Promotions in Faith 10/21/18 Pentecost 22B

Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

PROMOTIONS IN FAITH

Oct 21, 2018            Pentecost 22-B         Job 38:1-7  &  Mark 10:35-45

            I talked with my son Joe a few days ago; he was happy with getting promoted - he’s a hard worker, dedicated, makes the effort to be there on time and be diligent about his job.  He’s been that way since he started at Ruth’s Chris as a dishwasher several years ago - the only position they had open at the time, and he had school loans to start paying off.  He’s been promoted through the kitchen as the maker of side dishes, then moving into grilling the steaks, then getting a key to close up and do inventory - all hourly wage positions.  He’s now going on salary and taking manger training, an all-expenses paid three weeks training down the coast in CA.  He’s working his way up the ranks, earning promotions and being able to meet the new demands.  Joe has a degree in philosophy, and in his personal philosophy, any work is work, even being a dishwasher - although he had his eye on promotions and better salary all along.  But he gave the same attention to detail and work ethic at every job he’s done, and gotten noticed.  He can get along with about anybody - he’s even picking up Spanish to talk with his co-workers. That’s the way things work in the world, mostly; Joe also knows that along the way there will be jockeying and political maneuvering and things that may seem unfair. Usually, though the way it works is that we begin our careers in the more lowly positions and work our way up.  We are taught implicitly, if not explicitly, that goodness and hard work are rewarded.  Its working for Joe so far. He’s young, white, male, nice-looking, smart, well-spoken and with a good personality and no health problems - which some people think have no impact….although they eventually do. 

            Our disciples of this morning’s text seem to have assumed that there is a similar dynamic in faith - a few weeks ago, Jesus caught them talking about who would be the greatest in this new kingdom Jesus is talking about.  In today’s text they’ve realized that its the Kings who appoint people to those positions of power, so they are lobbying Jesus to be the ones seated closest to him when he comes to power - sitting on his left and right hand, a visible symbol of power and preference.  Probably appointed as the head of the most important divisions of command, lots of money and other perks.  I can understand how this would appeal to men of a virtual slave population, who don’t have that kind of upward mobility even possible in their world; and they have to watch the Roman folks rule and gain riches and make orders about their life in which they have no input. At least in this new kingdom where they’ve been loyal to Jesus from the start, they might get that kind of power and influence!!! 

            Once again, like we do, they’ve taken the way the world “works,” and mistakenly applied it to the realm of heaven.  They’re not the only ones to have done this in religious history! And in current religious life, either.  It seems such a human drive to seek better position, better success especially in outward ways; better approval, larger spheres of influence, more responsibility and the perks that go with it.  To improve ourselves and our position as measured against others, to get the A’s, to get the degrees, the promotions, the visibility. 

Not that its such a bad drive, that drive to improve, to better ourselves, to seek more skill and mastery, to hone ourselves, to seek more insight and more consistent living in the kindom of Jesus, or better service to God.  To be a better musician, or a better craftsperson, or a better teacher, to know more about the practice of law, to become a more effective counselor - or whatever our calling or profession or talent is. Then its a joy in and of itself, a drive of our inner person to fully actualize the potential of our gifts. 

Where it slips off the rails is when it gets confused with outward recognition and power over others - these tell us we’re good, which is nice, but unnecessary to our inner drive; or confused with what it means to be a good person; or how much status we have - or power we have, especially over other people.  When we think being talented makes us superior or more important; or too important to take jobs that are ‘beneath’ us, as if it a wasted of our valuable time.  When we think that financial and status reward are what its all about.  

From an early age, I wanted to be God’s best Christian ever - faithful, attentive, keeping the rules the best, knowing Scripture, knowing doctrine, being a missionary to the most difficult places, never sinning.  Which isn’t a bad thing, except it was kind of grandiose  -  and I didn’t know what I was talking about in terms of spirituality, and what makes a person more spiritual.  And I associated it with being able to ask God for anything and getting it right away, which other people would see and envy, and I would be special, and everyone would know it,....   It was rather a comedown to realize just how much of a sinner I actually am, and how I’m just as average as the next person; and that there are people way beyond my gifts of music, knowledge, counseling, insight, writing and everything else.  I wasn’t the world’s best parent, I realized in college that I was not the next great piano performer, I realized in seminary that I was not the best Greek and Hebrew scholar - I was proficient, yes, but didn’t have that inner drive to strive for any of those things. Not like the drive I had to preach and pastor, or the drive to deepen my relationship with God.  Those were where my personal inner commitment lay. And to continue learning, exploring different subjects to see how they related to spirituality and church. Not that I’m a rock star in those things now, either.

Its been hard letting go of the companion desire that everyone see and acknowledge my greatness, that I become a sought-after speaker on the lecture circuit and make lots of money as well as recognition, be the first clergywoman to do this, that or the other.  Because that was in the mix, and, if I’m brutally honest, is still being winnowed out. 

You know, there is a career path among preachers, although preachers will state that all calls are calls, all equal before God. Here’s the path for Presbyterians - preferably you are born into a Presbyterian family, get a good undergraduate degree from a well-known college - in the southeast, its Davidson.  You have a good network among your home presbytery, and go to a Presbyterian seminary - in this area, its Union in Richmond, or maybe Atlanta.  Along with your upbeat dossier, your connections help you find a good starter church - a smaller church, of course, while you learn your craft and build your network.  After a few years, you find a good Associate position in a larger church, with a well-liked Senior Pastor, where you learn the dynamics of working with larger groups and committees, and grow your network in presbytery.  You attend some training events at Presbyterian places like Montreat, if you live in this area; and eventually you get connected to a larger and more successful church that’s still a single pastor church, or you become a Senior pastor of a medium-sized church with a Christian Educator, perhaps.  The pinnacle of your pastoral career is to be head pastor of a multi-staff church, write books and make one of the larger church salaries.  This mostly works for white males, unfortunately, although some white women have made some inroads, and some Asian peoples.  If you are a female pastor, you are told that all calls are equal before God, and that its a privilege to serve God in any church call.  Although the larger church seeks more equality and representation for minority racial and gender persons, and advocates for such, if you look at this presbytery, for example, our black pastors are at black churches, we have only 1 woman as an Installed Pastor although there are 10-15 other women clergy, we are all serving as stated supply or interim or chaplains, and mostly part-time.  And clergy women all over the country and in differing denominations are paid significantly less at every level of church size. 

I hate that there’s a career path in pastoring.  I’m glad our church has a minimum salary guide - I wish they also had a ceiling on pastoral salaries, with those congregations able to pay more are assisting smaller congregations or carrying more missions.  That would go a long way in convincing me that my denomination truly believes all calls of God are equal. 

So I have had to settle this within myself, and not let the folks who think they are better pastors because to their better salaries, define who I am and what I am worth to God.  And I have had to examine myself  to root out any bias or prejudice I might harbor that says smaller churches are worth less spiritually than larger churches. Being a smaller church is not a comment from God about the worth of this congregation; and being a pastor of a smaller church says nothing about my own call and competence in the realm of heaven.  I’m not sure our call system shows that equality of worth and competence of either church or pastor, and we need to tell ourselves this truth as often as we need to hear it!

            Jesus goes on to tell his two disciples, as well as the other 10 who are disgruntled and disgusted with those two, that they don’t know what they’re asking.  The kindom of heaven that Jesus is talking about is not like earthly kindoms.  And God tells Job that there are some questions his mortal brain just can’t answer or handle.  Its not a put down, its not a one-upmanship thing to shame Job, its just a statement of fact. We are not God; and its a struggle for us to get it through our brains that spiritual things are of a different order.  I mean, look at the folks considered holy in the Scripture - they sin, they pay the consequences, they suffer, they are tricked by others, they are killed by others, they are conquered and enslaved, and Jesus himself is executed by the government, and with the approval of the religious hierarchy.  In today’s lingo, assassinated by an unnamed government agency while the church leaders breathe a sigh of relief that this upheaval is over. 

            Jesus tells his closest followers, who we would expect to be those about to enter into a shared glory and shared power in a new realm, that to be the greatest in this new kindom is  the least of all - the servant of all - the slave of all.  We who follow Jesus, follow one who did not cling to divinity and power, but set it aside to be born in finite human flesh, and to serve our salvation by laying down even that human life.  People are that important to God; and service is that integral to spirituality.  Jesus cared about us even while we knew nothing and cared even less about God; Jesus served even the people we humans consider the most vile. That, friends, is our model of faith.  To give ourselves for the world; not as a doormat with no spine, but as a spiritual offering of great love and compassion.  That’s what we are each and everyone called to do as followers of Jesus the Christ, the Messiah. God’s version of sending a superhero to conquer all was to send Jesus, born as an infant to an immigrant couple from a country where they were maligned and misused.  Growing up in a small town community and learning a craft in his dad’s shop - and meanwhile obeying them, learning his Hebrew lessons and learning the words of the Scriptures in his heart. 

            This is our Savior, this is our leader, this is our teacher.  We will not be greater than him; if we’re able, we will follow his example and learn humility and compassion from him, and serve even the lowest among us.  This is just the beginning of what he called “drinking from his cup.”  I can look at my past, now, and see that the rough parts of my life,in bringing me lower and deflating my sense of specialness, made me more human, made me know I’m in the same boat, the same sinner, the same prejudices, the same contrary drives, the same ability to deceive myself.   They brought me to see my need for God in a more balanced and real way, and to be grateful and thankful for where I am and who I am.  I think its all made me a nicer and more approachable person, knocked off some of the rough edges, and made me care more for people’s troubles.  I thought I could get here by sheer will power, but actually its been from struggle and loss.  I get the feeling that this is somewhat more what Jesus meant than asking to be seated on his right or left hand.  

            AMEN.

Security 10/14/18 Pentecost 21B

Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

SECURITY

Oct 14, 2018          Pentecost 21-B          Mark 10:17-31

            Oh, there are so many sermon possibilities in this Markan text!  And I’ve preached a good many of them - I love where it says, “Jesus, looking at him, loved him.”  Jesus loved this young man who could say out loud that he had kept all the commandments from his youth.  What dedication he had to the ways of Torah!  To God’s service!  What a strong backbone he must have had, to keep all the commandments in life so far.  I kind of identify with him, because I worked hard from 6 or 7 years old on, to follow everything I was taught - with a few lies here and there, and a good bit of anger off and on - but I was a rule-follower, and believed it was an offering to God.  So - been there, done that mostly. 

            So Jesus tells this young wealthy man that he lacked one thing - and that he should sell all he had, give to the poor and come follow me.  This man in the story went away sorrowful -  Simon and Garfunkel would say he was, “slip-slidin’ away.”  What made him leave sorrowfully?  That he wanted to let it all go and follow, but felt obligated to his family?  That he had worked out in his own mind that he could serve God best with his wealth?  That he liked making generous gestures that his wealth let him do?  That he liked the distance his wealth gave him - he could donate money without getting personally involved?  That his wealth kept him from the panic of insecurity, and he needed that security to function? 

            Then Jesus says that thing about a camel getting through the eye of a needle, which is a really ridiculously funny image, even with a big needle.  People used to talk about a certain gate in Jerusalem’s wall that was colloquially called ‘the eye of the needle.’  The story was that to get through this gate, the camel had to have all his burdens removed, and crawl through crouching.  That makes a good comparison to the rich guy needing to let go all his riches to follow Jesus.  But you could always take your camel to another gate, and archaeologists haven’t found any proof of such a gate or tradition, so maybe Jesus is just giving us an outlandish picture of how difficult it is for a rich person to make the kindom of God.  After all, the disciples do respond as if no one can make it, then….and Jesus has to assure them that with God, even seemingly impossible things are actually possible.

            Most preachers don’t take these words literally, and urge parishioners to give away all their money to follow Jesus.  I’ve read that rather out-there and cultish, suspect groups require their followers to turn over their wealth in order to join.  But in our churches we talk about tithing, and ways to use the gift of being well-off, if we are given that gift, for good.  And preachers like nice salaries, too - if we wanted to take a vow of poverty, we’d have joined a different group.  Most preachers never expect to be rich, although like everyone else, we’d like to feel like we can pay our bills, take care of our families, and have some nice things.

            Besides any other interpretations, this section of Mark is one of the many times Jesus speaks about money - Jesus actually speaks more about our connections to our finances than he does about anything else.  Our attitudes to money reveal our hearts like nothing else - where your treasure is, Jesus says, is also where your heart is.  So I’m going to talk about money today - and share with you all the attitudes in a few congregations I’ve served.  A common mistake these congregations have made is in carrying over into the church how we treat money in our personal lives or our business lives - and that is a mistake, because Christ’s church is different from those, and the place of money is Christ's church reflects not the culture of earth but the kindom of heaven.   And getting them mixed up makes for problems.  The goals of being the church are different - not wealth, not preparing for retirement or setting up an empire - the goals of church are serving the community in God’s name - not just ourselves, but all those whom God loves and sent Jesus to save.

            My first call was in a northern presbytery, and I think it was a good introduction to keeping the goals of mission and ministry in the front of the congregations’ life.  LArger churches in the presbytery gave towards a fund that financially supported the smaller - if those smaller churches did their homework about identifying their mission, goals to get there, and honestly looked at their own people’s ability to give.  It was a good discipline so that the congregations receiving assistance kept their focus on more than survival.  The presbytery was pretty smart that way.  My five-church parish were very up-front and transparent about their collection of tithes and use of their monies, and could state their Christ-centered mission.

My other calls haven’t always been as clear or clean.  My first Interim I did was with a church enclosed by a declining neighborhood, whose remaining members were the last of the professionals of the older generation.  They remembered when the church was full and Sunday School overflowed, which hadn’t been the real situation in years.  They skimped on paying for long-distance phone service, and had me using a complicated calling card in order to order materials or talk to General Assembly folks. At the same time, they paid a company to keep their books and paid a member to play  with their dwindling capital.  They were in major denial about the state of their future and their finances;  I quickly realized that calling a full-time pastor again would never happen without a renewed vision and growth, which I prayed for diligently with folks who never really got through their denial.  They were unwilling to change anything, or even consider changing anything, so they went forward with a part-time, certified lay pastor and may still be hanging on in their large, mostly unused building -  I don’t know. 

The next congregation I want to talk about was still a good size and able to both support a pastor, care for their building, and do mission in their presbytery and locally.  A good many years back, a wealthy spinster had left her holdings to the congregation in the form of a trust, stating that the income from the trust become a stream of income for the church to be used for “normal ministry.” Initially the Session designated that new money to a split between international, national and local mission giving.  But maintenance of the fund quickly fell into the hands of people of power who liked to play with money, and who decided that, rather than give the income to the session, as per the trust’s instructions, they would invest the income and grow the fund.  Then they quickly took to themselves the power to decide who got ANY money from the trust, making the Session jump through hoops to justify their project as ‘normal ministry,’ and so enjoyed pulling strings in their small pond.  A smart pastor some 30 years down the road, after some of these power brokers died, made the entire Session into trustees of the fund, which worked for a while; but the temptation to use the money for power reasserted itself when that pastor retired.  When I arrived, everyone was afraid to touch any of the money, and it sat there growing and not supporting the church in any meaningful way.  I took on confronting this attitude as a part of Interim work, paving the way for a new Installed pastor, but instead was bullied and abused by the power brokers, whose view of church money was no longer scriptural or mission-oriented, but that of a place they could act out their control. 

The next congregation I’ll talk about had a huge problem with transparency and boundaries around their monies.  When I arrived, a staff person often counted the offering by herself when the appointed Ruling Elder was absent; and her spouse, who wasn’t a member, kept the books. They did have a separate treasurer who paid the bills, but he was getting forgetful and often got confused and made mistakes, although he’d been very good earlier.  He asked to be replaced, then wouldn’t quit.  Meanwhile, the staff person’s husband was making the church’s budget up by himself, as no one wanted to get into the budget issues.  And when the session tried to make the budget more transparent, after a nasty annual meeting, the staff member, her spouse and the treasurer, who were all friends, refused to cooperate.  The issue was that salaries, other than the pastor’s which had to be voted on annually, were all lumped together, so we could not determine anyone’s actual salary, including the staff member.  The congregation had a split opinion about the staff person and all the pies she had a finger in, and she was also friends with the executive presbyter.  She and her allies organized a secret meeting of the Session lamed me for all the problems, and forced me out in 6 mo, with the collusion of the presbytery exec.  This congregation just about caused me to quit the ministry. 

Another congregation I was involved in took money raised in benevolent giving for a staff person’s time of need, made the family apply for it and prove need, then took over the remainder of the money for a balloon payment on a new construction.  Yet in this same church, one Ruling Elder annually made sure the church totally tithed its budget to international, national and local mission - over and above their benevolent giving to presbytery. So it was a mix of attitudes working there.

The final congregation I want to tell you took a giant risk with their financial security in order to follow what they discerned God was asking them to do.  This well-educated upper middle class group, decided that other than a fund to pay expenses for the first 2 months of the year, they would zero-out their money every December, and give out the remaining offerings to various benevolent church causes.  They would trust in the giving of committed members, knowing folks would also come through for any unexpected repairs.  They were still going strong when I left the presbytery.  I was surprised yet pleased that a congregation would take such a risky step; it was an experiment motivated by their vision of the purposes of church.  They wanted their gifts out there working, trusting that God would provide if their need increased. 

I’m pretty clear about what the work of the Church of Jesus Christ is - our Book of Order and our confessions of faith spell it out for us.  The church is to promote and preserve the worship of God by believers; we are to nurture each other in our faith and lives; we are to spread the good news of Jesus to those who haven’t heard, and nurture them into the community where they can grow and thrive and serve; and we are to do good those in need, both in our communities and around the world, seeking justice for the oppressed, feeding the hungry and ministering to the sick, honoring all people, and living lives that exhibit the new vision of the kindom of God in this world.  Our collections are to support this vision and the paid workers, and nothing else. 

Obviously we olks in the congregations are all sinners still growing and learning to do all these high ideals, and our own quirks and issues get played out as we relate to one another and work at these goals together, and especially when it involves money.  Truly our finances reveal a lot about our values and the faith of our heart!  The church of Christ was never meant to be just a place of inward comfort, but also a place of challenge and of looking outward for service.  The church of Christ was never meant to be just a place of taking care of ourselves, but a place of sacrificial care for the world, just as Christ left off the privileges of being Divine and came here with us, and gave his life for us.  The church of Christ was never meant to be a place of high finance, although being smart planners for the future involves a wise use of moneys.  The church of Christ was never meant to be a place of business, interested only in its continued and enhanced life, but rather engaged in giving itself away. The church of Christ was never meant to be a well-loved community fixture of remote holiness, but a place where struggling folks reach out to help other struggling folks know God.

The church exists because of its mission, the mission of Christ.  If the church is not doing mission, it has ceased to be the church. 

Indiantown Pres has a unique situation among congregations I have served.  Our congregation lost a good many members a few years ago, and no longer can match our giving with our budget.  However, I have never before served a church whose faith ancestors left the future so ready for a rainy day.  Shortage of money is not what threatens us.  We have the ability to invest in our own future mission and ministry, if we so choose.  We have the ability to pay a full-time, seminary-trained pastor to lead us in reaching out to that future, and not just at the presbytery minimum, either - we have the ability to pay an experienced pastor a good salary. We have the ability to keep our structures up and safe.  We have the ability to do mission in this community - to look at the needs of our community, and find ways to address those needs. 

What I see, after a year here, is that we want to thrive and move into the future, but don’t yet have a vision to guide us.  There is still grieving over the recent split, which can make anyone numb and unable to think ahead.  I hear us pinning our hopes on a new pastor to bring new people in, while still hoping things won’t have to change too much from our historic ways. 

Friends, what we need to pray for is a vision for mission to take hold of us; a desire to serve God by serving this community God has placed us in.  A fire needs to start in OUR hearts, and the God’s Spirit will move us into the directions we need to go.  We need to give ourselves away for Christ, whether that results in new people or not - mission is the purpose of the church, and God adds to us those God wants to add.  We have a wonderful property and buildings, and we have financial security left to us from the folks before us, who looked to the future beyond their time.  We now need to look into a future  beyond our time.  We have the, what can I call it, the challenge, of living at a cusp time of Christ’s church, a time of transition - we can sit back and moan about the changes, and let things wind down and out;

or we can jump in and risk to see what new thing God wants to do with us.  I know what my vote would be for.  May God stir in our hearts and give us the strength and vision to do a new thing.  AMEN.  

Human and Messy 9/30/18 Pentecost 19B

Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

HUMAN AND MESSY

       Sept. 30, 2018         Pentecost 19-B Esther 7:1-10, 9:20-22

I was at Fred’s this week, looking for a new scale for the bathroom, as my old one had begun spouting strange numbers.  A couple of well-dressed women had come in about the same time, and they were in front of me checking out, with a cart full of school supplies - like over 30 composition books, 10 or more pencil holders, and such.  As I’ve gotten older, I’ve been turning into my mom, who talked to anybody and everybody, so I gave in to my curiosity and said something like, “Wow! A lot of school supplies!” That started the conversation, and I learned they were from the local business (House of Raybern), collecting supplies for Hemingway Elementary as a project.  They’d bought out all the nearby WalMarts and such, and now were wiping out the school supplies from everyone else they could think of. I first thought it might be a church project, as I’ve known some churches to do this in their communities. Nope - just good, caring, community-minded people in a local business.

I’m glad for these needed projects to be done, even if they don’t come from our church or any other church.  I’m glad the Red Cross works at emergency shelters and arranges to pick up those who can’t get to the shelter on their own.  I’m glad for some other denominational church to do weekend bookbags of foods, or Shoes for Santa, or any other project to benefit the community, and especially the needy in the community.  I wish someone had thought to do voter registration in time for the Oct 7 deadline. I’m glad the local Bahai group works with troubled teens, and Muslim communities send tons of bottled water to Flint, MI.  I’m glad environmental groups and even pagan groups advocate for preserving wetlands and forests, reducing carbon footprints and global warming gasses. I’m glad for the Nature Conservancy and how it is saving needed wetlands and habitat.

God uses all sorts of people for good.  The common thread I heard in the lectionary readings for today were the unexpected human persons that God was using to advocate and agitate for God’s will to be done.  Jesus, in the reading from Mark, kinda scolds his disciples when they get territorial with the casting out of demons. “Those people over there aren’t part of our group, so tell them to stop!”  “No,” says Jesus. “They are doing good in my name.”

Back in late high school, when I was beginning to see the cracks in the fundamentalism of my home church, I was confused about how there could be so many other Christian denominations who not only did things differently from us, but also believed different things about the Bible we all used.  How could we all be Christians? How could we each be right? It was important to me to find and follow the one right way to believe in God, as if it were a math problem where the answers were always clear and definite. I wanted life and belief defined once and for all. The pastor I talked to, in my distress, quoted me these verses from Mark, “He who is not against us is for us,” and I was shocked.  How can Jesus say this? I was stymied.

I’ve had to mellow a lot since that time, and realize that most Christ-followers who are sincere and seeking, are doing the best we can to hear the voice of God’s Spirit,... and none of us, me included, hear it perfectly.  None of us, me included, are so perfect that the Word of God comes to us in a vacuum - we all have early wounds, inadequate ways we’ve coped in the past, prejudices, biases, cultural habits, etc etc….we hear God through who we are,...the Spirit, yes, is always nudging us towards greater wholeness, but we aren’t there yet.  

The book of Esther has been a problem for me, as the story works within a stereotype of women I have resisted my whole life.  Actually, some early believers debated the book because it does not contain the name of God anywhere; yet the story of Esther saving the Jewish people is the root of the Holy Day Purim in Jewish history and celebration.  The text we read comes towards the end of the story. The book opens with King Ahasuerus getting rid of his Queen Vashti because she doesn’t obey him one time when he wants to show her off to other important folks. So he makes her not the queen.  Then he holds a national beauty contest to find a new gorgeous queen, and Esther pleases him the most. Actually, he narrows it down to a few, and they each get a night with him first. Yuck. So much emphasis on physical beauty and pleasing the man. So much emphasis on obedience.  King Ahasuerus states that a man should rule in his own home. How patriarchal. I take offence with that whole context.

Anyway, Esther becomes Queen, and gains even more favor when her uncle gets word of a coup attempt and warns the king through her.  Then this other important person, Haman, gets angry at the uncle, extends it to all Jews, and suckers the King into making a pronouncement that his chiefs in all the corners of the realm can kill ALL their Jews on a certain day. Esther’s uncle gets the word to her that perhaps she has gained her position as Queen for such a day as this, and she needs to act.  Esther first calls for her community to fast and pray with her for 3 days, and buoyed with that support, she dares the King’s presence to invite him and this Haman guy to a banquet. They are all pleased and everything, and she invites them a second time. And when the happy King says, “Ask what you want, even to half my kingdom,” she asks for her life and the life of her people. No one has known she was a Jew, evidently.  The King is angered that someone would dare threaten his lovely Queen, and Haman begs for his life, even throwing himself on Esther on her couch, where the King walks in and finds him assaulting her. Haman and family are all killed, the Jews are given the right to fight back on that certain day, and everything turn out okay.

I admit that I am uncomfortable with the whole story, with its emphasis on beauty and  seduction to win the day. So Esther is an odd figure of female heroism to me...but that was her culture.  And she saved her people. To me she is an unlikely person, using stereotypical female means I don’t really approve of, yet she does it for God’s chosen people.  There are just so many inappropriate sexual things in the story - that the King can throw out Queen Vashti for not being obedient to him - its not so much disobeying the King per se, as it is disobeying what any husband should expect.  And Esther becomes Queen through winning a beauty contest and pleasing the King. And she uses that attraction to get the king to do what she wants. And Haman sexually assaults her in his anger. Its all just messy!

Yes.  Its all human and messy, and somehow God works in the midst of it all, or in spite of it all.  Power, sexuality, influence, scheming - those are all facets of being human - as we’ve seen all this week on the news - - and actually just about any week --  and both in our national centers of power like DC, and in our local centers of power. Those kinds of influences play out every day in human interactions, yet somehow God works in and through even unexpected people to raise awareness, to deepen compassion, to seek for justice, to find people to speak up for justice, to bring basic human decency for those who are powerless,...in other words, to do good.  

I don’t like messy - I like straight-forwardness, transparency, honesty, clear guidelines to be followed; I like the most deserving to win, the one who follows the rules to do well, the person wronged to be compensated.  Unfortunately for me, the longer I’ve lived, the more messiness I’ve had to deal with and live with.

I had a boss I really liked when I worked for the Presbytery of Eastern VA.  I clicked with him, and did some good work there, because he saw my abilities and encouraged me.  One day we were getting ready to go to a meeting, and he opens the cover on his truck bed to put something in there, and that truck bed is immaculately clean, with containers holding various implements - so clean and neat, so organized. I said something about, “Who has such an organized truck, Harry? Its almost too neat.”  He answered, “Well, everything else in life is so chaotic, I have to have neatness where I can.” Good answer - I had to laugh. I SO got it.

God knows who we humans are and what we humans are like when God loves us and calls us.  God called imperfect and messy people all through the Scripture stories, from way back with Noah, with Abraham and Sarah, with the conniver Jacob whose name was changed to Israel, with Peter who denied Jesus three times and Thomas who doubted, with Paul who had been killing Christians, and so on and so on.  We have this gift of forgiveness and love in clay pots, Paul wrote. The containers aren’t necessarily great, although we are called and used for the good news to continue going out. I guarantee that any great believer that we look up to has clay feet. Good and evil are mixed up in us even as we intend our best; God sorts it out, and accomplishes what God wants to accomplish.

This week in the news has shown that in spades, in what has been revealed in suffering and goodness mixed.  I’ve seen so much anger in my friends, who defend one person and vilify the other. Judgement has been poured out hot and angry.  Its been a mess. I kinda got into it with one friend who was ranting some very ugly stuff on Facebook, and tried to speak gently - as you can imagine, I then got the rants and ugliness directed at me. People on various “sides” want their truth verified, and it sometimes comes down to who can yell the loudest and be the nastiest - which, my friends, is not the behavior of believers.  I hear that, for some of my friends, their world, which is closer to the world of Esther, is threatened - their assumptions and beliefs about how things work is challenged by the refusal of others to play out their part. That is painful, and I get it. At the same time, people who have been wounded by the world of Esther are calling to be heard and for change. Its not an easy time, and nobody seems to want to listen to each other.

Friday, I posted a call for fasting and prayer on my social media outlets.  Actually, my inspiration was this text from Esther, where she called her community to fast and pray before she acts.  To my surprise and actually my delight, this messy story spoke to me. I feel the need to pray - not for my side to win, but rather for all who are hurting: for wisdom, for peace and listening between people - especially for those of us who follow Christ, who act in the name of Jesus even though we come out in different places.  I am praying for guidance, and for the words of the healing and comforting Spirit to be heard. I am praying for good to be done and not evil. This is a departure for me, as usually I am angry when women are not heard - this time, somehow, I am moved by the hurt on all sides. I think it happened when I read that this man’s daughter wanted to pray for the woman….. her tender heart could lead us adults, too. I wish there could be a way for this tense situation to become a win/win, a reconciling, a growing for our country.  I can pray for that, even as we sit in the mess. Thanks be to God who loves us and works with us through it all. AMEN.

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.