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.

What Does "Faith" Mean? (All Saints)

Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

What Does “FAITH” Mean?

Nov 3, All Saints C      Hebrews 11 (assorted) -12:3

 

I talked on the phone with a man the other day who invited me to join a group of folks in praying for our country, specifically to pray for our country to return to righteousness. I admit I immediately wondered if this call was from a conservative, ‘Back to the Bible’ type group with rigid ideas of what “Christian” values would look like for our country, like those getting a lot of press recently.  I do pray for our country and all countries, and I pray for “righteousness,” in the way I understand from the prophets in our Hebrew Scriptures, which I had a hunch might not be what he meant.  We were each a little cagey about how much we’d say.  In my reading, a righteous nation cares for the poor and sick, and looks out for those marginal people who have little voice or power on their own; people and nations honor God and the way God wants all people treated.  This might be fleshed out by acknowledging and overcoming the evils brought about of racism and discrimination, which are supported by unjust systems and unequal wealth and power. God’s word in the Old Testament, instructed his people that the foreigners and refugees in their midst were to be treated as worthy and human - which would speak to justice for  immigrants; God’s continued concern for the poor and hungry would ask a nation to end the suffering of poverty, in feeding and caring for even the least among us; God’s concern for the voiceless would ask a nation to honor the humanity of all people regardless of gender or color. Jesus echoed this when he said, As you did it to one of these, you did it to me. I can and do pray for us and our country in these respects. 

I had a feeling this caller might have a different agenda.  We used the same word, yet meant pretty different things by it. 

Our word for today, “faith,” is another word that has various uses and understandings.  I want to mention a couple, and look at what I think Hebrews 11 & 12 are saying.  There’s a certain usage of the word “faith” that refers to the body of doctrines and common practices, like when someone refers to “The Christian faith,” where ‘faith’ is a noun described by the adjective ‘Christian.’ If we googled Christian faith,  we’d find a set of beliefs and practices that differentiates us from, say, Jewish faith or Muslim faith.  The contents would have to necessarily be rather generic, because Christians can have different understandings about parts of our faith. For example, the article might list doctrines about Jesus as the Messiah, or Christ, sent by God; how Jesus’ death and resurrection lead to salvation and the amending of life; what sin is, and what eternal life is; the sacraments of baptism, and the celebration of communion, as we are doing today.  To be generic enough to describe all Christians, it probably wouldn’t get into the questions about what method of baptism, or the age of the baptized, or how to do communion, or to dispute the additional sacraments that we Protestants dropped but our Roman Catholic sisters and brothers maintain. That generic description of the Christian “faith” may go on to describe common themes in the Judeo-Christian tradition, as in seeing God as Creator, although not really debating how that came about; perhaps in seeing humans as having souls and that living towards God is the highest good.  It would take too long to explore the various camps within each tradition that may have fervent feelings about their distinct meanings and practices.

            The way I hear the word “faith” used in Hebrews 11 & 12 this morning, is less like a set of doctrines and practices, and more like an inner quality  - a quality of conviction,  a core quality within persons, a gut conviction,  a deep and inner motivation.  These faithful folks in Hebrews 11 did a lot of rather different things, and it doesn’t say anything about their doctrines. They trusted God - they trusted God’s love towards them, God’s good will towards them, God’s promises to them, that God held their future, that it was important to acknowledge what God said and do it.  There was this bedrock thing about God in the depth of their person - God is, God exists, God is the source of life, God seeks relationship with us, God cares how we live, God cares for our future..  What we do matters, how we live matters.  We belong to God, which is who we are.  God is, and that matters more than anything.

            Actually, if we think about it, those mentioned in Hebrews ch 11 lived way before Jesus was born - they are people from Jewish history, and didn’t know anything about Jesus.  So technically they aren’t Christians - even though the writer of Hebrews holds them up as examples of people of faith, looking FORWARD to what God would do in Jesus, just as we look BACK (at least thinking historically and linearly) on Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.  In other words, Jesus is central, and the commitment and conviction is to God being FOR us. 

That’s what I think of in terms of “faith”, my friends: that deep inner trust and basic assumption that God is, and that living in relation to God in this world is our ultimate allegiance.  The letter from James, in our New Testament, asks people to walk the walk, not just talk the talk. Jesus teaches us to pray that God’s will be done on earth, as it already is in heaven; that joining Jesus’ kindom means living and acting in the ways of that realm now and here.  This faith, this deep, gut-level acceptance, is a gift from God, the apostle Paul says, not an ego or will-power thing - rather, a transformation deep inside that’s like being born again.

Since our calendar is near All Saints Day, I thought we could perhaps add to the list of the faithful in Hebrews 11 from what we know of human history since Jesus. I came up with these: By faith, the Apostle Paul held to Jesus’ gospel even though he became persona non grata to his religious community; and through faith he traveled the Mediteraean area starting communities of Christ-followers - even among the Gentiles. 

            By faith, Hildegard of Bingen (one of my favorite mystics) trusted and even painted her visions, and wrote to and called out even the highest officials of the church in her day.

            In faith, Copernicus dug into the ways creation operated, seeing no difficulty between faith and science, even when his studies showed that the Earth rotates around the Sun, which idea was condemned by his church. Galileo and others who also studied and found this true were later excommunicated.

Through faith, Martin Luther wanted God’s Church to amend its ways, and found the courage to propose changes that eventually got him kicked out; and in faith like-minded folks gathered around him and continued to worship, in time starting the Protestant tradition.  

In faith, Martin Luther King Jr stood up for the dignity of all human persons regardless of color, and was assassinated for challenging his culture. 

By faith, Mother Teresa gave her life to assisting the sickest of the sick in her country, akin to the lepers of Jesus’ time, persuading leaders of the communities to support this work that recognized the dignity of the least among them; and in her determination, helped and inspired many. 

By faith, men and women have followed what God laid on their hearts, starting school and hospitals for those in need, planting churches, translating Scriptures into most world languages, reaching into prisons, establishing feeding programs, paying off student lunch bills, filling backpacks, advocating for justice, and so much more. 

So, at this All Saint’s Day, whose faith inspires you?  Whose faith challenges you?  Who are the saints who show you how to live for God, to pray, to hold to the ideals God gave you; who encourages you to say YES to your own call to service?

The reading from the letter to Hebrew Christians concludes by encouraging us to look to the example of Jesus, who, for the sake of the joy set before him, disregarded even the shame of being crucified like a criminal - because of his obedience to God.  He endured being rejected on so many levels, as well as physical suffering, for sticking to the call of God.  Consider Jesus, this letter says, when we need courage to do what that inner conviction calls us to. Consider Jesus, when what is calling us seems too hard.  Consider Jesus, when we grow weary and discouraged with seeing no results, of not seeming to make any difference in our ministries, when we are misunderstood and mistreated even by those God called us to serve; when others are raised up above us, when we don’t get thanked or recognized like we hoped for, when it doesn’t seem worth the effort any more.  Consider Jesus, and let that faith carry us on.  AMEN. 

When We Sing, We Pray Twice! 10/27/19 (Reformation)

Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

When We Sing, We Pray Twice!

Oct. 27, 2019   Reformation Sunday - Celebrating Congregational Singing

            The phrase I used for the title here is attributed to St. Augustine, from back in the 4th century - that’s the 300’s!!!  - whose writings about Christianity have survived and been kept.  Even though the music of that era sounds pretty different to our modern ears, evidently it spoke to their hearts and emotions like our music does to ours.  Good words can move us on a deep level, too, and not just on the linear and logical level - they can stir us up and capture our feelings.  Joined with music, which has its own appeal to a different part of our human nature, the result can be powerful.  People seem to remember music in a different part of the brain, and even the words set to that music can endure brain damage and some dementia. Music, with its beats and rhythms, stirs us as human creatures, kind of like we might say heart level instead of head level?  Or right brain instead of left brain?  So St. Augustine realized that singing a prayer prayed on two levels at once.  Or worships at two levels at the same time. 

            I know that certain tunes can bring up whole memories, and bring tears from that time, too.  Other tunes can make my arms want to lift in praise.  Some tunes make us want to march joyfully, some make us know the bad guys are creeping up…. or that true love is blossoming. When the right music is found for the right words, it connects parts of us together in ways that we haven’t done - and speaks deeply to our souls.  Music comes from the whole person, and we bring our whole selves to God that way. 

            Evidently in the earliest churches, based on the worship at Jewish synagogues, people sang together in, as the Bible puts it, “songs, hymns and spiritual songs.” I don’t know what they sounded like.  Music that got written down was often just sung by an appointed cantor, or was learned by the monks who sang the Psalms to various tones.  Of course people have always made music with instruments and voices, I just am not sure how much people who attended worship sang together before the Reformation.   Martin Luther was  a German priest whose hopes for reforming what he saw as poor practices in the church he served, ended up excommunicated from the Roman church; and attracting the attention of other church folks, they started their own branch of Christian practice.  One of the sayings he’s known for is, “Why should the devil have all the good music?”  He wrote Christian words to the tunes of bar songs so folks could sing them with vigor. The Reformation is credited with reinventing and revitalizing congregational singing.

Its obvious that the sounds and styles of music changed over the decades and centuries.  So we really shouldn’t be surprised that even in recent years church music continues to change with the various influences of musical styles.  After all, the hymns we might call traditional and think of as suitable church music, were once a new style to earlier people,m and probably looked at askance and questioned if it belonged in church at all.  Music is just a medium, a powerful medium of course; and any style of music can carry the words and experience of faithful people.   When I was a teenager, churches were aghast at rock ‘n roll, and at the way Elvis had brought the sounds of black gospel music into white people’s repertoire.  Now a lot of the Christian music I sang at Christian coffee houses to the accompaniment of 12-string guitarists, is in our hymnals and sung by those like me who are now in their 60s. My parents and my church wondered if it was right to sing about God to rock beats and if guitars should be in church.   In seminary, I read books advising about “the Worship Wars,”  when congregations were fighting and splitting over “contemporary music.” 

That’s a lose-lose situation for a congregation….   Any music can become the carrier of the faith message, and resisting the newer sounds only alienates the coming generations.  I know those of us who are older still love the sounds from our own youth, the sounds we associate with warm memories and experiences of faith back then.  And we know the melodies better.  Its counter-productive, however, to expect the younger generations to groove to what we did.  We can’t freeze time, and we can’t freeze music.  God and the gospel are new every moment, always current.  If we’re smart and forward looking, we will embrace the music that calls and speaks to the upcoming leaders and members as well as the music that still speaks to us.  Musicians are continuously writing new expressions of Christian faith and life.  New hymnals and songbooks from our denominations  seek out good new music to include in the new hymnals being published.  

I mean, even as a child I realized the words to the church songs we sang on Sundays weren’t written in the way people spoke today.  I learned them anyway, and could listen well-enough to get what they were expressing.  I have many fond memories of those songs, even while I was interested in the guitar songs of the coffee house that sounded more like me.  I’ve ended up liking almost any style of music as long as its well-written.  I do miss a congregation that could sing parts, where I could sing my alto and hear tenors, basses and sopranos in the various pews around me.  And I do miss the vigor of the congregational singing back then.  Presbytery meetings, now, and conferences - that’s where I hear that sound again.  When I have an opportunity to sing in a congregation nowadays, people sing more quietly and privately.  It feels different.  Maybe we look more towards the professionals than we used to, I don’t know.  People certainly don’t sing on front porches and around pianos like we used to.  I miss that.  So I enjoy the singing at VBS, and the way the newer styles of music are being used, and the kids jump in. 

This morning we’re going to sing a variety of music, and our choir is seated up front here to help lead us.  I encourage us to sing out, enjoy the music, listen to the words, be a part of the congregational singing. And appreciate the praise that is sent to God on our voices.  AMEN.

Don't Lose Heart, Friend 10/20/19 (Pentecost 19C)

The Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

Don’t Lose Heart, Friend  - Keep On Keepin’ On

Oct 20, 2019   Pentecost 19C    Luke 18:1-8

            One of my favorite folk singers is a western Virginian by the name of John McCutcheon -  I’ve been a fan from way back.  Like many folk singers, he often tells stories between songs in his concerts.  I‘ve borrowed one my his favorite lines about storytelling:  “You know, storytellers always tell the truth…  (audience titters a bit)...then in a wry voice, “Just not always factual.” That is kinda the way stories work, isn’t it? Aesop's fables using animals to reveal human behaviors; mythology telling us truths about living that are usually peopled with made up folks. 

            Jesus is a story-teller, too.  We call Jesus’ stories ‘parables.’  There have been different ways of working with these parables through the ages of Christianity.  Quite a ways back,  it was fashionable to look at them as allegories; that is, where there is a one-to-one correspondence, like The Judge represents X, the widow represents Y, her lawsuit represents Z, and so on, and all about the Christian life.  On through a few decades, a scholar named Jeremias started a school of thought that looked at parables as having only one main point, and you either got it or you didn’t.  More recently, parables have been seen as multi-layered, with a recognition that our interpretations may differ because of where and how we have lived, ie our cultures, and our life events.  The most recent method of looking at parables have seen them as terse political commentary on the culture of Jesus’ day, which makes for interesting reading for social commentary on today.  To be sure, while cultures have come and gone since Jesus’ time, the things people get up to really haven’t changed a whole lot, so if we can hear Jesus’ critique on his culture, we can apply it pretty easily to the world we know. I’ve recently read a book called Short Stories of Jesus by Amy-Jill Levine, who, as a Jew herself, adds a unique understanding of 1st century life for Jerusalem and surrounds, plus a good knowledge of Greek and Aramaic.  Those details of life and translation often add depth, too. 

Today’s parable seems to have been taken a certain way for many years, based mostly on the sentence Luke adds at the very beginning, that its supposed to tell us to pray always and not lose heart.  I’ve had trouble with this interpretation since early in my own career.  Let’s look at the story’s details.

The story opens with the main character, a widow.  We may remember from Sunday School that widows (and orphans) are often poor and powerless persons in that century and culture.  Without a husband, brother, father or son to take care of them and their lives, they are virtually invisible in a patriarchal-based culture.  Widows and orphans are basically family-less, and sometimes called “the least of these” in Scripture in both Old and New Testaments.  If you know the musical Les Mis - the word ‘Miserable’ is the word for the ‘least of these,’ the ‘wretched of the earth,’ as one of the songs from Les Mis translates into English.  Widows and orphans are among the powerless, those who are the bottom of the chain, those marginal and almost invisible persons on the underside of human cultures, and they rarely get justice.  So this widow is our protagonist.  People who heard Jesus tell this story would understand that.   

The next character introduced is the judge who ‘neither feared God nor had respect for people.’  He also is a recognizable character - in it for what he could get, buying into the culture that overlooked those of the lower classes, and not caring about their welfare.  “Let them eat cake,” (which is a kind of coal, not a dessert), may describe his attitude.  And it actually sounds like he didn’t even respect ANYone.  He’s been called “The Unjust Judge” in other translations. Its not that he is overwhelmed by the size of the problems of the poor and doesn’t know where to start - its that he likes things the way they benefit himself, and frankly doesn’t care about anything else.

The problem of the parable is that the widow keeps coming to this judge in court, to get justice for some issue that involves her rights. She wants wrong corrected, and right to prevail.  And the judge really doesn’t care, doesn’t see the problem, and wishes it would all go away.  Eventually, the story tells us, he reasons like this - “I neither fear God nor have respect for people,” he says to himself, “but this widow’s persistence is making me look bad.  I’m tired of her and her problem, and she’s giving me a black eye.”  ‘Black eye’ is what Levine says this Greek word really means - I think its a way of saying he’s being damaged in his own status, not looking good to others.  SO…. he grants her the justice she seeks so persistently. 

Now the interpretation I’ve heard all my life says that we ought to be as persistent as that widow, and keep praying day and night, until God answers.  What bothers me about this interpretation is that I hear the story teaching precisely the opposite!  That God is NOT like that unjust judge, but rather cares deeply about us.  The unjust judge is the opposite of what God is like, as revealed by Jesus.  The unjust judge is the foil, the antithesis of God’s response to us, which is caring and loving.  God hears our prayers, God cares for our situations!  God isn’t unconcerned; we don’t have to pound on God’s door to get attention to our situations; we don’t have to wear God out with our own heart’s pain until God finally pays attention and does something just to shut us up!  That is not what God is like!

Sometimes, we might feel that it takes forever for something we’ve prayed about to break open and be addressed.  Here’s my take on this - I think God hears and cares immediately, and that it often takes God a lot of steps before things are addressed.  Maybe WE have to grow; maybe another person has to come to a realization - maybe that person is incapable of acting how we wish they’d act, and we have to come to grips with that ourselves.  Who knows what is going on while we think God is ignoring us?  I believe that God is already working.  I’ve also thought about how God’s idea of ‘immediate’ isn’t like ours -  I mean, the view of our faith on material creation as a work of God is described in the book of Beginnings, Genesis,  as a “day.” It actually took billions of years and lots of steps, our science now knows.  God doesn’t seem to be in the same sense of linear time that we know. 

Well, that’s how I’ve looked at this parable, and its been helpful to me in thinking about issues of justice, like how many years it has taken for the status and treatment of African Americans to be seen as an issue for all of us in our country.  All kinds of bigotry held it back; all kinds of cultural assumptions had to be confronted.  The system here in America worked well for white people - we had little initiative to change it.  It took a long time, and much work and writing to make us take this issue seriously.  It took leaders being raised up and even murdered to bring us to the conviction that this was wrong.  God was working – and it took a long time.

Its now been 60 years since the Presbyterian church began ordaining women to the ministry, and it took more than 25 years of work and advocacy before that positive vote!  THEN the local churches had to see this wasn’t just a theoretical thing, and hire us, which was another long time.  Lots of things have to be addressed before an initial vision of justice becomes reality. 

In preparing for this sermon, I was challenged to see yet another way to view this parable, a new way for me.  I call it the “quit seeing yourself as the good guy, and picture yourself as the bad guy” way of interpretation.  So, what if we’re the unjust judge??? What if the widow’s perspective is the perspective of GOD? Its GOD who is angry at injustices in the world, and GOD who keeps urging us and urging us to do justice for those who are more powerless, and suffering at the injustices of the societies of the world.  Like the unjust judge, we humans take SO LONG to finally see things as God sees them.  In this take on the parable, God identifies with people like that widow - the humble, the powerless, and those who are wronged by the way cultures function.  It not US who long for justice, but God, who has to keep at us and keep at us, gradually enlarging our hearts and our compassion until we care as God already does. 

Play with THAT in your mind for a while!  Its quite a shift in perception, and I think there’s something in it that speaks to what Jesus reveals about God in the rest of his ministry and teaching. Its also the message of all the Old Testament prophets, one after the other - cultures and nations are judged by God based on how the least among them is treated.   Keeping the ways and commandments of God is intricately tied up with the way a community treats the least among them. 

We can look at the examples I made earlier - that it was and is God who awakens consciences and consciousness of people to the injustice going on in our practices  - for example, of enslaving people and misusing our  power over people’s lives in a way that angers God, who cared and cares for ALL people.  God had to work persistently against the way our culture thought of people of color, and what we white folks of the dominant class thought was okay to do.  God even had to open our eyes to seeing how we church folks had misused Scripture to try and prove our bias. 

And that it was God who finally broke through the bad teachings and assumptions about women that, again, we church people had tried to prove through misusing Scriptures.  And the whole culture that accepted a view of women as lesser -0 those things take time to shift.

We could go on - the state of New York required all employers THIS YEAR to institute training to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace.  All employers had to accomplish this by Oct 9.   Churches were not exempt - we here at Jamesville Community Church did it, too. 

We could add other current issues of our culture - and any issue we talk about probably has Christ-followers with various points of view as to what faithfulness and justice look like.  Knowing that, we could look at the refugee crisis at our southern border, which many Christ-followers are perceiving as a justice issue as well as a humane issue, and seeing that Scripture calls for us to care for the suffering and treat all people honorably. There is also the ongoing responses to in church and culture to those who are born with a different sexual identity. Even our two contributing denominations here at our church - the United Methodist and the Presbyterians - there have been opposing votes on the ordination and marriage of LGBTQ persons.

  

What I’ve noticed in my own spiritual life is that ever since my heart became more sensitive to injustice, mainly from what I‘ve seen as a clergywoman, my sensitivity to mistreatment and injustice to ANY group of people has increased.  There was a time when none of these issues were on my radar screen, and how things were was unquestioned. 

This morning, I hope looking at this powerful though short story of Jesus, raises up some meaty material for our own talks with God in prayer.  Shortly after the benediction today, as we gather in the Fellowship Hall, we’ll look at the last 100  or so years of our own congregation’s history, and think of how things have changed over the years, and what generations before us faced as faithful believers.  The larger, capital-C Church, in seeking to be faithful, has sought God’s will through wars, economic development and depressions - yet has kept on.  Its our leg of the race now, we’re carrying the torch or the baton, and we celebrate the faithfulness of God through the centuries before and centuries to come.  AMEN.

The WAY of Awareness and Thanksgiving 10/13/19 (Pentecost 18C)

THE WAY OF AWARENESS AND THANKSGIVING

Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

Oct 13   Pentecost 18C      Luke 17:11-19

            At the retreat/conference that I attended last week, a presenter asked us if we remembered what the early believers in Jesus as the Christ of God were called, before they were called “Christians.”  I hadn’t thought about it for a while, but it popped back into my mind  - the first believers were called “Followers of The Way.”  “The Way,” of course, was the way of Jesus,

 the path of life that Jesus taught, the way of walking in the realm of God, the practices of Jesus’ disciples who lived as he taught.  A Way, a path, a walk, a pattern of life choices that were distinct.  Jesus actually called himself “The Way” - the way one lives for God, the patterns of thought that guide our choices, the path we walk by the light of Scripture, the world view of faith out of which we live and act.  Being a Christian is NOT just a set of beliefs we have to get right!

            So I often use the phrase “Christ-followers” in place of the word “Christian,” for that reason. The other reason is that the word ‘Christian’ has come to mean so many weird things in the media….linked to behaviors and attitudes that to me are actually NOT Christ-like, in fact the opposite of the very love and welcome of God to all people. I am saddened to be characterized or stereotyped in the minds of folks who meet me by my association of what the word “Christian” has come to mean.  I wish the term “Christian” carried associations with humility, justice, love, welcome, respect, honor, and forgiveness.  I wouldn’t mind being identified as one of those.

            See, living in trust of what Jesus taught is what faith is; pondering the insights of Christ is what faith is; seeking to live according to what Jesus modeled is what faith is.  Faith is a lifestyle based on knowing God and God’s word.  Faith is NOT a set of things one says one “believes” while acting, well, however.  Faith is NOT being able to quote a few verses and just be a nice person.  Faith is a living relationship, and a path to follow - a “Way” of being and living. 

            Gratitude, thankfulness, giving thanks, gratefulness to God - these are important aspects of the path of following Christ.  As I pondered on this story of the 10 healed guys and the 1 who returned in gratitude, I realized that this has to be about more than just good manners - Jesus didn’t need to be Dear Abby and tell us to write thank you notes for presents. I searched for and thought about deeper levels he was communicating in this story, because Jesus’ stories were always more than just what’s on the surface. 

 The first thing I notice is that the guy who stops, turns around and returns to express gratitude is, of all things, a Samaritan.  We’ve seen the unexpected Samaritan be the good guy in the story before, in the parable of the Man Who fell Among Thieves - remember that one?  The religious guys pass by this beaten-up man on the road, ignoring him perhaps, or not wanting to get involved because they’re so busy in their religious work.  Who is the true neighbor to the man left for dead?  Its that blasted, no-good, half-caste Samaritan.  Perhaps because he’s discriminated against in his region, he has learned compassion, he has learned to take time and care of those who are hurting.  Perhaps, even though he’s not in the “In” group, religiously, he has developed a deeper spirituality of care for other mistreated folks.  In any case, the Samaritan is the surprise good guy in that parable, and in this one, too.  Its a Samaritan who is the only one of the healed folks who returns to give thanks.  Again, the challenge is for those of us who think we religious folks have dibs on right behaviors towards other people. 

The second thing I notice is that all 10 guys are so overjoyed at being healed that they run, RUN, to see their families and friends again.  They are overjoyed to be healed, bursting with joy.  Maybe there’s one grumbler who thinks he was entitled and just getting what he deserved, finally!!!  But in my way of looking at it, they’re all so glad and excited to be returning to life that they take off!  I bet most of them are grateful, and when things settle down again, they’ll realize it.  What makes one of them, the Samaritan, stop and come back sooner for giving thanks, before running back home?

I wonder if, perhaps, he had already developed, in his own faith life, the ability to see God’s gifts around him.  I wonder if, perhaps, his disease has already sensitized him into an awareness of God’s love and grace supporting him.  I wonder if he has already cultivated the awareness of God’s sustaining presence as a practice of faith.  So that giving thanks is already a habit of the way he lives his faith, even in his illness, his affliction.  So when he is healed of the dreaded disease of leprosy, even in his wildest joy he quickly remembers his gratitude, his indebtedness to God.  Its already a practice, a habit, a path, a way he lives.

 See, when we aren’t thankful, either we’re not paying attention or something’s going on in our soul that needs to be looked at.  Awareness, paying attention, giving thanks in all things - this is part of the path of following Christ.  When we follow Jesus, we live our lives in the midst of the gifts of God, surrounded by the gifts of God - are we not aware of that?  Its easy to overlook all the gifts of God that surround us, to take them for granted, to not be aware.  Are we, for example, aware of the air that surrounds us, that we breathe a zillion times a day?  Not usually - unless something is going wrong with our air, like pollution or smoke, or lung troubles. Then we’re very aware of air, because of its lack.  Air and breathing is connected to the word ‘inspire’ and ‘inspiration’ – we are created, in our faith teaching, of earthy dust and the breath, the air, the inspiration, of the Divine.  The air we rarely notice is actually pretty theological!

There’s a pretty tree at the entrance to the Baptist church just down the street, and I’ve been watching it turn a beautiful color this fall.  I notice its color - but am I aware of how that tree functions as a part of my environment, filtering the air and producing the oxygen I need?         Am I aware of the way my body takes in that air automatically, without my direction?  How my lungs fill with it and how it goes out carried in my blood, making it bright red, flooding my brain so it can think?  Our bodies are miracles of cooperation and balanced functioning, our various systems acting below our consciousness. Our very life depends on such minute processes functioning correctly, and a positive interaction with our outer environment.  Our sciences and medicines are learning more and more of the smallest functions and parts, and actually how to help fix many things that can happen to us. These gifts, and more, surround us at every moment, and when we become aware of them, we give thanks to God who makes and sustains it all. 

Awareness leads us to gratitude.  The way our Christian tradition has developed doesn’t emphasize the development of awareness the way other traditions around the world have.  I think of Buddhist mindfulness, for example, and the awareness of the body and the mind’s intentions that it teaches more explicitly than we have.  In our own tradition there is a comparative path, I think, of remembrance.  Throughout Judaism, people of God are urged to remember what God has done, remember that God has been faithful, remember the great deeds of the past - tell them to our children, speak of them in our houses - - and know that this God is also here and continues to work on our behalf, continues to desire our growth, our freedom, our shalom - wellness, peace.  That this is the God we worship - remember.  

That’s rather like awareness, to me.  When we teach that God created the world, what is that but an awareness that God is responsible for all this, and sustains it, gives it life?  When we teach that God created humans from the dust of the earth and then breathed into us God’s very breath, what is that teaching but an awareness of our connection both to the elements of earth and to the Divine?  God who is Life itself, gives this life to us? Is that not the ultimate awareness of who we are and whose we are?   

If this awareness of God around us, in us, above us, beneath us - is this not a thankfulness to God, from whom all things arise?  In whom all that is has its being?  Who is our beginning and our end? 

And if that is our practice, our faith, our Way - we will be like that Samaritan who remembers quickly to give thanks for the special joys.  Its interesting that in the last line of the story, Jesus says that this man’s faith has made him well.  He’s already healed - and even those who didn't immediately give thanks were healed, too.  But now this one is also made WELL. That’s the last step - awareness, gratitude - and that makes us well.  WELL - despite whatever else is going on, we are WELL. What a promise that is!  Wellness is more than healing, and we can even be made well if we’re not healed - if we walk in the path of gratitude. If we walk in the assurance and remembrance of God who makes all things well.  AMEN.