tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-66334377256628272502024-03-06T00:40:45.753-08:00Pastor Phil's PlaceReflections on faith, society, life and the world.Phil Haslangerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03644333674118022564noreply@blogger.comBlogger131125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6633437725662827250.post-46779119669573768812024-01-14T13:04:00.000-08:002024-01-14T13:08:03.828-08:00 Beloved<p><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/live/sQMCap-4aI8?si=FpfRcpXtsr8UislA&t=1399" target="_blank">To see a video of this sermon, click here.</a></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Jan. 14, 2024 – Christ Presbyterian Church<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+3%3A+7-21&version=NRSVUE" style="color: #954f72;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Luke 3: 7-21</span></a><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">It was a little over 60 years ago when Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and talked about the dream he had. This is the weekend when that speech shows up in many places. I am sure many of you are familiar with it.</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">But I’ll bet not many of you are not familiar with Gordon Gundrum, known by his nickname “Gunny.” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMOnPeYat6G5mNjY1yIOe_nfrqCh0EP6WJwGdW03lO7wm2XENWqUfSkR0kdTEN3m2arIDHfKo_Kz_qFpwQNwElbY737i-z8fA9WzAn7cJr2TZu6suRB6_yqSpo70cTUZ4PPt4fBq1GXBGU1co2O_ygVeyncHZv18Dhuk0ZeESsuqDUpbLmRyfXHvUyXXY/s1356/Image%201.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="951" data-original-width="1356" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMOnPeYat6G5mNjY1yIOe_nfrqCh0EP6WJwGdW03lO7wm2XENWqUfSkR0kdTEN3m2arIDHfKo_Kz_qFpwQNwElbY737i-z8fA9WzAn7cJr2TZu6suRB6_yqSpo70cTUZ4PPt4fBq1GXBGU1co2O_ygVeyncHZv18Dhuk0ZeESsuqDUpbLmRyfXHvUyXXY/s320/Image%201.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">He was the National Park Ranger standing next to King at the Lincoln Memorial. You can see him in this picture – a rare white guy on a platform with lots of Black folks. </span><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">I want to tell you a bit of his story because I think it can make a connection to the Gospel reading we just heard and to things we might do in our lives as we look at ways to follow Jesus. </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">As Dr. King walked up to the podium, Gundrum realized that the microphones were aimed too high for a person of King’s 5-feet, seven-inches height. So he reached in and lowered each of the mics as King prepared to speak. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcE6qCqFDl3qYRyUd8n56gMXNxn9S3ZVco_7B5Kma3f1Ho-AZ3R2ONp5VlvBRFhHPnbTurkd4z4rfjC3D2vb-rEZuIrjunNEBCWXC5_BNA2lOqOM7dw6eSf0Rf9g0odfKfOIiIXS2aKk3LzHq7Jvcs6fG75UR-4QKdMnUvIV3NPsRxbdzoJWTaLUt7WxY/s792/Screenshot%202024-01-13%20at%205.00.22%E2%80%AFPM.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="792" data-original-width="787" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcE6qCqFDl3qYRyUd8n56gMXNxn9S3ZVco_7B5Kma3f1Ho-AZ3R2ONp5VlvBRFhHPnbTurkd4z4rfjC3D2vb-rEZuIrjunNEBCWXC5_BNA2lOqOM7dw6eSf0Rf9g0odfKfOIiIXS2aKk3LzHq7Jvcs6fG75UR-4QKdMnUvIV3NPsRxbdzoJWTaLUt7WxY/s320/Screenshot%202024-01-13%20at%205.00.22%E2%80%AFPM.jpeg" width="318" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Gunny Gundrum was 25 years old and had little familiarity with the diverse world that was now all around him.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Jonathan Eig, who just wrote </span><a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374719678/kingalife" style="color: #954f72;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">an amazing biography of King</span></a><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">, had a conversation with author David Maraniss last September </span><a href="https://captimesideafest.com/the-life-and-lessons-of-mlk-a-conversation-biographer-jonathan-eig/" style="color: #954f72;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">at the Cap Times Idea Fest</span></a><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">. He talked about getting to know Gundrum in his research for the book.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Eig said that Gunny “was very comfortable with the n-word.” He was from a big family from a rural community near Albany, N.Y. He told Eig he didn’t think of himself as prejudiced, but then again, he never met a Black person while he was growing up.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">He learned more about prejudice in the Marines when he realized that he and his Black bunkmate could not go to the same restaurants near Paris Island in South Carolina. <br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">And he was not exactly culturally hip. When he saw a Black man with a beard approaching the stage at the Lincoln Memorial without making eye contact, Gunny stopped him and asked him for his pass, which the man said he had left in his hotel room. It was the famous singer, Sammy Davis, Jr. Gunny had not recognized him.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Now here Gunny was, standing next to, guarding, perhaps the most famous Black man in America at the time. King began speaking, quietly in that preacherly style he had. Gunny still worried that the mics were too low. King talked on. Finally, Gunny could not stop himself. He reached in front of King and lowered the microphones one more time. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSwEyegW_vmfFI7Lwx21DjoQs6FL-uf-5qIGR0aHDjRm9WujjVHckljJ5pm4xOM4LnZEWldqBhOE5SFV6V5ory5Ag3vM2e6KWLoESuf2hP9ucDb9_DjcUBvRSuteBxnsHGROEgmy0AoDowUfdv3qvWGGdT61_iqyrX6w7E3sRsYe8dfqo10tpCv-_Y0lc/s1580/Screenshot%202024-01-05%20at%207.29.57%E2%80%AFPM.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1012" data-original-width="1580" height="205" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSwEyegW_vmfFI7Lwx21DjoQs6FL-uf-5qIGR0aHDjRm9WujjVHckljJ5pm4xOM4LnZEWldqBhOE5SFV6V5ory5Ag3vM2e6KWLoESuf2hP9ucDb9_DjcUBvRSuteBxnsHGROEgmy0AoDowUfdv3qvWGGdT61_iqyrX6w7E3sRsYe8dfqo10tpCv-_Y0lc/s320/Screenshot%202024-01-05%20at%207.29.57%E2%80%AFPM.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">You can see his hand again reaching in front of King on this picture. He was amplifying King’s message to the crowd, to the world. A small act but symbolically a good lesson for all of us.</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">The speech took off. “I have a dream.” “Let freedom ring.” “Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty, we are free at last.” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">The crowd roared as King stepped away from the podium. And Gunny stepped right in front of him as they left the stage, making his body a shield for King.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Even though he was more focused on the crowd than on the speech, it still had a big impact on Gunny. Fifty years later, he told his hometown newspaper, “I took away from that day and that speech some idea of what the world should be and what we should all strive for.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">He later became a New York State Police officer, and he told a reporter for the NBC Today Show, “Through what I learned that day, I think it made me a better policeman, a more fair policeman and I tried to practice that always.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">As Jonathan Eig thought about those moments when Gundrum wanted to make sure that King’s voice was amplified to the crowd, to the world that was watching, Eig told David Maraniss, “what I realized is that that was an act of love from Gunny, it's exactly the kind of Christian love that King talked about all the time.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">It was also the kind of love that John the Baptist and Jesus talked about.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">It’s not that John sounds very cuddly at the beginning of today’s Gospel passage. “You brood of vipers,” he says to the crowd. We hardly ever say that to you here. It’s the kind of rhetoric we are more likely to hear in today’s political debates, but here it is in the Gospel.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />Once John has the crowd’s attention, he goes all apocalyptic on them, describing God’s judgment in pretty vivid and unsettling terms. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />The crowd’s response? “What, then, should we do?”<span class="apple-converted-space"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">I can imagine that the crowd listening to Martin Luther King 50 years ago had the same question. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">I imagine that many of us here today when we look at all the issues facing our world, indeed all the issues facing our own individual and family lives, have the same question.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">John offers some very concrete ideas to his crowd – share what you have, don’t get greedy, don’t extort money from others or make false accusations. As those who have studied the Gospel according to Luke note, justice is a recurring theme in his writings.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">The song of Mary before Jesus’ birth – what we call The Magnificat – calls for justice for the poor. After Jesus’s baptism that we heard about today, Luke tells the story of Jesus going into the desert for 40 days, then going to his home synagogue in Nazareth where he gives what amounts to his inaugural address based on the prophet Isaiah: <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></span><span class="text"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,</span></i></span><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></i><span class="indent-1-breaks"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></span><span class="text"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">because he has anointed me</span></i></span><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /><span class="indent-2-breaks"> </span><span class="text">to bring good news to the poor.</span><br /><span class="text">He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives</span><br /></span></i><span class="indent-1-breaks"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></span><span class="text"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">and recovery of sight to the blind,</span></i></span><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /><span class="indent-2-breaks"> </span><span class="text">to set free those who are oppressed,</span><br /><span class="text">to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span class="text"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span class="text"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Do you hear the echoes of that in John’s message? Do you hear echoes from that in the life and words of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.?<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span class="text"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span class="text"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Then our Gospel story takes a hard turn. John points toward Jesus, amplifying the message that is to come. And it costs John his life. Before Luke gets to the baptism of Jesus, the Gospel writer tells us of John’s imprisonment. It’s as if he is saying, John’s work is done, now Jesus’ work is beginning.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span class="text"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span class="text"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">And for Jesus to begin his work, he needs to stop and pray before he emerges from the waters of baptism and then God’s Spirit bursts on the scene: </span></span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">What then, are we to do?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Well, prayer is not a bad place to begin. No matter how we have tried to live out Jesus’ message in the past, taking time to pray provides an opportunity to assess and reassess whether what we have done still makes sense and whether what we might do now provides us a path forward.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">I think that works both in our personal lives - and in how we choose to respond to the needs of those around us. Among the many messages Jesus gave us, stopping to pray was an action he often took.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Another thing we might do is remember that word “beloved.”<br /><br />Yes, the Gospels tell of Jesus as God’s Beloved One in a very special way. But Jesus is not the only one beloved by God. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">So was John the Baptist. So are the people who have followed Jesus across the centuries. So are the Jewish people who proceeded Jesus and were known as God’s Chosen People. And so are we.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">That sense of know that God’s love is with us – always – can carry us through some pretty hard times.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />Just look at the things that happened in the months right after Dr. King told the nation about his dream. Four little girls were killed when white supremacists bombed a church in Birmingham, Alabama. President Kennedy was assassinated. The Black leadership in the struggle for racial justice began to fracture.<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Dr. King knew what it felt like to be discouraged. Yet he pressed on. He had a sense of being one of God’s beloved ones, even when he recognized his own shortcomings and faced his own discouragements.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">And still, Dr. King held out the vision of what he and others called the beloved community. There’s that word “beloved” again.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">One of the people who went to that March on Washington in 1963 was Francine Yaeger, a 19-year-old Black woman from Chicago who took a train to DC for the March. She got a glimpse of that beloved community. Jonathan Eig, the author of that King biography, wrote this about her:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixo6fPVUvDllQI3H1ejQ5VvNUPDIlMWAL_biQPjl3WsOb5hhycMDG4IcCSlhvq2W1YPxlEWr_53gbWwjvDpnJPhaIKtFjE_lgEOnrIr3Q0k_zMn-t8UY7vvvjIgbj3A1CRsJJbgcVoYJuj81LLZCv60GG7eifQ3TiBCDkbzuWxJSiNGdIEN28nUHLTNTk/s1320/March%20crowd.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="860" data-original-width="1320" height="208" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixo6fPVUvDllQI3H1ejQ5VvNUPDIlMWAL_biQPjl3WsOb5hhycMDG4IcCSlhvq2W1YPxlEWr_53gbWwjvDpnJPhaIKtFjE_lgEOnrIr3Q0k_zMn-t8UY7vvvjIgbj3A1CRsJJbgcVoYJuj81LLZCv60GG7eifQ3TiBCDkbzuWxJSiNGdIEN28nUHLTNTk/s320/March%20crowd.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">“As she got off the train and began walking in the direction of the Lincoln Memorial, she saw young people toting luggage for old people, daddies with their daughters on their shoulders, and mothers pushing babies in strollers. While people called Black people ‘sir’ and ‘ma’am’ and said ‘Good morning’ and ‘How are you?’ Everywhere, it seemed, guitars were strumming.”</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Francine said to her best friend who had traveled to DC with her: “Florestine, this is what heaven’s gonna be like when we get there.”</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">But here’s another look at what the beloved community can be. It comes from <span style="color: #131313;">Dr. Luther E. Smith Jr., a scholar of the works of Black theologian Howard Thurman, whose writings had a big influence on Dr. King. Smith spoke in 2019 at a conference on Thurman’s life and work that was held at Upper House here in Madison.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #131313; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">For Smith, living in the beloved community is not always such an idyllic place. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">He told about visiting a place that served people without homes in North Carolina. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“So, it’s the homeless,” he said, “with all the aromas you get from people who have been living on the street. And some obvious signs of mental illness … But what I saw in that place was … an area for clothing with racks separating the clothing as if you walked into a department store. There was a place over here to help people deal with their disability benefits and other kinds of need they would have in terms of medical care. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“There was artwork that many of them had drawn and their poetry as an expression of beauty that had come through them. I go into the living room and there are tables with tablecloths and china and they are being served four and five helpings of food.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Smith said, “I felt that I had entered the realm of God. This was for me an experience of beloved community. Were there people still there addicted to drugs? Yes. Were some of the people serving wondering, could these people be doing better than they are? Probably yes. Do some of the homeless speak rough to one another? Yes.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">He concluded, “I would say that if we found ourselves requiring an understanding of the beloved community stripped of these dimensions of life, we’re always going to be disappointed in the picture of beloved community.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />I think John the Baptist understood that but still called people to be their better selves.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />I think Jesus understood that, but still asked us to do the hard things that seem to go against our nature, like forgiving without limit and loving our enemies.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />I think Martin Luther King understood that, knowing that it would take hard work, sacrifices, even death to bring that dream closer to reality. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Across the centuries that people taken from Africa and sold as slaves in this country have been here, they have held out hope for freedom, for justice, for dignity. Their hopes and their persistence have been captured in a beautiful hymn that is often sung on this weekend. It’s called “Life Every Voice and Sing.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Today, we can sing it in solidarity with all those who are God’s beloved ones who have struggled across their lives while never giving up their dreams, the dream that Dr. King held out to us as a challenge 60 years ago.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us.<br />Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us.<br />Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,<br />let us march on till victory is won.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Gunny Gundrum took a small action to help Dr. King amplify that dream. We, too, can find ways to amplify the words, the hopes, the dreams for justice of those living on the margins in our time. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">So let us join together in singing this hymn. <a href="https://youtu.be/kCAOZGRby_U?si=Eo17QRHKw--LCo4q" target="_blank">(This version is from Kirk Franklin.)</a></span></p></div>Phil Haslangerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03644333674118022564noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6633437725662827250.post-6950567800510911952023-09-03T11:01:00.001-07:002023-09-03T11:01:23.672-07:00 No Place to Lay Your Head<p><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/live/8gHP20fBPkM?si=hwCMxsb6_mlizVt_&t=1647" target="_blank">If you'd like to see a video of today's sermon, you can find it here.</a></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 12pt 0in;"><span style="color: #954f72; font-family: Cambria, serif;"><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+8%3A+14-20&version=NRSVUE" style="color: #954f72;">Matthew 8: 14-20</a></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Jesus was not the only one who did not have a place to lay his head. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 14pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_N2PiqwixcYZgGrLIgh86VnxifyEzGcixxBe0kBWqnwfQdzyMTgfTEMVX2aiU4exQ53MzR_Ef7DLRA3aPowAYKcBf_cKOW3kHGEYYqw7XJlzouCOcvttaq0BQGGsZGjdOD1z9j6gv8zNj0aCG3vn8wnpQhbmKpCNpG-YPUVzzrXCHIhWQKurTgH4IjGk/s1280/1-Homeless%20Jesus.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="1280" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_N2PiqwixcYZgGrLIgh86VnxifyEzGcixxBe0kBWqnwfQdzyMTgfTEMVX2aiU4exQ53MzR_Ef7DLRA3aPowAYKcBf_cKOW3kHGEYYqw7XJlzouCOcvttaq0BQGGsZGjdOD1z9j6gv8zNj0aCG3vn8wnpQhbmKpCNpG-YPUVzzrXCHIhWQKurTgH4IjGk/s320/1-Homeless%20Jesus.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">This bronze sculpture by </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Canadian </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Schmalz" style="color: #954f72;" title="Timothy Schmalz"><span style="color: black; font-family: Cambria, serif; text-decoration: none;">Timothy Schmalz</span></a><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> portrays Jesus as person with no place to lay his head.<br /></span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">But then neither does David…nor Lizzie…nor Danny…nor Matt.</span></span></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">They are all people I have gotten to know during the last year at Christ Pres. They are all about in their 40s, They are all people who have been with us in our space at one time or another. They are people some of you have gotten to know as well. For today, I’ve changed their names.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">They are people we have been able to help a bit with our Compassion Fund. And they are people who have taught me a bit about the challenges of being without a place to lay your head – at least without a place they could call home.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">They are hardly alone. As of last Thursday, </span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><a href="https://madison.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/madison-homeless-shelters-high-demand/article_aad72aaa-41d1-11ee-9fe9-570f14d737a6.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=email&utm_campaign=user-share" style="color: #954f72;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">according to a story in the Wisconsin State Journal,</span></a></span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> the list of people who are homeless waiting for housing included 609 singles and 72 households with children. And those are just the ones on an official list.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Bryan Stevenson, whose book <i>Just Mercy</i> took readers inside his work to free people unjustly on death row and whose Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama brings us face-to-face with the racial injustices across the centuries, talks a lot about proximity.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 12pt 0in;"><span style="background: repeat white; color: #4d5156; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“</span><span style="color: #040c28; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">If you are willing to get closer to people who are suffering,” Stevenson says, “you will find the power to change the world.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">That’s part of what I experienced with these four people. It’s part of what you experience when you eat with guests at Luke House or chat with people who come to the Community Fridge looking for food. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 12pt 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Danny</span></b><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> had been sleeping outside in parks along the lake – including right behind the church. He said that his wife had left him a while ago and brought his kids to Madison, so he came here to be nearby. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">A carpenter by trade, he was looking for a job, but had no place to live. He stayed at the emergency men’s shelter for a while, but then his backpack with his laptop and clothes was stolen, so he took to sleeping outside.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">The day I met him at church, he was looking for clothes. All he had at that point, he said, was the tee-shirt and shorts that he was wearing. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">I took him over to the Beacon on East Washington – an amazing place that was packed with other people without homes looking for help – for housing, for a place to wash their clothes, for a place just to hang out for a while. They have been serving up to a record of 250 people a day during August. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">They told Danny they would find some clothes for him, but they were so busy and understaffed that it would take a few hours. He said he understood and would come back later in the afternoon.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">A few weeks later, he stopped by to tell me his phone had been stolen. If you are trying to find work, you need a phone where prospective employers can reach you. So I used our Compassion Fund to get him a $50 smart phone and $50 in phone minutes. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">He was thrilled – and grateful. But then within a week, while he was sleeping at James Madison Park someone had stolen my old backpack that I had given him. There went his phone.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“I’m just not good at being homeless,” Danny told me. <br /><br />We went over to St. Vinnie’s to get a set of clothes he could wear to a job interview and he was off. He did not get that job – he needed a car to get to the various work sites, but now he has landed one at a company that does masonry restoration. I learned a lot about resourcefulness and persistence from Danny.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">But he still has no place to sleep inside. The exhaustion of sleeping outside may well affect his ability to keep that job. I don’t think any of us are very good at being homeless. Even Jesus, after all, noted that he had nowhere to lay his head. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 12pt 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Lizzie </span></b><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">had a place to lay her head – sort of. When she first came to Christ Pres in late November, she and her 12-year-old daughter were sleeping in her car. She fled what she described as a bad situation in Chicago. She had been working with the Beacon and the Salvation Army to find a place to stay, but nothing had opened up. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 12pt 0in;"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYT50NV1Ij7O2pKJ-6BVTBEQzmrq_NlcM6UhlgST2H33Ns80wPP9K__Cp9xw3kmOmLoToUyuj008gTl4MMAa6bhzBCYkT43D_7U_a1EuNWj3dxdebuEtz6xDba3dX4qCDGi2kXI23AnzyMGG-qixqNpYF-CbRVPEnnSPLvLXFRFZda9eMSb43e8UXIZm8/s1280/2-%20Women's%20sheleter.jpeg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="966" data-original-width="1280" height="151" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYT50NV1Ij7O2pKJ-6BVTBEQzmrq_NlcM6UhlgST2H33Ns80wPP9K__Cp9xw3kmOmLoToUyuj008gTl4MMAa6bhzBCYkT43D_7U_a1EuNWj3dxdebuEtz6xDba3dX4qCDGi2kXI23AnzyMGG-qixqNpYF-CbRVPEnnSPLvLXFRFZda9eMSb43e8UXIZm8/w200-h151/2-%20Women's%20sheleter.jpeg" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Family shelter</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">So the Compassion Fund got her a couple of nights in a motel until she could move into the Salvation Army Family Shelter on Milwaukee Street. That place – a former nursing home - can hold 35 families.</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">But life is never simple. She went to Chicago in December to try to get her 14-year old daughter to come back to Madison. She had gone back to Chicago with friends whom Lizzie did not trust. But Lizzie could not get back to Madison that evening and her daughter could not stay at the shelter because there was no adult with her and could I pick her up? No, I could not, for a whole variety of reasons. And it went on like that. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Lizzie came here for Advent Vespers, sat in on a Bible study or two, tried to navigate dealing with two challenging teens. Through it all, she marked two years of sobriety. Finally, she decided the only thing she could do is go back to Chicago, even with all the troubles she faces there. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">From there, she keeps posting on Facebook about her faith in God to get her through all this and sending good wishes. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 12pt 0in;"><span style="background: repeat white; color: #050505; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">I learned a lot about resilience and faith and determination from her.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 12pt 0in;"><span style="background: repeat white; color: #050505; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">I learned a lot about how overlapping issues can send you over the edge from <b>David</b>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 12pt 0in;"><span style="background: repeat white; color: #050505; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">He had been an assistant professor at UW-Madison for six years, was a research fellow at Harvard, taught at Northwestern – and last fall was facing eviction, losing his car and potential arrest for failing to pay child support for his now 16-year old daughter to the tune of some $50,000.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 12pt 0in;"><span style="background: repeat white; color: #050505; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">What went wrong? So many things. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 12pt 0in;"><span style="background: repeat white; color: #050505; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">He had emotional and physical disabilities that ultimately cost him his job. Part of what happened is he stopped opening his mail, would not answer or make phone calls and he was very hard to help since he wanted to do things his way. He had no income and his mother – who lived in another country - was draining her savings to support him where she could. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 12pt 0in;"><span style="background: repeat white; color: #050505; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Yet people did reach out to help. Our own Ron Konkol restarted the process to see if he could get Social Security Disability. The Aging and Disability Resource Center got him a case worker who could try to reestablish health care. The Tenant Resource Center provided an attorney who helped him get an extra month before eviction. Our Compassion Fund covered his car payment and insurance so he would not have his car impounded.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 12pt 0in;"><span style="background: repeat white; color: #050505; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">So many complications. At the end of September, a moving truck took his stuff to storage and – as best I can tell – he and his mother fled the country to avoid the warrant that was now out for him for failure to pay child support.<br /><br />When you are living on the edge, there are not always happy endings.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 12pt 0in;"><span style="background: repeat white; color: #050505;"><b></b></span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheAZl0Gct4rFNTgAvKT_VPtb1DDA_PnS5YsUBKhieDsIS_TKrZ0FBKiL0ro0XASadP53GK2Dyqo-27eupJqkzWfN4rCutph-tl_upqDhk-wJoK0bWrYw-O2bKkf21xqAwUqUUXvH4U5UkbMfpa3Kty23X1Ykalxvh8wdasFNZ_pRLP2xFrpy08FcCaS2U/s1280/3-%20Men's%20shelter.jpeg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="917" data-original-width="1280" height="229" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheAZl0Gct4rFNTgAvKT_VPtb1DDA_PnS5YsUBKhieDsIS_TKrZ0FBKiL0ro0XASadP53GK2Dyqo-27eupJqkzWfN4rCutph-tl_upqDhk-wJoK0bWrYw-O2bKkf21xqAwUqUUXvH4U5UkbMfpa3Kty23X1Ykalxvh8wdasFNZ_pRLP2xFrpy08FcCaS2U/s320/3-%20Men's%20shelter.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Men's shelter</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="background: repeat white; color: #050505;"><b><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Matt </span></b><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">is someone who has a better chance for a happy ending, but like Jesus, he has gone through this summer with no place to lay his head other than the Emergency Men’s Shelter near East Towne in the old Gander Mountain building.</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 12pt 0in;"><span style="background: repeat white; color: #050505; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">That shelter now is setting new records for people staying there – 270 guests were jammed in there on Aug. 22, up from 210 earlier this summer.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 12pt 0in;"><span style="background: repeat white; color: #050505; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Matt was married for 20 years. He and his wife had six kids – one of them now grown and living in Arizona. He worked as a custodian at St. Mary’s Hospital and Home Depot. But then two years ago, he and his wife got divorced. He is still in touch with his kids. He is very close with his 16-year-old son. But life is so complicated.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 12pt 0in;"><span style="background: repeat white; color: #050505; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Rent at the place where he was living was $1,300 a month, but the building was sold, and the new owner raised the rent to $1,700. Matt could not afford that. He sold his car to keep solvent for a little while. Now he was without a home or a car, so he went to the men’s shelter.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 12pt 0in;"><span style="background: repeat white; color: #050505; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">He got a job with the City of Madison Traffic Engineering Department painting lines on streets. But his shift was from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. and the buses don’t run in the middle of night. So he’d sleep in a park after work, then catch one of the first buses at dawn back to the shelter. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 12pt 0in;"><span style="background: repeat white; color: #050505; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Folks had to be out of the shelter by 8 a.m., so then he’d go to a library, maybe getting a bit of sleep until a librarian woke him up and told him he could not sleep in the library. The Compassion Fund helped get him cab rides from work to the shelter for a few weeks, but now he is back on his own.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 12pt 0in;"><span style="background: repeat white; color: #050505; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">He worked with folks at The Beacon to try to find better housing. He applied for other, better jobs and got one at a downtown hotel as a maintenance worker. Rob Striker, who is on our Compassion Fund Committee, met a few times with him to give him some moral support. But in the meantime, Matt is still sleeping in the shelter. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 12pt 0in;"><span style="background: repeat white; color: #050505; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Here's a guy with no criminal record, dedicated to his family, working a tough shift on a city job, and bumping into one obstacle after another, including having cash from his paycheck stolen out of his wallet one morning at the shelter. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 12pt 0in;"><span style="background: repeat white; color: #050505; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">It became clear to me even with a good job and a clean record how hard it is to find a place to live, even just a room he could rent in someone’s house. He is hardly alone. Finding housing is the biggest challenge for every agency that works with people without homes, domestic violence survivors fleeing their abuser, people returning from prison, immigrants arriving in our city.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 12pt 0in;"><span style="background: repeat white; color: #050505; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">The time I spent with Danny and Lizzie, with David and Matt drove home to me so many of the challenges people face when they are trapped in poverty. No place to live, no car for transportation, no job because they have no phone, emotional illnesses, fractured relationships. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 12pt 0in;"><span style="background: repeat white; color: #050505; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">One of my heroes is Fr. Greg Boyle, a Jesuit priest who 35 years ago in Los Angeles started an organization called </span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><a href="https://homeboyindustries.org/" style="color: #954f72;"><span style="background: repeat white; font-family: Cambria, serif;">Homeboy Industries</span></a></span><span style="background: repeat white; color: #050505; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> that works with gang members. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 12pt 0in;"><span style="background: repeat white; color: #050505; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">In his 2017 commencement address at the University of Notre Dame, Fr. Greg told the graduates that a healthy community </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">stands “in awe of what the poor have to carry rather than stand in judgment of how they carry it.</span><span style="background: repeat white; color: #050505; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">” He added that “</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">the measure of our compassion is not in our service to those on the margins but to see ourselves in kinship with them.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 12pt 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZCrJmVwTTC3dh--hOzvPHaT7o3BM3Hw66EMSNHqOFatkatIYJ_fMBkTq5AbCjr4ZFKyDuumVabwNb6F_QkuAlt4I_DWdDMESpzOEb-v2aStmP7tdXkww1GvcJIlP3I46aio7BnDd-hhYND4CO70_TbKDuMmv-t9-ifNvhwQnGBsEfhMTZFnYUrACzeaE/s654/4%20-%20Begging%20Jesus.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="654" data-original-width="597" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZCrJmVwTTC3dh--hOzvPHaT7o3BM3Hw66EMSNHqOFatkatIYJ_fMBkTq5AbCjr4ZFKyDuumVabwNb6F_QkuAlt4I_DWdDMESpzOEb-v2aStmP7tdXkww1GvcJIlP3I46aio7BnDd-hhYND4CO70_TbKDuMmv-t9-ifNvhwQnGBsEfhMTZFnYUrACzeaE/s320/4%20-%20Begging%20Jesus.jpeg" width="292" /></a></div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">When we encounter the poor, those with no place to lay their heads, we are in a way encountering Jesus. So many people here know what that means. For some, it is the way you reach out to help. For others, it is how you have experienced the challenges of poverty yourselves. </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">One of the great blessings we have here at Christ Pres is the Compassion Fund that has been able to help people both within our congregation and those in the wider community. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">A bequest from a member a few years back has given us the resources to work with. That money will not last forever, of course, and our Deacons Compassion Fund committee works hard to use the funds both generously and wisely. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">That empty plate that the homeless Jesus is pointing to gets filled and refilled thanks to the work of people here.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">But we do more that provide resources. In that Gospel story we heard today, Jesus healed people in their distress. That inspired others to follow him. I think for many of us, that inspiration propels us forward as well. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">We are among those who try to love and to serve our city. We cry out for justice. We reach out to those in need. We let their lives affect ours. We experience proximity just as Jesus did.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">So let us join together in a hymn. It’s #</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">351, <a href="https://youtu.be/H1jabmxxZF8?si=nBLKWppEnJh7cIBo" target="_blank">“All Who Love and Serve Your City.”</a> We’ll sing verses 1, 2 and 4.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Phil Haslangerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03644333674118022564noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6633437725662827250.post-43953052754405560402023-07-30T09:00:00.002-07:002023-07-30T11:30:01.729-07:00 I Will Dwell in God’s House<p><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/live/rR2rkYPzLF0?feature=share&t=2705" target="_blank">Here is a video of the sermon from on July 30, 2023 at Christ Presbyterian Church in Madison.</a></span></p><p><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=557678134" style="font-family: Cambria, serif;" target="_blank">Psalm 23:6</a><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">; </span><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=557678167" style="font-family: Cambria, serif;" target="_blank">Luke 6: 46-49</a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHs7ad_0feXIiue8T2yZnwCNagqAUluANeqKBzzb2tsgOspCuaRmcdqAUHmjFtkLbf_2yDd1_Io95NYG_nKI07Oba6V9MVNcpWCbQUO-iGxGrvMbIubIT7Ue-Nr-936SJrnqcfsYWl3VQUh4haG8QuVMglqmu3s8yUgmyYymUWD4YA3bEns_ju49b9eUI/s1280/1%20-%20Birmingham%20church.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="960" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHs7ad_0feXIiue8T2yZnwCNagqAUluANeqKBzzb2tsgOspCuaRmcdqAUHmjFtkLbf_2yDd1_Io95NYG_nKI07Oba6V9MVNcpWCbQUO-iGxGrvMbIubIT7Ue-Nr-936SJrnqcfsYWl3VQUh4haG8QuVMglqmu3s8yUgmyYymUWD4YA3bEns_ju49b9eUI/s320/1%20-%20Birmingham%20church.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">I<span style="font-family: times;"> was standing outside the</span></span> <span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><a href="https://16thstreetbaptist.org/history-2/" style="color: #954f72;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #888888;">16<sup>th</sup>Street Baptist Church</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> in downtown Birmingham on a beautiful Saturday morning in late October of 2018. A sign recalled the evil that had literally exploded at this site on a Sunday morning in 1963. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16th_Street_Baptist_Church_bombing" style="color: #954f72;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #888888;">A bomb planted by white supremacists went off in the church, killing four black teen girls, injuring others.</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> As I stood there with others on a civil rights tour that was taking us through several of the historic cities that were part of the story of righting historic wrongs, notifications began to show up on my cell phone. The news was coming out of Pittsburgh. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><a href="https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/pittsburgh-synagogue-shooting/index.html" style="color: #954f72;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #888888;">Eleven Jewish people gathered at synagogue there had been killed</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> by a white man with a gun after he had posted anti-Semitic and anti-immigrant statements on social media. </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Another sacred site had been turned into a killing place.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiulOg0pdiUWTEF3WmzP441tkblrWW3mGhTV-sYfr0cOfohmd2m9b1FtPWcEpQZGJt4kQjDgXN_c72KHIveqG-TGJrhgeR6oUi3l-F7f9o6Yol4Ihwz67IQT1xrSxxx5OYegEQ8HC6m0Sa3Q0SObKHm16-pFcUZ3G8XuUvXsnFNjaKFWU6QIbvalLXWgiE/s1280/2-%20Birminham%20tree.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="960" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiulOg0pdiUWTEF3WmzP441tkblrWW3mGhTV-sYfr0cOfohmd2m9b1FtPWcEpQZGJt4kQjDgXN_c72KHIveqG-TGJrhgeR6oUi3l-F7f9o6Yol4Ihwz67IQT1xrSxxx5OYegEQ8HC6m0Sa3Q0SObKHm16-pFcUZ3G8XuUvXsnFNjaKFWU6QIbvalLXWgiE/s320/2-%20Birminham%20tree.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Across the street from the 16<sup>th</sup>Street Baptist Church is</span><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_Ingram_Park" style="color: #954f72;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #888888;">Kelly Ingram Park</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">, once a place that served as a staging area for the civil rights protests in Birmingham. It was the place where in May of 1963, the Birmingham police and firefighters attacked children as they protested, spraying them with water cannons, setting dogs on them and arresting many of them. </span><p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">In the middle of the park is a small plaque and tree honoring Anne Frank. She was the young German Jewish girl whose family took refuge in Amsterdam during the rise of the Nazis, only later to be captured and sent to a concentration camp where she died at the age of 15 – just a year or two older than the girls killed in the church bombing. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Evil just keeps returning. Which is why Anne Frank’s words on that plaque were so important on that Saturday morning as we stood outside the site of one atrocity only to be learning the details of another. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“How wonderful it is,” she wrote in her famous diary, “that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">As we have been journeying through Psalm 23 this past month, we have arrived at the last verse today: “Surely goodness and kindness shall follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">That is such a happy ending after reading about valleys of death and enemies glaring at us as we sit at a dining table. And yet that day in Birmingham, that day in Pittsburgh suggested that even in the house of the Lord, goodness and kindness could be ripped away.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Let me take you this morning through another story that may seem like goodness and kindness are still too far away. But stay tuned for the ending. Goodness and kindness will arrive not just at the house of the Lord, but also at the house of Yonason and Michele Meadows in Milwaukee’s Sherman Park neighborhood. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOBQtIiZdLcSArjZiKYvDBXyosr3yXxNkGGi0JFOpv3QWBn9QnpzdJEZpo9KfSPxRJVdnJfeHCz0_Lw19ifpy4XImD9MJyfGKNlH-8KHmsBKjBzYUF2QkEqPaO79hBMPdbCUnxR_7p5KpustvhlyIEjaQl-u5sGI0RYOl3qsPEz4FtmUIWOUosoGm7G_w/s1280/3%20-%20Meadows%20family.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="746" data-original-width="1280" height="187" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOBQtIiZdLcSArjZiKYvDBXyosr3yXxNkGGi0JFOpv3QWBn9QnpzdJEZpo9KfSPxRJVdnJfeHCz0_Lw19ifpy4XImD9MJyfGKNlH-8KHmsBKjBzYUF2QkEqPaO79hBMPdbCUnxR_7p5KpustvhlyIEjaQl-u5sGI0RYOl3qsPEz4FtmUIWOUosoGm7G_w/s320/3%20-%20Meadows%20family.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">They are the parents of a family of six children. Yoni, as he is known, is an Orthodox Jewish rabbi. He was a chaplain at Meriter Hospital here from 2017 to 2021 and now manages pastoral care education at Advocate Health in Milwaukee. He was one of the rabbis who went to Pittsburgh after that horrific and hate-filled mass shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue.</span></p><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">For Yoni and his family, though, antisemitism is not something just far away in Pittsburgh. It landed painfully in their front yard in 2021.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /><o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">We as Christians have a particular need to pay attention to antisemitism. Jesus, after all, was Jewish. So were his closest followers. And yet as the early Christians began to form their own sect, first within the Jewish community and then bringing in people who were not Jewish, hostility began to grow. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">The biggest threat to the early Christians came from the Roman Empire, but their Jewish neighbors were much closer, had less power and were easy to cast as the enemy. Contemporary theologian Willie James Jennings of Yale University describes the anti-Semitism of the early Christians as training camps where people learned to hate the “other” – lessons that were transferred to many other groups by Christians across the centuries.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />We live with that reality today. It is a reality that does not create a place of goodness and kindness. But it is a reality we can do something about with the way we live in our lives, in this community.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSmVNzTEnGF_TKnxgYE9DD0BRf5ljlrJB5As2jklA3tcckoHxes1HUSMfypMf1F46zGlIJPY3OoEJzDFMldIq9MiJR91OXBTpwZ0wQhxWWXwz7g9FVn5vAVSV-d6RLss2UJDKe32WIEQhME36Qf2uhOol5tM-9LbkkJtByL4h1dsKzEDZdK271FgxyhgM/s678/4%20-%20Yoni.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="678" data-original-width="600" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSmVNzTEnGF_TKnxgYE9DD0BRf5ljlrJB5As2jklA3tcckoHxes1HUSMfypMf1F46zGlIJPY3OoEJzDFMldIq9MiJR91OXBTpwZ0wQhxWWXwz7g9FVn5vAVSV-d6RLss2UJDKe32WIEQhME36Qf2uhOol5tM-9LbkkJtByL4h1dsKzEDZdK271FgxyhgM/w177-h200/4%20-%20Yoni.jpeg" width="177" /></a></div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Yoni was standing outside his home on an April day in 2021, talking on the phone with his mother. A tall man walked toward him, but Yoni turned away.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Sophie Carson, a reporter for the <i>Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel</i>, described what happened next <a href="https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/local/2023/05/31/milwaukee-jewish-family-reflects-on-future-after-antisemitic-incidents/70227719007/?utm_source=jsonline-dailybriefing-strada&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailybriefing-greeting&utm_term=newsletter-greeting&utm_content=pmjs-milwaukee-nletter65" style="color: #954f72;">in a story she wrote two months ago.</a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 17.25pt 0.5in 17.25pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">She wrote that Yoni suddenly “</span><span style="color: #303030; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">took a ‘tremendous blow’ to the back of his head and crumpled to the ground. One of his hearing aids broke; his glasses bent.” He screamed and considered launching himself at the man but held back, afraid things could get worse.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 17.25pt 0.5in 17.25pt 0in;"><span style="color: #303030; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Yoni told Sophie: “He looked at me, seemed surprised that I reacted, which I took to be: You harass Jews and they just take it.” The man laughed, turned and walked away, never saying a word.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 17.25pt 0.5in 17.25pt 0in;"><span style="color: #303030; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Later, when Yoni told people at the synagogue about the attack, they asked what the man looked like. Once Yoni described him, they said this man had been taunting Jews for months, but this was the first time that they knew of that he had hit anyone.</span><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 17.25pt 0.5in 17.25pt 0in;"><span style="color: #303030; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Anti-Semitism had come to their front yard. But it was the second time in a week it had affected the Meadows family.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 17.25pt 0.5in 17.25pt 0in;"><span style="color: #303030; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Sophie described what happened just a few days before the attack on Yoni.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 17.25pt 0.5in 17.25pt 0in;"><span style="color: #303030; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“Four of his children had purchased ice cream on the city’s east side when a man spotted his 15-year-old son Elazar’s yarmulke. ‘I know you worship Yahweh,’ the man shouted, coming toward the siblings. ‘I know who you are.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="gntarbp" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 17.25pt 0.5in 17.25pt 0in;"><span style="color: #303030; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“The four siblings – all teens and young adults – rushed to their car, jumped in, and locked the doors before the man could reach them. Then, they watched as the man crossed the street, giving high-fives to people who appeared to know him.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="gntarbp" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 17.25pt 0.5in 17.25pt 0in;"><span style="color: #303030; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Two years later, having processed these things and many other moments when their Jewishness made them stand out in stores, at work. Yoni told Sophie, “It’s like a white noise machine of anxiety and insecurity.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="gntarbp" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 17.25pt 0.5in 17.25pt 0in;"><span style="color: #303030; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Daughter Meira, now a student at UW-Madison, wonders, “</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">What’s happening to our world, what’s happening to our community, what’s happening to our family?” She has gotten involved with organizations on campus working to raise awareness about Jewish issues. And with good reason. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQrUmvWxDdpHzibJvmaajsh2e7BJDga8I9oqmS63X9O6y74tVUIiOWONFGfQFKwqCe4lomOPw3KmKbe8RDiL3kuqkItLMec3uoxG66tSJhJSHnGoaOH4ghxNRHpzkk4RcDN5sgiWMJwL2XgSLJGIQ4F6IEEBm5jqAXXYDo9B9mdqkxDtvyEF8nbxL8iJw/s709/5%20-%20Chalking.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="550" data-original-width="709" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQrUmvWxDdpHzibJvmaajsh2e7BJDga8I9oqmS63X9O6y74tVUIiOWONFGfQFKwqCe4lomOPw3KmKbe8RDiL3kuqkItLMec3uoxG66tSJhJSHnGoaOH4ghxNRHpzkk4RcDN5sgiWMJwL2XgSLJGIQ4F6IEEBm5jqAXXYDo9B9mdqkxDtvyEF8nbxL8iJw/s320/5%20-%20Chalking.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">As classes opened at UW-Madison last fall, antisemitic messages were scrawled in chalk labeling Jewish groups "racist," "genocidal" and "having blood on their hands." </span><o:p></o:p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">While there was a political component to that – a reaction to Israel’s policies toward Palestinians – Jewish students – there are about 5,200 Jewish students at UW - understandably felt targeted. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="gntarbp" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 17.25pt 0.5in 17.25pt 0in;"><span style="color: #303030; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">After all, in the spring of 2022, there was <span style="background: repeat white;">a swastika etched into a dorm bathroom stall, slurs yelled at a student and someone who said they were harassed for “looking Jewish.” </span></span><br /></p><p class="gntarbp" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 17.25pt 0.5in 17.25pt 0in;"><span style="background: repeat white; color: #303030; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">And if you have been to events at Temple Beth El here in recent years, you know there is always a Madison police officer at the door providing security. With good reason. There has been no shortage of attacks on synagogues.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicYg6iWtotMyWMHOuUkVrFh2wD7PsYok94lM0MyyA3JW_nh00p14_9cvxB1fIToikwt0PbY2hCsSFFvqY_8h2aQvwmwlabgY39EIPoSh1jS1X6e1yyocSA5yBI8ZUTNhfK5o6dZVl-FzIwyCUQrMyAa-EEUzBHXzoQbzdwY_8z0_y_ZA6XWxhaZ1YmK8Q/s654/6%20-%20Anti%20semites.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="482" data-original-width="654" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicYg6iWtotMyWMHOuUkVrFh2wD7PsYok94lM0MyyA3JW_nh00p14_9cvxB1fIToikwt0PbY2hCsSFFvqY_8h2aQvwmwlabgY39EIPoSh1jS1X6e1yyocSA5yBI8ZUTNhfK5o6dZVl-FzIwyCUQrMyAa-EEUzBHXzoQbzdwY_8z0_y_ZA6XWxhaZ1YmK8Q/s320/6%20-%20Anti%20semites.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Last month, in Georgia, two synagogues were the victims of Nazi protests. Members of an overtly antisemitic hate group gathered outside the wearing swastikas, yelling “Heil Hitler,” and they hung a life-size effigy of an LGBTQ+ Jew from a lamp post. They distributed antisemitic flyers in the neighborhoods surrounding the synagogues.</span></div><div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Those Nazi references surely are unnerving to Jews today. They know the horror of Holocaust. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpFP90oQowzB8jOwFMCtrPQ32f1DWad3TqdSFGEJzz0HhT0FYewqhxumuchPbRrc38p_J2aREqUizEHRiasWLZESYnuIjpCyxCv4J8IOsgjUrd710XRbcVfDooMwCxayg-BrGiTQA-HDDw-4_4qNSyNytgKuoeGHNZn2Q0pG6QxrN848KbvlJEko46me8/s1280/7%20-%20Grandmother%20Alice.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="902" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpFP90oQowzB8jOwFMCtrPQ32f1DWad3TqdSFGEJzz0HhT0FYewqhxumuchPbRrc38p_J2aREqUizEHRiasWLZESYnuIjpCyxCv4J8IOsgjUrd710XRbcVfDooMwCxayg-BrGiTQA-HDDw-4_4qNSyNytgKuoeGHNZn2Q0pG6QxrN848KbvlJEko46me8/w141-h200/7%20-%20Grandmother%20Alice.jpeg" width="141" /></a></div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Our own Debbie Simon Konkol and her husband, Ron, traveled to France last month to visit the place where her Grandmother <span style="background: repeat white; color: #050505;">Alice was </span></span><span style="background: repeat white; color: #050505; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">one of 86 people of Jewish heritage who were executed in a makeshift gas chamber at a concentration camp in France. Debbie’s story of her grandmother’s death and its impact on her family is heart-wrenching. There are a few flyers near the bulletin board in the gathering space about her presentation.</span></div><div><span style="color: #050505; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5);"><br /></span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background: repeat white; color: #050505; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">We know that antisemitism has deep roots across the centuries. And we know in this country, it is having a resurgence. </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 17.25pt 0.5in 17.25pt 0in;"><span style="color: #303030; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">The Milwaukee Jewish Federation counted 101 antisemitic incidents in Wisconsin n 2022, a 6% increase from a year earlier, with a particularly sharp rise on college campuses. Even more startling, that’s an overall 494% increase in antisemitic incidents in Wisconsin since 2015.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="gntarbp" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 17.25pt 0.5in 17.25pt 0in;"><span style="color: #303030; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Nationally, Jewish people are<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">the most targeted faith group<span style="color: #303030;">, according to the FBI. They are the victims of more than half of religiously motivated hate crimes.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="gntarbp" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 17.25pt 0.5in 17.25pt 0in;"><span style="color: #303030; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Where is the goodness and mercy promised on Psalm 23? <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="gntarbp" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 17.25pt 0.5in 17.25pt 0in;"><span style="color: #303030; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Where is that house of the Lord where we can dwell for all the days of our lives?<br /><br />Let’s stay with the house image for a moment. In that short reading from the Gospel according to Luke that we heard from Helena today, Jesus talks about building a house on rock so it does not get washed away in the torrent of a flood. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="gntarbp" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 17.25pt 0.5in 17.25pt 0in;"><span style="color: #303030; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">So how do we build a house that will be a place of goodness and mercy for our Jewish siblings, for all those facing hatred and oppression and violence in our time? How can we make that house secure, as though it were built on rock.<br /><br />Here a few ideas. You may have more.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="gntarbp" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 17.25pt 0.5in 17.25pt 0in;"><span style="color: #303030; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">A starting point with so many of these things is proximity, getting to know the people who are facing evil so that we better understand what is happening, so that we care about their pain, so that they do not feel so alone.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="gntarbp" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 17.25pt 0.5in 17.25pt 0in;"><span style="color: #303030; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">On an institutional level, that is one thing we are doing here. Our partner in resettling refugee families is Jewish Social Services. While this is a functional partnership, it also binds us together in a common cause. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="gntarbp" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 17.25pt 0.5in 17.25pt 0in;"><span style="color: #303030; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">A second thing is to find ways to respond when our neighbors – whether Jewish or Muslim or Sikh, whether Black or Latino or Asian – face direct threats. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="gntarbp" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 17.25pt 0.5in 17.25pt 0in;"><span style="color: #303030; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">After the hate-based murders at the synagogue in Pittsburgh, </span><span style="background: repeat white; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">nearly 1,000 people in Madison gathered at the First Unitarian Society in a resolve to stand together against hated. The following Friday evening, there was a special Shabbat service at Temple Beth-El, a service intended for healing and solace where the wider community also gathered and – in an extraordinary moment - the synagogue’s three Torahs were passed through the crowd. </span></p><p class="gntarbp" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 17.25pt 0.5in 17.25pt 0in;"><span style="background: repeat white; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5qtPc7GacLvqTtZ4DD3sXQyLb1XWttXMLixIvrkZv_V2vuQ7F5vGZhtgaGUuWZjxJ7tQ8qKMTebuNSMMGonev257RNwESNyZcREDoKgOlagIhzbHAdlh3cnWeNhUjVSInr8F92z7zLwWu5q46cxefjLeD86ywracqF1xW3fD4YJJnuSSMRXpiS_7Z-8c/s1000/8%20-%20Response.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="669" data-original-width="1000" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5qtPc7GacLvqTtZ4DD3sXQyLb1XWttXMLixIvrkZv_V2vuQ7F5vGZhtgaGUuWZjxJ7tQ8qKMTebuNSMMGonev257RNwESNyZcREDoKgOlagIhzbHAdlh3cnWeNhUjVSInr8F92z7zLwWu5q46cxefjLeD86ywracqF1xW3fD4YJJnuSSMRXpiS_7Z-8c/s320/8%20-%20Response.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">After the white supremacist actions outside the synagogues near Atlanta last month, the Fellowship of Reconciliation gathered messages of love, solidarity and steadfast support from it members around the world. They were delivered on July 2 at an interfaith service by <a href="https://www.pcap-us.org/rev-fahed-abu-akel" style="color: #954f72;"><span style="background: repeat white;">Rev. </span>Fahed Abu Akel</a>, a Palestinian Presbyterian minister who lives in Atlanta. As a side note, he founded an organization called the Atlanta Ministry with International Students, which surely parallels some of the work we do here at Christ Pres.<br /></span><p></p><p class="gntarbp" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 17.25pt 0.5in 17.25pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">So standing with our Jewish siblings in moments of crisis certainly matters. We can do that as a congregation and we can also do it by being touch with our friends who are Jewish. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="gntarbp" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 17.25pt 0.5in 17.25pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Two places I can think of where we need to be careful. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="gntarbp" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 17.25pt 0.5in 17.25pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">One is the conflict between the state of Israel and the Palestinians. Many folks here are sympathetic to what has happened and is happening to the Palestinians, both in Israel and in the West Bank and Gaza. We need to be clear that the issue is with the Israeli government, not with the Jewish people. There are many, many Jews – here and across the nation – who have big issues with the Israeli government. While criticisms of the government can be interpreted as anti-Semitic, we need to be extraordinarily careful never to cast our criticisms in that light.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="gntarbp" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 17.25pt 0.5in 17.25pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">And we need to be attentive within our worship life to the tensions in the New Testament between the early Christians – many of whom were Jewish – and the religious leaders of Judaism in those first decades. </span></p><p class="gntarbp" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 17.25pt 0.5in 17.25pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">So we should be careful with the words we use in worship. We need to explore the context of the stories in the New Testament that seem to cast all Jewish people as the bad guys. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="gntarbp" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 17.25pt 0.5in 17.25pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">We need to be careful about misinterpreting the Hebrew scriptures as if they were written with Jesus in mind rather than the early Christians looking back at those scriptures to help interpret the life and teachings of Jesus in ways that were familiar to them.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="gntarbp" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 17.25pt 0.5in 17.25pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Those are a few ways we can bring goodness and mercy into the world around us.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Ann Frank wrote it so well:<b> </b></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="gntarbp" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 17.25pt 0.5in 17.25pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">But there is still that image from Psalm 23 of living in the house of the Lord for the rest of our days. Surely, the house of the Lord is built on solid rock. But what happens when evil comes to the front yard of the house of the Meadows family?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="gntarbp" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 17.25pt 0.5in 17.25pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH7y7SsH8jQoNZYiPDmf51FM4eCZIz-g1shI49xquws9JclIfbMO6mXO_lpo_QpE_Yiy21oWane0_IgwhydCB97X9TNEZHfIlY-EqYaNgMd2IL53E_bqMgvReXfeOtxTiB05eEM0eKwPTHCvCBXdIuiV20CPboKvT0eQ4y4owhK7mckjJnpbmzklqbhmA/s1280/9%20-%20Meadows%20family%20copy.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="746" data-original-width="1280" height="187" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH7y7SsH8jQoNZYiPDmf51FM4eCZIz-g1shI49xquws9JclIfbMO6mXO_lpo_QpE_Yiy21oWane0_IgwhydCB97X9TNEZHfIlY-EqYaNgMd2IL53E_bqMgvReXfeOtxTiB05eEM0eKwPTHCvCBXdIuiV20CPboKvT0eQ4y4owhK7mckjJnpbmzklqbhmA/s320/9%20-%20Meadows%20family%20copy.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Even beyond the assault on Yoni, there were well aware of the threats of antisemitism, whether physical or emotional.</span><p></p><p class="gntarbp" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 17.25pt 0.5in 17.25pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Yoni put it this way: </span><span style="color: #303030; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“We don’t face antisemitism from one direction. We face it from eight directions at once. So where do we go?”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="gntarbp" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 17.25pt 0.5in 17.25pt 0in;"><span style="color: #303030; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Sophie Carson described what they did in the conclusion of her story. In that spot where the man assaulted Yoni two years ago, there now is a sign. It reads, “Everyone welcome.”</span><br /></p><p class="gntarbp" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 17.25pt 0.5in 17.25pt 0in;"><span style="color: #303030; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">They are dwelling in the house of Lord’s goodness and mercy. In the midst of their fear and anxiety, they trust that with God’s watchfulness, nothing can really trouble them.</span></p><p class="gntarbp" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 17.25pt 0.5in 17.25pt 0in;"><span style="color: #303030; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">So let us join in that hope with a song. It comes from the Protestant monastic community of Taizé in France, a community that began in 1940 in part to help shelter refugees during World War II, including Jewish refugees. The song is called <a href="https://youtu.be/Pop65vCB6Oo" target="_blank">“Nothing Can Trouble.” </a></span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p></div>Phil Haslangerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03644333674118022564noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6633437725662827250.post-18472426326838983032023-04-16T08:30:00.002-07:002023-04-16T10:52:44.156-07:00 On the Road Again<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/live/3CtgLoZjvDs?feature=share&t=2279" style="font-family: Cambria, serif;" target="_blank">You can see a video version of this sermon here.</a></p><p><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+24%3A+13-35&version=NRSVUE" style="color: #954f72; font-family: Cambria, serif;">Luke 24:13-35</a><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">You probably know that on Easter Sunday morning, some congregations gather at dawn for a sunrise service, capturing the idea of light coming out of the darkness, picking up on the image in the Gospel according to John of Mary Magdalene arriving at Jesus’ tomb “early on the first day of the week while it was still dark.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">I’ve been to a few of those over the years. But my wife, Ellen, has never been along for even one of those.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">I’m the morning person in our house. Ellen, most definitely, is not. She says: “Jesus and I have an arrangement. I’ll meet him later on the road.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">That’s where we are today. On the road. Again.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /><a href="https://youtu.be/dBN86y30Ufc" target="_blank">Remember this song from Willie Nelson?</a></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 15pt; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><b><i><span style="color: red; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 15pt; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="color: #202124; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"></span></i></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMspH4TdHyaE-Hr6Zi2mkPsuqd352eH7aEBg4L0bR4-56liCFP0BleYq_6f0QeGLydLUxwNe04SzazAiLBtuBK_0oggcFy2yPKjn8F4a1qfnfRYfeySGLnpZxhmDT0zhWd6zIhlM_eIGRcubvNTavuvlu18RY8Yv9FCuiWj2fL-dZUx72dXZNn31Bl/s640/1%20-%20He%20Qi%20on%20road.jpeg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="640" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMspH4TdHyaE-Hr6Zi2mkPsuqd352eH7aEBg4L0bR4-56liCFP0BleYq_6f0QeGLydLUxwNe04SzazAiLBtuBK_0oggcFy2yPKjn8F4a1qfnfRYfeySGLnpZxhmDT0zhWd6zIhlM_eIGRcubvNTavuvlu18RY8Yv9FCuiWj2fL-dZUx72dXZNn31Bl/w200-h200/1%20-%20He%20Qi%20on%20road.jpeg" title="Art by He Qi" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Art by He Qi</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 15pt; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><i style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">On the road again</span></i></i></p><div style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="color: #202124; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Just can't wait to get on the road again<br /></span></i><i><span style="color: #202124; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">The life I love is making music with my friends<br /></span></i><i><span style="color: #202124; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">And I can't wait to get on the road again</span></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="color: #202124; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">On the road again<br /></span></i><i><span style="color: #202124; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Goin' places that I've never been<br /></span></i><i><span style="color: #202124; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Seein' things that I may never see again<br /></span></i><i><span style="color: #202124; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">And I can't wait to get on the road again</span></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="color: #202124; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></i></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 15pt; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #202124; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Think about those words for just a moment.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 15pt; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #202124; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">On the road…making music with friends.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 15pt; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #202124; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">On the road…seeing things that I may never see again.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 15pt; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #202124; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 15pt; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #202124; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Our story today from the Gospel according to Luke takes us out on the road…with friends…seeing things in a whole new way. I can understand why Ellen thought it would be a good idea to meet Jesus on the road.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 15pt; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #202124; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 15pt; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #202124; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">The image you see is by </span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><a href="https://www.heqiart.com/about-he-qi.html" style="color: #954f72;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">He Qi,</span></a></span><span style="color: #202124; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> a Chinese artist currently living in California as the artist-in-residence at Fuller Theological Seminary. I love his vivid use of colors. We’ll see the second part of his portrayal of this story as well as other images as I continue. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">I think that much like the two people in the Emmaus story, we’re on the road in our own lives as we try to figure out what it means to follow the way of Jesus. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Sometimes we’re as <i>confused and disillusioned</i> as those two travelers we heard about today. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Sometimes we’re <i>nourished</i> by the encounters we have along the way. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Sometimes we’re <i>energized</i> to go out and share our excitement with others. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">So I’d invite you to come along with me on this journey to Emmaus.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Of course, finding Emmaus is a little tricky. In the Holy Land today, there are several sites that claim to be that village. Nobody knows for sure where that original Emmaus was, other than about 7 miles from Jerusalem. The folks on the road back then knew where they were going in a physical sense. Their spiritual journey – and ours – is more complicated. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Put yourselves in the place of these two people. They were not part of Jesus’ inner circle. They were on the B team among the followers of Jesus, part of that wider group who had come to look at him as the hope for their future. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk4pUEJLfhUBJvVIfl8bAK_kuA1k5K7BqWoUfTbx66Lp7faZ6RruqKODLj-wsJRVgFhIN2qqk34vuiBR6qw9dBNnXWwNs6srg2wa7Qrx-kuu_bgitTWNaHrwyDMLVkWBM_WSCIERZT69_pQgWSTexQQblXaayvczeb8l4SgQSMwDkBxCWWRrA1Qa2a/s1280/2%20-%20Tiffany%20window.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="966" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk4pUEJLfhUBJvVIfl8bAK_kuA1k5K7BqWoUfTbx66Lp7faZ6RruqKODLj-wsJRVgFhIN2qqk34vuiBR6qw9dBNnXWwNs6srg2wa7Qrx-kuu_bgitTWNaHrwyDMLVkWBM_WSCIERZT69_pQgWSTexQQblXaayvczeb8l4SgQSMwDkBxCWWRrA1Qa2a/s320/2%20-%20Tiffany%20window.jpeg" width="242" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Artists’ portrayals usually picture them as two shell-shocked men on the road. That’s the image we have in that Tiffany glass window in the room at the back of the sanctuary that we call the Emmaus room. </span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">That 131-year old window – the first Tiffany window in Madison – was in our church when it was on the block downtown where the Concourse Hotel now stands. It was in storage here when this building opened 60 years ago but then found this place of honor in the early 2000s.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">More recent images, like the one from He Qi or this mosaic by </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><a href="https://cptv.org/rowan-lecompte-a-life-in-light/" style="color: #954f72;">Rowan and Irene LeCompte</a> </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"></span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">from the Washington National Cathedral tend to suggest it was not two men on the road but a man and a woman, perhaps a married couple. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdd0tA5XqHsJLEFNDTxx7tOX-gkXgNg4_KIj3pTwC0uJApVpg-jYd3_A3dQqD2Mc1ZLqBOybk1Eda_F_kCTNdhtQujJKEHgsk6XV7cM_9nr1VQRumHW6xdpEG7DndeY26nI7l0vRBkvTZeetnpypEaKcpGUu2AsLEduPN_2sMa54J0Vn4DYVd719uR/s1280/3%20-%20Mosaic%20on%20road.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1188" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdd0tA5XqHsJLEFNDTxx7tOX-gkXgNg4_KIj3pTwC0uJApVpg-jYd3_A3dQqD2Mc1ZLqBOybk1Eda_F_kCTNdhtQujJKEHgsk6XV7cM_9nr1VQRumHW6xdpEG7DndeY26nI7l0vRBkvTZeetnpypEaKcpGUu2AsLEduPN_2sMa54J0Vn4DYVd719uR/s320/3%20-%20Mosaic%20on%20road.jpeg" width="297" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Personally, I like that image, but what is essential here is that we have two people who are feeling very disoriented and very demoralized. And then they meet a stranger, someone they do not recognize as Jesus. </span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Perhaps this is because people walking under the hot Israeli sun kept their hoods up over their heads. Perhaps it was because the resurrected Jesus had a new look about him. Whatever it was, <i>he</i> noticed how sad <i>they</i> appeared.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“What are you talking about?” he asked them. <br /><br />They were amazed that he had not heard about all the turmoil in Jerusalem, the execution of “a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people.”<br /><br />Then those excruciating words of disappointment, even of despair: “We had hoped he was the one to redeem Israel.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">They felt alone, abandoned, mired in grief. <br />They were afraid. <br />They were looking for something, not realizing that what they were looking for was already with them.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Let’s pause for a moment and consider what has happened up to this point in the story. Jesus encounters two people on the road and recognizes their sadness. He does not walk on by. He reaches out to them, asking what is wrong. That’s one lesson from this story for us.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">But when they tell him why they are sad, Jesus’ words in the story have a kind of harsh sound: <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“Oh, how foolish you are and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared!” And then he gave them a tour of the Hebrew scriptures.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Let me frame this just a little bit differently. The couple on the road were in deep grief. They were puzzled over the story about the women who went to the tomb and said that Jesus was in fact alive. How could this be? How could any of this be?<br /><br />So Jesus walked with them. He helped them understand the sacred writings that were their heritage. The Messiah was not to be a warrior or a powerful ruler but someone who would transform the world with his message and his life. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">This stranger reminded them by his presence and by what he said -- that in the midst of their anguish and confusion, God was still walking with them. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">It’s not <i>only </i>a reminder to us that God is always with us. It’s <i>also </i>a model of what we do as followers of Jesus. We walk with people in their times of suffering. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"></span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1zqpaFeh9g-2n4BxATBa4t_2lV7oVBRONvNhF7Rn4Zahtzie-jwaz07ADV5neJ6aNJw-wYKfyipVuwKcwGpQFZtu_ugrEPISnGcNhQr4OSVUYafH-Tx6Ptw-QA6jhExHSADapjE4-wyrqKQsd0zdTdCS6xhZF66hi5_OT0yU7bu1fUBDEFwMd_Pym/s1280/4%20-%20Mosaic%20at%20table.jpeg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1098" data-original-width="1280" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1zqpaFeh9g-2n4BxATBa4t_2lV7oVBRONvNhF7Rn4Zahtzie-jwaz07ADV5neJ6aNJw-wYKfyipVuwKcwGpQFZtu_ugrEPISnGcNhQr4OSVUYafH-Tx6Ptw-QA6jhExHSADapjE4-wyrqKQsd0zdTdCS6xhZF66hi5_OT0yU7bu1fUBDEFwMd_Pym/s320/4%20-%20Mosaic%20at%20table.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Mosaic by Rowan and Irene LeCompte</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">They were beginning to see something in him that had not been immediately obvious. And then they did what followers of Jesus do – they offered him hospitality – a meal, a place to stay. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Their spirits had been nourished. </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Now their bodies would be nourished as well.</span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><b><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Luke has just a brief but powerful description of what happened next: </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />Breaking bread and sharing it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Folks here do that on the third Monday of every month at Luke House, passing bread around the tables as you eat with strangers you have met. You do that here on Sunday mornings as you invite any and all to share bread at this table. <br /><br />In a broader sense, we do that when we put food – bread and other items - in the Community Fridge. We do that when we buy bread and other treats from Just Bakery as through our sharing we open new opportunities for the people learning job skills there.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"></span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIyOQff3EnBzDZIKOWJS63nfZLTwkM8JXSj6k9isLL2B1n1sLlAXJem5xj3US3asGEH8JGT3sO7G-f3CDOWTueWb0e4p1kns1FByKJOWc5mtY-4MtJysW6Jw-Ttl5foOKO7muzKFA6ZGVDmuiElWnukCBTzNYO_ngxV2MZb8G2yseyKrI46CSVXfwq/s640/5%20-%20He%20Qi%20at%20table.jpeg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="554" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIyOQff3EnBzDZIKOWJS63nfZLTwkM8JXSj6k9isLL2B1n1sLlAXJem5xj3US3asGEH8JGT3sO7G-f3CDOWTueWb0e4p1kns1FByKJOWc5mtY-4MtJysW6Jw-Ttl5foOKO7muzKFA6ZGVDmuiElWnukCBTzNYO_ngxV2MZb8G2yseyKrI46CSVXfwq/s320/5%20-%20He%20Qi%20at%20table.jpeg" width="277" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Art by He Qi</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><div><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">The power of Jesus breaking bread at the Last Supper, at this table in Emmaus, in so many places in our lives is what helps us see Jesus in the people we encounter every day – and for them to see Jesus in us.</span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“Then their eyes were opened,” Luke writes, “and they recognized him, and he vanished from their sight.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">The reality of this man they had followed so passionately, grieved so deeply, rediscovered so curiously – the reality of Jesus had not changed. But now they saw him differently. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">They went back to Jerusalem and told others about their experience. They did not keep it to themselves. As Luke put it, “The two disciples described what had happened along the road and how Jesus was made known to them as he broke the bread.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Their disappointment had given way to hope. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Their misunderstanding of the sequence of events from Friday’s execution to Sunday’s discovery had given way to a new understanding of what this all meant.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Their sense of abandonment as they walked on the road back home gave way to once again knowing they were part of a community of people gathered by Jesus and people unwilling to give up on his message. <br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">That experience propelled them out into the world with new energy,.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIRv5KuD4So7itSOz-gfLySDqx3NSHB5zhkih5-03UIziqTw8rSnIYAYn0U-uFaeb6RPwiQ7zVBBx84JG49b4LrM8Ao3eZl92_24KlawAo9R5KG0v3t7n_PNJ39y4kxQX1GW8mtFWF5ZhmkPOD_2S0_50tWHqzv8aDvdMQRtlbs1jBSWsc-LH4vi27/s378/6%20-%20Emmaus%20icon.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="362" data-original-width="378" height="306" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIRv5KuD4So7itSOz-gfLySDqx3NSHB5zhkih5-03UIziqTw8rSnIYAYn0U-uFaeb6RPwiQ7zVBBx84JG49b4LrM8Ao3eZl92_24KlawAo9R5KG0v3t7n_PNJ39y4kxQX1GW8mtFWF5ZhmkPOD_2S0_50tWHqzv8aDvdMQRtlbs1jBSWsc-LH4vi27/s320/6%20-%20Emmaus%20icon.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Icon by Sister Marie-Paul </i></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span><p></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">As we move out of here this morning, we can carry with us the images of this good news from Luke. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">We can walk alongside those who are suffering. And if we are the ones suffering right now, we can be assured that our God is walking with us.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">We can share our bread. And if we are the ones who needs nourishment, we can be assured that the bread of life is there for us.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">We can live with hope. And we are walking the road in confusion and disorientation, we can lean on one another on this journey.</span></p>Phil Haslangerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03644333674118022564noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6633437725662827250.post-86734229886844874472023-03-12T09:30:00.002-07:002023-03-12T11:35:23.229-07:00Who We Are Becoming – With the Earth<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/live/kVFTg3QIFhs?feature=share&t=2131" target="_blank">You can find a video of this sermon here.</a></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">March 12, 2023, Christ Presbyterian Church - </span><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+12%3A+22-31&version=NRSVUE" style="color: #954f72;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Luke 12: 22-31</span></a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Sometime in the early 1970s, I went off to an individual retreat during the summer at what was then Campion High School in Prairie du Chien along the Mississippi River. I spent time reading, praying, talking with a spiritual guide. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">One of my texts for the retreat was Psalm 103. Part way through are these words: “As high as heaven is over the earth, so strong is God’s love to those who fear God. And as far as sunrise is from sunset, God has separated us from our sins.”</span><b><span style="color: #c00000; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><b><span style="color: #c00000; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Cambria, serif; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxulBkbdI13QXISAWn7BlFR25loNGV5ZlKwpjPUzGGTK48EyqA4Ryz-0HVWe0PaMsqAojSFTTYotvAJXhVgViWV7jNSlvAYFc0S9IMUVqC_XR2UNdfqBIwPFB2LkRofCANTJqgsUsxX0tLX4W5up2pC-h2IoOVHIomTDqdta5PmNXCExzRcmT4WrZz/s960/Stars.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="641" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxulBkbdI13QXISAWn7BlFR25loNGV5ZlKwpjPUzGGTK48EyqA4Ryz-0HVWe0PaMsqAojSFTTYotvAJXhVgViWV7jNSlvAYFc0S9IMUVqC_XR2UNdfqBIwPFB2LkRofCANTJqgsUsxX0tLX4W5up2pC-h2IoOVHIomTDqdta5PmNXCExzRcmT4WrZz/w268-h400/Stars.jpeg" width="268" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">On a clear June evening, I went out for walk and sat down under a tree on the campus, looking up at the star-filled sky. It was one of the most transcendent experiences of my life. I felt pulled into the vastness that was above me, felt God’s love all around me. It was only for a few moments, but I have never forgotten those moments.</span></span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">At the beginning of 2021, at the church that our daughter and son-in-law attend in Chicago - a place that became one of our spiritual homes online during the time of the pandemic - the pastor invited people there to choose a word from a list she offered that would help shape their year ahead. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />I picked the word “branch.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">I liked the image of being connected to a tree with roots reaching deep into the earth. For me, the tree would be Jesus, the roots the vastness of creation. My branch reached out a bit, growing each year, giving life to leaves that draw from the aquifer that runs below.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">The branch holds steady through the seasons, emerging with the spring, offering shade in the summer, holding the colors of autumn and remaining in place even as the leaves fall away. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />Of course a strong wind can take down a branch, so being a bit flexible in the midst of the storms helps. Letting nutrients flow helps with that flexibility. And then growth – slow, steady, continuous – adds strength. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">The picture that you see on here has become a vital image for me, connecting my life, the creation around me and God. It’s a picture by one of my favorite photographers, Bryan Hansel of Grand Marais, Minn.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">The branches are framed by the starlit sky – stars that stretch out far beyond what I can see, surrounding me with the glory of creation, reminding me that I am just a small being in an enormous universe, all shaped and sustained by a divine energy. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“Consider the ravens,” Jesus told his disciples. “Consider the lilies, how they grow.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Jesus walked through nature all the time, resting under the stars, watching the birds soar overhead, seeing lilies bloom in the fields, praying among a grove of trees.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Augustine – the great Christian thinker who lived around the year 400 – once wrote: “Some people, in order to discover God, read books. But there is a great book: the very appearance of created things. Look above you! Look below you! Note it. Read it.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">That was the first articulation of what became known as the “two books theory” of coming to know God. Madison resident Daniel Cooperrider has a new book called </span><a href="https://www.thepilgrimpress.com/products/speak-with-the-earth-and-it-will-teach-you-a-field-guide-to-the-bible-cooperrider" style="color: #954f72;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Speak With the Earth and It Will Teach You</span></i></a><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> where he explores how this might work in our time as he takes hikes into mountains and walks along rivers and wonders how we might change the world by remembering to learn from it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">In our time, when we are all vividly aware of the impact climate change is having on our lives – and on the lives of those living in more vulnerable situations – I think there is wisdom in that idea of reading the created world around us and noting what we might do to protect its livability not just for ourselves but for generations to come.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Let me reach back to a moment to someone with roots both among Presbyterian and Wisconsin ancestors. His name is John Muir. He was raised in a strict Scottish Presbyterian home near Portage and attended the University of Wisconsin starting in 1860.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Muir is a huge presence in the nation’s understanding of its natural environment, but we also know that his life was complicated by initially horrific attitudes towards the indigenous people who lived here first and the Africans brought here as slaves. His attitudes tempered in time, but are still part of his legacy, because we are a complicated people after all. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">For now, though, I’d like to focus on how Muir found new ways to connect to God through nature. This is a brief clip from a brand new video our own Scott Wilson made exploring the spiritual history of the University of Wisconsin. Rebecca Crooks is the narrator.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /><span style="color: #c00000;"><a href="https://youtu.be/TReggAIFqbg" target="_blank">Muir video clip</a><b><o:p></o:p></b></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><b><span style="color: #c00000; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Think about those words of John Muir: “God’s love covers all the earth as the sky covers it. And this love has voices heard by all who have ears to hear.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">John Muir was reading the book of creation. That, in turn, sustained him as he sought ways to expand the nation’s appreciation for and preservation of the earth on which we live.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">There’s a contemporary story from UW as well. Some of you may know Cal DeWitt, who taught environmental science for many years as UW-Madison and has been one of the leading voices in the faith-based movement for creation care. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Here’s another brief clip from Scott’s video:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #c00000; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><a href="https://youtu.be/4pxKbTjv92k" target="_blank">DeWitt video clip</a><b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><b><span style="color: #c00000; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“Behold the earth through the eye of its maker.” What a wonderful phrase that ties together our exploration of the natural world and our call to protect it for generations to come.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpu4SJVmxKuhOv0txXXGAW4EczyAXbQSwvWSKzmupzjNMG7v-FI_6BAkuz_iVnyZU7jQJsE655BGqnHdlQlzAIMr_gOQc83_bxdCZ6cJ2iJjjAdbGqk9yjNykixkL5Fa-hCqKmp8qE79Q6fWYqZV05ZRHjzVOTe_HYz3BW3ViQN4vhz9eeZxu5DFvs/s500/Green%20Bible.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="326" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpu4SJVmxKuhOv0txXXGAW4EczyAXbQSwvWSKzmupzjNMG7v-FI_6BAkuz_iVnyZU7jQJsE655BGqnHdlQlzAIMr_gOQc83_bxdCZ6cJ2iJjjAdbGqk9yjNykixkL5Fa-hCqKmp8qE79Q6fWYqZV05ZRHjzVOTe_HYz3BW3ViQN4vhz9eeZxu5DFvs/s320/Green%20Bible.jpg" width="209" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Cal DeWitt was one of the advisors who helped shape publication of what is called </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Green_Bible" style="color: #954f72;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">The Green Bible</span></i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">.</span></a><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">This is a regular New Revised Standard Version translation of the Bible, but with phrases related to the natural world printed in green. At the beginning are ten essays from Jewish and Christian authors on how to live in ways that care for God’s creation. One of them is by Cal DeWitt, where he writes, “The Bible turns out to be a powerful ecological handbook on how to live rightly on the earth.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Of course, the problem that we face today is that we are not living rightly on the earth.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">You all know the litany of climate change impacts – rising temperatures, more violent storms, enormous fires, drought, floods, the glaciers receding, the oceans rising. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">We here in Wisconsin can often seem pretty isolated from all this. Yes, our winters are less cold than a few decades ago, but it’s pretty clear that we still have winters. Water is abundant. Our four seasons are still well defined. People talk about our state as one of the places that will grow in desirability as other parts of the nation reel from climate change.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">We are not free of the impacts, though. And we know that every part of our world has a part to play in countering the causes of that lead to climate change. We are all truly connected.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Beyond looking out for ourselves, I believe one of the messages from Jesus is that we are called to look out for each other. And it is the most vulnerable people in our world that will suffer the most from climate change.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />Yes, some expensive homes along the shore in Florida eventually may be under water. But the horrific impacts are going to fall on struggling people in nations all around the globe. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />Our own Angie Dickens recently gave </span><a href="https://youtu.be/YOyf-IjFiOs?t=245" style="color: #954f72;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">a presentation to a group called 350 Wisconsin</span></a><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> on the connections between climate change and migration. Rising sea levels, droughts, food scarcity are all contributing to migration that is hugely destructive of individual lives but also destabilizing to so many nations. <br /><br />These are stunning numbers she cited from a report by the World Bank:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">By the year 2050 – that’s only 27 years away – 40 million people in South Asia will have been forced to migrate within their own county. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the number of those internal migrants will be 86 million. Our neighbors in Latin America will see 17 million internal migrants. Of course, migrants who ultimately leave that region tend to seek refuge in the United States.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />And here, in the U.S., we are looking at some 13 million Americans forced to relocate due to sea level rise. That’s five times the size of the Dust Bowl migration in the 1930s.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">All of this makes me want to shout out the first words of Psalm 69:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck.<br />I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold;<br />I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me.<br />I am weary with my crying; my throat is parched.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Whew!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">There are lots of ideas about what we as individuals, as communities, as a nation, as a world can do to offset the pace of climate change and adapt to its impacts. I’m not going to recite those today. You can find many good sources of information for those.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">What I want to consider is where we might find the hope we need to carry us forward.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />I can sit and revel under a starlit sky. I can walk down to the shore of Lake Mendota. I can watch as the sandhill cranes set up a nest in the pond near our home. I can appreciate the beauty of this earth, give thanks to God, read the book of nature alongside the books of the Bible. It all makes me want to do something that will sustain our futures.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">But then I read about National Public Radio host Ari Shapiro asking author Michael Pollen – known for his books about plants and food and the human relationship with the natural world – why Pollen had not written a book about climate change.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Pollen’s response? <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">He likes to write books that give people hope and he doesn’t know how to do that with climate change.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">That’s not an uncommon feeling. So one of the things we can do as a congregation of followers of Jesus is to </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">think about who we are becoming with the earth, to think about how we can make a difference in the effort to slow down climate change, how we can give ourselves and others hope. Because without hope, we will all be stuck.</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />To do that, first we need faith. Listen to the words farther along in Psalm 69, which began waters up to our necks and our feet stuck in the mire:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">I will praise the name of God with a song; </span></i><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">I will magnify God with thanksgiving.<br />Let the oppressed see it and be glad; </span></i><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">you who seek God, let your hearts revive.<br />For the Lord hears the needy</span></i><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">and does not despise God’s own who are in bonds.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">We are not doing this alone. God is at our side.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">To act, we need love – love for the world as we experience its beauty, love for our fellow human beings as together we look out for each other. Love is at the core of being followers of Jesus. After all, they will know we are Christians by our love.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">To act, we need hope. And that’s when I turn to Katherine Hayhoe.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Cambria, serif; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjttBE7nN_y58pBp6SxnSXgKS9P92STpowqtW-qZJK0vYJ75Lgaa4Z4uFe0B-9D2jUnH41b8HDVgQlaCtkFNb5Yaw_ZZbqfeX9UvLb-tdHGb4asIWRP9_djEYQqYSEV4Dsqtho302IZzeQzrWeKJ0LIU0W-3ugVpU7-mf_N0iyMbkcEy630bSj089p9/s500/Katharine-Hayhoe.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="413" data-original-width="500" height="264" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjttBE7nN_y58pBp6SxnSXgKS9P92STpowqtW-qZJK0vYJ75Lgaa4Z4uFe0B-9D2jUnH41b8HDVgQlaCtkFNb5Yaw_ZZbqfeX9UvLb-tdHGb4asIWRP9_djEYQqYSEV4Dsqtho302IZzeQzrWeKJ0LIU0W-3ugVpU7-mf_N0iyMbkcEy630bSj089p9/s320/Katharine-Hayhoe.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">She is a climate scientist and an evangelical Christian. In her most recent book, </span></span><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Saving-Us/Katharine-Hayhoe/9781982143831" style="color: #954f72;"><i><span style="font-size: 14pt;">A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World</span></i></a><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> – which you can find on the book carts in the gathering space – she starts her chapter on hope with a quote from Augustine – the same Augustine who wrote about the book of nature and the books of the Bible.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />“Hope has two beautiful daughters,” he wrote. “Their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Hayhoe quotes UW-Madison ecologist Rick Lindroth as saying he is hopeful because of his kids who are taking the challenges of climate change seriously. That is an answer she hears from many people. Then she adds, “Our hope isn’t based on an expectation that they will fix it for us. Rather, <i>we</i> want to fix it for <i>them</i>.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">She acknowledges that success in slowing down climate change is not inevitable. That’s where the courage Augustine wrote about comes in. And hope – well, we need to find that in the things happening around and within us that make protecting the earth possible. <br /><br />Hayhoe writes about making hope a practice – recognizing reality, identifying what we hope for, then taking steps in that direction, even if we are not sure we have it all figured out. “Together,” Hayhoe concludes, “we can save ourselves.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">At the beginning of this reflection, I talked about sitting under a tree sensing the presence of among the stars, being inspired by the role branches play for a tree and how they can be a metaphor for my life. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Cambria, serif; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxKrDc6cA1pZ3s_6M0orrr-LPrA4vdqxEiZ_2j7F7yyQfaH7-dWVnZhFKeKTAR89iS6uhjyMQB3FGl-V7oOR253qVnSZTthnqz9U-mNA81yy3WVR72wKHOMYeHYgTIE8F7dhWdd4AGA7ZcCsqZ5Vm6x-fY3o3rfSKoXCsGR86YWaWpn__kbma5wFCA/s2596/PXL_20230218_220650274.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2596" data-original-width="2160" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxKrDc6cA1pZ3s_6M0orrr-LPrA4vdqxEiZ_2j7F7yyQfaH7-dWVnZhFKeKTAR89iS6uhjyMQB3FGl-V7oOR253qVnSZTthnqz9U-mNA81yy3WVR72wKHOMYeHYgTIE8F7dhWdd4AGA7ZcCsqZ5Vm6x-fY3o3rfSKoXCsGR86YWaWpn__kbma5wFCA/s320/PXL_20230218_220650274.jpeg" width="266" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">I want my kids and grandkids to have those same opportunities as they encounter the beauty of the world around us.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">This is my granddaughter Ellie. She is 19 months old. She delights in new discoveries about the world every day. Here I see her reaching out into the future.<br /></span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">One of my tasks is to work to protect that future for her. One of all of our tasks is to protect that future for all of our children and grandchildren, for all of today’s children living in every part of our globe.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">So we need to touch the earth lightly as we live. The song I am going to invite you to sing is based on a Celtic melody, which fits into one of the threads running through our time together today. The words “touch the earth lightly, use the earth gently” speak to the task before us.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /><a href="https://youtu.be/ZrC-6iJX_nI" target="_blank">Please join in as we sing this global hymn that comes to us from New Zealand.</a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><br /></p>Phil Haslangerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03644333674118022564noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6633437725662827250.post-32196222818893422432023-01-29T09:30:00.002-08:002023-01-29T13:23:46.485-08:00 Rediscovering Jesus: Redeemer<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p><a href="https://youtu.be/3CWVyBlwT2s?t=2025" target="_blank"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif">You can see a </span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif">video</span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"> of this sermon at this link.</span></a></p><p><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><a href="https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=541954843" style="color: #954f72;">1 Corinthians 1: 18-31</a></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZugyCS30fzJeK0TyN-jXaKURg5NxnOWxW3vmk98lnnYrQKC0uM9mt8SNLwl1fjp1F5-FjrZ6gzT2R1YUb6vK_SbFK3bSQF3vR_zbYKwxq8z23n4x26panKKQo8d9SIZP89KBCGXRmvmyZOs6wB0tTNATfUYg4cgLx3Xoi5HPuT_8kPG4lZaYNQmSh/s1280/IMG_2453.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="831" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZugyCS30fzJeK0TyN-jXaKURg5NxnOWxW3vmk98lnnYrQKC0uM9mt8SNLwl1fjp1F5-FjrZ6gzT2R1YUb6vK_SbFK3bSQF3vR_zbYKwxq8z23n4x26panKKQo8d9SIZP89KBCGXRmvmyZOs6wB0tTNATfUYg4cgLx3Xoi5HPuT_8kPG4lZaYNQmSh/s320/IMG_2453.jpeg" width="208" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">I’d ask you as we begin today to take a few moments just to look at the cross we have at the front of our sanctuary. <o:p></o:p></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">What are the ideas that come to mind as you look at it?<br /><br /><i>Pause.</i><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">It’s a beautiful cross. We have a similar one over our main entrance, reflected in the window behind it, another on the outer wall of this sanctuary facing Gorham Street.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Clearly, it is not only a beautiful cross, but also an important symbol of this congregation. And the cross – in whatever shape – is one of the identifying symbols of Christianity throughout the world. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Among the things I think about when I look at a cross is a simple question: Why did Jesus have to die on a cross? If only the answer were as simple as the question.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Last week, Pastor Jessica in her sermon invited us to go ice skating with Jesus on Lake Mendota. So today I am going to go ice skating with Jesus -- on the thin ice out there. Trying to make sense of what the crucifixion was all about has been one of the great controversies in the history of Christianity.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />As a kid, I learned a simple – and perhaps the most common - explanation. Jesus died for my sins. He was my redeemer. And just to make sure that I understood that I had something to do with this, every time I sinned – whatever that meant as an eight-year old – I was pounding one of those nails a little farther into Jesus’ hand. But, thank goodness, <u>he</u> suffered so that God would not hold my sins against <u>me</u>. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Thank you, Jesus!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">In theological terms, this whole issue is called atonement. As luck would have it, I wrote my thesis for my theology degree about atonement. Don’t worry – I am not going to read my thesis here for you today. (If you are up for reading 75 pages about atonement, I’d be happy to email it to you.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">What I would like to do, though, is suggest that there are many ways to think about why Jesus died on the cross. How we think about that can actually affect how we live our lives as followers of Jesus.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Even though the phrasing “Jesus died for our sins” is one of the most common explanations, it is hardly the only one. Yes, it is woven through familiar hymns and prayers. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Think about that classic hymn, “The Old Rugged Cross.” <br /></span><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross,” </span></i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">it begins. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">And the second verse says: </span><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“In that old rugged cross, stained with blood so divine,<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">A wondrous beauty I see,<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">For ’twas on that old cross Jesus suffered and died,<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">To pardon and sanctify me.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">All of this comes out of a time when people put Jesus’ death into a model of transactions – maybe calming an angry god with a sacrifice or settling a debt in court. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />Spiritual guide and Franciscan priest Richard Rohr described this as “the strange idea that before God could love us God needed and demanded Jesus to be a blood sacrifice to atone for our sin-drenched humanity.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">We talk a lot in our time, in this congregation, about God’s love and God’s grace, saying that God loves us, no matter what. No matter what, God loves us. God did not need Jesus to be killed to make things right with humanity. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">So I’m back to my question. Why did Jesus have to be killed on a cross?<br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">There are the very concrete realities he faced. His teachings, the way he lived challenged both the religious and political establishments of his time. The Temple leaders and the Roman occupiers held power and they were threatened by this wandering rabbi.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">We know all too well what can happen when power is challenged, especially if that power thinks it is impervious to the will of the people or to the basic rights of humanity. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">We have seen that play out over and over around the world – in the massacres of the indigenous people here, in the colonizers in Africa and Asia and Latin America, in the Israeli occupation of Palestine, in the beatings and murders of people seeking a more just society. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">We have witnessed that abuse of power once again in the last few days with the horrifying videos of five Memphis police officers pummeling Tyre Nichols to death, apparently as a way of using brutally to show that they had power.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8a_YLBuRRiP7QtsmixPNVXPNii0glbijzPfsL7CO2MbPeUJdup_YUQgU9yxBoE-Xfupt3inG0likZKobcA2Pq58q6JVrL25umk-eXSEHOI-iNgfJmRKi4o2f1M3q9eK5rzH7O4BoDxDSAzso83v38Ja8zkcU4fBeVV4sFdPnr60b8xtf0Be-aOA9G/s724/web_extremist-profile_stormfront.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="408" data-original-width="724" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8a_YLBuRRiP7QtsmixPNVXPNii0glbijzPfsL7CO2MbPeUJdup_YUQgU9yxBoE-Xfupt3inG0likZKobcA2Pq58q6JVrL25umk-eXSEHOI-iNgfJmRKi4o2f1M3q9eK5rzH7O4BoDxDSAzso83v38Ja8zkcU4fBeVV4sFdPnr60b8xtf0Be-aOA9G/s320/web_extremist-profile_stormfront.png" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">And we have seen the cross perverted into a sign justifying violence, whether on the shields of crusaders in the Middle Ages or on flags as insurrectionists stormed the U.S Capitol on Jan. 6 two years ago. White nationalists, white supremacists, neo-Nazis have taken that image of the cross that we honor and appropriated it into a symbol of hate.<o:p></o:p></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Yes, we live in a world where people are killed for challenging power. That’s what happened to Jesus.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">The earliest Christians struggled with that, as we heard in that letter from Paul to the people of Corinth that was our scripture reading for today.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“The message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God… we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ (is) the power of God and the wisdom of God.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Their leader had not only been tortured and killed, but all this had happened in the most public and humiliating way. Clearly a crucified leader was a stumbling block for those who might consider joining his followers. Those followers – and those they were talking to – would have to make that leap of faith to the Resurrection for the crucifixion to make any sense.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWJdISrkd2YYZ0Kq5fnp8H5cJ8xT7vY5aqn9LdRHAM6ajQL5p-7D6e569e1QYs1x6WRMIcb-smrEIyWfYSQpndu63tqAIKJno0grWmTTDqvLaqtI5EcQhpEN_3a18S4n3n0iHRSU5lqO44HATjd7R8acqheTpGdVSE_bxItlZY_qxG457MJX4BRVfZ/s1280/IMG_2811.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="965" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWJdISrkd2YYZ0Kq5fnp8H5cJ8xT7vY5aqn9LdRHAM6ajQL5p-7D6e569e1QYs1x6WRMIcb-smrEIyWfYSQpndu63tqAIKJno0grWmTTDqvLaqtI5EcQhpEN_3a18S4n3n0iHRSU5lqO44HATjd7R8acqheTpGdVSE_bxItlZY_qxG457MJX4BRVfZ/s320/IMG_2811.jpeg" width="241" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">The cross, after all, does not stand alone. That nimbus – that circle – around our cross can be a reminder that there is life beyond the suffering and death of Jesus. And it can be a reminder that Jesus’ suffering and death need not be explained simply as a sacrificial sin offering but as one piece of a life</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> that reconciled humanity to divinity, that took the worst humanity had to offer and transformed it from the cross through the resurrection.<o:p></o:p></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Having said all this, I don’t want to diminish the importance for some folks of their commitment to the idea that Jesus died on their behalf. That is a belief that clearly has deep roots in Christian history, even in the Gospels themselves.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">There was the time Jesus was talking under the cover of darkness with Nicodemus when he said one of the most quoted sentences from the Gospels: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” That’s the verse – John 3:16 – you sometimes see on signs at sporting events and other places where Christians choose to publicly proclaim one manifestation of God’s love.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Jesus talked about himself as the Good Shepherd who would lay down his life for his sheep. John in his Gospel uses the image of the Lamb of God, connecting Jesus to the lamb sacrificed for the Jewish Passover meal, although in Judaism, that is not done as an atonement for sin but as a remembrance of the Exodus journey to freedom from slavery.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">In the Gospel according to Matthew – but only in that Gospel – Jesus says as he gives the cup of wine to his closest followers, “this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">That idea that Jesus died to save us – that Jesus is our Redeemer – can give us a degree of confidence in the way we live our lives, can be an invitation to gratitude for the life and death of Jesus.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />For me, though, it is also an understanding that has problems – as do all of the understandings of why Jesus died on the cross. I’m uncomfortable with the idea that God chose to send his son to die. I’m not convinced that each mistake I make is another hammer blow to those nails. As I said at the beginning, it’s a simple question with complicated answers.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Let me offer just a few other ideas about all this.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">One comes from two contemporary writers – Will Willimon, a retired Methodist bishop, and Stanley Hauerwas, a theologian who has taught at Duke and Notre Dame among other places. They wrote about the role sin played in the execution of Jesus.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">They describe those sins as religious and government leaders lining up to protect their powers, allies abandoning him, bystanders mocking him. Violence is used to try to solve a “problem.” Yet on the cross, Jesus asks God to forgive those who are doing this to him. <br /><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6gzictKUO5rceiAogazZV-yXYSUiqHKWFq3La3MD3B8sX8sVtAqK7xfYaTIwm7CVKyvj6gGAX0ebG08hwWKPquayBolND8Ikb5sQgGDZW6HdwY1RrzCK5nXmhAa5RDRo-_Ux0d9xguij6G54LRFi7lL5YHF_nY2FbysGLFzTxnUv0BNuM5xg6n362/s910/Monkey%20wrench.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="910" height="158" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6gzictKUO5rceiAogazZV-yXYSUiqHKWFq3La3MD3B8sX8sVtAqK7xfYaTIwm7CVKyvj6gGAX0ebG08hwWKPquayBolND8Ikb5sQgGDZW6HdwY1RrzCK5nXmhAa5RDRo-_Ux0d9xguij6G54LRFi7lL5YHF_nY2FbysGLFzTxnUv0BNuM5xg6n362/w200-h158/Monkey%20wrench.png" width="200" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />That, Willimon and Hauerwas say, “throws a monkey wrench in to the eternal wheel of retribution and vengeance.”<o:p></o:p></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">I don’t think a monkey wrench hanging over our sanctuary would be quite as beautiful as our cross, but it is a neat image of how Jesus’ actions as he was dying offered a very different way to respond to violence. This does not let violence have the last word. And the resurrection does not let death have the last word either. From that, I can draw hope as I navigate the realities of our world today.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Another idea comes from Richard Rohr, who I mentioned earlier. He summarized the teaching of one of his theological heroes named John Duns Scotus this way: “Jesus did not come to change <u>the mind of God</u> about humanity (it did not need changing)! Jesus came to change <u>the mind of humanity</u> about God.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Instead of counting sins, weighting guilt, punishing people, Jesus offered a new world where, in Rohr’s words, “God's abundance has made any economy of merit, sacrifice, reparation, or atonement both unhelpful and unnecessary.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">When we change the trajectory from what we and others do wrong to what God’s love offers all, then we can be reconciled to each other and to God. And reconciliation to God is really at the heart of all of this.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">One more way I like to think about all of this. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">It seems to me one of the continuing themes of Jesus’ life was about forgiveness. When we say the prayer each Sunday – and other times as well – that Jesus taught his followers, we say, depending on our backgrounds, forgives us our debts – or our trespasses – or our sins – as we forgive others. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">We can say that knowing how Jesus assured us that God forgives us as well, knowing that Jesus forgave even those who tortured and killed, who abandoned and mocked him.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">That’s a transformation – not a transaction. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">For that, I give thanks to God.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p>Phil Haslangerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03644333674118022564noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6633437725662827250.post-2115067705524057612023-01-01T09:00:00.002-08:002023-01-01T12:03:59.151-08:00 A Year With The Psalms<p><a href="https://youtu.be/CPu2jfE2xPw?t=2144" target="_blank">You can find a video of the sermon (and the rest of the service) here.</a></p><p><span style="color: #954f72; font-family: Cambria, serif;"><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+1&version=MSG" style="color: #954f72; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Psalm 1</a></span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> (The Message), </span><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+150&version=NRSVUE" style="color: #954f72; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Psalm 150</span></a><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> (NRSVUE)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Normally, I am pretty bad at sustaining New Year’s resolutions. I imagine there are more than a few people here who could put me to shame on that. And I imagine there are also a few people nodding their heads saying, “Yup, I sure know how that goes.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">But last year, I made a resolution that I actually kept. Well, mostly kept. Close enough.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfBpxva2oeSP1_fOFt-9t4oslduH1US3Jcw6OwnJhXLoOG5ZASTXDvVGAG88-naYa4Ixy5FY9hjgFLqLaYqZKnwA0nVm1IsbNruQ4I0S9WSY8SVA0Xqv5PiOYHkMQtk6qY2toCXHIKnLWn6gQ-8sy5IFD57_ic_zLE7WEshZ9GOs3YwlmMH84BadWA/s2747/IMG_3035.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2747" data-original-width="2425" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfBpxva2oeSP1_fOFt-9t4oslduH1US3Jcw6OwnJhXLoOG5ZASTXDvVGAG88-naYa4Ixy5FY9hjgFLqLaYqZKnwA0nVm1IsbNruQ4I0S9WSY8SVA0Xqv5PiOYHkMQtk6qY2toCXHIKnLWn6gQ-8sy5IFD57_ic_zLE7WEshZ9GOs3YwlmMH84BadWA/s320/IMG_3035.jpeg" width="282" /></a></div><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">I decided each morning I would read a Psalm – those fascinating, confounding, comforting, challenging, inspiring poems and songs that make up one of the most famous books in the Hebrew Bible.</span></p><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><b><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">I started with Psalm Number One – the psalm you heard a few moments ago in the poetic paraphrase from Eugene Peterson in <i>The Message. </i>Then I would go to the next one. And the next one. After 150 days – that’s how many Psalms there are and why I also read Psalm 150 this morning – I’d start over. That gets me through 300 days of the year. And then I started again, hitting Psalm 61 yesterday.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />Wait, say all you math majors out there. There are 365 days in the year. Three hundred Psalms plus 61 more does not get you to 365. Like I said, I mostly kept that resolution.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">What I want to dive into today is the way reading the Psalms – praying the Psalms, reflecting on them – gave me a chance to explore my relationship with God, with the people in my world, with myself. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">This is hardly a novel idea. In monasteries all over the world, people pray all 150 Psalms each <i>week</i>. That makes me feel like a bit of a slacker. The Psalms show up in Jewish worship and in Christian worship on a regular basis.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />They also show up in this conversation in 2015 between the famous rock singer Bono of the group U2 and Eugene Peterson, that Presbyterian minister who did such an engaging translation of the Bible. Listen to what Bono had to say about the Psalms: </span><span style="color: #954f72; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><a href="https://youtu.be/-l40S5e90KY?t=657" style="color: #954f72;">https://youtu.be/-l40S5e90KY?t=657</a> </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">(from 10:57 to 11:50)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Bono is hardly the only artist, scholar, writer, poet to be fascinated by the Psalms.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Our own Barry Sherbeck started a project a few years back. He described it to me this way: “I'm distilling each Psalm into a haiku and image. Some Psalms might require a trio of these rather than just one.”<br /><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Here’s one example from Barry. It is his adaptation of Psalm 121. That Psalm begins with these words:<br /><br /></span><span class="text"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">I lift up my eyes to the hills—</span></i></span><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></i><span class="indent-1-breaks"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></span><span class="text"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">from where will my help come?</span></i></span><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /><span class="text">My help comes from the</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="small-caps">Lord</span><span class="text">,</span><br /></span></i><span class="indent-1-breaks"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></span><span class="text"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">who made heaven and earth.</span></i></span><span class="text"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span class="text"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrmzukzsEsyK_vNpZa7izKkMein5UwGWTwWizEy6Sc2zDBHebMReQgDL1HFJCFzg2UN8ey9X5MtUtmdICzOGDKt71pyYV7CKoboXqFJAm8nP36ujEpsdsQPgaAK4gBA2y6cNmpjA2x7zDJ_Ua0CP7biEiDFXgXCEadUPRd3RLpxNZT6X7Qif-oMDDY/s2901/Barry%20Sherbeck%20-%20%20Hills%20of%20Rwanda.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1934" data-original-width="2901" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrmzukzsEsyK_vNpZa7izKkMein5UwGWTwWizEy6Sc2zDBHebMReQgDL1HFJCFzg2UN8ey9X5MtUtmdICzOGDKt71pyYV7CKoboXqFJAm8nP36ujEpsdsQPgaAK4gBA2y6cNmpjA2x7zDJ_Ua0CP7biEiDFXgXCEadUPRd3RLpxNZT6X7Qif-oMDDY/s320/Barry%20Sherbeck%20-%20%20Hills%20of%20Rwanda.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><span class="text"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Here's Barry’s haiku – a brief Japanese form of poetry – and his photo </span></span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">of the hills in Rwanda at morning time:<br /><o:p></o:p></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">hands open, palms up<br />watching, waiting, listening<br />looking to the hills</span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><b><span style="color: red; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Barry is using a book by an author named Nan Merrill as one source of inspiration. In that book, </span><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Psalms for Praying</span></i><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">,</span></i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> Merrill points out one of the challenges for contemporary readers of the Psalms and tries to offer an alternative, a sort of companion to use in dialogue with the original Psalms. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">She wrote:</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> “The Psalms of the Hebrew Scripture often reflect a patriarchal society based on fear and guilt that projects evil and sin onto outer enemies. <i>Psalms for Praying</i> reflects the reciprocity of Divine Love that opens the heart to forgiveness, reconciliation and healing.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">I know I’ve had my share of struggles with the Psalms over the past year. Some are extraordinarily comforting. I’ll bet most of you are familiar with Psalm 23: “<i>The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” <o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">There are the reassuring words in Psalm 46 – <i>“God is our refuge and our strength, a very present help in the time of trouble” </i>with the vital reminder at the end to “<i>Be still and know that I am God.”</i><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Ah, yes, you are God. Not me. Help me to remember that one, O God. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">And when I stroll off the path of God’s ways, there is always Psalm 51 that Sharol wove into our time of confession today: <i>“</i></span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><i>Have mercy on me, O God, because of your unfailing love. Because of your great compassion, blot out the stain of my sins. Wash me clean from my guilt. Purify me from my sin. For I recognize my shameful deeds-- they haunt me day and night.”</i></span><strong><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt; font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">And when I doubt whether God could forgive me, there is Psalm 103 – <i>“Bless the Lord, O my soul…do not forget all of God’s benefits – who forgives all your iniquity…who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy.”<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Those are Psalms that help me explore my relationship with God – and God’s relationship with me.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">But still, there are all these discomforting moments in the Psalms. We lament with the Jewish people when they were in exile in Babylon as they sing in Psalm 137<i>: <o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung our harps.” <o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Then the lament turns to revenge: Addressing Babylon, the Psalm ends with these words we don’t often read in church: <i>“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!”<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Yikes! <br /><br />C.S. Lewis, who you may know best as the author of the fantasy novels <i>The Chronicles of Narnia</i>, was also a person who dove deeply into his faith.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Lewis, in his book <i>Reflections on the Psalms,</i> offers one way to think about what he calls the curses in the Psalms. He writes: </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“They are indeed devilish. But we must also think of those who made them so. Their hatreds are a reaction to something. Such hatreds are the kind of thing that cruelty and injustice, by a sort of natural law, produce.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">That’s the thing about the Psalms. They have, as Bono said, “this rawness, this brutal honesty.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Just think about the Psalm Jesus used when he was dying on the cross: <i>“</i></span><i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”</span></i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /><br />That’s all that’s quoted from Jesus in the Gospels according to Matthew and Mark as they describe his agony on the cross. But Psalm 22 goes on:<br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?</span></i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /><i>O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; <o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">and by night but find no rest.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">And then it says:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span class="text"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint;</span></i></span><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /><span class="text">my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast;</span><o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span class="text"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">my mouth<sup> </sup>is dried up like a broken piece of pottery<o:p></o:p></span></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span class="text"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">and my tongue sticks to my jaws;</span></i></span><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span class="text"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">lay me in the dust of death. <o:p></o:p></span></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span class="text"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">For dogs are all around me;</span></i></span><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="line" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span class="text"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">a company of evildoers encircles me; </span></i></span></p><p class="line" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span class="text"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">they bound my hands and feet.</span></i></span><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="line" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span class="text"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></span></p><p class="line" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span class="text"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">This is very tough stuff. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="line" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span class="text"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></span></p><p class="line" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span class="text"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">So we struggle with the Psalms. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="line" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span class="text"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></span></p><p class="line" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span class="text"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">They are not stitched together in a narrative arc. They are a collection of 150 poems, songs, meditations written by many people – not just by the Israelite king, David, to whom many are attributed. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="line" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span class="text"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></span></p><p class="line" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span class="text"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">They are not chronological. Psalm 68 – a Psalm that serves as a victory Psalm for the Israelites over their enemies – is thought to be one of the earliest writings included in the Hebrew Bible. Some of them date to the time before that exile to Babylon, others came later. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="line" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span class="text"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></span></p><p class="line" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span class="text"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">There are historical references to Jewish history that are hard for us to understand in 21<sup>st</sup> century America. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="line" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span class="text"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></span></p><p class="line" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span class="text"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">There are lots of references to defeating enemies, which Nan Merrill in her <i>Praying the Psalms</i>book shifts from the enemies without to the enemies within each of us. But that still is challenging as we read them or pray them or meditate on them.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="line" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span class="text"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></span></p><p class="line" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span class="text"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Martin Luther – the person who set off the Protestant Reformation in the 1500s, wrote in his preface to his translation of the Psalms into German that “everyone in whatever situation they may be, finds in that situation Psalms and words that fit their case.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="line" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span class="text"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></span></p><p class="line" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span class="text"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">There’s a scripture scholar in our time by the name of Walter Brueggemann. He has offered what I find to be a useful way to think about the range of the Psalms. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="line" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span class="text"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></span></p><p class="line" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span class="text"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Some of them he calls Psalms of Orientation – Psalms that express “the joy, delight, goodness, coherence and reliability of God, God’s creation and God’s law.”</span></span></p><p class="line" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span class="text"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />Then there are Psalms of Disorientation – Psalms that reflect what Brueggemann calls “the anguished seasons of hurt, alienation, suffering and death.” He calls them complaint songs.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="line" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span class="text"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />And then there are the Psalms of New Orientation, when God makes things new in surprising ways, transforming humanity in the process. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="line" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span class="text"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />That’s a lot like our lives, isn’t it? Sometimes oriented, sometimes disoriented, sometimes finding something new that orients us in a totally different and good way. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="line" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span class="text"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></span></p><p class="line" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span class="text"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Think back a moment to the dire situation described in Psalm 22, where the writer feels forsaken by God. But the Psalm does not end there. Suddenly, there are words of hope. Listen:</span></span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">But you, O Lord, do not be far away!<br />O my help, come quickly to my aid!<br />Deliver my soul from the sword, my life from the power of the dog!<br />Save me from the mouth of the lion!<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">From the horns of the wild oxen you have rescued me.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">I will tell of your name to my brothers and sisters; <o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">in the midst of the congregation I will praise you.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">This is part of what I find fascinating in the Psalms. One moment they seem predictable. Then they catch me by surprise. They may give words to my feelings or they may just leave me puzzled. And that’s OK.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Someone who has devoted a lot of times to interpreting the Psalms is Richard Bruxvoort Colligan, who lives near Dubuque. He describes himself as “a freelance psalmist serving the wider, ever-evolving church.” Through his Psalm Immersion Project, he is writing new songs that try to capture the essence of each Psalm. And sometimes, he adds video and dance, like he did with this setting of Psalm 116. <br /><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">The words of the first four verses from Eugene Peterson’s <i>The Message</i> read like this:<br /></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">I </span></i></span><span class="text"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">love</span></i></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></span><span class="small-caps"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">God</span></i></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></span><span class="text"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">because he listened to me, </span></i></span><span class="indent-1-breaks"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></span><span class="text"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">listened as I begged for mercy.</span></i></span><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /><span class="text">He listened so intently </span></span></i><span class="indent-1-breaks"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></span><span class="text"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">as I laid out my case before him.</span></i></span><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /><span class="text">Death stared me in the face, </span></span></i><span class="indent-1-breaks"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></span><span class="text"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">hell was hard on my heels.</span></i></span><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /><span class="text">Up against it, I didn’t know which way to turn; </span></span></i><span class="indent-1-breaks"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span class="text"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">then I called out to</span></i></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></span><span class="small-caps"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">God</span></i></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></span><span class="text"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">for help:</span></i></span><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /><span class="text">“Please,</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="small-caps">God</span><span class="text">!” I cried out. “Save my life!”<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span class="text"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span class="text"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Here's Richard’s interpretation:</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #954f72; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><a href="https://youtu.be/jOaBsjQliUo?t=10" style="color: #954f72;">https://youtu.be/jOaBsjQliUo?t=10</a> </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">(from 00:10 to 1:25)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">So there are cries of anguish, prayers of praise, words of comfort. And there are also words that tell us what God is looking for from us – words that were echoed later by Jesus. These words are a reminder that from ancient times until today, God is looking for us to join the dream of a world where both justice and peace can be a reality for all.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Bono focused on some of those words in a conversation he was having with David Taylor, an associate professor of theology and culture at Fuller Seminary based in California. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #954f72; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><a href="https://youtu.be/WXjEiy_5qQQ?t=71" style="color: #954f72;">https://youtu.be/WXjEiy_5qQQ?t=71</a> (from 1:11 to 2:49)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">So the Psalms are filled with so much that can touch our lives, words that can encourage us, words that can confound us, words that can challenge us, words that can connect us to God. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">I am hoping in the year ahead to repeat what I did this year – start each day with a Psalm. Maybe I’ll even hit that total of 365 this year! <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">If you are interested in doing something similar, I’d invite you to give it a try. And if you want to email back and forth now and then and share the insights you gain, I’d be happy to be a conversation partner with you. (You can reach me at <a href="mailto:phil@cpcmadison.org">phil@cpcmadison.org</a>.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />For now, let’s just end with one more Psalm in two distinct voices. The first voice will be Bono, reciting the beginning of Psalm 40 as translated by Eugene Peterson. Early in their careers, Bono and U2 composed a song based on Psalm 40 – </span><a href="https://youtu.be/1XzHlySYR_Y" style="color: #954f72;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">you can find it on YouTube.</span></a><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">The second voice – well, that will be yours as we join together in singing the version of Psalm 40 in our hymnal – “I Waited Patiently for God.” So listen to Bono and then let’s turn the words into music with Hymn #561.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Here is Bono reading the Psalm:</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span><span style="color: #954f72; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><a href="https://youtu.be/-l40S5e90KY?t=411" style="color: #954f72;">https://youtu.be/-l40S5e90KY?t=411</a> - </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 18.666666px;">6:50 to 7:16</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Hymn - <a href="https://youtu.be/HxlmQ799lZI" target="_blank">I Waited Patiently for God (Psalm 40)</a></span></p></div>Phil Haslangerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03644333674118022564noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6633437725662827250.post-36924034987561244092022-11-27T09:30:00.003-08:002022-11-27T14:10:04.920-08:00 Hope in the Chaos<p><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Nov. 27, 2022, Christ Presbyterian Church<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Luke 21:25-36<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><a href="https://youtu.be/smbLIEOU2D8?t=2501" target="_blank">You can hear this sermon here on YouTube.</a></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Pastor Jessica likes to describe the reading we are about to hear as the one for “Scary Advent.” And lucky me – I get to be the one to preach this Sunday.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">In this passage from the Gospel according to Luke, you will hear things that sound pretty ominous – or just plain confusing. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Just before this passage, Jesus had been teaching in the Temple in Jerusalem. The chief priests and scribes and elders came to challenge him. They began to plot how to capture Jesus and turn him over to the Roman authorities. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Right after this reading, we move toward the Last Supper, the betrayal of Jesus, his execution.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">We think of Advent as a time to remember Jesus’ birth, his entry into our world. But this reading does not look back to that moment. It looks forward to a time when God’s vision for the world becomes a reality, even after all the troubles that are so much a part of lives in every generation.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">These words might be hard to hear at first in this season, but think of them as Jesus’ signs of hope in the midst of suffering.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Luke 21:25-36 (NRSV Updated Edition)<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Then he told them a parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees; 30 as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life and that day does not catch you unexpectedly, like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place and to stand before the Son of Man.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Jesus was not painting a pretty picture here. “Signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrVVsKi4AF91SiLarKI8Ev-nSYDxFlIFX4kx97yC_AOphXuXjO1lhu37algfXFs3kPH5loxU5_Kg46-C9zxA2TRtA2iePcXSPQFugOqklyJBMe8KIpCuWJWDDGkeOd4TlV63X5DZH5z2matlnLhLi_6yTvDwbM474sJRjYNMoSQhCohhzyYV3OsNKI/s1588/4%20-%20Starry%20night.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1191" data-original-width="1588" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrVVsKi4AF91SiLarKI8Ev-nSYDxFlIFX4kx97yC_AOphXuXjO1lhu37algfXFs3kPH5loxU5_Kg46-C9zxA2TRtA2iePcXSPQFugOqklyJBMe8KIpCuWJWDDGkeOd4TlV63X5DZH5z2matlnLhLi_6yTvDwbM474sJRjYNMoSQhCohhzyYV3OsNKI/s320/4%20-%20Starry%20night.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">It calls to mind that painting by Vincent Van Gogh – “The Starry Night.” I imagine some of you have seen that the immersive Van Gogh exhibit that had a long run in Milwaukee and just opened in Middleton. And even if you have not been to that, this surely is one of the most familiar paintings around.<br /></span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">There is both beauty and chaos in this picture – much like we hear from Jesus, words that ultimately can give us hope in our own chaotic times. We’ll come back to that later.</span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">When the Gospel according to Luke was written, it was probably late in the first century, after Rome had conquered Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple – the very Temple where Jesus had been speaking in this passage from Luke.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">In some places, the Romans were persecuting the followers of Jesus. For the Jewish people – and for the many followers of Jesus who were of Jewish heritage and those facing persecution for being part of this new religious sect – this must have been a time when it felt like their world was coming to an end.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">I think sometimes – 2,000 years later – it can feel that way to us as well.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Roaring seas and waves.</span></i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> They are not new, but climate change has made them ever more intense, along with raging forest fires and deep droughts. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Fainting from fear.</span></i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> Just in the past few months, we have witnessed a continuing spate of mass murders – in a Wal-Mart in Virginia, at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado, at a food court in a mall in Indiana, at a Fourth of July parade in Illinois. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Foreboding of what is coming.</span></i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> The people of Ukraine know that feeling well as Russian missiles cut off their energy supply as winter settles in. So do people in so many other places where starvation looms. So do people in this nation, divided by ancient racial animosities, split by political polarization.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">It made the people in Jesus’ time, it makes people in our time, want to cry out for rescue.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">There’s a familiar song that captures a bit of that feeling.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoAwIOpOe2tmLxBLnmXflDQF9FsB1Yku0aKbrk_6NhvBaHQZZQaw3V2oWFNSkIxu7OsaHEpIkuZ-MstfjdLhL5wpQod1I38lngP4z7HX-_0ey3kOXklAnD6mZMiXyFsAGU4R9qLXx1tR4q8lWSZFMd2vJ1YBQa7DvE3N21WtgcE7hYKHzU-qT2BSvC/s1280/2%20-%20Swing%20Low%20-%20Johnson.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1195" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoAwIOpOe2tmLxBLnmXflDQF9FsB1Yku0aKbrk_6NhvBaHQZZQaw3V2oWFNSkIxu7OsaHEpIkuZ-MstfjdLhL5wpQod1I38lngP4z7HX-_0ey3kOXklAnD6mZMiXyFsAGU4R9qLXx1tR4q8lWSZFMd2vJ1YBQa7DvE3N21WtgcE7hYKHzU-qT2BSvC/s320/2%20-%20Swing%20Low%20-%20Johnson.jpeg" width="299" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” – a song I suspect most of you know – is attributed to an enslaved man from Oklahoma named Wallace Willis. The chariot “coming for to carry me home” is an allusion to the chariot that came for the Hebrew prophet Elijah at the end of his life. He and Elisha - the man who would pick up his stole and receive a double portion of Elijah’s spirit - stood at the Jordan River as Elijah rode the whirlwind in the chariot up to heaven.<br /></span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">There are so many of these songs that emerged from enslaved people in our nation, spirituals about the longing to be home. They were also songs about longing for freedom. Those songs will be our companions this Advent.</span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Let’s sing just the chorus of Swing Low. I’ll start with “Swing low, sweet chariot,” and then you answer “Coming for to carry me home.”<br /><br /><i>Swing low, sweet chariot.<br />Coming for to carry me home.<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Swing low, sweet chariot.<br />Coming for to carry me home.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">The first verse says:<br /><i>“I looked over Jordan, and what did I see,<br />Coming for to carry me home?<br />A band of angels coming after me.<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Coming for to carry me home.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Yes, the Jordan River. That same Jordan River where Elijah was carried away. And for some of the enslaved people of the U.S., the Ohio River came to represent the Jordan – a place they could cross on the underground railroad to freedom. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />This painting from 1944 by the noted African American artist </span><a href="https://americanart.si.edu/artist/william-h-johnson-2486" style="color: #954f72;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">William H. Johnson,</span></a><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> captures the chariot, the river and the band of angels greeting someone heading to freedom.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">So home, in this song, is not only a reference to heaven. It is also a reference to freedom.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />Luke Powery, the dean of the Duke University Chapel, has done a lot of work connecting the spirituals to this season of Advent. His book, <i>Rise Up Shepherds,</i> is one of the reading suggestions we are offering for this season. There will be two Bible study groups – one on Tuesday noon, the other on Thursday noon – that will use a series he has prepared exploring the four spirituals that will appear in worship today and for the next three Sundays.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">In that book, Powery writes of Swing Low: “Home is where we will be free. God wants us to be free. God wants us to find our home in him, the One who is our refuge and strength, our strong tower. Come home, not to your neighborhood, but to the abiding, loving presence of God.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisSDE0FXGp0gkLTFMcPAuxACktITjH3btflDSe8CsdD1UJGxDyIJsh_8Tyomo8Y8xvy-EcS_NVhOX-Rz93778SD5vqe7aKc_-qnLHTMkfmZJxVpTFOJx_8-9WCc5_syzspxfoT_9PU1ApbT_20VtH1KBV2XuI75vlkjvqtjyJLO6B5dSC-SLescX6w/s799/3%20-%20Swing%20Low%20-%20Rose.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="622" data-original-width="799" height="249" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisSDE0FXGp0gkLTFMcPAuxACktITjH3btflDSe8CsdD1UJGxDyIJsh_8Tyomo8Y8xvy-EcS_NVhOX-Rz93778SD5vqe7aKc_-qnLHTMkfmZJxVpTFOJx_8-9WCc5_syzspxfoT_9PU1ApbT_20VtH1KBV2XuI75vlkjvqtjyJLO6B5dSC-SLescX6w/s320/3%20-%20Swing%20Low%20-%20Rose.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Let’s sing that spiritual again as a call and response, this time with a 1940 painting by </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Starr_Rose" style="color: #954f72;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Ruth Starr Rose</span></a><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">, a white woman who grew up in Eau Claire in a family with a history of working for the abolition of slavery. She had a deep love of the spirituals and her paintings inspired by them won praise from African American artists and churches. <br /><o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> <br /></span><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Swing low, sweet chariot.<br /></span></i><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Coming for to carry me home.<br /></span></i><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Swing low, sweet chariot.<br /></span></i><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Coming for to carry me home.</span></i></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">That brings us back to Jesus’ words in the Gospel according to Luke.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">In the midst of all the scary things around you, Jesus says, “stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Redemption. We will be set free. The love of God shown to us in Jesus will set us free. In the midst of all the chaos, watch for the Son of Man – a name for </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">the one who will mark the end of this life as we know it and bring us to the time of God's judgement. Jesus adopts that identify for himself.<span class="apple-converted-space"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Redemption thus equals liberation. God’s judgment is more than a personal evaluation of our lives. It brings liberation from the fallen world and its corruption that too often seems to swirl around us. It is rescuing people from the systems that oppress them.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Then there is the fig tree. How did that show up in the middle of this rather apocalyptic speech by Jesus?<br /><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“Look at the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">The fig tree is often used as a metaphor for the peace and prosperity of Israel in the Hebrew scriptures. Once you know that, you know that this little interlude is a moment of hope. It’s not just destruction and chaos that are signs of God breaking through. It’s also new leaves on the fig tree that suggest that God’s vision for the world is getting closer to reality.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">So, Jesus, says, don’t let your hearts be “weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life.” OK – so ease up on the partying. Also, let go of some of that anxiety. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">More importantly, says Jesus, “Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place and to stand before the Son of Man.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">There’s that contradiction again with what we tend to think about Advent. It is a time of waiting. And Jesus says be ready right now. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">It was Luke, after all, who wrote the best known story of Jesus’ birth. Now it is Luke recounting the story of Jesus near the end of his life not looking back nostalgically at the songs of angels, the gathering of shepherds, the presents from wise visitors. No, Jesus is looking forward on our behalf, offering not just words of warning, but words of encouragement that if we keep our focus on him, we will be okay in the end.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Sometimes these kind of apocalyptic words from Jesus are talked about as an anticipation of what is called Jesus’ Second Coming. One of the great New Testament scholars of our time – N.T. Wright – likes the phrase the “reappearing of Jesus” better. That’s a phrase that was used by the early Christians, he notes. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">He put it this way in his book, </span><i><span face="-webkit-standard, serif" style="font-size: 14pt;">Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense - </span></i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span face="-webkit-standard, serif" style="font-size: 14pt;">"He is, at the moment, present with us, but hidden behind that invisible veil which keeps heaven and earth apart, and which we pierce in those moments, such as prayer, the sacraments, the reading of scriptures, and our work with the poor, when the veil seems particularly thin. But one day the veil will be lifted; earth and heaven will be one.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span face="-webkit-standard, serif" style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span face="-webkit-standard, serif" style="font-size: 14pt;">So even though Jesus is on the precipice of h</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">is own torment that will lead to his death, his message still is filled with hope. Here’s a paraphrase I read: “The world is a scary place, but don’t let your hearts be troubled by it. I have overcome the world.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrVVsKi4AF91SiLarKI8Ev-nSYDxFlIFX4kx97yC_AOphXuXjO1lhu37algfXFs3kPH5loxU5_Kg46-C9zxA2TRtA2iePcXSPQFugOqklyJBMe8KIpCuWJWDDGkeOd4TlV63X5DZH5z2matlnLhLi_6yTvDwbM474sJRjYNMoSQhCohhzyYV3OsNKI/s1588/4%20-%20Starry%20night.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1191" data-original-width="1588" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrVVsKi4AF91SiLarKI8Ev-nSYDxFlIFX4kx97yC_AOphXuXjO1lhu37algfXFs3kPH5loxU5_Kg46-C9zxA2TRtA2iePcXSPQFugOqklyJBMe8KIpCuWJWDDGkeOd4TlV63X5DZH5z2matlnLhLi_6yTvDwbM474sJRjYNMoSQhCohhzyYV3OsNKI/s320/4%20-%20Starry%20night.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Let’s go back to that painting by Vincent Van Gogh, The Starry Night image.<br /></span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Van Gogh painted this when in 1889 he was in an asylum, plunged into a deep depression, feeling suicidal. The village at the bottom of the paining is dark. The sky is chaotic, yet the colors are bright. <br /></span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Look at the movement from the brightness of the sky to the cypress trees and the hills down to the stark village where a church spire stretches up to the sky. One interpretation of this – in the midst of his own chaos, Van Gogh was bringing the divine to the village. <br /></span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">I think that captures what Jesus was telling the people in the Temple that day. Yes, things can be scary. Yes, there will be hard times.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">In the midst of that chaos, though, there can be hope. That hope can be found when you stay connected to me, when you stay connected to God, when you let the energy of love flow from God through you to those you encounter along the way.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">We don’t do this alone. We need God, we need each other. The second verse of Swing Low reminds us of that:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“If you get there, before I do…Tell all my friends I am coming too.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">So let’s end with Swing Low one more time:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Swing low, sweet chariot.<br />Coming for to carry me home.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Swing low, sweet chariot.<br />Coming for to carry me home.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Amen.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Phil Haslangerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03644333674118022564noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6633437725662827250.post-18877661508776914272022-10-30T09:30:00.008-07:002022-10-30T18:53:15.512-07:00Freedom, finally<p><i><a href="https://youtu.be/ctpqrStvQBQ?t=3253" target="_blank">Here's a video of the sermon </a>starting after the Scripture reading from the Classical Worship Service at Christ Presbyterian Church in Madison.</i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">This month, we have been revisiting the adventures of the early followers of Jesus as they began to define what it would mean to live out the way of Jesus for them as individuals and for the them as a group that would become what we now call the church.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">We heard about Peter and the Gentile Cornelius as the welcome widened beyond the confines of Judaism. <br />We heard about Stephen preaching the message of Jesus only to wind up getting martyred as a young man named Saul stood by. We now know Saul as Paul, one of the great interpreters of that message of Jesus. <br />We ran alongside the carriage of the nameless Ethiopian eunuch who Pastor Jessica named Baruch and watched the diversity of the early Christian community expand. <br />And we witnessed the conflicts at the Council of Jerusalem and learned that the challenges of change are nothing new – and that churches can work their way through them with the Spirit of God in their midst. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Today, we will go with Paul and his companion Silas to the city of Philippi, meeting a businesswomen named Lydia and other women at the river, freeing another woman from exploitation, winding up in jail only to have an earthquake set them free so they could return to Lydia’s home before going on with their adventures.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Here’s that story of a few days in Philippi from Chapter 16 of the Book of the Acts of the Apostles: </span><a href="https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=534060047" style="color: #954f72; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Acts 16: 13-19, 23, 25-28, 40</span></a></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyjOpGkoZ15Lu0PCdy-_ISLvuiIAAZ2dmanNt6xWn0I6jufjdr_9CmaTEZc7NTJ0bk9utsHtclMzYW5oTPU0Y0wP8zhPCdUr9BtdtlURmp8-2knJxbdmOzYRGUyDwGEdi0E6kZLdjsmbpuphfOh9Y0ya8feW48q2teIIR3yW-ZwGeb2adtEJh7nGHV/s1280/1-Waupun.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="929" data-original-width="1280" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyjOpGkoZ15Lu0PCdy-_ISLvuiIAAZ2dmanNt6xWn0I6jufjdr_9CmaTEZc7NTJ0bk9utsHtclMzYW5oTPU0Y0wP8zhPCdUr9BtdtlURmp8-2knJxbdmOzYRGUyDwGEdi0E6kZLdjsmbpuphfOh9Y0ya8feW48q2teIIR3yW-ZwGeb2adtEJh7nGHV/s320/1-Waupun.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">I was sitting in a room earlier this month deep inside the Waupun Correctional Institution, a maximum security prison whose beginnings go back to 1851 – the same year Christ Presbyterian came into being. </span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">There were about 15 prisoners who were part of a restorative justice program and five us who were there for that morning’s session on masculinity. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">We knew we could leave at the end of the day. They knew they could not. There would be no earthquakes that would shake the prison off its foundation like happened to Paul and Silas in that story we heard today. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">There’s a song by Beyonce with these words:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="color: #202124; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Freedom, freedom, I can't move<br />Freedom, cut me loose<br />Singin', freedom, freedom<br />Where are you?</span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #202124; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1JUvy8zjpqM7ARnWv8Wd67_4N63KvD3OLlNLZpNJzjdhL2DkiCmHsL5sct1WK3QtcZMNxnEx8oaAj0zlX91hgodUqSIdAHZ1EkJG47JdjfrTemaVpwjUb9qWUL4Xemyxya2qNMLgEooELrphULOdJ7ZrXThLZfwn9df2poDwdrBddG0hl4wmD6crN/s1280/2-Waupun.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="1280" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1JUvy8zjpqM7ARnWv8Wd67_4N63KvD3OLlNLZpNJzjdhL2DkiCmHsL5sct1WK3QtcZMNxnEx8oaAj0zlX91hgodUqSIdAHZ1EkJG47JdjfrTemaVpwjUb9qWUL4Xemyxya2qNMLgEooELrphULOdJ7ZrXThLZfwn9df2poDwdrBddG0hl4wmD6crN/s320/2-Waupun.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #202124; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">For these men, there is not freedom that will get them from behind these walls anytime soon. They search for ways to have the kind of interior freedom to sustain them behind bars.</span></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">This is the oldest prison in the state. The part of the building completed in 1854, built with prison labor, still stands. Of the 900 or so inmates here, about 60 percent have a mental health diagnosis. Some 92 percent are here because they were convicted of a violent offense. One fifth of them will be here for the rest of their lives. Thirty-five percent are white and they range in age from 18 to 79 years old.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />Those are the numbers. But the guys sitting in this circle are not numbers, even though they each have a prison number, of course. They are men with names like Eric and Michael, like Antonio and Jason.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">About half the guys in this group are becoming peer counselors – trained to help other inmates at challenging moments. The restorative justice program is designed to help them come to terms with the impact their crimes had on their victims and then to find that sense of inner freedom to move forward with their lives. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">It’s not easy. As one man wrote after the session I was at, “It seems like we only get seen as objects, not humans who made mistakes, so thank you for coming.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">One of the most stunning moments of self-reflection came from an older man in the group who regretted not only his own crime, but the fact that he had led other young men to commit murders.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Later, he wrote: “I was once a facilitator of this toxic manhood model. It was how I related to being a fully-formed man. But in reality, I was nowhere near being fully-formed. The cycle must be broken, but it begins with information, insight and knowledge.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">The earthquake in his life came not from the ground shaking that opened the prison doors but from a slow interior shifting of awareness, to a sense that he could find freedom in embracing a different view of life and then reaching out to others in their struggles. That freedom was, in Beyonce’s words, cutting him loose to be himself.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Let’s go back to that story from the 16<sup>th</sup> chapter of Acts for a moment. It starts out in such a peaceful way – prayers by the river, a baptism of new followers of the way of Jesus, an extension of hospitality to Paul and Silas. I’d surely like to be part of that scene. I’ll bet you would too. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />But as with real life, all does not stay peaceful. Paul and Silas encounter a woman who was being exploited by her owners – she was held as a slave – to make money for them. Paul freed her from that exploitation which ruined their scam and that’s what got him and Silas thrown in jail. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsdgu1hOl59HznCo0OmIYZRA_TfAj-baij2gBbIxw8d2HJ9FjayOmlTa8IJ0Ds87cVXeSBrPksbAedn534ARJ07NrY5T5JJrEIB6yG3hiyJsmWHmjU-ckQCw9MNo_UoMwD5zwL_TDsnJJ3pUMucw5MBtzEVP5rsEqOw2PckVntgkS79OuD9BVo4VbT/s400/3-Fox%20Lake.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="267" data-original-width="400" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsdgu1hOl59HznCo0OmIYZRA_TfAj-baij2gBbIxw8d2HJ9FjayOmlTa8IJ0Ds87cVXeSBrPksbAedn534ARJ07NrY5T5JJrEIB6yG3hiyJsmWHmjU-ckQCw9MNo_UoMwD5zwL_TDsnJJ3pUMucw5MBtzEVP5rsEqOw2PckVntgkS79OuD9BVo4VbT/s320/3-Fox%20Lake.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">So now come with me for a moment to another Wisconsin prison, this one in Fox Lake, about 10 miles west of the prison in Waupun. This is a medium security prison. </span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">I was there five years ago as part of a small group from Domestic Abuse Intervention Services – DAIS – to receive a check from the inmates. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Jerome Flowers – at the time the Dean of Students at La Follette High School, and I were both volunteers in a men-as-allies program. Faye Zemel is the </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Director of Prevention and Systems Advocacy at DAIS. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">We thought this was going to be a pretty routine event. Were we ever wrong.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">The men at Fox Lake had a tradition of raising money for good causes. It’s not like they have a lot of money. In 2017 when this happened, prison wages ranged from</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> a low of 8 cents an hour to a high of $1.50 an hour, with the average around 30 cents an hour.</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> Yet through food fundraisers and outright donations, they had raised $1,000 for DAIS.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Keep in mind that many of these men grew up in homes where domestic violence swirled around them. Others may have been batterers themselves. This was sensitive territory. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">What happened when we arrived at Fox Lake was extraordinary. It represented one way these guys found a sense of redemption and freedom even in the midst of imprisonment. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7-kdK6zhoSVbpnxCTwrzPJbwRJaMp7NItYJ_C2675HRN362Jhspopy6BDjW4k3iq1qh_I-lAVZVGLLbYOcE3mlltO4sjYboVMTIeXc8oVT7oAnkF8RoDgSAM8z-dzJVXVUsptibCdBNJFnO9rZPs5_Ao8AaZeXyNlR7LzJ7N8lqrRu9eSNYoN9sTR/s1280/4-Fox%20Lake.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="724" data-original-width="1280" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7-kdK6zhoSVbpnxCTwrzPJbwRJaMp7NItYJ_C2675HRN362Jhspopy6BDjW4k3iq1qh_I-lAVZVGLLbYOcE3mlltO4sjYboVMTIeXc8oVT7oAnkF8RoDgSAM8z-dzJVXVUsptibCdBNJFnO9rZPs5_Ao8AaZeXyNlR7LzJ7N8lqrRu9eSNYoN9sTR/s320/4-Fox%20Lake.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">About 200 of the 1,000 men at the prison were in the gym when we arrived. </span></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Military veterans formed an elaborate and disciplined honor guard to present the colors. Two men sang a jaw-dropping version of the National Anthem. Native American drummers played and chanted “Women’s Healing Song.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">A prison rock band concluded the afternoon with a poignant original composition called “Don’t supposed to be this way,” mourning the pain of domestic violence. “Love can never be the same,” they sang of the broken hearts.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Faye said afterwards, “When we talk about stopping abuse, we have to stop the cycle of violence. That’s what these men are working toward.” They were not letting the fact that they were behind bars limit their opportunity to seek new forms of freedom for themselves or for others.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Of course for the women or men trapped in a violent relationship, finding the path to freedom is not easy.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">I should note here that talking about domestic violence can bring up some bad memories for some people. <span style="background-color: white;">According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1 in 4 women and 1 in 7 men will experience physical violence by an intimate partner at some point during their lifetimes. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">The odds are good that this has been a part of the lives of some people gathered here or who are with us online this morning. Please be aware of your own feelings around this and if you need to talk with someone after the service, please pull aside Pastor Jessica or Pastor Sharol or me.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTbGcS9CpQi9eO41DmbXu-q8qe6t6bNrw2Sd9oqJiPcs9vp1YWCR8GtAjOeVVZpjrRQORlaEGfDpGkV3pHJHAe-YyStAVgxWn8pL8RtbWEjGbbKvSoi6DDlLPHAL7PQ_4ZOqjWlq9xx2KgSRup_xx-G3ZVrIoG3LfNOQ1eyBgxyxlA82WCKg2_f43q/s690/5-DV.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="388" data-original-width="690" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTbGcS9CpQi9eO41DmbXu-q8qe6t6bNrw2Sd9oqJiPcs9vp1YWCR8GtAjOeVVZpjrRQORlaEGfDpGkV3pHJHAe-YyStAVgxWn8pL8RtbWEjGbbKvSoi6DDlLPHAL7PQ_4ZOqjWlq9xx2KgSRup_xx-G3ZVrIoG3LfNOQ1eyBgxyxlA82WCKg2_f43q/s320/5-DV.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">That woman in the story of Paul and Silas may not have been caught in a relationship we would now define as intimate partner violence, but she certainly was being trapped and exploited by a man. </span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">When Paul said to the demons within and around her, “I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her,” he offered a model of what we as church can do when those among us are trapped and exploited, abused and hurt by the relationships in their lives.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">We also need to be aware of what we as church ought not do. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">I have known women who were told by their pastor to just submit to their husbands. <br />I have known women who were told that their marriage vows were forever so even though their husbands were beating them up, they should not leave. <br />I have known women who have been told that they should just forgive their abuser the way Jesus forgave those who crucified him. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">All of those are incredibly dangerous distortions of what I understand our role as followers of Jesus to be. And when we fail to walk in that way of Jesus, the consequences can be deadly.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikQnE3iYaXAY7rLnuxlveO9S73p-3WVFlurm_C1Er0VKsCp-2GhIXNGrmDr409Y6gVVOMBOdloA19RnpcMOjHNlmG3iAu2Acm9xdbZvwBAobTYfysQ2NHc4G5kmCVsVFfoZripfN8toOwQPkSVEQV7q97rCfWd7JucedITQR-ZOtxN4eN_25Iq6Jgt/s1280/6-DV.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1275" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikQnE3iYaXAY7rLnuxlveO9S73p-3WVFlurm_C1Er0VKsCp-2GhIXNGrmDr409Y6gVVOMBOdloA19RnpcMOjHNlmG3iAu2Acm9xdbZvwBAobTYfysQ2NHc4G5kmCVsVFfoZripfN8toOwQPkSVEQV7q97rCfWd7JucedITQR-ZOtxN4eN_25Iq6Jgt/s320/6-DV.jpeg" width="319" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Last year, in Wisconsin, there were 65 people killed in domestic violence homicides, five more than in 2020. Every year at the beginning of October, there is a vigil at the State Capitol remembering all those killed the previous year. </span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Let me just touch for a moment on those aspects of Christianity that sometimes get turned against people trapped in violent relationships.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />One has to do with </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Biblical texts about <b>the man being the head of the family.</b> In our time, many of us see marriage as a much richer experience when partners relate to each other as equals, even if they take on different roles and tasks within a marriage. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Yes, I know that there are words in two of the letters attributed to Paul about wives being subject to their husbands. Guys who like to exert power over their wives love that verse. But nowhere do those texts give a man the right to physically impose his will on or to abuse his wife. It’s good to remember the rest of the words of Paul in the Letter to the Colossians, “Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them.” (Col 3:19)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Another has to do with the <b>commitments made in marriage.</b> I think we all share a common belief that the commitments we make to one another in marriage are sacred and not to be taken lightly. In some churches and for some individuals, those commitments can become handcuffs preventing escape from abuse, whether emotional or physical. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">The core idea when we talk about this ought to be “God wants everyone to be safe.” Staying in a marriage when your life is threatened or your body abused ignores the reality of a commitment that is already shattered. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">And then there is <b>forgiveness.</b> I see forgiveness as one of the central concepts of Christianity. It’s anything but a simple concept. It's not like flipping a switch. It’s not ignoring the harm that is being done to you. It is not a free ticket for an abuser. Nor is it something we ought to be imposing on victims as if somehow that will make them worthy in God’s eyes. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Closely related to that is the idea of <b>reconciliation.</b> Can’t they just work it out so they can be a couple again? Too many pastors counsel couples to stay together and work things out, but that will not work for the victim unless and until the abuser gets treatment, maybe not even then.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgigjesdtcM6PnjcIyBaeuXsAnjzc5nM4K-J4MtAB6nnQ8wyZy5quudjxK-0RhTMJyhGHGvmyKqJI4zqYyZZxv3OvBqAnP_dHCjQXKa6qNzlenGlEpKagwnA-XrY_t_VSV8lLaFGCf8OZDMWZakNIlSjIKJ4rAFbDXCmigv3yK-U0SukH1do8hXS0v5/s780/7-DV%20candle.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="521" data-original-width="780" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgigjesdtcM6PnjcIyBaeuXsAnjzc5nM4K-J4MtAB6nnQ8wyZy5quudjxK-0RhTMJyhGHGvmyKqJI4zqYyZZxv3OvBqAnP_dHCjQXKa6qNzlenGlEpKagwnA-XrY_t_VSV8lLaFGCf8OZDMWZakNIlSjIKJ4rAFbDXCmigv3yK-U0SukH1do8hXS0v5/s320/7-DV%20candle.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">One place where those of us in church world can help is by attending to the grief that comes with a shattered relationship.<br /></span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">The survivor may have escaped from an abusive, threatening relationship, but her life has been totally upended. And along with the fear of the abuser and the anger at what has happened, there is also deep grief at the loss of what should have been. </span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">As a community, we have some experience in helping people navigate grief. Let’s not lose sight of that.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Let me add just a few specific notes. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">One is that if you know someone in violent relationship, offer them support but let them make their own decisions about the best way to deal with it. One of the riskiest times for someone in a violent relationship is when they try to leave. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">That leads to the second note. DAIS has a 24-hour help line (608-251-4445) and a text option (608-420-4638). If you are wondering what you can do, call them. If someone you know is feeling trapped, urge them to call. And if danger is imminent, of course, urge them to call 9-1-1.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Notice how we began today with the stories of men in prison – some of them there because of violence they inflicted on others. The men in these groups are trying to free themselves from the demons of their past and create a better life for themselves and for those who love them.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">So many people can feel imprisoned – sometimes literally, but also by whatever circumstances are trapping us on any given day.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“How much longer ‘til we sing a new song?” <br /></span></i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">asks a song from a project known as the Common Hymnal<i>. <br />“A song of freedom now, a song to overcome.”<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Paul and Silas made it out of their imprisonment. The woman who had been a slave was now free. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />Our story ends with Paul and Silas going back to Lydia’s home, “encouraging the brothers and sisters there.” With freedom comes the chance to widen the circle.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">With freedom comes the awareness of familiar words from South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who knew something about the costs of imprisonment and oppression and the hope that can carry us through it all.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /><i>Goodness is stronger than evil, </i>he wrote<i>. <o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Love is stronger than hate;<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Light in stronger than darkness;<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Life is stronger than death.<br />Victory is ours, victory is ours<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Through Him who loved us.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />Amen.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p>Phil Haslangerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03644333674118022564noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6633437725662827250.post-35827833934999138842022-09-25T10:30:00.002-07:002022-09-25T11:11:54.981-07:00 Christians in an Interfaith World<p><a href="https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=530174436" style="color: #954f72; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Matthew 22: 34-40</span></a><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">; </span><span style="color: #954f72; font-family: Cambria, serif;"><a href="https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=531037458" style="color: #954f72; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">John 13: 31-35</a></span></p><p><a href="https://youtu.be/84RU-wrDtD4?t=2141" target="_blank"><b>There is a video of the sermon here.</b></a></p><p><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 18.666666px;">It was late on a Friday afternoon in November of 2005. I was with folks from 23 different nations at a conference at the International Center in Bethlehem – a project of Rev. Mitri Raheb, the Lutheran pastor who some folks here have gotten to know over the years for his work to be an instrument of justice and peace in his native city.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">One of the people at the conference was a young woman from Sweden. She was Jewish, so she asked if some of us would like to join her for a Shabbat service to mark the beginning of the Sabbath – that time from sundown on Friday until Saturday evening.<o:p></o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaFRcGenjKI1GJ8c10zGRaaMmy7xBjwm5VnebapoxkVGhLE0-1ZHudTOwCTiLQLgiJerwR7x9WtTlqhwQ8NGSDCy0Opp6VVNZgp0iQzDLhDWLLWIc_Je0zPIJdCtvJXHng77Becvegq__49taLNI0OJI2EF0xoK9G2MLLLSvtN7NPL1VdGagP-P_q-/s1280/1%20-%20Christmas%20Lutheran%20Church.JPG.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1165" data-original-width="1280" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaFRcGenjKI1GJ8c10zGRaaMmy7xBjwm5VnebapoxkVGhLE0-1ZHudTOwCTiLQLgiJerwR7x9WtTlqhwQ8NGSDCy0Opp6VVNZgp0iQzDLhDWLLWIc_Je0zPIJdCtvJXHng77Becvegq__49taLNI0OJI2EF0xoK9G2MLLLSvtN7NPL1VdGagP-P_q-/w288-h262/1%20-%20Christmas%20Lutheran%20Church.JPG.jpeg" width="288" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">We gathered in the parish hall of Christmas Lutheran Church, where Mitri was the pastor. I held hands with a Palestinian Christian who was born in Bethlehem who now is a German citizen. He read a Psalm – a Jewish prayer – in Aramaic. As we sang a Christian Taizé hymn in Swedish for this traditional Jewish family service, the Muslim chant for the call to prayer rang out from the mosque down the street.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Here we were in the Holy Land – a site of religious wars across the centuries – joining the prayers of three faith traditions in this special moment. None of us were giving up our own beliefs. All of us were respecting the beliefs and prayers of each other. All of us recognized that there is more than one way to understand the divine being we call God.<br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">The people of this region know the stories of those who would kill others who do not follow their God. They also know the stories of those who have tried to reach across the religious divides with respect, building relationships that can transcend those divides.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Folks here at Christ Presbyterian know what it is like to get over those religious divides. When we work with people who have come to Madison from around the world, we encounter the many faith traditions they bring with them.<br /><br /><span style="color: red;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiFTVlwVYRM3401x8AtyrDl21gQ6lnfSzJlCNOctPN4R9vZImiZzvHH9RZRVhs7plgVQLwlZQh5wD9I6bx_Yu63dTKSPWVSi6wYHsbQOqgNTFNfGYnRAEnvKG4OCbM1J1fbtq3a6zoCZE7HAYNk3lxjD3XV0v1j_knlqTI4eRq0DJT_RaoUOl8ZP4z/s1280/2-%20Iftar.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1123" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiFTVlwVYRM3401x8AtyrDl21gQ6lnfSzJlCNOctPN4R9vZImiZzvHH9RZRVhs7plgVQLwlZQh5wD9I6bx_Yu63dTKSPWVSi6wYHsbQOqgNTFNfGYnRAEnvKG4OCbM1J1fbtq3a6zoCZE7HAYNk3lxjD3XV0v1j_knlqTI4eRq0DJT_RaoUOl8ZP4z/s320/2-%20Iftar.jpeg" width="281" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 18.666666px;">People from here joined together in April with the local Muslim community for an iftar dinner – a breaking of the fast during one of the days of Ramadan. Our own Mary Straight worked with Wisconsin Faith Voices for Justice to set up visits over several years to the wide variety of faith traditions that are part of the Madison area. And the Thursday noon Lunch Bunch last year did a long study of Islam and then visited a mosque.</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">We have worked closely with Jewish Social Services on helping to resettle a family from the Democratic Republic of the Congo this month. And connections we have with various members of the Jewish community in town mean that we can take note of their high holydays that begin tonight with Rosh Hashanah.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">So we as a congregation have some experience in this. But that does not mean that we have it all figured out – either as individuals or as a community of God’s people. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">We know from what we see around us and what we read about the wider world that a variety of religious traditions encounter each other in new ways. We know that the dominance of Christianity in the U.S. has diminished some in recent decades. About 64 percent of Americans now identify as Christian.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">While the largest group of people who do not identify as Christian are those who say they are not affiliated with any faith tradition – that’s about 30 percent of all adults – there are growing groups of people identifying with faiths like Islam or Buddhism, Judaism or Hinduism, and many more. That’s about 6 percent of the current U.S. population.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Globally, of course, Christians and Muslims are the dominant groups, followed by Hindus, Buddhists and Jews.<br /><br /></span><span style="color: red; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">So we live in a religiously pluralistic world. The question is how do we live as faithful followers of Jesus without giving up what we believe while still respecting and learning from the beliefs of others?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQxd8S8Z8m1VrFpMPMtOViFBq795okNs_YL8utkr_3qounvI4Rce3kcaM_7NPvZGPStSKXJVTWtPjWaCfByE-9ZGhuDHEt9s7f8pEn1nGNarURoUWgBPfkXFIHtH2ZCvzuKcom6psy2tWxi9ieQB5AzjsM4zho9cTr1dDd_IiiANYt3kA6sBzzYpeo/s1600/4%20-%20Eboo-Patel.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQxd8S8Z8m1VrFpMPMtOViFBq795okNs_YL8utkr_3qounvI4Rce3kcaM_7NPvZGPStSKXJVTWtPjWaCfByE-9ZGhuDHEt9s7f8pEn1nGNarURoUWgBPfkXFIHtH2ZCvzuKcom6psy2tWxi9ieQB5AzjsM4zho9cTr1dDd_IiiANYt3kA6sBzzYpeo/s320/4%20-%20Eboo-Patel.jpeg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">When Eboo Patel was a young man, he had a chance to meet the Dalai Lama. I think his experience is useful to help us realize that to respect and honor other people’s faith traditions does not mean we have to give up our own.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />Eboo grew up the son of Indian parents in a Chicago suburb. He was raised as a Muslim, spent time as college student working at a Catholic Worker house in Champaign, Illinois, explored Buddhism, was best friends with a Jewish man named Kevin. The two of them traveled to India and immersed themselves in the rich culture and pluralistic religious scene of that nation. And they had a chance to meet the Dalai Lama.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Like Eboo, Kevin had studied Buddhism, but then was reconnecting with his Jewish roots. The Dalai Lama said to him: “Judaism and Buddhism are very much alike. You should learn more about both and become a better Jew.”<br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQIIoFkVwKw8wAUHIqEXDybAE6z9h16cxRP16jYVpXLTn0oSD7QVACLvywk_PEYbkv0HMmcJz6gjUAiqIFMSehlCtCi2Td9oICJmBJok5vQrB82lM4Dn5_SCYxBtQJe9H9QZpdNAs79jO7kW7FLidcKaMhqigmdAz_39vo_r0zP15N1xCbcEpY70-8/s750/5%20-%20Dalai%20Lama.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="424" data-original-width="750" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQIIoFkVwKw8wAUHIqEXDybAE6z9h16cxRP16jYVpXLTn0oSD7QVACLvywk_PEYbkv0HMmcJz6gjUAiqIFMSehlCtCi2Td9oICJmBJok5vQrB82lM4Dn5_SCYxBtQJe9H9QZpdNAs79jO7kW7FLidcKaMhqigmdAz_39vo_r0zP15N1xCbcEpY70-8/s320/5%20-%20Dalai%20Lama.jpeg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Then the Dalai Lama turned to Eboo and Eboo was getting nervous. He really had no particular religious identity at this point, although he was seeking one. How could he tell the Dalai Lama that he was a failure at trying Buddhism? He could not meditate the way he thought he should.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“You are a Muslim,” the Dalai Lama said to Eboo, having been clued in ahead of time. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />Eboo swallowed hard. “Yes,” he said, as the Dalai Lama giggled at his obvious discomfort.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“Islam is a very good religion,” the Dalai Lama said. “Buddhists and Muslims lived in peace in Tibet for many centuries.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">They talked awhile longer and then the Dalai Lama said this to Kevin and Eboo: “Religions must dialogue, but even more, they must come together to serve others. Service is the most important. And common values, finding common values between different religions. And as you study the other religions, you must learn more about your own and believe more in your own.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">The organization that Eboo founded – </span><a href="https://www.interfaithamerica.org/" style="color: #954f72;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Interfaith America</span></a><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> (formerly known as the Interfaith Youth Core) – is built on those principles, learning while serving together, respecting each other as you delve deeper into your own tradition.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">I have found as I have developed relationships with people from other faith traditions – and relationships are really the key here – that I have had to clarify my own understanding of Christianity in order to be able to discuss it with them.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />Here’s one example. Muslim friends will be puzzled over the notion that Christians say that we, like Muslims, only worship one God. They say you really talk about worshipping three gods. They are not referring to the Packers, the Badgers and the Bucks. They are talking about the Christian idea of the Trinity.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8t5kqS7Y4fGGBEtA1Asb8l0qXD_tt86e5y3A-NC49AWBf_CAAwvssYNUyc-SMm8mNQi1RYukxhGG2WCJ13T7iUPaxim0PXKRPk8Z2j66bVmLwUnp3Wmx_RUF-ajbcV2NeLDgMBBCOIpuiz3zwEtkIM4jpadM2OvW1wmlx6FYLnmTkUnWhuX1qjzvf/s1280/6%20-%20Trinity.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1271" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8t5kqS7Y4fGGBEtA1Asb8l0qXD_tt86e5y3A-NC49AWBf_CAAwvssYNUyc-SMm8mNQi1RYukxhGG2WCJ13T7iUPaxim0PXKRPk8Z2j66bVmLwUnp3Wmx_RUF-ajbcV2NeLDgMBBCOIpuiz3zwEtkIM4jpadM2OvW1wmlx6FYLnmTkUnWhuX1qjzvf/s320/6%20-%20Trinity.jpeg" width="318" /></a><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">For a lot of Christians, the idea of the Trinity – three persons in one God to use the traditional terminology – is hard enough for us to understand on our own. Now try to explain it to someone who thinks we are not really being true to what we profess about worshipping only one God. <br /><br />Don’t worry – I am not going to go into a theological deep dive about the Trinity right now. It’s a great topic to explore. My point here is that my conversation with Muslim friends pushed me to dig deeper into my own faith tradition.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><b><span style="color: red; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Those scripture readings we heard this morning from the Gospels according to Matthew and John contain some of the central messages of Jesus</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">. </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“Which commandment in the law is the greatest?” the Pharisees asked Jesus. <br />He had lots of Jewish laws to choose from. He had to navigate the divisions among Jews of his era about mattered most. Love God, he told them. And love your neighbor as yourself. <br /><br />Not just your family. Not just your Jewish neighbor. He told the story of the Samaritan being a good neighbor to a Jewish victim. He offered living water to a Samaritan woman at a well. So love those beyond your immediate community of believers.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">And then at that Passover meal with his closest followers on the night before he was executed, Jesus told them “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” He wanted them – he wanted us – to follow the model he had given them.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhkiLP9DMEOY4ecpHEyiNnP_HyLba1nebcrKEP_meCI8Wg_akqwLGcBBmuzIEs_v2vc3uQ0q8EeOaB-C2JAvpsnP9uNbfeVPPjpT-36jj2r7qePeav1jtCxsd6N_UHSO_aXEiDqxFaI39W63Cd_9SJS09BkyXbCJkjqJFfYvVu6gIIadbm8o-qaZNQ/s1800/8%20-%20tree-of-life-synagogue.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1800" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhkiLP9DMEOY4ecpHEyiNnP_HyLba1nebcrKEP_meCI8Wg_akqwLGcBBmuzIEs_v2vc3uQ0q8EeOaB-C2JAvpsnP9uNbfeVPPjpT-36jj2r7qePeav1jtCxsd6N_UHSO_aXEiDqxFaI39W63Cd_9SJS09BkyXbCJkjqJFfYvVu6gIIadbm8o-qaZNQ/s320/8%20-%20tree-of-life-synagogue.jpeg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Some of our fellow Christians in our time are not doing so well at that. We have seen the growth of Christian nationalism that conflates religion and politics in dangerous ways. We have seen the attacks on places worship – the Sikh gurdwara in Oak Cree, Wisconsin; the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh; the burning of mosques and the churches of Black congregations.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Animosity among religious believers is not new, of course. There were those Crusades in the Middle Ages, the Inquisition in Spain, the religious wars in Europe, the troubles in Northern Ireland, the battles between Hindus and Muslims in India and on and on.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">But we do not have to let that animosity define how we will live as followers of Jesus. We can embrace his ethic of love for neighbor and reach out across the religious boundaries that get in the way. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 15pt 0in; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh4k5nC85vN0QjP8bXBWIcXlkfkcXWpU-rtgur0p6OMoe2iUl7GLJl3mYdR1CxLWDWXKr3xdgAj3PnSiawJLaBv-aQBarJSBg44h_iaqKBwRIWuyiDHNk687WXKk50TYZR6WP5fZznKKBoRVMF_BwHQyR9EDidH6s0jSoNt5jeo_MZR0exHeru1dnb/s2048/9%20-TriFaith.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="2048" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh4k5nC85vN0QjP8bXBWIcXlkfkcXWpU-rtgur0p6OMoe2iUl7GLJl3mYdR1CxLWDWXKr3xdgAj3PnSiawJLaBv-aQBarJSBg44h_iaqKBwRIWuyiDHNk687WXKk50TYZR6WP5fZznKKBoRVMF_BwHQyR9EDidH6s0jSoNt5jeo_MZR0exHeru1dnb/s320/9%20-TriFaith.jpeg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">In Omaha, </span><a href="https://www.trifaith.org/" style="color: #954f72;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">the Tri-Faith Initiative</span></a><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> has brought together a church, a synagogue and a mosque on 38-acres of land as a place for interfaith learning, collaboration and celebration. They define their work in these words: “</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Together, we offer antidotes to fear and hate. We connect interfaith neighbors in community, nurturing relationships. We cultivate trust and understanding, celebrating religious differences.”</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Ten days ago at the White House Summit on Hate, the work of Eboo Patel and Interfaith America were cited for their </span><a href="https://www.interfaithamerica.org/running-thread-a-nation-of-bridgebuilders/" style="color: #954f72;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Nation of Bridgebuilders project<i><span style="background-color: #fbfbfb;">,</span></i></span></a><span style="background-color: #fbfbfb; color: #141301; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> launched in partnership with Habitat for Humanity and the YMCA<span class="apple-converted-space">. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background-color: #fbfbfb; color: #141301; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background-color: #fbfbfb; color: #141301; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Madison’s own </span></span><span style="color: #202124; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Masood Akhtar – a Muslim leader here - was honored at the White House for his efforts with the local organization he created, </span><a href="https://www.united-against-hate.org/" style="color: #954f72;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">We Are Many – United Against Hate.</span></a><span style="color: #202124; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #202124; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia5uniKcXiBUUASlD2OQ-sdHskUDA5b-h2Wtt3Xp_PfsAzEuUAH1ZmSBx1pmNFQjagTgOUjuK4VoToo4w8RVwhramvxvkfLqCKY82wy2ErLILkjky64Nq2yROYZP32bLLM3_842-uQ3ZMn4g-OZX78E6qYWrTbh7setJyGWK4ltZiNE2iz5Pfg29Jo/s976/10%20-%20Queen%20funeral.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="549" data-original-width="976" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia5uniKcXiBUUASlD2OQ-sdHskUDA5b-h2Wtt3Xp_PfsAzEuUAH1ZmSBx1pmNFQjagTgOUjuK4VoToo4w8RVwhramvxvkfLqCKY82wy2ErLILkjky64Nq2yROYZP32bLLM3_842-uQ3ZMn4g-OZX78E6qYWrTbh7setJyGWK4ltZiNE2iz5Pfg29Jo/s320/10%20-%20Queen%20funeral.jpeg" width="320" /></a><span style="color: #202124; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">On a global scale, look at what happened at Queen Elizabeth’s funeral last Monday.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #202124; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #202124; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">There was no doubt that this was a service steeped in Christianity. The queen – and now the king – after all have as one of their titles “Defender of the Faith.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #202124; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #202124; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">But back in 2012, Queen Elizabeth had this to say: </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“Gently and assuredly, the Church of England has created an environment for other faith communities and indeed people of no faith to live freely…In the course of the last 70 years we have seen our society become one of many cultures and many faiths.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS_VR8jdJfuekxM-yT_0CGAzmT7IcpQe1JrgILKeHCb-2j9gNVBBsU3WuYHGpPOyLfjjzGjuGlNLehKd3WvdRPDqOhyHXCH8iaPZrcjDuF3XpOsXH_bXsm8VXaqz5aB8xFLz6WGuKyXxvDvk7EMLdKrq9U4NFgJtR2srG4okW7Awwa5vCf_F397D4u/s2502/11-%20Interfaith%20Queen.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="676" data-original-width="2502" height="86" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS_VR8jdJfuekxM-yT_0CGAzmT7IcpQe1JrgILKeHCb-2j9gNVBBsU3WuYHGpPOyLfjjzGjuGlNLehKd3WvdRPDqOhyHXCH8iaPZrcjDuF3XpOsXH_bXsm8VXaqz5aB8xFLz6WGuKyXxvDvk7EMLdKrq9U4NFgJtR2srG4okW7Awwa5vCf_F397D4u/s320/11-%20Interfaith%20Queen.png" width="320" /></a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">This is a nation where Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs now have a significant presence. And you could see that under the vast ceiling of Westminster Abbey. There was a procession of religious representatives that entered ahead of the main funeral party - Jews, Baha’is, Jains, Zoroastrians, Buddhists, Sikhs and Hindus, as well as the chief rabbi </span><span style="color: #202122; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">of the United Hebrew Congregations of Great Britain and the Commonwealth</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> and a high-level representative of Pope Francis.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">There are, in other words, good things happening in the midst of the religious tensions in our world. And that leaves the question, what might we do?<br /><br />As I noted at the beginning, folks here at Christ Presbyterian are already doing a lot. This is not a new concept for us here.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />As individuals, we might look for ways we can connect locally with people from other faith traditions. Keep your eyes open for those opportunities. You can share stories and find places where we have shared values without glossing over the differences that may exist among our beliefs and our practices. There are books, there are videos, there is music.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">And speaking of music, here’s a personal note. On Sunday evening, Oct. 23, here at Christ Pres, my friend Michael Bryant are I are going to be doing a multifaith program of word and song called </span><a href="https://onelightmanycandles.org/" style="color: #954f72;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“One Light, Many Candles.”</span></a><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> This was created by Betty and Noel Paul Stookey and we have adapted it with their guidance for our community. Watch for details in the weeks ahead.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Notice that none of this involves trying to convince people of other faiths to become Christians. Our job, after all, is not to make God in our image but to find God’s image in all those human beings who are part of God’s creation.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Let me end back where I began – in Bethlehem, in the heart of one of the world’s long-standing and intense places of religious conflict.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">At the beginning of the international conference, </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">about 200 of us marched through the streets of Bethlehem on a windy, drizzly night carrying candles that we struggled to keep burning – an apt symbol of the fragility of this work.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVrjbJw3V2znG6MOKjaHnMuVvgdKjER8FF_vNCSHWe1cTahJrGhl4la1qgkm323Qd0gAu6Mv1IkcMOGMacYXzW8xmVb2u8bKcH2Cibb14eORjosolsavJz4TkaPBqF_p5cHSTMwiPj3Ru4869SCM42mI1AuZnca5f9fghhmZabDlfLetSFj8tbvkaY/s944/13%20-%20Bethlehem%20march.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="921" data-original-width="944" height="312" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVrjbJw3V2znG6MOKjaHnMuVvgdKjER8FF_vNCSHWe1cTahJrGhl4la1qgkm323Qd0gAu6Mv1IkcMOGMacYXzW8xmVb2u8bKcH2Cibb14eORjosolsavJz4TkaPBqF_p5cHSTMwiPj3Ru4869SCM42mI1AuZnca5f9fghhmZabDlfLetSFj8tbvkaY/s320/13%20-%20Bethlehem%20march.jpeg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">The procession was led by drummers and the leaders of the main Christian religious traditions in the city. We moved from Christmas Lutheran Church to the Greek Orthodox Church to the Syrian Orthodox Church to the entrance of the </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Omar Mosque, where the imam greeted the Christians who account for only about a quarter of the population of Bethlehem had come in solidarity with the Muslims of that city.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">We ended at St. Catherine's Church, the Roman Catholic facility next to the Basilica of the Nativity. The crowd joined the religious leaders arrayed across the sanctuary in reciting the Lord's Prayer, each in the language of their homeland. All the candles now glowed with hope as we sang the Latin words, "Dona nobis pacem" -- give us peace.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">That is our challenge, my friends. To love our neighbors as Jesus told us. To let that love break down the barriers and the injustices of the world to bring peace to all.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Amen.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Phil Haslangerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03644333674118022564noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6633437725662827250.post-31153178004833250272022-07-31T08:00:00.007-07:002022-07-31T15:14:04.268-07:00 Talking Points<p><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyh05hYQkDbpg1wHYjLygtNuUr3D--bnkFRqdt-3HA4pnjFLMNBIWZf2uMf5syvFDX2E18eIqd0oAApy8Wg6lZA2iYYsDulWkLIroxa98bFBYPHj43IRm7NodR4i8PxyTqppST2CX_ZODwqFB_3VrpHz5QY2pDU6Gc-_-uXrcxvgjqmN4MPlXdrm_-/s1600/7%20-%20New%20York%20City.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1184" data-original-width="1600" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyh05hYQkDbpg1wHYjLygtNuUr3D--bnkFRqdt-3HA4pnjFLMNBIWZf2uMf5syvFDX2E18eIqd0oAApy8Wg6lZA2iYYsDulWkLIroxa98bFBYPHj43IRm7NodR4i8PxyTqppST2CX_ZODwqFB_3VrpHz5QY2pDU6Gc-_-uXrcxvgjqmN4MPlXdrm_-/w400-h296/7%20-%20New%20York%20City.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rabbi Roly and Caleb Follett in New York City.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><i> July 31, 2022, Christ Presbyterian Church, Madison WI</i><div><i><a href="https://youtu.be/-hQorAg14sI?t=2126" target="_blank">There is a video of the sermon here. </a>There was a technical glitch with the reading of the portion of Paul's letter to the Romans. <a href="https://www.biblestudytools.com/msg/romans/14.html" target="_blank">You can find the text of Romans 14: 1-13 here.</a></i><br /><o:p></o:p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">After the presidential election in 2016 – you may remember, there was a bit of emotion around that one – a community organizer in New York </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">City asked a friend who was a rabbi – his name is</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Rabbi Jose Rolando Matalon</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">– Rabbi Roly for short - whether he thought members of his congregation would like to meet a bunch of conservative Christians who worked at a prison in Michigan.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">The rabbi laughed. He thought it was the beginning of a bad joke.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Then the community organizer – his name is Simon Greer – talked with the leader of the corrections officers union, Andy Potter, who was a bit intrigued by this idea. He did not treat it as a joke.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />A plan began to emerge.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />A while later, one of the corrections officers named Caleb Follett got a call from one of his union leaders, who said, “We’re doing a sort of cultural exchange program with some New Yorkers and we’d like you to participate. We’re basically going to host this group of liberal Jewish people from New York City… In our homes…For three days.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Follett realized he knew no Jews and very few liberals. He said he’d would do it.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />This story – you’ll hear more of it as we go along – is told in a book called <i><a href="https://www.amandaripley.com/high-conflict" target="_blank">High Conflict: How We Get Trapped and How We Get Out,</a></i> by journalist Amanda Ripley. It’s quite a story. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />For now, though, think about the high conflict that Paul was writing about to the people of Rome in the middle of the first century of the Common Era. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Over the past few weeks, as we have been exploring that powerful letter from Paul, we have delved into what he had to say about the depths of sin and about the heights of glory. We have learned that what can hold us all together is recognizing that we are all part of one body, ideally loving one another and those around us.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Listen with me now as Mitchell Krawiec-Thayer and Allison Krawiec-Thayer join us from Colorado to share Paul’s words from the translation known as <i>The Message</i> about what happens when that sense of oneness breaks down, about what Paul has to say to quarreling Christians. Apparently this is not a phenomenon limited just to our times.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><i><b>Romans 14: 1-13</b></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Welcome with open arms fellow believers who don't see things the way you do. And don't jump all over them every time they do or say something you don't agree with - even when it seems that they are strong on opinions but weak in the faith department. Remember, they have their own history to deal with. Treat them gently.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">For instance, a person who has been around for a while might well be convinced that he can eat anything on the table, while another, with a different background, might assume all Christians should be vegetarians and eat accordingly.<span class="apple-converted-space"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">But since both are guests at Christ's table, wouldn't it be terribly rude if they fell to criticizing what the other ate or didn't eat? God, after all, invited them both to the table.<span class="apple-converted-space"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Do you have any business crossing people off the guest list or interfering with God's welcome? If there are corrections to be made or manners to be learned, God can handle that without your help.<span class="apple-converted-space"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Or, say, one person thinks that some days should be set aside as holy and another thinks that each day is pretty much like any other. There are good reasons either way. So, each person is free to follow the convictions of conscience.<span class="apple-converted-space"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">What's important in all this is that if you keep a holy day, keep it for God's sake; if you eat meat, eat it to the glory of God and thank God for prime rib; if you're a vegetarian, eat vegetables to the glory of God and thank God for broccoli.<span class="apple-converted-space"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">None of us are permitted to insist on our own way in these matters.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">It's God we are answerable to - all the way from life to death and everything in between - not each other.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><a href="https://www.biblestudytools.com/msg/romans/14-9.html"></a><span class="apple-converted-space"><i><span style="border: 1pt solid rgb(229, 231, 235); color: blue; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt; padding: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">That's why Jesus lived and died and then lived again: so that he could be our Master across the entire range of life and death, and free us from the petty tyrannies of each other.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><a href="https://www.biblestudytools.com/msg/romans/14-10.html"></a><span class="apple-converted-space"><i><span style="border: 1pt solid rgb(229, 231, 235); color: blue; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt; padding: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">So where does that leave you when you criticize a brother? And where does that leave you when you condescend to a sister? I'd say it leaves you looking pretty silly - or worse. Eventually, we're all going to end up kneeling side by side in the place of judgment, facing God. Your critical and condescending ways aren't going to improve your position there one bit.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><a href="https://www.biblestudytools.com/msg/romans/14-11.html"></a><span class="apple-converted-space"><i><span style="border: 1pt solid rgb(229, 231, 235); color: blue; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt; padding: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Read it for yourself in Scripture: "As I live and breathe," God says, "every knee will bow before me; Every tongue will tell the honest truth that I and only I am God."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><a href="https://www.biblestudytools.com/msg/romans/14-12.html"></a><span class="apple-converted-space"><i><span style="border: 1pt solid rgb(229, 231, 235); color: blue; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt; padding: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">So tend to your knitting. You've got your hands full just taking care of your own life before God.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Ah, yes, don’t those first century arguments have a familiar ring in 2022? Vegetarian or carnivore? Go to church on Sunday or go to soccer practice? How can you call yourself a follower of Jesus if you eat the wrong food or use your time in the wrong way?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">That was not a dispute limited to the early Christians.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">When Paul wrote that “</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">some days should be set aside as holy and another thinks that each day is pretty much like any other</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">,” that was a reference to an argument between the early Christians who were Jewish who put a high value on observing the Sabbath and those early Christians who were Gentiles – non-Jews – for whom the Sabbath was no big deal.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Today people still have different views of what it means to observe the Sabbath, which for us translates to Sunday. Do I have to go to church every Sunday? Do I have to not work on Sunday? Can Sunday have value as a family day?<br /><br />I have heard no shortage of complaints over the years from dedicated church folks about how hard it is to get young people and families to church because – you know, soccer practice, basketball practice, whatever. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />So it was fun to read a comment by one of the historic pastors here at Christ Presbyterian. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">George Hunt was the pastor here from 1904 until 1934. In his wonderful book about the history of Madison, David Mollenhoff – a long-time part of the Christ Pres community who is with us today – wrote about the pitched battle in the early 1900s between the Yankees - who believed, in his words, “no one should do anything on the Sabbath except go to church, pray, study the Bible, and contemplate God” - and the Germans in Madison, who considered Sunday “a day set aside by God to rest, play, and enjoy one’s family.”<br /><br />So where did our beloved Pastor Hunt come down on this?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">In 1910, he preached a sermon quoted by David in his book. He excoriated the people of Madison for having gone “fun mad” on Sundays. People were going for walks, listening to band concerts, eating ice cream, even playing golf. Children were seen ice-skating as church bells called people to worship. And the bowling alleys and bars were all doing a great business.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">If George Hunt had lived in Rome in the first century, Paul might have advised him to take a deep breath. Or, as Paul wrote, “</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">if you keep a holy day, keep it for God's sake.</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">” There is more than one way to do that.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">It’s easy for us Christians to get tangled up on some of these matters of practice. But let’s open the lens a little wider. How can Christians who all follow the same Jesus have such different views on the hot-button issues of our day – abortion, guns, marriage, gender, poverty, war?<br /><br />Don’t worry – I’m not going to try to resolve all of those today. I’m not even going to try to resolve any one of them. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">What I hope to do is offer a framework about how we might relate to each other – to the people who follow Jesus within this congregation who surely have a range of views on any given topic and to people across the nation and around the globe who call themselves Christians but may understand that in very different ways from how we think of ourselves as Christians.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Maybe we can even learn a little bit from this experience between Jewish residents of New York City and corrections officers in rural Michigan. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Not only did they not know each other and not trust each other. They were actually a bit afraid of each other. The Michigan folks were wary “of being misunderstood, belittled or mocked,” in Amanda Ripley’s words. The New Yorkers feared they would run into ignorance or hate or maybe even betray their deepest ideals just by going to meet with folks they expected to be bigots.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />Isn’t that the way it goes when we think about meeting with people who disagree with the way we see the world?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Remember Caleb<b> </b>– the man who got the call from the corrections union official? <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Ripley describes him this way: “He’s a White Christian heterosexual who not only voted for Trump but campaigned for him. Caleb likes the idea of a border wall. He has a small arsenal of weaponry in his Michigan home, including at AR-15.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Now meet Martha Ackelsberg. She was skeptical of getting involved in this. Ripley said Martha “fits the stereotype that many Republicans have about liberals.” She is Ivy-League educated, taught at Smith College, is a lesbian. But she also has a passion racial justice and reforms of the criminal justice system. She decided meeting corrections officers might be a good idea after all. She wound up staying with two other women from the synagogue at Caleb’s home.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">So you might be getting a sense of how big a gulf existed between these two groups of people. Simon Greer, the fellow who organized this, knew he from his experience working with groups in conflict that he needed to establish some ground rules. He had three of them:<br /><br />“We are going to take seriously the things that everyone holds dear.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“We’re not going to try to convince each other we’re wrong.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“We’re going to be curious.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">And when all else fails, he advised the two groups, just say “Tell me more.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />Those are really helpful if we want to engage with people with whom we disagree. Even Paul – who could be pretty directive in a lot of what he wrote – might have found them useful for those early Christians in Rome.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />It was, after all, Paul who wrote: “</span><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Eventually, we're all going to end up kneeling side by side in the place of judgment, facing God. Your critical and condescending ways aren't going to improve your position there one bit.<span class="apple-converted-space">”</span><o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">So let me say Simon’s ground rules again:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“We are going to take seriously the things that everyone holds dear.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“We’re not going to try to convince each other we’re wrong.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“We’re going to be curious.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">And when all else fails, just say “Tell me more.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">There are lots of good stories in Ripley’s book about the experiences these two groups had in Michigan and in New York City. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">The corrections officers in Michigan took the New Yorkers to a firing range. Caleb showed a very uncomfortable Martha his gun collection. They visited a cell block in a decommissioned prison. They went to a park that was one of the historic origin places of the Republican Party in the pre-Civil War, anti-slavery days.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">And the corrections officers talked about their work in prisons, about why they supported Trump. The New Yorkers talked about ancestors who had died in the Holocaust and how Trump’s targeting of Muslims had disturbing echoes of what their families had experienced. They talked about guns and their differing perceptions of why people had them and what should be done to protect people.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Two months later, they were off to New York City, where they went to Central Park and Chinatown and Little Italy and – to the dismay of the Jewish group who waited outside - the gift shop in Trump Tower. And they tackled another tough and divisive issue – gay rights. No minds were changed, but understandings deepened. As they left, Caleb and Martha embraced.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">In her book, Ripley wrote that getting to know people who think or look different starts to reduce the intensity of conflicts. She said that means “building relationships and institutions that generate meaningful relationships <i>in</i> conflict, not in spite of it.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">While it is both fascinating and instructive to look at what happened with the folks from Michigan and New York from a distance, let’s move back into the disputes that divide Christians. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">You know the litany. You know which ones strike a chord for you. And you may wonder how can “those people” even call themselves Christians?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">One of the fascinating people I have learned a bit from in recent weeks is Kirsten Powers. She is a journalist, a commentator, who over the years has been a regular on Fox News and CNN, who writes for <i>USA Today</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Politically, she is clearly a liberal. But personally, she has been on a very interesting faith journey – raised Episcopalian, becoming an atheist, joining an evangelical Christian church and then becoming a Catholic. She wrote a book that came out last fall called <i><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/653308/saving-grace-by-kirsten-powers/" target="_blank">Saving Grace: Speak Your Truth, Stay Centered, and Learn to Coexist with People Who Drive You Nuts.</a><o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“Grace gives other people space not to be you,” she told <i>Sojourners</i>’ founder Jim Wallis in a recent podcast. She went on: “I like the Christian paradigm of grace because it is unmerited favor. A lot of times, people will say, ‘That person doesn’t deserve it.’ And that’s the point. That’s why it’s grace.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">I think that’s at the heart of Paul’s message to the people of Rome - and to the people of Madison gathered here this morning.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Yes, Paul could take strong positions against those he thought were distorting the message of Jesus. Just take a look at his letter to the people of Corinth. We can hold strong views as well. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">But Paul also wrote to the Galatians about those who live by God’s Spirit and show that as they exhibit the fruit of the spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">One of my mentors taught me a phrase that I have found very useful guidepost along the way: “This is what I believe…but I could be wrong.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Let those be our watchwords as we engage with those who disagree with us. Let us learn from the experiences of prison guards in Michigan and Jewish folks in New York that we can learn to treat each other well even when we disagree.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Or as Paul wrote: <i>“Welcome with open arms fellow believers who don't see things the way you do. And don't jump all over them every time they do or say something you don't agree with.”<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Amen.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p></div>Phil Haslangerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03644333674118022564noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6633437725662827250.post-41138750718350516942022-06-26T08:30:00.002-07:002022-06-26T10:36:24.444-07:00 How It Would Feel to Be Free<p><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">June 26, 2022, Community of Hope UCC<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><a href="https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=523200536" style="color: #954f72;">Galatians 5:1, 13-26</a>, <a href="https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=523200563" style="color: #954f72;">Luke 9:51-55</a></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCrPWor8MFOvG7ie3YaVi1khh5S0J8_nNEyffNxKnAx1HaDPhvhg0G1P9qA0NxWKnhSzN1Raoj-piBEB-ud-jDchA1LqMWwKgdLSt1LDM0VZAVhXwwtyurDmGBUMEwckU6ZnFG6sRTn26gojz3-bGBR8sblAYnUhGIgHbplYpOggLoLL_iGbhSYuYj/s640/protest.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="427" data-original-width="640" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCrPWor8MFOvG7ie3YaVi1khh5S0J8_nNEyffNxKnAx1HaDPhvhg0G1P9qA0NxWKnhSzN1Raoj-piBEB-ud-jDchA1LqMWwKgdLSt1LDM0VZAVhXwwtyurDmGBUMEwckU6ZnFG6sRTn26gojz3-bGBR8sblAYnUhGIgHbplYpOggLoLL_iGbhSYuYj/s320/protest.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">During the past week, the nation – that means you and me – has had to confront two of the most polarizing issues facing us – reproductive rights and gun rights. I suspect for many of us here, the outcome on both of those from our U.S. Supreme Court has been distressing. </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Maybe our two scripture readings today might offer us bits of wisdom as we try to navigate the days to come. Let me at least try to draw some connections in the hope that the ideas from our sacred writings will offer touchstones as we lament what is happening around us and prepare us for ways to respond.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Let’s start with the first words we heard today Paul’s letter to the people of Galatia: “For freedom Christ has set us free.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">And then let’s reflect on the words of a song written in the early 1950s by Billy Taylor and Richard Carroll Lamb <a href="https://youtu.be/HDqmJEWOJRI" style="color: #954f72;">and made popular in the late-1960s by the amazing Nina Simone.</a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">I wish I knew how it would feel to be free<br />I wish I could break all the chains holding me<br />I wish I could say all the things that I should say<br />Say 'em loud, say 'em clear<br />For the whole round world to hear<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">That was one of the anthems of the Civil Rights Movement, but it also has so much relevance for us this weekend. Christ has set us free, as Paul wrote, but we need to continually proclaim that freedom from the chains that restrict our human dignity, from the chains of violence that threaten us.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Paul went on to cite the most basic ethical principal not only of Christianity but of so many religious traditions - "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." That can be a guiding light in the days ahead.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Yes, I know that the issue of abortion is complicated. For people who believe that human life begins at conception, loving your neighbor can include loving that life that has yet to emerge into the world. But when human life begins is both a biological question and a theological question and there are divergent views on both dimensions. When the life of a potential being threatens the life of an actual living woman in many different ways – physically, emotionally, economically - the woman needs to have the freedom to decide her own course of action.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Within the United Church of Christ – as with so many other Christian faith traditions - we have long affirmed the right of every individual to follow their personal religious and moral convictions regarding their reproductive healthcare. Our General Synods were taking that position two years before the Roe vs Wade decision in 1973 and have reaffirmed it multiple times since. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">But, of course, not all Christian traditions are of the same mind. While political power drove much of the current Supreme Court’s decision on Friday, there has been a raging debate among Christians across half a century about where our faith tradition ought to stand on this issue.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Raging debates were not new to Paul. “If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another,” he wrote to the Galatians. “Live by the Spirit, I say.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">With issues like abortion and guns – I’ll get to the guns in a moment – that’s easier said than done.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />We know the stories of women whose lives were saved – both physically and in many other ways - because they were able to have an abortion. We know the stories from the times before Roe vs. Wade when women lost their lives seeking abortions that were not safe. We know the people at greatest risk after Friday’s decision are people without the means – economic means, social supports, and more - to travel to a place where abortion is legal. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">We know the passion that those experiences engender as we care about the lives of women and justice in our society.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHl-7Q6yvwvUUPXbsG0aqBx21q1S605ShsTFqmnYtc49B41YlezHMkAaNn6eHEhLWjef5jiq59EZ16VN2YHzpwGqQJNggKxyS7s4sXFWfjq6Fvx715N2yVCBOp2Wl2bWRO7_du9qm_G1o9D731V49kabvwZJF8YmxdCIZpxbnA9hsJ1xqWo_id6jhY/s1200/Roe.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="1200" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHl-7Q6yvwvUUPXbsG0aqBx21q1S605ShsTFqmnYtc49B41YlezHMkAaNn6eHEhLWjef5jiq59EZ16VN2YHzpwGqQJNggKxyS7s4sXFWfjq6Fvx715N2yVCBOp2Wl2bWRO7_du9qm_G1o9D731V49kabvwZJF8YmxdCIZpxbnA9hsJ1xqWo_id6jhY/s320/Roe.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">And we know that in 1973, when the Supreme Court issued the Roe decision, the abortion rate was at about 16 abortions per 1,000 women of childbearing age. Starting in the early 1980s, it underwent a slow but steady decline to an all-time low of 13.5 abortions per 1,000 women of child-bearing age in 2017. </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">There are multiple reasons for that, but remember, abortion was legal during that time as the rate of abortions declined. In fact, as the states began tightening restrictions in the years since 2017, the number of abortions per 1,000 women has been creeping up. It’s still below what it was in the early 1970s. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Now, however, we are heading into unknown territory, with the nation divided geographically and the political and religious divisions sharper than ever. And not just over reproductive rights and justice.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />The Supreme Court last week pulled the rug out from under a New York law that limited the concealed carry of guns. Even as the Congress passed the first strengthening of gun laws in three decades, the court took us ever closer to a free-for-all for guns. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Author Arianna Huffington had a poignant tweet about all this: “So, to sum up the Supreme Court’s week: life begins at conception and ends in a mass shooting.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Last week, Peter Manseau, an author of 10 books on religion and history, posed this question in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/23/opinion/uvalde-evangelicals-guns.html?referringSource=articleShare" style="color: #954f72;">an essay in The New York Times:</a> “Is our gun problem a God problem?”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">He noted that Daniel Defense - the Georgia company that made the AR-15 style rifle used at the elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas as well as one of the guns used in the mass shooting in Las Vegas in 2017 - uses explicitly religious terminology in its advertising, including a picture at Easter of a gun and a cross lying on scriptural passages about the Resurrection. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE2JJrJL1Ia_ev_ruuxjvk06-XA0z3BdvQlWTcEt_ifFn_fYz9TuzYkewaz_0TqbjMzXR3ybO3G5IyyFpBzkrMuPKuq5Gfj4b46OEmbGxKn1ejKUCAX8KMch1OirmztxD49bXQjX7-Owoga_1yJnPd680r7BS8AhQKtokpfazpxaN_m7BfQclR6mtZ/s1677/Rifle.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1246" data-original-width="1677" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE2JJrJL1Ia_ev_ruuxjvk06-XA0z3BdvQlWTcEt_ifFn_fYz9TuzYkewaz_0TqbjMzXR3ybO3G5IyyFpBzkrMuPKuq5Gfj4b46OEmbGxKn1ejKUCAX8KMch1OirmztxD49bXQjX7-Owoga_1yJnPd680r7BS8AhQKtokpfazpxaN_m7BfQclR6mtZ/s320/Rifle.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">But they are not alone. A company called Spike’s Tactical makes a line of AR-15s known as the Crusader that has Psalm 144:1 on it. That verse says: “Blessed be the Lord, my Rock, who trains my hands for war and my fingers for battle.” And their add assures us that this rifle will never be used by a Muslim terrorist to bring harm against another person because it includes that verse from the Hebrew Bible.<o:p></o:p></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />And Cornerstone Arms in Colorado says it is called Cornerstone because “Jesus Christ is the cornerstone of our business, our family and our lives.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Speaking of Colorado, many of you probably know of Lauren Boebert, one of the members of Congress from that state. Here’s what she had say recently – in a joking manner, but still: <a href="https://twitter.com/patriottakes/status/1536848987361366022?s=21&t=j6oKDWPSu2KDbRxZ4FeRvw" style="color: #954f72;">“A lot of the little Twitter trolls, they like to say ‘Oh, Jesus didn’t need an AR-15. How many AR-15s do you think Jesus would have had?’ Well, he didn’t have enough to keep his government from killing him.” </a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />That takes us to today’s Gospel reading. Jesus sends out some of his followers as a kind of advance team but they are rejected by some of the Samaritans, who were not particularly fond of the Jews in the First Century.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">James and John knew their Hebrew scripture, so they had a ready solution. They remembered in the Second book of Kings, Elijah called down God’s fire on representatives of a king who had issues with Elijah and the fire from heaven they called down killed the captain and his 50 men.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">So James and John knew just what to do about those rude Samaritans. "Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?"<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">And Luke writes of Jesus: He turned and rebuked them.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Jesus rejected violence over and over. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">He healed the ear of the Temple guard after Peter cut it off in the Garden of Gethsemane. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">From the cross, he asked forgiveness for those who were executing him. He did not regret the lack of AR-15s.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">I suspect that in our polarized times, some of us think calling down heaven’s fire on those we disagree with, even those we find threatening to our core beliefs, seems like a nice option. And with the proliferation of guns and the tensions around issues like abortion, we are living in a powder keg. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">On Friday evening at the pro-choice demonstration at the state Capitol, a woman who was part of a Madison anti-racist community group showed up with an off-brand AK-47 and a pistol with the intent of deterring right-wing groups who might try to disrupt the protest.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Ah, but Paul.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another. Live by the Spirit.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Paul lists some of the things that cause trouble and often we focus on things like fornication, impurity, licentiousness. You know, the ways we can judge the sex lives of others. But Paul’s list goes on to include idolatry –like making guns our idols – or quarrels, dissensions, factions – the kinds of things that have become toxic in our society.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />He offers some alternative ways of being, ways that we now call the Fruits of the Spirit - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />And he adds: “There is no law against such things.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">As we try to figure out what to do after a week like the last one – or after so many disruptive and distressing weeks before the last one – maybe we can take some cues from Jesus and from Paul.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">It’s not Jesus’ way to call down fire on his enemies. He even once said something about loving our enemies, which may the most challenging thing he ever said. That would include people with whom we fundamentally disagree, but still recognize as people created in God’s image and likeness.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">And we can nurture within ourselves those Fruits of the Spirit that Paul wrote about. They are not only for our own benefit, our own peace of mind in the midst of turmoil, for the communities of which we are a part.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">That does not mean abandoning advocacy for our deeply held convictions. It does mean we do that in ways that reflect our commitments to be followers of Jesus, to walk in his way.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Mary Ellen Giess, who the vice president for strategic initiatives of a group called Interfaith America, <a href="https://www.interfaithamerica.org/how-can-i-build-bridges-in-a-post-roe-v-wade-america/" style="color: #954f72;">offered some useful suggestions this weekend. </a> She began by saying that “My rage is not far from the surface, these days…My rage comes near to boiling over when I consider the fact that my three daughters will grow up with less autonomy over their bodies than I have now.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />And yet she cautions against getting caught in the binary thinking around abortion – or, I would add, gun rights.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">She starts by noting “the ambiguity that the beliefs of my fellow Americans are complicated.” She adds that she wants “to listen and seek to understand perspectives that differ from my own, because working with those perspectives is now essential.” She does say that she is not seeking out voices who are arguing in bad faith but those who have sincerely held beliefs.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">And finally, she cautions against humiliating those we disagree with. She quoted South African leader Nelson Mandela, who said, “There is nobody more dangerous than one who has been humiliated, even when you humiliate him rightly.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">In the end, wrote Giess, “My rage motivates me to continue the fight for bodily autonomy. My curiosity compels me to listen carefully, with attention to nuance, and treat others with dignity. I choose to carry them both in the days and weeks to come.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">In that spirit, I’d invite us to join in together in a hymn. It’s number 582 in your hymnals. It’s called “O God of Earth and Altar.” The title belies the power of the words – words written by G.K. Chesterton and then modernized by Jane Parker Huber – words that I think very much speak to our moment.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />So please join with me on all three verses of this hymn.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Phil Haslangerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03644333674118022564noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6633437725662827250.post-52240646624592241842022-05-22T08:30:00.003-07:002022-05-22T10:08:48.763-07:00 Taking Care, No Matter What<p><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><a href="https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=520177602" target="_blank">Acts 16:9-15</a> and <a href="https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=520177643" target="_blank">John 5:1-9</a></span></p><p><a href="https://youtu.be/mYUZv6fk-Qs?t=2092" target="_blank">Here's a link to a video of the sermon</a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM_AQSX6U1RybqnTDS88yQA3Trep8Wlgz_yl7BmVXvy-Oql2e1npl95kFcudSKF9Xq89jgTPcVxcvU_VCXlrCxa0cu-1tKJ_E6AGsY5lptR9f7WpmEvTBjNcxkfJkP4ACXWHaXP0omvGyEcia9_nSErB6jA0pxR7QdjRLSfv24n-HsAerWx2Z8DVr7/s1374/Lame%20man.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1374" height="315" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM_AQSX6U1RybqnTDS88yQA3Trep8Wlgz_yl7BmVXvy-Oql2e1npl95kFcudSKF9Xq89jgTPcVxcvU_VCXlrCxa0cu-1tKJ_E6AGsY5lptR9f7WpmEvTBjNcxkfJkP4ACXWHaXP0omvGyEcia9_nSErB6jA0pxR7QdjRLSfv24n-HsAerWx2Z8DVr7/w400-h315/Lame%20man.jpg" width="400" /><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt; text-align: left;"> </span></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;">There have been days this week when I have felt like that man Roger just told us about from the Gospel according to John - the man lying paralyzed by the poll called Bethzatha.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;">“Do you want to be made well?” Jesus asks him – and maybe me.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“There is no one to put me in the pool,” he replies. And so he is stuck. He has been stuck for 38 years.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">It is being in the pool when the water is stirred up that can bring healing. And he is out of the pool. He cannot figure out how to get into it. He cannot find anyone to help him.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">That’s what I am feeling this week. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />Think of the pool as the place that can heal so much of the horror that surrounds us right now – a war in Ukraine, the earth in peril from a changing climate caused by our actions, democracy seeming more fragile than ever, toxic misinformation polluting our sources of news.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">And if that is not enough, a week ago we learned about the murder of 10 people by a white supremacist in a supermarket in Buffalo, N.Y.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">I feel paralyzed. How can I get into that pool of healing? Maybe some of you are feeling that way as well.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">When the waters are stirred up in that pool, they can refresh our spirits.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">When the waters are stirred up, they might bring healing to the deep wounds we see in our world. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">When the waters are stirred up, they can give us the energy to get up and walk out to help meet the needs of our world.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />But at this moment, we are alone. No one will help us into the pool. We are paralyzed. Too often, all we do is lament our fate. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqRLTl4yMJoCFCU4uVNSUQyhbm-5Ya5LyDL_8B5SBPoGhbwmBPsaeCtbaTrwVZNV_ttGWyY1hk3BwQgzBzpiMfJDbaseag5cAnyeKzJAzfqYz-MEexZU4Y27MsR9sgV1Yl-6BMCFzvVtUFfGVic_j3RcUzh-RKtftIGzCAuxM5uK_ENVzFpK-BI4Tc/s1200/Buffalo.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="257" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqRLTl4yMJoCFCU4uVNSUQyhbm-5Ya5LyDL_8B5SBPoGhbwmBPsaeCtbaTrwVZNV_ttGWyY1hk3BwQgzBzpiMfJDbaseag5cAnyeKzJAzfqYz-MEexZU4Y27MsR9sgV1Yl-6BMCFzvVtUFfGVic_j3RcUzh-RKtftIGzCAuxM5uK_ENVzFpK-BI4Tc/w386-h257/Buffalo.jpeg" width="386" /></a></div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">We have all had a week to absorb the news from Buffalo, but let me pause for a moment to say the names of those who were murdered, those whose deaths stay with me as I sit at the side of the pool, struggling to move.</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">It is thinking about them – about what happened to them and why and what we might do – that is making me feel sad and angry – and paralyzed.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Starting with the oldest:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0.5in;"><b><i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Ruth Whitfield,</span></i></b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> 86, was on her way from visiting her husband in a nursing home before stopping at the store to get something to eat.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0.5in;"><b><i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Pearly Young,</span></i></b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> 77, loved singing, dancing, and being with family and she ran a food pantry in the Central Park neighborhood for 25 years.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><b><i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Katherine Massey,</span></i></b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> 72, was a community leader, a powerful voice for her neighborhood. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Last year, she wrote a</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">letter<span style="background-color: white;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">to <i>The Buffalo News</i> pushing for more federal regulations of firearms.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><b><i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Deacon Heyward Patterson</span></i></b><b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">,</span></b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> 67, was </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">loading groceries into his car for a client when he was gunned down<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0.5in;"><b><i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Celestine Chaney,</span></i></b><b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">65,<b> </b> was a cancer survivor who a grandmother of six and the great-grandmother of one<strong>.<o:p></o:p></strong></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0.5in;"><strong><i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Geraldine Talley,</span></i></strong><strong><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></strong><strong><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt; font-weight: normal;">62,</span></strong><strong><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></strong><strong><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt; font-weight: normal;">was as a devoted mother and grandmother.</span></strong><b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0.5in;"><b><i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Aaron Salter,</span></i></b><b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">55, was a retired Buffalo police officer and the grocery store’s security guard.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><b><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Andre Mackneil,</span></i></b><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> 53, was buying a cake for his 3-year-old son when he was killed.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><strong><i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Margus D. Morrison,</span></i></strong><strong><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt; font-weight: normal;"> 52,</span></strong><strong><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">was at the grocery store that afternoon to buy snacks for a weekly movie night with his family<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><b><i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Roberta Drury,</span></i></b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> 32,</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> helped care for her brother, who is recovering from cancer.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">They are all dead because an 18-year old white man with a legally purchased assault rifle wanted to pick a place where he could create the maximum fear among black folks. So he chose a grocery store in a predominantly black neighborhood some 200 miles from his own home. He had planned to kill many more but, thank God, he was stopped.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">We have seen this before.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">The murder of nine blacks at a Bible study </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">by a white supremacist<span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a;"> at Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C. in 2015. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">The murder of 11 Jewish people </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">by a white supremacist <span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a;">at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">The murder of 23 mostly Latinos </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">by a white supremacist <span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a;">at the Wal-Mart in El Paso in 2019.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">The murders </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">by a white supremacist of seven Sikh worshippers <span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a;">at their gurdwara in Oak Creek back in 2012. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Over and over, hatred of those perceived as different has led to this irrational and horrific bloodshed. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><a href="https://valariekaur.com" target="_blank">Valarie Kaur, </a>the Sikh author and activist who wrote <i>See No Stranger</i>, said last week that her first thought after the news broke about the shootings in Buffalo was “They’re going to keep killing us.” She talked about her own terror and fatigue and wrote: “</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">I<span style="background-color: white;">'ve organized around white supremacist hate for 21 years, since before this gunman was born. The killings have become more frequent, more effective, and more efficient at taking life.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">She is not alone feeling that. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">A <i>Washington Post</i>/Ipsos poll done in the past week that came out yesterday reported that “three-quarters of Black Americans are worried that they or someone they love will be attacked because of their race.” It also found that only 10 percent of Black Americans think the problem of racism will improve in their lifetimes.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />Racist murder after racist murder. And I feel paralyzed when I wonder what I can do about it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">There is no one to put me into the pool, I say.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">And Jesus </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">says, "Stand up, take your mat and walk."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">We won’t get past this if we just sit on the sidelines. <br /><br />So we start with lament. We continue with seeking ways to support those who are suffering – maybe sending money to help, maybe contacting black folks we know here to let them know that we care about them in this moment when all of their long-held fears are brought back to the surface again.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />We engage in whatever political actions make sense to us, whether around guns or reparations or home ownership or simply defending efforts to educate our children and our adults about the depth of the realities of racism and of white supremacy that infect our communities.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">It never seems like enough. I want the waters to be stirred and make it all better. But I need to get into the pool and help stir the waters.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">And I don’t need to be there alone.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />That takes me to that story we heard from the book of Acts, the story of Paul arriving in </span><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Philippi, seeking out a place to pray and to meet with people and tell them about this Jesus fellow who had transformed his life and whose message could change the world.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">First Paul made this connection with Lydia – a non-Jewish woman who took God seriously. By the end of the morning, Lydia and her household asked to be baptized and extended hospitality to Paul. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">The story goes on beyond what we read today. Paul and his companion Silas are going to get in trouble in Philippi and are put in jail. They were praying and singing there when an earthquake shook open the doors. They did not flee, lest they get the jailer in trouble. Ultimately, the magistrates decided to let Paul and Silas go free, but told them to leave that city.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />After all that drama, what did Paul and Silas do? In the words at the end of Chapter 16 in the book of Acts: </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“They went to Lydia’s home; and when they had seen and encouraged the brothers and sisters there, they departed.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">It was the community sustaining one another so they could all move forward to join together in making God’s vision for the world a reality instead of just a dream.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjiUOT9NF1ucTX48VLou1snXWtSBCMZPU1y67b5VWSCgyplgyAJzKLPdiEsJh6bOGv_XhiKddhW0E_gb_KizRtsUCH4V6aYwZLm-mv380CYJryEDG1xfzdSucIXAi4WYuTTFpc3cynW1zcaoPxXVSGp__WW-GaJrfmJ05tjP_POpD-hptAp_FLIy0Aa" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="439" data-original-width="439" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjiUOT9NF1ucTX48VLou1snXWtSBCMZPU1y67b5VWSCgyplgyAJzKLPdiEsJh6bOGv_XhiKddhW0E_gb_KizRtsUCH4V6aYwZLm-mv380CYJryEDG1xfzdSucIXAi4WYuTTFpc3cynW1zcaoPxXVSGp__WW-GaJrfmJ05tjP_POpD-hptAp_FLIy0Aa" width="240" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Valarie Kaur suggests that one of the things we need to do in the wake of all of this horror is to focus on our own bodies and the people in our circles. She writes: “If you can feel how this shooting touches trauma in yourself and in people you love, this is the time to make space for healing. Grieve and rage, wail and scream, rest and breathe. Be with people who make you feel safe. Let in softness and love into the places that ache. Together, we survive this.”<o:p></o:p></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 22.5pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Then we widen the circle. Esau McCaulley, who is an associate professor at Wheaton College, wrote in <i>The Atlantic</i> in the past few days: “What do we owe the deceased in Buffalo and all those who preceded them? It cannot be anything less than pursuing the truth and unveiling all the interconnected evils that led to their tragic end.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Or <a href="https://jimwallis.substack.com/p/replacing-the-great-replacement-theory?s=w" target="_blank">as Jim Wallis, the founder of Sojourners says, </a></span><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“A</span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">ll white churches in America, must name and condemn white supremacy and the racist white replacement theory from their Sunday pulpits as an evil and a sin.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />So let be clear at this pulpit what you already know and seek to act on in many ways - white supremacy and the racist white replacement theory are evil and a sin.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Saying that is necessary, but not enough. <br /><br />That’s why like the people gathered with Lydia and Paul at the river in Philippi, I look for a community to share both grief and action with. I need the energy that comes from that to move towards the pool that for so long eluded the paralyzed man,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">That’s why I need to hear the words of Jesus to that man - </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">"Stand up, take your mat and walk."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">That’s why together we all have a chance to find something we can do in the midst of all the evil and destruction in our world. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">It may be as simple as a prayer to keep us connected to those who are suffering. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">It may be a donation to a cause that is making a difference. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">It may be a letter either to someone we know or to a stranger who needs words of encouragement. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">It may be political action or allyship with an organization or forming a new relationship with someone whose experiences of the world are different than ours.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />Whatever we choose, today’s readings invite us to gather at the river, to enter the pool, to let the healing waters renew our spirits and move us forward in our collective effort to make this world a better place for all.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />With that in mind, let’s sing together the first three verses of Hymn #597 – "<br />Shall We Gather at the River.”</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>Phil Haslangerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03644333674118022564noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6633437725662827250.post-11503477542083755352022-04-24T08:15:00.003-07:002022-04-24T10:37:03.181-07:00Who Are We Now?<p><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><a href="https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=517738024" target="_blank">Luke 24: 13-32</a></span></p><p><a href="https://youtu.be/EKrHx9UXyAw?t=2256" target="_blank">Video link to the sermon at Community of Hope UCC.</a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7nDJh-BLwq6JZrYahuxJ31sESYZ5FjL6iyv1_jILqd4Hxz0WvpBGYes931amy2aeIbEajyWm4zSAIgDEITARsBGpDfYt993EMwcU4_xdsY738662iG43sshDNcgeL9dhP9j7YwV1ylCA8GVsOgEGAFwFYdhkIUEa7mfO--1iVyea_UBSAeVN8UXKm/s4032/AC6B9370-3776-49AB-9D00-988E0A82285C_1_201_a.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7nDJh-BLwq6JZrYahuxJ31sESYZ5FjL6iyv1_jILqd4Hxz0WvpBGYes931amy2aeIbEajyWm4zSAIgDEITARsBGpDfYt993EMwcU4_xdsY738662iG43sshDNcgeL9dhP9j7YwV1ylCA8GVsOgEGAFwFYdhkIUEa7mfO--1iVyea_UBSAeVN8UXKm/s320/AC6B9370-3776-49AB-9D00-988E0A82285C_1_201_a.jpeg" width="240" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">There’s a problem with the story of these two folks on the road to Emmaus.<o:p></o:p></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">They seemed to know where they were going. It seems as though they lived in Emmaus.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">They were grieving the death of Jesus. They had no idea what the future held. But they were heading toward this place called Emmaus. They knew where they were going. But we don’t.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">That’s the problem. Some 2,000 years later, we have no idea where this place called Emmaus was. There are a half dozen places in Israel today that folks say might have once been the village of Emmaus, but nobody knows for sure. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">That’s sort of a metaphor we can use for our own lives. These two had just been thrown into a state of confusion and disappointment and fear. They knew the road. But they did not really know where they were going.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">They told the stranger on the road about Jesus. “We had hoped he would be the one,” they said. He was “a prophet mighty in deed and word before God.” And now hate had killed him and with it, their hopes had been dashed.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Have you ever felt that way?<br /><br />There has been a pandemic that has thrown all of our lives into turmoil over the last two years. We are watching a brutal war raging in Ukraine. We are painfully aware of the racial disparities in our society. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">We are witnesses to the hatred that pervades our politics at the moment. On this Earth Day weekend, we are painfully aware that we are not moving fast enough to ameliorate the causes of climate change. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">We are wandering along a road and we do not have a clear picture of where we are going. We are not even sure of who we are now.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><br />Closer to home, I know Community of Hope UCC is going through a period of discernment, looking for your way to an uncertain place like Emmaus, defining who you are now and who you will be in the future.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">What a perfect Sunday, then, to dive into this story.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">It is a story </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">of walking <i>together</i> through grief and uncertainty, <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">of letting the <i>stories</i> of our sacred scriptures serve as a guide along the way, <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">of extending <i>hospitality</i> even in hard moments, <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">of <i>sharing a meal</i> and seeing Jesus in the breaking of the bread. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">And here’s an added bonus: the word <i>Emmaus</i> means “warm springs” – it’s a place of comfort and healing.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Have you ever come across people who look lost, sad, full of anxiety? <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLQsLEtKOqOsvVFnHsoP5pXorfI7Lf8Z5WmRvR9RC0SL9uYyYV-14cog1FQvbA1NkGHrzPCOn7efiGHASVP0BedEzy8g3bp1h1zjn0bOGo3Zvb6gwSkQsn0dQo4GzdB5ag4D3o-C16aFxGcB0KiAbWZm-XGlYCN4jPrYMEgvMHA7st3wr0G5tydo2q/s270/Jacqui.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="187" data-original-width="270" height="187" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLQsLEtKOqOsvVFnHsoP5pXorfI7Lf8Z5WmRvR9RC0SL9uYyYV-14cog1FQvbA1NkGHrzPCOn7efiGHASVP0BedEzy8g3bp1h1zjn0bOGo3Zvb6gwSkQsn0dQo4GzdB5ag4D3o-C16aFxGcB0KiAbWZm-XGlYCN4jPrYMEgvMHA7st3wr0G5tydo2q/s1600/Jacqui.jpeg" width="270" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Jacqui Lewis, pastor of Middle Collegiate Church in New York City, tells this story in her new book <i><u><a href="https://jacquijlewis.com" target="_blank">Fierce Love</a></u></i> of the night at the hospital in a strange city in Canada. She and her husband had been in a car crash and he was hospitalized with injuries. She was not allowed to stay at the hospital with him overnight and had no place to go. The terror of the accident and the anguish over his injury as well as the uncertainty about where she could spend the night left her crying in the hospital hallway.<o:p></o:p></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><br />Then, out of seemingly nowhere, a woman wearing a lightweight black coat over a flowered dress walked over to her. She asked if Jacqui was OK. She listened to Jacqui’s story of the accident, of her agony at feeling so alone right then. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Jacqui writes, “She was so present to me, listening closely, making space for my pain. When I finished speaking, she hugged me, and I remember thinking I was ruining her coat with my tears.”<br /><br />Then the woman asked Jacqui how she could help. She crossed all the barriers that might have been between them. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">In Jacqui’s words: “I was a stranger, not a Canadian but an African American stranger in a strange land. I must have been a sight to behold. Tall, skinny, wearing a large afro, likely with little pieces of glass in it. Small cuts on my face, jeans dirty from sitting on the gravel on the side of the road, Paul’s blood on my denim jacket.”<br /><br />The woman got Jacqui some food, took her to a motel, paid for her room, took her to the insurance company the next morning.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">On that road to Emmaus, Jesus came across two people – I like to think a man and a woman, although only one of them – the man – is mentioned by name. They were downcast. They were talking about the horrible death they had seen Jesus die in Jerusalem and then the confusing message they had heard that morning about Jesus rising from the dead. They did not know what to believe, what to think, what to do. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">And Jesus walked with them. He asked them what they were talking about, what was underneath their sadness and fears. <br /><br />That’s the first thing: Walking together in hard times.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Then he offered them a new way to think about what happened, giving them a fresh look at the stories in the Hebrew scriptures they surely already new.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">That’s the second thing: Reinterpreting the story in a way to help make some sense out of the chaos around them.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Then <i>they</i> took a step forward as well. “Stay with us,” they said, “because it is almost evening and the day is nearly over.” They did not take Jesus to a motel like Jacqui’s helper did, but they did extend the kind of hospitality that brought the bond between Jesus and them even closer.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">That’s the third thing: Offering hospitality to help heal the separations in our midst.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuncOGT9wkRBBEU92_NCUJ_mPjGXF7Ylf_kS3Q8TZUp8YgPT8YRLNUN76PwQOtJZh2naN650s2W6pucKPktid6DpKHB7Tq0xxewKrZspIN4AxGdrtIdpEeRoLN2nCVstCxrSwQrRsVXEX4Rj7ZvD8Du7WBVdKVcyBsTQoh1L6synhCLM18SvIQce97/s4032/AEFB3BAD-E897-4C73-8A21-858119D7CF5C_1_201_a.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuncOGT9wkRBBEU92_NCUJ_mPjGXF7Ylf_kS3Q8TZUp8YgPT8YRLNUN76PwQOtJZh2naN650s2W6pucKPktid6DpKHB7Tq0xxewKrZspIN4AxGdrtIdpEeRoLN2nCVstCxrSwQrRsVXEX4Rj7ZvD8Du7WBVdKVcyBsTQoh1L6synhCLM18SvIQce97/s320/AEFB3BAD-E897-4C73-8A21-858119D7CF5C_1_201_a.jpeg" width="240" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">And then there was the meal.</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Of course there was a meal. So often in the stories of Jesus, there is a meal.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">There’s the meal on the hillside – that grand picnic – when bread and fish get passed through the crowd and all are fed.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">There’s dinner with people you might not expect to be at the table with Jesus - with Simon the Pharisee, with Zacchaeus the tax collector. There’s dinner with his friends Mary, Martha and Lazarus. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">There’s that last dinner with his closest followers the night before he died – you know, the one where he broke bread and passed it around and told them to remember him. In one of the stories after the Resurrection, he is cooking fish on the shore and there is bread to share with his apostles.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">This night in Emmaus, however, we don’t know what else might have been on the menu. But we do know that there was bread.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Before we get to the bread, though, let’s pause for a moment for an interesting contrast. Do you remember the story Jesus told about the rich man Lazarus (not the same Lazarus who was Jesus’ friend who died and then whom Jesus brought back to life)? This also from the Gospel according to Luke <a href="https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=517738163" target="_blank">(16: 19-31)</a>. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Lazarus ate sumptuous meals at his table, but would not let the impoverished man at the gate even get scraps from the rich man’s table. Ultimately, both men died. The impoverished man went to be with Abraham, the father of the Jewish people, and the rich man landed in Hades, a place of torment. What if Lazarus had shared the food on his table with the poor man? What if he had invited the man to the table? Would the story have ended differently?<br /><br />So here we are at this home in Emmaus, three people gathered around a table. Jesus had walked with the strangers and given them a new way to think about the disorientation of their lives. The couple had invited the stranger who walked with them to have dinner with them. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Up to this point, the couple had no idea who they were with. It was just a stranger they met on the road. They could not see clearly who this was. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Then the rhythm at the table got very familiar.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><br />Jesus took bread.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><br />He blessed it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><br />He broke it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><br />He gave it to them.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">They ate together and then then their eyes were opened, writes Luke. And in an instant, Jesus was gone.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">They had been comforted by someone who took their grief seriously. Their hearts had burned as they learned a new way to understand the scriptures. They had recognized Jesus in the breaking of the bread.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Their energy was restored and they went right back out onto the road to Jerusalem and they found Jesus’ other followers there, all sharing the news that Jesus had overcome death, overcome hate, overcome evil.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">For me, this story contains some of those central ideas of how we can be followers of Jesus.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><br />We can walk with those who are suffering.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><br />We can help people find meaning by drawing on the stories that guide our community.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><br />We can welcome strangers into our midst.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">We can let the love of Jesus emerge as we break bread together.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Yes, these last few years have been hard. They have been hard on so many different levels. The things that can disorient us are still present today. It’s like we are on the road to Emmaus – a place we hope exists but can seem pretty elusive.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">People have walked this road before. They have shown us the way. Let’s head out into our lives today, in the days ahead, knowing that we can walk this road in a spirit of hope, with some grains of faith, with the assurance of God’s love as we rejoice not only in the good news of the Resurrection, but in the good news that touches our lives and that we then share with others.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">There’s a song we often sing at communion time – “Let Us Break Bread Together.” But there’s another song that reminds us that in the breaking of the bread, we get glimpses of Jesus, we get to experience God’s love. It's called </span><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">“Be Known to Us in Breaking Bread.” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Be known to us in breaking bread, but do not then depart;<br />O Savior stay with us and spread your table in our heart.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><br />Here share with us in love divine, your body and your blood;<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">That living bread, that heavenly wine, be our immortal food.</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></p>Phil Haslangerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03644333674118022564noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6633437725662827250.post-62937964481432274762022-04-03T08:30:00.002-07:002022-04-03T12:45:45.154-07:00 Dinner Guests<p><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Sermon from April 3, 2022 at Community of Hope UCC in Madison WI</span></p><p><a href="https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=515923993" style="font-family: Cambria, serif;" target="_blank">Isaiah 43:16-21</a><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif;">; </span><a href="https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=515924028" style="font-family: Cambria, serif;" target="_blank">John 12:1-8</a></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji4fBz6zaCy2675OpTCk8vFfFV_nr85Zth4s-vhjGGg20zG6-k-DYxi3BBhRTQNusZ7ZO0R8WDAlptn7azC78lbtA9LOL2BwwCJYq0e37sS8wddlqMC-6pFPqgLlEhloAxYWfyOmP93d5UAtW6RP1LFtB0smt1J078enx5ft2sWLP2ZLbAzc2ztAoQ/s960/extravagant-love.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji4fBz6zaCy2675OpTCk8vFfFV_nr85Zth4s-vhjGGg20zG6-k-DYxi3BBhRTQNusZ7ZO0R8WDAlptn7azC78lbtA9LOL2BwwCJYq0e37sS8wddlqMC-6pFPqgLlEhloAxYWfyOmP93d5UAtW6RP1LFtB0smt1J078enx5ft2sWLP2ZLbAzc2ztAoQ/s320/extravagant-love.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Welcome to our meal!</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Let’s say my name is Lazarus. We are here with my sisters, Martha and Mary. You know them. Martha is the busy one. Mary is the one who likes to listen and learn.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">We are very honored to have our friend Jesus with us today. He often stops by when he is in the area of Bethany, that village just two miles east of Jerusalem. And he is the reason I am here with you. I had died – yes, I know this is hard to understand – but then Jesus came and brought me back to life! <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">For many people, that was amazing. But for the religious leaders in Jerusalem, that just reinforced their worry that if they did not do something about this Jesus fellow getting a following among the ordinary people, then Rome would crack down on Israel. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Caiaphas, the high priest, told them, “It is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed.” So that was when they decided to have Jesus killed – decided because he restored life to me. <br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">It turns out, they also wanted to kill me, since they saw my restored life as the reason so many Jews were becoming followers of Jesus.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Anyway, back to our meal together. Yes, there was fear lingering in the background. We all knew that Jesus was a marked man at this point. But we were just glad to have him and some of his friends with us.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">One of those friends was named Judas. Perhaps you have heard of him. He ultimately would cast his lot with those who wanted Jesus killed. By this point, he was more than a little on edge.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">I’d like to invite you to join us for this meal. You could come as yourself – you’ll have a chance to actually do that later this morning in this place. Or you could imagine you are one of the people in this story.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">++++++++++++</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Well, thank you, Lazarus, for getting us into the moment. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">There are so many rich themes in this short story. And at the end, it will link back to that brief reading we heard from the prophet Isaiah. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">There is the story of what happened at the meal and what that might mean for us. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">There is the story of Judas and his … shall we say <i>perhaps</i>…his concern for the poor. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">There is the question of whether we can celebrate when there is injustice and sadness around us. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">And then we might ask, how can we live out the best of this story?<br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">One of the things that we know about Jesus is that he liked to eat. He ate with many different kinds of folks – folks that others would be reluctant to hang out with, folks that sometimes were his opponents.<s><o:p></o:p></s></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">This meal, with some of his closest friends – and with the one who would betray him – has some amazingly close links to the Passover meal Jesus would be having the next week. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">In the Gospel according to John, he uses the Greek word <i>diepnon</i> for dinner only two times – once for this meal and once for the Last Supper. <s><o:p></o:p></s></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5rsirX8xYdzvIX5iFrf5p31MELY_9rgeOawJwMVmnrFxES7ttWKAealUsoJ3CLYUqT2e70rclaEWgOyhycx_sN93i1I7duqUtAqXUWP9tcZro8uRuTq_DpqrUfZPp6LHQUksqNAOlSXSwQhypNvQ0t3kXThJ7pRxdf4aqIU3f4V7V1EvC66eOwC4D/s400/anointing-jesus-feet.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="323" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5rsirX8xYdzvIX5iFrf5p31MELY_9rgeOawJwMVmnrFxES7ttWKAealUsoJ3CLYUqT2e70rclaEWgOyhycx_sN93i1I7duqUtAqXUWP9tcZro8uRuTq_DpqrUfZPp6LHQUksqNAOlSXSwQhypNvQ0t3kXThJ7pRxdf4aqIU3f4V7V1EvC66eOwC4D/s320/anointing-jesus-feet.jpeg" width="258" /></a></div><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">The central moment in this story is when Mary takes this very expensive perfume – nard – and anoints Jesus’ feet and then wipes his feet with her hair. There’s a lot to unpack from that one act.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">First of all, it was the job of a slave to tend to a visitor’s dusty and tired feet, not one of the hosts of the meal. And women did not let down their hair – well-kept hair was a sign of a woman’s dignity. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Yet here is Mary, breaking all the rules to show her appreciation and love for Jesus. It was a lavish, intimate, sensual moment.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">This foreshadowed what Jesus would do at the Last Supper. The Gospel according to John describes the scene this way: Jesus took off his outer robe, tied a towel around himself and began to wash his followers’ feet, drying them with the towel. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">He told them, “If I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Mary had set the example of service to others. Then Jesus carried that forward. <s><o:p></o:p></s></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Now the story moves on to Judas. <br /><br />Why was Judas with Jesus for this meal anyway? We don’t know, although we do know that Jesus never shied away from breaking bread with people who might be skeptical of him.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">And when Jesus was washing the feet of his followers at that Passover meal, he washed Judas’ feet along with all the others. It was not until later that he confronted Judas about his plan to betray Jesus. And then Judas’ supposed care for the poor came up again.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">After Mary does her extravagant act of anointing Jesus’ feet, using nard that would be worth a whole year’s wages, Judas asked why the perfume was not sold and the money given to the poor. John suspects Judas’ motives, suggesting he was a thief, but Jesus defends Mary and then says two puzzling things.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />One is that she might keep some of the nard for the day of his burial. Remember, the specter of Jesus’ execution hung over this meal. She was in effect anointing him before his death even though that would normally happen after someone died.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">But the bigger puzzle is around these words of Jesus: “You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”<br /><br />Does that mean we are not supposed to care about the poor? That they should take care of themselves, maybe pull themselves up by their bootstraps?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Nope. No way.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">This is really an allusion to the book of Deuteronomy in the Torah. Chapter 15 gives instructions for the forgiveness of all debts every seventh year. It was an ancient way to close the wealth gap. And it acknowledges that ending poverty is not easy, even with that system of generous economic forgiveness. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">So Deuteronomy adds these words: “Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, ‘Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land.’ ”<br /><br />In terms we tend to use these days, the Jewish tradition that Jesus was familiar with called for both justice <i>and </i>charity.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">But in this story, Jesus also recognizes that even in the midst of threats, fears, injustice, worry, there can still be time to celebrate. Let me take a brief detour to a contemporary story about this. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Scott Girard in a reporter for the Cap Times. Six years ago, his brother died after a long battle with cancer. That day of March 20, 2016, he had walked with his family as they escorted his brother’s body out of Hospice. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">That evening, he and his family were watching the Badger men’s basketball team in the playoffs. The game was tied and time was running out when Brian Koenig hit a three-point shot at the buzzer, sending the Badgers to the Sweet Sixteen.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><a href="https://medium.com/@sgirard9/trusting-joy-8c3ad3f167b2" style="color: #954f72;">Scott wrote about that moment a year later</a>: “I ran across the living room — having already been standing in nervousness at the moment, of course — to hug-tackle my sister on the couch in celebration before returning to the other couch to do the same to my girlfriend.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">After the frenzy of about 15 seconds, I sat back down on the couch and a feeling of guilt swept over me.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />He thought about his brother’s death only hours before. He asked: “How could I have even been smiling on this day, I thought, let alone jumping for joy and cheering?”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">And he concluded with the lesson he drew over time from that moment: “There is never anything wrong with joy, even in the darkest moments. It’s probably more important than ever in those times to find a reason to smile, if only briefly.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">That sounded to me like what Jesus was telling Judas – and perhaps the rest of us. Yes, care for those in need. There will always be those in need. But also celebrate those moments when God’s presence is there in a smile or a laugh or a hug – or in expensive perfume being poured on your aching feet.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWb1g6N2spqA3r-ZTdFwxiLGL7t7VFIyAUCSCd7sYcpXGfcoo9m353aRgAD6tLtBEdLiova8Z-IuN5Lj0QaiQLZVt811g24IqjDk6P91es6Kx0m6Nxi04xInOhmU2tL4QnS1RR9R2XvtOxD4Qm3HssOiFrHl2v4EgNg76KoS3tTMjITrXA0Z8kz6fY/s4606/Orange%20supper.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3257" data-original-width="4606" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWb1g6N2spqA3r-ZTdFwxiLGL7t7VFIyAUCSCd7sYcpXGfcoo9m353aRgAD6tLtBEdLiova8Z-IuN5Lj0QaiQLZVt811g24IqjDk6P91es6Kx0m6Nxi04xInOhmU2tL4QnS1RR9R2XvtOxD4Qm3HssOiFrHl2v4EgNg76KoS3tTMjITrXA0Z8kz6fY/s320/Orange%20supper.jpeg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Then there’s Judas at the Last Supper.<o:p></o:p></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">At that Passover meal, when Jesus confronted Judas about the impending betrayal, he told him quietly, “Do quickly what you are going to do.” The rest did not understand what he had said and some thought Jesus had told Judas to go out and give something to the poor. Funny how that comes around again.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">What, then, might we take from this meal we have been sharing with Lazarus and Martha and Mary and Jesus and Judas – and maybe others?<br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Remember the questions about Mary anointing Jesus’ feet, drying them with her hair, then Jesus washing the feet of his followers? They did not stand on their status. They took a step down to raise the status of another.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">How do we live out this call to service, growing out of our commitment to be followers of Jesus? How do we do that in ways that might diminish rather than elevate our own status?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">One of the things I have learned in the past few years is how those of us who have some degree of privilege in our lives, some status in our community, some comfort in our position in society need to be willing to step back a bit, to listen to the people who are on the margins, to not just give them a place at the table – be it a dinner table or a boardroom table – but to create space for them to set the table, to lead the planning. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">The technical term for that, I believe, is being an ally. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">It sounds simple. It’s not. We all have a lot of experience and knowledge and resources we’d like to bring to bear. And those all matter. So does humility. So does being willing to get down on our knees, to let down our hair, to hold the towel.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Another takeaway for me is that message of seeking both charity and justice as we approach the economic disparities in our society. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Jesus was not proclaiming that poverty is a permanent state of being. He was drawing on that rich Jewish tradition of jubilee – of forgiving debts, of giving up a bit of what we think is rightfully ours – in order to have a more equitable society. That’s part of our challenge. And then we still need to reach out to those in need.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Let’s loop back to that first reading from Isaiah. The Jewish people are nearing the end of their time in exile in Babylon. Through Isaiah, God tells them not to get stuck considering the things of old because God is about to do a new thing.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">That’s part of what was happening at that dinner. Judas was clinging to the things of the past. Mary saw what new things God was doing through Jesus, new things that involved both life and death but that were filled with rivers in the desert, with a way through the wilderness.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Wherever we are in our lives right now, wherever we see the world in the midst of all the hard things around us, ultimately our story is a story of hope, that God will be doing new things through what each of us do.</span></p>Phil Haslangerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03644333674118022564noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6633437725662827250.post-70536221481587712032022-03-20T08:00:00.002-07:002022-03-20T10:51:41.514-07:00 The (hopeful) barren fig tree<p><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Texts: <a href="https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=514719780" target="_blank">Isaiah 55: 1-9</a>; <a href="https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=514719812" target="_blank">Luke 13: 1-9</a></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><i><span style="font-size: medium;">Sermon at Congregational United Church of Christ in Mineral Point, Wis.</span></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Cambria, serif; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj5cH8vKY3SMqz4LZ-yy1gyB2PO9NliT0IJBzppYJY7HCRqxfpFuQf9VkVH--pZeeh1zZOFUJxPj-mRzS9AQ5fmb58X6GPq2gXgpss0cHTsgM3qFNf9HA0haMz-0fBNRjqIedD2GwwSzYhrVrnFWyqcb87H3qrzyAgwmSz9MSDoTK1uI1QqPCrn-VHP=s768" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="586" data-original-width="768" height="244" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj5cH8vKY3SMqz4LZ-yy1gyB2PO9NliT0IJBzppYJY7HCRqxfpFuQf9VkVH--pZeeh1zZOFUJxPj-mRzS9AQ5fmb58X6GPq2gXgpss0cHTsgM3qFNf9HA0haMz-0fBNRjqIedD2GwwSzYhrVrnFWyqcb87H3qrzyAgwmSz9MSDoTK1uI1QqPCrn-VHP=s320" width="320" /></span></a></div><div><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 18.66666603088379px;">The Jewish prophet Isaiah invites us to come to the water, to listen that we might live.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">The Jewish rabbi we call Jesus tells a story about a fig tree in desperate need of water and other nourishment to live.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">And what about us? What does the story of the barren fig tree have to say to us? <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Fig trees are probably not our biggest concern these days. <br />There’s the lingering pandemic. <br />There’s inflation – especially if you need to put gas in your car. <br />There’s that war in Ukraine.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">And then there’s our own nagging sense that sometimes we are like the fig tree – not quite thriving, maybe taking up space where we have no use. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Let’s see if we can make some sense out of these stories that people have grappled with across the centuries. Let’s see if they can offer us hope in the midst of our pretty tumultuous world.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">The easy one is the reading from Isaiah. The Jewish people have been in exile, forced away from their homeland by a conquering army. You might think of them like the more than three million Ukrainians who have fled from their nation in the last few weeks. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />Isaiah tells his people – and the people of our day – “You’ll summon nations you’ve never heard of, and nations who’ve never heard of you will come running to you because of me, your God, who has honored you.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />God is with you, even in your troubles, Isaiah says. People will arrive to help. So come to the waters, take the bread and wine and milk being offered to you, seek the Lord.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">OK – I can understand all that. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />But then along comes Jesus talking about Galileans being murdered, workers being killed in an accident, a fig tree not producing any figs – and then leaving us all in suspense about whether the fig tree will live or die.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">That’s harder to understand. But I think in the midst of it all, there is a message of hope for each one of us. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">It’s not just that God will give us another chance like the owner of the vineyard did for the tree. It’s that we have value to God on our good days and on our bad days. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">It’s that for all the troubles around us – whether in the world or in our own lives – there’s always a chance for growth. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">There’s the message that we are worthy and that God loves us, just as God loved the people in exile in Isaiah’s time, just as God loves the refugees in our time, just as God loves each one of us here this morning.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">That story that Jesus tells at the beginning of the Gospel reading is a bit grisly: “Some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">What was that about?<br /><br />We don’t know for sure. That story appears nowhere else in the Bible or in any ancient histories. It suggests that the Romans attacked some Jews from the northern area called Galilee – Jesus’ home area – in the Temple while they were there to offer sacrifices and their blood flowed right into what they were offering as sacrifices. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">It’s a vivid, horrific image of the brutality of Rome – not unlike the vivid, horrific images we are seeing right now out of Ukraine and that we have seen from so many other lands over the years – from Iraq, from Rwanda, from Yemen, from Syria, from Ethiopia, from Vietnam. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Then there is the tower that collapsed, killing the workers. The common wisdom was that people who died in these situations must have been sinners who God was punishing. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">No way, says Jesus. Each one of us has shortcomings in our lives. God does not strike us down for those. Maybe the tower collapsed because of careless oversight by those who wanted it built. Industrial accidents are not just a new phenomenon.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">But then we get to the fig tree.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Why a fig tree?<br /><br />Well, it was an extraordinarily common tree in Jesus’ time, in this land of Israel. It was one of the first plants cultivated by humans, shaping the world of agriculture nearly 1,000 years before the planting of things like wheat and rye.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">It makes other appearances in the Bible. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />In the beautiful love poem known as the Song of Songs, the man says to the woman, “The green fig forms on the fig tree, the vines in blossom give off fragrance. Arise, my darling, my fair one, come away!”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">The prophet Micah wrote: “Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more; but they shall all sit under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">So you can see why there were high expectations for the fig tree in Jesus’ story. And yet, it was barren. There was no fruit. It was taking up valuable space in the owner’s vineyard. Clearly, the wisest thing to do would be to cut it down.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“Wait!” says the gardener. “Give it another year.”<br /><br />But this is not just a wait-and-see proposition. The gardener says he will tend the tree, mulch it, put manure around it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Here’s the thing. Fig trees do well in dry climates. That’s because they have roots that go deep in search of water. When they are thirsty, they need that water that Isaiah was writing about. They need the nutrients that come from rich manure. If you drive through Wisconsin farmland, you know the richness of that manure.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">And then Jesus leaves us wondering. What happened? Did the fig tree bear fruit? Did it fail again? Did the owner order it cut down – this time for real?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />How would you write the end of this story?<br /><br />How would you like your own story to go?<br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Let’s think first of the barren fig tree representing all those barren spots in our world, those places that lack love and care, those places where swords have not been put down, but where rockets have replaced swords, where children are killed while sheltering in a theater, where apartments are bombed, where soldiers and tanks do battle with one another, creating their own rivers of blood as people sacrifice their lives.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Let’s think of the barren fig tree as the emptiness families feel when a loved one is maimed or killed in the workplace, where not enough care was given to safety, where carelessness led to tragedy.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Let’s think of the barren fig tree as that part of our lives where we did not live up to our own expectations, to the expectations of others, to the expectations of God.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">It’s not hard to be tempted to give up on all of those situations. How could anything good come out of this? Maybe we should just give up on the prospects of peace, on the prospects of justice in the workplace, on the prospects of our own worth.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Enter the gardener.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Let’s do a fast-forward here. I know we are in Lent. We are only half way to Easter. But remember this story from Easter morning. <br /><br />Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb where Jesus was buried and in the Gospel according to John, we find her encountering someone she assumes is the gardener. It turns out, the “gardener” is Jesus.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">So in this parable from the Gospel according to Luke, it is the gardener who offers the path forward for the fig tree, for those caught in barren circumstances, for each of us, actually,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">What can we do to nurture each other’s lives? <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">What nutrients can we provide to bring life in the midst of hopelessness?<br /><br />On its own, the tree probably would not bear fruit. It would be disposed of.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">But with help, the tree has hope.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />With each other, we have hope.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />Maybe it begins with recognizing that even in those moments when we feel worthless like the barren fig tree, in God’s sight, we have value, we have potential.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Maybe it begins with recognizing that in all those barren places in our world – in those war zones, in those places trapped by exploitation, in those places where climate change seems to be creating more barrenness than we thought possible – in all those places, when we join together, we can bring hope, we can bring life.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Right now I am reading a book called <i><a href="https://jacquijlewis.com/fierce-love/" target="_blank">Fierce Love</a></i> by Jacqui Lewis that focuses on how we first need to love ourselves, then love those we are in relationship with and then love our world. Remember those words from the Hebrew scriptures that Jesus made a hallmark of his teaching? “Love your neighbor as yourself.”<br /><br />Jacqui Lewis draws on a quote from that great font of theological wisdom – actress Lucille Ball of <i>I Love Lucy</i> fame. “Love yourself first and everything else falls in line.”<br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Jacqui Lewis calls loving ourselves “the fuel in the tank of our souls.” It’s what enables us to love others and to make the world a better place. And we need others to help us fill our tanks, others who like the gardener with the fig tree will let us know that we are seen and we are known and we are loved. And then we need to do that for those around us.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Come to the water!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Come and nourish yourself with bread and wine!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Listen so that you may live!<br /><br />And with that life, savor your value, knowing that just like that fig tree, that you have value beyond anything you may do, that there is hope that can always blossom forth, even when we least expect it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">For that, we can say Thanks be to God!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />For that, we can say Amen!<o:p></o:p></span></p></div>Phil Haslangerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03644333674118022564noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6633437725662827250.post-30032457299193579562021-11-20T12:45:00.008-08:002021-11-21T15:13:18.015-08:00Wisconsin Newspaper Association Hall of Fame speech<p><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://youtu.be/96twe4m383c?t=2375" target="_blank">There is an introductory video linked here, followed by Katy Culver's introduction of me and then my speech.</a> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;">(This is linked out of the longer video of the whole ceremony. <a href="https://wnanews.com/2021/11/21/wisconsin-newspaper-hall-of-fame-2021/" target="_blank">A story about the whole evening is here.</a>)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_3Xhdg0ylR-5qPQLjK82w6vjFOBlsLaBpZG6KQQZPmvmbxObpfGVSI5k8efB6s8E7479FxweSLHhtR1hrOolaMF8uZ8XG6r-BxNbb-4v_McPBsXeZWqqupl8O7XjUZA5e9Yl8SIpxVCM/s881/FB066A2C-CF79-4A09-AB9A-DF6BF346B66B_1_201_a.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="851" data-original-width="881" height="309" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_3Xhdg0ylR-5qPQLjK82w6vjFOBlsLaBpZG6KQQZPmvmbxObpfGVSI5k8efB6s8E7479FxweSLHhtR1hrOolaMF8uZ8XG6r-BxNbb-4v_McPBsXeZWqqupl8O7XjUZA5e9Yl8SIpxVCM/s320/FB066A2C-CF79-4A09-AB9A-DF6BF346B66B_1_201_a.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Thanks to Katy Culver for nominating me.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Thanks to Paul Fanlund – editor and publisher of the Cap Times and Cap Times associate editor John Nichols - one of the best hires I ever made - for supporting my nomination.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;"><br />Thanks to my best beloved, Ellen Reuter. She grew up with <i>The Capital Times</i> in her home, cheered me on, put up with the Barneveld tornado in 1984 blowing me out of our apartment for the last month of her pregnancy with son Michael. She thought she was marrying Clark Kent and she wound up being a minister’s wife.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;">And thanks to the WNA for adding me not only in a distinguished roster of Wisconsin journalists – including Elliott Maraniss, the man who hired me – and Dave Zweifel – who was my immediate boss throughout my career - but also including me with the class of 2021.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuY2PqctjzXRydpAYx1b1R6utrj6g36dJrYnwtYGpd58fciNqq6K8_fccX0rF-7d5qeyCevZVVqyZeE4mlAZGYGJz8R3DopEMETdz8Ev_8ONK7oUr4NtzGKk4YACTXVU_31pb8sbvTQNY/s778/Cardinal.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="468" data-original-width="778" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuY2PqctjzXRydpAYx1b1R6utrj6g36dJrYnwtYGpd58fciNqq6K8_fccX0rF-7d5qeyCevZVVqyZeE4mlAZGYGJz8R3DopEMETdz8Ev_8ONK7oUr4NtzGKk4YACTXVU_31pb8sbvTQNY/w320-h192/Cardinal.jpeg" width="320" /></span></a></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">When I told friend I would be inducted into the Hall of Fame, he asked me If this meant my rookie card would increase in value. <i><br /><br /></i><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Not sure a press card ever has a lot of value, but here it is – my rookie card from The Daily Cardinal in 1971/72. Fifty years ago, I never would have imagined I’d be standing here tonight joining some of Wisconsin’s stellar journalists in this place. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;">I had a sort of awkward beginning in my first year at the Cap Times. Yes, I got to cover Paul Soglin’s first election as mayor. But later in the year, in November, Elliott took me along to interview Gov. Pat Lucey on 10<sup>th</sup> anniversary of President Kennedy’s assassination. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;">Lucey had been very close to the Kennedy’s and he told some good stories. I dutifully recorded them on my tape recorder and then discovered, to my horror back in the newsroom, that the tape sounded like I had just interviewed Donald Duck. Fortunately, I also had taken notes and quickly constructed a story – with lots of paraphrases.<br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;">All of us have gone through lots of technological change over the past half-century. When I was in journalism school, I had a chance to learn how to use one of the first cathode ray tube word processors. That prepared me for stating to use them in 1975 at the Cap Times. (By the way, Katy, I also learned lots of other things in J-school as well.)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF_N_SH9aG6OttlMV0Y2R22CfJfT1Z7E0PjvXlg-_rVSSU2BW3mgzWGcVuE4lgFPb64gQAmU8oHoUf4-8VkgmQ3Uru840RVNWHrxDisEp54xcgoGg8gimAXm7_OE9XdPVz80OoHrZDwxw/s1280/IMG_8460.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="652" data-original-width="1280" height="102" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF_N_SH9aG6OttlMV0Y2R22CfJfT1Z7E0PjvXlg-_rVSSU2BW3mgzWGcVuE4lgFPb64gQAmU8oHoUf4-8VkgmQ3Uru840RVNWHrxDisEp54xcgoGg8gimAXm7_OE9XdPVz80OoHrZDwxw/w200-h102/IMG_8460.jpeg" width="200" /></span></a></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Twenty years later in 1995, I helped create this new thing called a web site for the Cap Times. I was so proud of that, this became my personalized license plate – TCT CYBR. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">I am someone who is really comfortable doing things online, but I still love holding a newspaper in my hands. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;">One of the things I took great pleasure in at the Cap Times is going back to the press room and watching the press start up, increasing it pace like a space launch.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;">And then once, I got to have that classic moment of saying “stop the presses.” It was on March 30 1981 when President Reagan was shot. I was the city editor at the time and our final edition has just gone to press and the presses had just started rolling when the news came in. I asked Dave Zweifel, who was then managing editor, if we should stop the press. He said yes, so I picked up the phone, called the press room, and said, “Stop the presses, The president has just been shot.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;">One other press room story – just a secret among us here. It was fun to go to the lower level of the press and ride on the skateboard-like carts for the rolls of newsprint.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZW8zZf6Yc_B5zb894f2TZy5cTTZto2RqysTa0YdvWN741TbZpPfYth4zoYZxI1Nt4lsBmQofZ4Tmo15HmpqIDQtNWRRrcwOSAkYZo_2Khb9-XPh12aCqpYWZ1jpWteKtYvMGhhFzk870/s1280/IMG_8679.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="992" data-original-width="1280" height="155" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZW8zZf6Yc_B5zb894f2TZy5cTTZto2RqysTa0YdvWN741TbZpPfYth4zoYZxI1Nt4lsBmQofZ4Tmo15HmpqIDQtNWRRrcwOSAkYZo_2Khb9-XPh12aCqpYWZ1jpWteKtYvMGhhFzk870/w200-h155/IMG_8679.jpeg" width="200" /></span></a></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">As you well know, there is more to this business than technology and fun with the presses. We are in an era when we get labeled “Enemies of the people.” So sometimes I wear this tee-shirt with pride: “Journalism matters - #nottheenemy.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Last month, the Nobel Peace Prize went to two journalists – one from Russia the other from the Philippines. This is the first time a journalist has been so honored since 1935 and only the third time in the history of the Nobel prizes.<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;">One of those winners is the amazing Maria Ressa from the Philippines. <a href="https://time.com/6105407/maria-ressa-nobel-prize-interview/" style="color: #954f72;">She said this to TIME magazine</a> in October when they interviewed her after the prize was announced:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">“It is a battle for facts. And we’re at the front line, and it has gotten far more dangerous than it has been in the past. I think that also shows the role of the journalists in fixing this and fixing the mess that we’re in right now… W</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cambria, serif; letter-spacing: 0.4pt;">ithout facts, you can’t have truth. Without truth, you can’t have trust. How can you have democracy without that? This is the fabric that holds us together.”</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cambria, serif; letter-spacing: 0.4pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0.4pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cambria, serif; letter-spacing: 0.4pt;">That’s one of the biggest challenges all of us in the world of journalism face right now. But it is not the only one. </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;">You all know the economic perils in the news business. You know about the basic skepticism of many readers over the years, in part because of the way politicians sow the seeds of that distrust, but also in part because we can fall short of what we hope to be. One of the strengths of good journalism, though, is that when we fall short, we publicly correct our mistakes.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;">But let me offer a few thoughts on why I have hope in the future of journalism as it evolves to meet the challenges of a new era.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;"><br />Let’s start with a documentary that was on PBS Wisconsin this past Monday. It was called simply <i>Storm Lake</i> and it was about the community newspaper in that northwest Iowa community. It received recognition when the editor, Art Cullen, won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing in 2017. While its editorials are powerful – something I surely appreciate – it also is a window into life in the community while, as Maria Ressa says, getting at the facts that lead to the truth that leads to trust and the undergirding of democracy.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;"><br />We see that here tonight in the work over the decades of the <i>Edgerton Reporter</i>, where Harland and Helen Everson spent decades providing a voice and a watchdog for their community – a role their daughter Diane maintains so well to this day. And while I did not know Bill Hale and his work in southwest Wisconsin, he surely stands in that tradition as well.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;">There are newspapers all across the nation that are finding ways to meet the challenges of our times. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;">And one of those big challenges is dealing with the increasing racial and ethnic diversity of our nation and coming to terms with both the good and the bad of our past. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;"><br />I am so glad to be in this class of honorees with J. Anthony Josey. You’ll hear more about him in a few minutes, but the fact that in 1916 – the year before The Capital Times was founded – he helped start Madison’s first black-run newspaper is so impressive. That he sustained it along with the one he started in Milwaukee for a quarter of a century is an amazing story.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;">I am proud that the early editions of the Cap Times recognized his important role in our community, that the Cap Times did not shy away from taking on the Ku Klux Klan here in the 1920s, and that it stood with the Civil Rights efforts of the 1950s and 1960s and that today it has put special emphasis on covering the diverse communities and hard issues of racial justice in Madison. <br /><br />And I am glad that during my three decades at the Cap Times, I had a chance to continue that tradition of seeking racial justice in our community and, in fits and starts, trying to improve our coverage of that growing diversity in the Madison area.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;"><br />But of course it was in fits and starts.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;">There was the time I was writing in the spring of 1981 about a local march responding to the murder of 20 Black children in Atlanta. I ended quoted someone I described as “Bowling <u>Green</u>, president of the Madison NAACP.” <br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;">When Bolling <u>Smith</u> called me the next day, he was not amused by my error – or by my ignorance of the leadership of the local black community. So then there was one of those public corrections of an error.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJsBoOEEO9SB6GWqjfKnGGKtjvtWHDR2Xs4wf7ZVE7_pBnvQ-mRpp32LDd8aoSUwl0FPAStPSWq0q4t9N9UB8k-kVwh6IS_TQu13Y4m6y2yZ47XC-5MZnS2P3oG8hoW0GAnFPX-ab8cmM/s642/Bolling+Smith.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="138" data-original-width="642" height="69" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJsBoOEEO9SB6GWqjfKnGGKtjvtWHDR2Xs4wf7ZVE7_pBnvQ-mRpp32LDd8aoSUwl0FPAStPSWq0q4t9N9UB8k-kVwh6IS_TQu13Y4m6y2yZ47XC-5MZnS2P3oG8hoW0GAnFPX-ab8cmM/s320/Bolling+Smith.png" width="320" /></span></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;">I learned not only about double checking names, but also about the need to spend more time in the Black community getting to know people.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;"><br />And then on October 3, 1995, I learned how out of touch I was with some of the undercurrents of feeling among Black residents in our community and our nation. That was the day O.J. Simpson was acquitted of murdering his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. Like most white folks, I was shocked at the verdict.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;">But when the verdict was announced on the TV in our newsroom, one of our copy-editors, a stellar Black journalist named Linda Lockhart, stood up, raised her arms and cheered. I was stunned. And then I began to ask why our perceptions were so different.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;">It seems to me that is a vital characteristic of what journalism needs to do today – to seek out why people’s perspectives are so different. That does not mean ignoring facts or challenging deliberate attempts to mislead the public. But it does mean delving into the ways people’s views of the world are shaped and using the power we have to help provide places where in constructive ways, people can see across the barriers that separate us.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;">There are other signs of hope I see for our profession. I have had a chance to get to know some of the students working with the Center for Journalism Ethics and am continually impressed by the passion and dedication they bring to their work. And the <a href="https://ethics.journalism.wisc.edu/" style="color: #954f72;">Center for Journalism Ethics</a> itself is helping journalists all across the nation grapple with some the tough dilemmas in our world today.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;">I am hearted by some of the new models for local journalism that emerged. There is the creativity of the Cap Times in adapting over the last decade by becoming primarily a digital news source and then bringing the community together in variety of ways to explore current issues. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;">There are newspapers in Little Rock, Arkansas and Chattanooga, Tenn. that are <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2021/11/07/media-newspapers-print-ipad-little-rock/" style="color: #954f72;">giving subscribers iPads</a> – and training on how to use them – to replace the printed paper during the week. The <i>Salt Lake City Tribune</i> has switched to a non-profit status. The <i>Philadelphia Inquirer, </i>like the<i> Cap Times,</i> is owned by a foundation.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;">And speaking of the <i>Inquirer</i>, here’s another sign of hope for me. My daughter, Julia, just started working for them as their lead newsroom data analyst. Her husband, Justin Myers, is a data editor for the Associated Press. They are both on the leading edge of one of the ways journalism is changing by delving into how data can enhance stories and engage readers. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;">Given my dual status as journalist and preacher, I’d like to end with the recent words of one of the world’s current great spiritual leaders – Pope Francis. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWsURfHu5vlduhx1lKjFGqAjoAPA1qceUd8lYK8JQyAGUc0fc_TxKH801LgrLS0H2zLKrcgOpWPQinnXC-RbupEDCzCik0RHr5B7uTk4au09ZHkd9NbFoBl-6wzI3V4lO6GEFU90wefWE/s304/POPE-POOR-ASSISI-24_1636816061877_1636816142284.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="243" data-original-width="304" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWsURfHu5vlduhx1lKjFGqAjoAPA1qceUd8lYK8JQyAGUc0fc_TxKH801LgrLS0H2zLKrcgOpWPQinnXC-RbupEDCzCik0RHr5B7uTk4au09ZHkd9NbFoBl-6wzI3V4lO6GEFU90wefWE/w200-h160/POPE-POOR-ASSISI-24_1636816061877_1636816142284.jpeg" width="200" /></span></a></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Just last week, <a href="about://"><span style="color: #954f72;">he was honoring two long-time journalists who had covered the Vatican across several decades.</span></a> Now, like all public figures, Pope Francis had faced harsh news coverage at time. Would that others might have this attitude:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">“I also thank you for what you tell us about what goes wrong in the Church, for helping us not to sweep it under the carpet, and for the voice you have given to the victims of abuse: thank you for this.”</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">But his words I’d like to leave you with are about what he called our mission as journalists to work <span style="background-color: white;">“so that the evil in the world may be healed.” Our mission, he said, “is to explain the world, to make it less obscure, to make those who live in it less afraid of it and look at others with greater awareness, and also with more confidence.”</span><o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;">I am so honored and grateful to be part of a group this evening – and part of a roster of previous Hall of Famers – who have done the work of listening, investigating and reporting to make our communities better places for all.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;"><br />Thank you so very much.</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 4.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"> </span></p></div>Phil Haslangerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03644333674118022564noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6633437725662827250.post-84048031646004963912021-10-31T08:30:00.001-07:002021-10-31T08:30:00.180-07:00Walking with God Toward Freedom<div class="separator"><p class="MsoNormal" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span><img border="0" data-original-height="314" data-original-width="460" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw2W74EDGzvYpY53XyKfMvrLScdjUL1DxlP7Sd5lPGTH3gT8cRqBnHDyZNE22bN52TwPObZGn16ayeMcwTDQXcfaAkMhpQZ3pkdGn4USG9dSpMqTdfVM8JkNiY5bqAcyK0dLaNZqae1h4/w342-h233/DB540A90-1541-4EF9-B2B8-2E5A6A1E7120_4_5005_c.jpeg" width="342" /></p></div><div class="separator"><p class="MsoNormal" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0in;"><br /></p></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">This story (<a href="https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=502639796" target="_blank">Exodus 14: 19-31</a>) of the Israelites fleeing to freedom through the parted waters of the Red Sea is one of the most familiar stories in our scriptures.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">There are two big themes here.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">God will rescue you </span></span><span style="font-family: times; font-size: 14pt;">and </span><span style="font-family: times; font-size: 14pt;">God will do in your enemies. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">These days, the idea that God will do in our enemies – pick your favorite enemy because there are so many to choose from – can seem awfully attractive. And there are no shortage of stories in the early parts of the Bible of God smiting enemies. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">Here’s one of the fascinating things about the Bible. Over time, the way the Jewish people and then the early Christian community came to know God kept changing. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">Yes, in the early days of the Jewish people, they often looked to God not only to bring them to safety but also to do in their enemies.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">This was a common theme among many ancient religions, but the Jewish people put an interesting twist on it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">In most of the other religions, the gods brought destruction on those who threatened the powerful. In the Jewish stories, God is always on the side of the weak and the vulnerable. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">But then in the later books of the Bible, the Jewish and then the Christian understanding of how God used divine power shifted. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">When the leaders of the Jewish people were taken into exile in Babylon, their eventual freedom came not because God killed off their captors but because Cyrus, the king of Persia, came to respect the variety of religious traditions in the lands he ruled and let the Jewish exiles go back home to Jerusalem. The people were rescued by tolerance, not by destruction.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">You remember the story of Jonah? We know him best because he was swallowed by a whale, right? But the essence of that story is that God wanted to Jonah to go to the city of Nineveh and encourage people to repent. Jonah wanted God to just do them in. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">Nothing doing, says God. You can help them be saved, he told the reluctant Jonah. And so there was this wild ride inside the whale. Salvation, not destruction.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br />And then there is Jesus. Remember, he talked about loving our enemies, which seems like a pretty hard concept. When Peter cut off the ear of one of the people coming to capture Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus healed the man’s ear. As he was dying on the cross, Jesus asked forgiveness for those who were executing him. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">The portrayal of God as the hit man had changed to the image of God as the source of love.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">How we perceive God can matter in how we behave. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">If we think that God is there to get rid of our enemies, then it is way too easy for us to figure we can give God a hand and smite them if God seems too slowing in getting to it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">If we think that God is the source of love, then that can guide us in how we treat others – even those others we view as our enemies.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">Let’s keep that in mind as we explore this story of the Israelites’ journey to freedom.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">It’s a story that has lots of drama, of course. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">It’s a story that has particular resonance in the African-American community, where the journey from slavery to freedom sustained their hopes during the 250 years they were enslaved in this country and in the years afterwards as the struggle for equality continues.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">It’s a story that I think can have resonance in our own lives as well, as we seek to go through the rough waters and threatening moments of each day. It’s a story that reminds us that God is with us in the midst of everything we experience, both good and bad.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">For the people captured in Africa and then sold into slavery in this country and for their descendants born into slavery, the Jewish story of escaping from 400 years of slavery in Egypt continually offered hope. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdvCVpksg_9WtEJPgwwjDFikoBaCz5oTi6K1N8hy41HSlXLM53jwh2PYch3EWXrXHyf4s_I5FXqfL7DdJ6APTsiclrsBl4ts5jNOIRdjEO0iQ9x51kwNnEuNrrw1sGLUB2S6pXs9IgoNE/s492/tubman_i1.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="492" data-original-width="400" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdvCVpksg_9WtEJPgwwjDFikoBaCz5oTi6K1N8hy41HSlXLM53jwh2PYch3EWXrXHyf4s_I5FXqfL7DdJ6APTsiclrsBl4ts5jNOIRdjEO0iQ9x51kwNnEuNrrw1sGLUB2S6pXs9IgoNE/s320/tubman_i1.jpeg" width="260" /></a></span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">You may know a bit about Harriet Tubman, the woman who led some 300 slaves to freedom through what was called the Underground Railroad. This often involved walking through river water to hide their scent from the dogs their pursuers were using. It was as if the waters were parting to lead them to freedom.<o:p></o:p></span></p><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">For us in Wisconsin, the Underground Railroad is very much a part of our history. There still is <a href="https://www.travelwisconsin.com/architecture/milton-house-museum-203873" target="_blank">a place in Milton</a> – near Janesville – that served as a stop on the Underground Railroad. There was a lot of action in the Racine and Milwaukee areas. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">Between 1842 and 1865, the <a href="https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Article/CS566" target="_blank">Wisconsin Historical Society</a> estimates that at least 100 formerly enslaved people found freedom on a journey that passed through Wisconsin.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">And sometimes those fleeing slavery in the midst of great peril must have felt like the Israelites once they realized Pharaoh and his army were pursuing them. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">Just before the section from scripture we heard today, the Israelites complained to Moses, “What have you done to us, bringing us out of Egypt? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">Harriet Tubman is sometimes called the Moses of her people for her efforts to lead them to freedom against great odds. There were times she surely echoed the words of Moses to the frightened followers: “Do not be afraid, stand firm and see the deliverance the Lord will accomplish for you today.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">There’s another parallel here for the African Americans as the Civil War ended and they rejoiced in their new-found freedom. In the story from Exodus, after Pharaoh freed the Israelite slaves, he had second thoughts and began to pursue them, which took us up to the point of today’s reading. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br />The same thing happened to the former enslaved people in our country in the century after the Civil War. The joy of freedom gave way to economic exploitation, segregation, lynchings. And while the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s knocked down many of the legal barriers to freedom, we are still struggling with the deep aftereffects of slavery in our nation.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">The Exodus story touches lives in so many ways. I did not grow up in slavery nor have I faced the kind of discrimination and discouragement so many African Americans have faced. Yet I know there are times I feel as though I am facing a wall of water and that I am being pursued by an army of adversities that I could not outrun.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br />I’ll bet there are other folks here who have felt the same way, that maybe still feel the same way. There’s the disruption of illness, the grief of death, the worry about work and income, the anguish of divided families, the despair that has grown with political polarization.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">Whatever army of misfortune is chasing me and you, I think there are glimmers of hope for us within this story of the Exodus. <br /><br />Think of the power of water in this story and in our life as followers of Jesus.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">We sang at the beginning of our service today about the power of water in the hymn “Crashing Waters at Creation.” We sang how:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /><i>Parting water, stood and trembled<o:p></o:p></i></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">As the captives pass on the through<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">Washing off the chains of bondage<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">Channel to a life made new<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">In our baptisms, we had an image of water taking us through a channel from an old life into a new life.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">When Jesus met the woman at the well, he offered her the water of new life.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">Think of the water of the Red Sea as God’s grace surrounding people seeking a new life, closing on the old life they were leaving behind.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSQ4OX8nCcyCdB8r_t7EjuNg6N29c0xcTe8WJC-I-GXYGfhWOPUuYmG__-nOu4Go2fse2jSwS7Gf2XhXlBDfWyTj2VMeOTnrC3Yua-T6boYA-0uuJfce8eDEJ79xC-nBb7gs1cwinTjJs/s238/DB540A90-1541-4EF9-B2B8-2E5A6A1E7120_4_5005_c.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="236" data-original-width="238" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSQ4OX8nCcyCdB8r_t7EjuNg6N29c0xcTe8WJC-I-GXYGfhWOPUuYmG__-nOu4Go2fse2jSwS7Gf2XhXlBDfWyTj2VMeOTnrC3Yua-T6boYA-0uuJfce8eDEJ79xC-nBb7gs1cwinTjJs/s0/DB540A90-1541-4EF9-B2B8-2E5A6A1E7120_4_5005_c.jpeg" width="238" /></a></span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">And remember in this story – which of course portrays God as performing a miracle to rescue a people fleeing and oppression and seeking freedom – that God did not act alone. It was only after Moses stretched his arms out over the sea that the waters parted. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">After the waters parted, after the Israelites were on the other side, their journey was not over. They had years of wandering in the wilderness ahead. That can seem pretty discouraging – to them and to us. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">Yet they were not traveling alone. God was traveling with them – and with us. Sometimes they felt that God had abandoned them, but then they remembered the escape through the waters of the Red Sea, they recalled the song of Moses and his sister Miriam that “the Lord is my strength and my might and he has become my salvation.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">They pushed on through the wilderness, much as we have to do in the midst of whatever obstacles we are facing. They pushed on trusting that God would be there with them.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">I’d invite you to think with me for a moment about the ways we can act like Moses. I’m not sure we can part a vast body of water. But are there places where we can stretch out our arms and embrace someone who feels trapped by their circumstances? <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">Are there places where we can stretch out our arms and widen the places where people who disagree can find common ground? <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">Are there places where we can stretch out our arms and lead people through the hard moments in their lives so they know they are not alone?<br /><br />And then can we let others do that for us? <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">Can we accept the love and care others can offer us in our own hard times? <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">Can we let them open the way for God’s grace to bubble up in our lives?<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">None of us may be at the level of a Moses or a Harriet Tubman, but each of us can be part of that vast gathering of people who follow Jesus, who share the water of abundant life, who try to heal the divisions in our world and who finally get to the next piece of solid ground.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">We know the journey goes on, whether through the waters or in the wilderness, but we also know we do not have to be alone on that journey.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br />For me, the power of the story of the escape to freedom through the Red Sea is precisely that. We do not get to freedom in our lives alone. We get there together and with God’s help. That is true for us as individuals and it is true for us as a nation still trying to overcome the divisions among us and the things that keep people trapped in systems that exploit them.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">We’re about to sing the hymn “When God Delivered Israel.” Notice when we get to the third verse, we will sing:<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">O God, restore our nation, <o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">come irrigate dry souls<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">That those who sow in sadness <o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">may reap their sheaves with gladness<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">May we join in that irrigation of dry souls so that all may reap with gladness. Amen</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></div>Phil Haslangerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03644333674118022564noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6633437725662827250.post-27903695986690706172021-10-03T14:15:00.001-07:002021-10-03T14:15:42.701-07:00 Creation, Relationships and Us<p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span lang="IT"><a href="https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=500292387" target="_blank">Genesis 2: 18-24</a>; </span><a href="https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=500292443" target="_blank">Mark 10: 2-16</a></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Oct. 3, 2021 at Mt. Vernon Zwingli UCC</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw6gdCg0HjZr2xZKgPYAO71_2SnO3b3FCK0ZyDUw99HEZ3HKHUXE99lplMKTifO-_SnOYrT9-Dc-LnGnyXIgPByrNSGcSO-korfv4wfa7tWrB3PYBh01gY10h8Ru4d_G7IPpFdFnnNxfI/s998/205818D6-1A6F-4469-B161-6EEFFCEEE6F1_1_201_a.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="998" data-original-width="910" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw6gdCg0HjZr2xZKgPYAO71_2SnO3b3FCK0ZyDUw99HEZ3HKHUXE99lplMKTifO-_SnOYrT9-Dc-LnGnyXIgPByrNSGcSO-korfv4wfa7tWrB3PYBh01gY10h8Ru4d_G7IPpFdFnnNxfI/s320/205818D6-1A6F-4469-B161-6EEFFCEEE6F1_1_201_a.jpeg" width="292" /></span></a></div><span style="line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Those two scripture readings we just heard are such a mixed blessing. <br /><br />They offer hope – God made people to be together – and they get misused to create gender hierarchies – God made man first, so us guys get to rule.<o:p></o:p></span></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">They offer hope – Jesus equalizes the status of men and women in marriage – and they offer harshness – don’t you dare get divorced.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">And they conclude with gentleness – Jesus holds and blesses the children.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">There’s an awful lot to work with there. So let’s start at the beginning - with the creation story.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">We all know the basics of the creation story that is told in the book of Genesis. It’s easy to forget that there are actually two creation stories told in the first two chapters. The people who put together the book of Genesis drew on the various stories that the Jewish people told about how the world – and humanity – came to be.<br /><br />The one we heard today is from Chapter 2. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">In Chapter 1, God said “Let <u>us</u> (note the use of the plural – us) make humankind in <u>our</u>image, according to our likeness…male and female he created them.” God blesses them and tells them the whole world is theirs and they should tend to it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">In Chapter 2, before the reading we heard today, God gets a little earthier. God forms the first human out of dust of the ground and breathes life into that first person. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Our story today picks after that first person – Adam, which literally means “the human” – is now living in this beautiful garden but beauty is not enough. Adam is lonely. So God took this first human and formed another one – the person we call Eve, which means “to breathe” or “to live.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">If I had a chance to ask Adam and Eve how they met – you know, was it on eHarmony, in a book group, at a bar - I imagine their response might be “well, God set us up.” Because for those first humans in this story, there really were no other choices. They had to learn to navigate the world – and their relationship to one another – without any role models. So there were stumbles along the way. But that’s not what we are focusing on today.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">What sometimes happens with this story is that it is interpreted to create some really restrictive views of humanity.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">God created Adam first – yay men! <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">But did not God make two people of out of one? <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="line-height: 21.466665267944336px;">Are they not both fully human, both made in God’s image and likeness?<br /><br />And yes, Chapter 1 says “male and female he created them,” but if God is described in plural terms and we are made in God’s image and likeness, then do we not include the full spectrum of masculinity and</span><span style="line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"> femininity</span><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; border: 1pt none windowtext; line-height: 21.466665267944336px; padding: 0in;"> </span><span style="line-height: 21.466665267944336px;">that make up the complexity of who we are, a complexity that is not always easily defined?<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Can you see how our understanding of this story really informs a lot of the debates we have in our time about sexuality and gender? <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="line-height: 21.466665267944336px;">I choose this broader understanding, recognizing that God said the humans in God’s image and likeness were “very good.” But I recognize that within our world today’s others take a more traditional reading and so our conversations need to continue.<br /><br />At the end of the portion of Chapter 2 we just heard, the author says, </span><span style="line-height: 21.466665267944336px;">“a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.” This frames the ideal for marriage and Jesus hearkens back to those words in the Gospel reading for today.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">For us living in 2021, where we know the fragility of marriage and the heartache of divorce, these words of Jesus can sound awfully harsh. But let’s back up a bit to the context Jesus was in, to the traditions he was addressing, to the style of his teaching.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">First, the Pharisees were not just asking a philosophical question. They were trying to trap Jesus. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Just a few chapters earlier in the Gospel according to Mark, we heard the story of John the Baptist being executed by King Herod because John had challenged Herod’s marrying the woman who had been his brother’s wife. Herod was now on the lookout for Jesus, because some people were saying that Jesus was really John the Baptist raised from the dead.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="line-height: 21.466665267944336px;">So you can see that the simple question from the Pharisees – “</span><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;">Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” – did not have a simple answer. If Jesus says yes, he has to takes side in debates over Jewish law. If he says no, he puts a target on himself for Herod.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><o:p><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">That’s why, as he often does, he answers a question with a question: “What did Moses command you?” Now the burden is back on the Pharisees.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><o:p><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">They give the culturally appropriate answer – a man could divorce his wife. <br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">A man could divorce his wife. Not the other way around. And once the divorce took effect, the woman was left on her own, facing societal rejection and economic poverty. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><o:p><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">And there were debates within Judaism about <i>why</i> a man could divorce his wife. Was it because she had been unfaithful? Or was it because he had simply found someone who might please him more – who made a better meal or was a better sex partner?<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><o:p><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">In tightening the rules, Jesus is protecting women. <br /><br />But in our time, these words of Jesus – “what God has joined together, let no one separate” – have often been turned into a trap for women in abusive marriages. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br />I was deeply involved for several years in working with churches to make clear that when staying married threatened a woman’s health, even her life, using these words of Jesus as a cudgel to keep her from leaving was totally at odds with so much else of what Jesus said about caring for each other. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><o:p><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">He was addressing the mistreatment of women under the Jewish law of his time. Surely Jesus would also address the mistreatment of women in our time as domestic violence has become clearer as an issue that needs our attention.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><o:p><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">But we know that marriages come apart for reasons other than domestic violence as couples find their lives changing over time. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><o:p><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Here’s how I hear what Jesus was saying, both in his citation of the story from Genesis and his proclamation that what God has joined together, we should not tear apart.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><o:p><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">I think that God had a vision of a world where human relationships reflected the love of that divine being we describe as a Trinity – a being where the a dance of divine love has these three manifestations of God swirling around as creation emanates from their love and their energy.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><o:p><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">That’s the love God hopes for in our world. That’s the ideal.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><o:p><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Our Jewish ancestors knew they fell short of that ideal. It did not take long for those first humans to find their relationship fraying over who to blame for their shortcomings – you know, that apple that looked so tasty. Then one of their children killed his brother. And on it goes – imperfect human beings who still find their way back to God – and God always there offering redemption.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><o:p><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Yes, marriages in our time start out with that dance of love. Many of us know that sometimes we make missteps as the dance goes on but we find ways to recover. But sometimes, the missteps are too big, that dance of loses the rhythm of the music of love and we drift apart. <br /><br />There can be anger, there can be sadness, there can be confusion. No, this is not what God envisioned. But neither did God envision unhappiness for those humans made in the divine image and likeness. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><o:p><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Jesus’ words about divorce seem pretty clear cut. But remember, Jesus’ style of teaching often reached for the extremes. If your eye is a source of sin, pluck it out. If your hand is a source of sin, cut it off. He is making a point, not trying to create more business for hospital emergency rooms.<br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpt-3VLtwKMA7PPVotqzcqZA2VtVd-_WvyXqP4kPC4dihOhGy-jGII2JhKszp5Nxh3nzQU6nklUOypRQTEBmDjqd0Wu8BidnZiLAZ3Vv4M4IU_Z8UDvKPyuXzWReqXGYTCkjPt6P0JZSc/s1280/jesus-blesses-children.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="958" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpt-3VLtwKMA7PPVotqzcqZA2VtVd-_WvyXqP4kPC4dihOhGy-jGII2JhKszp5Nxh3nzQU6nklUOypRQTEBmDjqd0Wu8BidnZiLAZ3Vv4M4IU_Z8UDvKPyuXzWReqXGYTCkjPt6P0JZSc/w300-h225/jesus-blesses-children.jpeg" width="300" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;">Enter the children. It is such a fine way to take this whole issue to another place.<o:p></o:p></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br />Jesus’ followers want to keep the kids away. After all, children had even less value in their culture than women did. But Jesus says let them come to me – “it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><o:p><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Become like children, he tells his followers. Again, he is not saying jump into a time machine and reverse your aging process. He is saying look at the value each human has, even those you think are not worth much.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><o:p><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Then by his action, Jesus shows us what we might do with those we might be inclined to reject, those we think do not have as much worth as us, those who don’t fit the models of respectability or power or status.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br />He took them in his arms, laid his hands on them and blessed them.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><o:p><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">That’s the Jesus who holds out high ideals, who sees God’s image in each of us and who walks with us through the good times and bad.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><o:p><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">May we take this gift of God’s creation – our full humanity – may we find love in the relationships that connect us to each other and may we then reach out and bless those around us by living out God’s love and grace.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><br />Amen.</span><span style="line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><br /><br /><br /><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><o:p><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><o:p><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><o:p><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p>Phil Haslangerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03644333674118022564noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6633437725662827250.post-31390346962223313022021-08-29T07:00:00.010-07:002021-08-29T10:46:50.816-07:00 Quick to Listen<p><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Aug. 29, 2021, Zwingli UCC, Mt. Vernon</span></p><p><span lang="IT" style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=497184059" style="color: #954f72;">James 1: 17-27</a>; </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=497184084" style="color: #954f72;">Mark 7: 1-8</a></span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">May the words of my mouth and the meditation of all our hearts be acceptable to you, O God, who sent your word to live among us. Amen.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-LiD7XzKMCnI1tRs-fn-2mGGUeJUlaJPD6SrENwZA3ljFl5DSRUxhG_i9PXu2-LlW-YtkZLs9qHU_k1Wa26hkDk5rzESbA8sNP4Z1gE-Xysnz5VqkNwdFTM330YR_-RCLBt65zBTWEjM/s800/E3C14A0C-3959-4944-BD7D-F1B300638D27.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="800" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-LiD7XzKMCnI1tRs-fn-2mGGUeJUlaJPD6SrENwZA3ljFl5DSRUxhG_i9PXu2-LlW-YtkZLs9qHU_k1Wa26hkDk5rzESbA8sNP4Z1gE-Xysnz5VqkNwdFTM330YR_-RCLBt65zBTWEjM/s320/E3C14A0C-3959-4944-BD7D-F1B300638D27.jpeg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Did you notice these words in the letter from James?<o:p></o:p></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“My beloved, let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /><span style="background-color: white;">It seems to me those must have been important words for the people James was writing to in the late First Century. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">There must have been some issues around how people spoke and how angry they were getting. It seems to me they also are important words for us living in the first quarter of the 21</span><sup style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif;">st</sup><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> Century.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Let me tell you a story.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /><span style="background-color: white;">One of the things I do on occasion is help lead groups for an organization called the <a href="https://cortico.ai/local-voices-network/" style="color: #954f72;">Local Voices Network</a>. We bring together about a half dozen people to talk about what they like and what concerns them in our communities. Along the way, we try to bring in voices that might differ from the group seated around the table.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">In May of 2019, I gathered a group of Madison-area Muslim residents for one of these conversations. I thought I could predict what they would be saying. And yes, I was right about some of those expectations. But because I listened – that was my job after all – I also learned some new things.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">As we approach the 20<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the horrible events of Sept. 11, I think one piece of that conversation is worth recalling. In fact, as we witness what is happening right now in Afghanistan, it makes this even more timely. I am worried about the experiences our Muslim neighbors might be facing in our country in the weeks ahead.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Surely, on Sept. 11, Muslims in this country became an immediate target. Too many people were unwilling to be quick to listen, to be slow to speak or to think before they acted.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">In my group, one of the participants – his name is Awais (<i>Avais</i>)– talked about being a junior in high school in Kenosha on that Sept. 11. He was one of just a handful of Muslims at Bradford High. Word spread quickly that day about the attacks on the Twin Towers in New York City, on the Pentagon, about the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Awais said, “I remember being a scared teenager who was sincerely frightened…I remember walking through the halls just really scared. I mean, it was a moment where I wasn’t sure how people were looking at me, what people would say to me.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">His fear made a lot of sense to me. Many Muslims were verbally and even physically assaulted that day and in the days afterwards, even though they had nothing to do with the attacks, even though they did not share the distorted views of Islam held by al-Qaeda and other terrorists. </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">I kept listening.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Awais talked about how surprised he was that people would come up to him to tell him that they supported him, even that they loved him. Some were friends, so that was not so surprising, but others he barely knew.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #22292f; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">And some, as he put it, “were people who, if we're being completely honest here, the way they looked, they fit that stereotype of who you would expect react the opposite way.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">He talked about one student in particular, someone he did not know really well. The way Awais described him, this young white man “drove an old ratty pickup truck, almost always wore cutoff sleeveless t-shirts, even in the winter, played football, was a little country.” And then this guy walks up to the frightened Awais and says, "Awais, if anyone messes with you, I got you." <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Two stereotypes went right out the window. Listening has a way of doing that.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">One other quick story from that conversation. At the end, I asked the group if they had any particular message they would like public officials to hear from them. I figured they would say something about acting against hate crimes, tackling religious discrimination. <br /><br />Do you know what the first issue they raised was?<br /><br />“Fix the roads.”<br /><br />Ah, something we all share in common.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Let me go back to that letter from James. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Be quick to listen, slow to speak.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Got it. We could all practice that idea of taking a breath before we blurt out whatever wise words we think we have to offer.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">But then there is being slow to anger.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />Yes, patience is a virtue. Letting your anger rip against those you love, those you work with is a recipe for trouble. But there are some things that should make us angry. Setting off a suicide bomb in the middle of a desperate crowd at the Kabul airport is one of those things that should make us angry, even if there is nothing we can immediately do about it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">But James pairs that advice about being slow to anger with another piece of advice – be doers of the word, not just hearers of the word. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">One of my favorite authors is someone who lives in Madison. His name is Parker Palmer and he is a wise voice about many things. About a decade ago, he wrote a book called <i>Healing the Heart of Democracy. </i>In it, he described two virtues we need in our era. One is <i>chutzpah, </i>the other is humility.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Chutzpah</span></i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> is a Yiddish word for nonconformist but gutsy advocacy. Parker uses it in the sense of “having a voice that needs to be heard and the right to speak it.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">But it shares top billing with <i>humility</i>, which Parker says means “accepting the fact that my truth is always partial and may not be true at all.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">It’s that combination of being able to listen – that’s the humility – and then being able to act on what we learn – that’s the <i>chutzpah.<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">A few years ago, I was at a conference of journalists who cover religion. One of the panels was called “Atheism Revisited” and on the panel was Wendy Kaminer, a significant atheist voice in our nation. I wound up waiting at the airport with her and her husband, making an interesting trio – a Christian minister and two advocates from a group that defends the interests of atheists, agnostics, humanists and others who do not embrace religion as I know it. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">As I chatted with Wendy, I told her I appreciated her presentation and her perspective on the panel. I quoted one of my mentors whose words had become a sort of mantra for me: “Here’s what I believe – but I could be wrong.”<br /><br />Wendy smiled and said, “That’s what I think, too.” Then there was a pause. “You could be wrong.”<br /><br />She was teasing, of course. But it was a vivid reminder that as we engage in conversations about politics or religion or any other hot-button topic, we would do well to embrace a spirit of humility – a willingness to listen and learn.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Let me ask you take a few moments right now to think about the places where listening might be useful in your life. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">What are the issues you care deeply about but find yourself in conflict with a family member, a neighbor, a friend, a co-worker? Are there ways you could be a better listener? I don’t mean agreeing with them. I simply mean learning a bit more about why they have the views they have.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />I’m not asking you to say them out loud. I’m simply asking you in a moment of quiet to think of where these hot buttons are in your life. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Pause<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">I know, it’s hard to come up with the right way to approach this. Some wise people I know say one of the best things is to ask questions – honest questions, not “I’m-going-to-trip-you-up” questions. You could ask, “Could you tell me why you think that?” Or you could ask, “There must be something in what you believe that leads you to that. Could you explain that to me?”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">It turns out that Jesus faced a fair number of people who disagreed with him and with his message. We met a few of them in our Gospel reading today.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">The scribes and the Pharisees get into this whole thing about washing hands. Yes – I know this has an odd resonance in our pandemic era. But this was not really a discussion about public health. It’s not a good idea to say “I don’t need to wash my hands…or wear a mask…because Jesus said it does not matter.” That’s not what this was about.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Listen again to their question:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Here’s the thing. There was nothing in the Hebrew scriptures, with all their many rules, that required people to wash their hands before they ate. There was, however, a law that priests had to wash their hands before eating holy meat from the sacrifices in the temple. And the Pharisees argued that all Jews should be as holy as the priests and therefore should wash their hands before they ate.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />Good public health practice? Sure. But what Jesus was objecting to was making following the rituals the test of one’s faithfulness to God rather than the way one lives their lives, the way Isaiah said that people honor God with their lips while their hearts are far from God.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">If the people in Jesus’ time - if we in our time - truly listened, we would hear that the measure of our faithfulness to God has to do with loving justice, doing mercy, walking humbly with our God. We would hear that the measure of our faithfulness to God is doing what James wrote about “caring for the orphans and widows” – in other words, looking out for those in need, perhaps for the refugees coming to our nation right now.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">There’s a lot in all this that seem like a swirl of contractions – be slow to listen but get out there and act. Be slow to anger but act against the injustices in our world.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Part of our task, I’d suggest, is to be attentive to each part of that. Take time to listen, seek to understand but don’t let that paralyze from acting on the messages of Jesus. Don’t let the anger of the moment lead you to do something destructive to relationships but don’t retreat into a passivity that means the cause of the anger goes unaddressed.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">In a few minutes, we are going to have a chance to share bread and cup in communion. This is a wonderfully tangible symbol of the life we share. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">It is a reminder that for us, being in community has dimensions beyond the fractures of everyday life. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">It is a reminder that within our Christian tradition, among the ways that we can sort out the tensions between listening and acting, between anger and response, is in prayer and in community with one another.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">We, after all, cannot do this on our own. We need God’s grace.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">And here’s the good news – God’s grace abounds for each and every one of us.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />Amen.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Phil Haslangerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03644333674118022564noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6633437725662827250.post-55070852757859749402021-07-25T17:57:00.003-07:002021-07-25T17:57:47.207-07:00 Solar Power at Dawn<p><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">July 28, 2021, Orchard Ridge UCC - </span><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=494174284" style="font-family: Cambria, serif;" target="_blank">Mark 1: 32-38</a></p><p><i>(<a href="https://youtu.be/Bkfmu0Hq3pA?t=2108" target="_blank">You can see a video starting with the Gospel reading and the sermon here.</a>)</i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;">My friend Charlie is a doctor in the Intensive Care Unit at one of our local hospitals, His specialty is respiratory illnesses. So as COVID-19 cases began filling up the beds in the ICU, he was in the center of the storm.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;">As Mark said of life in Jesus’ times, “That evening, after the sun was down, they brought sick and evil-afflicted people to him, the whole city lined up at his door!”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;">That’s the way it was in our hospitals as the pandemic was hitting its peak. That’s the way it still is in hospitals in southwestern Missouri or in Mexico or in Malaysia. They are bringing in the sick and medical workers around the world are trying to cure them.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;">Over the past year, people here have had to care for aging parents or for friends, for young children bored with staying home and attending school on a computer. Teachers have had to figure out new ways to teach when their students were not in the classroom. We have all had to figure out how to cope with disease, with life-changes – and then with the stark realities of racial disparities and political polarization that have deeply affected all of our lives.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;">I think we can probably identify with Jesus wanting to get away before dawn that morning in the Gospel story. Or with the desire of the character in the Cat Stevens song that Jim sang: <i>“</i></span><i><span style="color: #202124; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;">I left my folk and friends / With the aim to clear my mind out.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="color: #202124; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #202124; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;">Oh – excuse me a moment. I think my phone is running low on power and I need to plug it in… <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #202124; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #202124; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;">There. Now, what was I saying? Oh yeah – lots of people have gotten slammed physically, emotionally, spiritually over the last year plus. I think like Jesus that evening in Capernaum, like Charlie in the ICU, like so many of us at so many points along the way, we have been feeling like our batteries have run down. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #202124; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br />It turns out, it is a lot easier to recharge my phone than to recharge our lives. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #202124; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #202124; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;">Yet that’s the Re-word for today – recharge.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #202124; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #202124; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;">In some ways, recharging our bodies is not the hard part if we take the time and the care to do that. You know the litany – get enough sleep, take a nap, eat good food, take a walk or a bike ride, or – if you are really ambitious – a run. We can help our bodies heal and regain the energy we need to go on.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #202124; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #202124; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;">But tending our spirits, recharging our souls – that’s trickier.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #202124; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #202124; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;">Even when Jesus tried to do that, the crowds were after him again.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #202124; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;">“While it was still night, way before dawn, he got up and went out to a secluded spot and prayed. Simon and those with him went looking for him. They found him and said, ‘Everybody's looking for you.’ " <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;">Just when we think we have gotten past the pandemic, COVID cases bump up around this nation and even more so around the world. We are waiting for the dawn, but it is still dark.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br />Just when we think we are making progress on creating a more just and inclusive society, there is another reminder that we have a long ways to go. We are waiting for the dawn but it is still dark.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;">Just when we think we are breaking down the barriers that keep people apart – barriers of religion or politics or heritage – we notice that new walls have gone up and they seem higher than ever. We are waiting for the dawn but it is still dark.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;">Let me take you out under a starlit sky. Maybe it is not as dark as it appears.<br /><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjPrsiQLS2bJzzZsK3rUyA0AtDaW7TtDr7cKQP9p3UMfQQKMR2ooptOH8ZOw8-5JFbzyKkG1hunMGsg8dKgujn_3FolJzTcN8zCPZXfHzF1OxYBIlWuHLh_CVy7Uzk6K93s9LAGUj7eM0/s960/Space+Tree.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="641" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjPrsiQLS2bJzzZsK3rUyA0AtDaW7TtDr7cKQP9p3UMfQQKMR2ooptOH8ZOw8-5JFbzyKkG1hunMGsg8dKgujn_3FolJzTcN8zCPZXfHzF1OxYBIlWuHLh_CVy7Uzk6K93s9LAGUj7eM0/w268-h400/Space+Tree.jpeg" width="268" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;">This picture was taken by a photographer named Bryan Hansel, who lives in Minnesota on the North Shore of Lake Superior. It’s a photo from the Bad Lands in South Dakota that he took in 2013. It is a photo rich with meaning for me.<o:p></o:p></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;">Many years ago – it was in the summer of 1977 – and I was on a retreat, wondering about how I knew God, whether God knew me, whether God even existed, what exactly God was anyway. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;">One very clear night, I was sitting under a tree not unlike the one in this photo – although it was summer and the tree had its leaves. But beyond the leaves were the stars – a whole universe of stars. There were not intellectual answers to my questions in that moment, and yet there was a sense of the breadth of the divine above me, around me, within me. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;">In the darkness of that night, my spirit felt transported – you might even say recharged.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;">But it was still night. While I love the stars in this picture, I also love that dawn is emerging on the horizon. Something new is emerging. And with that – at least for me who is definitely a morning person – is a new sense of energy. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;">As Cynthia Reynolds wrote in her poem that we heard at the beginning of worship today, “This morning is new and so am I.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;">And then there is the tree.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;">Kerry McLeish is a spiritual director who works with those who are weary or exhausted. She writes about how in her times of exhaustion, she finds that being in nature helps sustain her emotionally – especially when she can spend time with trees. Here’s what she wrote:<br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;">“There was something about their solidity, their rootedness, their age. They had been here before I was and would still be standing long after I was not. I was comforted thinking about how they went through seasons and weathered the effects of those seasons.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;">For me, the tree was a place I could lean against, a place where I could be reminded of how our lives are both deeply rooted and stretching ever outward. And the branches remind me that after I stand in awe of the stars, am energized by the dawn, steadied by the tree, I can now reach out to what needs attention around me.<br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;">There is an ebb and flow to this, after all. There was for Jesus and there is for us as well. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;">Listen again to the end of the Gospel story. Jesus was praying in that time as dawn was approaching. The word prayer in there is an important one, I think. Jesus was putting himself in that space where he could connect with God, where’s God’s love and energy could recharge his spirit. <br /><br />And then his followers showed up. "Everybody's looking for you," they said. And Jesus replied, "Let's go to the rest of the villages so I can preach there also. This is why I've come."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;">He was not about to get stuck in one place. He was not about to ignore the needs of those around him or his mission that he articulated in the Gospel according to Luke just before Luke tells this same story. That mission? “To bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;">Let me leave you then with some questions. I’ll pause for moment after each one to give you time to ponder. You will know the answers that make the most sense to you.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;">Where in your life is your energy running low? <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;">What batteries do you need to recharge in your own being? <br /><br />Sometimes, unplugging is a way to get some rest and renewal. But then we need to plug in if we are going to be recharged. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;">Where to you get your energy renewed?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;">What can help you move forward with your life and with the way you see your mission in our world? <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6S1VQzGM_xY-PC4rQwAE2oeIqBxGHjN6FXJVlYy1EGllBnFipaH7Hylm5GaRCt4WsXohBOl5mrWTZnA4P5-VGvdhwWFM1Hi4znUg-N3nXwMO0NnHveB45XfHbChM7Jb_Mrcr2RbC7Xo0/s1079/skynews-amanda-gorman-poet-laureate_5244590.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1079" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6S1VQzGM_xY-PC4rQwAE2oeIqBxGHjN6FXJVlYy1EGllBnFipaH7Hylm5GaRCt4WsXohBOl5mrWTZnA4P5-VGvdhwWFM1Hi4znUg-N3nXwMO0NnHveB45XfHbChM7Jb_Mrcr2RbC7Xo0/s320/skynews-amanda-gorman-poet-laureate_5244590.jpeg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;">Do you remember the poet Amanda Gorman, who inspired so many people with “The Hill We Climb” that she read at the presidential inauguration last January? <o:p></o:p></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;">She helped take our spirits to, in her words, “find light in this never-ending shade.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;">“We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace,” she said,<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;">“and the norms and notions of what “just” is <o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;">isn’t always justice.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;">And yet the dawn is ours before we knew it.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;">Somehow we do it.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;">And much like Jesus told his closest followers that now that he was recharged, it was time to move on, not to get stuck with what just was, Gorman called the nation – and us – to let that energy of the dawn carry us forward.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;">And so we lift our gaze, not to what stands between us, <o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;">but what stands before us.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;">We close the divide because we know to put our future first, <o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;">we must first put our differences aside.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;">We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;">It is important to find those places where we can rest our spirits. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br />It is important that we find ways to recharge our spirits.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;">And it is important then for us to let that fresh energy carry us on to help those closest to us and those in our wider world reach their full potential as well.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;">Hmm… I think my phone is recharged now. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;">It’s time for us to let God’s Spirit recharge us. We can end with a song that carries on our theme of new energy in the morning, a song filled with energy and hope. It’s “I Woke Up This Morning” is a song with deep roots in the African-American tradition and it was adapted during the civil rights movement to say “I woke up this morning with my mind stayed on freedom.” But for today, let’s use the traditional “stayed on Jesus.”<br /><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>Phil Haslangerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03644333674118022564noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6633437725662827250.post-44174721202372517742021-04-11T08:26:00.001-07:002021-04-11T08:26:55.141-07:00Dissent Within, Dissent Without <p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a name="OLE_LINK19"></a></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">April 11, 2021, Zwingli UCC, Monticello<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=485075587" target="_blank">John 20:19-31</a></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><a href="https://youtu.be/zFleazvKyhM?t=525" target="_blank"><i>(Here's a video of the sermon during the service.)</i></a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6NjWLjxdT8iZalpHX0RYTvSwCsi2Ih8GV5Wen2_EOkdkIMSuAtB8S4sEg4ioO1jiDcZnzx7v52oySr7gemNhWTrwvy17vQDSK5Gz863ROQb9GkyTVTPN8rhtlylUl_pOm8SJT-36P2fo/s760/C2039EBB-4799-4F82-A52B-DA89CA971D1B_1_201_a.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="629" data-original-width="760" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6NjWLjxdT8iZalpHX0RYTvSwCsi2Ih8GV5Wen2_EOkdkIMSuAtB8S4sEg4ioO1jiDcZnzx7v52oySr7gemNhWTrwvy17vQDSK5Gz863ROQb9GkyTVTPN8rhtlylUl_pOm8SJT-36P2fo/s320/C2039EBB-4799-4F82-A52B-DA89CA971D1B_1_201_a.jpeg" width="320" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;">I suppose one lesson from today’s Gospel about Thomas missing the first appearance of Jesus after the Resurrection is that when you are hanging out with the Jesus gang, maybe let somebody else go out for the groceries – or whatever it was that Thomas was doing that evening.</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I think there’s a more important lesson, though. It is how a community holds together in the midst of disagreement. That’s a vital lesson for our time.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />This was not a minor disagreement. Jesus’ followers said they had seen the Lord. Thomas said, “I don’t believe you,” Fake news, in other words. He might as well have called their leader, ”Lyin’ Peter.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Calling somebody a liar is usually not a good way to stay in good graces with your friends. Yet there Thomas was, still with them a week later, when Jesus stopped by for another visit.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In a somewhat different version of the Gospel - this one featuring Winnie the Poor and Eyore. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvy3GI0pC0F_sgR4sRQoKfk2ta2NvjwPqUulwZAdxGmFw30OEq5QxwNtSxKgtC9xkrO9nnT26KXMBuxQdoCREp4MygVyKKA2PIXTBR5G8eeigz4R1M_VfKmkkEl02s7LC_f1aDK8xbyo0/s1024/17B2A1D4-1BF9-4660-9DF1-7E4FBBFF5577.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvy3GI0pC0F_sgR4sRQoKfk2ta2NvjwPqUulwZAdxGmFw30OEq5QxwNtSxKgtC9xkrO9nnT26KXMBuxQdoCREp4MygVyKKA2PIXTBR5G8eeigz4R1M_VfKmkkEl02s7LC_f1aDK8xbyo0/w200-h150/17B2A1D4-1BF9-4660-9DF1-7E4FBBFF5577.jpeg" width="200" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;">There was a picture making the rounds a while ago of a dejected Eyore – you know, the gloomy donkey with the poor self-image – and Winnie the Poor – the bear of very little brain. They appear to have had a bit of a falling out.<o:p></o:p></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Winnie looks quizzically at Eyore, who is saying, “It’s OK, we’ll still have lunch with you.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I can kind of hear Jesus’ followers saying that to Thomas. Somehow, they kept him in the group even when he challenged their understanding of what was happening in their world. They kept him there for a whole week in the midst of what surely were some very strained conversations. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">So we know this. From the very first days, there were disagreements among the followers of Jesus. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">There were disagreements between the group gathered around John and the group gathered around Thomas – which may have something to do with how Thomas is portrayed in the Gospel according to John.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">There were disagreements in that secret place where they gathered after Jesus’ execution and there were disagreements as the way of Jesus began to spread – disagreements among Paul and James and Peter that around the year 50 AD led to a gathering of Christians in Jerusalem to try to sort things out – and they did – at least for that moment, according to the New Testament book <i>The Acts of the Apostles.<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Centuries later, disagreements among Christians would lead to some bloody wars – including the battle that took the life of Ulrich Zwingli in 1531. His name lives on in this congregation. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Today, it still common for Christians to want to exclude those who think differently, they don’t want <i>them</i> to have the right to call themselves followers of Jesus. It happens on both sides of the theological and religious divides of our day.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">That’s why I think the Gospel story of this week is so important. It’s important for us in church world and it’s important in a society where political divisions are fracturing us in really serious and occasionally violent ways.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In that first week, when Thomas challenged the others on the most fundamental reality of their lives – whether Jesus was still in their midst – they managed to hang together. I’m not exactly sure how they managed to do that. God’s grace, Jesus’ teaching – those things may have helped. But they showed the rest of us that it can be done.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgONjIiLX1wOVB_qcfZm-M9RmhYm3TWxJeDEr6L2oXxKVYzD5Nmi97cb83kcJQTZQnPb2y1CmRRsT93xq6KYlInBlu4JxTDK-krOtuM0uxYutX5M_A4psBeLx064h0UxN39nM6-lHB3XX0/s1200/FCBCE70C-AED9-4ECA-9ADF-C27B49AF3461.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="798" data-original-width="1200" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgONjIiLX1wOVB_qcfZm-M9RmhYm3TWxJeDEr6L2oXxKVYzD5Nmi97cb83kcJQTZQnPb2y1CmRRsT93xq6KYlInBlu4JxTDK-krOtuM0uxYutX5M_A4psBeLx064h0UxN39nM6-lHB3XX0/w200-h133/FCBCE70C-AED9-4ECA-9ADF-C27B49AF3461.jpeg" width="200" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Here’s a story from a few weeks ago from Grand Marais, Minnesota. A photographer there had captured a picture of the night sky that showed 60 satellites in low-earth orbit that had been launched by Tesla developer Elan Musk. <o:p></o:p></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The photographer hates the way these satellites are affecting our view of the stars in the night sky and he posted his feelings on Facebook. Others disagreed, of course, and the debate was on.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">When one person posted a brief but sharp reply, the photographer answered: “When I see you in person sometime, we can talk about it.” Now that’s a novel idea – face-to-face conversation instead of barbs thrown on Facebook.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />But his friend was not done yet. So the photographer replied again: “Hi, Jerry, next time we see each other in person let's talk about it.” He kept lowering the temperature of the conversation – and while the other comments reflected varying viewpoints, they stayed civil. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I’m not sure how civil the conversations among the apostles were as they faced off with Thomas during that week. Peter was pretty impetuous, after all. Thomas had a long history in the group of being a dissenter. But I like to think they took time to talk, not just to throw barbs at each other.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A few years after this face-off among the apostles, Jesus’ brother, James, wrote a letter to the early Christian community that caught the spirit they were striving for. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext">“You must understand this, my beloved,” James wrote. “Let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger, for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness.”</span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjReGA-2cPhcKQzcJIImVxzx_OMrUUkC0P4TCsOvYqH-0CezqOc5NxYN5kfxqCvQaDPvTjN74w4wVy2uEMWPBFan0Sz5_zgA_qewLtwNhhK9yt34k6Dhs2_4zBs1YND9upodYT8RXI_pqo/s2048/EA2E4C38-035B-4B7B-A6B7-8661BD308626_1_201_a.heic" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1708" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjReGA-2cPhcKQzcJIImVxzx_OMrUUkC0P4TCsOvYqH-0CezqOc5NxYN5kfxqCvQaDPvTjN74w4wVy2uEMWPBFan0Sz5_zgA_qewLtwNhhK9yt34k6Dhs2_4zBs1YND9upodYT8RXI_pqo/s320/EA2E4C38-035B-4B7B-A6B7-8661BD308626_1_201_a.heic" width="320" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;">I’ve got a bumper sticker on my car – only one bumper sticker – that I think can also help when everyone locks into the certainty that they are right.<o:p></o:p></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“It’s not that simple…” it says.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">We get so reduced to catch phrases in our time. Most of the issues we get into arguments about – let’s say immigration or guns or racial divides – are nowhere near as simple as both we and those we disagree with make them out to be. Sometimes we just need to stop and hear what the other person is saying, ask they why they believe what they believe, grant that maybe neither of us has the conclusive proof.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Thomas wanted that conclusive proof. All that the rest of the apostles could offer was their own version of what they experienced. They existed in that place of uncertainty – and no one could really convince the other until Jesus’ next visit. They just had to live with complexity for a week.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Here’s another phrase that I try to live by. I learned it from a pastor who taught me a lot about life. He had strong opinions about many things, but he was always willing to add this phrase: “Well, I could be wrong.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">It’s a reminder to me to listen to what those who disagree with me are saying, to seek the underlying principles that have led them to their conclusions, to question whether the way I prefer is really the only way - or even the best way. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Here’s another important part of that “I-might-be-wrong” phrase. It’s not one that I impose you on, as in “You might be wrong.” Yes, you might be wrong, but let’s keep working on understanding the different ways we see the world. And if you are not willing to do that, well, then at some point I have to shake the dust off my feet and move on.<br /><br />It’s a kind of humility that goes a long ways in the midst of a disagreement. I’m not sure Thomas was ever willing to say, “Well, I could be wrong,” but the rest of the apostles gave him the time and the space to wrestle with his doubts.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Maybe they had also learned something from Jesus about forgiveness. He, after all, frequently shook his head at the ways his followers misunderstood what he was trying to say. Yet over and over, in the words he said and in the actions he took, he put forgiving others as we ourselves hope to be forgiven as a central teaching. Perhaps those followers gathered with Thomas were remembering that as well<br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Today’s issues do have moral dimensions that we hear in our ancient scriptures and in our contemporary reflections. When there is sharp economic inequality, we can hear the thundering of the Jewish prophets. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">When there is indifference to what is happening to our climate and its effect on our planet, we can hear repeated Biblical exhortations to care for creation. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">When people’s race or ethnicity is thrown at them to oppress them or lock them out of the opportunities of our society, we can hear the words of how we are all made in God’s image and how we are all one in Christ.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">You know the issues – gun violence, health care, immigration, poverty, violence against women.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I hope those of us who call ourselves Christians can help add a moral dimension to the political dialogue while recognizing that there is room for many different approaches.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />One of the things that attracted me to the UCC 21 years ago was its willingness to wrestle with the tough issues of religion and society, respecting and even encouraging disagreement from individuals and congregations without giving ground on its willingness to speak out on those issues.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Peter was never shy about speaking out, of course. Thomas stood his ground even when all his friends must have wondered where his loyalty was. Peter stayed connected to the Temple and to his Jewish faith even when the Temple leaders challenged and threatened him. Thomas stayed connected to the closest followers of Jesus and eventually had his own experience with the risen Christ to reinforce his belief. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">For us, I hope we can take from these stories the value of working our way through the tough issues of our day <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> without demonizing one another, <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> without excluding those who disagree with us, <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> without shying away from taking a stand, <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> but doing so in a way that respects the patchwork quilt of experiences and viewpoints that make up our church and our society.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">If we can do that, if we can reflect the best of that early group of Jesus’ followers – as contentious as they could be, yet staying together in their commitment to follow the way of Jesus as best they could.<br /><br />May it be so.<br />Amen.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p>Phil Haslangerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03644333674118022564noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6633437725662827250.post-81022723405432872132021-01-17T10:43:00.002-08:002021-01-17T12:49:32.050-08:00A dream, waking up and rebuilding<p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://youtu.be/xGlNIap27Ec?t=1144" target="_blank">Here is a link to the Jan. 17, 2021 service at Orchard Ridge United Church of Christ in Madison, WI, where this sermon was part of the service. </a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6V5lCKDB7VMcLW3tIxTkhD2vRnDkQy9ZtWoUITzWiT35iBWC0lK6bR7ZIaxxAyJ_JmJwX59ZDhqKKZ_0EvGh0rQm3EDHfaV2PLhN6CGZ8P3Qc9lMFdGsrZdXrX7aIdvm7E2BQzCYNXxQ/s655/March+on+DC+-+mall.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="515" data-original-width="655" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6V5lCKDB7VMcLW3tIxTkhD2vRnDkQy9ZtWoUITzWiT35iBWC0lK6bR7ZIaxxAyJ_JmJwX59ZDhqKKZ_0EvGh0rQm3EDHfaV2PLhN6CGZ8P3Qc9lMFdGsrZdXrX7aIdvm7E2BQzCYNXxQ/s320/March+on+DC+-+mall.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial that day at the end of August in 1963, looking at a peaceful crowd of a quarter of a million people who stretched down the National Mall towards the Washington Monument.</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">The crowd was getting tired and restless after listening to speech after speech. King was the last speaker on this extraordinary day. He had worked hard on this speech and he was getting some good responses, but he could sense the crowd drifting as he realized that he was about to head into what he considered the lamest section of the speech. </span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">He began to go off script. Behind him, singer Mahalia Jackson shouted out, “Tell ‘em about the dream, Martin.”<br /><br />He had preached about the dream at the end of June in Detroit, then again in Chicago. He reached back into his repertoire and began. </span><a href="https://youtu.be/fR-PReWhMGM" style="color: #954f72;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Here are a few of those lines that are so familiar to us now:</span></a><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“Even though we still face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“I have a dream that one day that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. <o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">In this first month of 2021, I think we all have dreams of what could be - a world of justice, of fairness, of healing for humanity and for the earth on which we live. We hold those dreams even after the traumas of the last year, of the last week. Those dreams matter. They help us keep moving forward. As poet Langston Hughes wrote:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Hold fast to dreams<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">For if dreams die<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Life is a broken -winged bird<br />That cannot fly<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">So indeed the dream that Dr. King sketched out on that day in DC many years ago is a dream that still lives, that we still hold fast to, because we surely are not there yet.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">The Jewish people in exile in Babylon 25 centuries ago had dreams of returning to Jerusalem, that beautiful city that had anchored their ancestors. They had wept at the waters of the rivers in Babylon, but they still clung to the hope of restoring what had been lost.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />Then along came the Persian king, Cyrus, who told them they could go back home. When they got there, they discovered home was no longer the beautiful city of their memories. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Their dreams clashed with the reality of a destroyed temple, crumbled city walls and burned city gates. They faced opposition from their fellow Jews who had remained in the city. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />Ezra, as we heard today, went to work rebuilding the temple - a temple that would last through the time of Jesus until the Romans destroyed it in the year 70. But they had to rebuild the temple in the face of political opposition trying to frustrate the effort. Does any of this sound familiar today?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Then Nehemiah arrived to rebuild the city gates and walls, to restore both pride and security to the city. But, as the text said, the city officials were worried about losing their own power and were “displeased greatly that someone had come to seek the welfare of the people of Israel.” Hmmm... But the people stood with Nehemiah and said, “Let us start building.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">They were turning the dream into a reality. They did not stay at rest letting the dreams float through their minds. Nor did they let those prevail who would resist change, who would stand in the way of the welfare of the people.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">We are seeing that resistance to change on steroids at the moment in our country. So the lessons of Ezra and Nehemiah, the words of Martin Luther King resonate in our lives right now. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaMwhCEGrW_nCvW40Glek2AWAesx5w1cBffWNH4i2nZQMwnZvGIHtaprLK8nfHfJSuFhBQgl3ge3-iihkcQhbcRDGRGuChTQunc4WVqh0P8zKDhp1XdbGPGyo_7f5yPrHu_Gt60mKeFD4/s1021/43D6F987-D116-4F43-933E-C51476562921_1_201_a.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="684" data-original-width="1021" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaMwhCEGrW_nCvW40Glek2AWAesx5w1cBffWNH4i2nZQMwnZvGIHtaprLK8nfHfJSuFhBQgl3ge3-iihkcQhbcRDGRGuChTQunc4WVqh0P8zKDhp1XdbGPGyo_7f5yPrHu_Gt60mKeFD4/s320/43D6F987-D116-4F43-933E-C51476562921_1_201_a.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">One of the other speakers at that 1963 March of Washington was John Lewis. He was 23 years old then, the leader of Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee, already a veteran of beatings and jailings as he demonstrated for civil rights across the South. He was also deeply grounded in the Gospel ethic of revolutionary love. <br /></span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">While he shared King’s dream, he also sought to wake up America to the action that was needed. Listen for the echo of Ezra and Nehemiah in </span><a href="https://youtu.be/tFs1eTsokJg?t=377" style="color: #954f72;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">these last words of his speech that day:</span></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #666666; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“If we do not get meaningful legislation out of this Congress, the time will come when we will not confine our marching to Washington. We will march through the South; through the streets of Jackson, through the streets of Danville, through the streets of Cambridge, through the streets of Birmingham. </span></i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #666666; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #666666; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“But we will march with the spirit of love and with the spirit of dignity that we have shown here today. By the force of our demands, our determination, and our numbers, we shall splinter the segregated South into a thousand pieces and put them together in the image of God and democracy. <o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #666666; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #666666; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“We must say: “Wake up America! Wake up!” For we cannot stop, and we will not and cannot be patient.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #666666; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">We need dreams to inspire our actions. <br />We need to wake up to begin turning those dreams into reality. <br />And then we need to get about the work of rebuilding. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">That is hard work. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><a href="https://www.trinitychicago.org/rev-dr-otis-moss-iii/" style="color: #954f72;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"></span></a></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsMov3Wq1eAN5ZeUgB9Wt3rVGKpoYx9GdshrqYKhPdJxRCvZCP29HJZpD8Q7wTt7aJsA9fJms5O_Yvv9eOVs30ts9TtyQ7WACZjRL2TdAOoHCLaaGW4NysYrQfG7q6eci903Mq2SPLsvc/s972/6A779270-5DBB-4538-ABBD-47A5B7F0B418_1_201_a.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="718" data-original-width="972" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsMov3Wq1eAN5ZeUgB9Wt3rVGKpoYx9GdshrqYKhPdJxRCvZCP29HJZpD8Q7wTt7aJsA9fJms5O_Yvv9eOVs30ts9TtyQ7WACZjRL2TdAOoHCLaaGW4NysYrQfG7q6eci903Mq2SPLsvc/s320/6A779270-5DBB-4538-ABBD-47A5B7F0B418_1_201_a.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.trinitychicago.org/rev-dr-otis-moss-iii/" style="color: #954f72;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Rev. Dr. Otis Moss III</span></a><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">, pastor of Trinity UCC in Chicago, preached about Nehemiah on the Sunday after the November election. He noted the disputes from the Biblical era and the disputes in our nation in this era. He looked at what Nehemiah did when he was challenged by the leaders. <br /><o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Nehemiah did not cuss out the leaders, Moss noted. He did not post responses on Facebook or Instagram. First he prayed, seeking the spiritual strength to move forward. </span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">As Moss put it: “</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Nehemiah recognizes the courage it takes to just to start rebuilding the wall even though people are discouraged. Sometimes the greatest challenge is to begin. You have to have the courage to begin.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Last week Sage Walker struck a similar theme during our worship service when she talked about a sign in her third-grade classroom that still inspires her work for a better world: “It’s not about winning the race. It’s about having the courage to start.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Sage reminded us, “If you are brave enough to actually get in there and do something hard, you might find out you can do hard things.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Remember those lines from poet John O’Donohue that Susan Watson read at the beginning of our service today? <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> May I have the courage today <o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> To live the life I would love<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> To postpone my dream no longer<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> But do at last what I came here for<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> And waste my heart on fear no more.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">In the midst of the violence of recent days and the threats over the next few days, fear is a reality. Courage has become unusually important in our lives. We may not be on the front lines, but we all have roles to play in shaping our society as a place that might reflect God’s dreams.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">So as we hold our dreams, come awake and look to rebuild our lives, our community, our nation after the pandemics of COVID and racism, what might we do?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Let’s start with that sense of spiritual depth that matters for a community like ours. We have a richness of spiritual resources available to us - the sacred stories of scripture, the inspiration of music, the silence in a time of meditation, the encouragement we give to one another. From those places, we can find the courage we need.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Then we need to focus on the tasks that match our skills and our resources. No one of us alone nor this church community alone can rebuild every part of the world. We can be part of the larger effort and make differences in the places close to us.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Otis Moss noted that Nehemiah did not have expectation that the rebuilding of Jerusalem would be finished in his lifetime. But he organized the people so the work could go on. He knew his opposition was organized so he knew he had to organize even better.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><a href="https://eji.org/bryan-stevenson/" style="color: #954f72;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"></span></a></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxy0eERMBmlC8LVnu3Ri8CAg_kbjsxdDhhrHq3l59AiY8oWExwvOaEQztLHWRyIRroXxGgosNgHnxQ8btA5URPmaFIlV5v9s80nHtO-bLDVG-s9sITTfKcQ68JTmlIL7swmbtWTZywf-Q/s1528/92ED84CF-E980-4251-857F-C94BD19912A0_1_201_a.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1528" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxy0eERMBmlC8LVnu3Ri8CAg_kbjsxdDhhrHq3l59AiY8oWExwvOaEQztLHWRyIRroXxGgosNgHnxQ8btA5URPmaFIlV5v9s80nHtO-bLDVG-s9sITTfKcQ68JTmlIL7swmbtWTZywf-Q/s320/92ED84CF-E980-4251-857F-C94BD19912A0_1_201_a.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://eji.org/bryan-stevenson/" style="color: #954f72;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Bryan Stevenson,</span></a><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> the author of <i>Just Mercy</i> and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama - a hero to many of us - says you start by proximity, by finding ways to be personally connected to the people who are the most vulnerable. That means a willingness to do inconvenient and uncomfortable things, to go to places that are unfamiliar to us. </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">And then there is hope. Not optimism, but hope rooted in faith and lived out in love.</span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">As Bryan Stevenson told radio interviewer Krista Tippett last month, “Hopelessness is the enemy of justice. If we allow ourselves to become hopeless, we become part of the problem…There’s no neutral place. Injustice prevails where hopelessness persists.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">The folks gathered at the Lincoln Memorial that day in 1963 to knew something about not giving up hope. They knew about organizing to make the world a place bending toward justice. They knew their ancestors had not seen the changes they had hoped for but had passed on the commitment from generation to generation. <br /><br />The people there in 1963 were there with full knowledge of what the dark past had taught them - a past of injustice, of oppression and terror and lynchings.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">They also knew the hope of the present on that day, facing a rising sun as they marched just as John Lewis had called them to do - with a spirit of love and a spirit of dignity that would change the nation.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">They knew that they - and we - would have to march on stony roads. <br /><br />They knew that they - and we - could sometimes feel that hope unborn had died.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">But they also knew from the stories of the past and the promises of God’s presence with them on the way that they would march on ‘til victory was won.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: -12pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> If those words sound familiar, they are among the lyrics of the great poem written by James Weldon Johnson along with music by his brother </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">J. Rosamond Johnson to celebrate the birthday of Abraham Lincoln in 1900. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: -12pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Now, 120 years later, that song still gives hope and inspiration to Black folks in our nation - and to us - as we join them in holding on to the dream, waking up to the injustices around us and rebuilding our lives and our nation until “now we stand at last where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Listen with me to this somewhat shorter version of the song, released last July 4 by Gospel singer Kirk Franklin. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Watch for both the joy and the determination as we carry ourselves forward into the challenges of our time.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><a href="https://youtu.be/cYrxT3As2AM" style="color: #954f72;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“Lift Every Voice and Sing”</span></a><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p>Phil Haslangerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03644333674118022564noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6633437725662827250.post-10197979081036548832020-08-23T07:30:00.022-07:002020-08-23T10:10:55.742-07:00 Feeling Alone in the River<p><i><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Today's text - <a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=465130802">Exodus 1:8 - 2:10</a></span><span face="" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=465130802"> </a></span></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">An angry, murderous king. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Clever midwives. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">A frightened mother. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">A baby adrift. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">A pharaoh’s daughter with compassion. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />This story at the beginning of the book of Exodus, at the beginning of the life of Moses - this story is one of the classic stories in Biblical literature. It sets the stage for great things to come. It is a story filled with drama - and a happy ending.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">I’d like this morning to ask you to join me in entering into the lives of the characters in this story because I think what they are going through can give us insights to what we are going through right now in our lives.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"></span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9V4rTBVOR3f4eTgyhJ6LooUHQjvPxgJJ-v92O0jcJdeABvThqbcsinEtzFFoWLFKLmOy8gW6DSnpomsJZAK9QyFBrdOrI3fnU3plxUMdsOSBe31ZaoqR-qPtB04GJWvGt-epeA8zEDUI/s1554/Pharaoh.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1554" data-original-width="800" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9V4rTBVOR3f4eTgyhJ6LooUHQjvPxgJJ-v92O0jcJdeABvThqbcsinEtzFFoWLFKLmOy8gW6DSnpomsJZAK9QyFBrdOrI3fnU3plxUMdsOSBe31ZaoqR-qPtB04GJWvGt-epeA8zEDUI/w205-h400/Pharaoh.jpg" width="205" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I’m not sure any of us would like to take on the character of the king - also called the pharaoh - this ruler of Egypt who did not know Joseph. At least I hope none of us think it would be a good idea to drown the newborn babies of our perceived enemies. But we should at least keep him in mind. </span></div><o:p></o:p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Those of you who were here last week may remember that Joseph - son of Jacob and Rachel, grandson of Isaac and Rebecca, great grandson of Abraham and Sarah - Joseph rose to power in Egypt, then brought his family there to save them from starvation and protected them in this foreign land. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />But now time has passed and this king only knows the descendants of Joseph as slaves, people upon whom they ruthlessly imposed tasks, making their lives bitter with hard service. You can understand why the enslaved African Americans in our country identified so closely with the oppression of the Israelites and the prospect of someone leading them to freedom. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">The king is worried that the Israelites are reproducing too quickly and soon may overpower the Egyptians, so he orders the Egyptian midwives to kill the Hebrew male babies. It’s a horrifying order.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Two midwives - Shiphrah and Puah - take it upon themselves to resist the king’s order. When he calls them in to question why male babies are not being killed, they concoct this story about vigorous Hebrew women giving birth before the midwife arrives.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">They are the first heroes in the story. So imagine you are Shiphrah or Puah facing an immoral order from a ruler - or a boss. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">What would you do? <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">How do you weigh the directions of God against the perils of the moment?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">How do you choose to resist or undermine the things that put the lives of others at grave risk? <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Think of the people who first sought the abolition of slavery in this nation, those who gave their lives in the Civil War fought over stopping slavery, those women who were arrested seeking the right to vote, those people who marched for civil rights. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Our acts of creative resistance to what we see as wrong may not be so historic but I think we can draw inspiration from Shiphra and Puah. We can find the places in our lives where we need to stand up against injustice. And notice that these two women stood together. It always helps to have allies. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">The king, however, was not going to be deterred. Those intent on protecting their own power seldom are. So he tries another tactic. He orders all his people to throw any newborn Hebrew boys into the Nile River - that great river that flows from Central Africa north through Egypt to the Mediterranean Sea. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">That brings us to the next character in the story - Jochebed, the mother of Moses. She is not named in this passage - notice how often women’s names get left out - but she is named elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">She already had two children - a son Aaron and a daughter Miriam. Now she was pregnant again and she surely knew of the king’s order and the danger this posed to her son. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Imagine the worry on her heart. This beautiful baby boy would be taken from her and drowned in the Nile. So she came up with a plan - a desperate plan in the hope that it might save the life of her child. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Jochebed used papyrus - a kind of thick paper - to fashion a basket. She put Moses in the basket and - along with her daughter, Miriam - carried Moses to the edge of the Nile River.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">What must have been going through Jochebed’s mind at that moment? She was sending her infant son into danger. There was nothing she could tell him - no warnings like Black parents give their teens as they go out into a hostile work, no words of wisdom like I gave my teens about being responsible as they joined friends for the evening. Just the sounds of footsteps on the ground.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizQmNEqySYc5u4pVqOc-Eg6yQmbBPCka8-WlDDik4urewLdze5X4c89FpE36PFw3p7fi_1w8lIfaZN3hQlZlau1UUhkxvuJcf470gToVYAy8LHXnT31gQCHKhfRLdPuOYuMEvK4HREcVw/s2048/Beyonce+and+baby.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1213" data-original-width="2048" height="303" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizQmNEqySYc5u4pVqOc-Eg6yQmbBPCka8-WlDDik4urewLdze5X4c89FpE36PFw3p7fi_1w8lIfaZN3hQlZlau1UUhkxvuJcf470gToVYAy8LHXnT31gQCHKhfRLdPuOYuMEvK4HREcVw/w513-h303/Beyonce+and+baby.png" width="513" /></a></div><p></p><div style="background-color: white; border-bottom-color: rgb(162, 169, 177); border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-style: none none solid; padding: 0in;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 3pt; padding: 0in;"><span face="" lang="EN" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Beyoncé,</span><span face="" lang="EN" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">one of the great musical artists of our era, has a new video out called “Black is King.” She uses music she sang in the 2019 remake of <i>The Lion King</i>, then adds video reflecting the life and culture of the nations and tribes of Africa. There is a powerful scene where </span><span face="" lang="EN" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Beyoncé</span><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> takes on the persona of Jochebed, Moses’ mother. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 3pt; padding: 0in;"><span face="" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 3pt; padding: 0in;"><span face="" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">You see her smiling at her baby as she cradles him in her arms, you see her put him in the papyrus basket and then you see her carrying the basket towards the river. The look on her face is piercing - worry, grief mixed with determination.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 3pt; padding: 0in;"><span face="" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" lang="EN" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Beyoncé</span><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> sings a song called “Otherside:”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“Best believe me<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">You will see me <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">On the other side.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><i><a href="https://youtu.be/PaMbTX-yDT0">(Here's a link to the audio of the whole song.)</a></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">We know she will in fact see Moses on the other side. But at this moment, Jochabed only knows she is sending away her baby boy with the slimmest of hopes that this act will keep him alive. And yet there is that hope.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Think of how many people these days have sent loved ones off to hospitals, fearing they may never see then again, holding out hope that they will recover, that life can go on. Think how alone, how frightened we can feel at a time like this. And know that we stand along with Jochabed, doing what we hope is best, hoping against all odds that things will turn out OK.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Moses begins his journey down the river. In </span><span face="" lang="EN" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Beyoncé</span><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">’s video, the river is anything but peaceful. There are rocks, there are rapids throwing the basket to and fro. Moses is too young to understand what is happening and unable to see out of the basket.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">There are surely days in this season that I feel that way. There are the rocks of the pandemic and the waves of the economy and the rapids of racial turmoil. I don’t know where this river is taking me. I cannot see outside the little container of my life. All of this leaves me with a sense of anxiety and uncertainty. And I certainly can feel all alone in the midst of this meandering journey.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0sMbNlqpuhyRDuvYcA5Kl6_catEowsxNsRJjhs3iCdMMXNSDuAv93KU2tuNmEXQb6pO_Gx-HvMerAkjtttoJV_wzUPyPyIWuti0TCAFitk-rnvxUxC5cKeycxngnAeOCeLTERIKk_dOk/s1024/Moses+in+River.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="792" height="512" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0sMbNlqpuhyRDuvYcA5Kl6_catEowsxNsRJjhs3iCdMMXNSDuAv93KU2tuNmEXQb6pO_Gx-HvMerAkjtttoJV_wzUPyPyIWuti0TCAFitk-rnvxUxC5cKeycxngnAeOCeLTERIKk_dOk/w396-h512/Moses+in+River.jpg" width="396" /></a></div>Enter the princess in the story. <o:p></o:p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Once again, she is not named in the text in Exodus, but later in the Bible, we learn that her name was Bithiah. Her father was the king, the pharaoh. Surely she knew of his order to drown all the Hebrew infant boys. She was one of the privileged ones in Egypt of that time - part of a powerful and wealthy family, servants coming with her to the river as she prepared to bathe. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">And then she sees a basket floating down the river. Perhaps she heard a baby crying. One of her servants grabbed the basket out of the water and brought it to Bithiah. She saw the baby. She recognized it as a Hebrew baby. She knew what she was supposed to do - throw him into the river. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">And yet…and yet…she hesitated. She risked defying her father to save this child. She used her power and privilege to help others.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">As we get to the end of the story, we learn that Moses’ sister, Miriam, talks with the princess, reunites Jochabed with her son and Moses grows up in the royal home. Later, he will lead his people to freedom.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">We also learn later in the biblical Book of First Chronicles that Bithiah marries one of the Hebrew men, has children with him and travels with the Hebrews to freedom. She clearly had taken a stand that cost her privilege in order to help others.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">That notion of helping others I think is one of the keys to this whole story. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Shiphra and Puah used their creative resistance to save the Hebrew children.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Jochabed was accompanied on her journey to the river by her daughter, Miriam, who in turn would act to reunite Moses with his mother.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Bithiah and her servants worked together to save Moses from the river and to raise him in a place where he would be safe.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />We know the worry of mothers like Jochabed, we know the uncertainty of Moses in a basket floating down a river, we know what it is like to be in a position to reach out to others. <br /><br />We know that by working together, we can make life better for those who are struggling, <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">One of the wonderful things about this story is how it is embraced by all three of faith traditions that grew out of the family of Abraham. Of course it is in the Hebrew Bible, that we as Christians use as the backdrop for our own understanding of the life and message of Jesus. It is also in the Qur’ran, the sacred scripture of the Muslim faith, told in essentially the same way.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />We can all appreciate the way this story sets an oppressed people on the path to liberation. We can all appreciate how God’s grace gives people strength and hope in even the hardest times. This is a time when we need God’s grace and each other’s help as we navigate the rivers of our lives. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p>Phil Haslangerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03644333674118022564noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6633437725662827250.post-76749444577882063972020-08-16T07:30:00.002-07:002020-08-16T08:19:58.507-07:00I am your brother, John<p><i><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif;">August 16, 2020, Belleville UCC - </span><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=464536467"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif;">Genesis 45: 1-15</span><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></a></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Ah, Joseph. What a great character from the stories we read in the Bible. The stories have become the stuff of legend and musicals and children’s books and adult novels.</span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 18.66666603088379px; text-align: left;"> </span></td></tr></tbody></table><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"></span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH-ygZS3jGn3le7yPRnTTBVhF8bIN72zuLzTsElIGqIEhVNAe4u5bWDORqSXYNSKDaEwCmHJY2Sp1MgzpbMCyeYWzKRuFtB2clLQFoa2crSr0cTWa-b2NuE8fMLCnhnS_6hkrOslZFYCg/s653/Bourgeois_Joseph_recognized_by_his_brothers.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="653" height="314" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH-ygZS3jGn3le7yPRnTTBVhF8bIN72zuLzTsElIGqIEhVNAe4u5bWDORqSXYNSKDaEwCmHJY2Sp1MgzpbMCyeYWzKRuFtB2clLQFoa2crSr0cTWa-b2NuE8fMLCnhnS_6hkrOslZFYCg/w400-h314/Bourgeois_Joseph_recognized_by_his_brothers.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span face="" style="font-family: "news gothic mt"; text-align: start;">Joseph recognized by his brothers, by Léon Pierre </span><span face="" style="font-family: "news gothic mt"; text-align: start;">Urbain</span><span face="" style="font-family: "news gothic mt"; text-align: start;"> Bourgeois, 1863</span></span><span face="" style="font-family: "news gothic mt"; font-size: 11pt; text-align: start;"> </span><span face="" style="font-family: -webkit-standard; text-align: start;"></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">The father who spoiled him, the brothers he tormented and their revenge, his rise to power in Egypt even in the midst of plots against him. </span><div><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">And then, this moment where he and his brothers face each other after so many years.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />Remember, when he was young, his brothers essentially sold him into slavery, covering their action by telling their father that Joseph had been devoured by wild beasts, bringing home the blood-stained coat of many colors. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">This, after all, is the archetype of the dysfunctional family. On those days when you think your family is spinning out of control, you might take a bit of comfort in knowing that others have been there before you.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Of course, the Joseph story seems to have a happy ending. In the passage that Mary read today, Joseph forgives his brothers, they embrace and cry and they seem finally reconciled to one another.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />Those of you who had the chance to be here last week or watch the service during the week heard Pastor Laura tell the powerful story of a statue of reconciliation and then the Biblical story of the reconciliation between Jacob - that would be Joseph’s father - and Esau, Jacob’s estranged brother whom Jacob had cheated out of his birthright. Jacob and Esau met face to face and embraced with tears flowing.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">In our story today, after all of the twists and turns involving Jacob’s children from different wives, the brothers hug each other and tears flow. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />The way this story often gets interpreted is as a call for us to embrace those we are estranged from, to move on together from the hurts of the past. That is certainly an ideal I think we all ought to strive for, even though the path to forgiveness can be a complicated one.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">But I think this is also a story about power, how power shifts over time, how being conscious of how we use or are used by power is part of how we work our way forward as individuals and as a society. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">John Lewis knew a lot about power. When he was a young man, he was part of the Civil Rights movement in this country, often finding himself on the losing side of power as he was arrested and sometimes beaten. Later, at age 48, he was elected to Congress, now someone in a position of power.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">You probably heard a lot about John Lewis during the past month as the nation honored him after his death on July 17. One of my favorite stories about him has an interesting parallel to the story we heard today about Joseph.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">In 1961, John Lewis was part of a group of young people on a Freedom Ride across the South trying to end legal segregation. They stopped at a Greyhound bus station in Rock Hill, South Carolina. Lewis, who was Black, and one of his white compatriots went into the whites-only waiting area at the bus depot. A group of young white men assaulted them, beating them bloody with baseball bats. Elwin Wilson was one of those young white men. He became a member of the Ku Klux Klan.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />But in his later years, Wilson was haunted by his beating of the two men in the bus station and his other actions. A friend asked him if he knew where he would go when he died. “To hell,” Wilson replied. And began to look for a way to make things right.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">In 2009, he called the local newspaper in Rock Hill, told them what he had done and began his search for the two men he had beaten in the bus station. The white man, Albert Bigelow, had died in 1993. And then, to Wilson’s surprise, he learned that the other man - John Lewis - was now a member of Congress. The power dynamic had certainly changed.</span></p><p style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; margin: 9pt 0in 0.25in;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwJ2fU8W_ZN-bKu5ykav78W8Iuu3k6wmDWB-Hdou9Ajjp2D4EtfmUyJ9oS4xau7QVwlArrzzyAM5QZxQs4Y0__QONXQEZFtPJkzihaBIUmKZYB4VX-e-uf4mHWY7SNisWEw_BrPW11-gM/s2048/Lewuis+and+WIlson.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1302" data-original-width="2048" height="261" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwJ2fU8W_ZN-bKu5ykav78W8Iuu3k6wmDWB-Hdou9Ajjp2D4EtfmUyJ9oS4xau7QVwlArrzzyAM5QZxQs4Y0__QONXQEZFtPJkzihaBIUmKZYB4VX-e-uf4mHWY7SNisWEw_BrPW11-gM/w410-h261/Lewuis+and+WIlson.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Wilson arranged to visit Lewis in his Congressional office in Washington. He brought along his now middle-aged son. When they entered Lewis’ office, he got right to the point: “Mr. Lewis,” he said, “my name is Elwin Wilson. I’m one of the men who beat you in that bus station back in 1961. I want to atone for the terrible thing I did, so I’ve come to seek your forgiveness. Will you forgive me?”</span><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Lewis, recalling that moment, said, “I forgave him, we embraced, he and his son and I wept, and then we talked.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: large;"><a href="https://youtu.be/Y77fUFUfk9I ">ABC News went back to report on that visit. I’d invite you to watch this brief clip from 2009.</a> <i>(During the sermon, I played the section from 0:21 to 1:20)</i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">It’s a story of repentance and forgiveness that gives me so much hope. As John Lewis would say later, “People can change…people can change.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">It’s also a story, like the story of Joseph, about how power can shift in our lives.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />When Joseph was a young man, he had plenty of arrogance and he thought his father’s protection gave him some sort of power. But it was brothers who really had the power. They were the ones who essentially sold him into slavery. And then thought they were rid of him.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />Now Joseph has the power. At first, he uses his power to taunt his brothers, since they do not recognize him. He has accommodated so well to the royal life in Egypt that he is unrecognizable. Power can do that to a person, after all.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">But Joseph also recognized that he could use his power for good. He finally revealed himself to his brothers, had them bring Jacob and his extended family to Egypt where there would be enough food for all. (Joseph’s mother, Rachel, had died by this time.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">You might think this puts a happy ending on the story. But in time, these Israelites who had moved to Egypt became the slaves of the Pharaoh. Power had shifted again. We’ll hear more about that next week.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />For now, I’d just like to play with the notion of how power gets used not only in this story, not only in the story of John Lewis, but in our lives as well.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0in;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">There are places in all of our lives where we have power. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0in;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">And there are places where others have power over us. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0in;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">There are places where people need to depend on our using what power we have wisely. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0in;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">There are places where we need to depend on the wise use of powers by others.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0in;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0in;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Remember the twists of power in Joseph’s life.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0in;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0in;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">As a slave to a captain of the Egyptian guard named Potiphar, Joseph did such a good job of winning his master’s favor that Potiphar put him in charge of his household. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0in;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0in;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">And Joseph did such a good job of exuding charm that Potiphar’s wife repeatedly tried to seduce him and finally framed him as having tried to assault her. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0in;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />His power was gone. He was in prison. He was victimized by the power of another and once again at the bottom of the power equation. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0in;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0in;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">But he used what abilities he had to make friends among his fellow prisoners, interpreting their dreams. One of them eventually returned to his post in the Pharaoh’s court and eventually told the Pharaoh about Joseph’s ability to interpret dreams.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0in;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0in;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Once again, Joseph moved into a position of power and used his power to help Egypt prepare for the famine that he anticipated. In the process, his power and stature rose.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0in;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />Power is like that, after all. It is not like motives and results are always pure. Joseph helped the people of Egypt. He also helped himself. Was he doing this for his own benefit first or for the community’s benefit?<br /><br />That's the kind of question that is useful to ponder as we look at the ways we seek and use power in our lives and judge the use of power by others.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0in;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0in;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">It’s a question that is never easy to answer, especially in the political arena where power seems to be used so much for personal aggrandizement, yet where that power also can protect or improve the lives of those who are most vulnerable. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0in;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0in;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Power exists in places other than the public arena, though. It exists within our families as well. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0in;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0in;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Families are not free from power struggles, whether between partners or between parents and children. The power dynamics change as children grow older, as they find themselves caring for aging parents. It’s never a smooth ride.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0in;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0in;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">So we continually wind up considering the questions of what power we have and how best to use that power. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0in;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0in;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">In our own families, I suspect we often take for granted the power we have and the way we use, abuse or ignore that power.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0in;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0in;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">We are neither all powerful nor totally powerless. If we are looking for some touchstones on how we might think about power, the life a Jesus is a pretty good place to start.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0in;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0in;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Even before Jesus was born, his mother Mary was singing a song we call the Magnificat. She said that God had brought the powerful down from their thrones and lifted up the lowly. We know the story about Jesus being born in a stable. Yet we also know the stories of how he used his power to help so many people that he encountered along the way.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0in;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />A woman washing his feet with her tears and hair is elevated to honor. A tax collector is invited to take a step back serve Jesus dinner. His followers tell of how he calmed storms. And then, at his last meal with his closest followers, he washes their feet and tells them, “You call me Lord and Teacher…so if I, your Lord and Teacher have washed your feet, so you ought to wash one another’s feet.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0in;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />When we feel powerless, we need to seek allies. When we feel powerful, we need to embrace humility. When we misuse our power, we need to seek forgiveness. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0in;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0in;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">And wherever we are, we need to remember that God’s grace is with us, Jesus’ life offers signposts and God’s Spirit will carry us along.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0in;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0in;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Like Joseph, like John Lewis, we have to struggle with the uses and abuses of power and we have to struggle with what it means to forgive and to be forgiven. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="" style="font-family: cambria, serif;"> </span></p></div>Phil Haslangerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03644333674118022564noreply@blogger.com0