We Have What We Need 1/20/2019 Epiphany 2-C

Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

We Have What We Need

1/20/19                    John 2:1-11, 1 Cor 12:1-11              Epiphany 2C

I can only remember one pot luck where we ran out of food, or were at least scraping down the last dishes that had some food in them.  Everybody got enough, that was no worry...but that was because the first people, sizing up the situation, took only modest portions. Nobody said anything, but the next time, everybody brought dishes that held more servings.  Then there’s a wedding I remember, where the family decided to serve only hor dourves - which was okay, except the wedding was at 4:30 pm and the reception then about 6-ish. And they didn’t consider hungry young adults just out of college.  By the time I arrived, all the hor dourves had been scarfed down. Nobody said anything, and we had fun anyway; but we all knew that they had tried to not spend too much on it, and it went wrong.

No host or hostess wants to run short on food or drink at a party.  And what I’ve read about middle-eastern wedding celebrations is that they went over several days.  According to what this story in John tells, folks back then saved money by serving the best wines first, when people were sober and noticing more - then as the evening progressed, they served the lesser plonk, as folks would  notice less.

When I read this story about the wedding at Cana, I always wonder who was getting married and why it concerned Jesus’ mother that the hosts were running out of wine early.  Maybe it was the wedding of one of Jesus’ siblings? Maybe a relative? And why did she ask Jesus, of all people? What did she think he could do about it? He hasn’t been doing miracles yet, at least as recorded in the gospels - this turns out to be his first.  Its a strange first miracle, too - not life-threatening or anything ….just a social embarrassment of a host family… although these kinds of things live in communal memory, and family honor is a big deal.

But Jesus takes care of it,  miraculously changing the large casks of water into wine - and not a poor wine, but a great one. The guests probably don't even  know - just the servants, maybe some of the host family, Jesus and Mary. Of course the word will spread! I guess my prejudice shows when I wonder why ensuring a family has enough wine for their celebration is Jesus’ first miracle.  It’s not like curing lepers, or blind folks, or children with epilepsy, or a wild man’s madness. Perhaps it goes along with the miracles of feeding - multiplying the offered food somehow to take care of the crowd’s hunger. Perhaps there’s a connection to the Last Supper, and the elements of bread and wine that become our sacred meal of spiritual nourishment and God’s presence. Perhaps it says that Jesus cares for people’s needs, whatever they are.  The need for family honor here, the need for lunch for people who came out to hear him there, the healing needs from illness both physical and mental. Perhaps it says to us that Jesus cares that there is enough for all - and even abundance. For sure it assures us that Jesus wasn’t an ascetic - he goes to parties and cares about the wine! Perhaps it speaks of God’s generosity to us all. Jesus does seem to be able to mess with matter, and make it do what he wants, which is pretty breath-taking.  

God is certainly a God of abundance, especially if we look at God’s self-expression in creation.  When I started gardening, I quickly realized that I knew very few plant names - even their common names; much less their scientific names.  There are way too many plants for me to know - and new varieties are being made or discovered all the time. There aren’t just one or two nice flowers for nice occasions, or even a dozen nice flowers for variety’s sake - there are zillions of flowers!  And they don’t even have to be planted by us - zillions more grow wild in abandoned lots, or on mountainsides, or in forests. Small, large, shy, flagrant, smelly in a good or bad sense, shade and sun, good soil and poor soil, wet and dry conditions…. There are flowers for them all.  I worked to know names, so I didn’t have to say, “You know, that blue thing that grows in the ditches.” I worked on knowing vegetables, too. And now I’m feeling that way about birds. God’s abundance and variety is amazing. God has set much joy and celebration into creation and life. Jesus certainly has a zest for life, a gift for words and stories, and strong views!  Of course he’d like good wine.

It’s a similar thing when we come to the gifts and talents God has blessed humanity with, or, as 1 Corinthians talks of, spiritual gifts.  We humans have infinite variety within the parameters of physical and mental differences, personalities, talents, abilities, or how our brains work.  Paul reminds the community at Corinth that this diversity is for the common good.   Not for boasting, not for showing off, not for comparing.  We’re not all preachers, thank God. I attend conferences where most folks attending are pastors,...Whew!  Lots of opinionated people who like the sound and authority of their own voice. I often look for conferences that have non-clergy, and even non-churched folks, too.  

There’s a preacher joke - how are preachers like manure?  Answer - all in a pile, they stink, but spread thinly around, they can do good.

Somebody in church needs to be attentive to details, especially in recording about the money.  Somebody needs to be a good planner, another needs to be extroverted and love hospitality, another more introverted person may excel in visiting the sick.  Some teach, some do music, some like research into the details of Bible exposition, some like building and repairing things. Some might be politically to either side of center in order to keep us thinking and praying and pondering.  Some may have a desire for a feeding ministry, another might want to address homelessness, and yet another want to celebrate the beauty of creation through art. Somebody has to know about the boiler, hopefully, and somebody else keeping church records.  Some may have a strong and unquenchable faith during the hard times; someone else may be a problem-solver; someone may be a healer or care about healthcare available to folks. Some may be good speakers while others hate to be up front, but love to cook, or take care of children. Those are just a few examples.

Whatever our gifts, or the interests that grab us, they are given by God, and given for the common good.  God gives the church what it needs and who it needs - and different churches, with different people, develop the ministries unique to their members.  Maybe large churches can have programs for a wide variety of people; other churches develop an identity based on the gifts available.

Churches have some common core needs:  growing in faith, worship, caring, outreach, and fellowship. How a specific church does this can be unique. A pastor can’t come in and tell a church what they “should be” doing, except in that overall view.  A church’s mission and ministry really grows out of its own vision, interests and gifts.

When Indiantown Pres, for example, looks to expand its mission and ministry, what we have to look at, what we have to examine, is what gifts God’s Spirit has given to we who are members here. What passions and visions God has graced us with, we who are the people called here already.  And how they match with community needs, for example. This kind of spiritual discernment takes a lot of prayer, a lot of inner listening, and an open mind - because the Spirit doesn’t say the same ol’ same ol’ to each congregation.

Ocean View Pres, for example, was about this size, and severasl members had a passion for a food pantry.  That passion grew the biggest food pantry in the region, devoting unused Sunday School rooms to large refrigerators which they purchased with grant monies.  Another member there was developing her her skills as an artist, and she started an Art Fair on the church grounds. I remember we considered using our facility as a wedding venue, but the lack of parking nixed that.  The West Plains church joined into community events, having a float at the Christmas Parade and serving hot chocolate; then having a booth at the Old Time Ozark Festival, offering cool water.  That church was 175 years old, and decided to have a Sesquicentennial event of poetry and music for the community. The youth adopted a road that ran by our church to do regular pick-ups of trash along the road.  We also had a bed at the community garden, and devoted the food to a local food pantry.

A church in Norfolk that was largely progressive in their outlook, became known locally as the church that welcomed LGBTQ persons - tthey opened their doors to let parent groups and LGBTQ folks meet there.  Another church in Norfolk had some musicians interested in the contemplative worship and music of Taize, and did a twice-monthly evening service which drew quite a crowd from the community.

I don’t know how many members these churches added because of the outreach programs, but they were still doing mission, giving themselves away in mission to the community.  I do know that the people involved developed their own spirituality and walk with Christ, and the churches had a positive reputation.

I think we have a wrong view of church mission, if we just do it so people will join. And we have a wrong appreciation of church size, if we don’t think there’s anything we can do because we’re small.  Sometimes people join, sometimes they don’t. I don’t know of any church that offers a preschool ministry for the community, for example, that gets more than maybe one family to join, if that. We do ministry and mission because that’s what the Spirit of God pushes us towards in our hearts.  We do it because, as Christians, that’s who we are - compassionate people, helping the suffering, seeking to meet human needs, whether its healing, as in hospitals and healthcare her and around the world; or whether its literacy, as in adult education, English as a second language classes, book groups or art fairs. Jesus, we saw this morning in the wine story, also cared about people’s honor and celebrating as well as feeding and other miracles of meeting people’s needs.  

I’m working on a plan for us to ponder and rethink about what church is according to the Bible, and brainstorm and dream and listen for the Spirit of God moving in our own passions and interests.  I’ll challenge us to increase our prayer life, faith life, and examine our own gifts and nudges towards mission. I plan to start with the Session, and then bring everyone else in. We need to get out of our walls to the community, and open our facility to the community.  Friends, mission, that is, bringing Christ’s love to needy people in whatever ways we can, is foundational to being Christ’s followers. God has work for us to do. We need to pray for it, seek it, and listen for the wind of the Spirit. I can’t promise that folks will come out of the woodwork and flock t us - however, we will be spending ourselves for Christ, and that’s what we do.   AMEN

When You Pass Through the Waters 1/13/19 Epiphany 1C

Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser 

WHEN YOU PASS THROUGH THE WATERS

1/13/19           Luke 3: 15-17, 21-22          Epiphany 1-C  

There was this tune that kept running through my head when I sat down to work on this sermon. I’d been reading a commentary that said that Jesus got baptized to show he was in solidarity with us humans, which seemed kind of obscure to me.  I heard the tune and then the words came -  “What if God was one of us?”  So an important line like that was enough to run a Google search, and I found it.  What if God was one of us? , the chorus asks.  Just a slob like one of us?   I was kinda awkward with the word ‘slob’....In Michael Jackson’s cover of the song, he used the word ‘slave’. Just a slave like one of us…. Just a stranger on a bus, tryin’ to make his way home.   Its a questioning song, wondering about God, just thinkin’....  What IF God was one of us?

If God had a name what would it be?  And would you call it to his face? If you were faced with Him in all His glory ...What would you ask if you had just one question?

            Suspend what you’ve been taught for a moment, all that you affirm in our confessions, all you’ve learned from Sunday School and accepted - and join in the asking about who God is and what God is like.  Many people in our world, in our country, and probably right around us in our community are skeptical of what church teaches.  Maybe from a bad experience at church, or a church person who turned out irresponsible or even criminal.  Or maybe super strict or punitive.  And they’ve brought the whole message into doubt for those they’ve hurt. 

            And yet people  wonder about God anyway. Movies ponder about God; TV shows ponder about God.   If some folks got it wrong, maybe, somewhere, someone has it right.  I mean, people in  all cultures talk about God somehow.  We seem to have a hunger for God.  What would it be like to call God a name, and to God’s face, the way we do one another?  And if you could ask one question, what would you want to ask?

Bart Millard, of the band MercyMe wrote another song about being in God’s presence from a christian faith perspective - his story got made into a movie, too,,, the song is “I Can Only Imagine”…. Its an intriguing thought, isn’t it?  We have an old hymn called Face to Face that I learned as a child - Face to Face, what will it be?  When in rapture I behold him - older language, of course, similar thought.  What might it be like to actually see God?

If God had a face what would it look like? And would you want to see, if seeing meant That you would have to believe in things like heaven And in Jesus and the saints, and all the prophets?

If I did see God’s face, does it mean I’d have to believe all the church stuff?  That’s an honest question - that’s a lot to shoulder just to ask to see God. People want the experience of an encounter with God, not a bunch of dogma.  To many folks, we’ve made church a big burden to take on.  Does it mean I’ll turn into an intolerant,  right wing, Bible thumper?  I just wanted to see God.  I just wanted the experience of God myself.  I want to know. 

You remember that I started down this train of thought as I was pondering about Jesus being baptized.  I mean, did he really have sins to wash away?  The way we think of Jesus being fully God, how could he sin?  Yet he was also fully human - we forget that part, or think its rather impossible.  Does Jesus’ holiness go way back to his birth and childhood?  Did he really not cry as a baby? That’s actually from the carol Silent Night, you know, not the Bible.  Did he never feel the urge to lie to his parents?  Did he never get carried away having fun and go too far? Is the only way he ever worried his parents that he stayed too long in the Temple?  How about as an adolescent - Did he never notice young woman?  Did he never resent his parents’ rules, and want to escape?  Did he never question what he was taught?  Did he just have all this deep wisdom without suffering for it, the way we do?  Was his whole life just easy and golden?  Up until he started being a prophet, that is….  Just why did he need to be baptized by his cousin John?

Did he do it just to try and say, “Hey, I’m one of you”?  Some people argue that was the reason.  I sure don’t have it figured out! 

I can imagine Jesus struggling with … or against… a growing desire to speak about what he was seeing around him -  the injustice, the greed, the cruelties person to person, the suffering… and struggling to put that next to the vision of God’s kindom that had pressed itself on him.  I can imagine a growing realization over his life that God was important to him, and that the Scriptures spoke a word, a vision of what God wanted - a vision that was a far cry from what he saw in the world.  I can imagine that he came to be baptized as a way of marking that he accepted his call, saying Yes to this new word God wanted  to speak through him.  Perhaps his baptism marks the time he steps into his role as Jesus the Christ.   

If God has a name, if God had a face, if God was one of us - yeah, those questions have been answered - Jesus was the name and the face, and one of us.  That’s the gospel in a nutshell.  If they had had buses back then, Jesus could have been the stranger on the bus making his way back home after after speaking at Temple.

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The more important question, as God walks among us, might be - would I recognize Jesus’ face? Or know his name?  This person speaking about God who seems to counter much that the world assumes as true?  Who even questions our received traditions? Who seems to speak a new word about God, yet a word that harkens back to the very experiences of God of our ancestors?  Who seems to know God intimately?  Might I wonder if this was God speaking?  Or just think he was weird? When he got in trouble with the religious authorities, would I back up from him?  You see,

God HAS walked among humans, and has had a face and name, and spoken face to face with people.  What do I now do with that? 

We might say, Oh, that was long ago, I wasn’t there, I have to trust that the folks who wrote about Jesus didn’t exaggerate, or didn’t make it up. 

Yes, there was a historical Jesus who lived and walked.  Evidently what he said and did awakened people to recognize God’s presence, and eventually change the world.  I mean, the church eventually changed the dating of time into the time before, and the Year of Our Lord, Anno Domini, or AD as we learned to write after historical dates.  (Nowadays people have changed it to Common Era and Before Common Era, CE and BCE)  Western history is intertwined with the story of the Christian church. 

But God isn’t chained to history, my friends.  God IS - God is alive now and all times.  God is in the present, always.  God lives in 2019, and will live in 2020, just a truly as God lived in year 30.  God is among us as truly now as at anytime, historical time or future time.  God’s Spirit is working among us as we worship here, as we shop at Food Lion or Costco, as we go out in the woods to hunt, as we work in our gardens, as we teach school, as we drop clothes at the dry cleaners, as we see clients or patients, as we meet in Session -- all the time.    “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, “ Isaiah says on behalf of God.  And Jesus told his disciples, ‘I will be with you, even to the end of the world.’ 

Jesus also told his followers that when they even gave someone a glass of water in his name -  that is, because of the love implanted in our hearts through Christ - that we are actually offering that water to Christ himself.  When did we see you naked and give you clothes?  When you do it to one of the least of these among you.  Christ is among us and walking this world every day - the question is, do we recognize the face and know his name?  Hundreds to times a day, there is a stranger on a bus making his way home from work….or a tired worker at the cash register…..or a young man in a hoodie….or a rude person in a car…..or a disabled person walking across the street….or a kid on a bike along the road….   They are also people made in the image and likeness of God, and Jesus said that our treatment of them is also our treatment of him. 

I’ll change tact a minute here.  When we are baptized in Christ, we are marking our life journey with a decision to follow Christ.  Those of us baptized as babies or toddlers have been the recipient of our parent’s promise to raise us to know and love Jesus Christ, and our church’s promise as well.  In the Presbyterian tradition, we affirmed our own faith commitment at our Confirmation. Some of us here, raised in a different tradition, responded to God and were baptized at an older age.  Baptism itself doesn’t have a magical quality of salvation - what baptism DOES is mark that time for us - mark us as claimed in the community, mark us as responding to God’s love.  Mark the time time that, like Jesus, we said yes to walking the walk.  That we confirm our agreement  with being that disciple, that follower, that person who sees God everywhere they look, that person who let’s that love of God grow in their heart so that compassion and kindness flow out of our actions to others more and more.  Baptism is an entrance rite, a marker, a declaration of solidarity and intention. 

Today, as we read of Jesus’ own baptism, which precedes his 40 days of solitude in the desert and his three-year ministry, may we remember and reaffirm that we, also, are baptized - may we again pledge ourselves, here at the beginning of a new year, to let God speak through us and use us, to live into that vision of the kindom of God that flowed through Jesus, and to serve God with our lives.  AMEN.

Change Happens 1/6/19 Epiphany C

Rebecca L. Kiser

CHANGE HAPPENS

1/6/19      Epiphany C       Mathew 2: 1-12

There’s an old saying that nothing is certain except death and taxes.  I’d add a couple things...that God is, is certain; and change is certain.  Change Happens.  I got to pondering this when I read the phrase about the magi who came to worship Jesus.  To help preserve the child Jesus, they went home by a different way.  As the situation with a jealous King Herod changed, they changed their plans, and went home by a different way

Change happens.  When my mom was young, the country was in the throes of the Great Depression, and she had to help her father in the garden and help her mother put food up, so she moved herself to the city where she could buy sliced bread and frozen veggies.  She talking about gathering around a neighbor’s window, with all the other kids, to listen on that one rich person’s radio, to a program called The Shadow Knows. Her Christmas stocking had some sweets, an orange and some nuts.  They didn’t have a car.

Contrast that with my young days, when mom and dad both worked outside the home, quickly moving into the burgeoning middle class. My Christmas stocking had toys. Our pantry shelves were full from the grocery store. I didn’t know that pickles were made from cucumbers. We had a car and a TV - black and white at first, then color, and all our relatives came over to see Ed Sullivan in color.    

Contrast that with my kids learning computers in Kindergarten and Elementary school - I signed up as Computer Mom to get some training so I could keep up with my 5 year old.   I can remember the first mall that was built near our house; now they have a choice of malls.  I did Drivers Ed on the brand new Capitol Beltway, I 495, even before my dad did.  Now its a parking lot.  Two of my children choose to not have cars, but use public transportation and Uber.

Change happen.  Our country’s population has grown and grown, and people have flocked to cities - agricultural families are no longer the norm.  An economy based on  the slave labor that enabled plantations to thrive, changed when slaves were freed.  Nuclear families of several generations living nearby are more rare now, as children’s jobs get them transferred around the country, or they move in order to find work.  Every community has its long-term population, but its not really the norm anymore.  People are more transient. 

Change happens.  My father-in-law was loyal to one company for his entire career, then, as he neared retirement, new leadership wanted more profit, so finagled older and well-paid employees out. That has happened so often that loyalty between a company and its workers has ebbed from both sides, as workers seek to protect their interests and companies work for their bottom line.  And there was a time when unions were important for workers to not be exploited by the bosses; together, the workforce had bargaining power and improved their working conditions. My dad and mom came from coal-mining country, where unions were a good thing.  Daddy would never cross a picket line.  But now many leaders run on a platform of union-busting. 

Change happens.  Sometimes change is fun, like vacations, or traveling, or new shoes and clothes, or a new kitten.  Some changes are difficult - like changing the way one eats due to diabetes, or heart problems, or gluten intolerance.  Overcoming an addiction is very difficult, although preserving life and health.  Losing a spouse to death or divorce makes for difficult changes as well.  Changing our negative behaviors and attitudes takes work, too.  Some changes are both exciting AND scary at the same time - like going off to college, or moving to a new house, or starting a new job, or getting married, or retiring.  My son and I were talking about the changes that negative life experiences make in us; changes we never anticipated or imagined.  We both agreed that our younger selves might not even like our current selves! 

Language changes - every year our dictionary adds new words.  “To Google”, used as a verb, is one small example - “Somebody google that,” I’ve said in classes, and everyone knows what I mean, and whip out their smart phones.  Try and read a book from several centuries ago, and note all the words we don’t know anymore!  Some schools now are deciding not to teach cursive writing, but emphasizing “keyboarding” skills. 

Change happens.  The other night I bragged to my younger son that I’d gotten good at playing DVDs on the television, working the buttons and all.  His response?  “People still watch DVDs on their televisions?”  Ooooohhh, cut the momma!

A question on the Facebook group “Happy to be a Presbyterian” came from a mid-life man, asking if anyone else had undergone big theological and faith changes in their lives.  He got lots of affirmations from other folks - most people, as their brains develop, as their lives experiences ups and downs, have to ask questions of their faith, and wrestle to an answer.  Our understanding evolves and grows as we do, as we develop capabilities of reasoning, the insights of reflection, and the exposure to more situations.  Its not that we lose our faith;  its more that our faith morphs somehow into a different understanding as we wrestle with what life throws at us.  Our understanding of Scripture changes, too, as we learn about the difficulties of translations, of the philosophies of different times and cultures and how they heard things; as we have discovered more copies of ancient texts and been able to make more accurate translations.  As Presbyterians, we have the Reformation call that living out our Faith in God is always being reformed.

So why in the world should we expect the way we are church to totally stay the same?  Why should we expect that programs that worked to spread the gospel 50 years ago, will still work in today’s milieu?  Why do we assume people of today will flock to church like the folks raised in a post-World War country did?  

A simple look at church history will show that the church has looked different in different eras.  Always, the church has existed to spread the message of faith through Jesus Christ, to worship God, and to support and nurture faith in one another.  But it has looked different.  The earliest churches were small house churches, where the few converts to the gospel banded together to work out the changes in belief and living.  Those churches were eclectic mixes of Romans, Jews, affluent, starving poor, slaves and sex slaves.  At some point, Christ-followers had to meet in secret, and be careful in their words.  After Christianity became the state religion under Constantine, people converted who really didn’t know what they were pledging.  A system of priests developed, educated men who carried out worship in Latin that no one spoke, and told the less educated people, who stood during the service, what to believe.  Paintings and stained glass windows told the stories.  Pews were an innovation.    Scripture available to be read, for those who could read, was a huge change.  Monasteries were a big change.  The Reformation was a huge change on many levels, theologically, structurally and even in the music - hymns in the local language were written and sung.

Who would have guessed that music to the praise of God could be such a fighting point in churches?  Songs that my generation sang in coffee houses, with everyone who could play guitar joining in, were called ‘unchurchy’ and rebellious.  Now some of those songs are in our hymnals with organ accompaniment. I kind of giggle under my breath when we sing them. Organs may not last in worship, though, as fewer and fewer organ majors are coming out of schools. Not as many people are learning piano either.  Churches who move to contemporary services are actually doing the music people my age grew up on…..

For most of my ministry, I was the first woman pastor people had heard of, heard preach, heard do a wedding or a funeral.  Clergywomen are a big change in the church. 

Not everything about church changes - The focus on Jesus as Christ has not changed.  Scripture is still stressed as important, although not as many people know it well. Nurture of each other remains the same, although its more centered on bodily health than spiritual health.  Something that thriving congregations seem to have in common is their emphasis on mission  - mission in their local community, as well as concern for national and international situations.  These congregations are active in reaching out through programs like feeding, English as a second language classes, clothes closets, prayer shawls or quilts, adopting a local elementary school, using their sanctuary for lectures or concerts, doing community gardens or farmers markets, participating in Relay for Life, hosting yoga classes, hosting 12-step groups, doing a Habitat house, volunteering for Neighbor-to-Neighbor that takes people to dr appointments, ….all kinds of things, according to what their members can handle and are interested in.  We’ve had a couple suggestions here - a calling-tree for elderly or homebound folks; and evening adult classes in various things.  Thriving churches are in their facilities  more than just Sundays, and are also active outside their own walls.

While I am pleased that we at Indiantown keep up with our Mission Pledge through the presbytery, as well as our per capita; and while I am proud of the way we care for one another within our congregation,  I think our challenge is to get involved in caring beyond our walls and beyond our own people. When we listen to those who are hurting, we will get ideas of how to support them and address concerns. 

If we fall more into letting our boundaries shrink, and begin to not see beyond our own walls, and only do what we have always done even if its not working, then we will be in trouble.   Many of the congregations that fold are those who get indrawn and petty.  They argue about letting a mom’s group meet in a room, because the extra heat & lights costs money.   They fuss about letting AA use a shelf for their coffee supplies.  They start fights over how another person runs a committee.  They turn on the pastor and blame him or her.  And then they wonder why no one wants to join!!!   These situations are ones that I’ve seen…..

Indiantown, thank God, is not at that point. We have forward-looking people who can imagine and re-imagine how to move into our future.  As Christ-followers, God’s Spirit can move us into places we’ve never thought of before - if we listen.  The needs in our communities and our world have not decreased…. People are still in need of the grace and forgiveness that Christ gives as each person is valued.  Love and welcome and kindness seem to be waning in our world; the Christian virtues of right relationships between people seem to be fading from practice.  There are winds blowing through our culture that are not consistent with faith in God.  Our witness and message are needed; our hands are needed; our living the faith is needed; the interpreting of the message of Jesus to our time is needed.  The community and fellowship of being Christ’s church could address the need of people whose lives are more and more solitary and far from their families.  Our love for people across racial lines can have a vital impact on local and national levels.  Our care for the poor and the suffering may well be more necessary, given the way the country is going.  Our altruism and compassion from following Christ can be a shining star to many needy people.  Our ministry is needed - how will we respond?

Preparing for Christmas: Close, Closer, Closest! Advent 4C

Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

Preparing for Christmas:  Close, Closer, Closest!

Dec 23, 2018        Advent 4-C

The newscasters had a name for yesterday - they called is Last Minute Saturday.  (Like Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Giving Tuesday and so on.)  They showed scenes of crowded malls and stores, people pushing and loaded down with bags.  In Jimmy Fallon’s monologue Friday night on the Tonight Show, he remarked that unless you got some sort of deal, its too late to order online now. And he had the Toys R Us stores, who closed during the last year, say, “I bet you miss us now!” 

            We’ve been talking of preparing for Christmas in these Advent Sundays -  making comparisons to how we prepare outwardly for company and deep clean the house, how we decorate, and how we look forward to time together with other folks.  We’ve been comparing this to our inner preparations for the new life of Christ in our lives - examining and purifying ourselves, letting go of the old so there’s room for the new.  As this is the 4^th Sunday of Advent, it’s the closest to Christmas Eve, which this year is actually tomorrow, so at home, we’re probably about as ready as we can be. 

We probably have our turkeys or hams or barbecue, our ingredients for stuffing or sweet potatoes or green beans or whatever our sides will be.  We’ve probably cleaned, made up the company beds and put the company towels out.  Maybe there’s some presents already under the tree. I’m making my pumpkin pie today – I love my pumpkin pie more than anyone else’s – yes, it’s the Libby’s recipe, but with a couple personal tweaks.  I like it with so much whipped cream that I can barely see the pie underneath.  My sister bought whipped cream in preparation, but I bought one, too - you can’t have too much whipped cream. 

            So its Last Minute time, when things come together and we kinda panic but are excited, too.  Those are the outer preparations for how Christmas is celebrated nowadays.  Its time for the traditions to begin – welcoming folks who’ve traveled, sharing food, preparing to share meals.  You know, as pastors, we rarely travel for Christmas, but we make our own customs.  The kid’s dad had 3 services on Christmas Eve and I sometimes had one elsewhere.  So I usually cooked a Stauffer’s lasagna as a quick meal between the 4:30 children’s’ service and the 7pm service. At least it was red; and as I usually had the excited kids by myself, it was easy.  I’ve kept that tradition - in fact, I bought one for tomorrow.  We all have our nativity scenes up – I had a crocheted one so the kids could touch it and carry the pieces if they wanted to. 

            Our modern Christmases are kind of a mix of a faith professions and a mid-winter festival.  Sometimes I can go on a rant about the materialism of modern Christmases, although I then think that Jesus certainly wouldn’t object to communal meals, healed relationships, sharing and rejoicing  In some way, in the right spirit, Christmas might show a bit of the celebration of heaven.  At least our holiday still has the name Christ in it, although Santa has become the more looked-for figure - and maybe THE figure in non-churched families.  There are still carols about the holy night and Jesus’ birth, which mix in on our playlists or radios with other songs like Santa Baby and Winter Wonderland.   Lots of families still come to worship on Christmas Eve, even if they’re not involved the rest of the year.  Whenever Jesus’ actual birth was, our Christian ancestors chose to set the celebration at the time of year of returning light, and to put a Christian overlay on the celebrations of the solstice that most cultures already had.  And our celebration of Christ’s birth still carries that mix.

So as our last Advent preparation for the spiritual side of Christmas, let’s take one more look at the meaning of this event we’re celebrating.  You know, God began preparing for Christmas long before we did - all during Advent, we read from the Jewish prophets – Isaiah, Zechariah, Micah, Malachi, and the story of how the refugee Ruth came into Jesus’ ancestry.  There are all kinds of words in the prophets that, looking back, we can connect with the coming of the Christ.  In their time, of course, it was looking forward, a hope, a promise; the idea of the God’s Anointed One, God’s Messiah, kept folks going in terrible times. God’s preparation started way back in the choosing of a special nation to carry that hope, and be a nation of priests in the sense that they carried the truth of God to the world; back with Abraham and Sarah,  Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Rachel, and those stories kept and treasured by our earliest faith ancestors. 

God’s last preparations included the parents of John the Baptizer, then Mary and Joseph to parent Baby Jesus.  It doesn’t seem like God chose an opportune period, with the Jewish people being under Roman rule at that time.  And Mary and Joseph were your everyday working poor people - blue collar we’d call them today, without the privileges or entitlements of the rich.  There was risk to Jesus from the time he was conceived.  Risk of being outcast, not of the ruling people, risk from soldiers, disease, accident – as well as the king’s displeasure.  But that’s what God prepared and chose, and brought to fruition.  

When we read Mary’s song of praise and victory, we remember that this birth stands for more than just a cute baby.  The first line in her song is My soul magnifies the Lord – we call it Mary’s Magnificat, from the Latin. She goes on to claim the promises her people held onto for years, and talks of the turning upside down of things by the Messiah, in throwing down the powerful from their thrones, and the poor being fed while the rich are sent away empty.  In our faith, this birth is the beginning of THE major work on behalf of humanity that God does.  

Last Sunday I went to hear a friend of mine sing in a performance of Benjamin Britten’s Ceremony of Carols, accompanied by a harpist, as designed.  It was great! My High School choir learned this piece, so I could almost sing along, in words that moved me even at 18.  I especially love the piece called This Little Babe.  It captures the same spirit as the Magnificat in seeing this birth as God mounting a major campaign against the forces of evil, a cosmic fighting for the salvation of humankind’s souls.  Jesus’ birth is nothing less than the coming of the Divine into our sphere, in order to help us hear the good news of how things are supposed to be, and give us forgiveness and hope to live into that vision.  

So this carol looks at the baby’s birth as a battle scenario, and uses the language of human battle to describe the babe’s situation.  God’s battles sure don’t look like ours….. 

This little babe so few days old, has come to rifle Satan’s fold,

All hell doth at his presence quake, though he on earth for cold do shake. 

For in this weak, unarmed wise, the gates of hell he will surprise.  

It looks like any other birth, but this birth is the opening salvo in the way God is encountering evil!  This is a cosmic event of eternal significance.  And all Hell recognizes what Jesus is, and begins to rally against him in fear.  God has chosen the surprising way of love to overcome evil. 

I love the contrasts and comparisons in this next section– God’s ways look powerless in terms of the world, yet they are God’s master plan and strongest suit – love, incarnation, presence, being true humans.

With tears he fights and wins the field, his naked breast stands for a shield. 

His battering shots are babish cries, his arrows, looks of weeping eyes.

His martial ensigns Cold and Need, and feeble flesh, his warrior steed.

His camp is pitched in a stall. His bulwark but a broken wall.

The crib his trench, haystacks his stakes; of shepherds he his muster makes. 

And thus, as sure his foe to wound, the angels’ trumps alarum sound.

God doesn’t come in a tank or Humvee, but human flesh, dependent and needy.  No fort, no battle command station – just a crib – and a crib in poor housing…..no trained Green berets or Seals or Marines or Combat vets – God just has shepherds.  No noisy horns or roar of jets or sound of bombs falling, God has angels singing.

God fights with the power of new life and love. Not a great show of boots on the ground to mow down enemies; not huge armaments to wipe out cities of the enemy; not missiles and rockets and mortars to batter the enemies’ troops and break their spirits - - no, just the deep, deep love it took to set aside the glory of God’s being and be born in human flesh, all for our sake.  Hate does not drive out hate, Martin Luther King Jr reminded us – love drives out hate. 

The next carol, In Freezing Winter Night, continues the theme of comparing the poor family and its serviceable things, with the possessions of a king that this baby surely is:

This stable is a Prince’s court; this crib his chair of state;

The beasts are parcel of his pomp, the wooden dish his plate.

The persons in that poor attire his royal liveries wear;

The Prince himself is come from Heav’n – this pomp is prized there.

We’re wrong if the only Baby Jesus we know and honor is merely a cute and cuddly newborn – although I’m sure he was a cute and cuddly newborn, like all newborns.  Yet Jesus was also God’s very self; an Advent that was planned and anticipated for centuries!  Talk about preparing for Christmas! And not a Christmas of our kind, but a birth that was the beginning of a whole plan for the kingdom of God, the kindom of God, the realm of God.  In fact, this birth is also a battle, yes - a battle for humanity and its soul.  A battle against the evil, the nothingness, that would kill us, drain us, pull us into despair, pull our eyes from God, and from the realm of spiritual life – a life lived with God in generosity, kindness, peace, thanksgiving, gratitude, hope and love.  

So its right that in our preparations for Christmas, we keep this scenario in mind.  We remember how this little baby grows into Rabbi Jesus, a prophet who teaches with authority and calls people back to true worship, a threat that is so severe to the evil of the world that he is killed.  Yet such is the power of God’ love that Jesus is raised again in a new life, which is now offered to each of us. 

So next to that sweet baby Jesus, keep a reminder of what God did, what battle God engaged, how all evil was taken on in this birth & life.  And join the shepherds in wonder and the angels in crying Alleluia.  AMEN.

Preparing for Christmas: Close, Closer..... Advent 3C

Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

Preparing for Christmas - Close, Closer….

12/16/18        Advent 3-C           Luke 3: 7-18

            I used to groan when it got closer to special company coming (Advent..get it?), because my mom always went into a flurry of cleaning.  Not just the normal, Saturday cleaning, but a dust the windowsills and move the couch to vacuum kind of cleaning.  An on your knees in the kitchen so you got all the corners well kind of cleaning.  An take the mop and dust where the ceiling and wall come together, and over all the doors kind of cleaning.  Missy and I used to say, “Why all this cleaning before they come? Its only going to be a mess again after the party anyway!”

            For all my complaining, I couldn’t escape mom’s training, so I did the same thing to my kids, and they used the same line back at me.  I was especially ardent when it was my mom who was coming for a visit, because I knew she’d notice! Not only for company, but I have to leave the house clean  before I travel, too, because I know I’ll be all worn out when I get back, and at least I won’t have to clean the house.

            Do people still do Spring cleaning?  Its good to do a deep cleaning once in a while - when we do move the couch, its amazing what has gathered under there.  I find all my cat’s little  mousies; a cat I used to have liked shiny things, so often I’d find an earring I thought was lost, or a pen.  When I would take the couch cushions off to pump them and shake them, I’d find so much grime in the back of the couch!  All the cheetos and chips and peanuts the kids had eaten on the couch left pieces dripped down in the crevices. I also found lots of change that fell out of pockets - I always considered that part of my pay, so I kept it. 

            The kids’ rooms were the worst.  At a young age, my daughter made what she called ‘experiments’ where she combined toothpaste, perfume, liquid soap - whatever she could find, and let her creations dry on pieces of aluminum wrap…..at least they were on aluminum wrap!  I would find them under her bed…  I would find the one missing sock from various pairs, or underwear, or toys under the boys’ beds.  On a regular basis, then, all the toys got put back in the toy chest, the books on the bookshelves, any mugs or glasses got back to the kitchen, dirty socks got washed, and the house looked good.  It didn’t last, but it looked good for a couple days. 

            Cleaning out is important, because daily living scatters a lot of mess all around.  A new word I learned - detritus - stuff left around.  Cooking in the kitchen leaves spatters as well as dirty dishes.  Even pouring coffee leaves little spills.  Although I work at using leftovers, every once in a while I need to dig in the fridge and find the stuff that’s starting to mold.  Pens and pencils get left around where we wrote checks or signed report cards. That item we meant to carry back to our room sits on the steps waiting.  Living is messy. 

            Here’s my segue to the texts about John the Baptizer and the spiritual life.  John’ s message was to say, “Hey folks, get your life right with God, clean up your act, quit dilly-dallying about your faith life, quit depending on your parent’s faith & your great heritage.  God is sending the Messiah, and you better get ready.”  And he added an “or else” - the ax is ready to chop down the unproductive trees, friends, so bear some good fruit.  Its pruning time!  God is sifting the wheat, and only the good stuff is going to be kept.

John was preaching to the crowds that came out in the desert to hear him and see him, including the religious folks, and he didn’t spare anybody’s feelings - he called them a “brood of vipers,” some harsh words, and called them to turn around their ways.  That’s what ‘repent’ means - to do a 180, turn around, get going in the other direction towards God.  John is cleaning house with a new broom, getting the corners and the ceilings and under the couches.  Cleaning the house of God, preparing for the Advent of God’s new acts. 

Here 2000 years later, Christian history has seen some reform times and some renewal times.  Just like our houses, religious life is also messy, and over time stuff accumulates if its not cleaned out.  We get lazy about our practices of faith, we relax our vigilance over our morals, we get debating on non-essential points, and the real work and message of the church gets ignored.  I’ve wondered if this is maybe what’s happened to the church at large - we obviously have failed to pass along our faith to much of the next generation; we have lost the respect of people in general; we have moved over to the edge of unimportance to a lot of humanity.  Not totally, and not to everybody.  Whatever it is that has clouded people’s awe of God, perhaps the attraction and growth of a consumerist mentality, the worship of possessions, the race to compete over money, a philosophy of each person for themselves that Ayn Rand popularized in her novels, a clinging to blind belief that is unable to see the value of science and just rejects it - whatever it is that has caused Christian faith to seem irrelevant, we as a church have not been up to the challenge.  No longer can people look at us Christians and say, “See how they love one another!”   Christianity started with a criticism of mainstream religion, and a prophetic criticism of the values of the Roman Empire. When Christianity gets in bed with the Empire, it loses its voice, and it loses its way.  I wonder if that’s part of why our churches are closing at an increasing rate.  In the relay race of faith, as Paul talks of it in a sports metaphor, perhaps we are fumbling the baton.

On the drive down to Georgetown Y, there’s a house that has the sign ‘Pray for our Nation.’  I talk to that sign, and tell it that I, too, pray for our nation, although I probably don’t pray it for the way that sign means…. Although they and I probably desire that the values and faith of Christianity again be important in our country, I’m pretty sure we have a different picture of what that would look like.  I don’t think that the rigid and hierarchical, fundamentalist faith is the path, especially imposing it at the behest of some charismatic leaders.  I think its more a change of heart, a 180 from the way we’re going, a respect of people’s worth to God and to each other, that’s needed.

However, the fundamentalism that I grew up in does have some strengths to offer.  We knew our Bibles - yes, it a very literalistic way, and yet we knew the stories and the ancestors and the teachings - they are in my mind and my psyche for the Spirit to use.  We might mock their literalism as shallow, but most of us don’t know our own faith texts as well.  We might see the devotional readings as sentimental - or perhaps too moralistic, or portraying a simplistic faith - yet how much time to we spend pondering the intersection of faith and life, how much time do we spend in prayer?  We might look down on the way evangelism has turned into buttonholing strangers and turning the idea of salvation into a personal fire escape from Hell, yet have we continued to develop ways to communicate our deepest truths in a way non-church people comprehend and find value in?  How often do we feel the conviction about our behaviors and seek to amend our ways?  And with ardor and passion long for God?  Do we fervently seek to put into practice what we read of God’s will?  Feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, working for justice for the powerless?  Seeking resolution for racism, or sexism, or elitism, or homophobia?  Seeking a lifestyle of simplicity, fighting the materialism of our era?  Working for the good of creation and care of this planet’s environment?  Fighting for a livable wage that honors both people and work?  

Have we retreated behind our walls, trusting for personal salvation at the cost of the rest of the world?  My friends, that is not Christianity. Are we laying up treasure in the world, or in heaven? 

This kind of questioning of ourselves and our practice of faith, this kind of examination of our practices - this is the housekeeping of preparation that John preached for the coming of the Christ. Hard questions.  Important questions, especially as we see the waning of the way we’ve done church for so long.  When I attended the 2nd training week for Transitional, or Interim Ministry, I was shocked at the number of stories of local congregations closing up shop. 

Its not all bad - people do join other congregations and live their faith there.  Some churches have voted to sell their buildings and rid themselves of the expense, in order to build affordable housing or do other ministries, while worshipping in a rented space. Individual  churches seem to have a lifespan.  I’ve been to final worship services in closing churches, where they celebrated donating their church organ, communion services and remaining monies to new church plants. 

But by and large, an era is closing, where the “if you build it they will come” view of local churches succeeded.  I don’t have a vision of what comes next - sometimes I see my generation of preachers as bridges to the next form of Christian faith and practice, standing in the gap as one way fades and another emerges.  I want to be open to the future that God will bring in, not stand in its way.  I want to believe that there is resurrection for the church.  Like John the Baptizer, I am looking to the ones coming after me to lead the way - if that’s so, then, like John the Baptizer, I need to be about cleaning house, calling for a deep cleaning among those that profess faith to prepare the way. 

So the Scripture brings us a challenge today, as a part of our preparation, as the Advent of Christ comes nearer.  What needs to be cleaned up in me?  What needs to be set right in the church?  Ask the hard questions, seek the answers - and make the 180 where it needs to be made.  AMEN.

Preparing for Christmas: Close, ..... Advent 2C

Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

Preparing for Christmas: Close,….

12/9/2018     Advent 2-C      

            The word “ADVENT” isn’t used much in common speech - its a kind of churchy word, or a more formal-sounding word.  If we spoke in a formal kind of way about our Grammy coming to visit, we might say that, “I’m looking forward to Grammy’s advent.” That’s what the word advent means…  If we were writing a paper about technology, we might comment on the advent of the television, or the advent of the internet.  A synonym might be the arrival, or appearance, or emergence of a period or a person.

The Church calendar calls these Sundays before we celebrate Christ’s actual nativity, the season of Advent, a time of looking towards, and preparing for Christ’s arrival.  Our lectionary readings during Advent have to do with Jesus’ birth as well as the arrival of Christ at the end of times - the two can get rather mixed in prophecy.  Preparing for Christ’s arrival, however or whenever, is perhaps the shortest way to describe the meaning. 

  For those of us who already worship Christ, who already seek to follow and serve Christ, who already seek to live according Christ’s good news of the realm of God- what does this preparing mean?  Christ is already with us, filling our hearts and minds and imaginations - we’ve already made Christ welcome. 

Of  course, as much as we’ve welcomed Christ to our life, or opened our life to God, or as much as we’ve answered yes when God sound and found us (to be more theologically correct), there is always more. As we live with Christ, we discover more closed doors and secret places in ourselves, more longings in ourselves that are not yet open to God.   We aren’t ever totally transformed into the image of Christ Jesus.  St Teresa of Avila spoke of the inner journey of following Christ as one of exploring a great castle, starting with the grounds just inside the wall, then hearing the voice of God calling us into the next room which is bigger inside than out; then the next room, and so on and so on - closer and closer, more and more depth, more and more lost in love.  As long as we live, Christ can continue calling us closer.

            Our growing relationship with God is the same kind of thing with the coming of the kindom of God, the realm of Christ, which has both come into the world through Jesus Christ, and yet is still coming into the world as we live out the good news, and one day will be here in full. So its both here, and coming. At the same time.

            Now that’s confusing at first.  In attempting to find a good analogy, I once looked to my garden and the yellow squash plants. I planted a flat seed in the ground, and watched as a little spout came up with its split seed carried on a stem; then its first true leaves.   Now, already, at this point, it IS a squash plant, right?  It could be sold at the garden center at this point, with the label yellow squash.  ts not fully leafed out, nor flowered, nor been pollinated, nor grown a yellow squash - but it (IS already a squash plant.  It is both a squash plant now, with the promise of being more of a squash plant in the future. Then it puts out all those large leaves as it takes in the sun’s energy and grows; then comes the day when buds appear, and then the flowers open.  Some of those flowers, with the right pollination, will start to grow little yellow squashes.  And more yellow squashes.  And then more yellow squashes than we know what to do with.  The stem coming out of the ground gets thick, and turns this way or that.  All the time its a squash plant, however, from when it first emerges until it comes to fruition and fulfills its purpose. 

            So the realm of God came in Christ Jesus, grows with the addition of all who believe, and is not yet what it will be.  So as we have Christ in our heart, we then deepen our faithfulness as we live through life with God, and yet Christ is still calling us on to what we will be in the future. 

            We have to keep an eye on our squash plants - there are a bunch of molds and insects that can damage, even kill them.  And they need water and sun; fertilizer can help, too, if the ground isn’t great.  Now that honey bees have become endangered, I’ve read about people going out with paint brushes, and transferring pollen by hand from the pollen flowers to the bearing flowers.  So there is still attention that needs to be paid, and preparations made for the squashes to grow.  The same with our life following Christ, and growing in the realm of God.   So there is still the promise of more; even though we have opened ourselves and our lives to Christ, we still have preparations to welcome Christ even more fully.

St Teresa of Avila, that I mentioned earlier, says that it is Christ who calls to us from the future, and calls us into the next room of the castle, as she calls the journey of faith.  It is God’s Spirit who creates that longing in our soul for more depth, more understanding, more service, more depth.  We may initially feel this as a restlessness or disquiet. A friend of mine called me recently to talk of an urge to look at seminary, something that has occurred to her off and on over the last year - and since she has a career in music that she loves, and even does music for her church, this has bugged her and not gone away.  Not that she saw herself preaching, she quickly added - its not so much that she feels a call to ministry - its more like wanting to dig deeper into the Bible, and to be able to help those who asked her questions.  She is feeling that tug towards going further with her faith; a step deeper wooing her, in the language of spirituality. Christ is calling. 

For me, its been what I call “following my nose” - something I hear about or read about intrigues me, and seems inviting to me, seems to offer answers or insights for my questions - I have to go explore it and find what this next thing God is calling to me from.  For example, when I was doing a youth ministry after college, the pastor there told me that the Presbyterians had women at their seminary, and was ordaining them.  I was intrigued - as a young woman, I was taught  that only men were preachers, although women did a lot as missionaries, and often led music programs.  That’s where I assumed I was headed.  But here was an opportunity to study the Bible more, and test that odd idea that I might be called to ministry among those Presbyterians about whom I knew only a little.  I had met some Presbyterians, and they seemed okay faith-wise.  So I decided to give it a year and see what happened. 

While at seminary, I was intrigued by the worship professor who, along with his spouse, led silent reflective retreats.  I took a class with him, and learned about the ancient art of soul friends, or spiritual direction. I did a silent retreat with the class, and experienced prayer in a deeper way than I had.  I decided that when I graduated, I would seek a spiritual director.  So I did; then did a training course, where I heard about something else, followed my nose to that and got a D. Min. 

Some growth experiences were more like rabbit holes that I tripped in, and fell, like Alice in Wonderland, to a far land - a land of grief, loss and emptiness.  So far, these have also turned out, after a time of grieving, to be further rooms in that castle of the soul with God.  So the journey is not really in our own hands to direct….God is calling, and sometimes God’s ways are not our ways.  Malachi’s text asks, “Who can endure the days of the messenger’s advent?  Who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refining fire…”   Sometimes the next room of the castle is this kind of place - a place of examination of buried motives, and letting the light of God shine on our places of wrong decisions, or festering hurts. 

You know, as we talk about it, John the Baptist’s quotes from the Hebrew Scripture are apt - valleys filled in, and mountains brought low - we are healed in some places and humbled in others - but the whole point is to make a way for Christ into our life, a way that is level and straight, a way that welcomes and is made ready.   And God’s Spirit is the one who does the road building. 

When the Spirit moves us to look more deeply into Scripture, then there is something in there for us.  When the Spirit nudges us to make our prayer life more important, there is something going on that is from God.  When we finally give in to being healed of an addiction, God is calling.  When we realize we need to quit a practice we know is wrong, that is the Spirit. When we find ourselves coming to church seeking for something - we aren’t sure what, but somehow we’ve been drawn here - that is God calling.  And in all of these, we are preparing for Christ’s Advent, Christ’s birth in a new way in our lives.

Rather than try and resist, let us recognize that God is calling us to a new thing, a deeper faith, a deeper understanding, a renewed commitment - whatever it is, it is important to prepare the way for Christ.  In this season, may we feel the working of the Spirit building a road into our hearts, and like Mary, say “Yes.” AMEN.