Sunday, December 16, 2012

"Prophets of Promise: Zephaniah"

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December 16, 2012
Third Sunday of Advent

Zephaniah 3:14-20
14Sing aloud, O daughter Zion;
shout, O Israel!
Rejoice and exult with all your heart,
O daughter Jerusalem!
15The LORD has taken away the judgments against you, he has turned away your enemies.

The king of Israel, the LORD, is in your midst;
you shall fear disaster no more.

16On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem:
Do not fear, O Zion;
do not let your hands grow weak.
17The LORD, your God, is in your midst,
a warrior who gives victory;
he will rejoice over you with gladness,
he will renew you in his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing
18as on a day of festival.

I will remove disaster from you,
so that you will not bear reproach for it.
19I will deal with all your oppressors at that time.
And I will save the lame
and gather the outcast,
and I will change their shame into praise
and renown in all the earth.
20At that time I will bring you home,
at the time when I gather you;
for I will make you renowned and praised
among all the peoples of the earth,
when I restore your fortunes
before your eyes, says the LORD.


Sermon:
“The king of Israel, the LORD, is in your midst;
you shall fear disaster no more.”

What an impossible statement.  It is outlandish to think that a life – or even a day – without some degree of fear is achievable.  But to think of fear being “no more”?  That seems impossible.  Especially today.  Disaster is all around us: in the tragic, senseless killing of twenty-six people in a Connecticut elementary school, twenty of them, children. 

If we were to share these words of scripture: “The LORD is in your midst; you shall fear disaster no more” with the parents and grandparents who will be without their children and grandchildren this Christmas and for all the Christmases to come, whose lives were shattered with the news that a place that should always be safe and good turned violent and terrible, it would sound callous, superficial, and deeply, deeply insensitive. 

In a word, quoting this scripture passage from Zephaniah at a time like this would sound cold.  Which is exactly how it would have sounded at the time the prophet Zephaniah first uttered these words.

You see, the lectionary takes us back in today’s prophetic reading, to the time of Jeremiah, back into the Babylonian exile, back into the occupation of the people of Israel, like the heartbreaking news taking our Christmas cheer back to the brink of despair. 

Zephaniah uttered these bold words of challenge and hope to a people broken in every way: broken by their own sinfulness and the sinfulness of the world, broken by loss of land, life and family, broken by loss of identity and even faith. 

When they were most certainly weeping at the constant violence they faced and crippled by the insecurity of a precarious life, where survival seemed impossible, Zephaniah told them to sing.  Sing! 

Why in the world would you sing when life is at its bleakest?  How would you find the voice to sing when you consume fear all day long and are completely consumed by it as the darkness of night falls?  When God seems to slumber or ignore the rampant injustice all around?  Why would you sing praise to the one who seems to have abandoned you, allowing the horrors of this world to have free reign?

Perhaps, reflecting on the time of Zephaniah and our own time, it is precisely in that dire, desperate place that we most need to sing.  To raise our voices above the voices of hatred, violence and death and sing out that somehow, in ways we will never understand, God is in our midst.  That God chose to enter this world where unspeakably terrible things can happen, and that this same God chooses to enter this troubled world again, and again, and again. 

If we fail to sing, if we fail to hold fast to that inexplicable trust in our Creator, and allow these times of marked suffering to silence us, then despair will have won. 

Then, all we will hear are words of vengeance and retaliation, of hatred and fear.  We cannot let these be the only voices heard. 

Though we sing through tears and bitter anger, we must sing of the goodness of God.  We sing because that is the only way we can survive the bitter pain of this life.  We sing because we need to be reminded that God is with us, even if that reminder comes through our own struggling, doubting voice.  We sing, that even for a moment, we might glimpse something of beauty in this world.  We sing, that others might know that they are not alone in their sorrow.  
Maya Angelou captures this survival-singing in her poem, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.”  I share it with you now:

The free bird leaps
 on the back of the wind
and floats downstream

till the current ends
 and dips his wings

in the orange sun rays
 and dares to claim the sky.


But a bird that stalks 
down his narrow cage

can seldom see through
 his bars of rage

his wings are clipped and 
his feet are tied

so he opens his throat to sing.


The caged bird sings 
with fearful trill

of the things unknown
 but longed for still

and his tune is heard 
on the distant hill
for the caged bird 
sings of freedom.


The free bird thinks of another breeze

and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees

and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn

and he names the sky his own.


But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams

his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream

his wings are clipped and his feet are tied

so he opens his throat to sing


The caged bird sings
 with a fearful trill

of things unknown 
but longed for still

and his tune is heard
 on the distant hill

for the caged bird
 sings of freedom.

We sing of things unknown but longed for still.  Of a time when Christ will return to wipe away every tear from our eyes.  Of a time when gun violence will stop being commonplace in our nation.  Of at time when those struggling with mental illness will find the help they need.  Of a time when parents will not have to fear for the lives of their children. We sing of freedom: freedom from death, pain, tragedy and brokenness.  We sing, even as these things still cage us, of the One who is, always has been, and always will be in our midst.  

Because our greatest act of defiance to evil, 
our greatest act of solidarity with the bereaved, 
our greatest act of honoring the lives lost, 
our greatest act of hope in our coming Savior, is our song.  Amen.

Monday, December 10, 2012

"Prophets of Promise: Malachi"

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Old Testament Reading: Malachi 3:1-7, 10-12
See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight—indeed, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. 2But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?
For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap; 3he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness. 4Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years.
5 Then I will draw near to you for judgment; I will be swift to bear witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired workers in their wages, the widow, and the orphan, against those who thrust aside the alien, and do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts.
6 For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, have not perished. 7Ever since the days of your ancestors you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. But you say, ‘How shall we return?’ 10Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in my house, and thus put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts; see if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you an overflowing blessing. 11I will rebuke the locust for you, so that it will not destroy the produce of your soil; and your vine in the field shall not be barren, says the Lord of hosts. 12Then all nations will count you happy, for you will be a land of delight, says the Lord of hosts.

Sermon: “Prophets of Promise: Malachi”

I know a prophet.  His name is David.  I met David a few years back, in the middle of a cold, rainy night on the streets of Belfast.  The church I was serving had an outreach effort each Thursday, giving out tea, coffee, soup and sandwiches to students and others coming home from pubs in the early hours of the morning as they passed by our church. 

One night, David came up to the table.  He was around his mid-forties, with a slight drawl to his speech from an illness, and a complicated story in his eyes.  He looked like he might need a few good meals.  I got to talking to David and discovered that he was an artist (a phenomenal one at that) and when I asked where he lived, he vaguely gestured and said, “Nearby.”

Week after week, the prophet David returned to the table.  We always gave him the leftover soup and bread, worried that “nearby” might just mean he lived on the street.  After weeks, he finally told me that he lived in a hostel; one I knew to be designated for folks with addiction issues and previous prison time.

After a couple of months, David took ownership of that table.  Without words or agreement, one night he just stood on the other side of the table and served, like it was the most ordinary thing in the world to do.  He served intoxicated, heartbroken teenagers and Roma gypsy flower sellers.  He served wandering college students and his fellow hostel-dwellers.  And he served us.

David was passionate about the simple act of sharing food, insistent that everyone passing by knew we were there.  (He made this known by shouting sometimes a bit too forcibly at passer-bys: “Bacon butties! Soup!  Coffee!  Biscuits!”)  Even on the most bitterly cold night, when the rain soaked into your shoes and your toes went numb within five minutes, the prophet David was there.  Because a prophet always shows up.

He began showing up at church on Sundays, too.  He would sit in the back pew in his leather jacket and jeans and bring me Old Crow Medicine Show cd’s to borrow and beautiful artwork to peruse.  Somehow, though he had suffered through a divorce, lost most that he owned, had a complicated relationship with his daughter and a faith abandoned for agnosticism long ago, he returned to himself, and to God, at that table.

The courage of that move from one side of the table to the other, from observer to participant, from agnostic to believer, spoke hope to us all.  That is why I call him a prophet.  He showed us that change is possible.  That warmth can be found on even the darkest, coldest night.  That God is able to return us to ourselves, no matter how many years it has been since we’ve remembered who we really are.  No matter how many false prophets we’ve allowed to define us.

Malachi was a prophet like David.  He spoke about 150 years after the time of Jeremiah, when the people of Israel were putting their lives back together, but restless with how long it was taking.  They had a king again, a Temple again, and the priest Ezra returned, along with thousands of their own.  They were comfortable enough to be complacent, but not as settled as they’d hoped to be, and so they were also bitter.  They sinned against God, forsaking God’s decrees to care for the orphan, widow, sojourner and laborer. 

The entire nation fell prey to amnesia.  They forgot who they were.  That they were a chosen people, meant to be different from the status quo.  Malachi shouted with the boldness of David on the streets: “Return to God, and God will return to you!”  But the people said, “How shall we return?”

What a question.   How do you know the way back to a meaningful relationship with God when you don’t know how you’ve drifted so far away?  How do you return when there is no GPS to guide you, no guarantee of happiness on the journey or certainty that you won’t get lost on that road?

How do we return to ourselves when we’ve allowed anger, habitual criticism of others and indifference shape our identity?  How do we return to God when we can’t even form words to pray in face of the unjust suffering we see and relentless guilt we feel?

Both of our prophets, David and Malachi, provide us with the same answer.  Just as our drifting away from God, ourselves and our neighbor, did not happen overnight, so our returning is also a process.  We return by bringing a tithe of generosity wherever it is most needed:

The generosity to speak with grace of those we are so used to criticizing, the generosity to show kindness to a stranger because in God’s kingdom there are no strangers, the generosity to forgive others, including ourselves, for mistakes that God has long since forgotten. 

Like David deciding it was time to quietly, humbly serve rather than be served, we will then see blessings pouring from the windows of heaven like a Belfast rain on desperate souls, drenching us all with grace.

It is time to step-by-step, choice by choice, kindness-by-kindness, come to this Table to be fed, and then move to the other side, until all are fed, valued and served.  God will then return to us that which we have failed to notice we have lost: delight, meaning, faith in ourselves and in our Savior, compassion, even hope. It is time to return.  Come.  Amen.

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

"Prophets of Promise: Jeremiah"

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December 2, 2012 (First Sunday in Advent)
Old Testament Reading: Jeremiah 33:10-16

 Thus says the Lord: In this place of which you say,
‘It is a waste without human beings or animals’, in the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem that are desolate, without inhabitants, human or animal, there shall once more be heard the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the voices of those who sing, as they bring thank-offerings to the house of the Lord:
‘Give thanks to the Lord of hosts,
   for the Lord is good,
   for his steadfast love endures for ever!’
For I will restore the fortunes of the land as at first, says the Lord.

Thus says the Lord of hosts: In this place that is waste, without human beings or animals, and in all its towns there shall again be pasture for shepherds resting their flocks.  In the towns of the hill country, of the Shephelah, and of the Negeb, in the land of Benjamin, the places around Jerusalem, and in the towns of Judah, flocks shall again pass under the hands of the one who counts them, says the Lord.

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfil the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah.  In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.  In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this is the name by which it will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’



SERMON: Prophets of Promise: Jeremiah

“The prophets were drunk on God.”  Or so says that to-the-point preacher and writer, Frederick Buecher.  He goes on to say:  “In the presence of their terrible tipsiness, no one was ever comfortable.  With total lack of tact, they roared out against phoniness and corruption wherever they found them.  They were the terror of kings and priests.  The Prophet Nathan tells King David that he is a crook and an adulterer (2 Samuel 12:1-15).  The Prophet Jeremiah goes straight to the Temple itself and says, “Do not trust in these deceptive words, “This is the Temple of the Lord, This is the Temple of the Lord, This is the Temple of the Lord” (Jeremiah 4:7).  It was like a prophet to say it three times, just to make sure. 

No prophet is on record as having asked for the job. There is no evidence to suggest that anyone ever asked a prophet home for supper more than once.  Most of the prophets went a little mad before they were through, if they weren’t a little mad to begin with.”

Philosopher John Caputo seems to agree with ol’ Freddie B.  He says of the prophets:

“The voice of the prophet interrupts the self-assured voices of the powerful, the princes of this world, bringing them up short, calling them to account for themselves.  That is why the prophets had a habit of getting themselves killed a most serious occupational hazard (Jeremiah was apparently thrown into a cistern and left there),.  They were perhaps a little mad, mad for justice, mad about injustice, and, maybe, just a little plain mad.”

Finally, our rapid-fire introduction to prophets concludes with my old professor Walter Brueggemann as he writes:

“The prophetic tradition preserves for us these staggering enactments of redemptive madness.  This madness lingers in and through the text.  That is why the text has been kept until now.  When the text is resurfaced, revoiced, reuttered, re-experienced, it sometimes turns out to be the only sanity in town.”

The prophets were mad in order to point out the madness that is injustice and suffering, but they also possessed a holy foolishness: they were foolish enough, in the face of unimaginable suffering and sin, to claim that God was still speaking a word of hope and repentance, that a promised future was coming. 
These prophetic words were not spoken in polite conversation in the grocery store or in a beautiful sactuary. 

When Jeremiah, that child-prophet, uttered the words  ‘Give thanks to the Lord of hosts,
 for the Lord is good,
 for his steadfast love endures for ever!,’ he did so in the midst of utter ruin.  The year was somewhere around 587 B.C.  The greatest world power of the time, Babylon, had invaded, and rather than just carry off the people of Israel to enslave them, they destroyed their land completely, animals and all.  The Temple, where the presence of God dwelled in the Holy of Holies, was a smoldering ruin.  The siege of the city of Jerusalem was so crippling that cannibalism took hold.  Their king was killed, along with all of his family. 

And the covenant with their God?  Well, clearly God had reneged on the deal.  Except there was that mad prophet in town who said otherwise. 

“The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah.” Jeremiah said.  Such blind hope in the face of complete desolation seemed either callous or idiotic. 

So Jeremiah spoke up a second time: “In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David.”

People shuffled by on filthy feet with heads bowed down in submission, parents buried their children and the grief of an entire broken nation keened through the air.  And still Jeremiah spoke a third time:  “In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this is the name by which it will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’”

In those days.  The relentless hope of this young prophet is centered around those three little words.  You see, if you are sharing a vision of “those days”, you are refusing to say that these days are all we will ever see.  Like that first defiant breath the morning after a loved one’s funeral, life continues, even when it seems impossible. 

It takes incredible hope to claim such a promise in the midst of these days.  These days are full of relentless violence in the Middle East, and even in our classrooms. These days are full of stretching our wallets and energy far too thin.

These days are full of politics informing our faith, not the other way around.  These days are full of unyielding worry for loved ones, pressure on teenagers and young adults to conform to self-destructive behaviors labeled as “normal.”   These days are full of people disillusioned with the church, feeling that pervasive hypocrisy and irrelevance have burned down the Temple of their once-strong faith.

But these days are not all the days there will be.  A day is coming when the life-withering drive to succeed will be overcome by the infant born of the branch of David.

A day is coming when the world’s insane lust for wealth and power will be toppled by the God who chose to be born, not into an upper-middle-class family, but as the son of a poor carpenter and his too-young wife.

A day is coming when the ways of nations defeating nations in an endless cycle of “us and them” will give way to the endless reign of this Prince of Peace. 
A day is coming, when the voices of gladness will be heard instead of numb silence, when we will know the comfort of passing under the hands of the loving Shepherd who counts us and protects us from suffering ever again.

We are not yet in those days.  Neither was Jeremiah.  But we cling with the mad hope of a prophet to those days, especially when it seems ridiculous to do so. 

We look around us at these days and proclaim with courageous voices and compassionate lives:  “This is not how it will always be!  Cancer won’t always be a part of our vocabulary.  War won’t always demand so much of our brave women and men and their families.  Despair and loneliness won’t always fill the days of the old or forgotten.  Rumbling stomachs won’t always be heard from the majority of the world’s children.  These are not all the days there will be!”

Advent is a time to be drunk on God, to foolishly, desperately cling to the hope of a child who was born into human history, forever altering it for the better, and to the hope of that Savior who will one day come to make all things new. 

Advent is a time to embrace the wild hope that God is not yet done with this world.   And so with a holy defiance against all that threatens God’s just reign, with courageous trust that the God who makes promises also keeps them, with the redemptive madness of a prophet, we wait.  Amen.

"An Indescribable Gift"


November 25, 2012
New Testament Reading: 2 Corinthians 9:6-15

The point is this: the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.  Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.  And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work. As it is written, “He scatters abroad, he gives to the poor; his righteousness endures forever.” 

He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness.  You will be enriched in every way for your great generosity, which will produce thanksgiving to God through us; for the rendering of this ministry not only supplies the needs of the saints but also overflows with many thanksgivings to God. 

Through the testing of this ministry you glorify God by your obedience to the confession of the gospel of Christ and by generosity of your sharing with them and with all others, while they long for you and pray for you because of the surpassing grace of God that he has given you.  Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!

SERMON: An Indescribable Gift

The American investment banker was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a tiny boat with just one fisherman docked.  Inside the small boat were several large fin tuna.  The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.

The Mexican replied, “Only a little while.”

The American then asked why he didn’t stay out longer and catch more fish.

The Mexican said he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs.

The American then asked, “But what do you do with the rest of your time?”

The Mexican fisherman said, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos.  I have a full and busy life.”

The American scoffed, “I am a Harvard MBA and I could help you.  You should spend more time fishing and, with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat, and with the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats.  Eventually, you would have a fleet of fishing boats.  Instead of selling your catch to a middleman, you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery.  You would control the product, processing and distribution.  You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually NYC, where you will run your expanding enterprise.” 

The Mexican fisherman asked, “But how long will all this take?”

The American replied, “15-20 years.”

“But what then?”

The American laughed and said, “That is the best part.  When the time is right, you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich.  You would make millions.”

Millions?” asked the fisherman.  “Then what?”

The American said, “Then you would retire.  Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids and grandkids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evening, sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos!”

This story of the American investment banker and the Mexican fisherman, and most of our lives for that matter, centers around how we understand the meaning of one word: enough. 

What is the meaning of that innocuous-seeming little word: enough?  What we need for today?  What we want for tomorrow?  As much as our neighbors have?  More than our parents had?  What was enough for the Mexican fisherman was certainly not enough for the American banker.  But why not?  Who decides the standard of “enough?”

As people of faith, we discover that answer, or at least the courage to honestly examine the question, here in God’s word.  In our reading from Second Corinthians this morning, we hear that “God is able to provide us with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having ENOUGH of everything, we may share abundantly in every good work.  As it is written, “God scatters abroad, God gives to the poor; God’s righteousness endures forever.” 

In a world where everything is fleeting, we are reminded that we discover “enough” not in those things that pass away, but in those that endure forever: in the righteousness of God, that is meant for everyone: rich, poor, and somewhere in between. 

Then comes the bold promise of our text: You will be enriched in every way for your great generosity, which will produce thanksgiving to God through us.  There are two ways to read this:  We are enriched because of the generosity we have already shown.  God blesses us with the gifts of this life and the life to come because we have shown ourselves worthy.  Or, we are enriched in every way in order that we can show that same generosity to others.  God blesses us because that is who God is, and because God intends that blessing to overflow into others’ lives.

In Abraham and Sarah being chosen and blessed in order that they would in turn be a blessing to all nations…in Jesus who came to earth to proclaim “blessed” those who mourn, suffer poverty, and are persecuted for the sake of righteousness…in this letter to the Corinthians saying that “the rendering of this ministry not only supplies the needs of the saints but also overflows with many thanksgivings to God” we see that we are not blessed because we have somehow earned itWe are blessed for others to be blessed through us.

 So, we should build ourselves up as much as possible, right?  We as a nation should be most fully defined by the state of our wealth.  We should strengthen our financial standing as a church community above everything else.  We as individuals should acquire as much wealth as possibleall the better to bless others with. 

But, when we do so, we sound much more like the American banker than the Mexican fisherman.  We sound much more like Pilate the politician and the prideful Pharisees than the Savior who called struggling fisherman to follow him, not to build up a profitable enterprise, but to fish for people.  To make a complicated, risky investment in the lives of sinful, unpredictable, fickle people. 

That Savior was (and still is) building a community of enough for all: enough dignity to see the humanity in each child of God no matter where they happen to be born or which side of a wall they live on. 

Enough wisdom to understand the difference between owning things we need and being owned by “things” in our lives. 
Enough trust in our good Creator to give with generosity to those who are so easily overlooked in this community and world, believing that God will continue providing for our own needs as well.

Enough courage to teach our children and grandchildren to reject the consumerism that lures them with promises of meaning and happiness, and instead show them how to be content with what they have.

This Community of Enough, to which we all belong, is built upon the one indescribable gift of God that surpasses all others: grace freely given through our Lord Jesus Christ. 

The grace of God molds us and re-molds us into a community of thanksgiving, where our gratitude to God expressed in joyful giving to others does not end with the abrupt onslaught of Black Friday, even before Thanksgiving Day is over.  The grace of God teaches us the meaning of the word enough, as our Sunday School class explored this Fall.

If we find ourselves grateful for this grace, but still clinging to the seductive drive for more and more for ourselves, at the expense of those who go without, God says to us: “Enough.”

If we say love can’t be bought and sold and yet shower our family with extravagant gifts to prove our love this Christmas season, God says to us: “Enough.”

If we believe that our financial insecurity or constant worry over money determines our worth in this world, God says to us: “Enough.”

If, out of fear and pride, we insulate ourselves from those in our community and country who live at a lower socio-economic level than us, God says to us, “Enough.”

Enough is enough.  God’s grace is enough, for all of us.  Thanks be to God for this indescribable gift!  Amen.