Sunday, September 30, 2012

"What Are We Saved For?"

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September 30, 2012

Old Testament Reading: Esther 7:1-6, 9-10, 9:20-22

1So the king and Haman went in to feast with Queen Esther. 2On the second day, as they were drinking wine, the king again said to Esther, "What is your petition, Queen Esther? It shall be granted you. And what is your request? Even to the half of my kingdom, it shall be fulfilled." 3Then Queen Esther answered, "If I have won your favor, O king, and if it pleases the king, let my life be given me — that is my petition — and the lives of my people — that is my request. 4For we have been sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be killed, and to be annihilated. If we had been sold merely as slaves, men and women, I would have held my peace; but no enemy can compensate for this damage to the king." 5Then King Ahasuerus said to Queen Esther, "Who is he, and where is he, who has presumed to do this?" 6Esther said, "A foe and enemy, this wicked Haman!" Then Haman was terrified before the king and the queen.

9Then Harbona, one of the eunuchs in attendance on the king, said, "Look, the very gallows that Haman has prepared for Mordecai, whose word saved the king, stands at Haman's house, fifty cubits high." And the king said, "Hang him on that." 10So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then the anger of the king abated.

        9:20Mordecai recorded these things, and sent letters to all the Jews who were in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, both near and far, 21enjoining them that they should keep the fourteenth day of the month Adar and also the fifteenth day of the same month, year by year, 22as the days on which the Jews gained relief from their enemies, and as the month that had been turned for them from sorrow into gladness and from mourning into a holiday; that they should make them days of feasting and gladness, days for sending gifts of food to one another and presents to the poor.

SERMON: “What are we saved for?”

I have a confession to make, y’all.  While I realize it might change the way you see me, I must be honest.  I have to be true to who I am.

I love fantasy fiction!  Throw me into some alternative world where magic abounds and everyone inexplicably talks with a British accent and I am a happy camper.  It’s why I love Lord of the Rings and Narnia, Mary Stewart and J.K. Rowling. 

And it’s why, when my fantasy-appreciating father handed me Game of Thrones I loved it.  Well, to be honest I loved the first book, and then I had a rather big life change involving some charming place called Cameron, and the second book in the series gathered dust until I couldn’t remember what I’d already read. 
It should come as no surprise that it’s now made into a T.V. show on HBO, but that show is so racy it would make Madonna blush.  Anyway, back to that fascinating fantasy series:

It details the dangerous and dazzling interactions between seven kingdoms of a medieval world, where battles for power are everyday events and the threat of a crippling winter looms.  Fiery dragons dot the pages, complicated family relationships intrigue and beneath it all, one question drives the story:  who will have power?  Which kingdom, which people, will win the Game of Thrones?

Perhaps this is why my mind immediately went to this series when I read our Esther reading for this morning.  It, too, is about a game of thrones battling for power, but one people, the Jews, were enslaved, nearly beyond hope, crushed under the weight of the other people, the Persians, led by the mighty King Ahasuerus.  The scales of fortune were tipped in the favor of those downtrodden Jewish people all because of one woman: Esther.  But first we have to remember how Esther came into the story.

The powerful King Ahasuerus was drunk with wine and wanted his wife Vashti to come be paraded in front of his friends so they could ogle at her and “appreciate her beauty.”  But Vashti was tired of being paraded.  So she said no.  And the King chucked her out of the palace and issued a decree that “every man should be master in his own home.”

But a King does not long wait for a Queen.  It was made known that King Ahasuerus required a new (younger) Queen.  A man named Mordecai heard this, and knowing that his cousin Esther, whom he had raised since her parents died, was beautiful, he seized an opportunity.  Esther was a poor Jew, but once she was given a makeover by palace professionals and thrown into a beauty pageant worthy of Miss America, it didn’t make one bit of difference.  What was raw beauty became perfectly polished, and the King was smitten.  They were married.

But no amount of makeup or perfume could erase Esther’s memory of her heritage and faith.  She was still a Jew.  And when her cousin Mordecai, who had also been invited to the palace with Esther, told her of a plot by Haman, the King’s right-hand man, to kill all of the Jews, she knew she had to act. 

And now we come to this morning’s chapter of the story.  The scene was another lavish palace party and King Ahasuerus was enjoying a cup of his favorite wine with his favorite girl by his side.  Even though she could have been killed for approaching the King without being summoned, she went anyway.  “What’s it gonna be, darlin’?” he asked Esther, eager to please her.  “Even half of my kingdom (not all of it) is yours, just name it.”  Esther batted those immaculately mascaraed eyelashes at him and said with passion, “Please just spare the lives of my people.  For we have been sold, to be destroyed, killed and annihilated.”

King Ahasuerus then asked an interesting question: “Who has done this??”  Funny he should ask that.  He is the King after all.  Of course he has a hand in all of the goings on of the kingdom, even the terrible ones.  But Esther does not mention his complicity (perhaps another reason he loved her) and shouted with anger, “It is a foe and enemy, this wicked Haman!”

The King made a big show about being angry that someone would do such a thing to his wife’s people.  And then a eunuch gave him something to do with that anger. 

Eunuchs in this time were an awful lot like the eunuch who appears in Game of Thrones: seemingly holy men, separated from the tempations of the world and yet fully aware of all the good palace gossip and subtly manipulative when it served their purpose.   The eunuch says one sentence, “Look, Haman was making gallows to hang Mordecai and they’re still in his house.” He knew full well where such an observation would lead.

The King jumped at the chance for revenge and Haman was hanged on his own gallows.  Our text then skips ahead to the celebration of the Jewish people in being saved from great evil, in being the victors over the powerful, the surviving people, and these celebrations took the form of gifts for one another and special care for the poor.  The Jewish festival of Purim finds its roots here.  When the powerless are given a voice, when the corrupt powers that be are put in their place, there is cause for rejoicing. 

But there is a crucial flaw in our story this morning: God’s not here.  In the entire book of Esther, there’s not even the smallest hint of a mention of God.  Perhaps when the game of thrones is being played with the powerful toppled by those who use that same power to kill their enemies, God wants no part of that.  Perhaps when an orphaned girl is shoved around from man to man, manipulated her whole life through from her cousin Mordecai to a King, and then becomes the very thing she despises, there is no room for God. 

Because however joyful that victory, Esther did turn into Haman.  Like he called for the destruction of her people, she called for the annihilation of his people.  75,000 of them.  And because that’s just not enough revenge, she had each of his ten sons hanged.   Where is God in such a hopelessly endless cycle of hatred and retaliation?  Nowhere to be found, it seems.

And that cycle of revenge keeps on encircling peoples and nations, even into our time.  On the festival day of Purim in 1942, Nazis hung ten Jews to “avenge” the hanging of Haman’s sons, some 23 centuries later.  It seems hate has no expiration date. 

Even the current conversation about Iran and Israel and the possibility of violence circles around fear that this would occur when the Jews celebrate Purim. 
When the game of thrones is played, no one wins.  Certainly not God.

That first Purim, the Jews were saved from the total annihilation Haman planned for them.  Many would say that the God who never abandoned them, who led them by a pillar of cloud and fire and fed them with manna in the desert, had a hand in this salvation, even if the text doesn’t mention God.  I tend to agree that God did continue showing steadfast love and care for the people of Israel in our story.  They were saved from Haman.  But what were they saved FOR?  For revenge and retaliation, for the power to do to Haman what he had planned to do to them?  I don’t believe so.

I believe that God working through history did save them, just as much as God saves us from despair through moments of light, from cynicism through the wisdom of a child, from isolation through communities like ours, from the fear of death through the promise of life eternal.  But it’s not enough to claim that we are saved FROM these things.  We are also saved FOR something. 

Saved from cycles that perpetuate hate and revenge so that we can proclaim in our very lives the way of a Savior who gave his life for all. 

Saved from one-upmanship so that we can become great through being the servant of all. 

Saved from believing we can earn grace so that we can fully worship the God responsible for our salvation. 

Saved from thinking God is absent in our stories so that we can see the hand of our Savior woven into the magical and ordinary fabric of our days. 

Thanks be to God – we are saved!  Now, what will we do with that salvation?  Amen.

Monday, September 24, 2012

"True Greatness"

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September 23, 2012
Gospel Reading: Mark 9:30-37
30Jesus and his disciples went on from there and passed through Galilee. Jesus did not want anyone to know it; 31for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, "The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again." 32But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.
33Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, "What were you arguing about on the way?" 34But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. 35He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, "Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all." 36Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, 37"Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me."

Sermon: True Greatness

There are certain perks to being Jesus’ disciple.  You no longer have to deal with smelly fish all day or have people slam their door in your face as you collect taxes.  Your popularity precedes you and people are constantly gathering to hear what your posse has to say.  And you get to witness some phenomenal things:

Jesus calming the storm that you were certain none of you would live through.

The healing of a demon-possessed man by sending those evil spirits into nearby pigs (don’t eat that bacon, y’all).

A little girl raised from the dead and a bleeding woman healed.

An entire crowd fed through the generosity of shared bread and fish.

A (short-lived) stroll atop the sea of Galilee.

The blind given eyes to see, the deaf given ears to hear.
But in the middle of all of those extraordinary things, Jesus keeps mentioning something really odd: "The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands,” he says. “And they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again."

Talk about a downer!  Why does Jesus, in these mountaintop moments of joy, speak about something so depressing?  And now he’s at it again: foretelling that terrible death while promising to rise from the dead. 

You don’t even know how to respond to such a statement.  It doesn’t make sense that, just when things are going so well and Jesus is really making a name for himself, he would allow people to kill him.  It just doesn’t compute.

But everyone is afraid to ask him to explain what he means.  Some have said that you disciples were afraid because you thought you would get it wrong (again) and embarrass yourselves.  But they have it all wrong.

Your fear comes from the deepest place any person can fear: the fear of losing someone you love.  You are afraid that this extraordinary time with Jesus is coming to an end, and believe that, by avoiding it, you can somehow postpone the inevitable.  You are afraid of losing your friend, your Rabbi, your Savior and do not want the shadow of those future events to darken the present you have with him.  And so, once again, you ignore his words, assuming they must just be the product of exhaustion after so many crowds.

Your denial takes the form of a debate: who is the greatest of us?

You argue all the way to Capernaum, and when you arrive there, Jesus asks you a pointed question (to which of course he already knows the answer):
What were you arguing about on the way?"

Everyone fidgets nervously and avoids Jesus’ gaze, knowing that, as distracting as it was, Jesus would not approve of such a debate.

But of course he knows about your greatness grumbling.  And he also knows that this debate grows out of needing something else to focus on other than his death and resurrection.  That behind the prideful words and insecurity is the need for a sense of certainty in uncertain times, the longing for hope that he wouldn’t abandon you.

What Jesus does and says next addresses both situations:  He confronts your anxiety-fueled debate about greatness by saying, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” 

What he really said was this: “You have greatness all sorts of confused, y’all.  Haven’t I already shown you what it means to be great?  Remember feeding the hungry, remember healing the sick, remember helping the deaf to hear and the blind to see?  That’s the greatness I am about.”

With that, Jesus settles your superficial debate.  But then he takes it one step further:  He knows that y’all are trying to avoid the reality of the cross as you’ve done each time he brings up that depressing doom, and so he speaks also to the fear you haven’t been able to put into words: the fear of losing him. 

Taking a child in his arms, knowing that children were at the very bottom of the social ladder of your day, he says, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”   He’s promises you that each time you welcome the child and outcast, each time you embrace the overlooked and ignored, he will dwell with you.  And the One who sent him will dwell with you.  He will not abandon you, but you must not abandon those who are vulnerable or in need.

Somehow, you begin to see that your mission has always been greater than a few years of healing and teaching together.  Jesus reminds you that what is happening, and what will happen, is even greater than his time on earth.  This is only the beginning.  This greatness is about the one who sent him, about the God who always planned to redeem humanity all the way to a cross and a tomb and beyond it. 

“This is bigger than y’all, fellas,” he says.  “You want to talk about greatness?  Let’s do that: something greater than you can even imagine is going to happen and I want you to be prepared.  But you don’t need to be afraid – and I know you are – because I will always be with you.  See this child?  This invisible one?  If you welcome her, you welcome me, and if you welcome me, you welcome a love greater than any other.  Do you really want to be great?  Become like her.  Don’t be afraid to ask hard questions.  Don’t let your worry turn into argument.  Don’t forget the importance of joy and laughter and of relying on others.  THAT is true greatness.”

Being a disciple is not an easy calling to follow, especially on those days when the shadows of worry and fear blot out the light of resurrection.  Especially when it’s so much easier to focus on what we know: competition, argument, rank, instead of on what will always in some ways elude our understanding: the mystery of God’s self-giving grace towards us. 

We each of us long for greatness.  It is naïve to say we don’t.  We want to be remembered for something, we want to leave the mark on this world that only we can.  We deeply desire to matter to other people and to God.  There is nothing wrong with that longing.  But, like those first disciples, if we ask the question about greatness, we have to be prepared for the reality that God’s answer might startle us.

It might turn everything we thought we knew upside down.  It might reveal the ways we have used argument to avoid dealing with our real fears.  It might call us to believe the impossible, to embrace the invisible and to become the indestructible love of God in a world of great fear.  It might call us to hold fast to the hope of resurrection even when that hope seems foolish. 

God’s answer might make the status-driven ways we’ve lived our lives seem childish, and at the same time restore in us the potential to be childlike, held in the loving arms of a truly great God, who will never let us go.  Amen.

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

"Imperfect Speech"




September 16, 2012
New Testament Reading: James 3:1-12
1Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. 2For all of us make many mistakes. Anyone who makes no mistakes in speaking is perfect, able to keep the whole body in check with a bridle. 3If we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we guide their whole bodies. 4Or look at ships: though they are so large that it takes strong winds to drive them, yet they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. 5So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits.
How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! 6And the tongue is a fire. The tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity; it stains the whole body, sets on fire the cycle of nature, and is itself set on fire by hell. 7For every species of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species, 8but no one can tame the tongue-a restless evil, full of deadly poison.
9With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God. 10From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so. 11Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and brackish water? 12Can a fig tree, my brothers and sisters, yield olives, or a grapevine figs? No more can salt water yield fresh.


Sermon: “Imperfect Speech”

Two pastors were once meeting for coffee.  One was complaining to the other, “I just don’t know what to do with my congregation,” she said.  “They gossip all the time: prayer request time turns into a public shaming of people who are struggling, everyone knows what everyone else is doing and I’ll not even mention the rumor mill that is the church parking lot!”

The other pastor silently listened and, after a long pause finally responded:
“I am so jealous.  My church members don’t even care enough about each other to gossip!”

Oscar Wilde said it best:
“"If you can't say something good about someone, come over here and sit next to me."

James speaks of the damage we can do with our tongues, saying “From the same mouth come blessing and cursing.”  We in the South must be overachievers, because we manage to bless and curse in the same sentence.

We’ve all done it.  It goes like this: “Poor Jenny, her husband ran off with that 25-year-old he met on the internet, bless her heart.  Poor John, he was caught drunk and wandering through the grocery store again…bless his heart. 

James says that we should not be capable of blessing and cursing with our one tongue, and then goes on a metaphor binge.  Does a spring pour forth both fresh and salt water?  Can a fig tree yield olives?  Can a grapevine yield figs?  Can sweet and unsweet tea be poured from the same pitcher?  Can Krispy Kreme be served at snack time in a Weight Watchers meeting?  Can a Carolina and Duke fan both be happy on game day? 

But we are a people of contradiction.  Our mouths can bring the most beautiful songs, prayers and words of encouragement.  And they can bring words that do irreparable damage and dehumanize others.  You better believe we can bless and curse all in the same breath, but just because we can does not mean we should. 

James calls us to tame our tongues, which he nicknames “a restless evil, full of deadly poison.”  Catchy!  He reminds us that our tongues guide our whole bodies and that, if the tongue is bridled, so is the body.  We see this to be true in a negative way in our history: when wanting to control a people, taking away their language does the job.  This is why slaves were often not allowed to speak in their native tongues in front of their owners, nor were they allowed to learn to read and write in English.  Control the tongue, control the people.  Speech is power, and like any power it can be used for good or evil. 

Gossip was for James an abuse of the power of speech, and had no place in the church.  He has a good point, but I think he might have a different take on gossip than some of us do.  You see, James was a city boy, y’all.  He lived in Jerusalem, with at least 80,000 other people.  Every now and then you hear people from big cities talk about little towns like ours by saying, “Oh I’d love living in a small town, but they’re just so gossipy.”

People from small towns don’t say this as often.  What I’ve heard some of y’all tell me (and what I’ve already experienced in my short time here) is that the gift of a small town is just that kind of intimacy: that you actually know your neighbors, and if there is talk about someone, it’s generally to take care of them and be sure they’re okay.  Of course, there are exceptions, “all of us make mistakes,” as James reminds us.

But I wonder if James’ message would be a bit different if he was from a small town.  If he understood the value of knowing what’s going on in others’ lives, not to use it against them, but to really care for them in good times and bad.  I also wonder if he wrote this sermon after someone said something gossipy about him that really angered him.  It kind of sounds like it!  He seems pretty fired up.

Whatever his motives, James raises important questions about gossip.  I was curious about the origin of this word, and discovered that “gossip” was originally closer to our small-town understanding: it comes from an Old English contraction of two words: God and sibb.  God and sibling. 

However distorted or destructive gossip has become, it began as a concerned conversation in a family about someone who was absent.  Gossip was meant to be a blessing, a way to meet each others’ needs by actually knowing what each other need.

I believe that towns like Cameron and churches like ours uphold this idea of gossip.  Of course, we have the other kind, too: the (gravel) parking lot conversations, the words intent on tearing down and not building up.  But most of the time, I think we get it.  We know that, by God’s grace, we are a big family who want each other to know health and happiness and peace.   We know that even the smallest word of “I love you” and “you’re not alone” can bring immense blessing.  We know that these words are not meant just for us, but are meant to be extended to those beyond these walls.

Let’s continue that sort of gossip, where we celebrate being siblings in God.  Where we bless not only the God who made us, but also all of those who are made in God’s image.  Where we speak up on behalf of those who need help but don’t know how to ask for it, and where we sit in silence patiently listening to those who finally have the courage to name their fears and struggles. 

You probably never expected to hear “Let’s gossip more, y’all!” from this pulpit, but there you have it.  God calls us to gossip in the original intent of the word: to build one another up with imperfect but loving speech.  To know each other much more deeply than a simple Sunday morning greeting allows.  To choose our words with wisdom and integrity, knowing that words shape reality.  And to even, on our most faithful days, mean “bless your heart” when we say it.  Amen.