Christmas' Healing and Wholeness 12/24/19 Christmas Eve A

Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

Christmas’ Healing and Wholeness

12/24/19      Christmas Eve A

Often in this world, we strive to know how to live - what’s right, what’s good, what’s helpful; what’s meaningful; what moves the world forward on a path that leads to good for all people.   We look to religion and Holy Scriptures to tell us about this world that God created, and what is just and what is our high calling, how to treat others, how to treat creation.  At Christmastime, often our convictions and hopes are rekindled, reborn just as the miracle of God born in flesh restores our faith and makes us remember the kindness and love in God’s invitation to us.  When we’re reminded again of all we hope for, all we so deeply believe, all we long for, we renew our determination, we rejoice in that deep good that we recommit to.     

Yet ….even with our highest and best motivations and remembrances, even with the echo of the angels in our ears, you know, its just downright difficult to stick to our intentions when life begins to pull on our time, our pocketbooks, our attention, our energy.  Even in the busy preparations for Christmas celebrations, we are rushed and preoccupied getting everything ready, packing the car for trips, wrapping just that perfect present, getting the meal on the table all together at the same time.  After Christmas, with the return of schoolwork, doctors appointments, the kids’ ear infections, demands of work, keeping healthy food on the table - these things take our minds away from the wonder of angels and shepherds, the prophetic obedience of Mary and Joseph, the wisdom of those wise men who came to worship and yet were saavy enough to avoid King Herod on the trip home.  Our vision of living a more complete life of faith falls lower nad lower on the radar screens of our minds, and finally scrolls off.

      This birth of God in the baby Jesus calls to us at a deep, spiritual level of wholeness, of promise and fulfillment, of purposes transcending the everyday hectic pace of things, of a peace that wants to pervade and encompass our daily living. It may have been a historic moment, yes, but it speaks to us of an ongoing and continuous awareness of God in our midst, God being born among us day by day...if only our minds grow still and our eyes see.  In this baby Jesus, who grows in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and with people - in this birth, we see the coming together of Divine and earthly flesh, of spirit and matter; we see the hopes of the past pushing into the present and future.  We yearn for that kind of wholeness in our own living, that our goals and our actual living would match, that our faith and our actions would be consistent.  We long for the various pulls in our heart to be connected; that we would live in touch with all parts of ourselves… isn’t that what we wish we could do?  To not be distracted from our inner values by the insistent calls on our attention from daily activities and demands - or perhaps that we move through those daily demands with an ongoing awareness of the presence of this larger picture, this larger frame of human existence; that this experience of God’s transcendence would underlie all the rest. That we, too would know this wholeness and completeness of inner self with  outer self,  mind with body;  intellect with feelings; faith with the physical, unity with diversity, the resolution of all paradox.

    The promise that is Jesus Christ says this wholeness is possible, says that this vision can be reality.  In Jesus, the Christ, the Messiah, the one anticipated and hoped for, the answer to generations of longing and promise -  all these aspects of life meet together and hold out the promise of a new reality for humanity.  .  

     See, that’s God.  The resolution of the big picture held in this new individual. A culmination of humanity’s hopes for a world living as it was designed. No wonder the angels cried praise & people bowed & offered gifts!

      Tonight we let our hearts remember these highest hopes & be renewed. Tonight as we take bread (matter) and drink (spirit), let us celebrate that unity & wholeness that is in God. Tonight we restore our hopes & intentions for this often crazy world, and join ourselves in this praise. Amen.

Mary's Magnificat Manifesto 12/8/19 (Advent 2A)

Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

MARY’S  MAGNIFICAT MANIFESTO

Dec 8, 2019      Advent 2A

            An article has been going the rounds on my clergy groups this week, called “Lies Told About Mary.”  Intriguing title, isn’t it?   It talks about the sweet and pious way Mary is often depicted, with soft hair, a scarf over her head, head bowed submissively, accepting the angel’s announcement about her baby quietly and obediently, or bending over the baby Jesus with her head at that characteristic tilt. (SLIDES)  But I kinda hear something different when I read this passage, Mary’s song when she meets her cousin Elizabeth, both of them perhaps still reeling from encounters with angels and new pregnancies.  I seem to hear a Mary who is full of prophetic vigor, claiming a Godly vision straight from her scriptures, a vision of the world being set right, injustices corrected, the playing field leveled between rich and poor;... and all thanks to God, who is holy and powerful, and who Mary’s voice rises to praise and magnify. 

This song of Mary’s is known as the Magnificat, which is the first word in the Latin translation that people read Scripture in for many centuries.  If we translated it word for word, it would sound like Yoda - Magnify God my soul does! In better English grammar, My soul magnifies the Lord!  When we magnify something, we enlarge it, right?  Like using a magnifying glass in science projects.  Synonyms are words like enhance, boost, maximise, augment, intensify…  we get the idea.  In reference to God, then, we speak highly of God, extol God’s traits, venerate who God is, give God thanks for great deeds, praise, bless, adore - we lift God up and intensify people’s knowledge and love for God. 

Most of the paintings with the word Magnificat in their titles are more just Mary meeting Elizabeth.  Here’s a painting that just has the word “Magnificat” over her head; and here’s a couple where she looks at bit more exuberant.  Ah, here’s one that captures the spirit of the Magnificat as being for the poor of any ethnic group together. 

Here, though, is the Mary that most accords with what I hear in her song (the Ben Wildflower Mary, with fist raised and foot on a snake)!

Yes, she starts out by saying God has looked on her lowliness and she is indeed blessed to have this call.  Then, however, she goes on to repeat the prophecy that has been the standard reversal proclaimed by all prophets before her - a vision of God filling the hungry and lifting up the poor - and throwing the powerful from their thrones and sending the rich empty away. 

This is Mary the prophet of God, not a view of Mary that is very traditional!  Yet Mary fits the role of prophet as its usually described - the prophet receives a call to do something or say a message - check; and immediately feels inadequate or unworthy - check.  The prophet then aligns themselves God, as God will provide- check;  and carries out the task or tells the message - check.  Mary falls in line with the prophets of her heritage, the same way Moses, Jeremiah, Isaiah and others do.  

Its interesting that the gospel writer Luke chooses to start off telling the Jesus story with Mary echoing the words of the prophets throughout the scriptures.  Its like he sets Jesus in this tradition from the start. And Luke will continue to show Jesus in the context of prophet, doing the works of setting people free, challenging the values of the government of his time, and proclaiming the kingdom of God is come in his own self.  Luke evidently sees this aspect of Jesus in the tradition of the prophets as vital to understanding who Jesus is and what Jesus does.

I guess that’s why I like this interpretation of Mary’s Magnificat.  Its more a manifesto than a comforting song.  Mary’s words aren’t sweet, her message isn’t soft and warm.  Mary’s song is a cry of God’s vindication of those who have been faithful, and have suffered.  Its not the song of the powerful people celebrating their importance.  The triumph of her song is the fulfilling of God’s promises, in which this enslaved and suffering people have trusted and hoped.  Its the hope of those who haven’t had the more obvious blessings of the world, and have yet known they are loved by God and are equal in honor and importance to God as those who seem to be the most blessed by the world’s standards.  Those who have been treated unjustly, those who have been kept down, gone hungry, had no health care, had no say,  - - God will vindicate them and fulfill the promises of a just world where all have enough…where people will treat one another with dignity, will be the good neighbor, will honor God’s values of honesty and humility…where the lion can lie down with the lamb… where we will indeed be the beloved community.

We need to reclaim these parts of the Jesus story, friends, because this is the whole reason Jesus came - its the message Jesus called “good news;” its the description of the kingdom of God that Jesus announced - and so challenged the kingdoms of earth that Jesus had to be killed.

If our celebrations of God’s birth as the human Jesus are all cute babies and warm families and lavish presents, we have missed a main purpose of Jesus’ birth - that God, in a radical love for humanity and all creation, came to demonstrate that love, to call people to lives of justice, to fulfill all the promises of things set right for all peoples. 

Mary’s prophecy seems more obviously good news to the downtrodden and poor, like in her imagery of filling the hungry and lifting up the lowly.  It seems to be bad news to the rich and powerful in this world, as Mary describes as casting down the mighty and sending the rich away empty.  For those of us in what are called the first world, who have the abundance and power that the rest of the world envies, this message should be a call to sober reflection on the inequalities of the world, both in this nation and in the world.  It CAN be good news for us as well, if it opens our eyes to the imbalances and the injustices in our world, and opens our hearts to the suffering of so many.  Its bad news first, though - like so many eye-opening experiences, we suddenly see our place in the big picture differently.  Hopefully our hearts are not just broken, but broken open - and compassion fills us, the compassion of God who loves us all - and that compassion leads to our desire to work with God to set the world right. 

So, in this Advent, how does hearing Mary’s prophetic song change the way we view the celebration of Christ’s coming among us?  Its such a huge thing for God to do, to let go of the power and might of godliness, and become a mortal and finite human.  What was the impetus for such a thing?  Its God’s desire to heal the world, to love all the people in it, to bring in this new realm of heaven here on earth; to save us from ourselves and our worst inclinations.  To make things right. 

So, in this Advent, can we see ourselves singing Mary’s words?

Here’s a version of her words that captures the intent and feeling of her song for me:

Canticle of the Turning Words by Rory Cooney, music by Mark Hayes

My soul cries out with a joyful shout that the God of my heart is great,

And my spirit sings of the wondrous things that you bring to the ones who wait.

You fixed your sight on your servant's plight, and my weakness you did not spurn,

So from east to west shall my name be blest. Could the world be about to turn?

My heart shall sing of the day you bring. Let the fires of your justice burn.

Wipe away all tears, for the dawn draws near, and the world is about to turn!

Though I am small, my God, my all, you work great things in me,

And your mercy will last from the depths of the past to the end of the age to be.

Your very name puts the proud to shame, and to those who would for you yearn,

You will show your might, put the strong to flight, for the world is about to turn.

My heart shall sing of the day you bring. Let the fires of your justice burn.

Wipe away all tears, for the dawn draws near, and the world is about to turn!

From the halls of power to the fortress tower, not a stone will be left on stone.

Let the king beware for your justice tears ev'ry tyrant from his throne.

The hungry poor shall weep no more, for the food they can never earn;

There are tables spread, ev'ry mouth be fed, for the world is about to turn.

My heart shall sing of the day you bring. Let the fires of your justice burn.

Wipe away all tears, for the dawn draws near, and the world is about to turn!

Though the nations rage from age to age, we remember who holds us fast:

God's mercy must deliver us from the conqueror's crushing grasp.

This saving word that our forebears heard is the promise which holds us bound,

'Til the spear and rod can be crushed by God, who is turning the world around.

My heart shall sing of the day you bring. Let the fires of your justice burn.

Wipe away all tears, for the dawn draws near, and the world is about to turn!

My heart shall sing of the day you bring. Let the fires of your justice burn.

Wipe away all tears, for the dawn draws near, and the world is about to turn!

Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is? (Wake Up!) 12/1/19 Advent 1A

Rev. Rebecca Kiser

Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?  (Wake Up!)              

12/ 1   Advent 1A      Matthew 24 & Isaiah 2

            Sometime around my seminary years, which means the early 1980s, the word “Spirituality” came into people’s awareness.  Protestants like Presbies and Methodists were a bit wary of the word, which seemed to have overtones of New Age mysticism and Catholic saints. One lone professor at Louisville Seminary had been intrigued by the re-emergence of Christin spirituality, and was introducing things to students.  I took his class, and was hooked.  Ancient practices of contemplation, silence, using the Scriptures for meditation, daily prayer, a more liturgical kind of worship - these excited this former Baptist.  I know the term “spirituality” in these days has a rather nebulous meaning that isn’t necessarily related to Christian faith precepts so much as it is to wholeness and holistic living, living our inner convictions, concern about toxins and health, the environment, personhood, honesty, good relationships, meditation, inner wholeness - - which, actually, I think have really great connections to faith in God and what Jesus called living in the kingdom, or the realm of God.  It came to me some years later that I could do a Doctor of Ministry program in Christian spirituality, so I looked around and asked our Presbyterian seminaries if they had programs of study like that.  They didn’t, at that point - they do now.  I found out about a program being started by Matthew Fox, whose books I’d found inspiring, that offered a D.Min. degree - wow!  Matthew Fox and a degree together!  I signed up. 

The entrance to the class location was upstairs, over some stores.  As we walked up those steps to the program center, we walked into an awareness of the time and the place we exist in the universe, which is central to Fox’s teachings.  The wall of the ascending stairway was painted with timeline of creation, starting at the bottom with what Fox called The Great Flaring Forth. (Fox’s spirituality takes regard for the science of creation, as a way of knowing what time it is, and why we are where we are, now, here.) So, starting with “Let there be light,” taking one inch as meaning x thousands of years, the next steps chronicle the slow birth of stars, their deaths and throwing elements into space, the gathering of disparate elements into groups like planets, and all the ages of life emerging.  You know where humans come in?  The last part of the 20th step, the top step.  The story of human life and existence is shown as virtually miniscule, compared to the vast timeline of creation prior to us.  Its humbling.  It tells what time it is. 

Although it seems like a long time to us since the historical Jesus walked on earth, that two thousand years is really just a blip, a pinpoint. When the apostles Matthew and Paul refer to “the last days”, it feels to us, in almost 2020, that its been an awful long time since Jesus first told people that the realm of God is at hand, the time to repent and turn to God is now, and to be ready for that great day when God creates a new heaven and a new earth. People assumed so much that the realm of God had arrived in Christ that they re-ordered the counting of the years, naming this new era as Years of our Lord, or Anno Domine, AD.  Early believers were full of the   expectation of God’s will being done on earth as it is in heaven already. 

Christ followers have been doing their best, our best, for a long time now, and we’ve kinda lost the excitement of that first awakening to the hope that a new thing is being born, a new era is come.  Church got organized and over-organized, all kinds of sorrow and suffering are still around us, all kinds of evil seeming to win, all kinds of people falling short of our ideals…  It seems like nothing’s changed.  Yet in the great scope of things, it really hasn’t been much time at all since Jesus preached that the realm of God was at the door in his very self, that the time was now, that we who believe him step over that threshold and into the very kingdom of God itself. 

I have an illustration that came to me when I was learning to garden.  Its about yellow squash plants.  Now squash seeds are large and they germinate pretty quickly, so you can sow them right into the soil - make a hill and pat a couple seeds into the darkness of underground, and pretty soon life bursts forth in those first green sprouts, then the first true leaves.  Its doesn’t take much patience to get to this point, not like it does with, say, tomato seeds.  I now have a squash plant - -  although its nothing like its going to be later.  As the summer goes on, the plant grows more leaves - I have to watch for diseases and bad bugs, but basically the impetus for growth is coming from within, nurtured by the rain, the sun and the nutrients in the soil. All along, I am delighted by my luxurious squash plant at every stage.  And it is already a squash plant, from the time the seed sprouts.  Its here, it exists.  Finally the flowers appear and the insects pollinate it, and little yellow things show up and begin to get bigger, and recognizable as squash.  And as long as I keep them picked, it continues to bear more squashes all summer. 

Jesus’ kingdom, the realm of Christ, the realm of God, is already here - Jesus was born, lived, died and was raised again.  The kingdom of God is not yet all its going to be, but it is here, and we who believe are already in it.  That’s one of the things we need to wake up about, and see, and claim, and act on.  The time is here; the time is now.  We’re in that little ½ inch at the top of that staircase at Matthew Fox’s school.  God’s new realm is here and begun, and despite the way it feels like long years to us, the realm of God is birthed and living in us. We who are followers of Jesus the Christ have stepped over that threshold into a new time, a new era. 

When we wake up to that, when we know what time it is, we are charged to live in that truth.  The world might look like its going on as the same, but things are changed - changed in us, and changed in Christ.  The seed is planted and the sprouts are up.  The night is over and the light has appeared.  God’s new reality is among us and in us.  So the apostle Paul’s letter to the church in Rome can say,  “Wake up!  Lay aside the way things have always been in the world, and walk in the light of God!  Live in that realm of God, live the way God has called people to live! Honor God as the source of all being!  Live right with one another - put away mistreating others, lying, stealing, murder, greediness, manipulations, angers, envy, all those things that lead people down wrong paths.  Honor one another and look to the needs of one another, as you look to your own needs.  Live together in peace!  Help out with those who don’t have enough. Believe what God has said, and live like it!  Share the good news that Christ is here and has opened the way for us to be forgiven and restored with God! Use those abilities God has given you to help all people and all creation! Wake up!”  

Jill Duffield, current editor of the Presbyterian Outlook magazine, is among my favorite writers about Scriptures right now.  She writes about this first week of Advent, “...we who follow Jesus Christ know what time it is, what time it always is: It is time to walk in the light, put on the armor of light, be the light of the world no matter if we are in the field or eating or drinking or marrying or working. Disciples of Jesus Christ are to be on the lookout for the holy already here and surely coming, the light on the horizon, the inbreaking of healing, the hope of reconciliation and the possibility of peace ---- and nurture their coming into the world.

Perhaps our worship today can be an opportunity to wipe the sleep from our eyes, she writes.  Perhaps on this first Sunday of Advent, we can wake up to the reality that the Divine is in our world and working, growing.  Perhaps our eyes will be alert to the presence of Christ here, in us and among us.  Perhaps its a good time to consider how this changes our living - what do we need to set aside or take up anew as a result of our alertness to God’s presence, and the reality of Christ’s kingdom in our midst? 

As the passage from Matthew’s gospel points out, we don’t know the date and time of things in the future, we don’t know the length of our own lives, we don’t know the future of our country or the world.  We don’t know when the realm of God will come more into fruition.  We DO know that God is longsuffering, that God loves the creation and humanity, we DO know that our salvation is nearer day by day.  We DO know the promises and hopes of God making all things new. 

Friends, the time for us to believe God and live in God’s realm is now, while we are here and while God’s Spirit is seeking and calling.  God is reaching for us, and telling us what kind of life we are called to live.   Open those eyes!    Its time to awaken.  AMEN.

Is "Christ" Jesus' Last Name? 11/24/19 (Christ the King)

Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

Is "Christ" Jesus' Last Name? 

Nov 24, 2019  Christ the King   Col 1:11-20

            You all have probably realized that I really like FaceBook and the internet.  I know I’m 65 and supposed to be too old to “get it.” I know I’m a Boomer, too, and I’ve heard the jokes about “OK, Boomer” as if I’m virtually irrelevant to 2020. Too bad!  I’ve especially liked Google, where I can ask just about anything, and find 200,000 articles that answer in some way.  Of course I also know to use places that are trustworthy.   I also like being able to pick my phone up and say, “Hey Siri, find directions to GreenStar Market” and let the computer look things up for me.

            So I was looking around what the internet offered about Jesus Christ for this day’s sermon, and came across a question in a site named Quora that asked this:

 (SLIDE) (Where did the Christ surname originate? Was that Mary’s name?)

            I almost laughed, that someone knew so little about Christianity and Jesus that they would ask this.  Then I stopped and said to myself, “Well, more and more people know very little about Christianity except the weird stuff that makes the news.”  Its an opportunity to share what we know about Jesus, and why the title “Christ” has become a part of how we refer to Jesus. 

            (SLIDE) (meme - Christ isn’t Jesus’ last name).

 No, Christ isn’t Jesus’ last name.  Jesus’ name, before we Latinized its pronunciation, was Yeshua, or Joshua, which means “Savior” in Hebrew.  In Hebrew custom, he was probably identified by his parentage, so he would be Yeshua bar Yoseph, or Joshua son of Joseph.  Or he may have been known by his profession, like many older countries did, maybe Jesus Carpenter.  Some of the people in the Christian Scriptures are identified by their city of origin, like Mary of Magdala, or Mary the Magdalene -  so Jesus was sometimes called ‘Jesus of Nazareth.’ (This is from the Quora site’s answer and other places.)

The earliest followers of Jesus were fellow Jews of that era, who saw Jesus’ attributes as those they expected the Messiah to exhibit - the Messiah, or anointed one of God, who would deliver them. So Jesus’ followers called him Messiah Jesus, or Jesus the Messiah.  Jesus the anointed one, anointed by God, as kings were anointed to their position.   “Messiah” is a title.  When our Scriptures were translated into Greek, the equivalent word for “anointed” was ‘christos’.  So Christ is the same title - Jesus who is the Christ, Jesus the Christ of God, the anointed of God. 

So actually, when a person says “Jesus Christ”, they are awarding Jesus the title, “God’s Anointed One,” which is the belief of Christianity.  When we use that name and title together, we are making a claim about who Jesus is.  We are stating our faith that Jesus is the one anointed by God as Messiah, Christ.

The historical Jesus was middle-eastern.  (SLIDE – meme of a dark-skinned Jesus)  I know we’re used to seeing pictures of a white Jesus, so he looks like us white folks.  If we had time this morning, I could show paintings of Jesus in various other cultural guises, too, as artists show Jesus as like them.  That’s interpretation, which we all do, because no one back in that era was taking pictures!  Folks who study skeletons and skulls of the middle-eastern graves have produced this picture (SLIDE - composite 1^st century Jewish face) that might be what a historical Jesus looked like.  In the last few years, experts have tried to construct what a Hebrew man may have looked like from various sources, and came up with this as a possible literal look. 

 Most of the portrayals of Jesus in paintings are not meant to be literal, though, but to convey or communicate what our Christian faith believes about who Jesus the Christ is.

(SLIDE - shepherd)  For example, this one is from 570 BC, from A CATACOMB, using  the common Greek and Roman motif of a shepherd with a lamb, and is a reference to Jesus as the Good Shepherd.

(SLIDE - halo) This one is from a catacomb from the 4th century, and already shows the halo effect of Jesus’ divinity (or the openness of the 7th and spiritual chakra in Eastern traditions).   

(SLIDE - pantocrater) This one is from the 6th or 7th century, and from the monastery of St Catherine actually on Mt. Sinai, now in Egypt.  The open right hand making the sign of the benediction, or blessing, is used to show Jesus as the Christos, with the power and authority of God, like from the Hebrew names for God: Sabaot - Lord of all hosts, and El Shaddai, God Almighty.  Some think that the 2 sides of this painting’s face indicate both the human nature and the divine nature combined in Jesus the Christ. 

(SLIDE - on throne) Here’s another that shows Christ  as King, by seating him on the throne of God. 

I’ve tried to find words to explain the meaning of “Christ the King,” and its difficult.  If we let our minds imagine, let’s imagine that the title “Christ” carries overtones of God’s universal power and presence; open our minds to imagine Christ as timeless and cosmic; as part of the One God who is the source & maker of all being, the capital-L Life that keeps the planets spinning and rotating, and watches the stars from their births to their imploding deaths.  Imagine Christ as a part of the One God who is the essence, the “isness,” of all that “is.”  Imagine the wonder, the immensity, the scope, the force inside existence in all its forms.   That’s what the title of Christ carries.  This is mysterious, mystical, and overwhelming to imagine, for me. 

Yet at the same time, we also affirm God as intimate and as personal to us, as the one born in human flesh, Jesus.  Just at the point when we’re ready to throw our hands up and say that we will never be able to comprehend God (which is true), we also have Jesus, who walked in the earth’s dust, grew up through childhood and teenage years, ate food, had good friends, and suffered a human, physical death.  And we affirm that God’s Spirit also comes to dwell in our own selves, binding us up in a new family of God, placing us to live in the new realm of Christ’s reality. 

Back in my Boomer day, we’d call that mind-blowing. 

So who is Jesus the Christ to you?  I guess that’s the important question, after all this talk.  Our faith affirms that God and Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are all this, all together.  Totally universal, totally in the macro of the universe and the micro aspects beyond our discoveries about creation.  God has designed all and knits it all together.  God is capital-L Life.  God is capital -T Truth.  God is capital-P Peace.  God is the capital-W Way of living.  And yet this God seeks us out, provides for us to be forgiven and restored in relationship with God, and now lives within each of us.  God’s love is overwhelmingly large, yet also individually personal.  Jesus Christ died and was raised for the world, and for each of us.  Jesus Christ now sets us within the realm or kingdom or kindom of heaven, and desires that we walk this Jesus path. 

Now, next week the Church year starts over, and we will find ourselves metaphorically preparing ourselves, our inner selves, for Jesus to be birthed in us and therefore into the world.  This is probably my favorite doctrine or belief, what we call the Incarnation, or Enfleshing, of God.

This week, however, we celebrate all that Jesus the Christ is, and all that this means in Jesus’ right to tell us how God created humans to be, how God desires humans to act, and to tell us the truth about what its like to live in God’s realm, following God’s expectations and design.  As Christ, Jesus tells and shows us the reality of existence, the world view that comes from God’s self, the understanding and the context in which we live and move and have our being.

In our civil year here in the US, this is the week we commemorate some of our nation’s beginnings, with the feast of Thanksgiving.  Thanksgiving gives us a picture of us as Europeans interacting wisely with the Native peoples of this country who were already here.  Its hard not to be aware of the native peoples of this land when we’re constantly driving past places with names like Onondaga Nation, Cayuga and Syracuse, Ithaca, and more (here in upstate NY)…. we can’t help but be reminded of those who were on this continent before our ancestors were, and who taught our European ancestors how to survive here. I wish the rest of our story with the native peoples stayed at that level of harmony we celebrate at Thanksgiving.  Unfortunately it didn’t, and we still have weeks like this past one, where unrest and racial discord showed up at our local university. The good will of Thanksgiving holds a hopeful picture that I hope inspires us.  May it be so. 

May the reality of God and Christ as King of all that is be a part of our lives this week, and enrich our thankfulness as we consider the love and grace God has towards us and all creation.   AMEN.

The Ultimate Assessing - Compassion 11/17/19 (Pentecost 23C)

Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

The Ultimate Assessing -  Our Compassion

Nov 17, 2019      Pentecost 23-C

            I generally take my sermon texts from something called the Revised Common Lectionary - “Lectio” means “to read,” so the lectionary is a set of scripture readings. Its designed to work through the major themes of Scripture every 3 years of Sundays. (There are daily lectionaries available, too, to guide a daily reading of Scripture, and one is available on the Presbyterian website.)  Lectionaries start at Advent & Christmas - ie Jesus’ birth, & go through the visit of the magi (Epiphany); then Jesus’ baptism at the start of his adult ministry; then in Lent through Easter we read yearly about how he was killed and then raised by God, and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Over the long weeks of summer and fall until the next Advent, we explore other parts of Jesus’ life, as well as the start of the church as traced through the letters of various apostles to the early churches they started.  As we get towards the end of the church calendar, ie just before Advent, where we are now, there are always readings about the end of time, and God’s ultimate judging of how we’ve lived. Then the church year ends with  a celebration of Christ as ruler of all that is - time, creatures, creation, everything.  We go through the story of Christ every year, but with different scriptures.  By the time a pastor gets a good many years in as a preacher, we’ve been through the 3-year cycle a number of times, and are amazed how much more there always is to find, and how well it speaks to the state of issues in the world.  Hmmmm… must be the Holy Spirit in there somewhere! 

If the needs of the week and the needs of the congregation indicate a change, I don’t have to stick to the lectionary.  However, its a good discipline to keep me from just preaching my own favorite texts over and over, and ignoring those that may be difficult for me. Many mainline denominations follow the Revised Common Lectionary, so there are good study material available online - and, of course, bulletin covers and children’s bulletins and sometimes Study lessons can be made to match ….and musicians can plan ahead on anthems!

So today’s reading from Isaiah is a wonderful vision of a new heaven and new earth that God makes, our creative God who is always bringing new life out of death.  Isaiah’s vision dreams of the healing to some of the most poignant human sorrows and losses.  Its very human, isn’t it? And very concrete. Very specific and literal.  No more child loss or early deaths. No more ravages of property and losses of war.  God’s presence with us.  This last chapter of Isaiah doesn’t just end with, “they lived happily ever after,” a fairy-tale like ending without specifics.  The Hebrew prophets are very concerned with the practical and human needs of the living.  They’re concerned about hungry being fed, the naked clothed, the thirsty having clean water, wars being over. Its interesting that it doesn’t talk about people’s prayer lives, or how many hours they read the Scriptures, or if they have perfect attendance at church, which is what we think of when we think of religious people.

The Matthew 25 text we heard and read at the beginning of the service today had Jesus sounding a lot like the prophets of his own Hebrew tradition, didn’t it?  Jesus gives us a view of the end of time, where people stream towards God at the great day of judgement, and are divided into sheep and goats - and in this example, the sheep are the Christ-followers.  Jesus often called himself the Good Shepherd, and followers of God as sheep. Charlie Brown picked this up in the softball cartoons - if he’d just caught that fly ball, he could have been the hero,... instead he was the goat. 

So what was it that Jesus used to divide the sheep from the goats?  Was it by the # hours spent at church?  Nope.  Was it how many potlucks they cooked for? Nope. Was it if they were elected to church Council? Nope.  Was it if they were theology wonks? Nope.  Rather, people are divided according to whether they helped their neighbors of the world – making sure the hungry get food, making sure the thirsty have drink, making sure the naked get clothes, making sure those isolated in prison or with illness get visited. Again, like the Jewish prophets, its a literal and concrete thing - Did their hearts break over the difficulties of people’s lives, were they good neighbors?  And did their compassion bring them to helpful actions?  That’s what Jesus’ story here says.

Those who were, in life, indifferent to others, lost in getting what they wanted for themselves, those who stepped over Lazarus at their doors, those to whom these needy folks were invisible - they streamed off the other direction - the goats. 

(aside) The sheep and the goats always reminds me of Charlie Brown cartoons – he’s out there playing softball, and he’s so eager to be the hero – but he either fails to steal hoe or throw the last strike, and he’s left lying on the field saying, “I could’ve been the hero, but instead I’m the goat.”  That’s always the word Charles Schultz uses – “instead I’m the goat.”

Its interesting to me that BOTH groups asked Jesus, “When did we see you needy, Jesus?”  Even the folks who responded as good & caring neighbors to the world, the sheep, didn’t seem to know they were doing it as to Jesus.  Our first thought would be that those who DIDN’T do these good things, the goats, didn’t know it was Jesus who came to them in this guise. Actually, neither group is said to have recognized Jesus in the hurting people of the world. The first group, the sheep, simply had the tender hearts, just saw hurting people, and responded with care, as sharers of the planet and co-people of earth. I can hear the goat group thinking, “If we’d known it was you, Jesus, we’d have been different.” But it seems like the difference is in the heart of compassion, the caring for those with whom we share a common humanity.  Jesus answered each group similarly - “If you did it for the least of these, it was like it was to me.” And, “If you DIDN’T do it for the least of these, it was like you DIDN’T do it for me.” 

I guess the question is, how do we get to the point where our compassionate heart sees and cares for people & their needs spontaneously, like those sheep?  How do we move concern for ourselves out of the center of our being?  How do our eyes open to seeing the population of the world as we do our family? How do we become those who love our neighbors as we love ourselves?  I think this is where spending time with God in prayer, and wrestling with Scripture in our gathered congregations, comes in.  My teacher Matthew Fox used to say that the mystic and the prophet are two sides of the same coin - our visionary and spiritual experiences with God will lead us to sharing in the heart of God, and to a vision of transformed living on earth. We will learn God’s perspective, and God’s Spirit will open our hearts.

I’ve often said that being in congregations reminds me of those rock polishing kits available at Christmas – you take these old rocks, throw them in the barrel, add some grit, churn it all around for a longish while, and behold! Shiny rocks! Here we are all thrown together, none of us perfect, a little grit thrown in like problems or disagreements, and we are all tumbled around.  If we can look at it all as polishing us up, that’s a helpful thought…and its true.  Problems send us back to our knees.   

It doesn’t hurt to go ahead and get involved with these kinds of charitable acts, even if our hearts aren’t totally there yet.  Because the troubles and problems and inner conflicts that come up in doing the work, like grit, will send us right into prayer and contemplation. I’ve seen food bank helpers get bitter and jaded when they see folks trying to work the system, to “take advantage” of their charity.  Hopefully that bitterness gets taken back to prayer, and they search their hearts and ask God about it and wrestle with their hearts.  I’ve seen people who can’t seem to help themselves from making one bad decision after another, and it feels futile to try and assist.  I’ve heard all kinds of hard-luck stories from those who want a hand-out - and I’ve known hard-working people who come to a crisis and are too embarrassed to ask for help.  Some helping people try and distinguish between the truly needy and the con artists, and get burned out.  Hopefully that takes them back to prayer, too. 

 I admit that the older I get, the more I realize that life is hard; that we inherit more than blue eyes from our families - we learn coping methods, we learn angers, we learn prejudice, we learn views about life.  Not all are helpful.  And take this right, OK? I try to understand Income Tax or how to deal with insurance companies, and you know, its confusing! And I was considered a smart cookie, an A student.  We’re all trying to survive and figure out this living thing. Some of us are born on second or third base, though, when others aren’t even on a team. Its nothing to my credit that I was born into a more middle-class family; and its not to anyone’s discredit that they weren’t.

So what do we do with Jesus’ way of looking at our lives in Matthew 25?  I think that at LEAST we need to hear that God is concerned with people’s very earthly and basic human survival needs. God cares for human life.  And at LEAST we can see that Jesus desires for us, as disciples and followers, that we share this universal and practical concern. Christianity has often underemphasized living right by others in the world, and prioritized a personal making it to heaven.  What makes us into the humans God created us to be is our compassionate care for those around us. 

So we’re fortunate to get the clue from Jesus here - that our love for one another, with all there foibles, is actually showing love to God who made us.  We are on the right and godly path if we are growing in our care and seeing the persons behind the stereotypes; if needs of people other than ourselves are visible to us, and hurt our hearts. Yes, we will be overwhelmed by the amount of need.  Yes, folks won’t all thank us and treat us right; Yes, some hurt people will hurt us.  And yes, its all happened to God first - why should it be different for us?  And yes, God’s compassion continues to be extended - why should it be different for us? We can help with immediate needs, and we can find long-term solutions.  God can teach us empathy, God can inspire us with creative ideas, and give us the courage of our convictions. God can soften our hearts in the first place, as we consider what God has done in Jesus in the first place. 

May we be moved by deep and sacrificial love of God, and learn such compassion for each other.  AMEN.

A Vision of Peace for the World (Veterans Day weekend)

Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

A Vision of Peace for the World

Nov 10, 2019      Veterans Day      Micah 4

            I grew up at the city line of Washington, DC - my parents had worked in DC, and they knew their way around - so we went downtown to events pretty often.  As our aunts and uncles and cousins would come and stay with us to go sightseeing in DC, so we went to the national monument a lot.  One Nov 11, we noticed that there were flags all around the monument for a change - and we especially remarked it because Nov 11 is my sister’s birthday.  She claimed they were for her - I remember being jealous, because they didn’t put flags around the monument on MY birthday!  Of course the flags weren’t for my sister, although she could always get a reaction from me when she said it. 

            Nov 11 - the 11th month, the 11th day, the 11th hour - that was the day in 1918 that the armistice began, when we all laid down of arms at the end of the war to end all wars.  Although the papers weren’t signed until June 28, 1919, the day the fighting stopped and the arms were laid down has been considered the end of what we now call World War 1, because, unfortunately there was a World War 2 shortly after.  Hopefully, and God forbid, there will never be a World War 3… although certainly wars of lesser scope have continued. 

            Nobody wants another war, a more local war or a World War, with the devastation to land and people.  Nobody really wants more wars where crops are destroyed, hunger is rampant, more people are killed, normal peace and security are lost, and survivors flee to other countries as refugees for safety. While some military leaders are noble and seek to be their best even while having to order terrible things, others seem to find an outlet for their inner aggression, and enjoy the power over those they get to label as “enemies,” as if that makes any outrage allowable.  Even those who went for the Crusades, and all other wars, returned with discouragement and inner hurts at what they’ve had to see and do, if not outer wounds as well.  

            I don’t want to glorify war on this Armistice Day, where we originally celebrated the final laying down of arms. I like that celebration – that arms are laid down, fighting is over. Somehow we’ve switched to calling it Veteran’s Day.  Its a day of mixed and complicated emotions. While we certainly want to acknowledge those who had to participate, some who died, some of whom returned maimed in body or in spirit even though they survived - we don’t want to glorify war itself.  Most of us, if we explore inside ourselves, are torn - we don’t want the violence, the bloodshed, the destruction of land and crops and families -  although it seems like sometimes that war is the only alternative to stem evil rising in one place or another.  Christians from the early church founders have pondered what makes a war “just,” what makes killing of others “allowable” for followers of the Prince of Peace - who was himself killed by violence, although he did none.  Christ-followers have felt their faith called them to chosen differently in times of war, from those considered it their duty to the country to take arms against great threats to the peace of many innocents, to those who opted for alternative service, or conscientious objection.  Most of us grieve that wars become necessary, and are grateful for those who have had to endure what they’ve had to endure, in order that more peace might abound, those enslaved might be free, and those oppressed may be released and given opportunity for better life. 

            War seems to ultimately reveal the great distance between the calls for peace in our Scripture, and           the great sins and evils humans are capable of wreaking on one another for greed and power, to the point that it must be resisted and restrained.  Although thinking and caring leaders seek alternative pressures and negotiations, embargos and such to try and rein in those who would abuse their power and attempt to invade and conquer other countries, there are always those who seek to make profit from war, and may even encourage wars in order to enlarge their own wealth.  Literal war, killing and maiming and invading and the significant loss of life - it is a mixed bag of unfortunate necessity, given the scope of evil humans are capable of. 

We see the sin we are capable of, the coveting of what another country has, the greed for expansion of power and influence, the lust for power over whole other races.  And we have compassion for what this does to the other countries and its people, and we see the dangers to the whole human story if those powers succeed.  Its a difficult place to be, to declare war for those reasons theologians have declared “just.”  Its a moral dilemma for a thinking and caring person,  this calling for others to lay their lives on the line for a greater good. We ask a lot from them - if we expect them to not have difficulties in their own souls, if we expect them to return easily to pre-war life, if we expect them to not be hardened to killing, if we expect them to return to a love for enemies, as the Bible expects.    

            It almost feels too idealistic to read passages like that in Micah 4 (which is almost identical to a passage found in Isaiah 3); yet these visions from generations past contains words and images that have grabbed grieving and bereaved people by the heart, even starting way back before the time of Jesus.  These are words from our Jewish ancestors in faith, dreams and visions of a time when the city of God will attract those from all nations to come, and learn, and walk in the paths of God’s peace. At that point, GOD will judge, or arbitrate between the nations, so nations don’t have to fight it out in the devastation of wars.  In that blessed day, those words we love say, we will beat our swords into plowshares, and our spears into pruning hooks.  In other words, people won’t need the implements of fighting any more, so those metal swords and metal spears, instruments of war, can be turned into farming implements.  Ok, that’s still old fashioned in terms of instruments of war, so how about this?  We can use our defense budgets for education, or for infrastructure, or for the arts.  All that money spent on weapons...wow.

            Isaiah 11 adds another visions of peace which we call The Peaceable Kingdom, where the wolf and lamb lie down together, the cows and bears eat side by side, the lion become a grazer of straw, and all shall be peaceful, no more ‘nature red in tooth and claw’ even. Then Isaiah goes on in ch 65 to say God will make a new heaven and a new earth, where no more will there be cries of distress or weeping, no more an infant that lives for a few days, or bearing children to see them die in calamities; no more raising crops that another person harvests (or burns so you can’t harvest it); we who build the houses will live in them, and anyone who fails to make it to 100 years would be considered too young.   The years of the prophet Isaiah’s work embraced many times of conflict, and many hopes for conflicts to cease.

            So Veteran’s Day is a time of mixed feelings - grief for those who died, relief perhaps for those who returned, recognizing that they are not totally the innocent person who first left; an expansion of heart that the conflict is over and arms are laid down.  Certainly a country that asked this fighting of their citizens owes them decent care for wounds inner and outer.  Countries like ours, who have not had foreign soldiers foraging and destroying our very land, need to give thanks for being spared - although we have fought among ourselves and our inhabitants.

            Certainly, as followers and disciples of Christ Jesus, the Prince of Peace, we need to reaffirm the texts that carry a vision for peace.  We need to consider the words and actions of our Redeemer, who saw all humanity as in this fight against sin together, an inner struggle against powers that can grab us and deceive us. Jesus saw no one as an enemy, and chose his own submission to an unjust death instead of violence.  We are fortunate to have had examples of those learning to resist with non-violence, and returning no one evil for evil, but doing good to those who hate us.  We weigh these calls from our Scripture against the large-scale effects of evil, greed, power and what it does to people.  We examine our own motives, the often ugly desires that seem to rise up in us despite our prayers and dedication to God. 

            I find I more easily respond to this day if I call it Armistice Day, and look to our veterans in the light of their courage in fighting for a laying down of arms.  I don’t respond easily to a day that glorifies war.  It isn’t a simple thing, being involved in wars.  I do acknowledge the wisdom of not forgetting what people have given for the good of the world, of remembering the awfulness of what we asked of them, and the compassion for what we owe them in thanks and in health care.  A day to acknowledge how life has been able to percolate along in this country, as in not many others where war has destroyed their civilizations. 

            So its a mixed bag, this Armistice / Veteran’s day.  I chose in our worship today to emphasize the great themes and hopes of peace and understanding, and to recognize the gifts we’ve been given from those who gave their lives.  May God indeed bless our leaders with wisdom to keep us from lightly seeing war as an easy solution, and requiring the same sacrifices from other generations.  And may our leaders not neglect the responsibility of this country to care for the physical and mental needs of those who fought for us. AMEN.