“Throwing Jesus Out of Our Temples” - Sermon Jan 31, 2016, Year C Epiphany 4

“Throwing Jesus Out of Our Temples”
Sermon, Year C, Epiphany 4, January 31, 2016
Plymouth United Church of Christ, Eau Claire, WI
©2016 Rev. David J. Huber
Focus Scripture: Luke 4:21-40




What. The. Heck.

This is such a crazy story, on the part of everyone involved. What is going on?

Remember, from last week’s reading - which was the first part of this story of Jesus in the synagogue - Jesus has returned to his hometown after going off to be baptized by John and then tempted in the wilderness. Then he comes home. Comes back to his hometown. He goes to the synagogue on the Sabbath. The one he grew up in, the one in which probably most of the people there knew who he was, and had known him since he was a small child.

He’s surely surrounded by people who had pinched his chubby cheeks, swatted his hand for taking one too many donuts or whatever snacks they had in ancient Palestine, taught him, hugged him when he was crying, celebrated at his bar mitzvah, and bought furniture from him. Or whatever he made as a carpenter.

He’s returned home, back with his own people, after going off to learn from, probably spend some time with - maybe years - John the Baptist. We don’t know about that. Jesus might have been with John for a decade, or maybe just a few days. Or somewhere in between. We don’t know how long Jesus had been away.

And maybe it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that he is home. None of the writers of the gospels seemed to care, because though they all mention that Jesus and John had a relationship beyond being cousins, none of them say what it was.

But, anyway, that’s a ramble.

Jesus has returned home. He goes to synagogue on the sabbath, they hand him a scroll to read (which was the part we read last week). It’s the prophet Isaiah. Jesus unrolls to the passages he wants to read, he has some verses in mind, and reads this:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.”

He rolls the scroll back up, hands to the scroll guy, and sits down, saying, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

That’s where we left it off last week, and where we started today’s reading.

If you were here, perhaps you remember that I said in the sermon that I hope we feel some movement of the spirit in hearing these words about coming to proclaim the good news to the poor, release to captives, and freedom for the oppressed. I also said that I hope the people gathered around Jesus who heard him also had a heart moment. A sense of a new spiritual/godly thing happening in their world, a touch of divine possibility, I hope they had some wash of hope, or thinking to themselves sitting around listening to Jesus read this, “Might this be the messiah? From our hometown? The messiah amongst us, one of our own?”

Well, it does seem that their hearts were touched, but it’s difficult to tell how their hearts were touched. There is some mixed response here. They seem at first to respond in a rather nice way. They speak gracious words of him, and remember who he is. Maybe they are thinking to themselves, “Isn’t this the kid with the cute cheeks and interesting questions and fondness for donuts? He’s so wonderful! He is so wise.”

Remember, the writer of Luke spends one sentence saying that the people said good things about him and were amazed at his gracious words, and also asked, “Isn’t this Mary and Joseph’s son?”

After they ask that, then things get weird.

Something in that moment sets Jesus off. It’s impossible to know Luke’s intent in recording the people’s question about, “Is this not Joseph’s son?” Was it asked in genuine pride that one of their own was so wise and special? “We know who this is! We know his father!” Or was it asked as an insult - “Hey, wait a minute - ain’t you just a carpenter’s son? Why would he be special, he’s just a carpenter’s son?” Or is this Luke’s way of saying that the people did not understand that Joseph was not Jesus’ father.

I think it was the former. I’d like to think, I hope so. That they did not mean insult by it, but a sense of “Woo hoo! He’s one of our own! Listen to him! This might put us on the map, what he is saying and what we have heard!” The way a community can get excited when one of their own makes it big. To say, “We helped raise him!” “I was her babysitter!” “I worked with his parents!”

Maybe the Rabbi here gets to recount a story, “I remember long ago when Jesus was a child, he came into my office for the first time, and he asked me questions that not only no adult had ever asked of me, but questions which even I had never thought to ask. I knew he was going to be someone special.”

Because good theology starts with good questions. Not about good answers, because we rarely know enough. As Paul said in the Corinthians passage that we see through a mirror dimly. We rarely know enough to offer solid, lock-tight answers in matters of faith. But good questions is the start of good theology. Always questioning.

Which questions also imply a community, because asking yourself questions is kinda strange. One needs the dialogue. Our faith is about community, and in that community we should be asking questions.

Like the question that this passage leaves me with at this point after the people ask, “Is this not Joseph’s son?”

Because what the heck happened?!

Jesus, who seems to have been polite and gracious, all of a sudden goes on an ugly rage and speaks back at the people.

He delivers this jeremiad (a word formed from the prophet Jeremiah’s name):

“Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Doctor, cure yourself!’ And you will say, ‘Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.’”

Where did that come from? They did not ask him to show them a miracle, or do a sign, or anything. He pre-emptively accuses them of doing so. They’ve asked nothing of him, accused him of nothing. And then he says, "Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet's hometown.”

Weird, because it seems they were accepting him just fine. But maybe they were accepting him in the wrong way.

Then Jesus goes on to insult them. He reminds them that in the time of the prophet Elijah, while there was a great famine for many years in Israel and people were dying, the only widow that God sent the prophet to was a foreign, non-Jewish woman, who was given the miraculous jars of food that never went empty for the ensuing years of the famine, and she was saved.

Then he brings up Elijah’s protege, Elisha, who in a time when Israel had many lepers and was at war, the only leper that God cured was Namaan, a warrior in opposing army, a Syrian.

Jesus insults them by reminding them that God has often not treated the chosen people, or the ones who thought they had God’s favor, that God’s favor has often gone to the outsider, to those who are different.

Now I’ve never actually read the book, “How to Win Friends and Influence People”, but I’d bet a pile of shekels that this technique is verboten. I doubt that this in there. This is not the way to win friends and influence people. But a challenge to remind us to remain faithful.

So of course the people now are in a rage, they throw him out of town, they even try to throw him off a cliff, but Jesus passed through the midst of them and went on his way.

He remains unscathed.

At some level there is a parallel here with Jesus’ time in the wilderness when the devil takes him up to the top of the spire and looks out saying “All this could be yours” and “If you throw yourself down, God will save you.” Now Jesus is again in a position of someone wanting him to plunge from a high place. Now, if this were anyone else, we could just say, “Well, he had a moment of being a jerk. We all do that once in a while.” But since it was Jesus doing this, it’s worth asking some questions. Worth going into.

Why did he go negative so quickly and so harshly? Why the insults? Why this bromide against the people that comes from nowhere? Was it just a bad day? Or was he making a point? And if he was making a point, what was it? What does it say about who God is and what God is doing?

This is what makes reading scripture so much fun! It raises questions! Interesting faith questions! We can explore. We may not ever get a real concrete answer, but we have the good questions that can come from it.

Perhaps Jesus was annoyed that after he read the scroll and said the words were fulfilled in their hearing. Perhaps they missed the message because they were so enchanted by him being one of their own that they didn’t really listen to him. Maybe it was that after he read the scroll about good news, release to prisoners, freedom for oppressed, and that this scripture was fulfilled in their hearing, maybe Jesus was annoyed that they didn’t ask him what they meant, but only oohed and ahhed over their hometown son. Maybe they weren’t taking him seriously? It appears that could be the case. Go off to learn great new things, to fulfill your destiny as the incarnation of God, come back to your hometown, make your grand divine pronouncement and get met with basically, “Oh, look, it’s Joseph’s son! I remember him running around in diapers!”

I could see where that would be frustrating. If you’ve gone off to college - or seminary - or gone off to the military, especially if you’ve seen combat, or gone off with the Peace Corps, or other life changing event, and come home, you are, to the people who knew you, still the person they knew as a child and watched grow up. It is difficult to take the person the way they want to be taken when one knows them so well. We come back changed, but the people don’t necessarily see it nor are as interested in it as much as they are interested that you are their son or daughter, or student, or friend, or whatever the relationship was. Yeah, you might be a doctor or a pastor or an accountant or lawyer or teacher now, but you’re also the kid we played video games with, teased about dating, caught chewing gum in class, listened to you talk endlessly about whatever your latest fascination was, cleaned up after you smeared peanut butter all over the TV… there is a sense that a prophet is not honored in his or her hometown. Because they know too much about you to take you too seriously.

I get that sometimes when I go my home church in Janesville, and see the elders who I respect greatly and helped raised me, they still remind me that, “Yeah, you might be a minister, but… I remember junior high and high school and some possible shenanigans I may or may not have done…” They have the full story.

And perhaps that’s the point. Or one of the points, anyway, that Luke is making by including this story so early in his gospel. A way to make Jesus stand out as not the person, not the messiah, that was expected. He is come back to his own people changed and offering a message that was not the one they were expecting to come from the messiah. He is coming out of the Jewish tradition, very much, yes. But not to keep things the same. To say that there is also an explosion of Jewish tradition out in to the gentile world as Jesus is thrown out of town and goes into the gentile, non-Jewish world. Luke is writing very much for gentiles who have come into the Jesus movement. People who were not Jewish before they heard about Jesus. And Luke is writing 40 or so years after Jesus’ resurrection when the church has moved into the gentile world.

No, he was offering topsy turvy message - a message that is, in fact, more in-line with the scriptural tradition of justice, compassion, and love, than the staid, comfortable-with-the-status-quo version that it had become. This is a reformation as well that the church needs to do every generation, because we do have a tendency to become complacent, to fall into the status quo, to become stuck. It is good to have a reformation every generation. Jesus has come to a people who had grown quite comfortable with pushing lepers outside the town, or ignoring the widows and the orphans, or setting up artificial ways to separate people based on income, ancestry, nationality, and so on; Jesus comes to change things up. To overthrow the status quo.

Change, unfortunately, can be scary. Especially to change a culture, or a synagogue, or a church. Change can be scary, but change is also a fact of life. It’s what God is constantly calling us to do: to keep changing our direction, to keep re-aiming our compass point to be in line with where Jesus wants us to go. Our default setting, it seems, is whatever is comfortable, which is not always - in fact, is rarely - where Jesus wants us to go. And what is comfortable is most often not of God’s realm: like apathy, accepting poverty and homelessness, ignoring the needs of others… change can be difficult.

We are going through change here at Plymouth. We have made some changes, and have changed. Our worship format has changed.We have changed how we are organized. We are more loosely structured now so we can be leaner, more quick to adapt, so that if someone wants to make something happen, you can do it. Not any hurdles in the way, or committees to deal with. If you see something that you want to have happen, if you have idea, then you can make it happen. We want your creativity. We want to be able to adapt and change.

We have, this past year, been renting and offering our building. As I look back to the last year, we had more people come through our doors in 2015 than have come through in years before then. Partly because of allowing other people to use our space. Hundreds of people who otherwise would never have been on this property have come through our doors. And some of them have come to worship with us, or joined in other activities of the church. By opening our doors, people have come in. We’ve added new members. We have been inviting more visitors. We are doing, I think, what Jesus wants us to do which is to go outside our walls and be faithful beyond this hour on Sunday morning. To outside our walls and be the living presence of God to other people in Eau Claire and the Chippewa Valley. Of being visibly Christian in our neighborhoods. To not be content with not just taking care of ourselves, but of those around us. To meet the needs of those around, as Jesus calls us to do. To reach out to our neighbors by doing good works in our community, and to do them as Jesus’ disciples.

The people in the synagogue that day that Jesus read from the scroll, they pushed Jesus out of the synagogue and into the world because they didn’t like his call to change, or his call things were going to change. But maybe what they should have done if they were appalled at or were afraid of his message, would have been to keep him there. Keep him inside the walls safe and domesticated. That’s what comfortable churches do. Those churches are also dying, but they’re comfortable. Keeping Jesus enclosed, safely domesticated in the church. Keeping God safely domesticated in their doctrine or belief. But we are not a dying church. We don’t want to be that kind of church. We are not a church that keeps Jesus inside, but lets him go out into the world, as we follow. I like to think that we come here for this hour on Sunday morning to have worship time together to be refreshed, renewed, rejuvenated, but then I think of this message that after our hour of worship, that we then push Jesus out the doors. Not to get rid of him, but to push Jesus out on Sunday morning to say, “Hey, we had a great hour of worship together. But, now it is time to push you outside, with us following, so that you can show us where you need us to serve and with the strength of your Holy Spirit we will go there!” And with the strength of the Holy Spirit we can go wherever Jesus is leading us.

Amen.

"What Star Do You Follow?" - Sermon from Jan 10, 2016, Appearance of the Wise Men to Jesus

“What Star Do You Follow?”
Sermon, Epiphany Year C, January 10, 2016
Plymouth United Church of Christ, Eau Claire, WI
©2016 Rev. David J. Huber
Focus Scripture: Matthew 2:1-12 (The Wise Men appear to Jesus)


Only in Matthew’s Gospel do we have a record of the Wise Men, or Magi, or Kings, or whatever you want to call them. I think Wise Men is probably the best way to refer to them, even though we sing “We Three Kings” and so on. And we don’t know how many of them there were. We like to say there were three, and that is likely only because they brought three gifts and somewhere along the line someone decided that no man would show up without a gift, so there must have been only three of them. But it could have been two, could have a dozen.

Only Matthew records them, Luke gives us the shepherds coming to see Jesus, Mark and John have no record of Jesus’ birth at all, and Matthew gives us the wise men. Unfortunately the shepherds don’t get a special Sunday, but the wise men do. Maybe because the shepherds were Jewish and part of the Jewish narrative, and not outsiders like the wise men were, being foreigners from far in the east. The wise men get today as their day, the day we call Epiphany.

They had followed a star from the east. They saw a star. The star could have been a divine being, or a real star in the sky, a comet, a conjunction of planets… who knows. No one does. But whatever it was, they saw it, and they followed it from in the east. Far outside of Israel. The men were certainly not Jewish. And probably not even in the Roman Empire, perhaps as far east as Afghanistan, India, or China.

They were from far in the east, which is to say that they were gentiles. They were not Jewish. And yet they saw. And having seen, they went. They saw some kind of a sign that leads them to a little country way to their west. This star they saw.

We have no idea what it was. We don’t even know who the wise men were, or what happened to them, or even what compelled them to go. But they went. There was something that drove them to go. They had an epiphany. We call today Epiphany. Actually, January 6 was Epiphany. It’s always twelve days after Christmas. But we celebrate it today. They had an epiphany, which could be an appearance of divine manifestation. It can also be a sudden realization of a truth. Something that we had not known before. It could be a discovery, an insight into something, an understanding. Like seeing how the pieces of a puzzle fit together. That moment when mulling over a problem that a solution pops into your head is a kind of epiphany. Or the first time that you realize that one plus one always equals two - that there is consistency there. Many of us probably had an epiphany about our mother’s warning that burners on the stove are hot and painful is actually true. Or the moment that a person you love first does something that annoys you or causes you pain and you realize that you still love them.

An epiphany is simply that “Oh, I get it!” moment. Understanding something. You’ve probably had many epiphanies over the course of your life that may have been a religious one, and others may be epiphanies of some kind of other understanding, seeing something in a new way for the first time.

What have been those moments for you? What have been your epiphanies?

For the wise men, it was the star. They observed it at its rising and they knew that something had changed. Something new happened in the world, and so they followed it. They followed that sar to wherever it was going to lead them. They didn’t know exactly where it was going to be. They only knew that it was leading them west. They followed that star.

That offers a question to me: what is the star that I follow? What are the stars that I follow? We all wear many hats in our lives, as children and parents, in our careers, hobbies, our faith, our relations.

For the wise men the star was Jesus. Not by name, of course. They would not have known what his name was yet> But they knew it as a sign that the king of the Jews had been born. So they followed it. They knew it meant something, and that it was important, so they followed it to find this king. And while they were looking for this king, there was another king: King Herod. One would think that when you have a king, you should follow the star of his authority, but the wise men decide not to follow Herod’s star once they realize that he wasn’t to be trusted. They disobey his orders, they refuse to follow his star, to instead follow the star to Jesus.

What is the star that we follow?

If someone were to look at your life, not knowing who you are, and look at all the things you have done in your life, the decisions you have made, and tried to deduce what has been driving you through your life, what might they come up with? Would they come up with the star that you think you’ve been following? Or might it be something else?

There are many stars to follow. I’d like to think that Jesus is the primary one, though we have many others. Some of which are healthy and helpful for us, and are worth following, and some which are not healthy or helpful to ourselves or to the world.

What are the stars, or what is the star, that you follow? Jesus? Family? Career? Faith? Church? Money? Comfort? Fear? Anxiety? Possessions? Peace?

Lots of stars to follow. And hopefully Jesus is high on the list of the ones that we follow, in one form of another. Even if not specifically by name, saying “I am guided by Jesus”, but perhaps even that it is the star of what Jesus called us to do. So maybe it’s the star of compassion that compels you. Or the star of mercy. The star of generosity. The star of loving your neighbor. Of Joy. Peace. These are all ways of following the star of Jesus.

As a church, as well, what star do we follow? As the people of Plymouth, what is our star? What star do we follow? What are our goals? What are we journeying toward?

I try to design our worship, when Lynn and I get together to plan worship and the music, we strive to design it (with varying levels of success, I’m sure) so that the words and music point to our incarnate God in Jesus as our star. Jesus is the star that we follow. But not just in a theoretical way of beliefs about Jesus, or the things we say about Jesus, but practical things about our lives as followers of Jesus. We try to make those words happen in the liturgy of our worship. So like today’s prayer of confession: by protecting the weak and distressed; by helping the poor and needy; by upholding the oppressed and defenseless. Or as we will say in the prayer of dedication: offering our gifts in gratitude, reverence, and thanksgiving. Or our benediction: by shining Christ’s light to the world, and do that by the way that we love those around us.

We have other stars as well can follow in our lives. New Year's’ resolutions are a kind of star. They are, if you make them, something that guides you to a specific goal. What is your star?

I hope that at least the big star would be Jesus, and maybe a number of smaller stars, like generosity, love, kindness. Learning to live with a neighbor you don’t like. Or dealing with a co-worker that you don’t get along well with. So these smaller stars, as well, that are guiding us are good and helpful. But hopefully always with Jesus there, his path of peace, respect, love, and compassion will always be there. He is the star that the church follows. We here at Plymouth are part of a tradition that says that Jesus is the only head of the church. You are not here to follow me, or our conference ministry, or our president of the United Church of Christ. We are here to follow Jesus, because he is the sole head of the church. We follow Jesus. We put Jesus in front.

But we also, as Plymouth, for a couple years have been following the star of wanting increased participation in worship and in the life of this fellowship. We made that choice a few years ago, that we have something very special with the fellowship that we share at Plymouth. So it’s not increasing numbers for the sake of increasing numbers, but because we have something special that is worth being shared. That others should experience. We transform lives, bring people to new life. There is a spiritual yearning out there. So we have that star before us, to increase the number of people who come here to be transformed. Part of that is the star of invitation. The star of doors that are open to those who come (which we are really good at) but also being out and inviting people, bringing people with us into this fellowship so their lives may be transformed by the good news of God’s love.

There is the star of increasing the footprint of our ministry in Eau Claire, with the ministry we do on the street. The ministry that our quilters do. Our giving to the food pantry. Our participation in ecumenical endeavors and interfaith endeavors. The columns I write in the newspaper, our website, our facebook page. The organizations that I am involved with. The things that we’re doing outside of our walls, that also is a star before us, that should continue to guide us through 2016. These are the stars that Plymouth follows, always with Jesus at the front. Jesus is the guiding star, as he was for the wise men, with the smaller stars of invitation and expanding our family. Which can be done! We have done that in the last year. The star of our ministry of loving our neighbors as Jesus asked us to do.

So at the beginning of 2016, a new year, a Sunday of the Epiphany is a good time to think of what star or stars we will follow this year. Which will be follow as individuals, which will we follow as Plymouth church? A good time to think about the stars that are before us, and which ones we will follow.

That is the question that is left before us this Epiphany Sunday, as I read the story of the wise men this year. That is where my heart is sitting. Sitting on this question that I think the wise men have set before us, as their gift to us. As they gave gold, frankincense, and myrrh to the baby Jesus, they also leave a gift to us: to ask the question, What star will you follow?

I leave you with that question: which star will you follow?

Amen.

“Saving the Good Wine Until Now” - Sermon from Jan 17, 2016 - Wedding at Cana

“Saving the Good Wine Until Now”

Sermon, Epiphany 2, Year C, January 17, 2016

Plymouth United Church of Christ, Eau Claire, WI 

©2016 Rev. David J. Huber

Focus Scripture:  John 2:1-11

This is Jesus’ first miracle, his first sign. At least in John’s Gospel, this is Jesus’ first public act of announcing who he is. Jesus transforms into wine. A very domestic and ordinary event, a wedding, is taking place. A wedding, like happens all the time, and probably Jesus has been to many of them. It is curious that it is here in this very domestic and human event that Jesus chooses to declare who he is .Though he is not transforming the water into wine to be showy, or to say “hey, look at me! I’m here!” He does it simply because his friends have run out of wine. The celebration needs to have more wine, so Jesus helps his friends out. 

Turn water into wine. And not just any wine. Good wine. Really good wine! The best wine, better than the wine that had been served already. 

That’s what Jesus is there for and who he is. He helps his friends. In this case, friends in need at a wedding, as he changes water into wine.

But in this story, I don’t think the water into the wine is the only transformation that occurs. It’s pretty impressive, and certainly outside anyone’s experience. But he also transforms a party and celebration that was in danger of failing. He turns a party disaster into a party saving. He has saved the party from disintegrating, which is a kind of transformation, to change the mood of the event and make people happy. 

Another transformation is of his heart. As I read the text, I think that he transforms his heart. First he rebukes his mom. “I don’t care.” But he goes ahead and does it anyway. This is his first public act, and he doesn’t want to do it. He says, “My time has not come.” He is rude to his mom about it. But he does it. It reminds me of another time when Jesus asks the question about Who is more faithful: the one who say “yes” but doesn’t, or the one who says “no” and does?

Jesus says, “I don’t want to do it.” But then he does. His heart is transformed there for whatever reason. I think it was his love for his friends, or perhaps even his love for his mother, driven by compassion or honor. His heart is transformed and he helps his friends, exceeding even what his friend needs and the design specifications his mom requested. He makes not just wine, but really good wine.

I think it is fitting that his first public act, his first sign, is a transformation. I think that’s what Jesus is about: transformation. He transforms people; transforms lives. Transforming from a sense of self-doubt, unworth, being on the outside, feeling unloved, to say “You are loved. You are people of God.” Changing, transforming hearts and lives.

Last Sunday we read of the wise men following the star to Jesus. The wise men who came from way in the east. These foreign men who would not have been of the Jewish faith or the Jewish heritage. Far removed. They saw the sign, the star, whatever that was, and the followed it to Jesus. In the sermon last week I asked the questions, “What star do YOU follow? What star do WE follow?” Do we follow the star of Jesus, or the star of something else?

I hope that your star is Jesus. That you are always moving toward Jesus, following in his ways. that star, to follow his ways, Following that star of Jesus that we may be transformed into more whole people and communities of justice. 

We follow Jesus because Jesus is the man who transforms. He transformed water into wine. And Jesus, the one who can transform ordinary people into his disciples back then, and also now in 2016. Jesus is still transforming ordinary people - that’s us! - into disciples, into followers. Jesus, the one who can transform the grieving into the comforted; the poor in spirit into sharers in God’s realm; the meek into earth-inheritors; the oppressed into the free. 

If he can change his own heart, then I think he can change ours. He is all about compassion. His friends at the wedding have a need and Jesus has compassion, love, whatever, and helps. Jesus has that radical grace that compels him to turn water into wine because his friends are in need. And like I said, not just into any wine, but into really good wine. Superior wine. And he can make us into really good disciples as well. We ordinary human beings transformed into people of mercy, compassion, love, hope. That’s what we do when we gather as a church on Sundays when we come together to worship, or when we gather for other reasons. Part of what we are doing is training each other to be disciples. We are showing each other what the life of discipleship looks like. We teach one another how to be more faithful and better followers of Jesus. 

Jesus also can transform our hopelessness, our grieving, our self-doubts, our sense of guilt or shame or whatever it is that spiritually plagues us. Jesus can transform that into forgiveness, wholeness, hope, by reminding us that we’re loved. By showing us that we are loved. And by urging us to love others. Wherever we are on our journey, whatever we have done or not done, whatever others have done to us, we are all God’s people. We are all God’s beloved people, never left alone, never abandoned, God always present with us. That is also what we do when we gather as the church: to remind one another that we are loved. To share a hug of comfort to the grieving or in joy at a reunion. To pray for one another. To visit the sick. To make a phone call when someone is hurting. To encourage someone to be more faithful, or to share a talent that we see in them, or to take a leadership that we see them capable of doing. To support one another. To remind us that we are God’s people. 

The business of the church is transformation which is done through worship, hearing the word in scripture and sermons and the prayers of the liturgy, through study, but also transformation by practicing being a disciple. By doing acts of mercy, acts of love, by showing compassion, by being what Jesus would have us be. 

Jesus transformed the water into wine at the wedding feast was a way of saying, “With me your cup will always be full.” Think of Psalm 23, “My cup overflows.” Jesus turning water into wine here, this early in the Gospel of John, is also the author setting up what will happen at the end of the Gospel. Another meal that involved wine, which was the last supper that Jesus had with his friends. Jesus took the bread and transformed it, not literally but symbolically, into his body, into himself, saying “As you are nourished by this bread, it is also you being nourished by me, my presence, my word.” Even the ordinary bread of life is transformed into the capital letter Bread of Life, which is a term used for Jesus. Jesus also transforms the wine into the sign of the new covenant of forgiveness, the covenant of new life and assurance of God’s unstoppable love. He transforms water into wine at this wedding at Cana, and then years later at a meal with his disciples he transforms wine into the remembrance that we are loved, that we have a covenant with God for new life that is not a life of judgment and condemnation, but a rebirth into new life as an expansion into God’s realm. 

That is the transformative power of Jesus’ way. We follow in his way by being who Jesus asks us to be. But I think it is also by accepting what Jesus has done and does for us, by accepting the forgiveness, love, and mercy, and Jesus’ gift of new life. I think we can too often hesitate to accept it for ourselves even as we accept in and for others. Accept what Jesus has done for you. Accept that power of transformation to take whatever spiritually plagues you and let it go. It’s okay. You don’t have to be some special person to let go of the guilt, shame, self-doubt, whatever it is. You don’t have to hold on to it. You don’t need to make others hold on to theirs, either. 

We here in the church point to the star that is Jesus. As the wise men followed their star to Jesus, hopefully are following the star of Jesus. Hopefully you are following Jesus. We symbolize that on Sundays when we light the Christ candle. It is a sign, a reminder, that Jesus is here and is present in this gathering of his people. Then at the end of worship the acolyte carries the flame out, to say “Worship is done, now follow the light of Jesus out the door of the church and into the community, into the Chippewa Valley, to be God’s people outside these walls as much as you are inside them. Go be Jesus’ disciples into a broken world to transform people’s lives.”

We all have that power to transform through the power of the Holy Spirit. We can be people who transform other people’s lives as well as our own.

I give you a task this week. Find some time this week, by spending your week being mindful and aware, looking for an opportunity, looking for a moment (especially if it’s a moment where you would rather not, because there is some benefit sometimes to that extra level of sacrifice, like Jesus saying, “No, I don’t want to do it mom… okay, I will.”), where you can let the Holy Spirit help you get out of yourself and transform someone’s water into wine. To transform someone’s watery day into the wine of a better day, because that’s what we’re called to do. What Jesus does for us, we can do for others. And we can accept it for us as well. We can do that because we follow the one who has saved the good wine until now. 

Amen.

My Mission, Should You Choose to Accept It - Sermon from Jan. 24, 2016.

“My Mission, Should You Choose to Accept It”
Sermon, Year C, Epiphany 3, January 24, 2016
Plymouth United Church of Christ, Eau Claire, WI
©2016 Rev. David J. Huber
Focus Scripture: Luke 4:14-21



I think we have in the way that this passage is presented, and where it is in Luke’s gospel, a beautiful construction by the writer, to place this here. Last week we read out of John’s Gospel Jesus was at a wedding in Cana at which he turned water into wine, which in John’s Gospel is Jesus’ first sign or declaration of who he is. And now here in Luke’s Gospel we get Jesus’ first public declaration of who he is. Jesus is saying things about himself. When he is at the synagogue to read from the scroll of Isaiah, he has already been baptized, had his forty days in the wilderness to be tempted, has come home and been teaching in his home territory. But then he comes to his home town, his home synagogue in Nazareth, and declares himself, as we read in the passage.

He’s not teaching in this moment. He’s proclaiming who he is. He’s setting his agenda, declaring his mission, and setting it against the scriptural tradition of his people - the Jewish people. He reads from the prophet Isaiah, one of many texts in the Jewish scriptures that looked forward to a messiah. The prophets offered challenge and calls to repentance when they were written, as well as warnings about a bad future, vt that also looked ahead to a time when God would continue to act on behalf of the people, including sending a messiah. And Jesus takes these words on himself:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.”

Then he does a sort of first century Palestine version of the mic drop. He rolls the scroll up, hands it off, and sits down, saying, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Jesus is firmly in his Jewish tradition here. He also announces that he is not only *in* in the tradition, but is the fulfillment, or at least one fulfillment, of that tradition. He is doing something new, but he is doing it in line with the tradition.

So when I said earlier that I think this is a beautiful way for Luke to begin Jesus’ public ministry in this gospel, the beauty that I see is in what Jesus’ mission is. How Luke establishes Jesus’ mission right here at the first, when he sets his agenda. It’s a mission of compassion. A mission of attention to individuals. A mission which says that each person matters. A mission that is not to support the position of the political and the religious powerful, but to minister to the human needs of all, wherever we are in life’s stations, but especially toward those who are powerless. To remind people that he is coming to the powerless. That there is, in God, this call to pay attention to the least. So the mission of Jesus is to bring the good news to the poor, ot proclaim release to the captives, to proclaim recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. Jesus is there to turn things upside down. Not upside down through violent revolution, civil war, military take over, or political coup. He’s not looking to replace people in positions of power with himself, because he knows that doing so would not change the systems of oppression, it would merely replace who the oppressors are.

This is a turning upside down by boldly stating that the poor, the blind, the captives, the oppressed also have the God-given right to exist. That they also have a story to hear. They are to be noticed, to be recognized, to be known, and to be favored. That God is watching over them as well, and that they also just as much as anyone else deserve God’s attention, and deserve the attention of the powerful. That’s a radical nature of how Jesus introduces himself here.

“I have come to minister to all people, but especially to the least. To those who often get ignored by the religious and political systems.” Jesus says he has come on behalf of people. Not a nation, a tribe, or other group identity. But for individuals, for all people.

Jesus and God care about individuals. About each of us, personally and uniquely.

In the letter from Paul to the Corinthians that we read is a parallel to what Jesus said:

“On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect; whereas our more respectable members do not need this. But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.”

That also is part of the mission of Jesus that he announces here. Then Jesus ends with these words, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” Today! Today it is fulfilled. Not some day this will be fulfilled. Or at the end of my life this will be fulfilled, or that we need to wait. It’s today! God’s realm is today. Jesus’ presence is today. What God is doing is today.

I think these are good words up against those who have said over the centuries, before Jesus’ time, and words the church has too often said since Jesus’ time, said to the poor and the suffering, the slaves and outcast, the marginalized and oppressed, “We can’t relieve your suffering today. You just have to wait until you die, and then you’ll go to heaven and everything will be great because today we need you as a slave, or we don’t have the resources to lift you out of poverty, or to give you healthcare…” or whatever the excuses may be. might be. To lift up only a vision of some future time of goodness is to completely miss Jesus’ words here that it is fulfilled today.

Jesus says against the thinking that people have to wait, that the good news begins today. It is centered in this life, in the lives of people, of real people. The people around us, and also us! The God who is present in our lives watches over us today. Gives us the spirit today. Offers us hope today. Loves us today. I hope you all can feel that. Feel some sense of God’s presence in our lives because God is active in the here and now. I hope that you feel that. And I hope also, or I like to imagine anyway, that the people when Jesus was reading from the scroll of Isaiah that they felt that morning a shudder of hope in hearing the words. Or goosebumps of divine possibility. That there was some sense of energy in them that something has changed. Something significant has changed in the world and the way of God. Something is going to be different after this remarkable moment of Jesus’ proclamation of the good news. I hope that we can feel that today as well.

And I know also that too often the world around us seems to awfully different from God’s vision. Horrible things happen around us. Wars going on. Political fighting. Terrorism and fear of terrorism. Domestic abuse. The nastiness that you might see in on-line comments. Poverty and homelessness. Shootings in schools and elsewhere. Bombings. Natural disasters. People embezzling from those they are charged to be watching over. Houses burning down. There is a lot going on that make it very easy to forget that we have a loving God who is present, and alive, who loves. So it is good to go back to scripture. To continue to read our story, and to come together on Sundays to hear again our story that is embedded in the scriptures, and also the story that we continue in our lives and the story of history. Good to come together to remind us who we are and whose we are. Like watching over and over a favorite movie, or re-reading a favorite book, or re-hearing a favorite story. To remind us of God’s promises, even in the face of a world that seems to have forgotten or refuses - or is afraid - to believe them.

Especially good to re-read this passage in which Jesus says who he is, and in which he says that it is fulfilled today. Jesus is with us. Jesus is present. And to remember that we are the recipients of that legacy as Jesus has called together his body, which is the Church. As Paul says, the Body of Christ, in which all our individual skills, gifts, passions are included. We are the recipients of Jesus’ legacy, and we, too, are bearers of the hope because we have the Spirit as well! The Spirit of God is upon us. That is one thing we proclaim in the church, that the Spirit of God is upon us and that we can be the proclaimers, and the freedom-givers, the hope-bringings, the sight-giving. That it is fulfilled in us as well. It is fulfilled as well through our work, our hospitality, through our love, through our invitations extended to others to share in the good news, inviting others to hear the good news through hearing it and also by living it out.

Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.

Amen.

"Sell All You Own and Follow Me" - Sermon October 11, 2015.

“Sell All You Own and Follow Me”
Sermon, Year B, Proper 23, October 11, 2015
Plymouth United Church of Christ, Eau Claire, WI
©2015 Rev. David J. Huber
Focus Scripture: Mark 10:17-31, Amos 5:6-7,10-15

It says in here, “Sell all you own and give the money to the poor and then you will have riches in heaven; then come and follow me.”

Sell all you have and give it to the poor and then follow me.

There is a part of me that has always liked these words, when I came across them in high school. I thought, “Ha! There’s a prophetic voice! Tell those rich people. Yeah! Give it to ‘em!” Always liked those words, “Sell all you have and give it to the poor and then follow me.”

But these words also haunt me, because I know they are being spoken to me. Not just to the “rich”, whoever that might be, but to me as well. They haunt me because I know I am not living them. I have not at any point in my life sold all that I have and given the money to the poor. I’ve given to the poor, and to charities, and to many good causes, but I’ve yet to sell everything on their behalf.

So I like these words, but they are also a challenge and a haunting because I know that I cannot live up to them. Or I haven’t lived up to them, anyway. What Jesus does here is what he often does: he offers an extreme vision of God’s realm. We can say the words are hyperbolic, but that might let us off the hook too easily. Jesus is offering this extreme vision of God’s realm, and that’s what Jesus does. He likes to push and push and push the boundaries and expand the margins to push us out of our comfortable places to at least get us to think differently about how we live, how we relate to the world.

So Jesus is pushing on the commandments here. The Commandments, that list of ten that God gave to Moses. They are certainly important. He doesn’t say that they aren’t important or that we should forget about the ten commandments. Following and keeping them is a good thing. The commandments are very much a way to keep society intact and functioning. They offer us a way to show love to our neighbors by at least not negatively affecting them. When they were given to Moses, they were a people who had just escaped hundreds of years of slavery. They were in the wilderness on the way to the Promised Land, ready to form a new society, a new way of living together, so the commandments very important in forming that community about not negatively affecting your neighbors. Don’t murder, don’t steal, don’t covet. And don’t bear false witness. That’s one we don’t often talk about, bearing false witness, but I have thought a lot about it the past couple years. Don’t bear false witness. I’m thinking about it because I see it all over. It seems to be a commandment forgotten far too often, especially by people of faith. I see it in online dialogues and political discourse. Attacking the person instead of an idea, or attributing false motives to a person’s thoughts. Building strawmen. strawmen. Taking things to an extreme. Basically lying about each other, or even themselves, to make a point. I would like to see us stop that. A lot less bearing false witness. We’d be a lot more polite and more gentle.

The Commandments are very important, and we don’t want to let them go. But Jesus is also telling this man who comes to him, who says that he has kept all the commandments, Jesus says, basically, “that’s not enough. It’s good, but not quite enough.” The man says “I have kept them from my youth” to which jesus says, “But you lack one thing.” You may have kept the commandments, but you have missed something. The commandments are a beginning, a minimum, but not enough,. “You have to go beyond”, Jesus is saying. “Don’t just not hurt your neighbor, but go out and help and heal. Be a positive force for your neighbor. Show them love and mercy and gratitude.”

And maybe Jesus is also telling this young man that however much he feels that he has kept the commandments since his youth, that maybe at some level his wealth is a sign that he hasn’t kept to them at the level he thinks, or at the level that Jesus would prefer. That maybe this man’s wealth, at least at some level, a theft of some sorts from the poor, from his neighbors, and it ought to be given back.

We had in the reading from the prophet Amos, “Don’t just avoid evil, but seek what is good.” Seek what is good. “And let the first be last, and let the last be first”, Jesus says. “Leave all behind for the sake of the good news,” he says.

That is easier said than done, I know. I’ve not done it. I’ve not left everything behind to follow Jesus. I still have possessions. A place to live. I do, however, find some consolation in my failures in Jesus’ statement that no one is good but God alone. There is no expectation that we have to god-like. We should strive for God’s realm, and strive to be better followers of Jesus. But God knows we’re not perfect. So God offers us grace to rely on, to fall back on. To know that in our imperfection, God doesn’t stop loving us. Even if we don’t fulfill everything the way we should, God still loves us. God is still there for us.

So we are not going to hear Jesus’ words and sell all we own and follow him. At least, I don’t think most normal people would. I’ve not known many, probably none, who have done that. Maybe the men and women who join monasteries or other religious orders with vows of poverty do that. But we’re not going to sell all we own. Especially here in Wisconsin. You can feel the change in the weather already here. How do you sell all you own and yet still survive the winter? Do we all also have to move to the desert or a tropical place where we don’t have to worry about winter cold? You can see how truly difficult it is to survive winter without a place to live if you join us in the street ministry during the winter. Without clothing, shelter, food, it’s really difficult to survive. It is life-draining to be homeless. So I don’t think Jesus is saying to make ourselves homeless. You can also come Saturday to make the meal with us at Community Table, and be in contact with people who aren’t necessarily homeless, but who do have a lack of food. Jesus is not saying that we should go hungry. Join us and see how difficult it is to go on in life when you have a shortage of food, even if you do have a place to live.

So Jesus isn’t saying be homeless, or go hungry, or put yourself into financial bindings. But he does like to push us out of our comfort zone, and to think about what it might look like if we were closer to what he asks, if we were more generous. What would it look like to sell all we own? What would it look like to sell half of what we own, and give it to the poor? What would it look like to reduce your lifestyle at some level, by a quarter, say, or maybe even to just buy less and get out of the consumption ratrace and have more left to give away.

Or maybe wealth and riches are not your issues. I know you all in this congregation, and I don’t know of anyone in this church who suffers from too much wealth. As a church we don’t, and as individuals we don’t, not as we normally think of “the rich”. So maybe this is not a problem in this congregation. And we can hear Jesus’ words and then question not about money, but “What is it that I cling to that keeps me from following Jesus more fully?” My sense of self, my ideas about how things ought to be. It could be ideas, things, people, fear. What is it that I cling to that keeps me from fully following Jesus? That’s a good question to ask. And then give that up, and find riches in heaven as you follow Jesus. Then after you’ve gotten rid of that one, maybe you find something else that gets in the way, so let go of that. Then maybe something else. It’s a journey. Not something that we perfect, and certainly don’t perfect in one moment, but a constant journey of shedding or letting go of what gets in the way, and growing stronger in discipleship and growing closer to God and Jesus’ way. That involves doing more ministry, like helping with the street ministry, or going to the Community Table. Or letting go of the fear and anxiety of being invitational: invite someone to the Halloween party, to introduce people to the people in this congregation, and maybe even introduce them to God.

It’s not that we must be perfect today. We are all on a journey, that is a life-long journey. We never truly complete it. We never achieve perfection, but do it one day at a time. Letting go of one thing at a time, moving closer to joining in Jesus’ footsteps. A life-long journey, one day at a time, trusting that God’s grace never condemns but is always lifting up, forgiving, sending a Spirit of renewal and new life, continually saying, “Keep following me”. To keep growing, to keep following, and to keep making the world a more loving world.

Amen.

"Faith is a Verb" - sermon from August 30, 2015.

This is getting posted many months late, but I like it enough that I thought it should still be shared even given the lateness. May you find a blessing in this sermon!

“Faith Is a Verb”
Sermon, Year B, Proper 17, August 30, 2015
Plymouth United Church of Christ, Eau Claire, WI 
©2015 Rev. David J. Huber
Focus Scripture: James 1:17-27, Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23





Over the last couple of years I’ve been slowly growing more and more into the thought of not liking the word “Christian” so much as a description, or a way to talk about the faith that I proclaim or how I think of myself. Though that is what I am. But there is something about the word that is not as active as I would like it to be. To me, the word implies that the importance is on what I believe. THe precepts, the doctrine, the faith claims. 

But the first Christians did not call themselves by that name. They called themselves “Followers of Jesus”. Or disciples or apostles of Jesus, or most commonly they called themselves “followers of The Way”. Words that described how they lived. The key words being “follower” or “disciple” are action words. Words about how they lived, not about the belief of abstract concepts. To be a follower of Jesus is to be a verb. 

To live the way that Jesus would have us live.

There is the old question of, “If you were to be put on trial for being a Christian (or being a follower of Jesus) would there be enough evidence to convict you?” 

Something to think about Would you life *show* what you believed? Were the hungry fed, were the prisoners released, were the suffering cared for, were the poor championed, did you treat your neighbors with love and fairness, did you share the good news and invite people to share in the good new with you, did you deal ethically with people at work and in the rest of your life, did you offer forgiveness, did you bridle your tongue, did you watch what you say, did you strive to lift up and not to destroy, did you live humbly, meekly, peacefully?

That’s why I like to say that I am a follower of Jesus, or a disciple of Jesus. I am trying to live like him. I want to live like Jesus did. And I certainly don’t do that well by any means. I stumble and fall and make mistakes, as we all do. But it is a striving to be more like Jesus wants us to be. 

The writer of the letter of James is saying here that it is not enough to believe, to accept a set of belief statements, or to make intellectual assent to whatever you are “supposed” to believe. One has to live it. Go beyond the believing and live it. 

Later in the letter, and we will read these words next week, he says that faith without works, he says, is dead. Not in this passage, but elsewhere in the letter. You’ll hear that in a few weeks.

He did say in this passage: “But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.”

He goes on to say, “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.”

For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror.”

It’s to be a disciple. A lived faith.

That’s what the church is about, discipleship. Everything we do is related to discipleship in one way or another, but this coming year we’re focusing on it specifically, with our discipleship plans and ideas. Connect - Grow - Love. To connect with others, to grow in faith, and to live the faith through acts of love. We’re focusing on it specifically this year.

And I want to mention that over the years, some people have wanted to remove this letter from the Bible or even to keep it out when the early Christians were deciding which ones to put into the New Testament. Martin Luther wasn’t a fan of it. 

The reason being that this letter could be twisted into ways to turn our faith, to turn being a Jesus follower, into a never-ending attempt to earn God’s love by doing good works, and losing God’s love if we do bad works. That could be twisted, and has been twisted, into toxic religion of fear and anxiety. 

But that is not the intent of the letter at all. The intent is to say, “Okay, now you’ve been baptised, you’ve made a faith claim, you’ve accepted God’s unconditional love: now go spread it to others! Don’t keep it yourself, don’t rest on your laurels, don’t think you’re done.” You have the salvation; but Jesus has called us to work for the realm of God, so go do stuff. Do it with a sense of joy, because we all already have God’s love. We are all loved by God unconditionally. Show your gratitude by living the way Jesus wants you to. Align yourself with God’s vision. Follow where Jesus has gone. 

Jesus also said in the Gospel passage that it isn’t what goes into a person that defiles, it’s what comes out. What comes out, whether it be speech or action. Not about making sure you’re doing the proper rituals or following the rules to a T, with no regard how you live in community or toward others. But Jesus says it’s not failure to follow the rules or traditions that defile us, it’s what we say and do that can do it. As James said, “If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless.” 

Ouch. I say “ouch” because I know that applies to me. I don’t always bridle my tongue, and too many times have let it go very much unbridled in snarkiness, sarcasm, or just shutting down a conversation by shutting down the person.

So I made a New Year’s resolution coming into 2015 to bridle my tongue a lot better than I have been when I disagree with someone, or an idea, or see something that is so utterly ignorant it enrages me. Especially in online conversations where the consequences of unbridled tongue are much less, but in person as well. My heart, my spirit, were feeling the effects of the negativity. I think we see too much of that negative dialogue in our culture. Too much shouting and dehumanizing, and not enough conversation that leads somewhere helpful. We can disagree in positive ways; we can be angry in ways that don’t lash out to hurt others or demean or dehumanize; use that anger to build new ways of compassion instead of just destroying people.

I’ve not kept to that resolution like I’d like to. I’ve fallen. But I have faith that God loves me anyway, and that makes it easier to keep trying to live the way I want to live. That even if I fail, I don’t lose God’s love. God does not condemn me, God always forgives. 

I also know that when I misbehave, I know that it does not mean I’ve lost God’s love, but it does mean that when I am misbehaving, I make it impossible for others to see God’s love coming through me, because it isn’t. 

Being a Jesus follower really is about actions. Even if I wrote the most perfect four hundred page treatise proving the doctrine of the Trinity and believed every word of it, it’s worthless if I am not treating people, or the world, or my community, with respect and dignity.

Worthless if I don’t act like I believe it. Worthless if my belief has no positive impact on how I live as a disciple. 

So you have some opportunities to live your discipleship. 

Tuesday night you have a chance to be out doing and living discipleship: we’ll be serving watermelon and lemonade as part of our Tuesday night street ministry. This is a pretty low commitment, and not scary, opportunity. We will let the street ministry people be the ones in charge of praying with people, listening to their stories, helping them with water, food, clothing, and whatever needs they have. So you won’t have to do that. All you have to do is serve watermelon and lemonade, greet people with a smile, look them in the eye, tell them we’re doing this as an act of love and connection - there’s that word I’ve been using a lot lately! - with our community, and maybe chat a bit with them. It will expand your world, and that’s a good thing.

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God is to take care of widows and orphans - and in this case, people who are homeless. 

Another way is to become part of a pastoral care ministry. I’d love to see us have a group of a few people, or even a lot of people, who would live their discipleship through prayer: praying for this congregation, praying for Eau Claire. Praying that God send us the people God has designated for us, praying for the success of our ministry, praying for the strength of our fellowship, that we beacons of light and hope in the Chippewa Valley. It would also be connecting with people, but does not have to be physical: not visiting per se, but I’d like to see each member of this congregation receive a phone call or a letter every three months from someone just to say “I’m thinking of you today, people are praying for you”. It would include something I’d like to see: connecting with people a year after a death, be it a spouse or a child or a parent, to call or write them to say “I know the first anniversary after the death is coming up - please know that you are in my prayers and thoughts.” 

It’s a way for us to connect more closely within our fellowship - either by being the intentional connector, or being connected to. 

And it’s a group that would never have to have a meeting, or a chairperson, or an annual report, or a secretary. It would take some reporting back to the office just to let us know what you’ve done, but that’s it. 

If you’d like to be part of this ministry - being doers of the word - please drop the card in your bulletin in the offering plate. 

It could include sending birthday cards, anniversary cards, get well cards. I’ve been sending birthday cards to people since I came here, but I’m thinking that would be good for someone or someones else to do - and I could send out cards on the anniversaries of your baptisms! I think that would be pretty cool, and a reminder to us who have been baptized that we don’t have just birthdays, but we also have re-birthdays. A reminder that on such and such a date, you took a vow (or perhaps later confirmed vows made on your behalf) to live by the Way of Jesus. 

And today we celebrate a baptism! The entry of a person into the fellowship of the Church. That outward and visible sign of an inward invisible grace. A death to the self, and rebirth into the body of Christ that is the Church. Baptism is always a beginning of a journey. Whether it be a baby or an adult being baptised. It is the beginning of a journey into a life of faith. And just as the act of baptism is outward and public with the application of water and the words we speak, so also our faith is to be lived outward and public through acts of generosity, compassion, and love done in Jesus’ name as disciples. 

So I challenge you to consider if the Spirit is leading you to help on Tuesday night or maybe on the pastoral care team. I also ask that as we come to the baptism today, pay attention to the words that we are saying. Pay attention to the words that we are saying in the baptismal covenant. Be mindful to what is being said, and ask yourself, “Have I been living up to that?” And don’t ask it in a way so that you beat yourself up for not living up to it. I never want people, and I don’t think God wants people, to beat ourselves up for making mistakes. Know that absolutely and for sure God loves you, God forgives you, and you always have God’s grace. But admit to where you could do better in living up to those vows, and let it change your heart. 

And see where that takes you in your discipleship. See where that takes you as a follower of Jesus.

Amen.

Just having some fun tonight - a bit of levity in stressful times. A simple "share of yourself" kind of game.

Everything is so serious on Facebook these days. Let's have a little fun.
Three names I go by
1. David (and *NEVER* Dave- not ever; nope, not in any way, ever ever ever; either David, or something that is entirely unlike it, except for #3 below)
2. Hubes
3. Dare

Three places I lived
1. Harlem
2. Morningside Heights
3. Manoa Valley

Three places I have worked
1. McKinsey & Co.
2. Lehman Brothers
3. A number of wonderful congregations, including Plymouth (Eau Claire) and Plymouth (Brooklyn) and Central Union UCC and Broadway UCC

Three things I love to watch
1. Fish and birds and other wildlife
2. Sunrises and sunsets
3. Blacklist

Three places I have been
1. The Janesville GM Plant Manager's private bathroom
2. Mercy Hospital, Janesville
3. "The zone"

Three things I love to eat
1. Foie gras (and any liver, whether chicken, duck, monkfish, lamb, etc.)
2. Shellfish of any kind
3. My mom's rhubarb pie

Three people I think will respond
1. Sloeberry "John Smith" Beltpenhammer-Fruitdrinkgorer
2. Gatorade Bill
3. Susan "Porterhouse" Swivelbottomthistleboor

Three favorite drinks (not water)
1. Coffee
2. Tea
3. Sake (drier the better)

Three things I am looking forward to:
1. Festival of Homiletics (not sure I'm going, but I'm hoping to!!!)
2. MADD camp
3. Having my lungs removed in a blender/surry accident

Now here is what you're supposed to do. Please don't spoil the fun. Copy and paste the blank version below in your status with your answers. Don't forget to copy a blank copy in your comments for other people to copy.

Everything is so serious on Facebook these days. Let's have a little fun.
Three names I go by
1.
2.
3.
Three places I lived
1.
2.
3.
Three places I have worked
1.
2.
3.
Three things I love to watch
1.
2.
3.
Three places I have been
1.
2.
3.
Three things I love to eat
1.
2.
3.
Three people I think will respond
1.
2.
3.
Three favorite drinks (not water)
1.
2.
3.
Three things I am looking forward to:
1.
2.
3.
Now here is what you're supposed to do. Please don't spoil the fun. Copy and paste the blank version below in your status with your answers.
Don't forget to copy a blank copy in your comments for other people to copy.