“A bottle of this, a jug of that, and that’s how God works it” Sermon June 5, 2016, Elijah and the Widow

“A bottle of this, a jug of that, and that’s how God works it”
Sermon, Year C, Proper 5, June 5, 2016
© Rev. David J. Huber 2016
Plymouth UCC, Eau Claire, WI
Focus Scripture: 1 Kings 17:8-24 and Luke 7:11-17





We are talking about vessels for the coming weeks. We are all vessels of one form or another. All of us are vessels. We are all carrying many things around with us and in us. Think of us as jars, or Tupperware, or storage bins, or maybe even grails. What if we think of ourselves as holy grails? Which, in a sense, we are. Holy grails holding God’s spirit. Holding God’s love and grace. Would that make a difference to think of ourselves as a holy grail? I think it does. Something good to remember. We are all vessels.

In that we go about the earth, we go through this earthly life containing things, carrying things, with us. Our personalities, our hopes, our dreams. We carry those around with us. We walk around as well holding on to our failures, or guilt, or shame.

But to that, I say this: remember that our vessels have lids. We can take the lid off, and take out all that which is not healthy or wise for us to carry around. We can let go of all the unhealthy thinking or feelings that are contaminating the good. We can let God take them out and take them away from us, because that’s what God wants us to do, and wants to do for us. That is one of the functions and why we have a prayer of confession and the assurance of pardon in worship. It’s not there to make us feel bad, but to remind us of our state of grace. To admit to our mistakes, to be honest about them, and then let them go. To say, “This happened” or “I did this” or “I failed to do this” and then say “I am going to let that go. I won’t dwell on it or stew on it.” And then to be assured through pardon that God doesn’t hold it against us, and so therefore we don’t have to hold it against us either. We can let it go. We don’t have to marinate in our guilt or our shame.

Open your lid with confession and just let it out and let God have it. That, we do not need to carry in our vessels.

But our vessels also contain our skills, our passions, our life experiences. Our bodily vessels can also show some of our life experiences: the lines under our eyes, our scars, parts of our bodies that have been cut away or removed. Our bodies are also vessels that show some of those life experiences.

We also contain the Holy Spirit. We have within our vessels the Holy Spirit. Imagine that! Something as wildly precious and holy as the Spirit, God said, “I am going to contain that in these human beings that I have made in my image.” That’s good news, there, too! To think that God would use us to hold the Holy Spirit.

We contain our likes and dislikes. I hope your likes outweigh and outnumber your dislikes.

The vessels that we are contain our gratitudes and our disappointments. I hope also that our gratitudes outnumber our disappointments.

We contain love and hate and apathy. Fear and joy, courage and sadness. We also contain the fruits of the Holy Spirit, like a big ol’ fruit basket! Think of the vessel of ourselves as a big fruit basket. We will hear more on the spirit fruits in a few weeks when Andrea is preaching. We are all vessels.

We are all vessels in which God has put things, and in which we put things. Some things that come from God and are wonderful. Things that come from us can be wonderful, but we also have a tendency to put our garbage in there and let it hang out in our vessels. But that stuff… that stuff, we can let out.

The church is also a vessel. It contains many people. It is a container that is also always able to expand as well. There is not a finite space within the vessel that is the church. Always room for one more.

As our worship team was preparing worship for June, as Andrea set up earlier, this idea of vessels came up. It appeared because of stories like today, with the widow and the jar of meal and the jug of oil. We will have a jar of perfume next week that a woman uses to wash Jesus’ feet. Then we will have the vessel of the church, and then the basket of spirit fruit at the end of it all. There is a theme of vessels and containers in those lessons. And it raised some questions for us:

• What are we carrying around in us?
• What has God put in us?
• What do we need to let go of to let God come into us?
• What are you carrying in your vessel?
• What do you carry around with you in this precious beloved unique vessel that is you?
• What are you carrying within you?

Those are the some of the questions we thought of as we were looking at worship.

• What are you carrying, or holding, or maybe even hiding in your vessel?
• What are you holding in there that would be better off if you gave it God and let it go?
• As in confession, What needs to be let go of to make room for a healthier and more spiritually mature life?
• And what are you holding within you that could be used for the glory of God, or that you are using for the glory of God?
• What is your vessel being used for?

We aren’t perfect. We know that are not always going to do things that give glory to God. We are all going to make mistakes. We can’t expect perfection. But we can strive, I think, toward more glory moments than mistake moments. Especially if we rely on the help of the Holy Spirit.

But there is a way to glorify God even in our mistakes, when we admit to them. When we offer forgiveness to others, or offer forgiveness to ourselves. That is a powerful witness, as well, and a way to give glory.

For this widow in Zarephath, her vessel is hospitality and faith. Amongst other things, like love for her child. But as someone in our planning team said, her vessel is one of hospitality and faith.

I thought that was spot-on, and something that I had not thought of. That’s the nice thing about coming together as a group to talk about scripture. We learn from one another.

At the time of the widow and God’s prophet Elijah, the people of Israel had been unfaithful. The king then was King Ahab, and he was awful. The biblical texts spends a lot of words letting us know how awful he was. Did terrible things to his people. He was also at the time of this story worshiping the god Ba’al, which was the god that his wife Jezebel brought to him. Jezebel was from Sidon. She was a foreigner, and she brought Ba’al with her. Ba’al was a god of rain, storm, and fertility. So it is ironic that God, responding to the unfaithfulness of worshiping the god of rain and storm, brought a years-long drought upon Israel. Then God sends Elijah to a person who was not Jewish, Hebrew, or even in the land of Israel. God sends Elijah to this widow in Zarephath, which is in Sidon. Where Jezebel came from. More irony there. God does have a sense of humor, albeit sometimes it’s a dark humor.

Elijah is told to go seek help from a nobody who has nothing. But she really is not without nothing. Materially, her vessel echoes from emptiness. But spiritually, she is filled to overflowing with faith and hospitality.

“Bring me a drink,” Elijah says to her. So she moved to do so. That’s hospitality. What do you do when someone shows up at your door? You give them something to drink. Elijah asks for water, and she goes to get some. Then as she is going, he says to her, “Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.”

That is a very specific request. Not just “Bring me something to eat,” or “Bring me food,” but “Bring me food in your hand.” In your hand. Elijah saying, maybe, “Let your hand, let your physical self as woman and widow and mother, let your hand be the vessel that brings my nourishment. Not a plate or anything else, bring it to me in your hand.” Maybe Elijah also knows that she doesn’t have very much, and that all that she says food-wise maybe would fit in her hand.

She says, “But I have nothing baked!” She has nothing ready to eat. Embarrassed perhaps by her poverty, or embarrassed that she can’t offer hospitality to this stranger. I would think that many of you know that sense of panic, or disappointment, in not being able to provide for a visitor. I saw that in my mom, and aunts, and family friends. I think there is, definitely here in the midwest, a sense of hospitality that when someone shows up at your house you have to give them something to eat. There is always that question when someone shows up, “Did you eat?”

I saw this in my mom and other family when there wasn’t something prepared. “Oh my gosh, we have visitors, and I have no pie, no cake baked, nothing ready to serve them!” So they whip something together. That hospitality is so important to them, and so important as well to our faith as followers of Jesus. Hospitality is really important as a part of our discipleship. And very important within the culture of Elijah and this widow. She says, “I have nothing.”

And then she confesses: “I have so little, that I was going to make a last meal for my son and me and then we were going to die.”

Elijah says to her, words that we hear so often in scripture, “Do not be afraid.” He tells her not to be afraid that there seems to be so little. “Don’t be afraid of me. Don’t be afraid to show hospitality. Don’t be afraid to give from what you have.” And remember, too, that this widow was not Jewish, Hebrew, not an Israelite. She is more than likely a Ba’al worshiper herself. Living in a land foreign from Elijah’s. I don’t think there’s any reason that she would know who Elijah is. I don’t think she would know that she has a great prophet at her doorstep. To her, he’s just a stranger. She has no idea who he is, what god he worships, maybe not even knowing where he’s from. He says to her, “Do not be afraid. Make me food, and make some for you, and for your son, because my god” - now he lets her know who he is! - “Because my god, the God of Israel has said that your jar of meal and your jug of oil shall not fail until God brings rain upon the earth. My God will provide for you. My God cares about you.” So she followed his directions. She made the food and her vessel, filled with faith, and maybe filled with hope - though it can be difficult sometimes to tell the difference between hope and faith, as they are very similar - she does as Elijah instructs her. Her jar and her jug were not emptied. They never ran out of meal, never ran out of oil.

As someone in our planning team said, “God gives us vessels of unending love and grace.”

What is in your vessel? How much room for God have you left in your vessel? Are there some things that need to be cleaned out to make more room for God? What are you using your vessel for? I hope that you are using it for the glory of God, and for making a more loving world. For being disciples. For showing the faith of God to those around us, trusting that we have unending jars and jugs that the more we empty them out for God’s glory, for the sake of God’s realm and the sake of God’s people, the more that God fills them back to the top.

Amen.

“Life Consists in the Abundance of What We Have Given Away” Sermon July 31, 2016

“Life Consists in the Abundance of What We Have Given Away”
Sermon, Year C, Proper 13, July 31, 2016
© Rev. David J. Huber 2016
Plymouth UCC, Eau Claire, WI
Focus Scripture: Luke 12:13-21




Jesus finishes here, after his parable, with the words, “So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”

Now, I could say, and I’m sure many have before me who have taken this text and said, “Therefore every dollar that you keep to yourself and don’t give to the church, God will hold against you.” Or put it the other way around, and say that “For every dollar you give to the church, God will hold in your favor.”

But I don’t think Jesus is talking about institutional giving. And I don’t think that God holds against us or in favor of us just because we give or don’t give a certain amount to the church. I don’t think that’s a good way to look at God.

I think that when Jesus says, “Be rich toward God” he isn’t talking about being generous to God’s institutions, which in Jesus’ time would have been the Temple in Jerusalem; and would be nowadays the Church, or temples, or mosques, or wherever God’s people gather. We have record of Jesus at other times being critical of the greed of the Temple, just as Luther and later reformers were critical of the greed of the Church. Even churches can be greedy and fall to that sinful temptation. Even the institutions that are of God can be greedy and fall into that bad side of idolatry of money and things.

So I do not think that this is a stewardship parable in the sense of giving to the institution. This is not saying that you must give to God by giving to the institution.

But it is a stewardship parable in terms of our relationship to money and our relationship to things, which relationships are - ultimately - about our relationships to people. Our relationships to our neighbors and our neighborhood. Our relationship to money and/or things very much informs how, then, we relate to the people around us and how we relate to God.

Jesus asks us to be rich toward God.

I don’t think he’s just talking about money or things, either. Being rich toward God is also our attitude toward life. Be rich in attitude to God. I think there is a good reason that the people who put together the lectionary readings for each Sunday paired this parable with Paul’s letter to the Colossians.

Paul says some words about what it could look like to live rich toward God. Paul says, “Set your minds on things above.” Meaning, set your minds on godly things, heavenly things. Though please let me say that this is an okay metaphor, but it’s an unfortunate metaphor that we are stuck with, to think always of God as “above” or up. God is also here, and also below. Above, here, and below. It is unfortunate metaphor to think of God as above. Maybe, if we thought more about God being here, and of God being below with the destitute, the poor, the homeless, the addicted, those who are the underclass of society… if we thought more of God also as below and here, instead of just above, maybe we would notice and care for our neighbors a lot more than we do.

Set your mind on godly things, Paul says, and let go of the ungodly. He speaks mostly of the ungodly in this passage: impurity, evil desires, greed (which he also calls “idolatry”), disobedience, abusive language, malice. He says to embrace the godly. He doesn’t list the godly here, but he does in his letter to the Galatians when he talks about the spirit fruit: goodness, self-control, kindness, love, joy, peace, patience, faithfulness, gentleness. That is how we can be rich toward God. That is what it is to be rich toward God. By showing the spirit fruit and letting go of the other things, enjoyable as they might be at times, especially in certain moments. Using abusive language, or being angry, or slandering… sometimes those can feel sooo good, but Paul says, let go of that and replace it with godly riches, which are the spirit fruit. Replace with goodness, generosity, faithfulness, love…

The man in the parable tore down his buildings to build bigger storehouses for his crops. His crops were his capital, his valuables, his treasure. Even though his previous storehouses were clearly enough to live on, which we know because he is still alive. But now he has an abundance and says, “Well, then I must tear down what I have and build bigger ones because now i have more stuff.” Gotta have a place for our stuff. Like the great George Carlin routine about how we like our stuff and ever search for room to store it. To say, “God has blessed me so much, I had to get a second (or third) storage unit” as though it is some kind of competition that he who has the most storage units at the end is the winner. The one who collects the most is the winner.

I think you’ve missed the understanding of what it means to be blessed, because, fool, this night your life is demanded of you.

What good are those extra storehouses. What good is it to keep all of that abundance for yourself. Why do that?

In the context of this parable, Jesus is offering it as a response to this man’s demand that Jesus tell his brother to divide his inheritance. A couple weeks ago we had Jesus at Martha’s house and she’s doing all the work while Mary listens to Jesus. Martha comes out and tells Jesus, “Say something to Mary! Please, tell her that she has to help me!” An instance of trying to get Jesus involved in a domestic dispute. And here, in today’s lesson, is another domestic dispute. “Jesus, I was you to intervene on my behalf with my brother. Tell him to split our inheritance.”

So it begins, really, about relationships. The relationship between these two brothers, and the relationship at least this man who speaks and his relationship with money. The whole Luke passage begins and ends with relationships. It really is not about money per se. What is our relationship with money and with one another?

Jesus begins with saying, “Be on your guard against all kinds of greed, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” The man in the parable had an abundance of possessions and yet his life was taken away. What do you think he might have missed in life? What lesson he might have missed? Or what parts of life did he miss because he had this attitude? What did he miss in life?

Do we want to be that person?

Do you want to be that person?

What is it to be more attached to a thing, than to the people around you? What does that say about our values as people, as a church, as a community?

As I have grown older and marginally wiser, I hope, and I hope becoming a better disciple over the years, a better follower of Jesus over the years, I’ve come to a few conclusions of life related to this parable. Some of my attitudes toward money and things, and even the way that I live, have changed.

One less is that I learned I really don’t need a lot of stuff. I used to think that I did need a lot of stuff. I would collect things, spend my money and time on stuff that I found later really didn’t matter so much. I don’t need to have a lot of stuff. I still have too much, but I am trying to reduce as best as I can.

In letting go of things, now, much of what I have left are the things that are more valuable and important to me. So now I have art that means something to me. That either I bought while on a trip, or I know the artist, or some kind of attachment to the art or the mementos that I pick up on trips. I used to just buy a pile of souvenirs to bring home for the sake of having a pile of souvenirs, many of which I never really looked at again but for some reason I would collect all of them. Now when I go somewhere, I maybe buy one or two things that really say something about that experience or that trip that I can display or put in a place where I can see them, or that I actually use them. Something other than putting them in a box and putting them in a closet. Nicer things and things that mean something to me because of the memory they bring and the story behind them.

A second thing I’ve learned is that letting go of things is really quite freeing. Physical things, like knick knacks, toys, souvenirs, money, or letting go of the things that Paul was talking about. Letting go of the pride, the anger, the abusive language. I made a new year’s resolution a couple years ago to try not to be so sarcastic or divisive online in my comments to people. If I am going to say something, let it be something that builds or helps the conversation and isn’t just mean, firing off my anger, or a nasty retort, or a sarcastic something or other. Letting go of the abusive language, and letting go of things as well.

I talked about storage units before. I say that as one that has had a storage unit in down in Sparta for 20-some years. When I moved to New York to go to seminary, I could take a small amount. I was going to live in a dorm, but I had been living on my own so I had a kitchen full of equipment and furniture and other things that I wouldn’t need in NYC. And I thought I’d be coming right back after graduation, but I didn’t. I stayed in New York for another ten years. So by the time I came back to Wisconsin, I had new and better furniture, and better kitchen equipment, and other things. So other than my bicycle, I haven’t needed anything that I had in storage so I left it untouched. But I’m trying to empty it out now.

I was down there a few weeks ago and brought six boxes of stuff back with me. Out of those six boxes there was one board game that I wanted, and some mementos from my fraternity. The rest of the stuff was nothing that means anything to me. Computer books that were totally outdated. Loading supplies that I don’t need because I don’t hunt any more. Collectible glasses that meant so much to me at one time, but don’t really mean anything to me any more. Things in there that can go to someone for whom it will have meaning, or give to the thrift sale here, or give away. Some items that are collectibles that can go on ebay. But stuff to be let go.

There is a lot of freedom in letting go of things. To not let those things rule us. Whether physical things or stuff like our pride, our egos, our traditions, our ideas…

The third thing that I’ve learned is that I don’t bring into my life any more things that I don’t plan to use. I think I’ve used this example before, but I’ll say it again. For so much of my mother’s life she wanted a set of china. Totally understandable. She grew up in incredible poverty, had so little, and the china was a symbol of having “made it” or at least of having gotten out of poverty. So I can see her desire for having china. But once she finally got a set, she was so afraid of breaking it, that we used it only twice. And she did not even display it - it sat in her fancy dishware cabinet, behind closed doors, unseen and unused.

I don’t bring things into my life that I don’t plan to use or that I am afraid of breaking or that I am afraid of losing. I don’t want my possessions to have that power over me. If I’m afraid of it breaking, then I won’t get it. Or if I am afraid of losing it, or someone taking it, then I won’t have it. I don’t want those to have that much power over me. I don’t want to store up treasures for me, but instead want to be rich toward God. I am certainly not in any perfect, or anywhere near as good as I would like to be, but that is the value that I try to keep before me.

As your pastor, I want you to do that as well.

As people of God, as a church, I want us to do that as well. To keep that value before us, that life consists not in the abundance of possessions, but in the abundance of what we have given away.

Amen.

“Conversations with God” - sermon from July 24, 2016, on prayer and praying

“Conversations with God”

Sermon, Year C, Proper 12, July 24, 2016

© Rev. David J. Huber 2016

Plymouth UCC, Eau Claire, WI

Focus Scripture: Luke 11:1-13 and Genesis 18:20-32

The story of Abraham and God having a conversation here is one of asking, seeking, and knocking with God. Abraham has the audacity to petition God. Like many of our prayers, God’s ultimate answer is “no,” but Abraham asks. To be in conversation with God and speak what is on his heart. Abraham speaking what is on his heart. God is planning to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah.

But first, I want to take a little tangent here from the prayerful part of this text just to avoid continuing the story that has grown around this story that God’s anger with Sodom and Gomorrah was solely or mostly about homosexuality, or other sexual issues. Let’s expand that a bit. In the Genesis story, God does not offer specifics about the wickedness of the people, just that they have fallen into wicked ways. God doesn’t say what they’ve done, only that they have fallen into evil ways. To get the answer, we have to go to the prophet Ezekiel, who gives us an answer to what Sodom’s sin really was: 

Ezekiel 16:49 [this is God speaking through the prophet Ezekiel] “This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.

They had fallen away from God’s way of loving your neighbor. Their sin was that they did not help the poor and needy; that they had excess food and were not sharing it. It was a sin of failing to show hospitality, and a sin to fail to love their neighbors by feeding the hungry and taking care of those in need. They failed to live up to God’s standards that we would love our neighbors and take care of one another.

That’s not particularly pertinent to this sermon, but it’s hard to read this story without wanting to mention that the sin here is not homosexuality, but their failure to take care of the poor and needy. It is important to know and remember, in case you hear - as we often do - someone blame homosexuality as the sin of this city. Now you have a way of challenging them, and reminding them that, no, the sin was that they, as a community, particularly the monied and powerful part of that community, failed at the primary duty that God sets before us: to care for the least of these, for those who are the most vulnerable and powerless. So, end of tangent, and back to the sermon.

God says to Abraham that God is going to destroy the cities.

But Abraham sees the terrible nature of what God proposes, and so he implores God in this conversation not to do so. And what is prayer, but conversation with God? That is all prayer is: it is having a conversation with God. For all that we may think that prayer is something tricky or requires a certain skill or takes training - and I know a lot of us are fearful of praying in public, whether it be saying a table grace at our potlucks or praying publicly at other times - it is not a tricky thing to do. It’s just conversation. Letting God know what is on your mind and heart. Your joys and concerns. We do that every Sunday, taking our joys and concerns and putting them in prayer. Your disappointments and your thanksgivings. Your fed-up-ness with the evils of the world, or your fed-up-ness of your own mistakes or proclivity to do wrong, or your sufferings that are not in accordance with how your values say the world ought to be, or your sufferings from health, or things happening in your family, your community, the world…. Whatever it is that is on your mind or heart, offered to God in a conversation. 

It doesn’t have to be flowery Shakespearean speech or beautiful language. It just needs to be honest. It needs to come from the heart and your mind. As you would speak with a friend in conversation. However you would speak to your friends, talk to God that way. Not like talking to your boss or the Queen of England or something…. Nothing tricky or difficult about it. 

Give it to God, and then listen for God’s response. Which rarely comes in speech. It rarely comes directly sas speech, but it does come from the people around us and what they say, or through scripture, or an event. Listen. Have that conversation, and then listen for God’s response. 

So Abraham is in conversation with God. This is a very prayerful conversation. Abraham doesn’t like what God is planning to do. “But what if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Would you destroy them with the city, just because you are angry at some of the people?”

Abraham is reminding God of God’s sense of justice. They have been in a relationship for a long time. 

And God says, “No, for the sake of fifty I will not.”

Then Abraham says, “Well, what about forty-five?” And God says, “No, if there are forty-five.”

Well, then, how about forty?

Thirty?

Twenty?

Ten?

One might think this is trying God’s patience. But it is being persistent. God continues to respond to each of Abraham’s interruptions. “Are you really willing to take out innocents, God, just to punish those who maybe deserve it? The innocents don’t deserve it.”

This is coming out of Abraham’s anguish, maybe even anger, at God, that God would plan to do something like this. Many of the Psalms, too, are prayers of anguish and anger and lament at God. How could you let this happen? Or “Remember your covenant with us, God!” Prayers of lament: This is happening to me, God, and it is not good. Or, This is happening to us, and it is not good.  These prayers of lament. Offer that to God as well. They are reminders to God that God, also, must be faithful. Conversation with God. 

The entirety of who we are, our joys and concerns, our hopes and pains, whatever it is, offer it in conversation with God.

One of my very favorite comic book writers and artists is Will Eisner. He wrote especially of the human condition and the human struggle. Don’t be fooled by the term “comic book writer and artist”, he was a serious literary guy as well. He did comics from the 1930s into his old age until he died in 2005. In his later years he did graphic novels of very serious story telling about aging, life, the life of cities. Some of you older folk might remember “The Spirit” that ran in Sunday newspapers from 1930s to the early 40s. Will was Jewish, and grew up in poverty in the tenements of New York City in the South Bronx, after his parents immigrated to the U.S. He was born and grew up in conditions that weren’t particularly good. Lots of poverty around him, and rough times. Then after Eisner got married, he had a daughter. She died of leukemia when she was a teenager. He turned his anguish over her death into what became a very important book called “Contract with God”. I highly recommend that you read it. In this book, a faithful young Jewish man, Frimme, writes a contract with God promising that he (Frimme) will be faithful by living a life of good deeds. He does live a life of good deeds, and becomes successful. He moves from Russia to New York City, and everything is going well for him and he attributes all his success to being a man of good deeds, but mostly because of God upholding the covenant. He is very faithful and believes that God is upholding the covenant, the contract. But then his daughter dies when she is a teenager, much like Eisner’s daughter. Then he abandons his faith because he is so angry at God. Throughout the story are moments of prayerful anguish that the man has with God. The debate he has with God, like Abraham and like Moses and others we read in the Bible. He laments, “Why did this happen? How dare you break the covenant?” He lets all of his anger and anguish at God. 

Read it to find out how it ends. It’s really a very honest and faithful take, I think, on how our relation with God can be be fully honest. It doesn’t just have to be “Thank you, everything is okay.” Or pretend that God only wants to hear our thanks and praise for the good things in our lives. 

God is big enough to take our anger and our suffering. God doesn’t want just our thanks and praise as though everything is okay, though if we are honestly thankful, then offer it. God also wants all of who we are, though. Be honest about all of who we are with God.

Abraham is, I think, angry at God here. They’ve had a long relationship. Abraham has put a lot of trust into God, and now God seems to be willing to do something that goes against God’s nature.

Abraham is aware of this because Abraham has been paying attention, listening to God, being in prayer with God.

If you were here last Sunday, you heard the story of Jesus in the home of Martha, in which her sister Mary sits at Jesus’ feet and listens while Martha does all the work. She is cooking the food, cleaning the dishes, doing the chores, and providing the hospitality. Martha becomes angry at Mary, and she asks Jesus to intervene. But Jesus says, “Mary has chosen the better way.”

If you want to know more about that, you can last week’s sermon or listen to it online. 

In that instance, at Martha’s house, the better way was a time of paying attention. Of listening to Jesus, hearing the word, finding her focus in Jesus. Martha’s busy-ness was not rooted in Jesus, it was rooted in something else - her need to serve, perhaps, or something. Spend time in prayer to find our focus again.

Something we often lose in the church. We get focused on the programs or the building or the budget or other distractions, and we lose our focus on Jesus as the reason for why we do what we do, and why we are gathered. We do what we do, which is to make and grow disciples and grow in faith and bring God’s love to other people, because of Jesus. To follow his example, to do what he asks us to do.

Mary has chosen the better way. Then immediately after that brief interlude at Martha’s home, the Gospel moves to Jesus and his disciples being out together, and they ask him about prayer. Like they are asking Jesus, “We’ve just witnessed the interchange between Martha and Mary. Clearly it is important to pay attention, to listen, and to spend time in the word, and to spend time in prayer. So teach us. Teach us how to pray.”

Jesus teaches them what we now call the Lord’s prayer. Which is an incredibly efficient prayer that covers all the bases in few words. It begins by saying to God that YOU are the holy one, God; we are here to be about YOUR realm and doing YOUR will, not ours, here on earth. Give us enough for today, because we recognize that you are the one who gives, and that we don’t need more than we actually need. Forgive our sins, because we know we can’t, and help us to forgive others with the same generosity that you show us. Keep us from temptation. Keep us focused on you and paying attention, so that we don’t stray. So that we don’t go into ungodly places with our lives. We pray this to you because we know that you are the one who is the ground of our being, and the only one who deserves the glory.

Then Jesus continues by telling his disciples about “ask, seek, knock” and God will listen. He says, “Will a father give a child a scorpion if she asks for an egg? Or a snake if he asks for a fish?” Of course not! He’s saying, “Look to the most good and honorable person that you know, and know that God is more good than that! God is more loving than the most loving person you know.” Keep that relationship going with God, by going to God in prayer. 

Keep that relationship going. With prayer meaning “conversation”. Remember that GOD is the prime mover, not us; and that we don’t have to go it alone, nor should we try. The faithful way to go is to ask God to come along with us on the journey. Or even better yet, to first ask God how we can go along to where God is moving, where God would have us go. To ask how we can join Jesus on his (our) journey. It is easy to forget to include God in what we are doing. I know I often forget to include God, or to seek God’s counsel first. It is easy to fall into doing what I think ought to be done, and then maybe at the end of it, then remember God, “Whoops, I screwed that up, God; perhaps you can fix it for me.”

Not to say, “Jesus, do this for me”, but to say, “Jesus, help me do for you what you want from me.”

Let’s take it as “ask, seek, knock” means, basically, that we’ve remembered to seek God’s counsel, and to include God in our plans, and that we can go to God with all that we are. All our hopes and dreams, our sufferings and angst. Focus our minds on Jesus and to root our plans in God’s vision and who God is. We may discern that through paying attention to the word, and through prayer. Praying can help us focus our minds to find, to hear, and to be aware of the answer. To do that so that we may more faithfully act as God would have us act. In that holy conversation of give and take with God, in honest dialogue with the God who loves us and who loves the world, and who does want to hear from us because God cares for us. 

Don’t be afraid to pray. Don’t be fearful to pray to God. Whether you do it silently in your head, or if you are with a group of people and someone says, “Would you like to lead the prayer?” You can do it! It might be scary at first, but just think of it as having a conversation. Whatever is on your mind or your heart. It should not be a terrifying thing to do, or a scary thing to do, but it is a beautiful gift that God has given us because God cares for us all. 

May you have a good and faithful prayer life. 

Amen. 

"Marthas and Marys" Sermon from July 17, 2016

“Marthas and Marys”
Sermon, Year C, Proper 11, July 17, 2016
© Rev. David J. Huber 2016
Plymouth UCC, Eau Claire, WI
Focus Scripture: Luke 10:38-49





So, we have Jesus and Mary and Martha and a domestic squabble about household chores and womanly duties.

The stuff that soap operas are made of. Or perhaps sitcoms. Jesus and Mary and Martha on their weekly adventures together.

My friend Jeff and I discussed this text this week, because he is preaching on it at his home church. He’s a UCCer over in Oshkosh and lay academy graduate, and gets to preach occasionally. When he does, he likes to get into a conversation about the text with me and talk about the sermon.

He’s also really funny, as well as faithful and very serious about his faith, but not afraid to find the funny in it.

So we got on a riff about what if this were a 1980s sitcom. We didn’t know what each episode would contain, but we knew that every show would end in the same way. It would be the catchphrase, Jesus saying, “Remember, Martha, choose the better way!” (or sometimes, “Remember, Mary, choose the better way!”).

And Mary says, “Oh, Martha!”

And Martha says, “Oh, Mary!”

Then the theme music is cued, close up for Jesus laughing and rolling his eyes as these two have another argument about listening versus doing, and freeze screen on his laughing face as the credits rolls.

It *is* a comical text, in a way. It’s a funny little story here, and sets itself up in the archetypal way that so many sitcoms do.

Martha is the busy-body who wants to get things done and make sure people are taken care of. She cares about hospitality, but she’s always busy with something, not taking time to sit down or even enjoy the food that she’s serving to others.

Mary, the dreamer, the one who would rather have her head in a book (or in this case, be at Jesus’ feet listening to stories and teaching), who isn’t so much concerned whether the dishes get done today or tomorrow. The work will always be there, let’s take our time now to enjoy today.

Narrow visions of both. I’m sure Martha was not only a busy kind of person, and that Mary was not just the dreamer bookhead. But for a sitcom, that works, as they tend to be one-dimensional archetypes.

They have Jesus in their home, and Martha is growing increasingly irritated at Mary. She grows increasingly irritated that Mary is sitting at Jesus’ feet while there’s work to be done.

But instead of complaining to Mary, which would be the right way to handle this dispute, she goes to Jesus. That’s where I see the humor in the text. She doesn’t speak to Mary about this, she asks Jesus, the Lord of all Creation and savior of the world and Prince of Peace, “Hey - Lord-boy - talk to my sister, and tell her to help out!”

Kind of a disrespectful way to approach it.

I don’t know if she knew that Jesus was Lord of all Creation or Savior of the World. But I’m pretty sure she thought of him as an important teacher. Maybe as a holy man. She does call him Lord. So this request is quite odd to ask Jesus to intervene. Or maybe not.

Maybe she feel his divine influence would help her in a conversation in which she has failed on her own hundreds of times.

Or maybe she thought since Mary was so willing to listen to Jesus, that she’d listen to him tell her to help. Imagine that teaching. “Blessed are the meek, for they inherit the world. Blessed are those who mourn. Blessed are the poor. And Mary, come on, would it kill ya to help out your sister once in awhile?”

It’s so wonderfully domestic, this little passage tucked between the parable of the Good Samaritan and Jesus teaching the disciples how to pray. The Prince of Peace is in their home, and Martha asks him to mediate a dispute with Mary about chores and hospitality. And then it doesn’t go her way, either. First she gets whammied by a sister who won’t help, and then when she ass Jesus to help out, she gets whammied by him by being told that she’s chosen the lesser way.

Ouch. That’s gotta hurt.

Then the story ends. No resolution to it.

So did she sit down and join Jesus, or did she go back to work? What would you do?

Hmmm…. It is an interesting question.

Interesting because it seems to me that Jesus offers her a somewhat confusing answer here because there is so much emphasis in the biblical texts about hospitality. About the importance of making sure that guests are being take care, and neighbors being cared for. We see that in the Genesis story that we read. Abraham shows hospitality to the strangers, and discovers he is literally showing hospitality to angels. Like it says in the letter to the Hebrews (which is part of the New Testament), “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”

We have talked a lot about hospitality in this congregation over the past couple of years as well. How important it is to be open and welcoming, to greet people, to go beyond in serving them, and so on.

And so here is Martha, working herself into a sweat, into anxiety and frustration, to be a good host and make sure her guests are being taken care of…

and Jesus tells her she’s wrong.

So which one is it? Hospitality and service, or sit at Jesus’ feet? There is tension here in this text. Just as there tension in our lives, too.

However… however… I can also imagine that there were times that Jesus lifted up Martha as the worker, as the one who chose the better way. It’s contextual, the times to listen or to act. Sometimes we need to sit and listen, sometimes we need to act. Jesus does tell his disciples to out and do things, but there are also times that Jesus spends time with them teaching and praying, giving them the word. So I can imagine that were times that Jesus said to Mary, “Today is not the day for words and learning, Mary. Today we are out with the people, healing and comforting and washing their feet.”

But in her house, that day, it was a day of learning and being immersed in the word. And Martha, for all the gifts of her hospitality, was not listening. She was also focused on herself. She uses “me” language here. She addresses Jesus as Lord but then only wants his lordly power to make a decision in her favor. A tool that she can use, instead of a locus of spiritual centering. She’s focused on herself and her work, but not on Jesus, the one who should be her (and our) focus.

It’s a trap that churches can fall into. To do things to maintain the institution, but falling away from engagement with the living Christ. To remember WHY we are the church, and WHY we do what we do. It’s easily to fall into the place of focusing on our work, ourselves, our building, our budgets, or whatever might be that churches can get caught up on and leave Jesus out of it, or push him out of the picture. To not take time to remember to sit at Jesus’ feet. To be immersed in Jesus’ word and remember what he said. To hear him speak again.

I have mentioned before that our Conference, the Wisconsin Conference of the UCC, is putting a lot of time and resources into a new initiative on church vitality and church growth. The tagline of this initiative “From maintenance to mission.”

It is a moving away from focusing on ourselves and our activity, the maintaining the church or preserving the institution for the sake of the institution or the buildings or the history… it is to move from a maintenance frame of mind to making the church a missional church, which is what we ought to be about. From an inward focus to an outward focus.

But part of that is also to spend the time with Jesus’ words to remember who we are and who Jesus calls us to be. To remember WHY we are doing what we do, and what we are called to do and be, keeping Jesus as our focus always.

So in this sitcom that Jeff and I came up with, I could see that each week’s episode having a different adventure of some sort. Mary and Martha and Jesus in different situations. Some weeks Jesus has to remind Martha that her activity has lost its rootedness and she needs to spend some time in prayer and contemplation and listening to Jesus’ words; and some weeks, it is Mary who gets told that she’s spending too much time in the word and she needs to go out and make her faith active and alive in the world. The tension between contemplation, learning, praying and praying by being active in the world, by doing the mission that we want to do. That tension of doing both.

That’s the cycle. Come to worship on Sunday mornings and worship to hear scripture, to remember the words, to sing, to spend time with fellow disciples. Hopefully you are spending some other time during the week reading scripture or something faith-based, spending time with friends discussion life, spending some time in prayer. All of that to help give focus, then, to how or why we act at work or in school, being out and about in the world, or how we serve the church and how we encounter our neighbors.

The Church needs both the Marthas and the Marys, and thank God for them both. The Church needs the Marthas and Marys.

“Oh, Mary!”

“Oh, Martha!”

And Jesus smiles, knowing that they understand the need for both.

Amen.

"Who Is My Neighbor?" Sermon from July 10, 2016, Good Samaritan Year C Proper 10

“Who Is My Neighbor?”

Sermon, Year C, Proper 10, July 10, 2016

© Rev. David J. Huber 2016

Plymouth UCC, Eau Claire, WI

Focus Scripture: Luke 10:25-37  

“Who is my neighbor?” 

That is a profound question! Who is my neighbor?

I give the guy credit for asking this question. It’s a good change from his original, very selfish question - “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Directed solely at himself as though all God wants us to worry about is ourselves our or post-life life.

But he - the one asking the questions to Jesus - gets asked back, at his first question, “What is written in the law?” and he answers rightly, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” 

I think, and I didn’t go through to check to make sure, but I think this is the only time that someone answered Jesus and he says, “Yep, you got it!”

You nailed it. That law is written in the old testament - the “love God” part is in Deuteronomy 6:5 and the “love your neighbor” is in Leviticus 19:18 - so it’s also not new with Jesus, though Jesus really took it as the center and focus and motivation of his ministry.

“You get it!” Jesus says to the man. I imagine Jesus excited. Finally, someone understands!

But then the man asks a follow up question. I wonder if Jesus sighed at the question, his face relaxed in sadness, a frowny face, maybe. Here is this bright man who seems to “get it” - love God, love neighbor! 

Then the question, “But who is my neighbor?”

Hmmm….

Important question.

Define your terms, Jesus. What do you mean by “neighbor”?  If we are going to talk about neighbors, let’s define it. Who is my neighbor? Surely you don’t mean people not like me. Or people outside my family and friends. Or outside my tribe. Surely you don’t mean the prostitute or the man sleeping under the bridge by Phoenix Park or the meth addict or the Syrian refugee or the young men being shot or the men who shot up the club in Orlando or blew up the airport in Istanbul during Ramadan or … do you? None of them, right? Or do you?

Who is my neighbor?

“Well, it’s like this,” Jesus says, and he tells this weird story about a man who is ambushed by robbers and beaten almost to death, who is helped by a Samaritan - an outsider, a person hated by the Jewish people for being the wrong kind of Jewish; and who didn’t like the Jewish people because they were the wrong kind of Jewish - a Samaritan who gives an innkeeper 2 denarii, which was about two months’ worth of lodging at the time. That’s a substantial amount of money! He helps the man, gives the inn-keeper 2 denarii to keep the man protected and doctored. Promises to pay whatever else the inn-keeper spends. The Samaritan has no relation with this man, no responsibility toward him. But he is merciful anyway, even without that relationship.

As I wrote that, I thought, maybe that word “anyway” should never be attached to “mercy” - because mercy is never earned. It is always an “anyway”. To show mercy is to treat someone better than they deserve. That’s the nature of mercy. It is not earned or deserved, other than that we are God’s people, and have an inherent right to mercy because God shows us mercy. But it is never deserved. The Samaritan shows the man mercy, which he doesn’t have to by any rules at the time: except the rule of God, who says to show mercy and do kindness and to walk humbly. 

“But, God, this man doesn’t deserve mercy!”

God responds, “I know. That’s why you must give it. If he deserved it, then he wouldn’t need it. Giving it then would be an economic transaction, a kind of quid pro quo. I do this for you, you do this for me; or you do this, then I’ll show mercy. No, it is precisely because he doesn’t deserve mercy that he deserves it and that you must show it.” You don’t wait for someone to earn mercy, you just give it, as God gives mercy to us.

So Jesus asks the man, after telling this parable, “Who of these three people is the neighbor?”

And the man, still capable of giving the right answer, says, “The one who showed mercy.”

To which Jesus says, “Go and do likewise.”

Which becomes the real answer to his first question, “How do I inherit eternal life?” It is to show mercy. To whom? To your neighbor. Who is my neighbor? Everyone.

Or we could also think of it as, that it is by showing mercy on someone that they become our neighbor. Through our mercy they become our neighbor. We invite them into that circle that we call neighbor. Our street ministry is much about showing mercy, and receiving mercy, and building that web of those who are our neighbor.

We do, though, live in a very large world. I think it is good to think of all the people as our neighbors. But we also won’t meet most of them. Most people of the world we won’t be in contact with, so it becomes kind of an abstract concept. 

I also don’t think any of us are in a position to try to make neighbors with the people who have been bombing airports and shooting innocents in dance clubs or those involved in the too often shootings of young men and women by police or the shooting of police by others… probably none of us are in a position to get to know any of the families of the slain or the families of the slayers, or what the emotional and spiritual impact is on them or will be in the future… none of us will be in a position to know what was really in the minds of the bombers, or what was in the thoughts of the cops, or the people the police were encountering, or in the minds of those who were shooting cops in Dallas… so much violence this week.

We may never be in a position to hear or experience the grief and pain of those in Syria and those who have fled; or the community of Istanbul or those flying through it. But one never knows. In some way, you may have a connection. My cousin Tyler was on a vacation in Europe for a couple weeks and she was scheduled to fly home through Istanbul two days after the bombing. She did, and she was fine. But at a little family reunion yesterday, I was sitting with her parents and extended family, and they talked about how nervous and anxious they were about her flying through that airport, and that they were from the time they heard of the bombing until she arrived home.

It can seem overwhelming to see the news or read the newspaper. Heck, sometimes it is overwhelming! There have been times this year that I’ve felt overwhelmed. A few times that I’ve watched the news of hear of another police shooting, or anti-police violence, or a terrorist attack, or a mass shooting, some act of violence… there are times that I hear of an incident on the news and I say, “I want to feel horrible about it, but I’m all out of feeling. I got nothing left. Too much of it. I’m already too numb. Meaning no disrespect to the people who have been killed and injured, but I’ve run out of the energy to feel today. I can’t my mind or my heart around it. Too many.”

But then I also look around to those who are fighting for a better system, calling for treatment instead of prison, fighting to end poverty, fighting to improve relations between police and the people they serve, those trying to calm down the nasty rhetoric. I see the people, who are usually the police and the firefighters, who are generally the first ones to rush into dance clubs to save people and tend to the wounded and who have to be the first confronted with horror… I see the doctors and nurses who take time off of work to go places struck by disaster… the people who line up to give blood… the folks who hold prayer vigils and pray for peace and hope and love, and those who struggle against the negative and the evil… I see all that and I think, “See, it’s not all bad.” If we only have a steady diet of what we see or hear on the news, it can feel like it’s all bad. But it’s not. There are a lot of people who know who their neighbors are. We can’t heal the whole world, but we can heal this little part of it.

There is a quote that has been going around for some time that works here, you may have seen it online or elsewhere.

“Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.” - A mix of Talmudic teaching (the last line) and a riff on the words of the prophet Amos (the parts with the “now”s).

You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.

We can heal our little part of the world.

Who is my neighbor?

Who is not like you? That’s the one you must love.

Who does not like you? That’s the one you must love.

Who is your enemy? That’s the one you must love.

Who doesn’t deserve mercy? That’s the one who deserves it. Be their neighbor.

I leave you with a light-hearted story of something that happened recently, that I saw on the Today Show this morning:

Raymond “Buzzie” McCaulson, a Boston Taxi driver. He had a man hail his cab and ask him to go to a hotel. They got there, the guy said, “Wait here, I’ll be back in a couple minutes”, and he went inside. He didn’t come out after five, or after ten, twenty, thirty minutes. After a half hour, Buzzie went into the hotel to find him, but the people at the desk said no one like him had come in. He returns to his car, having been stiffed on his fare, and sees a bag on the back seat. Buzzie’s a good man. He’s just been stiffed, but he looks for a way to return the bag. He opened it looking for ID and found $187,000 in cash. Fifties and hundreds. He took it to the police station. The money got to the right guy, who was a man who’d been homeless for a few months and who had just cashed in his father’s inheritance. The man was going to leave, but the police suggest he should give Buzzie a reward. He gave Buzzie a $100 reward. A reward which Buzzie said is what he usually gets just for returning a wallet. Then as Buzzie was leaving, one of the policeman called after him, “He’d like a ride back to the hotel.” So Buzzie gave him a ride. As the folks on the Today show said this morning, “That’s a good samaritan.” (This story at CNN)

Amen.

Addendum: here are a couple stories that I did not include in the sermon, but which I thought were good. 

In April, a group of kids were on an easter egg hunt in a field in England. A police helicopter soon appeared over them, and they saw two men running across the field. So they dropped to the ground and formed an arrow, pointing in the direction that the two men had run. The helicopter saw it, relayed the direction to the cops on the ground, and then men were apprehended: they had just committed a burglary. See story on CNN. 

And this story from a brilliant theologian, Mihee Kim Kort, a Presbyterian: 

“Then, there was the sermon about the priest and Levite, and how they were analogous to not only the religious leaders of our time, but to all of us Christians who follow the rules and uphold the principles of love, the eloquent, but verbose talk and chatter about love, but when it comes down to it, we aren’t able to get our hands dirty. Really dirty, I mean, bloody and dirty, like the Samaritan who picked up the brutalized man, and helped him onto his donkey, and cared for him at the nearest hotel. And again, at the end there’s always the call to be the same kind of neighbor as the Samaritan who showed incredible courage and compassion. 

[then a break]

If there’s anything I believe about following the merciful Christ of the Triune God, it’s that we keep showing up. Even when we don’t understand, even when we are guilty or complicit or fragile or confused, even when it doesn’t make sense, even when we are despairing, we show up to be with people. To pray. To light candles. To hold hands. To chant Black Lives Matter. To whisper, God, have mercy.”

“Rejoice Not in Power, but that We Are God’s People” - Sermon July 3, 2016

“Rejoice Not in Power, but that We Are God’s People”
Sermon, Year C, Proper 9, July 3, 2016
© Rev. David J. Huber 2016
Plymouth UCC, Eau Claire, WI
Focus Scripture: Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

Listen to the sermon:




What Jesus said right at the end of this passage is extremely important. He says, “You have been given all this authority and this power and can do great things,” he’s saying to the people he sent out and who have come back, he says, “Don’t rejoice at that. Don’t rejoice at that. Rejoice that you are people of God. Rejoice that your name is written in heaven. THAT is worth rejoicing! Not your power or skills, but that your name is in heaven.” I think that is good for us to remember. We who often like to rejoice in power, whether it be economic, political, military, whatever the power might be. To think, “Ah, I am powerful, and I rejoice in that and celebrate.” But, celebrate instead that we are God’s people. That we are God’s sons and daughters.

This weekend is July 4 weekend. Our celebration of independence of this country. Certainly a very important day in the life of this nation, and in some ways in the course of history as well. Not that we were the first country with a constitution or certain freedoms, but there in the beginning many good things that are worth celebrating.

But Independance day is not a church holy day. It is not on the liturgical calendar. People in churches in other countries are not celebrating American independence day. They may celebrate their own country’s independence, but we don’t celebrate this holiday in the church because it is not a Holy Day. But there is some truth that what happens outside the walls of this sanctuary is also worthy, and should be included, in what happens in this sanctuary. As people we bring all that we are. All of our successes, our failures, our foibles and skills, our hopes and dreams, our regrets, and also our culture is brought into here with us, as citizens of this country and of the world, as people of Eau Claire and the Chippewa Valley. We bring who we are as people into this space. And so it is okay to bring things into this sanctuary, into our worship, just as what we do in this space and time together goes out past these doors into the world. They are not separate places, that when we are in here we are Christian and when we are out there we are something else. It’s all of a piece. It all comes together. We bring who we are into here, and we put that into a context as a Jesus follower, and take it back out into the world as we are about the business that Jesus has called us to do. To be healers and repairers by being people out in the world. To bring to people what we talk about in the church, like new life, forgiveness, second chances, freedom in Christ, the power of confession and forgiveness, the importance of reconciliation and being in right relationship with other people, and the primacy of love. The importance of love as our prime motivator.

And so on this Independence Day weekend I think it is okay to celebrate our country, who we are, who we have been. But we are a church, this is a holy gathering, so we must also be careful that celebration does not become triumphalism. That it doesn’t become a “we are better than” kind of celebration. Celebrate who we are and what we have, but not in a way that compares us to others and make us seem better. So don’t do it at the expense of other nations or other people, many of whom around the world are our baptized brothers and sisters. So let us not be eager to proclaim that we are number one, or the best, or the greatest. That’s not a celebration, not for people who follow Jesus. I don’t think that’s what he would have us do. But we can celebrate what is good and give thanks for what we have. That we can worship how we want. That we can petition our government, like I did a couple weeks ago: go to DC and talk to our senators and representatives about what is important to us. Celebrate the good, confess the bad, ask God to help us hold closer to our ideas and make us more faithful as followers of Jesus.

That’s one reason I don’t like to use specifically patriotic songs in worship. We have some music that celebrates us, the beauty of our land, and talks about freedom, but not specifically patriotic in a political or military sense that make us seem better than others. As people of God who gather around this common table of bread and wine, I don’t think triumphalism is a good way to go. We ought remember that our vocation is inviting others to this table. So to say that our is better than others is to miss the point of the universal nature of Jesus’ mission and God’s love. We invite others to this table without regard to national boundaries, or political differences, or cultural divisions. To remember that we are bound around this table worldwide, and our citizenship is first as people of God We are citizens of God’s realm, first, and then everything else secondary.

As I have thought of our Independence Day this last week, my thoughts have gone more to the song America the Beautiful and less on the scripture text. The words have been going through my mind a lot this week. I didn’t expect that it would end up in the sermon, but it must. It became a part of what I have been thinking of. Perhaps partly because of my recent experience lobbying in DC and walking around the capitol mall and seeing the Lincoln and MLK Memorials, the museums, the Washington monument, the WWII, Korea, and Vietnam war memorials…

What I like about the song is that it is a celebration of America, but not a celebration of us being better or unique in some way, but a celebration of the land itself. Which means that it is a celebration not of what we do, but what God has done. It’s a celebration of what God has created that we get to live on. The beauty of the land. The one that we will sing, also includes confession and lament asking God to help us be more faithful, and more true to our ideals of justice, to be more united, to work more for people’s freedoms and liberty.

“How beautiful our spacious skies, our amber waves of grain, our purple mountains above the fruitful plains.” I’ve been singing those words since I was a child. Probably one of the first songs that we sang in elementary school. Some of the words I did not fully understand until I took my first trip out west in 1998 when my mom and I went out. Before then, the farthest west I’d ever travelled was the twin cities, except for the two years that I lived in Hawaii. That’s pretty far west! But the places between the twin cities and Hawaii I only ever saw from the air.

Mom and I took this trip out west driving to Wyoming and back, and through it I understood where these words come from. I saw mountains for the first time, real big mountains: the Rockies. Which can be purplish. The spacious skies, I understood them there in Wyoming in big sky country. It really is big! To drive by the endless fruitful plains and waves of grain, though in our case it was mostly waves of corn in our trip through Minnesota and Iowa. We saw lots and lots of corn! Which gave me an idea, too, of the size of this country. To drive for almost two days and still be driving by corn. On and on and on. To go a couple of days and still not at the rocky mountains yet, either. This is a big, big country, and a really big continent.

I’ve not been to every state in our country, but I’ve been to a lot of them and some of the Canadian provinces and territories as well. From Maine to Hawaii, and Alaska to Florida. I’ve been on farms and in cities, out in the woods and in deserts, I’ve been in caves in West Virginia and seen glaciers in Alaska. This is a really beautiful country. I think all of it is beautiful. Some people like to poo poo South Dakota and Nebraska, but I find them beautiful in their own way. This is a beautiful and a resource rich land that we live on and in. But so, also, are Canada, Russia, Europe, China, and other places around the world. We are not unique in that way. But we can still be thankful to live in such a beautiful place and thankful that generations before us had the wisdom to put aside a lot of our beautiful spaces to protect them as national parks or refuges. This year, in fact, marks the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service! Other countries have followed our lead, including countries like Kenya and Nairobi that have been creating spaces to protect the largest of the world’s land mammals.

There are also words in this song calling us also to be discontent until we are all one. Not to say that we are all free until we are truly all free. Until all are free, and all of us are one, a sisterhood and brotherhood from sea to shining sea. And to have the courage to repent until we are a land of true liberty. A land of people living free without violence, and extend that beyond our borders to all the Americas, the two continents that have “America” in their name. For all to live in harmony.

I think that is who Jesus would have us be. To rejoice in what we have and celebrate what we have, but not to do it in a way that celebrates the political, economic, or military power, but celebrates this beautiful land we live on, and to rejoice also that we are God’s people first and foremost, and see it as a call to be even better as God’s people becoming more and more faithful, becoming one in Jesus’ name.

Amen.

Today was a really good day!

It was a good day! Met a person who was at a UCC church in another town but living here now and looking for a church at a Chamber SOHO event (which also had a good speaker talking about networking)... had a very good meeting with the county coordinated services team, and some great conversation with the new director of public health in chippewa county... got 4 packs of 400 black post-it-notes on clearance for $3 a pack... eye exam and new prescription with my amazing eye doctor, who also told me that my cataracts haven't moved at all in the last year... gas in the car, movie rentals taken back on time, made it to an event for our State Representative Dana Wachs (who is amazing, and fighting - as he always has - for the people) and had great conversation with some folks there... and had my Caribou Earth Day coffee mug filled three times for free... and also got my monthly subscription to meundies in the mail, and it's a beautiful design (these really are the most comfortable, most amazing undies I've ever worn - totally worth the price)...

AND - and this is a *huge* AND - I parallel parked into a regular sized spot!!! I suck at parallel parking, so don't do it, but I had to tonight for Dana - and, by God, it only took my three back-and-forths to get it nestled in properly, and I didn't hit either car in front or behind me. 50 years old, and I finally managed to parallel park all on my own, without a spotter, and without hitting anything, or without going back and forth 20 times. Woot! 

Going to make the rest of the year kind of pale in comparison, though...

And if I hurt anyone along the way, I'm blissfully unaware of it - I don't think I even did anything stupid while driving, and I didn't say anything offensive, even accidentally, today.