this.” He’s setting up a vision, an example, he’s showing us, talking about the realm of God or the Commonwealth of God. He’s saying, “This is what God is like.” Not just something for us, that we have to do; but saying that this is what God is like. This is what God does. “And now that you have seen and heard what God is like, now the decision is up to you. How are you going to live? But I will set up this vision so you know what God looks like.”

So it isn’t just Jesus saying to us that to “get into heaven” or to be right with God you have to forgive X amount of times. The number that he picks here is not a specific number, but it’s a number that means “a lot.” The number he uses here is an exaggeration. He’s saying, “This is what God’s realm looks like. This is what God is like. God will forgive 77 times, or 7x70 times.” It’s a hyperbolic number, not an absolute number. Seven is a holy number. 77 a holy number, 7x70 a holy number. This is just a big number. We can read it as meaning “unlimited.”

What is God like? Unlimited forgiveness. More forgiveness than you think is reasonable. Way more than whatever you think might be reasonable. Way way way way way way way more than any of us might ever think is reasonable or sensible an amount to forgive. That’s how God forgives. That’s how loving God is. To go way, way beyond whatever we might think in our human thinking is sufficient and a good ending point. Whatever point we might think that we can go, “Well, you know, I gave it a shot, I forgave this many times and nothing has happened, nothing has changed.” Jesus is saying that’s not even a good beginning yet. God hasn’t even begun with that few times. God’s desire to forgive and to love is so beyond our imaginations.

And whatever God looks like, whatever God’s commonwealth looks like, then that is also to be the model for the Church. It is a model of what the Church ought to look like. Whether it is Plymouth, or the Church worldwide. It is what we ought to be about as well. To love and to forgive as much as what Jesus sets up here as a model of God’s vision. Our vocation as followers of Jesus is to create community that looks like God. To be god-like. And part of that community, you can see from these words of Jesus, is to be a community of unlimited and relentless and radical forgiveness. To be forgiving of one another. To invite people in to this community. To say to people who are beaten down by the world around them, invite them in, and let them experience and know a forgiving God. To let them know that however imperfect we are at forgiving, however imperfect we are at loving, God is not imperfect. “Come into our circle and know that you are forgiven, which means that you are loved and that you are beloved. Come and know that with God you are worthy. You are okay. You measure up.”

Our message to the world of love and mercy is born out partly through forgiveness. Through being forgiven. Our message entrusted to us to speak and live is that forgiveness is better than retribution. Forgiveness is better than violence. Forgiveness is better than hate. Forgiveness is better than just holding on to you anger or your hurt as though that makes you more righteous by not forgiving. By not letting that other person win. But as long as you hold on to that, they ARE winning! You’re life is not as full or good. Forgiveness is better than hurtful comments or dehumanizing speech, whether it is in real life, or on Facebook, on the comments section of an article on the web. There is no much non-forgiveness in the world. It’s hurting people. It’s hurting us as a species and as a world community.

Forgiveness is so important.

So maybe we can’t fix the worlds problems. We can’t make God’s realm appear at the end of the week or even by the end of the millennium. But we can live into the vision that Jesus showed us. The vision of God’s realm showering love and mercy. By being a community which values these virtues. By community meaning this church, Plymouth Church, which we are all part of. Being a community here in which people find forgiveness of one another’s mistakes and especially forgiveness for ourselves.

Sometimes it can be more difficult to forgive ourselves than to forgive someone else. To forgive our own mistakes, our own errors, than it is to forgive the hurts that others have done to us.

But know this: you ARE forgiven! You can let it go.

And we – the church – can be a respite from a world that says that we don’t measure up. That’s the message we hear from advertising all the time, and hear from other places, that we don’t measure up. We’re too fat or too thin. Or we have the wrong body shape, or we’re too obsessed with our body. Our homes aren’t clean enough, big enough, or we don’t live in the right neighborhood. We don’t send our kids to the right schools. We don’t wear the right clothes or drive the right car. All these messages about how we don’t measure up. So much telling us that we are not worthy.

All those toxic messages that we hear.

And in this frenzy of harsh messages that beat us down and that hammer our souls, we who are followers of Jesus have this message from Jesus that is the antidote to all the harshness. This message of what God is like. To say “Don’t judge by these human measures. Look at the world through God’s eyes.” A message to share with our neighbors, that we invite others to come here to hear and to experience. The message through Jesus that says, “You DO measure up! You ARE worthy! Whatever you have done, whatever you have failed to do, whoever you are, you are worthy! God loves you just as you are. In God’s realm you are loved and you are worth and you matter. You are made in God’s image and are holy, right, and good, and worthy of love. And even if you think you have done something that is unforgivable, it is forgiven, and you are forgiven. Seven times, seventy-seven times, seven times seventy times, and beyond. Because that’s who God is. And that’s how God acts toward us.”

Thanks be to God!

Amen.

I wrote a letter to friends on 9-11-01 after walking home

Letter to friends and family and the world 

This is a letter I sent to my friends on Tuesday, Sept. 11, after returning home from my long walk from the World Trade Center. 

To all my friends who have inquired already, and those who might be wondering about the events in NYC this terrible day, I send this note. I thank you for the many messages and phone calls you have offered to me and to my sister and to Yuki to find out if I was safe.

Coming home from the World Trade Center and finding so many emails and phone messages was a real delight, although as we know, the circumstances were not good. But rest assured, I did escape without injury.

I had always wondered just how long it would take to walk between work and 139th street where I live, and now I know: about 4 hours. Work is *not* within walking distance. I began work as normal this morning about 8:00 am in World Financial Center Building 3, which is across the street from the World Trade Center Tower 2, the first building to be hit by terrorists.

As we watched from our office window the flames and smoke pour out from that first strike in Tower 2, our thought was simply that a very unfortunate - but possible - accident had taken place. Fairly unworried, we sort of went back to be about our work, though many of us continued to watch CNBC on the many monitors that are placed around the trading floor, and which some poeple have on their TVs on their desks.

After the second plane hit, we realized it was intentional, and called for the evacuation of our building. Though we could see the damage fairly well through our windows, we still did not have a good sense of just how terrible it was. I left our building and headed north a block or two. As I was walking through a group people watching the towers, I heard the sudden intake of breath and horrified gasps. I turned around, and witnessed a person - a fellow human being - jumping out of a window from near the top of the tower. That was just the first jumper I was to see.

It was a sickening feeling, knowing that for those people, jumping was probably the most painless and hopeful way to die, as they were certainly trapped at the top with no hope of getting out. I think of those people's families, and shudder and recoil at this senseless murdering. I do not wish to ever be witness to such a thing again.

I soon came across Claire, a woman with whom I work, who needed to take the ferry across the river to get to New Jersey. We walked back to the Ferry, which is located on the other side of the building I work in, and has a full - and close - view of both towers. Thankfully, she managed to get onto the ferry and it left the dock just as the first building collapsed. It was an incredible sight - though it is diffuclt to describe something which is, ultimately, such a horrible thing. It was loud, it was scary, and created a cloud of debris and dust that went much higher than the 45 story building I work in. The crowd who were gathered there, including me, once we realized what was happening, ran like hell, and I don't mind saying that to you all. [Though I soon realized the danger of running in a crazy crowd, so stood off to the side].

I followed the advice of the police who were shouting constantly "Don't look, just go North!!!!!" I went North, and didn't look back, until I hit about 20th street. Being more than a mile away, I felt safe turning around to look. After a few seconds I was witness to the destruction of the second tower. That tower came down in two parts - first the top slid down, and when the dust cleared just enough to see an angled portion of the tower left, broken beams and metal sticking up like a building you might see in an "end of the world" movie, the angled part also slid down, with a mighty roar and another fantastic plume of smoke. I continued walking north, and did not rest too easy until I was north of the Empire State Building. Beginning at about 50th street (or as we New Yorkers would say, beginning in the 50s), life around me became more normal. People were gathered in parks, mothers and fathers were pushing their children in strollers, people ate at outside cafes. Of course, it only makes sense, but after coming from the chaos of the World Trade Center, it was surreal.

As I walked through the 60s and then the 70s, the amount of "normal life" increased, until perhaps about the high 70s, when one would have no idea, in watching people, that something had happened, though many people carried radios with them, and did have stunned looks about them. But there was no panic, no running, no crying, no police officials like I had been immersed in earlier in the morning. Still shaken, and occasioanlly realizing that I had just watched two buildings be destroyed, I moved into Riverside Park, to enjoy some quiet and some nature along the river. It was a horrible thing what happened today, and though I wasn't totally at ground zero, and managed to avoid any of the smoke and dust, watching those magnificent towers, those giant, tall, admittedly eye-stain-ugly late-60s architecture towers go down was stunning. Not stunning like a diamond, but stunning as in "I was stunned". I still am stunned.

I can barely comprehend these towers, which I have linked with NYC for so many years, are gone. And not just gone, but actually attacked with intent to destroy by people who have no value for life. To think of the loss of life, which must be in the thousands between the innocents on the airplanes, the innocents in the towers, and the fireman who were in the buildings trying to help people out when they collapsed.

I am not quite sure what to think of this event, or how to feel about it. It is one thing to watch disaster strike from afar; quite another to be in it, and to realize that it happened here in the US, where such things have not happened before. Random bombing and exloding is something for Isreal or Palestine, or London, Afghanistan, Africa or Europe. But not here. Not in the US. And certainly not in my workplace.

I am confused and still in shock, and have finally turned off the radio, as I couldn't take listening to the news any more.

My prayers go out to those who were trapped in the buildings, and trapped in the airplanes. My prayers go out to their families. My prayers also go out to those who did this, and those who would like to have done this. Though their act was evil incarnate, and they must be brought to justice swiftly and surely, and though we must do what is necessary to guarantee to the best of our ability that this not happen again, still our prayers must be with them, and especially with the rest of their cabal. Jesus certainly taught us to pray for our enemies and those who would do us harm. Pray for them, that they might come to know truth and peace.

And of course I pray for all of us, those of us who will spend much time wondering if we are safe, wherever we are. Always wondering.

I pray that you are all angry about this, but I pray that our anger be the anger of good toward evil, the anger that serves as our energy to drive us into constructive action, and not the senseless anger that cries merely for revenge and offers no real solution. Let us be angry! I'm angry as hell - they almost killed me, and they did kill a lot of innocents! Senselessly, brutally, for no reason that any human could comprehend. let us be outraged! Let us be righteously shocked! let us call for our leaders to swiftly destroy this evil wherever it is, and to eliminate it forever.

But let us also do so with hearts and mind open, and not be a mob that does not reflect on its actions, and that quashes evil with only more evil in the name of "good". Be a force for good, and pray for us and for our country that our actions will be done in mindfulness, with full understanding of what we are about to do, and not out of the mindlessness of a berserker who simply smashes and hacks at anything that gets in his way.

I do not know when I will be able to return to work. I do not even know how much, if any, damage my building suffered, though I imagine it lost the windows and is filled with with a thick coating of dust at the least. I heard on the radio that later this afternoon another building went down, though I doubt it was mine, since the Towers, if you look at one of the good cnn.com maps, has numerous smaller buildings immediately next to them. But who knows how much collateral damage might still happen in the next couple days.

I am praying for you all, and for us, and for this country, and for our world at this time.

Let us give thanks for what we have, and for those who escaped the clutches of violence.

I am grateful - very grateful - that I was led out of the violence unhurt and unscathed. And let us pray for God's presence to heal and to strengthen us, to unite us, and to bind us together in love and peace like the children of God that we all are, that war may no longer be known by any child or adult.

I leave you all with a fitting quote from a good friend of mine that my random quote generator popped up when I opened this email.

"In a land where ignorance is a virtue, the blind man is king" - Joe Raposo, Statesman and composer, August 27, 2001 

Blessings to you all,
David

Jesus eventually listened to himself – what if we did, too?

From Sunday, August 17 - continued fighting in Gaza, uproar in Missouri over the violent shooting death of an unarmed African-American youngster, and continued nastiness at the border between Mexico and the U.S. with the few tens of thousands of children who are hoping to reunited with families and, sadly, being abused - with some of those who are shouting and protesting and calling them names being self-avowed Christians. So in this story in which Jesus calls a Canaanite woman a dog, and she calls him on the carpet about it, we find some relation to today. And we find a Jesus who is also in process of learning, expanding his theology to be more generous and inclusive. At the end, I ask the question, "Who are the dogs of today?" Who do you think the dogs of today are?

“Jesus eventually listened to himself – what if we did, too?”

Sermon, Year A, Proper 15, August 17, 2014

Plymouth United Church of Christ, Eau Claire, WI

© Rev. David J. Huber

Focus Scripture: Matthew15:21-28 

One wonders – I wonder, anyway – Does Jesus ever listen to himself when he speaks? Does he pay attention to what he’s saying, or does it just come out?

I’m reminded of the show Family Guy, which some of you know. It’s a very funny, hilarious, animated show in which the main character, Peter Griffin is, well, stupid. He doesn’t track information at all well, and spouts nonsense all the time. Crazy political stuff, social stuff, stuff about religion. Whatever the topic, he speaks in nonsense in all the time. In one episode, after Peter has offered a particularly silly and nonsensical screed, one of his friends asks him, “Do you ever listen to yourself?” And Peter responds, “Eh, I tune in and out.”

I wonder, does Jesus listen to himself here?

He calls this woman a dog. That’s after ignoring her. At first he doesn’t respond to her or even acknowledge her presence. Then, when he does finally choose to notice, he calls her a dog and he shows no concern for her daughter.

This is not the touchy-feely cuddly kind of Jesus that makes us feel comfortable. The kind of Jesus that we may have been taught about in Sunday school or in other churches in which he always kind and compassionate, he’s never reactive, always calm and in control of the situation and in control of himself. And he’s just, gosh, so swell and super nice all the time. That’s not always the Jesus that’s in the Gospels. Jesus is not always just a touchy-feely nice guy that never changes his mind, or never needs to learn anything, because he’s perfect. That’s not always who Jesus is. Sometimes he’s kind of rude, cranky, human. This is a very human Jesus, I think, that we get in the passage here. A very human Jesus who is very much a product of his culture and who carries with him some of those unquestioned uncritically accepted biases that the culture puts on its citizens.

Jesus is being mean here. But culturally, what he’s doing, might be kind of typical. Others might not look at him as being particularly mean.

But I wonder, Does he listen to himself?

His reaction here is particularly surprising because of what has just happened before this, which we did not read. But in the passage right before this, Jesus is having a disagreement with the Pharisees and the the Scribes. They have questioned him because he hasn’t washed his hands properly before eating, and may be eating unclean food and eating with the wrong people that makes him unclean. Jesus responds to them, “It is not what goes in the mouth that makes one unclean; it’s what comes out.”

It’s what you say. The words that you use that can make you unclean. Not the food that goes in, but what you say.

So Jesus has just said that. And then he goes to Tyre and Sidon, another area of Israel, and he tells this foreign woman that she’s nothing but a dog.

It’s what comes out, Jesus.

As though he had not listened to his previous self here at all. This woman is also called a Canaanite which brings back some memories of the Canaanite people who had originally lived in that area. Lived, in fact, in the entire region of the Promised Land that the Hebrew people had taken. Think of Moses and the Exodus, leading the people through the wilderness for 40 years, then coming into the Promised Land that God had given them. Well, there were already people there. The Canaanites were already there. So the Hebrews come in and displace the Canaanites – such displacement mostly being done by killing them – but they didn’t get rid of all the Canaanites. Then they took the land and it became Israel. Then in the 6^th century as Babylon was attacking to conquer Israel, it was the Jewish/Hebrew people in the Tyre and Sidon area who were basically traitors and in collusion with the Babylonians to conquer Israel. They were basically traitors to their country and helped Babylon take it over. So calling this woman a Canaanite here is a remembrance of the people who were displaced as the Hebrews took the Promised Land, and a reminder of the betrayal So the rest of Judaism had some bad blood toward these people, even in Jesus’ time.

And that’s a battle that continues today. The fighting between Israel and Palestine is a remnant of this Jewish people versus Canaanite people battle that has been going for 3000-3500 years, arguing over whose land it really is, who God really gave that land to. It continues.

But for Jesus, the woman in this story was basically a bad person because of her ancestry and because of where she lives. And so of course Jesus calls her a dog. Once he finally decides to acknowledge her existence and admit that she’s there. Of course he calls her a dog: her ancestors 500-600 years ago helped betray Israel. Obviously she must carry the guilt for that because we don’t forgive people for what their ancestors did, they carry that guilt with them. Right? Isn’t that how we do things? The disciples totally understand that as well. They insist that she goes away. They are products of their culture, just as much as Jesus was. They insist that she go away. “She’s nothing, Jesus, she’s just a foreign woman. She’s not like us. She’s not one of us. And if she’s not one of us, not like us, then we owe her nothing. So pay her no mind.”

But, by God, she’s a mother with a sick child. She knows who Jesus is. She calls him Lord and Son of David. She is a mother of a sick child and she’s not afraid to tell Jesus that he’s wrong. She embarrasses him. She shames him, even. Uses his language against him. Says, basically, “You think I’m a dog? You think I’m a dog? Fine. I’ll play that role. If that is the role I have to play in order to heal my daughter, I will play that role. Whatever it takes to make my daughter better. I’ll do whatever you want. If you want me to be the dog, I’ll be the dog. But I want you to remember one thing: even dogs get to eat crumbs. Are you telling me that you are so lofty, and I am so lowly, that you can’t even give me a crumb? Even the cruelest master feeds his dogs.”

Now, she wasn’t there when Jesus was talking about how it is not what goes in the mouth but what comes out. She wasn’t there. She didn’t hear him say that. She doesn’t know that he said it. But by her response, she makes him listen to himself. She makes him hear his own words. She forces him to live by his own words. That’s a powerful moment.

He’s transformed by her faith. He learns. He changes his mind about her, and about who she is. And probably about all her people. Changes his mind in the direction of love and compassion.

Who are the dogs today? Those we might not want to give even a crumb? Who are the dogs today? Who are the dogs in your life? The children at the border with Mexico? Gays, lesbians, transgendered people? Immigrants? Palestinians? Africans suffering from Ebola? Or the Africans suffering from hunger or war? The people who live on the streets? Unarmed young African-American men? The Michael Browns of the world? People on death row? People who are asking for nothing more than a little bit of dignity by having access to health care and food for their family, who are very much like this woman who wants nothing more than health for her daughter? Who are the dogs for today?

Jesus is forced to listen to himself. This woman forced him to listen to himself and he did and he changed his mind and he changed his mind in the direction of love. This radical, reckless, costly love. Jesus listened to himself and changed his mind toward love.

What would happen if we listened to Jesus as well?

Amen.  

Reflections on suicide after Robin Williams' death/suicide and depression

Intro: I wrote this originally for the local newspaper, back in July of 2013. Today, August 12 of 2014, I am thinking of suicide (and mental illness) again because of Robin Williams' death two days ago, which appears to be suicide driven by deep depression. Since I am thinking of this again, I thought I would share this article with you. It is not so much about depression, but about how to respond to the tragedy that is suicide, and I poke a hole in that terrible platitude "God never gives you more than you can handle."


Probably more of us than not have been touched by suicide, either by our own attempt or that of someone we know. Suicide is increasing, particularly by returning soldiers (especially those facing difficulty accepting or finding mental health care) and gay teenagers literally bullied to death by classmates and some religious communities. And yet, suicide remains a largely taboo subject. Remember how we used to refer to cancer in hushed whispers as “the c-word”, hid developmentally disabled children in the attic, or called the gay couple “roommates”? As though if we don’t speak it, it doesn’t exist. But silence only gives it more power. Just as cancer research received public support only once we were willing to reduce the shame by saying the word, and people with disabilities and our LGBT brothers and sisters started achieving social (and churchly) acceptance only when we started speaking openly, perhaps speaking about suicide can better help prevent and overcome its pain.

You may have heard an adage that as unhelpful as it is old: “God never gives you more than you
can handle.” Unhelpful because, firstly, God does not inflict us with suffering. What God gives is
goodness and blessings. Not life-numbing pain.

Secondly, the fact of suicide also very obviously shows that some people DO have (but are not "given”) more than they can handle. Suicide comes from a place of deep suffering (depression, PTSD from war or sexual abuse, bullying, etc.) that is often kept hidden from others, and which most of us will never experience nor comprehend.

But lack of comprehension does not mean we cannot empathize with the suffering of the committer, and the suffering of their loved ones left with a lifetime of anger, shame, and wondering, Why? or, Did I fail somehow?

The answers to those two questions, by the way, are: We cannot possibly ever know, and No.

Especially we people of faith ought express compassion to eliminate the stigma and shame. Suicide is not an unforgivable sin. Those left behind need not feel shame. They certainly ought not be shamed. Who wants to hear from a cleric that a spouse or child who commits suicide is in hell? Some traditions even refuse to do funerals (or have them in their sanctuary) for people who have committed suicide. Where’s the compassion in that? I can imagine gods of our own invention being that evil, but the God of the Bible is loving and consoling that I imagine greets the sufferer with open arms and releases their pain. Shame is a too-prevalent evil in this world, but only because we are so easily allured by its narrative of self-righteousness. Is there a balm in Gilead? With God, always.

I have known people who committed suicide, and their deaths diminished me and those they left behind. But the shame put on survivors, or survivors put on themselves, is just as crippling.

Maybe worse.

And they have few outlets for their pain and anger.

Suicide has long been considered just a theological problem: call it a sin and leave it at that. But
that is as unhelpful as the above adage. Easy answers are rarely faithful. Suicide is mostly a
psychological issue, but is economic and political. We need affordable shame-free access to
mental health care. We need more vigilance in ensuring all our children are safe from bullies.
Our religious institutions need to be less bullying from their pulpits and more willing to greet
The Other with love. There is much we must, and which we can, do. But only if we talk about it.

Street Ministry Journal: July 8, 2014

I've not blogged about this before, but my congregation has a street ministry that is out in the community every Tuesday and Friday nights providing water, clothing, snacks, candy, hygiene, and other items to people living on the streets. We also go into Chippewa Falls once a week or so to check out the homeless there as well, as they recently lost the only homeless shelter in that city. I go out twice a month usually, and leave it to the volunteers, who have the real expertise, to do this important ministry. Mike Henry is our leader - he has done street ministry in San Francisco, Chicago, places in Central America, and elsewhere. He has many decades of experience and great passion. He is the one who took the photo below. We keep a street journal that we who take part in the ministry occasional write stories for, of our thoughts and experiences. The following is my write up from last week Tuesday:

A beautiful night, weather-wise, and it became an even more beautiful night with a surprise encounter with a man with a silken baritone voice. Lilly, Dave, Sandy, Mike, and I were there to help the many visitors we had to the van. We were busy, but not so busy that we didn't stop for about ten minutes to listen to Wahya, recently arrived at Sojourners, sing us some serenades of 1970s-era blues rock tunes and even some country. He had been a singer in a band many years before, but circumstances led him out of that profession and eventually to where he is today. He has lost much, but not his voice or his passion for song. Mostly he sang alone, but I joined him to sing the beginning of Bob Seeger's "Turn the Page". A gentle man, mostly (perhaps all) Native American. He told us the story of how he received his name, a name that in his tradition can only be given as a gift for doing right things, never claimed for oneself. A fascinating man who I hope can find his way off the "long and lonesome highway" and back into the life that he knew and that he deserves.

Caption: Wahya singing in his rich baritone voice for Pastor David and others.

God's One-Sided Covenant - sermon from June 29, 2014

Sunday's sermon was on Jesus' summation of the law. When he was asked, "What is the greatest commandment?" he doesn't offer some kind of belief or doctrinal point, nor any of the 613 commandments (mitzvot) found in the Hebrew scriptures - he quotes the summation of all law and prophets that is found in Leviticus and Deuteronomy: Love God and love your neighbor and you love yourself. 

This sermon is a meditation on God's process of covenanting with various people and peoples, culminating in the covenant that is Jesus, and an exploration of what loving God and neighbor might look like if we lived by it in 21st century earth.

“A One-Sided Covenant”

Sermon, Year A, Proper 8, June 29, 2014

Plymouth United Church of Christ, Eau Claire, WI

© Rev. David J. Huber

Focus Scripture [from narrative lectionary, not RCL]: Exodus 20:1-17 and Matthew 22:34-40

Jesus does a nice summation of the covenant with God in his response to this question from these people who are probably trying to trick him, or who are, perhaps, generally curious about Jesus’ answer.

We are a people of the covenant – the covenant between God and us, a covenant we call Jesus. Jesus who said, “My blood is the blood of the new covenant, poured out for you.” But before Jesus, there was the covenant of The Law, which we read some of here with these ten commandments. This passage is the beginning of God giving Moses the Law from the mountaintop. They are part of a much longer set of laws that are written in Leviticus and Deuteronomy and elsewhere, ending up with a total of 613 commandments, according to traditional Jewish counting.

But these ten are the big ones. These are the ones that God gives to Moses first, and are the ones that Moses brought down on the tablets from the mountaintop. These are the beginning of the Law.

You may remember Charlton Heston as Moses in “The Ten Commandments”, holding the two tablets with his white hair and flowing beard and he’s backlit quite dramatically as he descends from the mountain top with this new law.

Or perhaps you remember Mel Brooks’ movie “The History of the World, Part 1”. The amazing Sid Caesar, who just died a month or two ago, played Moses in a similar scene to Heston’s, coming down the mountain with the same hair and beard but with three tablets, saying “I bring you these fifteen...” and then one tablet falls on the ground and shatters, “These ten, ten commandments!” 

These ten commandments are the basis of the covenant between God and the people that God had just rescued from slavery in Egypt. He’s brought them across the sea and into the wilderness, and one of the first things is to set up this covenant between God and the people. A covenant that says, “I will be your God, and you will be my people, and this is what that relationship will look like. This is how we will act together. You will do this, and I will do this.”

We talk about covenant in the church a lot, too. It’s more than just an agreement, in which, say, you and I agree to do something. And it is less than, or maybe more than, a legal contract which tends to be less about “let us trust one another to do right” and more about “I don’t trust you, so let’s put this into writing.” It’s a kind of agreement or contract, but which is based on trust. A marriage is a covenant. Our relation here as a congregation, our fellowship, is a covenant to agree with one another to be followers of Jesus. We don’t have a doctrine or specific belief that unites us, but we are united as followers of Jesus to help one another, challenge one another, be on the journey together. And this congregation is in covenant with almost 6000 other congregations to form the United Church of Christ that we are part of.

So we have this covenant this God makes with the people through Moses on the mountaintop. But God had made covenants before and after. There is the covenant with Noah after the flood when God sets the rainbow in the sky as the symbol of the covenant never to flood the world again. There is the covenant with Abraham to make a great nation out of him. We read last week the story of Ishmael and Hagar. Ishmael was Abraham’s first son, whom he had with Hagar, Sarah’s handmaiden, who was not Abraham’s wife, but whom Sarah had told Abraham to impregnate so that he would have a son. A few years after Sarah gave birth to Isaac, finally fulfilling God’s promise to her and Abraham that they would have a child, she had Abraham send Ishmael and Hagar into the desert because of Sarah’s fear that Ishmael might “steal” God’s promise to Abraham. As Ishmael is dying from dehydration in the desert, Hagar prays to God, and God responds with a promise (that is, makes a covenant) that Ishmael, too, shall inherit Abraham’s promise, and he also will be the father of a great nation, and he is saved.

Then the covenants continue with Isaac and Jacob. Then the covenant with the Hebrew people that Moses is mediator of. And other covenants that God makes throughout the Hebrew scriptures. Many covenants.

Then with Jesus, a new kind of covenant appears. God makes a new kind of covenant through Jesus. Previous covenants have been of the formula of God saying, “I will do this and you will do this; and if you do not do this, then I will do that...”

But the covenant that is Jesus is a new kind: it’s a totally one sided covenant. It is of the form of God saying, “I will do this.”

And that’s it.

No requirement for the other partner in the covenant. Nothing we have to do in this new covenant. God says, “I will do this. I will love you, will forgive you, will shower you with grace, will fill you with the Holy Spirit, will hold you, will comfort you, I will be – No! I *am* – your God! And you don’t need to do anything. This is my gift to you.”

Now it is all God’s action: “I will do this. My gift to you.”

No longer do we have to do things because we have to. We do things in response to God’s love, not to earn, or achieve, or be worthy of God’s love, but simply as a response to God’s love. God who says, “I love you unconditionally, and that’s it.”

So when Jesus is asked, “What is the greatest commandment?” he has these ten, and the other 603 commandments to choose from. He doesn’t say, “Well, you have to believe this...” nor does he say, “Well, the biggest one is don’t kill” or “Don’t eat shrimp” or “Don’t wear clothing of mixed fibers” or “Don’t associate with women”.

He doesn’t say any of those.

He quotes instead a variation of two passages from the Jewish scriptures from Deuteronomy and Leviticus: “Love God with all your strength, with all your heart, and with all your mind; and love your neighbor as yourself.”

That’s it.

That’s the law.

The rest, as they say, is commentary about how to live that out. That sums it all up. Just love God, who loves us already, and love our neighbor and love ourselves and love our neighbor as much as we love ourselves. Or more than we love ourselves. But there is also in there the command to love ourselves and not beat ourselves up. We are to love ourselves, our neighbor, and love God.

As I look at the world that is around us, and let me say that there is an awful lot of good and wonderful things that humans do. It can be too easy to focus on the negative and wallow in a kind of nostalgic sentimentalism about an age that never existed except in our minds. But, as I look around the world, I do see evil and injustice. There are political, economic, religious, and social systems that aren’t loving. That hurt people. That leave people behind. That don’t help the poor, or the immigrants, or the foreigners, or so many of our brothers and sisters. There are wars and violence, political maneuvering over resources, economic destruction foisted by one country or corporation on innocent people.

As I look on that world, I grow more and more convinced that trying to reduce Christian faith to a set of intellectual propositions has been incredibly harmful to the Church and harmful to the world. It has allowed us to forget that Jesus’ only command to his disciples and to us was to love another one another.

Think of people who live in areas without easy access to water or to clean water. Our camps this summer are raising money for an organization called DigDeep that helps to bring wells and clean water into places that don’t have either. There are places around the world in which communities are miles away from the wells. So women and children spend many hours a day walking to the source of water and then walking back with a few jugs of water, and going back and forth to have enough to cook with, drink, do laundry, and so on. And because they spend so much time dealing with getting water, they don’t have the time needed to get an education, or have a job, or start a business, or do whatever might lift them out of their poverty.

When I think of people in situations like that, I think that what they don’t need is a Bible. They don’t need people coming in and telling them what to believe. They need water. They need a well in the middle of their community, or in their homes. They need water purifiers. They need something to help free up their time so they can be more than living day by day and therefore take better care of their families and their communities.

People who are hungry don’t need Bibles, they need food. Not that Bibles are bad, but they need food first. And sometimes they need a better government, or to end the wars or violence around that causes constant struggle and destruction of fields or pollution of water or otherwise keeps them from living fully.

Think of our street ministry here. We don’t go out with Bibles to proselytize them. Though if they ask for a Bible, we’ll give them one. We’ll pray with them, bring them to church, give them devotionals if they ask for them. But what they need is a sleeping bag, food, water. Someone to remember their name. Someone to listen to their story. To offer them dignity. They don’t need to be told, “Believe in the Trinity or you will go to hell!” They’re already in hell. They know what hell is like. We need to listen to them.

And so often they are not in this hell because they failed to believe – many are very spiritual – they are in hell because we, the rest of us, have too often failed to love as fully and sufficiently as we are called to.

And that is really all God wants from us. It sounds very simple to say, “That’s all God wants from us!” It is an awful lot to ask, really, and yet it is a very small request, too. What God wants is for us to love one another, and to love one another because God loves us. God has loved us first, and God loves us always and will always love us, unconditionally. Even when we act in unlovable ways. That’s the Good News of Jesus! We are loved, and free to live without fear so that we are free to love recklessly and dangerously.

“I am your God and I love you. You don’t have to do anything. But I do ask that you love one another to the best you are able.”

Think of the ways we at Plymouth are loving one another through our quilts, our offerings for St. Francis, our street ministry, the way that we treat each other.

“I am your God and I love you. You don’t have to do anything. But I do ask that you love one another.”

And that is a mission that we can live out.

Amen.

--------end of sermon--------

How do you live out "Love God, love your neighbor as yourself?" What would you like to say in response to to Jesus' words, or my words? How might we as followers of Jesus do a better job of living this way, or how might we as a nation or a world do a better job? Or are we doing enough? 

Please post your responses, questions, comments, agreements, retorts, whatever here. Thank you, and God bless.