Red alert!

Swords and Plowshares, Phillip Ratner, 1998, from the Safad Bible.


Isaiah 2: 1-5; Matthew 24: 36-44
Woodmont United Church of Christ, Milford, CT
November 28, 2010 – Advent 1


I must confess to you that I procrastinated in the writing of this sermon, which can happen when God’s word is disruptive. After reading the gospel lesson numerous times, after praying, thinking, reading other sources and then reflecting on all of this, I was still quaking in my shoes. You heard the Matthew text. It sounds like a terrorist alert. “Warning, red alert! A dam has been destroyed due a terrorist bomb and a flood is coming. Warning! There have been random kidnappings in the area. Stay alert for further messages. Warning! There have been numerous break-ins in the area. Keep watch in your neighborhood.” We heard images of God coming into the world not as a cute, cuddly infant, but God as a flood, a kidnapper, a thief who comes into our lives with disturbing surprise and upheaval. What a way to begin Advent.

Did you know that in order to guard against a terrorist attack, our government established a website called ready.gov? It was launched in 2003 by the Department for Homeland Security. The website educated citizens on how to prepare for a terrorist attack, whether it be a chemical or biological threat, an explosion, a nuclear blast, or a radiation threat. Since Obama was elected in 2008 it is now sponsored by FEMA and Citizen Corps and is geared to prepare businesses, families, kids and military families for any natural or man-made disaster. The website exists so that we will be “better prepared for the unexpected.” During the Bush administration it used to display the different colors of the alert system. Since Sept. 11 we have been at a yellow alert and at various times that alert has been upgraded to orange. Red is reserved for an imminent threat of attack.

That color-code alert system reminds me of the 1970’s and ‘80’s when we educated ourselves about nuclear proliferation and worried that our Soviet neighbors would start the next world war. Those were anxious times.

And then there are the bomb shelters of the 1950’s and ‘60’s. And the air raid sirens of the 1940’s. It seems we have always lived in fear of our imminent destruction, especially since our technology has outstretched our ability to control it and use it for constructive purposes rather than destructive ones.

With the advent of ever-more revealing screening technologies and airport pat-downs, it seems we are more fearful of a terrorist attack than of God coming into the world. We are more ready to destroy ourselves than we are for God to disturb our lives with the message of Jesus.

Isaiah has a different vision of our future. In the future that Isaiah imagines, all nations come to God’s holy mountain. God judges between the nations and puts things right between them. And it is not God who beats the swords into plowshares but the people. It is we who turn our spears into pruning hooks, our weapons of mass destruction into tools for harvesting food, our bullets and bombs into grain to feed the hungry.



There is a monument in Washington, D.C. that illustrates this passage poignantly. Artist Esther Augsburger worked for two and a half years with the Metro Police Department to construct it. The sculpture, entitled “Guns into Plowshares”, measures 16 feet high, consisting of 3,000 handguns welded together to form the steel blade of a plowshare. The handguns were ones that had been surrendered by local residents.

It is this future that God wants us to be prepared for, this future of peace, this future of passing down knowledge to our children of how to feed people rather than how to kill them.

But sometimes it appears that this future, this vision of peace, is scarier to us than a future terrorist attack. When we prepare out of fear, we think we can hold onto what we have. We afford ourselves the illusion that we can control the outcome, that we can fight and be triumphant or that we can run away and hide if necessary.

When God warns us to prepare out of love, love for the kingdom, love for everyone including our enemies, including those whom we consider outsiders or we disagree with, we then have to let go. We have to let go of what we think we know, let go of our treasured opinions and way of living, let go of all that we think keeps us safe in the eyes of the world. We have to let go of our fear and embrace the way of love. Sadly, we humans seem to find it easier to base a life on fear than on love. And those in power find it easier to govern those who fear than those who love in Jesus’ radical way.

God comes into our lives and interrupts the order we have so carefully surrounded ourselves with. It is our reluctance to follow God’s way that gives Advent its sense of urgency. If we kept alive Isaiah’s vision even for just a few minutes each day, we think, we wouldn’t have to wake up to such a disturbing alarm. We wouldn’t have to listen to these Advent texts that drag us away from the manger and its warm scene. We could go about our orderly way.

But no. Jesus pulls up our eyelids and jolts us awake with the words, “Keep awake. You do not know when God is coming.” I have a sticker someone gave me that says, “Jesus is coming. Look busy.” We smile ruefully because we know that we have been too busy with things other than those which lead to the kingdom of God.

Jesus tells us that if the owner of the house had known when the thief was coming, he would’ve kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. Hindsight is always 20/20, so we are cautioned to stay awake in the present moment, to not be lulled asleep by our comforts, to not numb ourselves from our fears.

If we had known that war only leads to death, destruction, and disease among nations and that the death of an enemy is no different than the death of a loved one in the eyes of God, would we have stayed awake and kept watch with our adversaries until God had led us to another way?

If we had known that deep water oil drilling is not failsafe, that an accident could be catastrophic—both to human and aquatic life, would we have stayed awake until we found another way to provide energy? We would have seen all people and not just some, all the earth and not just where we live, as one creation, made by God for all people.

If we had known that a child would grow into an adult in the wink of an eye, a spouse would change and grow over the years, a parent would get older and not as able, would we have stayed awake and kept watch with them until we found a way to keep our temper, give thanks for their love, accept them as they are, and take it all one day at a time?

If we had known that we were only given so many years on this earth to give, to love, to see, to smell, to touch, to hear, to taste, to know, would we have stayed awake and kept watch, watching for God in each moment, ready for God to break in at any time? We would have known our life here is far too precious to waste on business as usual.




Our God is the One who is always coming into the world. The waiting of Advent is not to wait for God to come but for us to prepare, to get ready. God is always ready to come into the life of this world and into our lives at any given moment, if only we stay awake and keep watch. If we are mindful of the holiness of each moment, of each breath, of each person, of each gift of creation, God is there, ready to break us out of our complacent ways of living and believing and transform us. We truly can be “better prepared for the unexpected”. Though we do not know when God will come, we do know God will. Of that we can be certain. What a way to begin Advent! Thanks be to God.

Bird by bird

The Siege and Destruction of Jerusalem A.D. 70, Roberts (1850)

Isaiah 65: 17-25; Luke 21: 5-19
Woodmont United Church of Christ, Milford, CT
November 14, 2010 – Stewardship Sunday


As the passage from Luke was read, was not the description of events eerily like those we are experiencing now? Certainly we have wars and nations rising up against other nations. We have had plenty of natural disasters—earthquakes in Haiti, Chile, New Zealand and Indonesia, tornados, mudslides, cholera, famine, drought, forest fires—to herald this alleged end of times.

And then there is our popular culture that at times reeks with depravity. Play Station 3 game series like “Call of Duty”, some that are rated T for teen, where war is glorified in a virtual reality and war’s greatest pain is anesthetized. In our recent election we had pundits and politicians going to war with each other rather than engaging in serious debate about what needs to be done and how it could be accomplished. And then on a lighter note: neither the Red Sox nor the Yankees was in the World Series. Surely now we know that the day of the Lord is near.

But these supposed signs of the end do not happen only to nations, cities, or groups of fans. All of these are composed of individuals and families: individuals who have been laid off from their jobs; individuals who are poor and sick and cannot get adequate health insurance or quality of care; individuals who are in danger of losing their homes; individuals who are teachers, underpaid and overworked, and their students in schools with slim to no resources; individuals who struggle to get an education, to keep their family under one roof, to hold onto hope that things will get better. Surely these are also signs that God is coming to judge the living and the dead.

Let us also remember some other words of Jesus, that we cannot know the day and the hour when God will come. That is only for God to know. Even from our own experience we can say that when we think we know something is going to happen, the fact that we think we know is proof that we don’t know anything.

We live in a culture of fear, some of it due to outside forces, all of it due to our own human weakness. Thinking we know what is going to happen is our own defense mechanism of dealing with our fear. Jesus says to us in other passages in his gospel that our fear, our anxiety will only drive us away from God and away from each other. Jesus has more important work for us to do rather than managing our fear.

Jesus tells those around him that before the end comes, they will be witnessing to the truth of the gospel as they are living it out in their lives and for this they will be arrested and persecuted. This isn’t very comforting or reassuring. For the author of Luke this was already happening to the early Christians. They were convinced the end was near because the temple and all of Jerusalem had been destroyed by the Romans. Being a Christian was not only unpopular, it was downright dangerous. Some Jews like Saul were bringing followers of the Way bound to Jerusalem as offenders of the Jewish faith. Believers were being tortured for worshiping Christ as their King rather than Caesar. These early Christians believed that their life in the flesh was nothing. The integrity of one’s soul was more important. As Martin Luther wrote in his famous hymn: “The body they may kill; God’s truth shall triumph still; God’s reign endures forever.”

But what is it that we can witness about? To what social concern shall we apply the truth of the gospel? Almost every one of them, from gay marriage to abortion to immigration to Islamophobia, creates conflict and divides the Church. If we are to witness, shouldn’t we be doing it together as a united front, as a Church, as the Body of Christ? Isn’t there one thing all Christians can agree on?

Often it is helpful to look at the passages that frame the lectionary text as a way of providing context for the message at hand. Before this morning’s text we have the story of the poor widow and her offering. Jesus said that out of her poverty she gave all she had to live on. The author of Luke immediately goes on to contrast this scene with other folk observing the almost royal beauty and splendor of the Temple, yet Jesus says it will be destroyed completely. And then after the text ending with “By your endurance you will gain your souls”, we are told the city of Jerusalem will fall. The “city set on a hill for all to see” will be no more.

Here is where the Church’s witness can focus in agreement. Poverty is a biblical priority. I read recently that one out of 16 verses of scripture is about poverty—one out of nine in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. James Forbes, a former pastor of Riverside Church in Manhattan, said, “According to Matthew 25, nobody gets into heaven without a letter of reference from the poor.”

All of these other supposedly “nonnegotiable issues” that the Church is in conflict over can sometimes be distractions from the one moral issue, poverty, that one that outweighs and informs every other issue. Abortion does not directly compel us to examine what everyday choices we make with our money, how we behave as consumers. Same-sex marriage does not demand that we change how we live our lives for the sake of others. Immigration and Islamophobia beg how do we treat the outcast in our midst yet they have not necessitated a transformation of individual and collective, corporate values. To be sure, these issues are important and deserve our attention, our best efforts, our faith, and our prayer. But surely not at the cost of our fellow citizens who live in squalor or who struggle just above the poverty line.

In this bountiful land there are 43.6 million people who are poor—the largest number in the 51 years for which poverty estimates have been published; 50.7 million are without health insurance and 37 million are hungry. 3.5 million U.S. citizens are homeless—39% of them children. If our witness to the truth of the gospel is needed anywhere, certainly it is desperately needed by the poor.

“But,” we say, “What can I do? Am I to sell all that I have and give it to the poor? Surely Jesus did not mean that I am to trade places with the poor? What can I do? The problems of our world are so huge, they are seemingly insurmountable.” Sometimes we can let the problem and all its complexities overwhelm us to the point of being paralyzed.



Author Anne Lamott tells the story of her older brother who, when he was ten years old, was trying to get a report on birds written that he’d had three months to write. It was due the next day. She writes, “We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, CA, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother’s shoulder and said, ‘Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.’”

Jesus does not expect us to save the world. I suspect he does not expect our nation to save the world either. As for how the story of the world is going to end, we leave that in God’s capable hands. All anyone can do is to give what they can on a daily basis to those in need. Of course, to those who can give much, Jesus said more will be asked of them. And if we think we are doing enough for the poor, if we think we are doing our share, the very fact that we think so is proof that we could be doing a whole lot more.

But we don’t have to have some grandiose plan, some lofty goal that just might kill our efforts and our spirits. One kindness, one intervention, one increase on a pledge card, one local food drive, one hour of literacy volunteering, one church tag sale, one Saturday at Habitat for Humanity, one time when we say what we really think, just taking it bird by bird. God calls us not to manage our fear but to be stewards of our love; our money, our time, our lives are the means by which we are able to be generous and extravagant with our love. It is all anyone can really do but with perseverance. Truly it is what Jesus did in his lifetime; it is his legacy to us.

We are not meant to preserve that city set on the hill for all to see. All that we do to protect the splendor and beauty that we have created will come to an end someday. But what we do for each other, for the poor, for our neighbors—whether they be next door or 10,000 miles away or somewhere in between—what we do one person at a time, as we give witness to the truth of the gospel as it is revealed in the living of our lives, by enduring in this way will we gain our souls, which are forever. Thanks be to God.

Amen.

Kingdom migration

Moses leading the Israelites by a pillar of cloud


Psalm 98; Job 19: 23-27a; 2 Thess. 2: 1-5, 13-17
Woodmont United Church of Christ, Milford, CT
November 7, 2010 – All Saints Sunday


November is a season of migration. Flocks of Canada geese and sand hill cranes, millions of monarch butterflies, herds of bison and pronghorn, even rattlesnakes and bats, are making their way from their summer homes to their winter camps. In this month’s National Geographic magazine I read that “animal migration is far grander and more patterned than animal movement. It represents travel with long-deferred rewards. It suggests premeditation and epic willfulness, codified as inherited instinct.”

Evolutionary biologist Hugh Dingle has identified five characteristics that apply to all migrations: a prolonged voyage that conveys animals outside their familiar habitats; a tendency to move in a straight path rather than a roundabout way; special behaviors in preparation for migration, such as overfeeding; an extraordinary distribution of energy; lastly and most importantly, an undeterred and focused attention to the journey to the exclusion of all else. You might say that animals that migrate have a higher sense of purpose.



Sand hill cranes

We who journey with God are also on a migration of sorts—a spiritual voyage spanning millennia, bearing the same five qualities, though in differing forms. In the wilderness God’s people were led by pillars of cloud and fire. Through the centuries we’ve traveled by the wisdom of prophets and the inspiration of ordinary individuals. We who call ourselves Christian look to Jesus as the Way, the Truth and the Life. We strive to follow the Holy Spirit who continually urges us onward to the unfamiliar territory of the kingdom. Special behaviors are required of us in preparation, such as being fed through study, prayer, giving, service and worship. As we all know in the Church vast reserves of energy are demanded of us as God’s hands and feet in the world, hence, the need to be fed. All of this is channeled into our higher sense of purpose, the kingdom of God’s grace, compassion, justice and peace.

A life of faith is a migratory path. There is no standing still, there is no status quo, despite the efforts of some to fashion the Church into an unchanging monolith. So often it is easy for us to be distracted. We hear the culture warmongering against the way of peace and justice; our spirits rise and fall with the financial market and our checking account; we are often tempted to measure our faithfulness in terms of what we do rather than by the softness of our hearts.



Monarch butterflies

The infant church in Thessalonica had been temporarily thrown off-course by reports that Jesus had returned without their knowledge, that the kingdom had arrived and they had missed it. Paul, or someone close to him writing in his name, encourages this small congregation to remain steadfast, to remember that they were chosen by God for faith and they are witnesses to the fruits of this faith. He reminds this fledgling church of the tradition that has been handed down to them by those trustworthy in the faith.

We too have a source of those trustworthy in the faith: those saints who have passed on before us, who entrusted us with the tradition of following the Holy Spirit wherever she goes. Migratory paths are taught from parent to offspring, from one generation to the next. We follow in the path of folks like Diane and Carlos, Charlie and Eleanor, Hal and Herb, Marjorie and Cecil. They knew that the path of faith is one of long-deferred rewards; that it requires reflection, planning and an epic willfulness, codified as inherited instinct—inherited from those who came before them.

Sometimes in the Church we inherit dysfunctional patterns—self-defeating habits that perpetuate unhealthy congregational behaviors which can take us off-course. It is up to every generation, as in every family, to decide what we’re going to hold onto and what we need to let go of. What was handed down to us may no longer work. It doesn’t mean we are disloyal to their memory. Rather we honor them when we remember that the greater mission is the kingdom of God, which does not change.



Pronghorn

But our migratory path toward the kingdom is not linear nor is it spiral or zigzag: it does not even exist in time. In truth, at any given moment the kingdom can come to us. It comes when justice is lived, when we are at peace with ourselves and our neighbor, when mercy is done, resources shared, forgiveness spoken, when bread is broken and the cup poured out. The kingdom is eternally now, entering into our journey with God, when the invisible becomes visible in us and through us.

All of this we do step by step, one day at a time, feeling our way on this great migration. Our guidance system, our homing beacon is a mystery that tells us that God is very real, made known to us through the creation in which we live out our faith; for it is God who first showed us the way and continues to lead us home. And sometimes the only way we can articulate this faith, what we know to be true, is in song:

“Who taught the sun where to stand in the morning?
And who told the ocean you can only come this far?
And who showed the moon where to hide 'til evening?
Whose words alone can catch a falling star?

“Well, I know my Redeemer lives.
I know my Redeemer lives:
Let all creation testify;
Let this life within me cry
I know my Redeemer lives.”

"Redeemer"©Nicole C. Mullen

The stillspeaking church speaks again

As a friend and colleague of mine said, this is the church I love and love to serve.

Uniquely UCC from United Church of Christ on Vimeo.

Children of Abraham

Jesus and Zacchaeus

Psalm 119: 137-144; Luke 19: 1-10
Woodmont United Church of Christ, Milford, CT
October 31, 2010 – Reformation/Reconciliation Sunday


One of the most publicized family feuds was in 1998. It was the controversy over whether or not Thomas Jefferson fathered one or perhaps all seven of Sally Hemings’ children. Thomas Jefferson was a Virginia landowner and owned hundreds of slaves, Sally Hemings being one of them. For over two hundred years questions have been raised about their relationship and whether or not it produced children.

Technology caught up with those questions in the person of Dr. Eugene Foster, a retired medical professor from the University of Virginia. He compared the blood from five descendants of Field Jefferson, Thomas's paternal uncle, with the blood of the descendants of Sally Hemings, Thomas Woodson—whose family claims Jefferson as an ancestor, and the Carr brothers, Jefferson’s nephews—who were long thought to have fathered Sally Hemings’ children. Though the findings were not conclusive, they provided strong support to the supposition that Jefferson was the father of at least one of Sally Hemings’ children.

Thought it ranks high on the list, this quarrel is not entirely about racism, as we might assume. It also has to do with privilege: being buried at Monticello, not far from where Thomas Jefferson was laid to rest; open and accepted membership in a prestigious founding family. As a child, Shannon Lanier, a descendant of Madison Hemings, stood in front of his first grade class, stating that Thomas Jefferson was his great- great- great- great- great- great-grandfather. His teacher told him to sit down and stop telling lies. Ultimately this dispute is about inclusion, reconciliation and a sense of legitimate belonging in this nation’s history.



Monticello

So you can imagine what a family reunion it must have been. Every year hundreds of Jefferson descendants, who comprise the Monticello Association, gather at the historical landmark after hours. And after an invite from one of the association members, dozens of Sally Hemings’ descendants began attending, not as family but as guests, and with them, hoards of reporters and photographers.

But as we in the church well know, an invitation can be a far cry from a warm and hospitable welcome. Many association members were in favor of the Hemings being in attendance but most were not. Eventually a vote was taken to deny them full membership and to restrict their numbers at the annual reunion. Attempting to form a human wall between the Hemings descendants and Thomas Jefferson, the association tried to deny them access to the Monticello cemetery. Since 2004 not one of the Hemings has attended the reunion; now they hold their own gathering at Monticello—at sunrise in a recently discovered slave cemetery. It’s not much of a stretch to say that, in order to get a clear glimpse of Jefferson, Hemings’ descendants may have to climb a tree, the family tree, limb by limb.



"Virginia Luxuries," by an unknown artist, around 1800. Courtesy Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum.

Zacchaeus knew what it was like to be excluded because of who he was. From the text we read that he was rich, he was short in stature and he was not only a tax collector but the chief of them all. These all look like many strikes against him.

And yet, according to the Jewish wisdom tradition, being rich was not an evil thing; in fact, it was a sign of God’s blessing and favor, that one must be wise and righteous in the eyes of God. Wealth was not an end in and of itself; it was vehicle for expressing one’s faithfulness to God and to neighbor. Are you generous or greedy, giving or withholding? And as for short of stature, the Greek words for this phrase translate as ‘small in maturity’, that is, the crowd was treating him like a child. They had formed a human wall between Zacchaeus and Jesus, deciding who had access to Jesus and who did not. A tax collector who worked for the Romans and the chief one at that? According to the crowd, Zacchaeus was definitely out.

In last week’s lectionary reading from Luke, Jesus tells a parable about a Pharisee who when he prays, extols his own righteous behavior and thanks God that he is not like ‘that tax collector over there’. Jesus, though, lifts up the humble faith of the tax collector beating his chest, praying “Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner!” Jesus also said that prostitutes and tax collectors would enter the kingdom of heaven before the righteous. He was known to sit at table with sinners and tax collectors, even calling one to be part of his inner circle of disciples. And in today’s lectionary reading Jesus says he not only will but must come to Zacchaeus’ house.

This story has usually been read and interpreted as a man who once cheated folks but for having received Jesus into his home now repents and changes his ways. But according to biblical commentators wiser than I, there’s more to this story about Zacchaeus than meets the eye.

In verse 8 the Greek verb “to give”, didōmi, has been translated in the New Revised Standard Version in the future tense: “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.” But in the Greek and in other translations it is in the present active tense: “I give…”, “I repay…”, implying that Zacchaeus is already giving to the poor and repaying any fraudulent transactions. If citizens could produce the receipt given to them, tax collectors, by law, were required to repay the defrauded amount plus 20%. A faithful Jew was also required to give to the poor. Zacchaeus is not only faithful but goes beyond the law, giving half to the poor and repaying any debt plus four times as much. In fact, the name ‘Zacchaeus’ in Hebrew means “pure” or “innocent”.

Zacchaeus is a rich man in the classic Jewish tradition, in that he is more than faithful, but because he is the chief tax collector working for the treacherous Romans, the crowd grumbles and assumes Zacchaeus is a crook. Salvation has come to Zacchaeus’ household not because of anything Zacchaeus has done but because Jesus chose to lift up one who is humble and righteous, who is also a child of Abraham.

We human beings have a long-standing tradition of building walls between “us” and “them”, based on judgments, assumptions and half-truths. On Oct. 20 NPR political analyst Juan Williams was fired because of comments he made on the Fox network show “The O’Reilly Factor”. Here are his exact words: "I mean, look, Bill, I'm not a bigot. You know the kind of books I've written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous." He also tempered that remark by saying that blaming all Muslims for the actions of extremists would be akin to blaming all Christians for the actions of Timothy McVeigh.

And yet Jews, Christians, and Muslims are all children of Abraham. He was the father of nations, promised by God who is the God of all nations. Abraham was not native to the land of Canaan but originally from Ur, a city-state in ancient Sumer that would later come under the control of the Babylonian empire, the empire that would one day destroy the temple in Jerusalem and send Israel into exile.

None of us can claim legitimacy for ourselves. Just as Jesus insisted on coming to the home of Zacchaeus, legitimacy is a gift we bestow on one another. It is when we reach out to ‘the other’ and say “You are my sister, my brother, I claim you as family, and this whole earth is our home.” When we are able to do this, then we will have reconciliation; then we will have peace.

Notice the Star of David and the blossom of light around Zacchaeus.

But peace and reconciliation require that we become small and pure in heart, like Zacchaeus. If salvation is to come to this house we call Earth, and it must come, it begins with each of us acknowledging our safe distance from the poor. It begins with taking inventory of ourselves and if we have cheated anyone of forgiveness, compassion, or justice, we restore to them not only what is due but even four times as much. We are to emulate Jesus’ accounting of grace, that we are to forgive not once, not seven times, but seventy times seven, that if someone takes our coat, we are to give our cloak as well, to go the second mile, to give to anyone who begs of us.

We cannot claim any greatness except that of God working through us, and even that is a dubious claim when one examines our track record with God. Yet God’s merciful cup overflows. God’s passion for us is a stubborn love and God remains steadfast. God claims all of us as children, as one family, that none would be lost, that all would be sought and found. Thanks be to God.

Amen.

Holding on and letting go

The Widow and the Unjust Judge


Genesis 32: 22-31; Psalm 121; Luke 18: 1-8
Woodmont United Church of Christ, Milford, CT
October 17, 2010


Earlier this week I hope you all had an opportunity to watch some of the footage of the Chilean miners being rescued from their 68-day ordeal 700 meters below the earth’s surface. To me, it was like watching a birth, as the workers stood by the rescue shaft, waiting as the cable slowly raised the capsule containing, each in their turn, one of the 33 miners, moving from darkness into the light. I couldn’t help but cry with joy and with memories of those times when someone lifted me or a loved one out of the darkness, when God reached into that pit of despair and raised me into the light.

Of course, as a follower of Jesus, I can’t help but think of the resurrection, as though that deep hole underground was a tomb of death yet through love and hope and prayer and the hard work of many, it became a womb of life. As a person of faith I would say it was the prayers of perhaps millions around the world that sustained the miners and their families in their waiting, as well as knowing that everything was being done to rescue them and care for them.

In fact, one of the miners, Mario Gomez, the 9th and oldest miner to reach the surface, knelt down and prayed when he emerged from the rescue capsule. Two of the miners who were previously agnostic were said to have ‘found religion’ in the midst of their ordeal and joined in the daily prayer time the miners shared with one other. Many are calling what happened a miracle. And the Chilean people are ascribing the success of the rescue not to themselves but to God.




Mario Gomez


Alexander Chancellor, a columnist for the British newspaper The Guardian, and a self-avowed non-believer, writes that “[the] Chilean miners' rescue had everything to do with the impressive feats of the rescuers and nothing to do with God.” He admires their humility but is also confused by it, saying that the miners were also very lucky in their circumstances, unlike the nearly 500 who perished in the earthquake earlier this year. To this journalist and to us too at times, it seems that God’s mercy is mercurial, reserved for some and not for others.

Since humanity has been able to reflect on itself and human beings have perceived themselves as individuals and not just as a member of a group, the question of why do bad things happen has persisted. We have been wrestling with God on this point for millennia and we have not come any closer to an answer that gives us undoubted assurance. We have witnessed the power of prayer and yet we have also experienced its apparent failure. Does the efficacy of our prayers depend on our faith or how frequently we pray? Is it how we word our prayers, how specific or general our requests? Would things have turned out the way they did anyway, regardless of our prayers?

It seems to me that, in the American Christian experience of faith, too easily we grasp onto God and too easily we let go. The idea of God is something we should approach with fear and trembling as much as with comfort and release. The same could also be said about letting go of the idea of God. Too often, in the vacuum that our fear or anger or despair creates, we latch onto God as a cosmic cure-all, in a desperate attempt to assuage our very natural, very human feelings. We also tend to let go of God in that very same vacuum, when the God of our perceptions fails us.



There are two fundamental questions at the core of our human experience that as yet have no once and for all, satisfactory answer: one, where did this existence we live in come from? How was energy transformed into matter? What started all of this? And two, where is all this headed? What is the purpose of the universe? To put it in terms of human experience, where did we come from, how did each of us unique persons come to be? And what will happen to us when we die? Any of those questions has the power to create that vacuum, that empty space we so desperately try to fill.

The majority of human beings have come to believe that there is some sort of higher power at work in this world, that there is something beyond what science and our five senses can tell us. There is a mystery beyond our present capacity to understand, despite what Stephen Hawking says. Author Joseph Campbell wrote "We keep thinking of deity as a kind of fact, somewhere; God as a fact. God is simply our own notion of something that is symbolic of transcendence and mystery. The mystery is what's important." But how do we encounter the mystery, the unanswerable, the ineffable?

Ironically, we generally avoid these existential questions at church. Ron Brown, one of our associate conference ministers, says that there’s not a great deal of wrestling in the church. There’s plenty of what he calls ‘rassling’: arguments over small details, tussles over unimportant matters. But what the church needs is more wrestling. For instance, what about wrestling with why the church is in decline and whether nor not we’re going to follow? What about wrestling with how to be like Jesus in our daily lives? What about wrestling with forgiveness?

In these days it’s too easy to hang on to a feel-good faith or to let go of it when it runs empty. It’s hard hanging on to that mystery called God when what we’re wrestling with is the poverty or oppression of our neighbors or the cancer eating away at our life or an addiction compelling us to fill that vacuum inside us or the darkness seeping into our souls. It’s hard hanging on to God when we’re feeling spiritually hurt, especially when the church has been involved.

Jacob had the nerve to hang on until the blessing came, and we are challenged to do the same. Yes, he came away with a limp, but God never promised us a struggle-free life and certainly not struggle-free community. God did promise to help us and to remain faithful and love us—forever.

Jacob wrestling with an angel

Jesus dares us to be persistent, even nagging, in our need for justice. God’s mercy is not of the quick-fix variety or a security blanket or a bulletproof shield protecting our bodies from all harm. Luke’s gospel was speaking to early followers of Jesus—Jews and Gentiles—around the time that the Romans destroyed the Second Temple in Jerusalem. Few, if any, of Luke’s readers may have known Jesus; most did not. They were hopeful of his return but also despairing over their circumstances of persecution and what appeared to be permanent exile. In this parable, Jesus is telling his present disciples and those through the ages that God’s mercy will come quickly.

But how quickly, they and we wonder? People were perishing; communities of faith were growing weary, the power to transform seemingly ebbing away from them. Sounds familiar, yes? The spiritual practice that Jesus compels the disciples to engage in is the same for disciples of the 21st century: to pray always and to not lose heart.

Prayer that sustains us is more, though, than talking to God and a list of our requests. Rabbi Harold Kushner writes that prayer is “to come into the presence of God in the hope that we will be changed by doing so.” In prayer we persevere with God, we wrestle with God and we hang on until the blessing comes, until justice is done and mercy is granted. Prayer does not take us out of the world but brings us face to face with it and with God’s dream for the world, that kingdom of peace and righteousness for the whole of creation. In prayer we hang onto God for dear life and we let go of the outcome, trusting that God has not our best interests, but the wholeness of all at heart.

The Serenity Prayer and the Lord’s Prayer are ones we can say through the day to help us not lose heart, to help us not let go of our hearts. I’d like to introduce you to another prayer to take with you, one that if prayed in sincerity and honesty, has power, like any other prayer, to bring change and healing:

“Holy Spirit, if this direction or course of action is right for me, let it become more firmly rooted and established in my life. If this is wrong for me, let it become less important to me, and let it be increasingly removed from my life.” [1]

Are you ready to hang on for love and healing and rescue? Are you ready to let go of the schedule, the timeline, the outcome and trust God? Are you ready for blessing, for justice, for mercy? Are you ready to go deeper with God that you would be raised to new life?

[1] Flora Slosson Wuellner. Prayer, Stress and Our Inner Wounds. Nashville, TN: Upper Room Books, 1985, pg. 78.

Crossing the line

Psalm 111; Luke 17: 11-19
Woodmont United Church of Christ, Milford, CT
October 10, 2010


Two weeks ago, when rain was pounding the eastern seaboard and storm drains were flooding, an elderly woman and her great-grandson were driving down Rhode Island Avenue in Washington, D.C. The water was so high and rising so fast that it suddenly stopped the car and surged into where Bernice and Davonte were sitting. The boy opened his door and got of the car amidst the cold, raging water. But his great-grandmother was stuck in the car. As he tried to reach her, the water kept pushing him back. Because of the increasing water pressure, Bernice couldn’t open her door. When the water level reached the steering wheel, she thought she was a goner.

One of the passersby at the scene, a Hispanic man by appearance, stripped off his clothes and swam over to the car through the trash-ridden, fast-moving, unseasonably-cold water. He opened the car door, pulled Bernice out and helped her to safety. He didn’t hesitate or keep his safe distance. He didn’t take a picture or make a video. He didn’t even call 911. Instead he risked his life to save a complete stranger from drowning.

He also didn’t stick around to be thanked or to even introduce himself. Speculation is that he may have been an undocumented immigrant who didn’t wish to be questioned by the police when they arrived at the scene. Even though many undocumented immigrants may seem invisible to us, this man crossed that invisible line between citizen and foreigner and blurred that line so much that we couldn’t tell one from the other.

Boundaries and rules are important and should be respected. They keep us safe and healthy and whole. Usually when we break those limits, some sort of trouble or disease or injury ensues. We see the sense of them and we learn to keep them.

But we all know there are other restrictions intended to control or exclude or inflict harm on others. Many of us have known what that is like. Most, if not all, of you would cross such a line to set free, include and offer healing to one such as this anonymous rescuer.

So, isn’t it strange that in the gospel lesson from Luke, Jesus does not bridge the prescribed distance between himself and this small community of lepers? Jesus was known to be not only a rule-bender but a rule-breaker when it came to healing, forgiveness and the kingdom of God. These lepers are obeying the Levitical laws of purity by keeping their distance, but that’s never stopped Jesus before. In fact, it is in the obedience to those laws that these men are healed, as they are going to show themselves to the priests. And it is the lepers who bridge the gap by initiating conversation between themselves and Jesus.










Jesus is walking the line between Galilee and Samaria, between homeland and ghetto-land, doing his high-wire act on his way to Jerusalem. On his way Jesus encounters all sorts of people: a man with many demons, a girl on the edge of death, a woman with a hemorrhage, these ten lepers. Through these people Luke shows us what kind of person shows faith, what kind of person responds to Jesus and his message of forgiveness. It was not the leaders, the in-crowd, the longtime believers who were showing faith, but outsiders who were responding to Jesus’ message with shouts of praise and gratitude.

But only one healed man returns to give thanks and praise, and he is a double outcast: he is also a Samaritan, a foreigner. He is outside the covenant and thus, not even bound to go show himself to the priests. Yet he obeys anyway, and when he sees he has been healed, turns back, falls at Jesus’ feet and thanks him profusely.

Yes, the other nine did as they were told and were also healed, but it was the faith of the Samaritan that saved him. In other translations the word ‘whole’ is used in place of ‘well’: “Your faith has made you whole”, implying more than physical healing. Here we have the difference between being healed and being saved, between obedient faith and faith that has the power to save us and transform us.

Jesus wants to know what kind of faith we have. Are we obedient to God and the limits God has placed on us, such as the Ten Commandments? There is certainly nothing wrong with that kind of faith, but for Jesus, obedient faith is a place to start. Jesus wants to know if we’re willing to cross the line from homeland into ghetto-land, to join him in his high-wire act on the way to Jerusalem. And we all know what’s waiting in Jerusalem.

Keeping to the rules may heal the open wounds we human beings have made in this world but the rules won’t save us. And as we all know, sometimes we have to go beyond the rules and our self-imposed limits for mercy and compassion to have their way.





















The difference is joyful, jubilant gratitude. The Samaritan crossed the line of obedience to the law into the fearless expression of gratitude. Jesus offered him not only healing but the opportunity to be saved by grace. To one who was unclean and outside the covenant, this was good news indeed! It would be like not only winning the lottery but also being given the chance to change someone else’s life for the better.

When I had that dream that saved my life some thirty years ago (!), I felt like I had to give something back, that I had to ‘pay it forward’ to someone else who needed God’s transforming grace. I came across two verses in the gospel of Matthew that became a scripture reading at my ordination: “…those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?”

And so by entering the ministry I thought I was giving my life in return for the new life that had been given to me. But the giving in gratitude for my life didn’t end there. When I was in seminary, I racked up some debts. I had tuition, books, room and board, a car payment, and a credit card: American Express: no carrying the balance forward. I had gotten in over my head. Any income I had went out to pay bills. I can remember being on my knees crying and fervently praying to God because I was so scared of being in debt. I called a friend in my home church and shared my troubles.

Not long after that I received a money order for $1200 from an anonymous donor from my church, mailed to me by the church secretary. To this day, I have no idea who saved me. But in gratitude for that saving grace, I have been a pledging giver ever since.

I pledge to this church as a measure of my joy and thankfulness for what God is doing through you and through our time together. Each month I make out a check for $400—about 8% of my total salary. I know I’m crossing a line by telling you that, but if I am asking you to move beyond the comfort of home into a place none of us have been before, then I should be the first to cross that line.






















I also plan to increase my pledge to $450 a month in 2011, for as long as I am here. You are searching for a settled pastor and you want to be able to pay that person well enough that they will be a good giver and pledge to this church. I want to be a part of that, to be a part of not only the healing but the saving grace and jubilant thanks that often comes with a new pastor.

Even though the stewardship season has not quite begun, I want you to start thinking about it and praying about it. I invite you to increase your pledge this year, even if it’s only by a dollar a week. If you give but don’t pledge, I encourage you to pledge whatever you can. In order to welcome the future with joy and deep gratitude, I ask you to make that transition, to go beyond where you are now, and cross that line of fear to get to a place of magic, that place where Jesus waits for us with not only healing but with soul-saving, life-transforming grace. That place is this church, Woodmont United Church of Christ, daring to reveal God’s unconditional love by welcoming and accepting all people, through joyful and creative worship, faithful service and spiritual growth. Amen.

U.S. religious knowledge survey

An ironic surprise...agnostics, atheists, Jews and Mormons scored best on this Pew Research survey. Which means we who call ourselves Christian weren't paying attention in Sunday School. Or we forgot about that World Religions class and U.S. History and Civics. Or we're not getting our news from a balanced perspective. Or didn't receive a quality education. No wonder bigotry and ignorance still have their place in this country.

Take the quiz yourself and post your results in the comments.

Say anything

Psalm 137; Psalm 37: 1-9
Woodmont United Church of Christ, Milford, CT
October 3, 2010 – World Communion Sunday


George Carlin was rocketed to comic fame with his routine “The Seven Dirty Words You Can’t Say on Television”. Jesus had his seven last words from the cross: “I thirst”, “Behold your mother, behold your son”, “Today you shall join me in paradise” and so forth. The church has its own seven last words: “We’ve never done it that way before.”

And even though the United Church of Christ and one of its forebears, the Congregational church, are known for their freedom of the pulpit, that is, the freedom of the preacher to say what needs to be said to God’s people, there are still some subjects that God’s people don’t want to hear about from the pulpit. Many of them are also avoided in polite conversation. There may not be seven of them but you know what they are: money, sex, politics, and religion. Yes, even religion is a touchy topic many folks don’t want to hear about from the pulpit, especially if it is about our own religion and how it requires, demands, even commands something of us.

Today’s scripture adds to that list of unacceptable subjects: angry, hot revenge. You may have heard the saying “Revenge is a dish best served cold” but we all know that the desire to even the score runs hot in our blood. And we hear not only the hot-bloodedness of the writer of Psalm 137, we also hear the pain and anguish, the injustice that can cause our blood to boil.

“By the rivers of Babylon— there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion.
On the willows there we hung up our harps.
For there our captors asked us for songs, and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying, ‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion!’
How could we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?
“…O daughter Babylon, you devastator! Happy shall they be who pay you back what you have done to us!
Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock!”

We ask: how can language like that be in the Bible? How can a psalm like that be not only allowed but used in a book of worship?

Once again, the lectionary has taken us to the time of the Babylonian exile, that catastrophic event in the life of the Israelites. Jerusalem and its temple have been destroyed, homes have been turned to rubble, survivors, after having seen their loved ones killed, have been carted off to Babylon as spoils of war. Their trust in God was shaken to its very core. These Israelite captives wanted not only revenge but justice for their captors—a life for a life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe, as it is stated in the 21st chapter of Exodus. We can only imagine that whoever wrote Psalm 137 witnessed the death of their own child at the violent hand of their enemy.

In the book of Psalms, in their holy book of worship, the Israelites knew they could say anything to God, that there was nothing to keep from the creator of the heavens and the earth, the one who has searched us and known us since before we were born. But there is also a balance: a heaping measure of God’s comfort and reassurance:

“Do not fret because of the wicked; do not be envious of wrongdoers,
for they will soon fade like the grass, and wither like the green herb.
Trust in the LORD, and do good; so you will live in the land, and enjoy security.
Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him, and he will act.
He will make your vindication shine like the light, and the justice of your cause like the noonday.
Be still before the LORD, and wait patiently for him; do not fret over those who prosper in their way, over those who carry out evil devices.
Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath. Do not fret—it leads only to evil.
For the wicked shall be cut off, but those who wait for the LORD shall inherit the land.”

How many of us have wanted revenge on another? If you think you’re above or immune to such feelings, what about road rage? Or wishing someone ‘a taste of their own medicine’? Or withholding forgiveness, holding a grudge? We’ve all felt those feelings and our God is big enough to hear them, so why isn’t our church big enough to allow their expression here, in a place intended for honest confession, healing and reconciliation?

On the evening of Sept. 11, 2001 many churches and other places of worship were open for people to come and pray, to worship together, hold hands, light candles, to have faith in the dawn of another day. That spirit of reflection and unity lasted for quite a while. But then it seemed the songs we sang in our pain and grief were seized upon and used as a prelude to war. Though vastly different in scope, the parallels between the exile and that dark day are almost too close. A great center of commerce, twin skyscrapers that testified to American ingenuity and prowess, was made into rubble. Thousands died, including those who tried to save others. We too were shaken to our very core. Two years later war was declared and our sons and daughters have been giving their lives to it, have been made captives of it ever since.

Perhaps if we had expressed more of our grief, our sadness, our rage and our anguish within these walls, to the point of recognizing that vengeance is not ours, perhaps we might have realized the futility of war. Even if a preemptive war is intended to prevent terrorism, is not war a form of terrorism in and of itself? Can we also imagine that there are those who would pray this psalm against us? In the words of Confucius, before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.

The apostle Paul urges Christian citizens of the empire in Rome, and we who are Christian citizens of our own empire, to remember to never avenge themselves, “for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay,’ says the Lord. No, ‘if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.’ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” When was the last time we witnessed mercy and forgiveness in the public forum? Reconciliation begins here. In order for that to happen, we first need to express those raw emotions that make us cry out for justice.

World Communion Sunday reminds us that we exist in relationships, that what we do here in this place affects not only ourselves but others as well, rippling through this human web we live in. Let us trust that the God who demands justice will also carry it out. Jesus himself, who from an instrument of torture and death, groaned, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” but who also prayed “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” We can say anything to God in prayer—God who tenderly holds us and understands, who forgives and heals us.

Amen.

Albert Pierrepoint, Britain's last official hangman, said that hanging is more about revenge than about justice: "I have come to the conclusion that executions solve nothing, and are only an antiquated relic of a primitive desire for revenge which takes the easy way and hands over the responsibility for revenge to other people...The trouble with the death penalty has always been that nobody wanted it for everybody, but everybody differed about who should get off."

The dead tell no tales

Can you spot the gay soldier?

You're fired!

The Shrewd Manager

Jeremiah 8: 18 – 9: 1; Luke 16: 1-13
Woodmont United Church of Christ, Milford, CT
September 19, 2010


You’re fired: the dreaded words everyone fears in today’s economy (or on the ever-popular reality show, “The Apprentice”). These words have the power to send anyone’s life into a tailspin. Back in the 1980’s or ‘90’s people might have joked with their answer to “What are you going to do now?” by responding, “You know, do some gardening, learn Chinese, play some golf, fix up the summer house.” But nowadays no one is laughing. And more often than not, the answer to the question is a dead serious “I don’t know”.

Many of you know what it is like to be laid off, been fired from your job, had to take fewer hours for the same pay, had to quit because persons were making it difficult for you to continue working, or had to leave work to stay home with your children or to take care of an ailing parent or spouse. Maybe you’ve had to leave work for two or more of those reasons. Maybe you’ve been the one who’s had to do the laying off or to fire someone.

Work provides security in so many ways. First, there’s the income. Some jobs pay more than others, but any job pays better than none. And usually, there’s more than just ourselves depending on that income. What we earn today pays not only for what we need but for any past debt and for the future as well. Second, there’s the feeling of pride, of having a place to go, a person to be. For good or ill, our work becomes part of who we are, how we see ourselves. Who would we be without our work? And then there are the benefits that are on a scale much like our salary. Work has become a safety net with some very wide holes that continue to shift under our feet. We worry that one day we’ll slip right through one of them.

This morning’s gospel lesson sounds like a story from the business pages of the newspaper. Someone from management has been taking from the till and making off with it. The owner of the company has heard from others about his manager and plans to fire him. The manager, thinking only of himself and his future, uses the shrewd mind that got him into this mess and ingratiates himself with his boss’s debtors by discounting what they owe the boss. It all makes sense until we get to the end. The boss commends the manager because of his shrewdness. And then Jesus tells the disciples to “make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.”






In these days of BP, GM, AIG, Lehman Brothers, Goldman-Sachs and many others we don’t want to hear about how the government is helping them dig their way out of a very big hole. They dug their hole; let them stay there for a while. But just because some folks did something wrong, we can’t write them off as bad people. We’re all a mixed bag of good and bad, of varying degrees. All of us have fallen short of the glory of God; otherwise our world wouldn’t be in the mess it’s in.

When we get upset about this dishonest manager being commended for his shrewdness our sense of entitlement kicks in. “I’ve worked hard, been honest, and I don’t get commended.” We sound like the older brother in the parable about the prodigal son, just before this one. God’s grace sounds like cheating, as though some are getting off easy for their sin. The truth is we have all benefited from God’s generosity. The truth is we all have benefited from the ill-gotten gains of others. We all live mostly comfortable lives with enough to eat, a roof over our heads, some money in the bank, and all kinds of material goods in abundance wherever we shop, never mind where they are made, by whom, and at what price to the environment. What Jesus is asking us is: What are you going to do with this grace, with your ill-gotten gains? Keep them or use them toward the eternal home, that is, the kingdom of God?

Jesus came to point a finger, not to blame, but to get us moving. The words “You’re fired” are strangely more compelling to us than “Follow me”, but both carry with them a sense of urgency. Both send us the bold message that it’s time to let go of the way things are and find another way, using the shrewd mind that got us into whatever mess we have found ourselves in.

There once was a man, a very rich man, a millionaire in fact, who came home one day to find out that his wife was ready to leave him. In response to his wife’s wake-up call, he packed up his family in the car and they headed toward Florida. On the way they met up with some friends in Georgia who then introduced the man to Clarence Jordan of Koinonia Farms. After having lunch with Clarence, the man and his family stayed on the farm for a month. He then sold all that he had, gave it to the poor, and started an organization called Habitat for Humanity. The man was Millard Fuller.

An addict has ruined her marriage, her health, her career, her friendships, and her bank account. But when she walks into a twelve-step program she can start over again, repair the breach she has made between herself and others and God, and make another life out of the dust of her old one.

Pope Benedict XVI has become known for his expensive attire: red Italian leather Prada shoes, Serengeti sunglasses and ermine trimmed capes and hats. Anne Burke, the leader of the review board set up by the U.S. Catholic bishops to oversee their policies on priests accused of pedophilia, has written to the pope suggesting he wear a simple black cassock for the remainder of his papacy to demonstrate penance for the priest sex scandal.






How we spend our money and our lives makes a direct impact on the kingdom of God. I heard it once said that there aren’t any bad people, only bad, sometimes catastrophic decisions. Jesus is telling us that it’s never too late to change our decision, to decide for the kingdom of God rather than for material wealth and our own security.

Are we going to sell all we have and give it to the poor? Probably not. Are we going to give away our possessions and live an aesthetic life? Maybe, maybe not. But maybe our rich God understands. Maybe our God is merciful as well as just even when we give a lame attempt at serving. Maybe God is waiting for us to use our imagination even just a little when it comes to the kingdom of God, that future that’s planned for all of us.

Perhaps we’re not another Millard Fuller or Mother Theresa. But we could begin to do things differently. While we’re buying ourselves new clothes we could be buying new clothes for the thrift shop. Why should the poor get only our hand-me-downs? Instead of trading in the old car we could give it away to a charitable organization. Instead of going out to dinner, we could write a check for the same amount to the food bank. What would happen if we all raised our pledge by just a dollar week? We have about 60 pledging units in this church. You do the math.





Is God disappointed at our half-hearted attempts at discipleship? Maybe. But maybe God looks at our serving the way a teacher looks at a student’s work: some mistakes but that’s 70% of learning. God looks for progress and for learning from our past ways.

God is also shrewd with us. God is no fool. God is willing to accept even our feeble efforts as a sign of our faithfulness rather than nothing at all. God is looking for a goodwill effort; are we with God or not? We are not working our way into the kingdom but then are we willing to go with God’s flow toward that kingdom or are we working against it?

So whatever you’re doing now for God’s kingdom…you’re fired!

Now what are you going to do?

You are here

1 Timothy 1: 1-19; Luke 15: 1-10
Woodmont United Church of Christ, Milford, CT
September 12, 2010

I was never interested in watching the TV series “Lost”. The premise seemed at the least hopeless. A plane flying from Los Angeles to Sydney crashes on a mysterious, remote Pacific island. The survivors learn that they can’t leave the island and that they all are connected in some way. Through a myriad of plot twists and two separate yet also intertwining timelines, the show took its viewers on a wild ride, getting everyone hopelessly lost in the story and its characters. But this week I did watch the final two episodes of the TV series “Lost”, to see how such a hopeless premise could be resolved. And of course, being lost and then found is the scripture theme.

Of the reviews I read, the consensus was a strange mix of euphoria and disappointment. Some comments left by viewers were rather philosophical while many were full of feelings of being taken down a long road, only to be abandoned with no real answers as to why things happened the way they did. Nobody likes to be fooled or waste their time; nobody likes to be lost.

When you think about it, we’re all looking for some real answers, some meaning and purpose to our lives. Why do things happen the way they do? How much do we contribute to our situation and how much of it is out of our control? What is real and what is just an illusion? Are we fools for believing or not? How far off course are we?




Barbara Brown Taylor in her book An Altar in the World calls getting lost a spiritual exercise. She writes, “If you do not start choosing to get lost in some fairly low-risk ways, then how will you ever manage when one of life’s big winds knocks you clean off your course? …[The] skills are the same: managing your panic, marshalling your resources, taking a good look around to see where you are and what this unexpected development might have to offer you.” [1]

Many of us have heard or read other people’s stories of how getting knocked clean off their course gave them an opportunity to make a difference in the lives of others, and there are countless other everyday heroes that don’t make it into a book or the newspapers. Many of us not in a twelve step program don’t share with each other our stories of being lost because then we’d have to admit we lost our way, that we stumbled off the path or got blown off it, that for a while there we thought we were alone and didn’t know where we were.

The scariest thing about being lost is feeling like you’re not sure you’re going to get found, if you’re ever going to get off the island. The Sufi poet Rumi wrote, “Why, when God’s world is so big, did you fall asleep in a prison of all places?” When we first wake up to what is really real, we don’t know where we are. We don’t recognize the way home. But eventually, if we can endure and keep ourselves vulnerable to the moment, rescue does come to us.



My first experience of being lost, and I mean spiritually, emotionally, heart-breakingly lost, was when I was twelve. My father had moved out of the house and my parents were going to get a divorce, the shame of which was very keen in 1977. The year before, we had moved to another town. We had also started worshipping at another church not long before that. That meant new school, new people—I couldn’t imagine being more lost. At one particularly low point, I even contemplated suicide. Even though I had believed in God since I was a young child, I felt as though God had abandoned me and left me on some remote island to fend for myself.

For the next three years, through my freshman year in high school, my father moving to North Carolina and getting remarried, to my mother’s boyfriend moving in, I cried and cursed at and pleaded with God. In youth group I began to make new friends and deepen older friendships, including this guy called Jesus, but I still could not imagine that these people, this Jesus, loved me as I was: miserable, shy and a face full of pimples.

In the fall of my sophomore year I had a dream that changed the course of my life. In the dream I am an observer, watching the drama unfold before me. I see a group of men and women seating about a crude wooden table. Outside the makeshift shack I can hear bombs and shelling, automatic weapon fire, and people screaming. I am aware that there is a civil war being fought and that this group of people is an underground movement comprised of both sides to end the war and achieve peace.

As they are discussing and making plans, there is a loud knock at the door. The leader goes to the door, opens it and I see Jesus standing on the threshold. The leader does not recognize him but instead asks how he may help this stranger. Jesus replies that he has come to help them. The leader welcomes Jesus inside, the group makes room for him around the table, and their discussion continues.

Suddenly a woman’s scream is heard right outside the shack. Everyone rushes outside to find one their group has been fatally stabbed. Jesus picks her up and carries her inside. Jesus lays his hands upon her wound and heals her. Then the wound appears on his body and then he too is healed. The people in the group are amazed at this and ask, “Who are you? What’s the meaning of all this?”

The next morning I woke up and I remembered the dream all at once. I had no idea what it meant, so I called my pastor and asked to talk with him. He was aware of what was happening in my family and he knew how unhappy I was. After listening to me tell him about the dream, he said that there was a civil war going on inside of me, between my anger at God and my love of God. I wanted God to help me but I didn’t recognize him. God would send Jesus to heal me but I had to see what God was already doing in my life.

After that, nothing about my life changed. My parents were still divorced; my father still lived in North Carolina. My mother’s boyfriend was still living with us. I still had a face full of pimples. I still felt like a social outcast. What changed was my heart. What happened was that I turned around and started moving toward God. That’s what it means to repent: to have a change of heart, to turn around and face God.

It meant I had to stop blaming God for the way that my life was. I had to learn to accept my life and to put my focus on God and on the love that was coming into my life. And when one does this, indeed God does rejoice.

From that dream I also heard a call to the ministry, and I thought I could see how my life would go from there. Yet every direction I thought my life would take, my life has taken me somewhere else. I didn’t know how long I’d have my father, but I thought it would be longer than 19 years. I thought I would live on the eastern seaboard but I ended up in Ohio. I thought I would work part-time after having my first child but of the almost 19 years I’ve been ordained, I’ve worked about 8 years. When we moved to Monroe I thought it would be temporary; we’ve lived there almost 12 years now. When I became a pastor, I thought I had walked away from my childhood dream of being an artist, yet sometimes I try to use various art forms as a means of getting people to think about their relationship with God.

The apostle Paul certainly didn’t end up where he thought he would. He thought he was on the side of justice and righteousness when he was rousting out Jewish Christians and having them thrown in prison, but then wound up being God’s number one case history for those needing rescue. I don’t think I’m overstating it when I say that if it weren’t if Paul, there may not have been a church, yet he started out ensuring there never would be a church.


AIGA National Design Center, Design Journeys: You Are Here

Do any of us end up where we thought we would be? And does that mean we’re lost? Or could it be that we just can’t see where we are? I truly believe that wherever we are, God is; that there is no place we can go where God isn’t. Every time we try to shake God off our trail or think we’ve lost our way, God shows up in any number of surprising, subtle or life-jolting ways to bring us home.

God comes to us in Jesus to say “You are here. And so am I.” It was that truth that saved me when I was fifteen. It is that truth that continues to save me every day. None of us does this alone. Though there are days the premise of our lives may seem hopeless, though we may feel like we’re on a remote island, there are other survivors with us and all of us are connected in some way. What saves us is not getting off the island but realizing that we’re not alone.

It’s no coincidence that the TV series “Lost” ended in a church, a place of community and faith, all of the characters reunited, greeting each other in joy, forgiveness and healing. Whatever has happened to us, whatever we have lived through, wherever we have ended up, it has all brought us to this place and to this time and to this church. We are here and so is God: that mystery that found us, loved us, forgave us, and has been leading us home ever since.

Woodmont UCC Heritage Sunday, 2010

Even those who may feel lost to us, God is there as much as God is here, and God is leading them home too. We read in 1 Timothy that the whole purpose of what we’re about is to simply love and to live a life open to God. And we have also been given a commission to seek out those who feel lost and alone and help them see where they are, free them from their prison, introduce them to an old friend named Jesus, tell them our stories, and listen to theirs. Simply love. Leave your lives open to God. You are here, and so is God.

Amen.



1. Barbara Brown Taylor. An Altar in the World. New York: HarperCollins, 2009, p. 72.