Pentecost 13

Joshua 24:1-2a, 14-18
Psalm 34:15-22
Ephesians 6:10-20
John 6:56-69

Greetings everyone!  This week marks the thirtieth year of my sojourn in New Jersey. That term “sojourn” is not really accurate anymore. For a very long time now I have considered New Jersey my home. As much as I enjoy visiting the State of Washington out on the west coast where I was born and raised, it is no longer home for me. The house in which I grew up has long since been sold. My parents are no longer living. Much of the area in which I spent my boyhood years has changed almost beyond my recognition.

Yet there was a time when Washington was home and New Jersey was a big question mark. I was twenty six-years old when I packed my few belongings into my Mercury Zephyr and left Bremerton for Teaneck, New Jersey to serve a congregation there. Referring to Teaneck as the Promised Land might sound a little hyperbolic, but in many respects, it was just that for me. Teaneck represented an opportunity for me to begin doing what I had spent years training, preparing and practicing for. It also presented me with the challenges of adulthood that are deferred for people like me who spend nearly the first decade of adulthood in school. I am talking about things that are pretty routine-like opening a bank account; finding a doctor/dentist; obtaining a New Jersey drivers license and getting my taxes done. Of course, these were all challenges I anticipated. I could never have anticipated meeting the girl of my dreams, having three beautiful children and the unexpected detour of my professional life into the practice of law. The Promised Land held more promises (and challenges) than I could possibly have anticipated.

Joshua 24:1-2a, 14-18  http://www.workingpreacher.org/bible_passage.aspx?reading_id=1338&cmpgn=5244

The Book of Joshua is the story of the Israelites’ entry into the Promised Land after forty years of wandering in the wilderness. Joshua, the successor to Moses, led the Israelites into Canaan where they conquered the Canaanites and redistributed the land among the twelve tribes of Israel. The book ends with a covenant ceremony in which the people of Israel vow in the presence of Joshua and their God to “serve only the Lord.” That is where our reading for this Sunday fits in. If you read one verse further, you will discover that Joshua is skeptical of his peoples’ ability to meet the challenge of living as God’s covenant people in the land which God has given them. He can see all too well how easily the lessons learned in the wilderness, where God fed Israel each day her daily bread, could be lost now that Israel had inherited a good land capable of sustaining her.  Memory seems to be a key factor here. Fresh in Israel’s memory are the saving acts of God that liberated her from slavery in Egypt and God’s provision for all of her needs as she traveled through the wilderness. Perhaps that explains why “Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua; and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua and had known all the work which the Lord did for Israel.” Josh. 24:31.  The memory of God’s saving acts and the awareness of God’s continuing presence was fresh in Israel’s mind. When memory fades, so does faithfulness.

Statistics demonstrate that, of those persons who leave the church, a significant number are made of people who have moved from one community to another. Moving is a stressful and demanding process. So is the process of finding a new church home. Reasons given by people who have moved and neglected worship are many. Lack of time and energy is one factor. Getting settled into a new home is a chore in itself. Finding a good pediatrician for the kids and getting them registered for school takes time. Changing your driver’s license, auto registration, voting registration and opening bank accounts all take their toll on your time. Looking for a job in a new community also taxes your time, finances and psyche. For those who have made an effort to find a church, many are disappointed because the churches they visit seem less than friendly, or don’t have the programs they are looking for or “it just aren’t the same as our old church.” Whatever the reasons, often the first thing people shed when they settle into a new community is their faith. So Joshua was justified in his concern that, with all the demands of settling the land of Canaan, worship of the faithful God Israel had come to know in the wilderness would fall to the bottom of the priority list.

In some respects, each new day is another entry into the Promised Land. One never knows what any given day will bring, but we believe that “it is the day the Lord has made.” Psalm 118:24. There are always the routine and anticipated aspects of the day. Sometimes it seems as though that is all there is. Yet even in the most ordinary humdrum day there is some element of the unexpected: the card from that friend you have not heard from in years; the call from your child’s teacher suggesting a conference; the guy in the smelly sweatshirt that approaches you asking for money as you are coming out of the grocery store. These circumstances often present us with the same choice Joshua presented to the children of Israel as they prepared to settle into Canaan: will you serve the Lord your God or some other “god”? If we are attentive, we can hear Joshua’s voice throughout our day asking us, “Choose this day whom you will serve.”

Psalm 34:15-22  http://www.workingpreacher.org/bible_passage.aspx?reading_id=1337&cmpgn=5244

The psalm reading for Sunday is the third and last section of Psalm 34, the psalm we have been reading for the last two weeks. My comments on the content, style and form of this psalm are found in the posts for Pentecost 11 and Pentecost 12. I would only add as a point of interest that verse 20 is prominently cited in the Gospel of John.

“Since it was the day of Preparation, the Jews did not want the bodies left on the cross during the sabbath, especially because that sabbath was a day of great solemnity. So they asked Pilate to have the legs of the crucified men broken and the bodies removed. ³²Then the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who had been crucified with him. ³³But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. ³⁴Instead, one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once blood and water came out.³⁵(He who saw this has testified so that you also may believe. His testimony is true, and he knows^* that he tells the truth.)³⁶These things occurred so that the scripture might be fulfilled, ‘None of his bones shall be broken.’ ³⁷And again another passage of scripture says, ‘They will look on the one whom they have pierced.’”

John 19:31-37.  For further perspective on this psalm, you might want to read the commentary of Henry Langknecht, Professor of Homiletics at Trinity Seminary in Columbus, Ohio. This can be found at Workingpreacher.org.   http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?lect_date=8/26/2012&tab=5&cmpgn=5244

Ephesians 6:10-20  http://www.workingpreacher.org/bible_passage.aspx?reading_id=1339&cmpgn=5244

In this remarkable passage we are encouraged to “be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.” Then the author of Ephesians proceeds to turn everything we think we know about strength on its head. “For we are not contending against flesh and blood” says the writer. But there are many forces in our culture telling us that our struggle is against flesh and blood. It is against liberals and socialists; against conservatives and right wingers; it is against illegal immigrants; it is against terrorists and criminals. The devil is constantly trying to convince us through a huge array of ideologies that the world can neatly be divided into good people and evil people. As long as you are on the side of good, it is acceptable to employ violence to achieve justice and defend “our” way of life whoever “we” may be. The devil would have us believe that “God is on our side” and that he, the devil, is on the side of our enemies. Of course, the devil does not take sides in human conflict. He has no stake in who controls the world or which nation triumphs over all others. As long as people are hating and killing each other, it matters not who “wins.” As far as the devil is concerned, wherever there is war he is the winner.

The writer of Ephesians recognizes, however, that our real fight is “against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” In truth, the line between good and evil does not run along national, racial, religious or ethnic lines. The line between good and evil runs through the middle of every human heart and that is where we need to begin engaging evil. We are urged to put on “the whole armor of God.” The writer then uses a host of extremely militaristic images of armor and weaponry to describe the spiritual resources given to the church for its struggle against evil. This remarkable contrast is designed to emphasize the gentle means by which God overcomes the powers of wickedness that know only violence and coercion. The only body armor the disciple of Jesus has is truth, righteousness and peace. The only shield a disciple has to withstand the violent forces of evil is faith in God’s promises. The only protection from a mortal head wound is the salvation wrought in Jesus Christ. This is the armor with which disciples of Jesus were called upon to meet the brutality of a hostile empire with armies, weapons and torture implements at its disposal. The only offensive weapons disciples of Jesus have are prayer and the Holy Spirit.

So where are the principalities and powers, the hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places today? I suggest that many of them are found in the same places they were dwelling in the days of the New Testament church. They are found in the machinery of empire, the jealous sovereignty of nation states insisting that their own national interests trump global concerns for the wellbeing of all. When the “world rulers of this present age” insist that we must kill our neighbors in direct contradiction to Jesus’ call to love even our enemies and to resist not one who is evil, then we should be hearing the voice of Joshua from our Old Testament lesson crying out, “Choose this day who you will serve.” For too long, I believe, the church has sided with the principalities and powers in exchange for public support and respectability. For too long churches have confused the interests of the Kingdom of God with the interests of whichever nation they happen to reside in. The cry of “God and country” has too often muffled Joshua’s cry of either or.

I also believe that the principalities and powers often worm their way into the life of the church. A church that values doing worship “right” over worshiping Jesus well has succumbed to the powers. A church that values maintaining its traditions over welcoming its community and allowing the Spirit to transform it has come under the influence of the principalities. A church that values survival over mission is a church that is run by the rulers of this present age. A church that values its reputation over faithful witness to the scandalous and controversial good news about Jesus Christ is a church that has lost its armor and has become fearful of taking a stand for its Lord.

Thanks be to God that in Jesus Christ we are well armed. The power of truthful speech unmasks the powers of evil urging us toward violence and hate. The good news of God’s reconciliation in Christ gives us all the ammunition we need to wage peace. Righteousness and integrity guard us from temptation, threats and intimidation. Faith, the conviction that God has already accomplished all things needful for the salvation of the world in Jesus Christ, gives us courage to endure the seeming failure of our own faithful efforts. We know that Christ promises to complete what we can only begin. Finally, through prayer and the work of God’s Spirit within us we exercise the very power that raised Jesus from death. No more potent weapon exists or is needed for the advance of God’s Kingdom.

John 6:56-69  http://www.workingpreacher.org/bible_passage.aspx?reading_id=1340&cmpgn=5244

Last week it was the crowd and Jesus’ critics who mumbled and complained because Jesus said in very graphic terms that he was the bread of life and that having life meant eating his flesh and drinking his blood. This week it is Jesus’ own disciples who are doing the complaining. Many of them, after hearing these words from Jesus, no longer followed him. But I have to ask, were they ever really following him to begin with? These disciples may have cheered as Jesus cleansed the Temple and rid it of corruption and commercialism. They were thrilled to receive their fill of bread in the wilderness. If this is what Jesus is doing, what’s not to like? Now, however, Jesus offers them more. He offers them his very self. But these disciples do not want anything more. They do not want Jesus. They want all the good things they think Jesus can give them. They want to be disciples of Jesus, but on their own terms. To internalize Jesus, to be sustained by him alone and to be transformed by Jesus is more than what they bargained for. They wanted Jesus to transform their unhappy circumstances, but they had no intention of letting him change them. These disciples were prepared to be admirers of Jesus, supporters of Jesus and even followers of Jesus-up to a point. But when Jesus makes it clear to them that salvation lies precisely in going beyond that point, they want nothing further to do with him.

Let’s be clear. It is not that Jesus is demanding a higher morality, a higher level of devotion or a higher level of spiritual awareness from his disciples. Jesus has already said that the only work God requires is that we trust in him. Trusting Jesus means believing Jesus when he tells us that what he has to give us is what we truly need. Jesus offers to abide in us. Abiding in Jesus means being absorbed into Jesus, transformed into the likeness of Jesus and drawn into the mission of Jesus. We don’t accomplish that on our own. Jesus offers it to us as a gift. But therein is the rub: too often we just don’t want this gift. We don’t want to internalize Jesus. We want Jesus at a distance. We want him to be there as a shoulder to cry on, a gentle presence to give us peace, a savior who is there in times of trouble, but decent enough to stay out of our way when times are good. We want a Jesus who will defend our homes and protect our soldiers, but not the Jesus who prepares a table for us in the presence of our enemies and then calls upon us to invite those enemies to the feast. We want a Jesus who will change our unpleasant circumstances, but not a Jesus who wants to change our hearts and minds. As the Gospel of John has already indicated: “this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.”  John 3:19.

Jesus lost some disciples that day and he seems not to have been too worried about that. There are some kinds of followers Jesus does not need. Among them are those who are tagging along only for what they can get out of discipleship. There is a great deal of concern expressed these days about the decline in church membership among protestant denominations such the ELCA. Some folks are blaming the national church for its stances on controversial subjects. Others blame the synods for their lack of leadership. Many blame pastors for failing to speak effectively to the younger generations. We pastors, for our part, point the finger at our congregations for their lack of commitment and support. That is all counterproductive. Fixing blame for the sinking of the Titanic would not have kept it from going down and certainly will not bring it back up from the bottom of the sea. Moreover, I am beginning to wonder whether anyone is to blame or whether anything blameworthy is being done. Maybe the membership of the church is shrinking because its capacity for true discipleship is growing. Maybe we are driving people out of the church precisely because more of us are internalizing Jesus. When a church takes seriously its duty to show hospitality to the stranger regardless of the stranger’s legal status; when the church opens its doors to people who dirty its carpets, disrupt the flow of its worship and tarnish its reputation, very often long time members respond as did many of Jesus disciples in our Gospel lesson: “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?”

These days I am hearing an ever more urgent call for some strategy, some new change of direction, some marketing ploy that will “turn the church around.” If by that we mean turning away from sin and turning toward Jesus and the new life he offers, then I am all for it. But if “turning the church around,” means only that we grow our membership by whatever means available and increase our income so that we can preserve our denominational institutions, I am not sure I want in on that. Maybe Jesus does not need a church that owns real estate in every town. Maybe Jesus does not need a guild of professional clergy represented in every congregation. Maybe Jesus does not need bishops who travel the world to address heads of state and numerous programs addressing every conceivable human need. Maybe all Jesus needs is a little band of sheep that hear his call and follow him. Perhaps a poor, small, broken church living faithfully at the margins with no social influence or political power is a more faithful witness to the resurrected Christ than a large, thriving corporate church. It may be that we are not dying, but only getting pruned. (See John 15:1-2). I don’t pretend to know God’s grand plan for the church in the twenty-first century. I do not even know what God’s plans are for the ELCA. I am convinced, however, that we need to be open to the possibility that our view of what our church needs might be vastly different from what God is doing with us. We may fear that we are getting too small, but from God’s perspective we may still be too big.

In sum, following Jesus is no sure way to success, institutional or otherwise. But then again, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” That alone is why we follow Jesus. Jesus knows what matters eternally and tells us in no uncertain terms that we matter eternally to him. Jesus loves us too much to let us waste our lives pursuing bread that cannot feed us, chasing success in projects that don’t matter and satisfaction in pleasures that do not last.

Pentecost 12

Proverbs 9:1–6
Psalm 34:9–14
Ephesians 5:15–20
John 6:51–58

August is a slow month on our calendar here at Trinity. We don’t have a lot of scheduled activities this month. But the calendar does not tell the full story. The needs of the poor and hungry in our midst are as acute as ever and our response to those needs is evident in the regular stream of groceries that come into our sanctuary each week. We welcomed yet another family into the Green House apartment this month. We concluded yet another successful session of our Summer Camp. Our sacramental ministers have been faithfully visiting our homebound and ill members. We continue meeting on Wednesday evening for prayer throughout the year. So don’t let the calendar fool you! The dog days of summer are filled with mission and ministry!

Our lessons this week all seem to touch on “wisdom” in some way, shape or form. The ninth chapter of Proverbs contains a beautiful poem in which wisdom, personified as a beautiful woman, calls people to abandon foolishness and simplicity in order to pursue understanding. The psalmist issues the invitation, “Come, O sons, listen to me, I will teach you the fear of the Lord.” The author of Ephesians admonishes his hearers to “Look carefully how you walk, not as unwise men, but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil.” In the gospel lesson from the sixth chapter of John, the dialogue between Jesus and the hungry crowd he fed with the loaves and fishes continues with a pointed discussion about what truly sustains life.

Proverbs 9:1–6  http://www.workingpreacher.org/bible_passage.aspx?reading_id=1333&cmpgn=5244

The Book of Proverbs, along with Job, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs and several of the Psalms constitutes a collection of works scholars often refer to as “wisdom literature.” “Wisdom,” loosely defined, is insight gained through life experience often expressed in short proverbial sayings. One such example is Proverbs 10:2, “Treasures gained by wickedness do not profit, but righteousness delivers from death.” This is true as far as it goes. How many wealthy and powerful people have been brought down by an insatiable desire for wealth that knows no moral or ethical boundaries! But is it always the case that ill gotten gain leads to ruin? Is righteousness always rewarded? It didn’t turn out that way for Job. Furthermore, the “preacher” in Ecclesiastes has this to say: “There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, and it lies heavy upon men: a man to whom God gives wealth, possessions, and honor so that he lacks nothing of all that he desires, yet God does not give him power to enjoy them, but a stranger enjoys them; this is vanity; it is a sore affliction.” So which is true? Is it the proverb or the observation of the preacher?

The answer is that both utterances are true as far as they go, and they only go as far as the experiences of the people who make them. Human wisdom, though valuable and worth pursuing, is nevertheless incomplete, partial and subject to modification. It is true that righteousness and integrity can bring you respect and a good name in the community. But sometimes the cost of doing the right thing can be the loss of friendship, respect and social standing. Wickedness often is its own punishment, but we also know of people who inflict all manner of pain on others and are never brought to justice. That is why it is best to take these utterances of human wisdom not as moral laws governing the universe, but as the experiences of individuals who have lived their lives in pursuit of understanding. Wisdom literature invites us to step into the shoes of people who have lived life under numerous circumstances and view it from their perspective. Think of wisdom sayings as portholes into reality. Because they are unique and different from our own perspectives, they enrich our understanding. Yet we dare not forget that, like all human perspectives, these sayings are limited to the experience of one individual. They do not take in all of reality. So it should not surprise us to find different and even conflicting expressions of learned wisdom. Biblical wisdom does not fit neatly into a unified system because, as the product of human experience, it is necessarily incomplete.

Psalm 34:9–14    http://www.workingpreacher.org/bible_passage.aspx?reading_id=1332&cmpgn=5244

These verses constitute the second half of the psalm from last Sunday. For my observations on the psalmist’s style and its literary characteristics, see the post for Pentecost 11.

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” says the psalmist in Psalm 110:10. Not surprisingly, then, the psalmist in our psalm for this Sunday calls us to learn the fear of the Lord. “What man is there who desires life, and covets many days, that he may enjoy good?…Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it.” Does good conduct lead to a long and satisfying life? Often, but not always. Again, this is the experience of the psalmist. It is also my own experience. Let me be clear about this. I have not always been so very successful in departing from evil and doing good or seeking peace. But when I am, I discover that life is better. I am much happier when I am not pursuing a zero sum game, win at all costs strategy, but looking instead beyond the immediate conflicts I have with people to the people themselves and working toward building relationships of trust. That makes it possible to find win/wins solutions.

Still, in all honesty, that has not always been my experience. Sometimes people take advantage of my trust and return my offer of friendship with hostility. The psalmist appears to have had similar experiences. He or she goes on to say, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous…”  Clearly, righteousness does not immunize one against the slings and arrows of living in a world filled with cruelty and injustice. Indeed, righteous conduct sometimes invites hostility. The righteous are sometimes “brokenhearted” and “crushed in spirit.” Nevertheless, the psalmist reminds us that even at these times “the Lord is near.”

Ephesians 5:15–20  http://www.workingpreacher.org/bible_passage.aspx?reading_id=1334&cmpgn=5244

The author of Ephesians admonishes us to “understand what the will of the Lord is.” That is a tall order. It isn’t that I don’t know generally what God requires. The problem arises when I try to understand what God requires of me in the minutia of my day to day life. If God is not active there, then God’s will is largely irrelevant.

Oddly enough, we are not given much guidance here. We are warned against drunkenness-that clearly will not get us to an understanding of God’s will for us. But when it comes specifically to figuring out God’s will, we are told simply to be filled with the Holy Spirit-and to sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Yet maybe the apostle is on to something here. There is nothing like singing to create a sense of community and shared vision. Other than the national anthem sung at sports events, I cannot think of any situation in our culture except worship where people still sing together. There is something about singing that opens a person’s imagination to a broader vision of things. A hymn is sort of like a snowball. The more you sing it at different times and places in your life, the more meaning it accumulates. I suspect that for all of us there is a hymn that makes us tear up, a song that helps us visualize the mysteries of faith that escape conceptualization. I think that the practice of singing our faith together helps us to internalize that faith and so also create space for the Spirit of God to begin working out God’s intent for us. We don’t begin by trying to figure out God’s will and then trying to do it. Rather, we begin with worship. Gradually, we begin to recognize God’s will unfolding in our lives after it has seeped into our bones through the practices of worship, singing, prayer, generosity and hospitality.

John 6:51–58  http://www.workingpreacher.org/bible_passage.aspx?reading_id=1335&cmpgn=5244

I have to confess that my initial reaction to this section of John is, “Yuck!”  The image of someone eating flesh and drinking blood, even when understood metaphorically, is distasteful to put it mildly. And clearly, Jesus is not speaking metaphorically. This conversation started out with Jesus providing bread to five thousand people who proceeded to eat, chew and swallow it. Jesus then identifies himself as the bread of life, that which sustains human existence. But lest we get to comfortable with this assertion as a benign figure of speech, Jesus drives it home with some very graphic language: “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you…” The bread of life Jesus offers comes at the cost of his own death at the very hands of those he came to feed. Moreover, the way to eternal life is through sharing in Jesus’ suffering and death. The crowd which initially sought Jesus with enthusiasm thinking that they had found an ATM with a limitless supply of bread, now begins to turn on Jesus. How can Jesus’ flesh satisfy their hunger? How can his blood satisfy their thirst? They want desperately to turn the conversation back to plain old bread. But Jesus will not let them off the hook. “The bread you are seeking,” says Jesus, “won’t satisfy your hunger.” Even the manna God provided for Israel in the wilderness could not satisfy the peoples’ deepest need. What the people needed and what we need is a restored relationship with our Heavenly Father. Reconciliation requires risk, sacrifice and even loss of life. Not surprisingly, Jesus paid with his life for the reconciliation he offers our troubled and warring world. The early Christian martyrs knew that witnessing to the reconciliation achieved in Jesus leads to persecution. The price of pursuing peace and reconciliation was death for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This living bread, so freely and generously shared with us, comes at a terrible cost.

It is also worth noting that, for John, eternal life is more than just living forever and it does not begin sometime in the distant future. Living eternally means doing the things that matter eternally. That is what Jesus’ “signs” are all about. Jesus shares his bread with a hungry crowd; Jesus provides wine in abundance for a peasant wedding; Jesus speaks with a Samaritan woman-a bitter enemy of his people; Jesus heals a cripple who is living on the fringe of the fringe; Jesus opens the eyes of a man born blind and deemed under the curse of God. These are signs not because they are miracles, but because they show the miraculous power of God turning toward the poor, the outcast and the rejected. What matters eternally is how we treat those deemed the least of all people.

These verses resonate, I believe, with our Lutheran insistence that the Eucharistic bread and wine are not figuratively, metaphorically or symbolically Christ’s Body, but truly and actually the Body and Blood of Christ. This is so because unless the resurrected Christ is present, there is no Church. But because the bread and wine on our altar is the Body and Blood of Christ and because we are what we eat, the congregation eating this food is likewise the Body of the Resurrected Christ in the world today. I have always found it interesting that John’s gospel does not end with Jesus sending his disciples out to proclaim the gospel or with Jesus ascending to the right hand of God. John’s gospel ends the way the other gospels begin: with the disciples leaving their nets and their boat to follow after Jesus. It is as though John simply cannot conceive of the church without the presence of its resurrected Lord.

Pentecost 11

1 Kings 19:4–8
Psalm 34:1–8
Ephesians 4:25—5:2
John 6:35, 41–51

Greetings and welcome to the eleventh Sunday after Pentecost. One of the big stories this week is the draught plaguing much of the Midwestern United States. Crops are withering. Animals are being sent to slaughter en mass because there is no feed to keep them alive anymore. We are told that the consequences of this catastrophic draught, the worst since the dust bowl of the 1930s, will be felt in our pocket books this fall. Some economists estimate that food prices may rise as much as 7%. The pain will be felt by all, but none more than the families already struggling to make ends meet. The food pantries and soup kitchens throughout our country are already under stocked. Consequently, our summer food drive could not come at a better time. Please remember to contribute what you can to our drive for groceries that will end August 26^th.

1 Kings 19:4–8  http://www.workingpreacher.org/bible_passage.aspx?reading_id=1328&cmpgn=5244

While we are on the subject of famines, it was just that lying behind the Prophet Elijah’s problems. Once again, the lectionary in its wisdom has given us an indecipherable fragment of a much larger story. The time was the ninth century B.C.E. The place was the Northern Kingdom of Israel. Unlike the Southern Kingdom of Judah where the Davidic dynasty reigned over a more or less stable monarchy, Israel was governed by a series of dynasties succeeding each other through coups and violent revolutions. The King in Elijah’s day was Ahab, but the power behind the throne was his Phoenician wife, Jezebel. Jezebel was determined to uproot the worship of Israel’s God and replace it with the worship of her own god, Baal. Under the queen’s orders, the altars of the Lord were being destroyed and the priests of the Lord were being executed. Elijah was sent with a word for the King: “As the God of Israel lives before whom I stand, there will be neither rain nor dew for three years except by my word.” When the drought came as Elijah warned, the King was determined to kill Elijah. Elijah spent the next three years of his life as a fugitive, hiding in the wilderness and living in exile. When the three years had ended, Elijah appeared to Ahab once again with a proposition. “Tell you what, your highness: you and your prophets of Baal build an altar to your god with an offering on it. I will build and altar to the Lord. The God who answers by consuming his offering with fire is God indeed.” Ahab accepted the offer. The story of the dueling gods is a gripping tale that you need to read in its entirety. (I Kings 18:1-40). For our purposes, it is enough to note that the Lord answered by fire. Baal was a no show. After this demonstration, Ahab appears to have been convinced that the Lord was indeed Israel’s God. Jezebel, not so much. When the queen learned of the outcome of the contest, her determination to kill Elijah hardened into a campaign against him. Poor Elijah was on the run once again. That is where we find him in our lesson for Sunday.

Elijah “went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a broom tree; and he asked that he might die.” Can you blame him? Three years living as a fugitive until finally he can get a hearing before the king. After such a spectacular demonstration of God’s Lordship over Baal, you would think the issue had been settled once and for all. Instead, this remarkable sign only hardens the opposition to Elijah and the God he proclaims. Everything he has done seems to have been for naught. His whole life seems to have been wasted. This is midlife crisis on steroids! We are then told that Elijah was “touched by an angel.” But the angel has no message of hope, no promise of better things to come and no clear direction for him. The angel, however, does provide what Elijah needs most at the moment: food to continue his journey-wherever that might lead. The bread does not change Elijah’s desperate situation, but it gives him strength to go another forty miles. And that is the end of the story.

OK. That is not the end of the story, but it does constitute the end of our reading. I encourage you to read on to find out what else happened. Initially, I was somewhat miffed that the lectionary does not give us that story here or in the weeks to come. Yet I am beginning to think that maybe the lectionary folks actually got it right this time. I have to say that the angels that have appeared in my life seldom came with solutions to all of my problems. Most of the time, they have given me just enough of what I needed to take the next step. I think of my brother-in-law Bill, who spent three days with me at University of Washington Medical Center when Sesle was gravely ill. Or I recall the court officer who once clapped me on the shoulder as I stood in the Union County Courthouse rotunda during a break in a difficult trial and said to me, “You look like you got the weight of the world on your shoulders. You ought to know your shoulders ain’t big enough for that. You got to let the Lord Jesus take that load off you.”  These angels did not take away the challenges I faced or remove the obstacles in front of me. But they gave me just enough encouragement to take a few steps more. I think that is very often how God’s assistance comes to us. We don’t get what we pray for. We don’t get what we want. We get what we need and sometimes just barely enough.

There are some memories, too, that constitute angelic bread for me. I know one such memory always will be last Sunday’s worship service at which my daughter Emily preached and at which five of our young people shared with us their faith experiences at the ELCA youth gathering in New Orleans. There were also three young children at our worship service whose presence was hard to miss. I was especially moved by young Jeremy’s sense of being at home in this sanctuary. I share Dr. Brighton’s sentiments fully: “would that we were all that uninhibited in our worship and witness!” The church of tomorrow is alive and well! That is bread that will sustain me for a long time! (If you missed that service, you can catch at least the preaching and testimony portions on the TLC website at tlcbogotanj.org.)

Psalm 34:1–8  http://www.workingpreacher.org/bible_passage.aspx?reading_id=1327&cmpgn=5244

This is a psalm of thanksgiving for deliverance from unspecified distress. The psalmist recognizes in his or her deliverance from harm and danger the saving work of God. Like Psalm 145, this is one of the “acrostic” psalms, meaning that each new verse begins with the next letter in order of the Hebrew Alphabet. (See Pentecost 9). This suggests to me that the psalm is more likely a mature reflection upon events in the past than a spontaneous expression of praise for something that just occurred. Perhaps I take this view because most of the saving acts of God I have experienced I see only in the rear view mirror. That is to say, looking back on my life I can recognize the work of the Holy Spirit in bringing me to the place where I stand today. But I am not one of those persons who experience the guidance of the Spirit in the present tense. I have never made a choice in my life that I felt certain was inspired, willed or directed by God. Instead, I have stumbled blindly along through the darkness only to discover much later that Jesus has been with me in the darkness and has somehow gotten me to where I needed to be. And this despite my having taken the wrong course, made the wrong decisions and pursued the wrong dreams.

The psalmist invites us to “taste and see that the Lord is good.” This invitation ties in well with the gospel lessons for both this week and last in which Jesus tells the crowds who came seeking him after they had eaten of the loaves and fishes that he, himself, is the bread of life. This offer to “taste” makes clear that faith is neither an intellectual exercise nor an emotional attachment. Faith takes the shape of “eating” and sustaining oneself on the promises of the Lord. It is life lived out of a relationship of trust and confidence in the Lord to provide all things necessary.

Ephesians 4:25—5:2  http://www.workingpreacher.org/bible_passage.aspx?reading_id=1329&cmpgn=5244

“Therefore put away falsehood, let everyone speak the truth with his neighbor.” I believe it was Dr. Stanley Hauerwas who commented that this verse just about sums up the whole of Christian ethics. Clearly, truthfulness is at the center of life in Christ. There is no better testimony to the importance of truthfulness than the New Testament. The gospels do not tell the story of a strong church led by heroic personalities. They are unsparing in their portrayal of Jesus’ disciples as flawed and broken people who each in their own way failed their master in his greatest hour of need. The epistles reveal a church divided by bickering, power struggles and disputes over theology and morals. We tell these stories on ourselves not because they make us look good (they don’t) or because we are trying to conceal the skeletons in our closets (the skeletons are on full display in the living room), but because they tell the truth about us who follow Jesus. We are broken people in need of judgment, forgiveness and healing. Like recovering alcoholics, we need each other to help us remain sober. Nothing threatens our sobriety more than lies, secrecy and self deception.

Sometimes I think the church fails to speak truth to the world in a straightforward and convincing way because we have failed to speak it effectively among ourselves. Though nearly every Christian denomination has issued numerous statements condemning racism, Sunday morning remains the most segregated hour in the United States. Though we tend to worry about the lack of young families in our churches and fret about how to draw them into the life of the church, too many congregations still maintain a policy of “children should be seen and not heard” during our worship services. (As anyone who attended last Sunday’s worship service can attest, that is not our policy at Trinity). I believe that the only path forward for our churches is to begin having deep and truthful conversations about our discipleship in light of the scriptures and under the Holy Spirit’s guidance. That is the direction that I hope our future cottage meetings will begin to take.

What can it mean to be “imitators of God”? Usually, when we accuse someone of “playing God,” we mean that this person is exercising authority he or she does not have. Or perhaps we mean that such a person is overreaching his or her limits and making decisions that affect the lives of people who have no input or say in those decisions. That figure of speech betrays a profound misunderstanding of the God who is revealed in Jesus Christ. The God and Father of Jesus Christ does not exercise overbearing power, but walks among us as the man who gave his life for the sake of others, suffering death rather than defending himself with violence. If we would truly “play God,” the proper model is not the CEO, but Jesus.

John 6:35, 41–51  http://www.workingpreacher.org/bible_passage.aspx?reading_id=1330&cmpgn=5244

The gospel lesson continues the dialogues set in motion by Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand at the beginning of chapter 6. Last week Jesus explained to the crowd that came seeking him after the feeding that he, himself, is the bread of life; the bread which comes down from heaven. Now the crowd begins to murmur. No doubt John would have us recall the murmuring of the children of Israel in the wilderness when they were hungry. For reasons that escape my simple mind, the makers of the lectionary have chosen to exclude verses 36-40. That is a shame because simple-minded people like me need those verses to get the full impact of what follows. So, for my fellow simpletons, here are the missing verses:

“But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me; and him who comes to me I will not cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me; and this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that every one who sees the Son and believes in him should have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.” John 6:36-50.

Now you can see why the crowd was murmuring. What is this mad man talking about? He didn’t come down from heaven! He came up from Nazareth. We know his family. We know the neighborhood where he grew up; the school he went to and the girls he dated. Where does he get off telling us that he came down from heaven?

This is actually a very important question. Jesus’ answer is about to turn everything we think we know about God, heaven and eternal life on its head. In the first place, asking how Jesus could possibly be the Son of God is altogether the wrong question. It is wrongheaded because it assumes we know who God is apart from Jesus, his Son. It assumes that we can somehow find our own way to the Father. It assumes that we come to know God by being taught about God rather than being taught by God. It is through trusting in Jesus that God is made known. It is through fellowship with Jesus that the Father draws us to himself. You don’t start with your understanding of who God is to figure out what to think about Jesus. You begin with Jesus who draws you into knowledge of the Father.

John is also unapologetic about Jesus’ obvious human origins. Yes, Jesus is a flesh and blood person that can be touched. He is the living bread that can be “eaten.” That will be the topic of next week’s gospel. That is the way in which the Father draws us to himself.

Whoever believes in Jesus both knows the Father and has eternal life. Note well the present tense, “has.” This is not the promise of some future blessed state. Life that is eternal begins now for all who believe. To live eternally is to live out of trust in Jesus doing those things that matter eternally. Unfortunately, we in the church have not always fully appreciated this present sense meaning of eternal life. We have tended to think of eternal life as synonymous with “after life,” or some notion of “heaven” as a strictly future reality. But Jesus would have us know that discipleship is not about passively waiting for eternal life as we sweat our way through this vale of tears. Discipleship is acknowledging that new life is ours today; the kingdom of God is now; and life that is eternal is life lived in fellowship with Jesus.

The humanity of Jesus was a barrier to the crowds’ acceptance of his claim to be the bread from heaven. But if the idea of God in the midst of dirty diapers, adolescent crushes, soil and the sweat of hard labor is difficult to swallow, that only demonstrates how much we have to learn from Jesus about God, about heaven and about eternal life.

Exodus 16:2–4, 9–15
Psalm 78:23–29
Ephesians 4:1–16
John 6:24–35

Greetings everyone! It has been a while since I have preached. Last Sunday we were blessed with daughter Emily’s sermon and the testimonies of our young people, Olivia, Meghan, Ryan, Nicole and Brendan. July 1^st we heard from the Rev. Dr. Carol Brighten and on July 22^nd from Rev. Dr. Kathryn Ellison. This week I am once again up to bat and welcome your thoughts on a fascinating set of readings.

Exodus 16:2–4, 9–15 http://www.workingpreacher.org/bible_passage.aspx?reading_id=1323&cmpgn=5244

Once again, you need to have the full context of this reading to understand what is really going on. In the previous chapters 15- 16 you can read all about how God rescued Israel from Pharaoh, King of Egypt and his army, leading them through the Red Sea. This exciting episode is the climax to four hundred years of slavery in Egypt and oppression under Pharaoh. Finally, the people of Israel are free. Finally the people of Israel are liberated from the bondage of slavery. Finally they are on the way to a land of their own. But Israel soon learns that the way of freedom is not the way of ease and comfort. With freedom comes responsibility and the call to continue trusting in the Lord who made them free.

Israel, it seems, has a bad case of “good old days” disease. Wilderness life is difficult. The people are hungry. They begin reminiscing about the days back in Egypt where at least they had food. “We had meat to eat and as much other food as we wanted” they complain. I doubt that, as slaves, they really were that well fed. But that is how it is when you look back at the past through rose colored glasses. Everything was better back then. The church was so full we had to set up chairs in the overflow room. Kids behaved themselves better and had respect. People were more patriotic. Food tasted better. On and on it goes. Was the past really all that wonderful? Of course not! The Israelites were slaves. Had they forgotten so soon what it was like to be treated like a head of cattle? Evidently, they had forgotten. Barbara Strisand sings in her song, The Way We Were,

Memries, may be beautiful and yet
What’s too painful to remember
We simply choose to forget

That is the problem with the “good old days” disease. Our selective memories make the past seem a lot rosier than it really was. We fall into the trap of measuring the present against a past that is no more real than the Emerald City of Oz.

Furthermore, “good old days” disease represents more than just delusional thinking. It constitutes rebellion against our God. “This is the day which the Lord has made,” says the Psalm. “Let us rejoice and be glad in it.” Psalm 118:24. Who are we to throw the gift of today back in God’s face and tell God it isn’t good enough? Who are we to reject the time and place where God now places us and sit pouting because our memories of some other time and place seem better? God calls us to a new day. Our stubborn insistence remaining in the old one needs to be named for what it is: rebellion.

That said, the journey from slavery into freedom is long and difficult. The people of Israel spent forty years in the wilderness on the way to Canaan. The way was slow and fraught with dangers. Sometimes it seemed as though they were not making any progress. Sometimes they appeared to be going nowhere. Often it seemed that they were losing ground. The life of discipleship to which Jesus calls us is no different. It is hard to believe that Jesus is leading us into a new creation when our bodies increasingly show their age, our energy level isn’t what it used to be and it seems as though the best years of our lives are behind us. That is often when the temptation to look back is strongest. But Israel is warned repeatedly that there is nothing for us in the past and that the only way given to us is forward.

Of course, the good news here is that God can be trusted to provide for our needs along the way. Our needs may not be the same as our wants. Perhaps quail is not what Israel would have chosen from a more varied menu. The manna may have been sweet as honey, but even the bread of angels can become tiresome after forty years. Yet it was enough to sustain Israel throughout her journey and that is what Jesus promises as well. As the gospel for this Sunday points out, Jesus is our “bread from heaven” that sustains us.

Psalm 78:23–29  http://www.workingpreacher.org/bible_passage.aspx?reading_id=1322&cmpgn=5244

Psalm 78 is one of a relatively few historical psalms in the Psalter that recount the focal points of Israel’s history. In a pre-literate society where the common people had no knowledge or written language or access to books, the narrative of Israel’s journey with her God was passed on through song, poetry, liturgy and dance. This particular psalm begins with the wanderings of Israel in the wilderness following the Exodus from Egypt and concludes with God’s selection of David and his descendents to lead Israel and “be a shepherd to the people of Israel.”

The rise of the monarchy in Israel was surrounded by controversy. The prophet and judge, Samuel, was appalled when the people demanded that he appoint a king for them so that they might “be like the other nations.” After all, God called Israel to be unlike the other nations. In a culture that regarded kings as equal to gods, only the Lord was worthy of the title “king.” Much of the prophetic tradition in Israel remained critical of the monarchy and saw it as a betrayal of all that Israel was called to be. Nevertheless, there is also in the Hebrew Scriptures an expression of the belief that God’s covenant with David and the rise of his Kingdom was a saving event to be celebrated with thanksgiving. Psalm 78 is an example of this pro-monarchy sentiment. The psalm concludes with the words:

[God] chose his servant David,
and took him from the sheepfolds;
⁷¹ from tending the nursing ewes he brought him
to be the shepherd of his people Jacob,
of Israel, his inheritance.
⁷² With upright heart he tended them,
and guided them with skilful hand.

We saw an echo of this pro-monarchy enthusiasm in last Sunday’s gospel when the crowd of five thousand, having eaten their fill of the loaves and fishes Jesus blessed, sought to take him and make him king by force. Clearly, Jesus must be the one sent by God to shepherd his people Israel. Had he not, as the psalm says, “rained down on them manna to eat, and gave them the grain of heaven”? Yet Jesus seems intent on not becoming a king like David-or at least the kind of king the people were seeking. That becomes clear as Jesus speaks in this Sunday’s gospel about the true bread from heaven he has come to offer.

John 6:24–35  http://www.workingpreacher.org/bible_passage.aspx?reading_id=1325&cmpgn=5244

As you may recall from last week’s gospel, Jesus had to withdraw from the crowd of five thousand he had just fed as they were seeking to take him by force and make him king. The disciples set out for the other side of the Sea of Galilee that same evening. Jesus later rejoined his disciples in their boat on the Sea and they arrived in Capernaum. Some of the five thousand pursued Jesus and found him there on the other side of the Sea. Now they are curious as to how Jesus was able to get himself across the sea without a boat, but Jesus cuts right to the chase. “You are here because you ate your fill. Not because you saw signs.” That might appear to be contradictory. The people had, in fact, seen a remarkable sign in the miraculous feeding. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that they had witnessed a miracle only. They do not understand that the feeding was a sign; that the drama unfolding in the wilderness of Galilee was intended to reflect the wilderness of Sinai where the children of Israel wandered for forty years depending on the Lord for each day’s sustenance. The fact that they demand from Jesus a sign as proof of his claims demonstrates how thoroughly they have missed the meaning of what they experienced in the wilderness. They were looking for a king to restore Israel to a position of power and prosperity. Jesus offers them a restored relationship with the Lord who promises to lead them through the wilderness to abundant life. That is the true bread that comes down from heaven.

It is obvious that the crowed has misunderstood the text from Exodus previously discussed. They credit Moses with providing the children of Israel with bread in the wilderness and they hope that Jesus will do the same. But Jesus points out that it was not Moses, but the Lord who provided for the children of Israel. Faith in Moses or any other human leader is misplaced. Furthermore, fixation on things like bread that ensure mere survival is insufficient. One does not live by bread alone. Life that is abundant and eternal flows from a vital relationship of trust in the God who alone can give us such life.

So what is this “bread” that comes down from heaven? It is Jesus, plain and simple. There is no “work” demanded by God as a price for this bread. It has already been freely given. The “work,” such that it is, amounts simply to “believing in the one God sent.” Belief, of course, is not mere ascent to a theological proposition. To believe in Jesus is to trust Jesus; to live out of a relationship of faith in his promises. But this is God’s work, not our own. God wins our trust and strengthens our faith by consistently demonstrating his own faithfulness to us.

Ephesians 4:1–16  http://www.workingpreacher.org/bible_passage.aspx?reading_id=1324&cmpgn=5244

At this point in the letter to the Ephesians, the author turns to a description of what life in Christ looks like. The remarkable thing about this text describing life in the church is the total lack of hierarchy. In virtually every other organization, be it social, political or religious, the key question always comes down to “Who is in charge.” In the Body of Christ, however, the key issue is “What is your gift?” “There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism and one God and Father of us all.” Though the church is made up of individual members, each has his or her own “gift.” The gifts, however they may differ from one another, have one purpose: “to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” Much scholarly debate has swirled around the enumeration of these gifts in vs. 11. Some interpreters maintain that the apostles, evangelists, teachers and pastors represent offices in the church. Others maintain that these reflect natural gifts recognized by the community and exercised by individuals in non-structured communities. Whichever the case may be, it is clear that the gifts are not intended to enhance the recipient, but to strengthen the unity of the church. So what matters is not who has which gift, but how the gift is used. A pastor that pushes through an educational program that interests him or her, but does not meet the needs of the church is not rightly exercising the gift of ministry. A council officer that manages to get a new addition to the church building erected, but in doing so causes dissent and division throughout the congregation might be improving upon the structure of a building, but he or she is not “building up the Body of Christ.” That does not mean, of course, that we all walk on egg shells and do nothing for fear of offending anyone. Sometimes uncomfortable truths need to be spoken. Often the mission of the church must take precedent over deeply valued traditions in the congregation. Correction and reproof is part and parcel of living together in love. The church will necessarily deal with divisive and controversial topics. But unlike the rest of the world where the most powerful personality prevails and issues are often settled by a simple up or down vote, we are a community determined to take whatever time is needed to arrive at a resolution and course of action that everyone can live with-even if it means sacrificing “progress.” Getting together is more important than getting ahead. For that sort of living, we need a lot of lowliness, forbearance, patience and meekness.

Ninth Sunday after Pentecost

2 Kings 4:42-44
Psalm 145:10-18
Ephesians 3:14-21
John 6:1-21

Greetings one and all! As you know, I spent the better part of last week down in New Orleans with Kim Pulido, my daughter Emily Olsen and five of our young people attending the ELCA Youth Gathering. This event takes place every three years and draws over thirty-thousand youth from all over the United States. Worshiping and working with these young people and listening to their thoughts and convictions has convinced me that the church they represent is not our parents’ Lutheran Church. This generation has no qualms about welcoming gay and lesbian persons as pastoral leaders. This question, that was so divisive in our church for over two decades, is not even an issue for them. These young people are passionately committed to justice for the poor; ending violence in the family, in the classroom and on the world stage. They believe discipleship means involvement with these very political issues, but they have little patience with abstract political red state/blue state kinds of arguments. They love worship that involves “heart and hands” as well as “voices” and preaching that reminds them of God’s love for them while challenging them to run with that promise of God’s grace in their daily lives.

This Sunday Emily will be preaching and our young delegates to the Gathering will be sharing their experiences with us. Following the service, there will be a coffee fellowship during which we will see photos and video highlights from the Gathering.

John 6:1-21  http://www.workingpreacher.org/bible_passage.aspx?reading_id=1320&cmpgn=5244

That serves as a good lead in to the gospel lesson for this coming Sunday, the feeding of the five thousand from the Gospel of John. Unique to John’s telling of the story is an unnamed youth. He appears on the scene just as the disciples are facing what they view as a crisis. Five thousand people have been with Jesus for a long time out in the wilderness. They are hungry and we all know that hungry masses can easily turn violent. Buying food for all these people is not an option. Even if the disciples could have scare up two hundred denaii and there had been a deli nearby, the likelihood that it would have food on hand to serve five thousand is slim. At this point, Andrew brings the young boy’s tendered lunch to the attention of Jesus. I don’t actually know whether the boy offered his lunch or whether Andrew commandeered it. The lesson does not tell us one way or the other, but it would be just like a kid to do something like putting up his lunch in circumstances such as this. A kid doesn’t understand that what little he has in his lunch box will not even make a dent in the hunger of five thousand people. When he becomes a man, he will understand that there is only so much to go around; that if people are hungry it’s their problem, not his; that the best chance you have of survival is to hang on to what you have got and defend it with all means necessary. At this point, he is just a kid. He doesn’t understand “the real world.” The only thing he does understand is that Jesus wants to feed this hungry crowd. He believes Jesus can do it and that he has something to offer that Jesus can use. Small wonder, then, that Jesus tells us in Matthew 18:3 that “unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” The first step in becoming a disciple of Jesus is for us to unlearn all the lessons of adulthood. My prayer for the thirty thousand young people I met this last week is that they will never grow up into the kind of adulthood that can no longer believe in Jesus’ promise to provide for all our needs-and more. I pray that they never outgrow generosity or the capacity to trust Jesus.

It should be noted that this story is an opener for a lengthy discourse Jesus is about to have with his disciples, the crowds and his opponents. At the end of this discourse, many of Jesus’ disciples will desert him. This chapter is rich with sacramental imagery and challenges to faithful discipleship. I encourage you to read the chapter in its entirety before each Sunday in August.

Psalm 145:10-18  http://www.workingpreacher.org/bible_passage.aspx?reading_id=1316&cmpgn=5244

This is one of the “acrostic” psalms, meaning that each new verse begins with the next letter in order of the Hebrew Alphabet. An English example might look like this:

Awesome is our God and Creator.

Breathtaking are God’s mighty works.

Clearly, the Lord is God and there is no other. And so on down to letter Z. This kind of composition assists in memorization which, in a pre-literate society, is the only means of passing down music and literature.

The psalm as a whole extols the character of God as compassionate as God is almighty. It is both an expression of praise to God and also a confessional statement made to the people of God declaring God’s goodness to all of Creation. Note that although the people of the covenant are in the best position to recognize and witness to this God, they are not the only beneficiaries of God’s compassion. The entire earth is God’s concern.

We can see in vs 15 an echo of the petition from the Lord’s Prayer, “Give us this day or daily bread.”  “The eyes of all look to thee, and thou givest them their food in due season. Thou openest thy hand, thou satisfiest the desire of every living thing.” It is just because sustenance comes from the hand of God that we can be content with this day’s bread without worrying about tomorrow. The assurance and confidence in God’s willingness and promise to meet our needs ties in very nicely with the feeding of the five thousand and the discourse that follows throughout John Chapter 6.

Ephesians 3:14-21 http://www.workingpreacher.org/bible_passage.aspx?reading_id=1319&cmpgn=5244

“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named.” Eph. 3:14. There is a play on words here that gets lost in the translation. The Greek word for “father,” “pater” is the root for “patria” which means “country” or “father land.” The significance of this claim would not have been lost to folks living under the yoke of Rome which claimed to be the father of all peoples. This is a question of “Who’s your daddy?” aimed directly at Caesar.

When the author of Ephesians speaks of “power” it is always the power of the Spirit that is grounded in love. Urging his listeners to “put on the whole armor of God,” the author of Ephesians turns this militaristic image on its head by identifying the church’s weaponry as truth, righteousness, peace, faith and prayer. Eph. 6:10-20. The author prays that “Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.” It is through being “in Christ,” that one becomes grounded in love; for Christ Jesus is God’s concrete expression of love.

2 Kings 4:42-44  http://www.workingpreacher.org/bible_passage.aspx?reading_id=1318&cmpgn=5244

This short story is one of many about Elisha and his miraculous works found in Chapter 4 of the Second Book of Kings. Elisha, you may recall, was the prophetic successor to Elijah who was taken up into heaven by a chariot of fire. He was a member and perhaps a leader of an obscure group identified in Second Kings only as “the sons of the prophets.” These folks seem to have lived together in communities. They were married, had children and apparently held property and so should not be understood as a monastic order of any kind. It is best to think of the sons of the prophets as a professional guild of persons with the unique ability to speak on God’s behalf. By the time of the prophet Amos, the guild appears to have become little more than the mouthpiece of the monarchy of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. Hence, Amos specifically denies being the son of a prophet. See Amos 7:14-15.

Based on what proceeds it in Chapter 4, we know that this story takes place during a famine. A man comes to Elisha with a first fruits offering. We do not know precisely why this offering was made. There is no statutory requirement in the Pentateuch for offerings to prophetic communities, but this appears to be a religious offering of some kind. Elisha orders his servant to share the offering (twenty loaves of bread and a sack of grain) with the rest of the sons of the prophets numbering about one hundred. The servant, quite understandably, balks at the notion. After all, the offering is not large enough to feed the whole community. It is better that the community’s leader, Elisha, be spared than that he perish from starvation along with the entire community. Elisha is confident, however, that there will be enough for the community and to spare. This confidence is based on a word he has received from the Lord to that effect. Like Jesus, Elisha focuses not on the magnitude of the hunger or the scarcity of his resources, but on the promise of the Lord to provide. Once again, this story challenges us to join the psalmist’s affirmation that God can indeed be trusted to provide for every living thing.

Jeremiah 23:1-6
Psalm 23
Ephesians 2:11-22
Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

Greetings everyone and welcome! As you know, I will be in New Orleans next week from Tuesday through Sunday with five of our young members at the nationwide ELCA Youth Gathering. I ask for your prayers for all of us in our travels and for our enrichment as we join in worship, learning and mission with over thirty thousand other folks from around the country. Needless to say, I will not be present on Sunday Morning. Rev. Kathryn Ellison will be presiding in my place. As always, she will have a good word for us and I encourage you to extend to her a warm welcome.

The texts for this week seem to focus on “shepherding” or “pastoral” leadership. The prophet Jeremiah delivers a scathing critique of Judah’s rulers whose leadership has exploited and scattered the people of Israel and then promises that God will raise up a “righteous Branch” from the house of David to restore peace and security to the people. Psalm 23, of course, speaks eloquently of the Lord as our Shepherd. In the Gospel, Jesus confronts a crowd of people all in very great need. These people arouse his compassion because they are “like sheep without a shepherd.” The lesson from Ephesians does not tie in thematically with the other lessons. Indeed, the second reading typically constitutes one of a series of readings from a particular epistle rather than a text selected to match a theme. Nevertheless, the author speaks about us gentile folks, who had no part in Israel or its covenant promises, being brought into (or herded into) that covenant through Christ. I must say that, as far as my own ministry is concerned, this Ephesians text is the most helpful model for me. I have never been comfortable with the term “Pastor,” which means “shepherd.” I am not the Good Shepherd. Jesus is. I recently read an article in the Christian Century in which the author (whose name escapes me) described his pastoral role as that of a sheep dog. I prefer that analogy. I am a lot like a sheep dog. I don’t know where the green pastures are or where to find the still waters. I can’t fight off the wolves or lead the flock through the valley of the shadow. Only the shepherd can do that. But I do know where the Shepherd is and I am certain that the Shepherd knows where he is going even if the rest of us, including the sheep dog, don’t. The sheep dog can herd the sheep to the Good Shepherd and keep them within the flock. He can seek them when they stray from the flock and keep the flock together. That sounds a lot more like what I do. The heavy lifting belongs to the Shepherd.

Jeremiah 23:1-6 http://www.workingpreacher.org/bible_passage.aspx?reading_id=1300&cmpgn=5244

The prophet Jeremiah’s ministry took place during the last dark days of Jerusalem-as did that of Ezekiel (see notes from Pentecost 6). The little kingdom of Judah emerged from Assyrian domination around 640 B.C.E. under King Josiah and gained a large measure of power and independence. But that good fortune was not to last. Egypt and Babylonia soon rose up to fill the power vacuum left after Assyria’s fall. Josiah was slain in a fruitless battle with Egypt. The victorious Pharaoh Neco placed one of Josiah’ sons on the throne as his vassal. Shortly thereafter, in 605 B.C.E., the Babylonian empire under Nebuchadnezzer defeated Egypt and what was left of Assyria in the battle of Carchemish. Nebuchadnezzer occupied Judah in 597, placed an uncle of the king, Zedekiah, on the throne. Zedekiah, intent on restoring Judah to its former glory under King David, engaged in a diplomatic strategy of playing his Babylonian master off against Egypt. This was a dangerous game that Zedekiah ultimately lost. In reliance upon a promise of support from Egypt, Zedekiah led his nation in revolt against Babylonian domination. Egyptian support never came
and Jerusalem was surrounded, subjected to a brutal siege that ended with its destruction in 587 B.C.E.

This is the context in which we read Jeremiah’s criticism of the “shepherds” of Israel, that is, her rulers. . Jeremiah’s critique rests upon a tradition that saw the Davidic monarchy as the champion of justice, the protector of the poor and oppressed. e.g. Psalm 73:12. Yet in a hopeless effort to achieve national glory, the king and his minions disregarded the covenant at the heart of Judah’s existence. Judah’s kings took to worshiping the gods of other nations and relying upon international military alliances rather than on the Lord their God. The people of Judah suffered the horrific consequences of Judah’s misguided and self serving political agendas. They were killed in the crossfire of war, driven into exile and impoverished as a result of the Babylonian reprisals. Rather than protecting and caring for the sheep, the leaders disregarded their welfare, exploited and scattered them among the nations. Yet the prophecy ends with a word of promise. God finally will raise up from the line of David a “righteous branch.” Jeremiah continues to hope for a faithful descendent of David who, like David himself, will rule Judah with an eye toward caring for the sheep.

This lesson comes to us in the heat of a presidential contest that promises to be contentious and divisive. It is appropriate to ask what our “shepherds” are doing to unite and care for the flock. Does winning the election trump leadership? Is purely selfish political ambition driving those who would be our shepherds? Judah’s rulers were intent on restoring the former glory of Judah under David and Solomon. That vision was entirely unrealistic under the current political circumstances. Moreover, Jeremiah would have his people know that what they regarded as the “good old days,” were in God’s view a dismal failure in terms of covenant faithfulness. Therefore, Jeremiah had the task of telling his people that God would not support the nationalistic aspirations of its faithless rulers and their diplomatic duplicity. God sought faithfulness, trust and obedience-qualities for which Judah’s rulers with their real politic had little use.

Ultimately, Judah’s shepherds were responsible for misleading the people with a false hope. They promised glory without obedience; greatness without faithfulness; prosperity without sacrifice. I might be on dangerous ground here, but I believe that both presidential candidates are guilty in equal measure of this same sin. And I feel compelled to add that we, the people, share in the responsibility for this propagation of false hope. What we need are leaders that tell us the truth: that we face a crisis in the rising cost of medical care; that the gap between rich and poor is growing at an alarming rate; that more and more of our citizens are falling below the poverty line; that our disproportionate consumption of the earth’s resources is not sustainable. Further we need leaders who tell us that all of these problems are difficult and complex. Addressing them effectively will require sacrifice, hard work and profound changes in our lifestyles. But that is a message nobody wants to hear and we are not likely to elect a leader who brings us such unwelcome tidings. Instead, we elect leaders who tell us what we want to hear: that the solutions are simple and require nothing from us. We vote for people who tell us that we can have prosperity, security and peace without paying a penny more in taxes, without enduring any risk and without sacrificing an ounce of comfort. Of course, soon after putting these people in office it becomes clear to us that we have not elected the messiah, but another human being who cannot possibly keep the promises that had to be made to win the election. So when the next election rolls around, we angrily kick the false god we have made off the pedestal on which we placed it and set up another one in his place. I don’t see this deadly cycle ending until we finally face up to the truth. Our problems cannot be regulated out of existence nor will they miraculously disappear if only we let the free hand of the market economy do its magic. As long as we continue to believe in lies, we will continue to elect liars.

I don’t have any suggestions for fixing the political system in Washington (or Bergen County either, for that matter). All I can do is point to the righteous branch Jeremiah spoke of. He does not come to us with promises of easy fixes and miraculous cures. Rather, he calls us to the slow work of witnessing to God’s Kingdom and following him in a common life of service to one another. I have always been convinced that the one and only thing the church has to offer the world is a vision of God’s alternative for living together. Jesus did not preach easy solutions. To the contrary, “it is harder for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” “Enter by the narrow gate, for the gate that leads to destruction is wide.” “Whoever would be my disciple must deny himself, take up the cross and follow me.” I doubt Jesus could ever get himself elected to public office, but that is not a thing to which Jesus aspired.  The reign of God is made known not in the seats of empire or the halls of congress, but in communities that spring from the righteous branch where “the least” of all people are valued the most, where the truth is spoken in love, where daily bread is enough and where the offer of hospitality is made to all people all the time. That is where the truth that sets us free is enacted. That is where the light from God’s future breaks into the darkness of the present age.

Psalm 23  http://www.workingpreacher.org/bible_passage.aspx?reading_id=1299&cmpgn=5244

What more can I say about Psalm 23 than has already been said? The biggest problem we have with this reading is that it is so familiar that I sometimes think it goes over us without our even hearing it. For example, “The Lord is my Shepherd, I have everything I need.” Really???  Let’s think about this. What if God were to appear and ask you personally, “Hey, do you need anything?” Do you think you would really say, “Nope. I’m good.” Though there is nothing I absolutely need to survive until the morning, I could think of plenty of things that it would be very helpful to have. Yet maybe that is the point. After all, Jesus teaches us to pray for today’s bread. That is the only material thing Jesus instructs us to pray for-essentially what most of us already have. The rest is not need, but merely appetite. Jesus says nothing about prayers for the satisfaction of our appetites.

One might well contrast the Lord as shepherd with the shepherds Jeremiah excoriates in the prior lesson. The Lord leads the sheep to what they need-which may not be with they want or think they need. The Lord does not promise to annihilate the enemies of the sheep, but teaches them to live abundantly and confidently in the presence of their enemies. The Lord does not promise that the way in which he leads the sheep will be easy or free from suffering and death. Rather, the Lord promises to be with the sheep in the valley of the shadow and to lead them even there.

Finally, when it comes to “dwelling in the house of the Lord forever,” I think we have a parallel in the letter to the Ephesians which emphasizes “being in Christ.”  Being “in Christ,” is for the author of Ephesians living in community with the people called together by the good news of Jesus, the church. According to Ephesians, “the blessings in the heavenly places,”  “the forgiveness of our sins” and the mystery of God’s will all are revealed within the community of persons called out to live faithfully, truthfully and obediently with Jesus. See Sermon of July 15^th at http://tlcbogotanj.org/

Ephesians 2:11-22  http://www.workingpreacher.org/bible_passage.aspx?reading_id=1301&cmpgn=5244

This text is a poignant reminder that we in the church are, as St. Paul puts it in his letter to the Romans, “wild olive shoots” that were grafted into the cultivated olive garden of Israel. This reminder is important because historically there has been a lot of bad theology out there suggesting that somehow the church has replaced Israel as God’s chosen people. This understanding is further exacerbated by our reference to the Hebrew Scriptures as the “Old Testament.” This might suggest that the covenant with Israel is obsolete, that Old Testament history is a story of failure that had to be corrected and replaced by the New Testament. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. The God and Father of Jesus Christ is the God of the Hebrew Scriptures. The God who raised Jesus from death is the same God that brought Israel up out of the land of Egypt and into the promised land. The covenant, it must be emphasized, was with Abraham and Sarah and their descendents. We gentiles come into the picture for one reason and one reason only: Jesus, the messiah of Israel, invites us in. As Paul makes very clear in his letter to the Romans, God has not revoked the covenant promises made to Israel. Israel still is God’s people and no less so merely because in God’s mercy the benefits of those promises have been extended to us gentiles through Jesus.

Of course, this passage also emphasizes once again that the flesh and blood church, the communion of saints, is the place where God’s saving work in Jesus Christ is made manifest. It is in the church that the mystery of God’s intent for all creation is revealed.

Mark 6:30-34, 53-56  http://www.workingpreacher.org/bible_passage.aspx?reading_id=1302&cmpgn=5244

Nothing infuriates me more than when the lectionary people take their unholy pruning shears to the scriptures and begin cutting and pasting together a reading made up of selective verses. That is exactly what has been done here. Between verses 34 and 53 we have Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand and his appearing to the disciples in the midst of the Sea of Galilee walking on the water. I suppose this was done because we will be hearing John’s account of the feeding in next week’s gospel. I can understand why one would not want to place these two parallel stories back to back. Still, it seems to me that it would have been better to select another Markan reading that would not have required such brutal surgery. That said, the lesson is what it is. So I will take it as it comes, though I cannot ignore the feeding of the five thousand or the encounter on the Sea of Galilee as they both have an impact on the meaning of the text.

It is highly significant that chapter 6 begins with Jesus’ rejection at Nazareth which is followed by his sending out the Twelve to preach and heal. This mission activity appears to have alerted Herod Antipas to the Jesus movement and he is convinced that his old nemesis, John the Baptizer, has been raised. Our text for Sunday begins with the disciples returning from their mission and what appears to be a retreat for debriefing. Jesus and his disciples go out to a “lonely place” only to find that the crowds have gotten there ahead of them. Jesus finds the people much the way Jeremiah found them six centuries earlier-like sheep without a shepherd. It is significant that, just as the disciples relied upon the hospitality of the towns they visited in their mission, so now the crowd is hungry and in need of hospitality. The disciples suggest sending the people away to fend for themselves, but Jesus insists that they be shown the same hospitality the disciples were shown on their mission trip. Five loaves and two fish seem inadequate for such an undertaking but, when placed in Jesus’ hands, they turn out to be more than enough. The reading ends as it began-with crowds of people seeking Jesus.

More than anything else, these verses illustrate for us what it means to be a follower of Jesus. At the very center of discipleship is hospitality-the willingness to make space, share necessities and take time for the neighbor. Sometimes I wonder whether our life as a congregation adequately reflects this radical hospitality that Mark paints for us in the gospel lesson. Indeed, sometimes I wonder whether it exists at all. That is one reason why I attend the Ekklesia Project Gathering each year. I always discover different forms of church life and different expressions of what faithfulness to the gospel looks like. One such expression is Church of the Sojourners. The Church of the Sojourners is a live-together church community of about thirty people of various ages and backgrounds located in San Francisco. The congregation resides in four large houses and shares money and resources. Worship is held in homes rather than in a church building. Members eat five meals together every week, spend time together and take vacations together. In the church’s own words:

“Here at Church of the Sojourners, we seek to respond to Christ’s call by living together family-style, sharing our homes, resources, and friendship, our weaknesses as well as our strengths—not because living together is a requirement of committed discipleship, but because it is one real way we have found to provide us with numerous daily opportunities for forgiveness, humility, service, gratitude, worship, prayer, and other practicalities of sainthood which help build us into “the full measure of the stature of Christ.”

Obviously, this is not a model that every community can emulate. Nevertheless, it represents a challeng for us to examine our own ways of being the church in our community and think about ways to find deeper and more faithful expressions of our faith. I encourage you to visit the website for Church of the Sojourners at http://churchofthesojourners.wordpress.com/

Pentecost 7, Sunday,  July 15, 2012

Amos 7:7-15
Psalm 85:8-13
Ephesians 1:3-14
Mark 6:14-29

Greetings everyone and welcome back to the conversation. As many of you know, I spent the latter part of last week in Chicago attending the annual Ekklessia Project Gathering. Our theme this year was “Slow Church-Abiding Together in the Patient Work of God.” I suspect that I will be sharing more with you about this marvelous experience in the days ahead. In the mean time, anyone wishing to find out more about the Ekklessia Project or the Gathering is encouraged to visit its website at http://www.ekklesiaproject.org/.

The texts for this Sunday illustrate the cost of speaking truth to power. The cost for Amos was deportation. The price of speaking the truth was death for John the Baptist. I think that in our age the greatest threat to the truth comes not from tyrants that would silence it with violence, but rather from an avalanche of inaccuracies, misinformation and outright lies broadcast over television and radio, forwarded to millions by malicious e-mails and posted on Twitter and Facebook. The Twenty-first Century prophet must struggle to be heard over thousands of voices hawking their religious, ideological and political wares while lying with absolute impunity. Yet somehow, when the truth is spoken, it has a ring of genuineness that evokes a response. Sometimes the response is faith, but in some instances the response is hostility.

Amos 7:7-15  http://www.workingpreacher.org/bible_passage.aspx?reading_id=1295&cmpgn=5244

Amos is a cranky prophet with several strikes against him. For one thing, it doesn’t help that he is a foreigner. Though born and raised in the Kingdom of Judah, Amos is called and sent to preach to the people of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. Israel was experiencing a period of military might, economic prosperity and religious revival under its powerful and successful King, Jeroboam II. Happy days were here again and the people were convinced that the prosperity they enjoyed was proof of God’s favor. God was blessing Israel. Amos had a difficult message for Israel: God was not happy with Israel. Specifically, God was angry at Israel’s government and upper class “who oppress the poor and crush the needy.” Moreover, God was about to bring the reign of Jeroboam and Israel’s era of prosperity and success to a devastating end. Do you remember the national response to the sermon of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright when he said:” No, no, no, not God Bless America. God damn America.”? Well, you can just imagine how Israel responded to Amos when he stood up in the national sanctuary at Bethel to announce that “the high places of Israel shall be made desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste, and [God] will raise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.” Small wonder that Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, removed Amos from the clergy roster. It is hardly surprising that Amos was banished to the much smaller “Judah Synod.” As Amaziah observed, “the land is not able to bear [Amos’] words.”

Listen closely, however, to Amaziah’s words to Amos: “Never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is the temple of the kingdom”. Seriously? Is the sanctuary really the property of the Kingdom and is God nothing more than the king’s humble tenant? It seems that Amaziah’s only concern is with the honor of the King and respect for the kingdom. He is fiercely patriotic, but not one wit faithful. Amaziah is deeply concerned with the political ramifications of Amos’ preaching, but it never occurs to him to ask whether that preaching might actually be true. True or not, it is unpatriotic, dangerous, offensive and upsetting. That is reason enough for snuffing it out. As far as Amaziah is concerned, Amos is a national security risk and the best way to get rid of him is to strip him of his official clergy status and send him into exile. But Amos will not so easily fade away. He is not the least bit ruffled by his removal from the clergy roster. “I am no prophet,” he says. He needs no official credentials. Unlike Amaziah, Amos is not the king’s patsy. He belongs to the God who sent him to preach-and preach he will!

I think we would do well to ponder this lesson as we contemplate renovations to our own sanctuary. The first question we need to begin asking ourselves is whether it really is our sanctuary. I suppose that from Amaziah’s point of view, Trinity’s sanctuary belongs to Trinity’s members. After all, we built it. Our offerings support it. We should have the final say in what it looks like, how it is used and what goes on there. From a worldly standpoint, it is hard to argue with this logic. But as Paul would remind us, we don’t view matters from a worldly perspective. We view all things from the standpoint of our call to follow Jesus. No, the sanctuary is not ours to do with as we please to meet our own personal needs. It is a tool given us to serve Jesus in this neighborhood in which we are placed. So the questions we always need to be asking are: 1) How can we transform our sanctuary in ways that will reflect to the rest of the neighborhood the welcome extended to all people in Christ Jesus? 2) How can we make our sanctuary a tool for reconciling conflict, overcoming injustice and building peace in our community? 3) What is God calling us to in this community and how can we use our sanctuary to answer that call? We cannot afford to forget who belongs to whom.

Psalm 85:8-13  http://www.workingpreacher.org/bible_passage.aspx?reading_id=1294&cmpgn=5244

This is a psalm of lament. If you were to read it from the beginning (as I recommend) you will discover that it begins with an affirmation of God’s faithfulness to Israel in the past. This is critical to understanding what is going on here. Though it is hard to discern the specifics, it is obvious that this prayer was composed during a turbulent time in Israel’s history. Times are hard and the psalmist acknowledges that this is due in no small part to God’s displeasure with Israel. Yet the psalmist can pray confidently because he or she has a recollection of occasions in the past where God has turned from anger to compassion. (see vss. 1-3). The psalm concludes with a confident affirmation of the psalmists belief that God will intervene to save once again as God has always done in the past. This affirmation constitutes the reading for this week.

What is remarkable about this prayer is the certainty on the part of the psalmist that steadfast love, faithfulness, peace, righteousness and goodness constitute the future of God’s people. As the earlier verses of the psalm make clear, these words are spoken out of a context of despair. The psalmist has lived through a long period of darkness and there is no light at the end of the tunnel. His or her hope arises from memory. The psalmist remembers the past faithfulness of God to Israel in dark times past. These memories sustain him or her in the present darkness and open a porthole into a brighter hope.

Memory is important. I have heard stories all my life of deathbed conversions, but I have never seen one myself and rather doubt that they happen with much frequency. I say that because I believe faith is a habit of the heart. Trust in someone develops over years and many experiences of discovering that the someone you trust is in fact trustworthy. If the Lord has been your shepherd leading you through the traumas of adolescence, the challenges of establishing yourself in the world of work, the anguish of family life and the uncertainties that accompany growing older, then it is not such a stretch to believe that the Lord who has taken you so far will accompany you also through the last frontier. Faith like this cannot be learned in a crash course. So let us build these sustaining memories now by attending to worship, prayer, giving, service and daily meditation on the scriptures.

Ephesians 1:3-14  http://www.workingpreacher.org/bible_passage.aspx?reading_id=1296&cmpgn=5244

A word or two about Ephesians. According to the opening verses, the book is a letter written by the Apostle Paul to the church at Ephesus. Although the piece certainly contains many images and concepts that can be traced to Paul, it is the consensus of most New Testament Scholars that Paul did not author the letter. Most likely, a disciple or associate of Paul composed the letter decades after the apostle’s death. The book of Ephesians was most likely composed somewhere between 85 and 90 A.D. toward the end of the first Christian Century. The apostles had all died, but the world kept right on turning without missing a beat. The second generation of believers was faced with the fact that the close of the age might be a long time in coming. So the question was, how to live in the interim? That is, in large part, what the letter to the Ephesians seeks to address. The author admonishes his audience to “lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called.” 4:1. Followers of Jesus are to live a life of love for one another in the unity of the Spirit. 4:3. As they make their long journey through time, they must bear witness to the good news of Jesus Christ by lives lived in striking contrast to the surrounding culture governed by rulers, authorities, “principalities and powers, hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” 6:12-13. They must support themselves with honest work, speak truthfully to one another and conduct themselves in a manner that glorifies the God by whom they have been called. 4:17-32. The Church is a people called to “be imitators of God,” “to walk in love” as Christ loved them and gave Himself for them. 5:1-2.

In the lesson for today, the author of Ephesians articulates an unmistakable belief in predestination. It is critical, however, to understand this teaching within the total context of the letter. “With all wisdom and insight [God] has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” 1:8-10. Consequently, the church is not the select few that God has graciously decided to snatch from the deck of a sinking ship. Rather, the church is the first fruits and a testimony to God’s plan to “gather up all things in heaven and on earth.” To be chosen is therefore not a position of special privilege, but a commission to witness and embody the plan God has for all people.

Mark 6:14-29  http://www.workingpreacher.org/bible_passage.aspx?reading_id=1297&cmpgn=5244

John got himself in trouble for criticizing Herod Antipas (not to be confused with his father, Herod the Great who ordered the murder of the children of Bethlehem in an effort to kill the Christ child). There were plenty of reasons for criticizing Herod whose ruthlessness matched that of his father. Perhaps John addressed these misdeeds also, but the issue that got him into hot water was a family matter. Herod divorced his first wife Phasaelis, the daughter of King Aretas IV of Nabatea in favor of Herodias, who had formerly been married to his brother, Philip. In this day and age, one might remark, “So who cares?” As it turns out, this illicit marriage played a huge role in an escalating conflict between Herod and his former father-in-law, Aretas which finally blew up into a military confrontation that went badly for Herod and the people he ruled.

While marriages today are typically not part and parcel of international treaties, they do involved families, friends, and frequently produce children. That is why who sleeps with whom is never a purely private matter, despite the insistence of many folks to the contrary. Marriage has ripple effects among large circles of people. So also does divorce. John understood that very well. There is no such thing as “purely individual and private.”

Note that when Herod hears about Jesus, his conclusion is that John the Baptist has been raised. In a sense, he is right. The same God that spoke through John is now speaking again through God’s Son. Herod’s attempt to silence John’s voice, first through imprisonment and then through execution, has failed. With the advent of Jesus, John is back in spades. Herod is rightfully fearful. Herod was always fearful of John. Having him in jail was like holding a hot potato. Herod knew John to be a righteous man and was afraid to kill him. Yet at the same time he was afraid to let him go, knowing that John’s words were as dangerous to his kingdom as those of Amos to Jeroboam. Finally, the king’s pride trumps his fear and he has John executed to save face in front of his guests.

It is interesting to note that John’s disciples came forward to give their master a proper burial. Jesus’ disciples will do no such thing. Only the women will visit Jesus’ tomb and then only after his burial.

Pentecost 6, July 8, 2012

Ezekiel 2:1-5
Psalm 123
2 Corinthians 12:2-10
Mark 6:1-13

Greetings to all and best wishes for your July 4^th Celebrations! Though I will be presiding at Sunday Eucharist, I will not be preaching. In view of the fact that I will be away most of the week and driving back from Chicago on Saturday, Ken Dore’ has graciously agreed to take on that office for the day. It is wonderful to have such gifts as Ken possesses in this congregation. I am sure that, as always, he will have a good word for us.

Still, I cannot seem to stay away from the readings for the coming week. Here are my thoughts. As always, I welcome yours as I am sure Ken would also.

Ezekiel 2:1-5  http://www.workingpreacher.org/bible_passage.aspx?reading_id=1290&cmpgn=5244

The time is just before the fall of Jerusalem to Babylon in 587 B.C.E. The little nation of Judah, all that remains of the twelve tribes of Israel, stands alone against the might of the Babylonian Empire. Judah’s king made the decision to rebel against Babylonian regional control in hopes of receiving military support from Egypt. The decision was a bad one. Egyptian support never came. Now it is too late to turn back. The die is cast. Babylonian troops will soon encircle the city. Only an act of divine deliverance can save Judah now. That is precisely what Judah is hoping for.

In the midst of this crisis, Ezekiel is getting a tough assignment. He is sent to speak a word to people that don’t want to hear it, won’t listen to it and might even resist it violently. He has got to tell the people that there will be no divine deliverance this time. The Babylonian invasion is God’s judgment on a rebellious and recalcitrant people. Resistance is futile. In repentance alone lies Judah’s last hope. Neither king nor people are having any of that. They are determined to hold out for a miracle.

If you have ever had the experience of having to say “no” to your teenager or, as a teenager, you have tried to move mom or dad from “don’t even start with me” to “yes,” then you know how hard Ezekiel’s job was. Once people get dug into a position, the harder you try to push them off of it, the more tenaciously they cling. It seems as though God the irresistible force is pressing against Judah the immovable object and poor Ezekiel is caught in the middle. God does not seem to have much confidence that the word spoken to Judah will be received. Nevertheless, as a result of Ezekiel’s ministry, Judah will know that God’s prophet has been among them.

Perhaps the good news here comes from the mere fact that we have these words from Ezekiel at all. Obviously, the people of Judah finally did recognize that there had been a true prophet among them during those last dark days of Jerusalem. Clearly, the words of Ezekiel declaring God’s judgment helped the Jewish exiles begin to make sense of the terrible thing that had happened to them. In all probability, this recognition did not come until long after the destruction of Jerusalem and very likely after Ezekiel’s death. In short, the prophet may have died without ever seeing the fruit of his ministry.

That should give some encouragement to all of us who have taught Sunday School and confirmation class to a generation of children who are no longer in the church. It should give some hope to a church that increasingly finds itself smaller, poorer and further out on the margins of society. The word that has been sown will be received-but in God’s own time which might not be in our own. The world will one day know that prophets have been at work in its midst whether we live to see it or not.

That is not to say, of course, that we should not work at speaking the word in fresh and creative ways that engage people of all ages. The last thing I want to do is promote bad preaching and boring worship. Still, we cannot judge our faithfulness to this task by our own perceptions of effectiveness. The critical question is whether we are answering the call to preach the word God gives us in Christ Jesus-whether anyone seems to be listening or not.

Mark 6:1-13  http://www.workingpreacher.org/bible_passage.aspx?reading_id=1292&cmpgn=5244

I turn next to the Gospel lesson because it appears to be paired with the lesson from Ezekiel. Here, too, the prophet (Jesus) is met with hostility and skepticism. I must confess that I don’t understand the opposition Jesus faces in his home town of Nazareth. Jesus has attained rock star popularity throughout Galilee. He cannot go into a town without collecting mobs of people. You would think that Nazareth would welcome its famous son with a parade down Main Street. After all, Jesus put Nazareth on the map. Even today, would anyone know about Nazareth if it were not for Jesus of Nazareth? Yet so far from welcoming him, the people of Nazareth treat him with contempt. “Who do you think you are? What is so special about you? We know your people and they aren’t anything special. So where do you get off teaching in our synagogue as though you were some sort of celebrity?”

I suspect that this coolness toward Jesus in Nazareth might go back to chapter 3 where his family, assuming him to be insane, came out to take charge of him. When they send word that they have arrived and would like to see Jesus, Jesus responds by asking: “Who are my mother and brothers?” He then goes on to explain that his true family consists of all who obey the Word of God. So in effect, Jesus has repudiated family ties for the new loyalties created by the reign of God. Family ties run deep in small agricultural towns. Each family has long tentacles that penetrate other families and embrace the entire community. These ties are the stuff that binds a town together. When you cut them, you sever the blood vessels of the whole community. It may well be that Jesus is now experiencing the fallout from the encounter with his family back in chapter 3. If loyalty to the Kingdom of God requires one to renounce or at least subjugate family and clan loyalties, then a prophet who preaches the Kingdom in his own back yard is likely to earn a good deal of hostility.

In the next part of the lesson, Jesus sends the Twelve Disciples he selected back in chapter 3 out in twos. He does not give them specific instructions, but he does give them authority over unclean spirits. They are charged to bring with them no provisions whatsoever, but to depend upon the hospitality of the towns to which they are sent. We are told in crisp, succinct Markan fashion that they “preached that men should repent and they cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many that were sick and healed them.”

What I find striking here is that the disciples are dependent upon the hospitality of strangers. The sharing of hospitality and meal fellowship is an intimate act-usually restricted to family and clan. One does not go into the home of sinners to eat with them. But Jesus’ disciples are sent out to question that proposition, as indeed Jesus himself already has. Repentance means breaking away from learned patters of behavior and acculturation to embrace the openness and generosity of God’s table which is open to all. In return, the disciples are commanded to make available to all people the blessings of God’s reign in the form of casting out unclean spirits and healing.

Note well that it appears there was no formal education to prepare these disciples for their ministry. They were not authorized by any ecclesiastical authority other than Jesus. There was no “mission feasibility” study done in advance; no demographic research done to ascertain the racial, ethnic and cultural makeup of the target populations. Needless to say, if we in the church had been in charge, this never would have happened. Thanks be to God we were not in charge. And very great thanks be to God we still are not in charge-even if we like to act that way sometimes.

Psalm 123  http://www.workingpreacher.org/bible_passage.aspx?reading_id=1289&cmpgn=5244

This psalm is labeled a “Song of Ascents.” It shares this title with a group of psalms of which it is a part (120-134). The meaning of this title has not been established beyond doubt. The title is thought by a number of scholars to mean that the group of songs was composed for use in the procession of pilgrims coming to Jerusalem for high festivals. Other scholars cast doubt on this hypothesis, pointing out that most of these psalms appear to have been composed for cultic purposes unrelated to the Zion tradition. This psalm begins as a personal individual lament. The psalmist makes a humble affirmation of faith in God. In vss 3-4 the psalm continues as a communal plea for deliverance from oppression. This could be a plea on behalf of Israel as a whole or an oppressed group within Israel. Either way, it is clear that the psalmist/s are subject to oppression and contempt by “those who are at ease” and the “proud.”

It is difficult for me to pray this psalm. I have never been held in contempt (though I came close a few times while practicing law). On the whole, I have been relatively at ease in the land. Nobody has ever detained me, asked for my citizenship papers or inhibited my ability to speak my mind or worship freely. So this psalm seems not to apply to me personally. But then again, being a disciple of Jesus is never just a personal thing, is it? There are other parts of the Body of Christ that live under grinding poverty. There are places in the world where simply being a follower of Jesus places one in jeopardy. There are disciples living in war zones, refugee camps and prisons whose lives are in constant danger. They are no doubt praying this prayer or one like it. So should I not be joined in this prayer with them? In fact, is not more than prayer required here? Recall how, in last week’s lesson from II Corinthians, Paul reminded the Corinthian Church that where one church has a surplus, it should be applied to any other having a deficit. So the psalm poses the question: How can disciples like us, who are “at ease in the land,” use our wealth, position and influence to meet the needs of those “who have seen more than enough of contempt” and “scorn?”

II Corinthians 12:2-10  http://www.workingpreacher.org/bible_passage.aspx?reading_id=1291&cmpgn=5244

This is without doubt one of the most fascinating and difficult Pauline passages in the New Testament. Again, we are a little embarrassed by Paul here. That, I think, is why the folks who prepare the readings have clipped off verse 1 of chapter 12 which reads: “I must boast; there is nothing to be gained by it, but I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord.” Paul has already delivered a laundry list of his many accomplishments, his many sacrifices for the work of the Gospel and the suffering he has endured. If you have been reading the last couple of chapters, you are by now probably a little sick of Paul. I think there is no getting around the fact that Paul had some serious personality deficits. He was arrogant and prone to boasting. He was also hypersensitive and tended to take a lot of things far too personally. I have noticed that these two personality defects often come together. Yet it is precisely this-and the fact that Paul is very self aware-that makes the man so endearing. At the end of his unabashed boasting that climaxes in an account of a profound mystical experience, he goes on to say that God afflicted him with “a thorn in the flesh.” There has been no end of speculation as to what that thorn was. Some of that makes for fascinating reading, but for all that, it is still just speculation. We don’t know whether Paul suffered from a physical ailment, a moral weakness or some spiritual/emotional struggle. Whatever the case may be, it was of sufficient severity that it kept Paul’s inflated ego in check. Paul recognizes that it is this very weakness that has made him realize how he must rely solely on God’s grace and mercy. The power of God, Paul knows, is made perfect in weakness, in vulnerability and in the recognition that we have nothing but what is given to us. Without that thorn, whatever it was, could Paul have reached such a profound understanding and acceptance of God’s grace?

Like Paul, I struggle with my own thorns and limitations. I often wish the quality of my voice was richer, more powerful-more like James Earl Jones and less like Woody Allen. I wish I had a more impressive physical presence-which is another way of saying I wish I were less of a geek. I wish I could stop blinking. Life and ministry would be easier if I were not such an introvert. I could name perhaps a dozen other changes I would make to myself that, in my opinion, would make me a more effective minister. But highly effective ministers typically face highly charged temptations. How many powerful and charismatic preachers can you name that have been brought down by scandal of one kind or another? Maybe pride is a vocational liability for preachers. As Mac Davis says (or sings): “Oh Lord it’s hard to be humble when you’re perfect in every way.” Neither Paul nor I come close to perfection and it is still hard to be humble. Since humility is essential to faithful ministry, perhaps it is a good thing that we are so far from perfect. Maybe it is better to have a few thorns keeping the helium from inflating your head than to experience a spectacular explosion and fall from high altitude. I cannot imagine how insufferable we would be if, God forbid, either Paul or I ever achieved perfection. Perhaps flawed, imperfect and broken people make better ministers than would the perfect people we would like to make of ourselves.

These are my thoughts. As Always, I welcome yours.

Pentecost 5

Lamentations 3:22-33
Psalm 30 (1)
2 Corinthians 8:7-15
Mark 5:21-43

Greetings everyone and welcome to Pentecost 5. I will not be preaching on these texts this Sunday. I will be at a family gathering with my wife and children up at the Mohonk Mountain House over the weekend. The Rev. Dr. Carol Brighton will be preaching on Sunday, July 1^st. Nevertheless, I cannot help peeking at the texts for Sunday and thinking about how I might speak of them. Here are my thoughts. I welcome yours.

Lamentations 3:22-33 http://www.workingpreacher.org/bible_passage.aspx?reading_id=1285&cmpgn=5244

A word or two about the book of Lamentations is in order. It is not a book that we hear from very often in the ordinary course of our Sunday readings. Because it does not contain any stories, it does not often find its way into our Sunday School curriculum. It is a short book that you can easily overlook when casually paging though the Bible. So it is entirely possible that you have never heard of Lamentations.

As the name suggests, the book is a collection of laments, that is, prayers in which the Jewish people pour out their sorrow and pain to God. There are many such prayers found in the Psalms as well. The laments in Lamentations express the grief of the Jewish people over the Babylonian invasion of Judah in 587 B.C.E. which resulted in the sack of Jerusalem, the destruction of the Temple and the deportation of a substantial number of Jews to Babylon. It is hard for me to get my head around the scope of that catastrophe and what it meant to Israel. I suspect that the Somali refugees struggling to survive in refugee camps throughout the Horn of Africa could probably relate better to the following:

My eyes will flow without ceasing,
without respite,
⁵⁰ until the Lord from heaven
looks down and sees.
⁵¹ My eyes cause me grief
at the fate of all the young women in my city.

⁵Those who were my enemies without cause
have hunted me like a bird;
⁵³ they flung me alive into a pit
and hurled stones on me;
⁵⁴ water closed over my head;
I said, ‘I am lost.’

Lamentations 3:40-54

Lamenting or giving expression to grief is not part of my northern European constitution. I come from a community in which grief was met with stoic aplomb. My childhood memories of funerals I attended with my folks include hearing remarks such as “She is so brave!” or “He is holding up so well” spoken with admiration and respect. Of course, we were understanding when a widower got a little choked up at the wake and we were forgiving when a widow got a little teary at the last closing of the casket. But bursting into tears, whaling and lamenting would definitely have been considered to be in poor taste. Worse, it would have been interpreted as a lack of faith in the promise of the resurrection. Look, I don’t suggest for a minute that this is a healthy way to approach grief. But healthy or not, it is the way in which I was acculturated.

The particular lesson for this Sunday is a profession of confidence in God’s goodness and compassion against the backdrop of a tragedy few of us in this country can begin to imagine. Yet perhaps there have been personal tragedies so deep, so painful and so life altering that it seems there is no way back. The loss of a loved one comes to mind. When someone who has been a pivotal influence in your day to day life is suddenly gone, you know there is no going back. You know things will never be the same. You don’t know when the raw pain will end or when life will get back to normal or even what normal will look like should you ever get there. It is at times like these that I turn to the biblical prayers of lament. When I cannot pray, I just read the psalms-the same ones that the dispossessed Jews prayed, generations of believers have prayed and Jesus himself prayed. I read these psalms and rely on the communion of saints to do the praying for me. I get the feeling that the author of this text is doing much the same thing. He or she is reciting a tried and true confession of God’s faithfulness even though he or she not entirely convinced by it. But the question is not whether you believe or not. The question is whether you want to believe. And if you want to believe God’s promises, then the best thing you can do is “go through the motions,” act as though you actually do believe. Pull yourself out of bed and drag yourself to church even though you don’t feel like singing, praying, making conversation with anyone or, worst of all, listening to another sermon. When church is the last place you want to be, that is probably when you need it most.

Psalm 30 http://www.workingpreacher.org/bible_passage.aspx?reading_id=1284&cmpgn=5244

This psalm is a striking contrast to the lament in Lamentations. Here we have a person who has come up from the depths, out of the quagmire of despair and back into the light. It is not altogether clear whether the psalmist was experiencing threats from his enemies, sickness or perhaps both. In any case, whatever the problem, it is now behind the psalmist who recognizes in this resolution the saving hand of God. Verses 4-5 are remarkably similar to Lamentations 3:31-33. Both psalms emphasize that, in the long run, God can be trusted; that however dark your situation may be, God’s salvation ultimately will see you through. But the circumstances are wildly different. The author of the Lament prays these words in hope while surrounded by impenetrable darkness. The psalmist prays in the confidence of having seen these affirmations of faith prove true in his own life experience. I have been in both places and everywhere inbetween. That is why the psalms form such a large part of my devotional life. They speak from so many different levels of human experience that there is bound to be one that fits me.

II Corinthians 8:7-15 http://www.workingpreacher.org/bible_passage.aspx?reading_id=1286&cmpgn=5244

I often ask myself “what were they thinking?” when trying to figure out how the folks who put together our readings decided to begin and end where they do. What is this “gracious work” Paul is referring too in vs. 7? It is clear that Paul is taking up a collection from the Corinthian church. Most likely, this refers to the offering for the churches in Judea experiencing economic difficulties. (Gal. 2:1-10; I Cor. 16:1-4; Rom. 15:25-27).  This passage reflects the catholicity of the early church-a community that transcends cultural, regional and national borders. It is this catholicity that made the church such a fearful enemy of the Roman Empire and to all nation states that find any group of people who have a loyalty higher than the nation to be inconvenient at best and dangerous at worst. A disciple of Jesus cannot be on board with an “America First” policy. A disciple must always “seek first the Kingdom of God” and the well being of its citizens, whatever nation state they may be living in.

In the same manner, congregations, such as the church in Corinth, cannot adopt a parochial view of ministry. The whole church is one body and all parts either flourish or fail together. Thus, the Corinthian church, which is evidently a wealthier congregation, must, for its own well being and that of the whole church, use its surplus to meet the needs of the churches experiencing privation.

To get the full gist of what St. Paul is saying, you really need to read Chapters 8 and 9 in their entirety.

Mark 5:21-43 http://www.workingpreacher.org/bible_passage.aspx?reading_id=1287&cmpgn=5244

This is an aggravating story. Jairus’ daughter is at the point of death. This is a 911 call and Jesus is treating it like an open house. There is no need for him to terry on the way. The woman with a discharge of blood had already been healed and was on her merry way. Why waste precious time stopping to call her out, publically embarrass her and so further endanger the life of Jarius’ daughter? I suppose that raising a dead child is more impressive than healing a sick one. But since Jesus ultimately kept the whole affair a secret, that motivation does not seem likely.

I am only guessing here, but perhaps there is some significance to the fact that Jesus addresses this woman as his “daughter.” Jarius was, after all, the president of the synagogue. His responsibility, if any, for enforcing laws of ritual purity is not altogether clear to me. But I think he would probably take a dim view of a woman, who is perpetually unclean by virtue of her constant menstrual bleeding, being out and about in crowded public places. He surely would not approve of her grabbing the clothing of a strange man. That might have been why this woman was operating so furtively. In any event, it may well be that by addressing the woman as “daughter” Jesus was sending a message to Jarius. “Look man. I am about to give you back your daughter. Only you know what a precious gift that is. In return, I expect you to understand that my daughter is precious too. You had jolly well better treat her with the mercy and compassion I am showing you.”

Again, that is my own take on this. I have never seen another commentary that agrees with me. But I think we can say with confidence that Jesus is demonstrating here that he is not impressed by high titles and credentials; that the daughter of the president of the synagogue is no more or less important than the daughter of the streets.

Greetings everyone! These are my thoughts in this Sunday’s Lessons, the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost. I welcome your comments and thoughts on the texts!  Pastor Olsen

Job: 38:1-11 http://www.workingpreacher.org/bible_passage.aspx?reading_id=1280&cmpgn=5244

Last week began with my stepping into a foot of liquid sewerage at the foot of the stairs leading to the basement of the parish house in which I have my office. “Why God?” I asked. “Don’t you understand that this house is being readied to shelter a homeless family? Don’t you understand that this disaster you allowed to occur is going to set me back on the visits I have to make, the cards I need to write and the worship services for which I must prepare? Whose side are you on, God? And if this flood of sewerage had to occur for the sake of some greater good beyond my limited mortal comprehension, was it really essential to that greater good that I step in it? Couldn’t you have spared me at least that?”

Of course, a sewer back up is small potatoes when compared to a real tragedy, such as the loss of one’s home through foreclosure. That, too, is insignificant when placed next to a parent’s loss of a child. It is also worth remembering that for families eking out an existence in the refugee camps located in the Horn of Africa, the loss of a child is a common place event. Indeed, a refugee is counted lucky if he or she has even one child of many surviving to provide care and comfort in old age. That doesn’t answer my “why” questions, but at least it puts them in perspective.

God’s answer to Job’s “why” is less an answer than a barrage of rhetorical questions. “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?” “Who stretched the line to measure it?” “Who shut in the sea with doors” Job cannot possibly answer these questions and he knows it. The universe is a bigger, wilder and more terrifying place than he can imagine or understand. It is not for Job to suggest that God might have made a safer, calmer and more predictable world. Much less should he be telling God how to run the world that God has created.

This answer might suffice for me if I had not read the story from the beginning. In fact, God is not coming clean with Job. The reason for his suffering is not grounded in the humanly unfathomable mysteries of the universe. Job is suffering because the devil baited God into testing Job’s loyalty. “Does Job fear God for nought?” he says to the Lord. “You made him healthy, wealthy and well regarded. Why shouldn’t he serve you? Job’s loyalty is no more than patronage. Take away the salary and benefits and he will spit in your face.” This story is strikingly similar to the temptation of Eve in the third chapter of Genesis. Only this time the tempter is not tempting humans to distrust God, but is testing God’s confidence in Job. It seems that God cannot resist the forbidden fruit anymore than could Eve. God must prove Job’s faithfulness-even if it means ruining his life with tragedy and sickness. Most of us would not treat a dog in this fashion.

So what are we to make of this text? I must confess that I can make peace with the book of Job only by viewing it as a satire from beginning to end. I believe that the story as a whole illustrates what happens when your religion insists that you believe in a world where righteousness is always rewarded and wickedness is always punished by a good God who presides over a universe that runs like a Swiss watch. On a purely theoretical plane, such religion seems to make sense. But when you take it off the blackboard and apply it to everyday life, it falls apart like a cheap shirt. The first time you step into a puddle of sewerage, you are cursing God because a good God presiding over a good world should not be letting stuff like this happen. Or, on the other hand, you can wind up making excuses for God, blaming the devil or concocting some outlandish theory to explain why sewerage in the basement or starvation in the Horn of Africa are really good things. Worse yet, you can wind up insisting to sufferers that their suffering is their own fault and that if they cannot understand what they have done to deserve their fate, well they just need to dig deeper into their consciences.

In sum, the text from Job, like the entire narrative, challenges us to accept a more nuanced and complex God whose interactions with an equally complex creation do not fit neatly into our theories of cause and effect.

Psalm 107:1-3;23-32  http://www.workingpreacher.org/bible_passage.aspx?reading_id=1279&cmpgn=5244

Here is a psalm that reflects the kind of faith that, if taken to simplistic extremes, brings us into the conundrum addressed by the book of Job. The psalm tells the stories of groups of persons, possibly pilgrims on their way to worship at Jerusalem, who encounter various dangers from which God delivers them. The people featured in this week’s reading are sailors caught in a terrible storm. Nearly wrecked upon the waves of the sea, they cry out to the Lord for deliverance. The Lord stills the storm and brings them safely to land.

These stories are inspiring as far as they go. God does intervene to save. God does deliver people from danger. People have experienced God’s intervention in their lives in some very graphic and dramatic ways. But, as the book of Job would have us remember, God does not always intervene in ways that look like deliverance. God did not intervene to save Jesus from the cross. Consequently, any religion teaching that faith in God guarantees safety, happiness and escape from all injury is not consistent with what the Bible teaches us. God’s acts of deliverance are never ends in themselves. The sailors in today’s psalm are rescued from the sea so that they can “extol [God] in the congregation of the people, and praise [God] in the assembly of the elders.” The people of Israel are rescued from Egypt that they might become a blessing to all people and a light to the world. It is pointless, then, to ask why God saves some and not others. God chooses to bless certain individuals and groups, to be sure. But God blesses them that they might be a blessing to all. Thus, salvation is not a matter of God exercising favoritism by exalting some over others. It is rather God’s choosing certain people to be God’s representatives and servants to all people and for the good of all people.

2 Corinthians 6:1-13 http://www.workingpreacher.org/bible_passage.aspx?reading_id=1281&cmpgn=5244

This reading is a section of a much larger discussion Paul has been developing since the beginning of the book. It is evident that the congregation in Corinth that had been founded through Paul’s work was being influenced by Christian teachers who had taken up residence in town since Paul departed. These teachers claim to be “apostles” and appear to be discrediting Paul and his associates. The mark of true apostleship, Paul argues, is conduct, not mere words. Paul’s persistent faithfulness in spite of persecution and trials demonstrate his apostolic commitment. Paul does not merely travel to existing congregations to teach and preach. He has made a life of bringing the gospel to places where it has never been proclaimed. Paul repeatedly puts his life on the line to expand the ministry of the gospel. Can his opponents make the same claim?

It might appear that Paul is bragging here. Perhaps he is. Yet I believe he is making a deeper argument that perhaps touches on issues raised in the Job lesson. Suffering is not evidence of failure and rejection by God-anymore than ease, comfort and wealth are signs of God’s approval. In fact, if one is to be a faithful disciple of Jesus, one can expect to suffer.

I think we need to treat this text with some caution because we do not want to suggest that suffering in itself is a good thing. God does not want anyone to suffer, but God recognizes that nothing worthwhile is achieved without it. All of us who have chosen to have children know (particularly mothers) that having children invites all sorts of pain. From the very get go, it means surrendering the freedom to sleep in (often to sleep at all!), go out to a movie on a whim, or take a week of vacation without taking school, summer camp and babysitting into account. That, of course, is hardly worth mentioning when you consider the pain that comes from seeing your children struggle through adolescence, making bad decisions that will cause them pain and perhaps even suffering tragedy. Yet we have been having children since our species began and continue to do so. I can only assume that we do it because we believe it to be worth the risk. The rewards outweigh the sorrows.

One could say that God feels the same about the world. Yes, it is broken and filled with tragedy and suffering. But it is also filled with incredible joy, beauty and potential for realization of God’s love in our hearts. The cross and resurrection is God’s way of letting us know that, from God’s standpoint, creation was worth it. God is not giving up on it. God loves it enough to suffer with it and for it. All who are called children of God are privileged to do the same.

Mark 4:35-41 http://www.workingpreacher.org/bible_passage.aspx?reading_id=1282&cmpgn=5244

This story continues pressing the $64,000 question: “Who is Jesus?” Of course, those of us reading the gospel already know who Jesus is because the gospel begins in Mark 1:1 by telling us that this is the story of Jesus, the Son of God, the Messiah. Jesus knows who he is because the voice from heaven spoke to him at his baptism saying, “You are my beloved Son.” The demons know that Jesus is the Son of God and Jesus has to tell them to keep quiet about his identity. The only people who don’t seem to be getting it are the disciples.

It is tempting to criticize the disciples for being such dolts. Particularly after they make the remark, “Who is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” Unwittingly perhaps, they are practically quoting from this week’s psalm. Had they realized what they were saying, they would not have had to ask their question. Yet the problem here is deeper than mere failure to connect the scriptural dots. Surely the people to whom Mark’s gospel is addressed, like us, know that Jesus is the Son of God. The question is, does that knowledge make any difference to them or us? Though we confess that Jesus is the Son of God, is he the first one to whom we turn in the midst of a raging storm? Or do we call out to him only when our strength, our wits and our resources have all failed us and the boat is half swamped? In these troubled and fearful times, we can still hear Jesus speaking to us, “Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?”