Sometimes God's Wisdom is Odd 9/16/18 Pentecost 17B

Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

SOMETIMES GOD’S WISDOM SOUNDS ODD

Sept 16, 2018    Pentecost 17-B      Mark 8:27-38

Who do people say I am?  Who do YOU say that I am?   

Interesting questions from Jesus.   We talked about our answers last week. I hope we had some thoughts about it over the week, too.  

He’s the Son of God, we might answer. But what in the world does that mean?  Son of God - Like Zeus had children, half divine and half mortal?  Greek and Roman mythology, like? Other places in Scripture he’s called Son of Man. And what in the world does that mean? Theologically, we are referring to the belief that Jesus, although a human, was somehow also God in the flesh.  We know this because we’ve attended a good bit of church services, and we’re used to biblical imagery. Someone not familiar with church might have to ask further.

The apostle John refers to Jesus in a metaphorical and philosophical way as the “Word of God,” the logos of God, the statement of God, the self-expression of God. It also takes a bit of unpacking for the person on the street.  We Presbyterians know that Scripture is the written word, Jesus is the incarnate and living word, and that preaching is the spoken and interpreted word. We’ve all pondered in sermons and maybe Sunday School about how this is a philosophical term for how Jesus in the flesh is a revelation of God, and how God speaks through Jesus to us.

The apostle Peter here says Jesus is the Messiah - which is an insightful application of the Messianic hope in Judaism. We Gentiles, though, are not raised in the Jewish tradition where the messiah is a large concept. So what in the world does that mean to us? We translate it as the Sent One, the idea that Jesus fulfills a special promise to God’s people of Israel for one to deliver them from enemies and establish them as a people in their own right.

Early Christian theologians wrestled over who Jesus is, until they came up with the phrase, ‘wholly God and wholly human.” Well, they said wholly man, but they meant human.  How in the world is this combination even imaginable to people?  What does it mean? How does it work? Is it like Superman? We understand that this refers to how Jesus can be human as well as Divine, that both parts are important, and that neither side can be lost without doing damage to how we understand Jesus.

People who come to ‘witness’ to you might ask if Jesus is your “Savior and Lord.” What does that mean?  In some Christian circles, it is important that a person individually recognize that Jesus ‘saves’ them, in a way that means Jesus was killed for us, taking on our bad actions and thoughts -  and we are therefore spared from God’s vengeance. ‘Lord’ means that we try and put Jesus and his teachings at the center of our lives, for full obedience and respect, as if we are the slaves and he is the master.  People might hear it as in “lords and ladies” language of earlier centuries, or perhaps as a slaves’ overlord. Since Star Wars, like Lord Vader, 2nd to the evil Emperor.

Mostly, we’re all so familiar with the concepts and the words that we may kind of gloss over things.  That’s why this question from Jesus in the text today is such an important one for us to ask ourselves, and to really dig for what we actually think or believe.  What do our words mean for us, how do they translate into our life?

A problem is that its difficult to talk about Jesus in any larger sense than just a human who lived some 2000 + years ago and said some cool things, without going into metaphor, isn’t it?  Or using Christian code language, piled with history and sometimes controversy. Yet its an essential question = What do Jesus and who he is have to do with our lives in 2018, here in Indiantown, SC?

Joyce sent me a text about what a teacher of hers said in a class, which has stuck with her over the years - that Jesus is a like a window on God.  I liked that image and couldn’t come up with a better.   I can imagine a wall like in my house, a wall keeping out the wind and rain, yes, but also keeping out the light, the colors, the trees and wildlife - I might place pictures of trees and wildlife on my wall, but its not like a window - a window where the wall is cut through, where what is out there is visible to my eyes and is real - I can observe it, see it, smell it if the window glass is raised, feel it if there’s a screen for the wind to blow through.  With a window, I am not enclosed in my own little reality; the reality of outside comes in. The light from outside comes in. Jesus is like a window open through the unseen, the mysterious, the unknowable nature of God who is so different from us - a window where we can see God living on earth, pictured in Jesus as he speaks and acts.

So Jesus, for us, becomes a way to know that there’s more to life than what we see; he becomes a way that God becomes knowable, assuming we accept Jesus as Divine.  And IF we DO accept Jesus as Divine, then what he says and does become incredibly important; learning what he said and does becomes of deep significance for our own living.  Wrestling with what JESUS says and does, as it confronts what WE say and do, becomes essential work.  For if we take issue with Jesus, we take issue with God.  And Jesus said some difficult things.

A few verses later in Mark, Jesus asks, “What does it profit us if we gain the whole world but lose our soul?” Listening to Jesus often runs counter to gaining the whole world.  Jesus’ attitudes towards the religious of his day speaks to the similar failings in the religious in our day - who are, more or less, us and our teachers. Clean on the outside but tombs of deadness inside, he said about the way religion had become empty and passionless, a matter of forms of behavior that trumped loving acceptance of all, especially those often overlooked by the elite - the poor and powerless.  Jesus said that rich folks entering the realm of God is like a camel going through a needle - whether it meant a sewing needle of some arch in a gate is immaterial - camels don’t fit. Who are the rich in our day? Us, mainly. Immediately following Peter’s words that Jesus is the Messiah, Jesus begins to talk about how he will be rejected and killed. Peter evidently forgets his insight of few moments earlier, because he says, No way, Jesus!  He tells the Messiah that he’s wrong. Duh! Who is it that really misunderstands what being the Messiah means? Not Jesus....

So who do we say that Jesus is for us?  for the world?

If Jesus is a window to God, then what Jesus teaches ought to be the bedrock of our living - not something we pull out now and then, not something that we follow as long as it doesn’t mess with our life, not just some nice suggestions - but essential, vital, even ultimate realities, even if they run counter to what our culture says and what everybody else does.  To follow Jesus, as we would do if we truly saw him as the window to God,would be the great work of each of our lives. Like that pearl of great price, we would give all we are and all we have in order to find it. What we do, how we live - these things show who Jesus is for us.

I am challenged by asking myself the question, “Who do you say that I am?”  I can imagine Jesus standing out here in the parking lot, asking us as we leave - Who do you say that I am?  Why, you’re the Child of God, the Word of God, the Window open in this world so we can see God. You’re the Savior, and Lord of my life.  And then, y’know, I’d cringe, and I’d have to ponder my life choices and my life actions. I’d have to ponder yet again how I spend my time, how I spend my money, how I treat the less fortunate, how my life shows the compassion of God to my associates and colleagues.  

I’m pretty good at the guilt game, as are many of us already….I’m also pretty good at the self-justifying game, so there’s reason to examine whether the guilt feelings are real, or whether the justifications are warranted…. half and half maybe...but worthy of pondering all the same.  Not every day - some days we can walk with Jesus as our friend, and join in the joy of life and the work of ministry side by side. But examining what my life says about who Jesus is, is worth doing occasionally ...and regularly.

We were talking at Session meeting about the rights and duties of membership, and we read the part in our Book of Order about how we church folks need to examine ourselves as to how we can increase our discipleship, our following, of God.  How we might increase our knowledge of Scripture so we can better understand and follow. How we might increase our involvement in mission, how we might increase our giving, how we might increase our outreach to the sick or suffering, how we might better our involvement with the needy in our community, how we might be better ambassadors, how we might better control our speech….

Sometimes we can do this by the calendar, like after this sermon, or at the New Year, or as in the Jewish calendar, this month of holy days like the day of Atonement; or in Lent when we have our fasting perhaps.  Other times the need for pondering comes up as a sense of discontent with the way things are going. A friend called me up the other day to say she was thinking of seminary, although not as a preacher so much. So I asked, what’s been bubbling up that you’re thinking about this?  What are you feeling a need for, or a lack of? What are you hoping seminary would offer? She quickly recognized a need for a deepening of her knowledge of the spiritual life, so she could better serve those she encounters in her profession. Seminary may or may not fulfill that, I told her.  Seminary is academic, and profs are often the kind of people who either assume parsing Greek verbs deepens your faith, or that you are pursuing the dimensions of faith development on your own time. So we had a good conversation about what was a growing longing in her heart for growth in her faith.  

Sometimes a crisis in our lives suddenly throws us into a time of pondering our faith.  The crisis hits and we feel like Wiley E Coyote stepping off a cliff and plunging into an abyss, where everything we thought we understood suddenly is swirling around us and not working anymore.  THAT kind of pondering takes months or years, as life re-integrates and meaning emerges through prayer and seeking. A death, losing all we have in a fire or flood, a divorce, being fired, retiring - events like that are crises, when sometimes our old ways of being are found inadequate.  These can be crises in our faith.

Perhaps our shrinking church is a slower crises, but a crises we all see is eventually coming towards us. The ways we’ve been the church are not reaching new people in this setting anymore; there’s a need for pondering, for rethinking, for seeking in prayer how to change in order to persevere.  Maybe we could hear Jesus asking us, “Who do you say that I am?” and begin again to answer it, without preconceived notions and without our code words. What does it mean to us as a church to say Jesus is the Child of God, to heed his words and actions, and compare them to ours? I’m not saying I know the answers - I’m saying that to ask the question is a starting place for the Spirit to speak a new word in us.  To ask the question is to give the wind of the Spirit a sail to fill. To ask the question is to clean the window. We together are figuring out the way forward in faith, discerning that faithfulness and mission don’t have to necessarily look like it always looked.

Well, we’ve covered a lot of ground in this sermon on Jesus’ question.  We’ve looked at it individually as well as corporately. My hope is that each of us is challenged by this question to reflect on how we are doing as followers of the Christ, and that the answers that we hear through the Spirit’s voice will lead us.  AMEN.

Jesus Was a Doer 9/9/18 Pentecost 16B

Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

JESUS WAS A DOER

Sept 9, 2018       Pentecost 16-B    James 2:1- 10, 14-17 &  Mark 7:24-37

The Mark text this morning contains a remarkable story of Jesus and this Gentile woman, unnamed except as ‘the Syro-phonecian’ woman whose daughter is suffering.  Jesus doesn’t sound like Jesus in the story - he sounds abrupt and short, even rude. Jesus is often pictured as addressing the true and deepest need s of people, but he’s different here.  

Y’know, Jesus is not just fully God - Jesus is also fully human.  That’s been part of Christian theology since the early days of this thing called Christianity.  Its difficult to understand, yet believers in each generation since haven’t felt it right or complete to leave out one side or the other.  I’ve tended to think of Jesus as almost glowing with divinity, way above all the rest of us, perfectly responsive and full of Godly compassion.  I know the Scriptures say he is like us and was tempted in every way as we humans are, but then it adds, “yet without sin.” So to me that kind of takes him out of our league.  I imagine him walking on earth while knowing the names of the millions of stars, and the details of everyone’s lives as he walks by them. I don’t think of Jesus as having the troubles I do; despite the fact that he was born, he eats and drinks and walks.  (Makes him sound like a doll.) Yet when his friends Lazarus died, Jesus feels it in his gut, and he weeps. And when he saw people doing crooked business and fleecing the poor in the Jerusalem Temple, he gets angry. Maybe he has some the other urges humans do, too.  You know, its only the hymn Silent Night that says baby Jesus never cried - I bet he did. And had Terrible Twos, too. And I bet his voice cracked when it changed, too. So he probably gets tired and weary.

The text starts out saying Jesus went to this house in Tyre and didn’t want anyone to know he was there.  Tyre is a Gentile area, and the Decapolis in the next story is, too. So Jesus has left the mainly Jewish areas and gone to hide out in Gentile country, where he wants to be alone.  Evidently he needs a break, he needs some down time after all the crowds clamoring around him seeking miracles. As I thought about it, it came to me that maybe Jesus has what we call ‘compassion fatigue.’  He sees all the needs, he sees all the injustices of his people being a minority group, and he sees the trouble even in his own people between the uber-religious and the normal folks. Its gotta break his heart.  How much can one person do?

Chaplains and hospice workers get compassion fatigue.  I talked with a hospice group about their chaplains, and discovered that they’ve learned the stress of being caring all the time, from the burn-out and turnover of chaplains and nurses; so full time was reduced to 34 hours.  That leaves their people extra time for self-care, recreation, and renewal of energy. Hospital nurses mostly now work 3 12-hr shifts, ie 36 hr weeks - yes, they put in extra at shift changes. I didn’t think I’d like 12 hr shifts, so I asked a good many nurses at Conway about it - what they like is more time to defuse, and defuse more completely.  

Advocates for child services, advocates for other-abled persons, advocates for more justice in agencies serving the poor or needy - they burn out, too.  As do pastors. Self-care and renewal are necessary for those who care for others. Our Board of Pensions, which also holds the pastors’ health care plan, began awarding $100 as an incentive for pastors to get an annual physical, because many pastors are often the kind of person who puts off their own problems and don’t take the time for self-care.  And problems aren’t found until they are are severe enough to really make him or her notice. Now they’ve devised an online program of healthy things that give us point - and with enough points, we get a reduction on our annual deductible. The program includes preventative care, exercise, diet, stress-relief, and more. Smart congregations make sure their pastor takes both Continuing Ed time and vacation time.  

In my very first call in upstate WI, there was a woman whose husband was in nursing care, whom she visited daily despite the fact that he no longer knew her.  She talked to him, helped feed him, and cared for him in many ways. One morning I answered the phone to hear that the Mrs. Brown had died of a heart attack overnight.  I said, “Oh you mean MR. Brown - he’s the one who’s been ill for so long.” No, they meant MRS. Brown - the stress and care for him had worn her out. He lived another year or two.  

It makes sense to me that Jesus went away from the crowds for a break, although crowds found him again anyway.  This Gentile woman finds this miracle worker, this healer, and wants him to heal her daughter; and I think its compassion fatigue that makes him curt, and even rude when he says that thing about not taking the children’s food and giving it to dogs.  He is sent to Israel, God’s historically chosen people that God has been working with for centuries already. Not Gentiles, not everybody. That would be even more overwhelming. He can only do so much, and he’s tired. Israel are ‘the children.’ Other people are the ‘dogs.’  Some commentators think he was quoting a proverb of the day. Nevertheless, he could have said it better.

The surprise is that this feisty mom has a comeback - she gets him back by using his own words - ‘even dogs get the crumbs from the table.’  The kids in my former neighborhood would have said, “Toasted!” And, surprise, surprise, Jesus realizes he’s been bested, he’s been challenged to enlarge his perspective - and he heals her daughter.  And when he goes on to the Decapolis and a suffering Gentile man approaches him, he responds without needing the spur.

Jesus changed. Jesus learned.  Jesus broadened the scope of his ministry right there.  He went outside his own group. Not very often, but he did.  Its a kind of foreshadowing of how, after his death, Peter has his vision of the gospel going to the Gentile family of the Roman Cornelius, and Paul pretty much focuses his ministry on Gentiles and fights for their right to be accepted as followers of Christ along with Jewish believers.

The text from James is kind of a corollary, chiding believers for discriminating between rich and poor in showing the grace of God.  Its so easy to draw lines, isn’t it? Its so easy to follow the cultural norms of our day, and consider some people in, and others out.  To show preference for the more rich, the more pretty, the more talented, the more influential. Good-looking people have an advantage, as do those in the higher social level.  People we admire - people we want to emulate - people we want to hang around with so we’ll be thought better of by others. I had one church whose Elders had embraced the concept of stewardship more as fund-raising, and looked at their congregation as ‘giving units.’  I know that concept has some credibility, and I understand it in terms of budgeting and so on. HOWEVER, people are not giving units. One Elder said in Session that the church needed more giving units, so our budget could be met with less difficulty. I replied that that was not what God meant as a reason for evangelism - go out there and get more giving units.  Another Elder made a comment about yes, we’d had some people join, but they weren’t well-off enough to give much - we needed people to join that were more well-off. So the poorer folks’ salvation was a lesser thing because they brought less wealth with them? We can’t help but think in terms of other groups we belong to about belonging or dues or fund-raising; or how we might think at work about money and wealth management.  But church isn’t another group - church is the gathering of people God has called, whoever they are; and we use the gifts God brings us for ministry in God’s name. Its a different frame for the church gathering altogether.

Friends, when we start evaluating the worth of a person to God and to our community based on their economic level or any other level, we have missed the point of church and faith altogether.  More wealth doesn’t necessarily mean better character; more wealth doesn’t necessarily mean more gifted; more wealth doesn’t necessarily mean a more faithful relationship to God in prayer. Maybe this is the way our  businesses work; but the church of God is not a business. Maybe this is the way we make a name in the community - but the church of God is not after cultural status. We are a new community of those God has brought together in faith, and our citizenship is in the kindom of God, where the standards are different from what they are here.  Our goals are not empire-building or wealth-building or getting ahead - our goals are transformed lives, and the common good of all because all are important to our God. And our call is to show this kindom of right-relatedness to the world, to call people into it because God wants them, and to learn to live as those kinds of people even now on earth.  

Discrimination in not a word that should be in our vocabulary or behavior.  I mean, we’re the Gentiles that the gospel opened to - we’re here because some far-seeing folks acknowledged that their vision was too small.  So who are WE to keep others out, others who want to know the love of Jesus, others in whom the Spirit is obviously working?  Who are we to want to keep our worship with only those like us?  Who are we to want to limit our good deeds to only our own kind?  Its easier to see the needs in our own kind, because we know the difficulties from the inside - we may even share them.  And its not that doing good within our own group is wrong. But our call, like Jesus hinted and like the apostles Peter and Paul did, is to go outside our group for the sake of the gospel.  We may not know what other people need, what support they might need - so we have to ask, and to listen. All our neighbors here in Williamsburg County are also our neighbors in a Biblical sense - their hurts are our hurts, their needs are the needs of our larger family.  

Back in Norfolk, I supported a group whose motto was, “All children are our children.”  All the children here are going to grow up and affect the lives of everyone else. All children, educated or uneducated, loved or abused, are going to grow up and enter the world as workers, neighbors, parents, business owners, welfare recipients, bosses and perhaps criminals.  If we want to make a difference in the future, all children need the stability, the education, the nutrition for healthy bodies, the love, the safety - all those things we want for our own children. All the things that help form a person who can thrive, who can play well with others, who is honest, who can make good decisions for the community.  All children are our children, because we must all live together, and we each make a difference. As Christians, we realize that just who is our family is a broad concept; just who is our neighbor takes in a large circle.

I think that for the Christian church to survive in the coming years, we who are here now need to enlarge our vision, and get out of our walls, get out of our group, get out of our old ways of thinking about church and about our mission.  Mission is about our character and our caring - how we live in this world. How we individually let our lives be formed by the Spirit, yes - and also how we corporately show God’s compassion for all, to all. Starting with Hemingway, or Lake City, or Johnsonville, whatever town we’re in.  Starting with Williamsburg County and its needs. Talking to community leaders about the problems, and how our resources can be used. Listening to the nudges of the Spirit as our hearts are moved when we see certain plights. Listening to what our neighbors say.

So the challenge of the gospel to us today is the challenge of looking out at what Jesus called the fields ready for harvest.  The gospel calls us to push outside our group, to be open to being challenged by new people and new ideas. The gospel calls us to be “doers of the Word and not hearers only,” as James wrote so long ago.  May the church her and around the world heed this call and seek to indeed be the hands and feet of Christ in this world today. AMEN.

Where Many Religious Go Wrong 9/2/18 Pentecost 15B

Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

WHERE MOST RELIGIOUS GO WRONG

Sept 2, 2018     Pentecost 15-B Mark 7:1-8, 21-23

My mom was not shy, and loved to argue about things, or at least to pick at them.  She taught 5th grade, and had a couple teachers that would exchange, uh, remarks about religion with her. There was a time mom and this other teacher were exchanging, ah, remarks, about salvation, and this other teacher took issue with mom’s Baptist view that a person could turn to Christ on their deathbed and still be in heaven.  “You mean some prostitute could turn to God right before she died, after the life she’s lived and the things she’s done, and she’d be forgiven and go to heaven the same as me?  When I’ve lived my whole life responsibly, gone to church, and obeyed God’s rules for my whole life?” Mom said, “Yep, that’s right. God will forgive her and save her just the same.”  This other teacher didn’t think much of that concept, nor did she want to share heaven with people like that. It DOESN’T seem fair if you are only counting up your good deeds on earth; and you forget to have any place for grace, mercy and forgiveness, which are BIG words in Christian faith.

Its curious to me that this other teacher chose sexual behavior as her example - and only for the woman, to boot.  And a traditional knee-jerk reaction to those in the trade for whatever reason, as opposed to those who are just hedonistic and promiscuous..., not to mention the aspect of who’s being abused. She wasn’t from my home church, but she could have been, with her judgement on sexual mores, skipping over things like murder, larceny, exploitation, lying, greed, pride and more. My home church certainly preached more sermons against sexual things than anything else - except maybe politicians.  

It’s easy to fall into a kind of ‘holier-than-thou’ stance when we are looking at our faith as a list of things to do and rules to follow, and when we’ve become pretty good at following certain of those that our community has deemed important.  Perhaps we began by following all the teachings we could because of loving & desiring to follow God’s teachings as best we could. Yet, feeling like the rich young ruler who came to Jesus by night, we say, ‘all these things have we kept from our youth,’ and we know that something is still lacking on the heart level.  We may look at others who aren’t doing what we do - or we compare ourselves to others, and we come out favorably over them. Maybe the attitude is, “How can he/she do those things and still get the promotion instead of me? make more money than me? have a nicer house than me?” ...whatever it is that we’re envious of.  Maybe the attitude is more like, “Hey, I wish my conscience would let me do that!” Maybe it’s more like, “Eeeewwww, don’t let those kinds of people in here with us!” or “Thank goodness at least I don’t do THAT!”

I’m not talking about the kind of evaluating we HAVE to do, like when we consider who would be good for a certain job or who would be a safe babysitter - of course we have to exercise discernment on many things.  You wouldn’t want to knowingly hire someone with the wrong skills, or who wasn’t reliable, or who had a record of abuse.

We’re more talking about that spiritual hierarchy we sometimes fall into, where WE are the observant believers who attend church and live right, and therefore look down on those who don’t.  Sometimes, unfortunately, it’s those of us who are the most devout and observant of our Christian living who can be the ones who draw the darkest lines of who’s in and who’s out.

Let’s talk for a moment about the scribes, Pharisees, and Sadducees of the Jewish faith in Jesus’ time. These folks have often been maligned by Christian preachers as only believing in God’s Law and not in God’s grace..but that’s too simplistic an answer.  Remember that the Jewish people of Jesus’ time had lived many generations as a minority group and a captive group. Their faith was not the dominant one, and often the ruling nation discriminated against those who held the Jewish faith, and punished them in various ways, like not letting kosher meats be sold - how could they then eat any meat?  Those who became Scribes, Pharisees, and Sadducees were dedicated to preserving the faith, not letting it get diluted or forgotten or blended into the dominant religion. They were diligent in their observance, and probably did ensure that the Jewish faith survived. They were the religiously observant folk of their day.

The text today focuses on  the observance of hand-washing before eating.  To our ears, we say “Duh!” That’s just good hygiene, which we learn from an early age.  Well, it didn’t used to be so! It was 1846 before even doctors began to routinely wash their hands between patients.  It was one of the Laws observed by Jewish priests, which the observant Pharisees interpreted to mean all Jews, as God called them as a priestly nation.  They were assiduous about washing hands before eating, as they were about many practices of Judaism. Evidently Jesus and his followers didn’t do this all the time, and they were seen.  To our observant religious friends, this meant that Jesus and his followers were throwing out and disregarding the whole Law of God; and were teaching others the same. If you don’t wash your hands before meals, you obviously don’t follow God.  You negate our whole faith. That’s kinda harsh, but ….

Jesus’ critique wasn’t so much that they were only following laws; rather it was that in their intensity, they had lost the love of God; in their strictness and in their observance of the minutia, their passion had switched from God to just the details.  And they now harshly judged those who did NOT “do it right.” So in their GOOD desire to preserve the faith and life of Judaism with God, they actually built walls that kept their own their people out, rather than drawing them in. (That may be too simplistic, too.)

This is not just a 1st century Jewish problem… its more a human thing, especially a stress thing, when we lose the focus and just center on the behaviors.  Its a problem in Christianity, too. We religious folk can get so heated up about certain litmus tests of Christianity, that to not fall into line with them, makes you anathema, outcast.  I have a friend named Letha who has been a significant voice for women in faith and church for most of her adult life (and she’s now 80). Like me, Letha was raised in the more fundamentalist wing of Christianity.  I will criticize the fundamentalism that I knew as confusing a zeal for certain behaviors and opinions, with a zeal for God. Letha was an accepted and desired speaker for women’s place in marriage and church while she said the accepted beliefs about man as the head of the house, and so on.  Back then, she was even sought out as she began to explore what she was hearing the Scripture say about women’s intrinsic worth and even being made in the image of God, promoting an equality before God of men and women, and advocating social change for women’s rights. (That was 25 +years ago when what we call evangelical christianity was less rigid than now.)  Letha was a recognized teacher and interpreter of Scripture - until her faith exploration of Scripture and God began to force her to look at abortion justice and then gender justice -- at which point SHE was suddenly dropped from speaking engagements, and abandoned by the same community that had once so valued her scholarship. As long as she colored inside the lines, she was okay.  But her whole life, knowledge and faith and quest for God’s truth were discounted as soon as she questioned sacred cows.

We can easily name some of those litmus test items of our current right wing of Christianity -  literal interpretation of the Bible only; no to abortion for any reason; prayer in school; 10 commandments displayed; fear of sexuality (don’t eat alone with woman if you’re married to someone else - Okay, not all are this strict); homeschooling (check); wave the American flag (check); don’t take a knee during the national anthem (check); don’t be a liberal (check); no LGBTQ persons allowed;  and others. Presbyterians value education and following the Book of Order.

Just so I’m not just critiquing others, I have my  judgemental side - I have difficulty being tolerant of intolerant persons, and especially the right wing of our faith.  I lived in Va Beach for many years, which is home to Pat Robertson and his college. I vowed to not set foot on that campus; and when groups started wanting to rent their facilities for events, I wouldn’t go.  When someone wanted to take me to their restaurant, I said let’s meet elsewhere. I refused to give money to any of his endeavors. I laughed at jokes about “pat answers” to questions. THEN I took in Billy from Kinshasa, who didn’t comprehend the religious differences here too much, and who was delighted to get hired by Robertson’s film department to translate their films into French, his native language….and until he could afford a car, I had to drive him to work…..I hated it every time.  Driving Billy to work made me break my vow to never set foot on Robertson’s land. I can get pretty angry about the way he and others portray our Christian faith - I feel like they’ve earned all of us believers that kind of holier-than-thou reputation as haters and irrational.

My chaplain supervisor flat out told me, “So you’re a bigot, too.”  That was harsh. But it made me think about it and pray about it. I can’t say I love Pat Robertson, now, but I realize that I fall into the same temptation of playing ‘holier-than-thou.’  It’s easy to fall into without noticing. In my chaplain classes, I found ways to work with other pastors whose theology was on the other end of the spectrum, just as they found ways to work with me, learning to see each other as whole people who loved God - that became the common element.

Jesus’ problem with this is not that there’s anything wrong with hand washing, but that these folks are so devoted to the outward observances, and ones they’ve made applicable to everybody through their own interpretation, that they’ve drawn lines between people and judged them unworthy; and further, their obsession with these details have overtaken their heartfelt love of God and God’s grace to all people. If you think that’s too silly for us to ever fall into, remember that at one time we judged people by the length of their hair and if their sideburns came below the earlobe.  Presbyterians often get bent out of shape if things aren’t done according to the Book of Order, while people with a vision for outreach get discouraged and slip out the door.

See, these things are not essentials of loving God; and often have nothing to do with a longing for the Divine, a seeking of our Source and our Creator, nothing to do with repentance and renewal of joy, and our freedom in Christ.  We are Presbyterians, so we do tend to like order even about how we express our ardor, our feelings. I do hope and pray that we still have our ardor, our devotion, our enjoyment of God’s abundance and God’s freedom. Because what God really wants is the love of our hearts, the relationship with us of friend and lover even, and a deep commitment to continue seeking the kindom.  The human value of love and marriage has often been an illustration of God’s relationship to us - the deep feelings, the commitment, the talking, the desire… when that’s lacking, God wants it back.

So let’s hear Jesus critique of the Scribes and Pharisees and Sadducees as an invitation to fall back in love, to work out what might be in the way, what might be taken for granted; and rekindle the fires of devotion instead of a nit-picking obedience.  AMEN.

How Do I Experience God? Trinity-B, 5/27/18

Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

HOW DO I EXPERIENCE GOD ?

Trinity B, May 27, 2018                                                         Isaiah 6:1-13   

Last Sunday I showed you all this painting (SHOW) that I made with my friend Nancy, where we put all these colors into a dixie cup - not blended, just together, then upended it on the canvas here and watched what happened.  Okay, we tilted it and had some fun that way, too.  ANYWAY, the point I made, and want to restate here for Trinity Sunday, is that all the colors stayed distinct – and the fun of it is to see the motions, the flowing together, the patterns. Its not static, and the colors aren’t blended – although they move together.  Its all one painting, one pattern – and it has a lot of colors that flow together.  Like I’ve said before, I probably come down more on the side of God as One, than on the side of three separate & distinct persons.

It seems to me that this is a good illustration to try and understand the concept of that doctrine historically called The Trinity – a word never seen in the Bible, by the way, just a word chosen to describe how the faithful have tried to express their experiences of God.  Early Christians used the words Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Or, better, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.  Or functionally, God the Creator, God the Redeemer and God the Sustainer.  Evidently, those folks in the first centuries argued and argued over how this worked while still being a monotheistic faith…. People were condemned as heretics who insisted that the persons of the trinity were one in essence instead of one in substance, for example, and whether the Spirit flowed from the Father, the Son or both.  It finally was nailed down in the 4^th century.  

While not impugning the faith of our earliest forbears, & the importance it obviously had for them, it does seem to me that we can get all tied up in knots when we try to detail how God is, try to parse all the words and nail down the mystery of God and how God works, acts, thinks, whatever.  Academics and theologians like to argue those kinds of things.  There were a lot of “heresies” we had learn the names of in seminary. 

From the vantage point of 21 centuries down the road, it seems to me that: (a) trying to outline and define God is pretty much an impossible task for our human brains; (b) the main point is that even in the Bible people experienced the One God in various ways; and (c) we only have various words and metaphors to try and capture the liminal and mysterious presence and working of God in our lives and in our world.  That’s what I chose to title my sermon, “How Do I Experience God?”

Of course the personal language of how do I experience God is not to say that we make our own version of God.  We always live under the Scriptures and within the community of believers, so there are checks and balances.  HOWEVER, religious experience is personal, and is often beyond the limits of language and thought – experiences of the Divine can overwhelm us.  Some mystics say that experiences of God “ravish” us.  Finding words for these experiences is a step away from the real experience, and try as we might, the words are never adequate.  Organizing experiences into doctrines many can concur with, is the NEXT step away from the actual encounters.  So the idea of Trinity is at least the 3^rd level away from actual experiences of God.

Here’s my take on things:  God is intricate enough to come to us in as many ways as it takes to seek us out and restore us to relationship with Godself and all that is.  I mean, look at God’s self-expression in creation – can we even name all the flowers in creation?  Its boundless!!! And that’s not even getting into trees or mammals or reptiles or humans.  And that’s not even getting into biology or chemistry or quantum whatevers.  The intricacy of life is mid-boggling, as well as the magnitude of space.  If we, as humans, are complex creatures, how much more is God?  Yet the impulse of the Divine is always towards life, love, and right relationships, whether in each of us personally, or in our communities, or nations, or the whole of creation. 

Three is a nice number, and we can look around the Bible and see that people of faith talk about the spirit of God; and in our Christian scriptures, Jesus uses the Father/ Son metaphor for his relationship to God; and Jesus talks about sending the Spirit when he, Jesus, is gone.  So its easy to see three.  Yet Hebrew Scriptures also use the Husband/Wife metaphor for God and Israel; and in our Christian Scriptures its used again to try and explain Christ and the church.  Also in the Hebrew Scriptures is the figure of Wisdom, pictured and personified as a woman who calls the immature to her ways.  The apostle John uses images first said about Wisdom when he describes Jesus in his first chapter.  There’s also the Glory of God, the Shekinah, which had its own devotees in history, its own personification. The Glory or Shekinah abided in the Ark of the Covenant, which sat in the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle and then in the Temple – it was the very presence of God with Israel.  Then there’s the imagery of the pillar of fire and the pillar of cloud…. Then there are the 3 men who came to Abrahm & Sarah to announce they’d have a baby; and that odd figure who wrestles all night with Jacob as he’s finally going home, and changes his name from Jacob to Israel.  And THEN, look at the names for God in the Hebrew Scriptures – Jehovah, Elohim, God of the high places, and so on.

You see, words are all we have, and they all fall short.  Human relationships are all we can compare with, and these are inadequate as well. We are always making these comparisons, which is a good thing – because the more of them we have, the fuller the picture of the Divine.  But its not like we can write a short and concise definition of God for all time.

So what difference does it all make? That’s the question of sermons – okay, given all this, so what?

Well, the concept of God as one and also three tends to be confusing – its good if we can accept it as a way to express the various experiences people have had with God, then maybe we won’t get all messed up trying to understand it in detail.  Lots of folks come to me with questions, trying to understand the trinity.  While some academics and theologians may study its origins and meanings in detail, most of us can be happy with knowing that God can come to us in many ways, and leave it there.  Understanding and defining God will never happen.  Coming to God for forgiveness and restoration is what’s important.  We experience the One God in many ways, end of sentence.   (mic drop)

Again, Judaism and Islam, among other world religious traditions, find this doctrine so close to polytheism that they often denied that Christianity is monotheistic.  The doctrine has been troublesome in dialog with other religious traditions.  We can get so caught up in explaining it that we lose the part that says God is One.  We can get so caught up in words that we forget we’re talking about religious experience, not scientific facts.

Yet when we marvel that God is able to do what it takes to bring us to life and love and right relationships, our praise and awe expand, and brings us to our knees in worship.  I am blown away that God cares enough about human folks to do all this!  That God wants and longs to be part of our lives!  That God works with us and in us; that God is born among us; that God speaks in our hearts; that God comforts us when we need that, and challenges us when we need that; that God speaks truth to us when our thinking is wrong; that God invites us to come talk together in prayer about anything; that God broadens our perspectives on who God loves.  That God can find ways to be with normal people as well as smart people; regular people as well as gifted people; people with mental handicaps; people who suffer from mental illnesses; children, adults and aged people; people in any and all human cultures; people who have lived and will live in different centuries.  God is amazing.  And God is bigger than we ever imagine.

St. Patrick used the shamrock to try and explain how God could be one and yet three in his day.  I’ve heard illustrations using an equilateral triangle; using the yolk, white and shell of the egg; or using ice, water and vapor as forms of H2O.  In the past, I’ve talked about all the persons I am as Becky – I am daughter, sister, mother, wife, grammy, pastor, friend, student, teacher….etc etc     See, we try and use what we know to explain what is actually experiential of God.  Early in my career, I used the example of the diamond crystal with many facets or faces – the light hits those facets and it burns in colors, its brilliance revealed.  I like the work of some Christian feminist theologians, who speak of God as eternally in relationship; as modeling a non-hierarchical community of equals.

The focus of God, all the parts or persons or facets or aspects – is always on people, on restoring Life and Love and right-relationships (justice), on reaching those who are far away from God, on advocating for those who are weak or powerless, and unable to advocate for themselves in this world.  The focus of God is on getting straight as to who is God and who isn’t – ie understanding that acknowledging and worshiping God is the first step of getting life right. 

That challenges us, as believer in God and followers of Christ, to align all the parts of ourselves to those same ends; all our skills talents, gifts, traits, strengths, abilities – all our life and energy – to these same ends as the Divine One we worship.  Our focus needs to be the same as God’s focus – on the need of people to know God; on the needs of ALL people for food and shelter and respect; on tending to God’s creation; on the need for justice between people; on right relationships with each other in marriages, families, communities, nations and world.  God knows how use the magnitude of God’s identity to work to reach anybody and everybody – we can be like that, too. 

The more we follow Christ, the more we pray and grow the relationship with God; then the more Christ’s image can be formed in us, and the more we can join in the work of Christ’s kingdom, where God’s will will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 

AMEN.

Bad News & Good News Pentecost 2-B 6/3/18

Re. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser       

Bad News & Good News

Pentecost 2B,  June 3, 2018                                  1 Samuel 3:1-20        

The other day I read my first FB post that blames my Boomer generatio for the state of the world today.  At first I was rather cynical about it, but y’know, I suppose that happens in every succeeding generation. (I KNOW it happens in every succeeding presidency!)  My generation blamed our predecessors for being uptight about things that didn’t seem important to us; and further, not caring about things we thought were vital, like getting us out of the war in Vietnam.  We called them closed-minded, said they had muddied values and were hypocrites. So I guess I’m not surprised to see it happening again with this new generation.  In one sense, the world change rapidly these days, so the context of each generation differs. While in another sense, though, our deep values built on our Judeo-Christian heritage abide for all time, although perhaps interpreted differently through the lens of different eras.

I don’t for example, understand the life experiences that shaped those who endured two World Wars, and how living in that era formed them, because I came of age in the time of the hippies, Jesus People, civil rights demonstrations and anti-war protestors.  Although, as I age, I’ve been rethinking ideas that I’d accepted as the only possible way of looking at things.  My parents were raised through the Great Depression, but I’ve been a suburban, middle-class girl since birth.  My parents could say that they weren’t prejudiced and mean it, because they weren’t Archie Bunker; and they tried to talk politely and nicely to people. “But, you see, ‘those people’ are not like us and they prefer their own churches, and if they move in, our property values are affected.” They had no feeling that we need to learn to live together as equals. On the other hand, I and my generation admired and listened to Martin Luther King Jr at young ages, and wondered what was so bad about his vision.

I’ve lived long enough now to have watched various changes come and go in the church. When I grew up, new churches were built in middle-class neighborhoods, aimed at around 200 local members, which could support a pastor. The lots purchased by the denominations were only a few acres, meant to stay a medium size, and have parking for 1-car families.  Most wives were available during the week for women’s meetings, teaching Sunday School and other volunteering tasks.  We assumed that if we built it, they would come, and they did.  Church was part of the good, American life; men and women knew their roles; everybody had 2.4 children and Sunday Schools overflowed. Plans for bigger buildings were hatched.  Nowadays we wish we’d bought larger lots and allowed for multiple cars, we know it takes more people to support a pastor in this, and those neighborhood churches are floundering.

When I started as a preacher, spirituality was an unknown word – it sounded catholic, people said, o it sounded like spiritualism.  A mere 5 years after I was called in by the Committee on Ministry for talking about spirituality and spiritual direction, both those things became the new buzz words and the presbytery made a new committee for it & all the ‘with it’ people jumped on it.

The first time I was an Interim Pastor, I was told, “Just keep things going until the new pastor comes.” 6-7 years later that was wrong, and I needed to take the Interim Ministry training and learn the skills for Interim work, so I did. 10 years later I went to take the 2^nd week of training and was told that so much had changed that I had to take week 1 again.  So I did.  This past spring when I went to sign up for week 2, I was told the content had changed again and was now called Transitional Ministry.  But they let me into week 2, thank goodness! 

It is true that new insights come from new leaders.  They can show us where we went too far in one direction, or missed a critical understanding.  For example, for a long time we assumed people had a choice whether to be gay or straight, so we encouraged them to “choose” a more mainstream straight life. Now we know scientifically that its not a choice, and that a certain number of people are born wired that way.  A constant minority, they can no more “choose” a different orientation that anyone else can.  Now we are more welcoming – well, some of us…

Again, for a long time, it never occurred to us that new industries and their methods of dumping chemicals in the seemingly inexhaustible ocean, or the breadth of the skies, would hurt anything.  That turned out to be very wrong, and the world and all its species, including us, is suffering under the impact of those oversights, or our blindness, whether inadvertent or intentional.  And we are realizing that stewardship of the Garden of earth is part of our faith.

We should have realized, though, that any change has repercussions, and thought more deeply, like indigenous people have done; and we should have realized that its human nature to be tricky and greedy and to find ways to exploit just about anything.  If we’d read our Bibles better and remembered that sin is real, we may have made better decisions.

Our Hebrew text about the call of Samuel is about this, to me – that is, the mixed relations of one generation to the upcoming one.  Eli is an aging priest who, after a good and faithful earlier life, has not fared well as a parent or priest in his older life.  In the preceding chapter, his sons are described as scoundrels who have no regard for God or the people, and are exploiting their position as priests. Scripture also says that the word of the Lord was rare in those days – those two things go together.  Meanwhile, a poor couple from up in the hills rejoiced over a much-desired son, Samuel, and presented him to the Temple as they had promised God to do - They were faithful to their vow.  And God was already starting a new thing in the child Samuel. 

Young Samuel doesn’t recognize the voice of God that he is truly hearing; he thinks its just Eli needing something, so he goes to be helpful.  He IS responding to what he is hearing, although he mistakes its source.  Scripture still calls him a boy.  He needs the direction of the elder priest Eli to learn how to be attentive, recognize God’s voice, and listen and respond.  “If God calls you again, say ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant hears.’”  Its like a grandparent to grandchild thing, age-wise.  Ironically, Eli still knows the LORD, even if he has not done well in restraining his sons or rebuking their errors.   Maybe Samuel is his second chance?  Maybe God is giving him another opportunity in his old age?

In a positive view of the interaction of the youth and the elder, young people can certainly hear God and discern the messages; and we elders can point them to God’s ways.  Elders can teach them to nurture their gifts, or how to work in the church organization; elders can pass along the wisdom gained by hard knocks and lessons; elders can share stories of how to walk the path of faith.  How to listen, how to care, how to discern the Scriptures, and support for the struggles.  How to test visions, and carry them out.  That’s the relationship functioning at its best.

At its worst, the elder generation can so hold on to their old ways that the new messages are stifled or ignored or shamed  - and resist youth’s message so hard that the Spirit of God is silenced or quenched; and the youth can be squelched, and the word of God lost. 

This story of Eli and Samuel is a mix, as so often life is.  Unfortunately, the message young Samuel hears from God is not an encouraging word… Because Eli has let all kinds of bad practices go on in the Temple, he and his family have incurred judgement, and will be wiped out.      Whew!  What a message for a young boy to hear!  He doesn’t want to reveal it – its bad news.

  Just so, the younger people in our country are speaking up to us about the bad news of school shootings affecting their lives, and judging us for how our generation has not dealt with certain problems.  They are looking for solutions to the mass of garbage floating in our oceans, that we’ve allowed to happen. They are naming where we have failed them. My generation asked for more authenticity, a good thing; this generation seems to be asking for more responsibility for life together, also a good thing.  It seems that people can’t get everything right at the same time.

To return to the story, Eli actually does know God and God’s voice.  What has happened in his life to bring him to this point? For all his – what - passivity? Fear?  Purposeful ignorance? Laziness?  for all his failures, he still knows God, and he is man enough to acknowledge that Samuel has heard God rightly.  Another prophet has recently come and told Eli the same thing.  ‘It is the Lord,’ Eli says. He knows the bad news is God.  Then he says, ‘Let God do what God intends.’ And at that point, I have to wonder why Eli doesn’t repent, change his ways and seek forgiveness - other groups and people in Scripture do just that, and are restored.  Like the people of Ninevah, for example.  Has Eli’s passivity even affected his faith? Has he given up trying? How did he get like this?

I admit to a lot of sympathy for Eli as the elder person.  Hard things happen in life, and many are not outcomes of bad choices, although some are.  I’ve known the reality of being exhausted trying to do right, holding on to what I know, and ready to give up.  I can imagine how difficult it would be to have my beloved children making horrible decisions – its hard work to learn how to not be an enabler.  So this story challenges me – am I like Eli?  Have there been truths I’ve known or visions I’ve been given that I’ve grown too tired to pursue?  Have I grown weary of well-doing, as Paul names it?  Have I abdicated my vision because things got difficult, and push-back too hard to deal with any more?  Well, yes.  Changes move so slowly, and there’s always lots of criticism and anger thrown around. In a way I have given up on some points – I still hold them, I’ve just stopped pushing. Will I be faithful to the promises I made, like Samuel’s parents, or collapse & be judged, like Eli? 

I find myself saying that at least I will listen for the emerging voices of the younger persons of faith and support them, help be the bridge for their vision.  That sounds noble – until I read this story of Eli and wonder if perhaps his tiredness of struggling is like mine, and I have given up too soon, and just moved my hope to the next generation.  Have I given up the struggle of the desert when we’re actually just one mile from the oasis?

So I hear a variety of messages in this story of the aging Eli and the young Samuel.  There’s a message of judgement on the failures even of a person who yet does still know God; and even recognizes it in Samuel. 

Then there’s the message of hope that God is still working for us even in raising up Samuel.  Certainly we as the older generations want to encourage the new generation of the faithful, and not stifle the Spirit in them.  While not everything new is necessarily good by virtue of its newness, not everything old is stellar, either, by virtue of being tradition.  There’s a give and take, a listening and a welcoming as well as an appreciation of wisdom handed down.  There’s a balance somewhere.  I hope that as a congregation and as a whole Church, we are open to discernment, looking to our own responsibilities while also listening for what God is doing. AMEN.