Wisdom Doesn't Necessarily Come From the Top 7/7/19 Pentecost 4C

The Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

Wisdom Doesn’t Necessarily Come From the Top

7/7/19   Pentecost 4C   COMMUNION

This story is about a person from the Top, and 2 persons from near Bottom in a society; a General and 2 slaves; a person who was in good favor with a King and 2 persons who served in his household.  The difference is that the slaves knew the true God and had learned God’s wisdom; and the person who seemed to be smart in the world did not.  Wisdom in this story does not come from the top down; it flowed from near bottom, up. 

It starts with a young Israelite slave girl who was captured in a military raid; taken from her village, her community, & maybe even her family - raiders would take who they could, & weren’t careful to bring whole families. The household where she is a servant is the household of her captor, General Namaan.  The girl is never named.  Although this young girl wasn’t a refugee but a slave, her situation of being separated from her family and in the foreign country of her captors, is similar to stories in the news these past weeks at our very own southern border. And her plight is similar to other young girls and boys stolen by various means who are brought here to serve rich families.  This alone, young, captured girl was put to work waiting on the General’s wife. I don’t know if they spoke the same language, or how onerous her tasks were. It sounds like she was a personal servant, as she had opportunity to speak with her owner.

     Several things about her amaze me. Its amazing to me that she seems to care that the General came out with leprosy. And even more amazing that she is willing to share her memories of her country of birth with her captors.  I don’t get the feeling that she’s bragging, like “MY country has a prophet that can cure that, not like here..”  or being cynical, like “Yeah, too bad (hehehe) he can’t get to the prophet back in MY country!”  I get the feeling she was sincere.  And THAT’s amazing because she has every right to withhold that information from her country’s enemy.  And if she wanted revenge for being stolen and captured and dragged away, withholding that information might feel good.  But no, she evidently has not lost her upbringing in faith, and remains a caring sort of person despite her captivity.

Leprosy was a feared disease, and usually lepers had to live apart from uninfected persons, cast out from those who were ‘clean,’ so to speak.  It doesn’t sound like the General was cast out yet - or else he was keeping it private. The king knew, his wife knew, and the servants he traveled with knew - obviously he wasn’t shunned yet. Many ancient societies had at least palliative treatments for leprosy, but by & large it was a slow disintegration of skin and cartilage & bone - fingers & toes falling off, noses, other parts of the face & body, until the inner organs failed. Unless it healed spontaneously, as it sometimes did, it was eventually fatal. And it was contagious, and so it was feared.

     Evidently Namaan did well for himself in plundering surrounding countries, as he seems to have a good income, house, & slaves etc. He was a Big Deal, he was On Top.  He is important to the King, and has the ear of the king, and the favor of the king. His King, as well as his household, hate to lose him. General Namaan is an important figure in his country; he’s made it both in the military & in the country. He gets leprosy anyhow, like anyone else might.

Perhaps for the first time in his life, this Big Deal realizes his vulnerability. He is threatened by this disease that will bring him down, and he is helpless before it. Not that hearing this fatal diagnosis is easy for anyone - but think of General Namaan in all his power, all his confidence, all his high position, all the things he has achieved in his own strength - and this disease has caught up with him.  All his power cannot heal him. All his armies cannot heal him. All his influence cannot heal him. All his money cannot heal him. This proud, successful, arrogant man who is used to people jumping at his command - imagine him struck down by perhaps a small sore that is identified as leprosy, and carrying with it all the indignations yet to come. 

            We know how when people get a diagnosis like this - we grab at any and every scrap of hope for treatment.  We try to get the best doctors we can,  and if we are rich and connected, we can get the best of the best.  We try and find the latest treatments, we travel to foreign countries to try things that are unapproved here. Some of us radically change our diets, and reach for the promises of Chinese medicine that we’d never have seen as legitimate before.  Those of us who have fought cancer have let our doctors put killing medicines into our bodies, medicines that make us feel worse than we did, medicines that do damage to our bodies as well as the cancer.  We endure it because we know what the disease will do. 

            So its no surprise that General Namaan grabs hold of that possibility of a prophet in another country that might heal him.  He goes for it, because its his only hope.  He is strong, he is a fighter, he has the money, and he can ask his King to write him this letter to get him attention.  He brings all his concentration and his power and influence to bear, throwing his all into finding a way to defeat this enemy inside of him.  Even going into enemy country and taking money to buy the work of this strange religion’s prophet.  All on the hope that the little slave girl is right.

     Now, the king of Israel, another Top Man and Big Deal in Israel, doesn’t know who this Aramean king is talking about, & is deeply fearful  that the country of Aram is fixing to pick a fight, or start a war--- he’s terrified. Why doesn’t the king know of Elisha? Elisha is a prophet of the most high God in his country’s region of Samaria. I guess Elisha was beneath his notice, or he didn’t take the worship of God seriously.  Elisha has to hear of the king’s fear & say, “Ah, excuse me, but I think it means me - send him here.”

        So Namaan continues to travel to the prophet that the young slave girl spoke of.  See what her words started! See what the General’s fear caused him to do for even a small hope!

Yet after all this effort and travel and display of power, General Namaan’s own arrogance & pride almost ruin it, because his pride gets tweaked -  Elisha won’t come out to see him, and just sends word for him to wash in the local ole’ Jordan River. General Namaan gets offended that this guy won’t even talk personally with him, a great General, & almost cuts off his nose to spite his face. Hmmm…. pride versus leprosy.  He’s willing to keep his pride & stay sick, it seems. Not submit himself to the healing words of this prophet of the little country of Israel and its dingy little river.

Namaan the great General wants his healing to be on his own terms, and to be credited to his own power and influence and feats of glory.  He can beat this; he CAN beat this.  Just give me a test of strength, and I will do it. Just ask me to do a difficult task, and I will accomplish it. He wants his own ego to have a part in his healing, so he will be looked up to, and be proud.  If Elisha had given him tasks like Hercules, he would have gone after these challenges in a second. That kept his pride intact, and was worthy of a great man like himself !  But to ignore his person, to send a meager word, to just ask him to dunk himself in a small river - that is not worthy!

Once again, the word is wisdom comes from a servant.  It seems to be difficult for Big Deals and Top Dogs to have the wisdom of the humble.  Maybe humble people don’t have to worry about things as “beneath” them.  There is a kind of caring and kindness that isn’t known at the top, isn’t known by those for whom the system has always worked right.  There is a wisdom that comes from those who already know the margins of a society, those who are familiar with the underside of life.  Those who can work as hard as they want and will never be General Namaan or King, and they know it.  Those who value their reliance on God, and who don’t depend on their own power and influence, but on God. 

So General Namaan is in a snit, and about to walk off, when someone who is not a Top Dog tells him what is.  “Hey, what’s wrong with just doing what Elisha said?  You’d do brave & bold things, right?  You can do this!”  So General Namaan the great warrior humbles himself to the words of a slave girl and another servant, and a prophet of Israel’s God. He plunges in the Jordan, & comes up healed.

     You’ve probably heard several applications and learnings from this story already, right? Let’s go through some.

God doesn’t often speak through the Big Deals & Top Dogs.  God often speaks through the marginal, the despised, the overlooked, folks we might consider of no account. God is not a respecter of pomp and hierarchy and positional power.  God looks on the heart, and sees faith.  I’m not meaning to glorify slavery here, or declare that how our civilization makes some people in lower and disempowered classes has a good side.  Because it doesn’t.

What I’m saying is that those in these bad situations develop a different perspective on what we Winners might think looks like success.  From seeing the underside that we hide from ourselves, they have a word for those of us who think everything is hunky-dory just because it has worked for us so far, and we’re doing okay.  Everything is NOT okay for many, many people, and those folks are our sisters and brothers, members of God’s family, and their worth is known to God, if not to us.  They are not invisible to God, even if they are invisible to us.  And it matters.  THEY matter. That we think everything is fine when our brothers and sisters are suffering, is not okay.  And if we think we are okay and therefore everything is okay, we are dead wrong.  God says that everything is not good until its good for all people. Because those we consider beneath us are our own kin, and we are ignoring them. 

General Namaan thought he had everything worked out and fine - but he didn’t.  He thought that of all people, he deserved better from Elisha - but he didn’t.  He thought he was powerful and strong and unassailable, but he wasn’t.  Those he thought were beneath him, and those he saw as his enemies - they actually are the ones that brought him humility, and brought him healing.  

This is a difficult lesson for those of us for whom the ways of our country seem to be working, those of us who know financial security, who have healthcare, who have enough to eat, who have good educations, who can afford cars and houses and who live in safety.  We forget that there are those for whom this system we’ve developed is NOT working. 

Maybe the great General Namaan’s views of the world were turned over by this experience, where the healing of God came to him through the mouths of slaves and enemies.  Maybe he began to sense the personhood and worth of all people, even those who, in the unjust system in which he lived, were slaves and servants. Maybe he began to see the injustice in his system.  Maybe he began to sense that the power and influence he had as a Big Deal and a Top Dog were really not so important.  Maybe he began to be more caring himself, maybe he was more humble about what he had, and shared it with others who were in need. 

I would hope so. Its a story that made the Scriptures.

If we learn to listen to the wisdom of those seeing the underside of our society, those we might consider lesser, or enemies, or not as good as ourselves - I hope we can also have our view of the world turned upside down.  Most of us here are those for whom things have worked okay.  We have food, houses, healthcare, education, security and safety, a nice church.  Yet we live among those whose stories are far different from our own.  They live all around us, although sometimes invisible to us as we go on our way.  There are people of color around us here that have a very different heritage in this country, and a very different experience of life in the U.S., and a very different take on how we see the 4th of July, for example.  There are single parents and even married parents around us who work hard and still don’t have the security and healthcare that we have.  There are those who experience struggles we can’t begin to know, struggles of discrimination, struggles with PTSD from fighting our wars, struggles from not having the education we take for granted, struggles from growing up in drug-damaged families, where survival is never taken for granted. 

They have a word to say to us - a wisdom to give us - - they are our sisters and brothers, friends, and speak to us of need to which we ignore at the peril of our souls. They tell us things are not right in what we take for granted.  Their stories can open our eyes to the needs of the world.  Their stories can tell us that the ways our country does things contains a lot of injustice, and ignores the voice of many.  They can expand our view of God’s kindom and the call of God to serve.  May it be so for us, as it is for General Namaan, and may God’s healing hand bring us all to the fullness of life. AMEN.

At Least 2 Ways People Know We're Christians 6/30/19 Pentecost 3C

The Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

At Least 2 Ways People Know We’re Christians

6/30/19  Pentecost 3C

  (This was our Inside Church Picnic Sunday, with informal worship in the Fellowship Building)

There’s a story going around about a driver stopping at a crosswalk to let a pedestrian cross safely, then of course, missing the light himself.  So the woman behind him goes ballistic, pounding her horn, screaming and making hand gestures because she hadn’t made the light, either.  Still in mid-rant, she hears a tap on her window and looks up to see a police officer telling her to pull over.  He makes her get out of the car, hands up, and takes her to the police station while she fusses all the way..  After a couple hours, he comes to unlock her cell and let her out, and says:” I’m sorry for the mistake - you see, I was behind you when you were blowing your horn, flipping off the guy in front of you, cussing a blue streak.  And then I saw the fish sign on your bumper, along with stickers about Follow Me To Sunday School and What Would Jesus Do, so.,,,, naturally I assumed the car was stolen.”

Ah, yeah,....she wasn’t living her testimony that day…..

Its interesting that this passage starts with the concept of freedom, and it falls right here before our 4th of July time in the U.S….. And it DOES talk about the Law - - BUT - before we take off on police or national freedom here, we must note that the freedom the apostle Paul is writing about to the church in the city of Galatia, ISN’T national freedom, or civic freedom.  In fact, that’s the furthest thing from Paul’s mind!  He probably wishes Christ-followers were free to worship God without fear of reprisal from the government.  But what he’s writing about is freedom from the religious Law of Judaism, the Law of Moses, as kept and explained and augmented and defined through the years.  The Law, as a part of Judaism, is meant to be a path of behaviors and actions for those who wish to be obedient to God.  Paul argues in several of his letters to those early churches around the Mediterranean, that when we are in Christ, we are no longer under a legalistic obligation to the Jewish Law, but come to God in faith, made whole through Jesus the Christ.  Of course, in love and gratitude to God and Christ, we turn from our former thoughtless actions, and take on the values of Christ’s kindom, asking the Spirit that indwells us now, to help us live in love and respect of one another, and show us God’s better way. 

            Its a difference in our motivations and our starting place - in Christ, we don’t start with certain defined actions and behaviors, but with the heart-felt response to God’s love that, yes, shows us our brokenness, then invites us through God’s grace to turn and live in the Kindom of Christ.  Ego strength and will-power can help us keep laws  - and although the Jewish Law is meant to lead us to love for God, people can and do miss the point - take for example that rich young man who comes to Jesus and says he kept the Law since his youth - but Christ sees that he is NOT at the point of giving God his all.  And Paul himself, a very dutiful keeper of the Law, even a Pharisee, in his zeal for the Law was ferreting out those he thought were against the Law - ie Christians -  and turning them over to be persecuted and even killed.  That is, until his own encounter with God turns him around.

So its important to the apostle Paul that, as believers in Jesus Christ, we are NOT held captive under the Law and its stated actions.  We are brought into the kingdom of God rather by something NOT of our own doing, and we are granted the invitation and the grace to come to God through Jesus.  However, he argues in this passage that we are still expected to be show the virtues and values of righteousness in God’s eyes.  Not because its the law, but because we love God for first loving us, and seek this higher way of life, both in our inner self, and in our outward behaviors towards others. 

            This changing or transforming of our behaviors comes because God’s Spirit now lives in our hearts, and leads us, guides us, into what Love calls for. Our hearts are open to God, and we listen for God’s voice arising from God’s Spirit who has come to live in us.  Its not so much a list of rules that again enslaves us, but a response of love that desires to please the one who is now our Beloved, and calls us Beloved as well.  Its not a “has to” but a “want to.”  

            Paul’s cautions us that this freedom in Christ doesn’t mean we can run wild in self-indulgence.  You know, in another letter he takes on some clever folks who try to argue that since forgiveness was a good thing, then if they did more wrong things, there’d be more forgiveness!  Ah….that misses the point, actually. In this new relationship with God and one another, the spirit of the old Law is still there - and he quotes Jesus telling us that the Law is basically summed up in two parts - to love God with our entire being, and to love our neighbors as ourselves.  We moved from the letter of the law to the spirit of the law.  We now live as God’s spirit tells us is right.  We live by the SPIRIT and are guided by the SPIRIT, Paul says at the end of this passage.  Don’t let anyone lay stuff on you and enslave you under defined laws, he says. 

            HOWEVER - he then proceeds to lay out examples of what some transformed and un-transformed behaviors are.  And he says that these things can pull on us, they seem as spontaneous even as they are hateful and harmful  - and it takes some awareness on our part to curb those impulses and respond in higher ways.  We saw it in my opening joke - we’ve all felt that way when someone makes us miss the light, especially if its one of those lights on 501 that seem to take 5 minutes per cycle.  Its frustrating! Even if we follow the (civil) law and wait for the pedestrian who has the right of way, we can snarl at the delay.  And the tourists, who only realise they meant to turn left and not right, and cut across three lanes without looking.  Of course, we’ve maybe BEEN the tourist who is confused and afraid to miss the turn and get lost; but still… aagghh!  I will admit to muttering things beneath my breath, especially if I'm in a hurry. 

            It takes a mental reminder, doesn’t it?  It might take a couple deep breaths.  My anger does no one good, including myself.  And if I don’t control myself, the road rage could overtake my good sense.  The apostle Paul calls these kinds of impulses “works of the flesh,” as they seem to be what we do when we give in to our impulses and do harm.  Its God’s Spirit of love - love for me and love for the world - that calls us to better actions….to considered responses instead of reactions.  To remember our new nature in God, our new love in Christ.

Paul gives us some lists of things that seem to be strong impulses in us, physical urges given over to power instead of love -          I mean, sexual attraction and desire in itself is good - and necessary to the species.  Using it to take power over someone who is unwilling - well, that’s not good.  Jealousy or envy just kind of spring up in our emotions without any thought - we don’t have to work to feel those.  We DO have to wrestle with these feelings in order for them not to get the best of us, ruin relationships and destroy friendships.  Quarrels and angry words just pop up when we disconnect our mouth and brain, when we speak out of our first rush of anger without any consideration - our basest responses, right there out of our mouth, never having passed through the screen of our minds that can tell us what is loving and what is helpful. 

God’s Spirit plants new desires in our hearts and souls - what Paul calls the “fruit” of the Spirit, what grows from the indwelling Spirit.  Love.  Joy.  Peace.   Patience.  Kindness. Generosity.  Faithfulness.  Gentleness.   Self-control. These are outward signs of the inward Spirit of God in us. Christ-followers, Christians, in other words, will show these signs. They’ll know we are Christians by our love. 

They won’t know the truth about God by our anger.  By our exclusions.  By our hate.  By our divisions.  By our mouthing off.  By our brutality.  By our losing it when we’re ignored or maligned.  By our power over other people.

The development of these spiritual “fruit” are rather a testimony to the work of God in our lives.  If they are not there, one has to wonder at a person’s spiritual maturity.  One has to wonder what difference God has made in their living, and how they are listening to the Spirit.  In my experience, these gifts don’t manifest all by themselves - even if the Spirit piques our conscience about it, we still have to do some work.  We have to realize what our words and actions are doing to other people, and care. We have to want these characteristics more than we want to just do what springs to our minds and mouths.  We have to practice what they look like.  One day they will become an inner part of us that is so important that we act that way almost naturally, and to act differently feels odd.  We consciously choose to let the Spirit show these fruit in us.  They come from spending time with God in prayer, in seeking forgiveness and change.  In saying “Yes” to God’s love growing in us.  In biting our tongue before we let these other kinds of things out of our mouths, or taking deep breaths until the urge to strike back takes over.

Many folks tell me that this is how they witness to Christ in their lives, and it is a strong witness. 

There is however, another way of telling about our faith in Christ - the kind we do intentionally with words; words that are illustrated and given validity because of our transformed lives.  Yes, the dreaded “E” word - yes, evangelism.  While our actions and our transformed nature can witness to our faith in God, there comes a point when we have to explain why and how…. Why we bother to bite our tongue and not lash out, even in great provocation.  How we’ve come to see and respect all people, despite differences that often DO separate people. What led us to confront our own racism.  Why we now listen to what women say about being attacked, or about the microaggressions that still affect us in where we work and how we’re treated.  Or why its important to hear the stories of our black friends, and learn about how they experience racism.  How we found healing and forgiveness for our wounds from others’ bad actions.  How and where we found the strength to overcome an addiction.  Why we care that poor children are suffering malnutrition in our country, in our county - as well as around the world.  What is it that moves us in our acts of mercy and mission?  Why bother? 

There comes a time when words are necessary, when it is important for us to be able to say how much we care about God’s Word, Jesus Christ. Why the values of Christ’s kingdom have become our values.  How God supported us in our time of grief.  What it means to us that God loves all people, and how that love has changed us, so we see that love, too. 

In my background, I did that buttonholing thing to folks out eating lunch in the park, coming up and asking them that if they died tonight, are they sure of heaven?  Trying to get them to read a booklet about the 4 Spiritual Laws, and pray to “receive Jesus” while leaving what that means unspoken.  All they knew of me was that I was earnest and rude about it.  It was quick, and it was over.  In what I think was a genuine Christian spirit, I beganto feel  too badly for the people I was buttonholing to keep doing it.  (It was weird to be at the Presbyterian Seminary studying for the ministry and to have earnest young people come and try to “witness” to me, as if we Presbyterians didn’t “really” know God.  Less than 10 years prior, I was them.) 

Vital Congregations uses the big words, Incarnational, Authentic Evangelism - ie words that come out of who we are with God as we live as a human person.  A truth-telling of what has changed or convicted us.  What is real and meaningful to us about our faith. 

We don’t even talk at this level among ourselves too much, so we’re not super comfortable with it.  We haven’t worked out what words to use, and maybe even what we think or feel,...so the words are choked off and difficult.  It takes practice to speak of things that are deep in our hearts, and especially it takes inner courage.  Its easiest to practice with people we trust to not make fun of us, to believe us, to listen to us.  Hopefully we’ll design some times to work at finding those words for ourselves, so we’ll be ready and not too super scared when someone asks, Why are you at this soup kitchen? Or, why do you give your hard-earned money to the church? Or, How come you didn’t totally smack that person who dissed you?  Or, why are you nice to that loser?  The occasion will arise when the fruit of the Spirit are showing up.  That’s what ‘authentic ‘is. Living it is what ‘incarnational’ is.  Evangelism is what happens.

Caring about people will lead us into situations of friendship and sharing.  Having the inner courage ( and the words) to tell about what forms us and what is important to us, and why God matters to us, goes a lot farther than just a nice, “You should visit our church sometime.”  Or hoping our actions intrigues them enough that they ask someone besides us to explain it all. 

Someone once described Christ’s Church as the place where hungry people share the bread they’ve found with other hungry people. We offer the spiritual bread that has met our spiritual hunger, and can also meet theirs.    AMEN.

Being In Christ is a Different Thing 6/23/19 Pentecost 2C

the Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

Being In Christ is a Different Thing

 6/23/19  Pentecost 2C

Wow, this is another Sunday where I want to preach on each of the texts!  Over the years, I’ve explored each of these texts, and even memorized portions.  Songs have been written on the Psalms text, about our souls longing for God like a deer for water, and the phrase “deep calls to deep” is one I quote.  I actually had a meditation published on the 1 Kings 9 text, about Elijah lying discouraged under the broom tree, then hearing that “still, small voice of God” in the silence.  Luke 8 is the memorable story of the man with so many demons in him that they tell Jesus their name is Legion, and when Jesus casts them out of the man and into a herd of pigs, the whole herd commits suicide. 

Yet its the Galatians text that holds what may be my favorite verse, or at least among my top couple  - Galatians 3:28:  There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. This is the verse that taught me of the radical inclusion of Christ’s kindom; that gave me a glimpse of the wonder of the diversity included in God’s love and creation.  And this is the verse that, for a 22 year old young woman raised in very conservative Christianity where women were captive in a patriarchal system based  more on culture and habit that outlined what a woman’s sphere was and was not - for this young woman who loved Jesus, Jesus’ church and the Scripture, this verse told me deep in my heart that yes, God could be calling me to the ministry.  Because in the realm of God divisions cease, male and female have nothing to do with our call, our gifts from the Spirit, and our service in ministry.  It was okay for me to go to seminary. While my love for God remained the same, the content of my faith changed as I let go of the rules taught me as a girl, and saw that this Scripture actually challenged those rules.  I realized the way my ministers had interpreted the Bible (although they would have denied interpreting and would have said they just read it literally) did not account for the vision and breadth of this verse, and was actually influenced by what they thought oughta be according to the culture they’d grown up in.  At that point, my faith in God went through a transformation that led me out of my home church, where no questions were allowed and no deviation from what the preacher said was allowed. I grew that day, and my experience of God grew, too. I realized that there were other ways of being a good Christian than the ways I had been taught, and that good people could interpret Scripture differently.  

Suddenly, I was curious and excited to learn some of those other ways faithful believers saw the Scriptures.  Before that, I had accepted that my preacher taught the only right way to be a Christian.  And that there was only one right way.  Since other people disagreed with my preacher, they had to be wrong, or be deceived or not praying right.  I was really good at arguing or debating with people that held other interpretations, because I knew lots of verses to quote that my preacher used.  I thought that as a Christian, I had to hold tightly to these rules the preacher taught, and get better at showing people where they were wrong.  Now, suddenly, all that dropped away - it wasn’t that I lost my faith, because this change seemed to be of God.  There was now a bigger way of faith to be explored, things I’d never heard or been exposed to.  I felt a little scared, but mostly excited.

Those kinds of transitions in my faith life have continued to happen periodically.  Usually its because a situation in my life doesn’t fit in the way I’ve organized my views of faith and God and life.  That transition I mentioned about Galatians 3:28 happened while I was grieving the death of my dad, and wondering why God took him while my sister and I were still young …and my dad was a good and faithful Christian, too.  I was struggling with how God let this death  happen to us.  There were also things going on in my home church that didn’t sit well with what I thought I’d been taught, and that was a struggle.  I was trying to understand these things in my rule-oriented legalism about God, and it was like trying to force a round object into a square hole - it wouldn’t go. Realizing there was much about God and faith that I didn’t know, I was free now to ponder in a bigger realm.

I had another transition in joining a Presbyterian Church, not staying with my Baptist upbringing.  Again when my 3rd child was born terminally ill, I wrestled with my understanding of God and bad things happening when I was trying so hard to do well.  My own health crisis 4 years ago, when cancer was found in my body after I’d had a terrible experience in a church  - that became a time of a faith transition  as God once again proved big enough to contain my questioning and my grief.  While going through the time was painful, my confidence in God’s love eventually led to a new understanding. 

The young girl that I was, would think that the current me is the next thing to a heathen.  Yet its been a journey of faith. 

Some folks I’ve known along the way have found these crises of faith too difficult to bear, and decided to just abandon all belief in God, and leave church altogether.  Their anger at God for not fitting the box they had put God in, was deep. They couldn’t see that they had put God in a box, and limited what God does and who God is.  When their experiences in life didn’t fit, they chose to quit.  At least for the present - God doesn’t give up on people.  Growth and new life is always possible in God. 

In the apostle Paul’s letter to the believers in the city of Galatia, he uses the illustration of this kind of growth to explain how the gospel of Christ builds on the faith of Israel, as a young child’s thinking about rules gives way to a more mature vision of living in the grace of God in Jesus. I can come to this Scripture now, not taking it literally, and see that Paul was trying to explain both Christianity’s continuity with Judaism as well as its difference from Judaism.  I can se that taking his argument literally can lead to an anti-Semitism, or to making Judaism seem lesser, which us smarter people have surpassed.  Maybe at the beginning of Christianity this kind of thinking was necessary, just as the Protestant Reformers had to vilify the practices of the Roman Catholic churches when the two separated.  Like people who want to leave a relationship - or a church -  have to work up a head of steam and anger in order to leave, proving that they’re doing the more righteous thing. 

We have to be careful speaking of the faith of Israel here, not to say its childish or that Christianity surpasses it.  Judaism produced Jesus; his love for God and his insights into what God desired were formed within Judaism.  Jesus never left Judaism; he was a Jew when he was crucified and still a Jew when he was raised.  All Jesus’ early followers were Jews.  Judaism kept alive a faith in the One God, and formed many deeply faithful men and women in their relationship with God. Following the precepts of the Law, ie the rules, led reflective people to embrace a way of life with God that included and respected much arguing and debating over the meanings of the words of Scripture, and led to important explorations into science and the human condition. The world has indeed been blessed by Judaism, including the blessing who is Jesus.

Just as Jesus sought to purify the practice of faith in his day, so the apostle Paul seeks to explain Jesus’ vision of the kindom of God as one of welcome, oneness, mercy, grace, forgiveness and restoration of our distance from God.  Instead of approaching this through the Law, however, we are invited to approach God through gratitude, and through Jesus’ vision of the realm of God where righteousness and justice are done.  We might call it a paradigm shift in the way to approach God, which actually opens the way for us Gentiles to come to God and share in the abundance of love, forgiveness and welcome God has for humanity. 

Its not unlike the change in comprehension of a child to that of an adult. To me, it mainly feels like a different approach and perhaps a different order of understanding.  Judaism certainly includes all the words like mercy and grace and faith, even while it speaks of the Law as the disciplinarian.  Christianity starts with the love of God, the forgiveness of our sins and the restoration of our brokenness from God - and in our gratitude for this, we then take on new  behaviors fit for living in the kindom of God.  Its a different model.

The thing about faith is that its never static, never in a box, never totally understood, never practiced in its fullness.  We humans are limited by many things - our brain development, our emotional wounds, our tendency to go off on tangents, our willfulness and sinfulness, our places of  weakness where greed or envy pull us by the nose right off the true path.  We all have need to grow; and our whole lifetime isn’t long enough to overcome all that weighs us down. 

“Lifelong Discipleship Formation” is the language that the Vital Congregations Initiative uses for this.  In their research, it was realized that persons of every age need the challenge and invitation to grow. Faith can’t stay at the same level from childhood to adulthood - it is faith all the time, of course, not lesser or greater; it just changes in its understanding and its application as our living gets more complex.  Vital churches recognize that all people need to continue the journey with God, from learning facts and stories and the book of the Bible in order perhaps, then pondering its meaning, then living it in all its implications for life.  We might know the story of Pentecost, for example, about the Holy Spirit coming on those Christ-followers gathered in the upper room praying, which is not the same as feeling guided by that same Spirit into mission and ministry ourselves, and then opening ourselves to follow and do it.   

    Paul’s example in this text has to do with the transformation of how our rules that divide humanity are now subsumed under the great vision of God’s kindom, that we all become one in Christ; that as Christ’s body now, these divisions are dissolved.  Not that we don’t stay male and female, or black or white, or Mexican or Asian, or Jew and Gentile, or tone deaf or athletic - its that, now that we’re all believing in Christ, divisions are overcome with love.  Former divisions don’t have anything to do with being called to serve God. Distinctions that matter in the world have nothing to do with who is more important in Christ, who is better in Christ, who is able to serve God.  Our relationships with one another are transformed in love.  Living in God’s kindom, everything is different from what it was before.  Being in Christ makes a huge difference in everything - our values, our behaviors, our goals, our world view, what we see as good, what we see as important. 

Its even more difficult to live in the kindom of God without those rules, so the church attempts to put them back in on a pretty regular basis.  To standardize things, to regulate things, to see who’s doing it right or better, whoops - we hear our need to win coming in….  Responding to God in gratitude and love often needs to be worked out again and again, as different eras challenge different accepted truths that may be more cultural than faithful. We need to keep growing, because like we Presbyterians say, we are reformed yet always being reformed as the spirit leads. 

This expectation of continued growth and study needs to be a mark of our faith. There is more to see and learn in the Scriptures than we see when we were younger - growing in faith is not limited. This is the message of the text from Galatians to us today - the invitation to see our oneness in Christ at a new level, to ponder again how being in Christ is different from being a good citizen or a nice person, to look at just how different this kindom of God is from what we’ve known in the world, and consider our own growth and maturity in our spiritual lives.  AMEN.

God's Wisdom 6/16/19 Trinity

Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

GOD’S WISDOM

6/16/19  TRINITY SUNDAY  (& Father’s Day)

God, in our most basic understanding, and almost by definition, is complex and mysterious beyond our mind’s understanding.  When we try and explain how and who and what God is like using our human brains and our human words, the best we can do never really sums God up.  Inevitably, when we say God is like such and so, we are already limiting God and therefore wrong.  While it’s interesting to try and explain God on Trinity Sunday, its not really possible. We have to speak about God, though, so we do the best we can... all the while knowing it is incomplete.  God is Spirit, God is infinite; our brain cannot take in the totality of God.   So our word “Trinity” is one of those approximations, a description that explains God somewhat while still ultimately falling short.

The scripture we just read from the apostle John doesn’t use the word “Trinity,” yet in that one brief paragraph Jesus speaks of himself, the aspect of God he calls the Father, and says that the Spirit of Truth will continue to teach them.  Jesus often uses the metaphorical language of ‘son’ and ‘father’ to explain how he is of God, and one with God.  And the Spirit, which is called ‘his’ Spirit and God’s Spirit, comes upon the believers in a new way at the day of Pentecost (which we celebrated last week), and on through the book called the Acts of the Apostles.  So our scriptures speak of God with various names and functions - various “persons” as we’ve learned to say in our theology, although never do these same scriptures state a doctrine or thesis of God except to call God One.  

Theologians have used much ink and paper trying to explain this oneness of God that also seems to have this multiplicity about it.  Our faith ancestors have come up with all kinds of illustrations like the clover, the egg, the triangle, the way H2O can be solid, liquid and gas…and so on.  I tried out yet another explanation in my children’s time.

Our Jewish sisters and brothers don’t care much for our doctrine of the Trinity, yet the Old Testament contains various experiences of God, too.  God’s Spirit comes upon people when they prophecy.  There are strange verses in the book of Beginnings, Genesis, where God (plural!) says, “Let US create humanity in OUR image.” Then there are the 3 men who appear to Abraham and foretell he will have a son Isaac, who are seen as somehow a picture of God.  A dark figure wrestles with Jacob and changes his name to Israel, the patriarch of that whole tribal people - and that is seen somehow as God.  And in the scripture from Proverbs, a bit of which we read, the figure of Wisdom is developed as a female co-creator with God and a seeker of people.  Further,  if we study the words written about her, Jesus later claims them as about himself.  The word “wisdom” features often in our New Testament, although not as a personification like in Proverbs. 

Feminist theologians look at the traditional Trinity doctrine and suggest that we see God as a relational being, in relationship with Godself, in another mysterious envisioning of God as plural yet one.  They notice that this relationship within God is not hierarchical, nor is one part less valued than another.  Its this relationship of equals that is also a oneness - a oneness of will, a oneness of work, a oneness of purpose...despite seeming to have different functions.  The next logical step, in seeing humanity as created in God’s image, is to also value the relational nature of human persons, and see it as also non-hierarchical, equally valued even if differing biological functions.

This insight into human relationships fits in so well with how the apostle Paul envisions the church as the body of Christ, and how he writes about a body’s various parts all working together as one body, even with differing functions.  Being one body is a good metaphor for looking at THE Church, and our church in particular.  Each is valued, each is honored, each is respected, each is necessary; there is no hierarchy, all are important and all are worthy.   It leads us to affirm one another despite our differences of color, race, socioeconomic status, age or gender.  Its the oneness of Pentecost, the oneness in the Spirit. 

The value of healthy relationships and healthy functioning as a body, as a group, is recognized by the Vital Congregations Initiative as a “Mark” of a well-functioning church, that is lifting up one another and and striving together to fulfill what God has asked us to do.  Churches who are living into what Christ called us to be, have healthy ways of being together. In studying, serving, planning - all the functions of a vital congregation are supported by being a healthy group in healthy relationships with each other.  I’m going to be pondering all 7 marks that have been identified as Vital in our upcoming sermons, just to get us thinking a bit, stretching our understandings, and assisting us to re-envision, reimagine, how to be the Church of Christ in this new millennium. 

Like our relational God, our relationships within the church are vital.  Thanks to the social sciences, we know a lot today about what makes groups work together well, and, in the opposite, how groups can get derailed by certain known pitfalls and not work as effectively as we could. The church can use this same insight, or wisdom about group functioning, to help us do our ministry, and not get in our own way.

            So what do good relationships look like in a group?

In effective groups, each person fulfills their specific task. All people don’t all do the same task, and one person doesn’t do all the tasks.  A pitfall that derails some churches is when the church seems to think the pastor should do everything, and that their part is simply warming a pew on Sundays when its convenient. On the other hand, some pastors will overfunction and take things over. God has called EACH of those who believe, and in a healthy group, each takes responsibility for responding to their own call to follow Christ.  The pastor is basically charged with continuing to teach the word of God, and encourage people in faith to serve in the way God leads.  I like those bulletins where they list Pastor: Rev so and so; Ministers - all the people. Now that’s good theology!   Each of us here is called to serve God and have needed gifts for the ministry -   we have our function, our vision, our insight, our understanding; we have something to offer the whole.  God moves each of our hearts to see a need or long for a certain part of church work …. So a healthy group has all the members functioning in their best ways.  In the body metaphor, the toes do the toe work, the stomach does the stomach work, and so on. We’re not all eyes, and we’re not all ears. One person can’t do it all.  When we each are involved in the mission we feel called to, that’s healthy. 

            In effective groups, the group has a stated mission, which is understood by all, and all pull in th same direction.  All persons and their work aim at that purpose.  In a healthy church, all persons and all committees are pulling in the same direction.  Its good us to have a clear understanding of our mission, so we can spend our energy on things that further our purpose in Christ.  A church can derail itself if some people are working on another agenda than the rest.  If, for example, some people are interested in furthering their own power, or spending their energy in getting their opinions favored, then the purpose of the church is sidelined.  An interest in hoarding money can rebound to the detriment of a church’s God-centered program.  Adhering to cultural views on things like our country’s former civil war, or our bigotry about black people, can interfere with the message of Christ that is our primary work.  Groups, and churches, need to focus on Christ’s call and the service we have been called to do, and not be pulled in different directions. 

            Effective groups have a good immune system, like bodies.  Healthy ways of relating can be like an immune system, and will defeat various viruses or germs that try to attack its health.   However, sometimes unhealthy ways become characteristic of groups or churches, interfere with the church and its mission.  We pastors often comment on the detrimental effects of  folks not talking to the right person about a problem - but RATHER, talking about the problem to other people instead.  For example, if someone is angry at something I did, the right person to talk to is me!  That’s the healthy way to handle it.  In an unhealthy way, the person who’s angry at me will go complain about me to 5 or 6 other people, and tell them how awful I am to have done such a thing! Then 6 people will all have a one-sided version of a potential problem, and meanwhile I won’t know anything about it. This underground murmuring eventually leads to open conflict, and  hurts our church’s mission.  Another unhealthy way of handling a problem is to not tell the whole story, or to tell it in exaggerated terms, or deliberately misstate things in order to make trouble.  That’s an even worse sickness in the body.   A healthy way to act, if one is approached in a sideways fashion, is to refuse to be drawn in, and seek correct information.   

            Effective groups have good communications. There are healthy ways to seek more information so we are not talking in ignorance and spreading wrong information.  Look at the Session’s minutes, for example, to see what was actually done.  Talk to the pastor or an elder if we feel something is being overlooked.  Our Session meets to gather the work of all its committees, and makes sure we are all working towards the same mission.  One way a good immune system works in an effective group is that if someone comes to tell you some problem that doesn’t involve yourself, the healthy response is to say, “Talk to the right person.”  Or help them look up the facts.   And don’t let them bend your ear, and surely don’t pass it on. 

            In an effective and healthy group, the individuals also take care of their own health.  The apostle Paul reminds us that if a toe is hurting, the whole body aches. We know that.  A bad knee or a bad shoulder hampers all that we want to do.  Each member of the body’s health contributes to the whole body’s health.  We get glasses for our eyes and see the dentist for good teeth - healthy people are not afraid to see a counselor if we have old wounds or a temper or other personal  issues. This is a faith thing - God will show us our faults, and offer us healing in various ways, so we become better people.  If  each part of the body is healthier, the body is healthier.  

A healthy congregation is part of what enables a church to pursue the mission God has laid on our hearts, and not get in our own way, or be derailed from what God can do through us.  Our vision, then, as a vital congregation, is this healthy church, working well together, and toward the common goal in Christ Jesus.  May it be so for us - AMEN.

All We Can Do Is Trust 6/2/19 Easter 7C

6/2/19   Easter 7C

All We Can Do Is Trust

Rev Dr Rebecca L. Kiser

Pre-Scripture -

This morning’s text is rather lengthy and has several moving parts.  We’re going to dig into it and see where the Holy Spirit speaks to us - like usual with the Scriptures, there are plenty of places, actions, and characters that the Spirit  may use to capture our imaginations and speak to our hearts about being and doing church.  I began work on this passage through imagining myself there with Paul and Silas, and imagining what I’d be feeling, seeing, hearing and smelling.  That’s one method of letting the Spirit speak through the written words.  Of course I also studied it regarding theology; then, in the method recommended from way back, ie reading the Scripture alongside the news of the day, one in each hand.  So this outcome is a little different for me today. 

After Scripture:

            The text starts out with a character, a young slave girl, nameless, who only appears as a character to set up the story of Paul and Silas’s event while sharing the good news of Jesus among the Gentiles.  They have been sent out by their community as evangelists.  This nameless slave girl crosses their path and gets into this narrative because her healing occasions their being beaten, thrown in jail, and held in chains.  Their good deed in what the text calls casting out the spirit of divination from her, rebounds on them in calamity.  It happens! It still happens today.

See, her owners were using her to make money, like people who think they can own other people do …. they exploited her for their own profit, ignoring her humanity, her needs, her thoughts and feelings.   As a slave, she was an object in their eyes, a means to wealth for them, while she got no part of it.  She had no value or worth to them other than this questionable gift that the Scripture says comes from a spirit who had taken her over.  Like other characters that the scripture called possessed who recognized Jesus as the Messiah of God that he was, the spirit in this girl recognizes Paul and Silas as servants of God who are proclaiming God’s great acts of forgiveness and restoration for people. 

So when Paul casts out that spirit, ie when he heals her, her owners are NOT pleased that she has been restored and healed … what they care about is that she can’t tell fortunes and make money for them.  She is now worthless to them, her worth having been based on their profit.  And she disappears from the story.

(ASIDE - Its weird to me that Paul heals her because he is annoyed with her calling out what is actually the truth about him and Silas, saying that they are bringing God’s truth and salvation.  I guess she’s a distraction to their work or something; whatever his motivation, he does see her as a suffering person and heals her.) 

The reaction to his healing her in response to her human need, is that her owners start to lie and slander Paul and Silas to the government people they have in their pockets, another technique we are familiar with throughout history and even today, and have Paul and Silas made the bad guys.  They are beaten (or tortured) in a humiliating way, then, untreated, they are thrown into an inner prison and put in chains.  All for healing a person - and therefore causing these corrupt guys to lose money.  I was amazed at how a simple act of healing turned into an occasion of slander, arrest and great punishment in no way proportional to their act, upon these two men speaking and acting the gospel of Jesus Christ.  But it happens.  When your Christian actions get in the way of money and power, money and power take revenge.

So these attitudes and outcomes aren’t particular to their generation - its a common result of how thinking we own people demeans the owners, and leads to callous behaviors.  Even today the story is repeated in how some nationalities and persons are demeaned and devalued by the more dominant peoples.  When we treat others as objects, our own characters are damaged.  We can see this in our ongoing issues around immigration, especially on our southern borders, which is in the news almost daily.  This country that we love and have been proud to be in, has failed to consider the humanity and personhood of those seeking refuge in our country - they are nameless, like the slave girl.  And we’ve actually been making much money off of them when they have come in illegally, as they do jobs others don’t want to do.  Instead of seeing their needs, they are being dehumanized, callously labelled as criminals and bad, scapegoating them as evil - not seeing the common human motives and needs that drive them.  If we did this, we’d have to be more just in our treatment of them. 

Notice that I’m not commenting on having good borders to our country, nor am I commenting on caring about the good of our current citizens - I’m commenting only on how people are being depersonalized and made to seem worthless, so that we then feel justified in treating them without humanitarian care. They, like the slave girl in this story, are unnamed, and disappear into the ongoing story of our country.

I’ve seen many stories online and on TV about Presbyterians and others trying to do humanitarian work at our own southern borders.  This past Wednesday, a trial began for Dr. Scott Warren, an archeology prof at Aho, Arizona, for putting water, food and clothing in the deserts for migrant people.  He’s not sneaking them across our border, he’s not helping them enter the country illegally, he’s not trying to hide them from the government - he just provided some humanitarian aid to people who risk of dying from dehydration in their desperate attempt to get here.  He is on trial this week for 3 felony counts of aiding migrants, and faces up to 20 years in prison, in what Amnesty International is calling a “criminalization of human compassion.”   Its not the only story like this, either. 

Our denomination has been aware of immigration issues since back in 1894, when issues arose about the treatment of Chinese. In 2004, our PC(USA) established an Office of Immigration Issues.  We now have the Presbyterians for Just Immigration that is joining most major Christian denominations for calling for a reworking of immigration policies, and compassion for recognizing all humans’ worth.  Most of the work of this arm of our larger church is education to help those who are interested to get more involved; and legal resources to local presbyteries who have become involved. Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, Unitarians (and more), are all involved in trying to reunite children who’ve been separated from their families.  We know this is severely damaging to the children and the parents.  Many people of faith have tried to visit the detainment centers for children, and been turned away or arrested.  Not to steal children out, not to attack the soldiers guarding the places, not to do any violence or destruction - simply to offer Christian charity and compassion to suffering humans.  Like Paul and Silas, they have brought down trouble own their own heads. 

So what happens to Paul and Silas for healing this unnamed slave girl isn’t an anomaly in our world today.  Lying and slandering those who interfere with the making of money off such suffering people is not an anomaly, either.  Nor is government support for the harsh retaliations of these “owners” of people.  What happened to Paul and Silas has way too many parallels to unjust systems through all the years. It is difficult to call out injustice, and interfere with the making of money or the power of those who hoard such power.

Usually this story of Paul and Silas is presented more as a “look what faith they had and look how God took care of them” type of sermon.  I tried to go there with it, but kept being pulled in this other direction as I lived with this text.  The stories I saw in the news kept “pinging” on the story in this Scripture.   

However, this aspect of the story is also truth for us to know.  Can you imagine being lied about and slandered, being humiliated by a beating and being thrown in prison just for doing good - and then praying and singing praise to God?  Paul and Silas trusted that God had not abandoned them, nd that God was with them through it all.  Imagining myself in the text, I’d have been praying more like, “God, what happened?  What in the world are you thinking? How are we ever going to get out of this mess?” 

Actually, though, this is a form of praying, isn’t it?  We are taking our feelings and thoughts to God - we aren’t throwing out everything to do with God as nonsense, but are asking God how to cope with loss, anger, trouble, and whatever.  We still go to God, there is still an assurance deep down that God cares and listens.  At some point, our prayers get to the place of reaffirming our trust, because in the end, that’s all we can do.

Now, not every time we suffer for doing good is as obvious and violent as these examples.  In fact, much of it is more silent, the reactions of those made uncomfortable more like continual water drops on our head - which can and do add up.  Nor is every calamity in our lives caused by doing a humanitarian or compassionate act - some is our own fault.  Then also, some calamities seem to just randomly drop out of the blue.  What is important for us to note, in whatever kind of calamity we find ourselves in, is the faith of these two believers that God has not abandoned them, that God is with them even in the midst of adversity. 

We keep coming to church, even if the hymns make us cry.  I’ve done that, maybe others here have, too.  Songs and hymns touch us, express our feelings and needs; they often speak to us at a heart level. All of us probably have hymns or other songs that are comforting and inspiring to us.  I have a Facebook friend who is going through some rough times, who posts many links to the songs that are meaningful to him during this time – he finds comfort in the songs. Some of the hymns I’ve cried in are, “God of Compassion in Mercy Befriend Us,” “Spirit of God Descend Upon My Heart,” and  found inspiration from “How Can I Keep from Singing,”  I bet if Paul and Silas knew “Amazing Grace,” they’d have been singing that.  

When calamity befalls us in our lives, whether its a random tornado or flood, whether its an unjust result of a good and compassionate act, or whether we brought it on ourselves by our actions, faith assures us that we go through it with God.  God does not abandon us.  Its right and good to bring all that we think and feel to God, and seek understanding, or at least rest there knowing we are not abandoned.  It is faith that keeps us putting one foot in front of the other, seeking to be the person God knows us to be in every action, working through this seeming disaster. 

In Paul and Silas’ case, their release from the calamity was rather miraculous - an earthquake shook the prison doors open and shook the chains free.  The man who had been their jailer and guard heard the word of God, took them to his own house and treated their welts, and his whole family turned to God.  Again, a very dramatic ending.  Coming through our own calamities aren’t usually so dramatic, although often they include miracles - miracles of love, sharing, and good people.  Often it takes some years to work through calamities that fall on us, yet when we persevere with God, there will be blessings.  Often in my life, I’ve been changed deeply inside, whether the outside changes much or not.  My eyes have been opened to see grace, and see God.  Our perspectives change, our attitudes change - these are miraculous, too. 

God is making a way, we read from our texts only a few weeks ago.  And not jut in individual lives.  For example, our own Indiantown Church went through its own calamity a few years back, and persevered, and worked to keep this church alive - and were successful. Despite the hurt and loss, we trusted that God does not abandon us, God continues to be with us.  All we can do is trust and keep moving into God’s future.

May we remember this story of Paul and Silas as we deal with the troubles and calamities of our own lives, and may we call on that same trust to see us through to the time when we are blessed.   AMEN.